FE6 HM Tier List

[Rewjeo]

Well, you can also compare them to an empty slot to find out if they're negative. I prefer that way if you're trying to find out if they're negative so that you don't end up saying "You're only better than 80% of the cast, so you're negative," as opposed to "I'd go faster if I wasn't using anyone than I'd go if I tried to seriously use you, thus you're negative."

[Dat Nick]

Yeah, what happened to "You can't penalize Unit A for sucking worse than Unit B twice", dondon? I swear you're doing this just to piss me off.

[dondon151]

I agree completely with Inference. Tier topics where pointless fun before all this pseudo-intellectual talk of “opportunity cost”. Under the current system, Treck can be on the front lines making meaningful contributions every turn, and still accumulate “negative utility” simply because someone slightly better is sitting on the bench. This is absurd, and is not how you view things when you actually play the game. Treck is not suddenly giving a worse performance than he would normally because you dropped Dieck in order to deploy him.

Opportunity cost is not "pseudo-intellectual." You complain about it solely because you don't like it, which doesn't change the fact that it exists.

Well, you can also compare them to an empty slot to find out if they're negative. I prefer that way if you're trying to find out if they're negative so that you don't end up saying "You're only better than 80% of the cast, so you're negative," as opposed to "I'd go faster if I wasn't using anyone than I'd go if I tried to seriously use you, thus you're negative."

The thing is, the efficient player won't seriously try to use a really bad unit if it results in a gross negative. Assuming the player was willing to use that unit in the first place (negating opportunity cost), he would attempt to use that unit in the best way possible, not in some random manner that results in shooting oneself in the foot. So really, it is impossible for a unit to be negative unless you assume player stupidity, which never flies in a tier list.

Yeah, what happened to "You can't penalize Unit A for sucking worse than Unit B twice", dondon? I swear you're doing this just to piss me off.

Opinions change. IIRC this was before I began advocating taking into account opportunity cost.

[-Cynthia-]

Well, you can also compare them to an empty slot to find out if they're negative. I prefer that way if you're trying to find out if they're negative so that you don't end up saying "You're only better than 80% of the cast, so you're negative," as opposed to "I'd go faster if I wasn't using anyone than I'd go if I tried to seriously use you, thus you're negative."

Yeah, this is how I like to define negative utility. Someone like Wendy is negative because she's more work to protect and set up kills for than the benefits we get from using her. Treck still helps clear chapters more efficiently, just less so than the characters above him.

Edited March 7, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Rewjeo]

The thing is, the efficient player won't seriously try to use a really bad unit if it results in a gross negative. Assuming the player was willing to use that unit in the first place (negating opportunity cost), he would attempt to use that unit in the best way possible, not in some random manner that results in shooting oneself in the foot. So really, it is impossible for a unit to be negative unless you assume player stupidity, which never flies in a tier list.

So we're now tiering Wendy as if the player is not doing anything with her? That means that a good portion of the tier list should just be Unit A=Unit B=Unit C... etc. I don't mean that they're using that unit in the worst way possible, I mean that if I attempt to use that unit seriously and I'd go faster without them, then they're negative.

[dondon151]

So we're now tiering Wendy as if the player is not doing anything with her?

No, that's not what I'm implying. You can try to make potshots with her, and half the time she'll fail, and the other half of the time she might do something. But if you're trying to get her to 13/0 by 11E or something, that's way more effort than it's worth, and it's stupid to assume that she'll be used like that.

[Rewjeo]

I always assumed that we tiered them as if people were seriously using them, at least for the sake of discussions. I find Wendy's full game performance vs. Sophia's much more interesting to discuss than Wendy's potshots vs. Sophia's.

[dondon151]

A lot of things are interesting to discuss. I would think it's interesting to discuss the hypothetical placements of Wendy and Sophia if they joined with max skill. I would also think it's interesting to discuss whether avocado or chorizo sausage go better in an omelette. But that has no bearing on how the game should be played.

Edited March 7, 2010 by dondon151

[Dat Nick]

Opinions change. IIRC this was before I began advocating taking into account opportunity cost.

There was a point in time where you WEREN'T an opportunity cost whore?

[GreatEclipse]

If Wendy wants to stay in the back and take potshots when it would be safe, fine. She still auto-losses to anyone who can achieve something more meaningful.

Edited March 7, 2010 by GreatEclipse

[Dat Nick]

She still auto-losses to anyone who can achieve something more meaningful.

Nobody's challenging this, you know, since nobody with an IQ of over three is going to buy this Wendy>Treck bullshit for a second. Not even dondon is going to take his "newfound" opportunity cost logic this far.

At least, I sure as hell hope he's not.

[Rewjeo]

A lot of things are interesting to discuss. I would think it's interesting to discuss the hypothetical placements of Wendy and Sophia if they joined with max skill. I would also think it's interesting to discuss whether avocado or chorizo sausage go better in an omelette. But that has no bearing on how the game should be played.

The difference is that you CAN seriously use Wendy. However, you CAN'T (well, unless you hack) have Wendy or Sophia join with max skill, and as you said, your food related suggestion also has no effect on how you play the game.

[dondon151]

The difference is that you CAN seriously use Wendy. However, you CAN'T (well, unless you hack) have Wendy or Sophia join with max skill, and as you said, your food related suggestion also has no effect on how you play the game.

If a person were to defend Wendy in a debate, he would logically choose the style of usage that best benefits her. So even if he could seriously use Wendy, he won't, unless he wants to shoot himself in the foot.

You don't seem to understand that this is the end of the logical progression. The intermediates might exist for a moment when people don't realize that there's a superior alternative, but it won't be a long term standard.

Edited March 7, 2010 by dondon151

[Rewjeo]

The point of a tier list is not to list how good characters are when used best (Otherwise Wolt should be out of Bottom Tier for his earlygame and then no possible negatives) but to entertain the people making it. It's far more entertaining to discuss Wendy as a unit being seriously used than as a unit who makes a few potshots. And it isn't "shooting yourself in the foot" when ALL of the units are being compared that way. This isn't specific to her, it's applied to all non-utility units. So Wendy vs. Sophia goes from "Who's potshots are the best?" to a comparison of the two of them throughout the game as if the player was attempting to use them seriously, although in the most efficient way they can use two units like them seriously.

[Dat Nick]

Can anybody even USE Wendy seriously? I'd almost say using Meg sucks less.

It's like Int said, if 5% of the characters on the list really are so dumbshit awful that they are reduced to potshot bots, then I am perfectly fine with that. Only it's not even 5% of the cast, it's just Wendy, you might actually be able to use Sophia.

I daresay there's a tier gap between Wendy and Sophia, really. In addition to being MUCH easier to use, Sophia can function as a healwhore. Just E Staves>>>Wendy, I'm serious.

Edited March 7, 2010 by s Portsman

[Rewjeo]

Well there are people who claim she's great once she's trained up so, I it's obviously possible.

Edit: I agree with the whole "It's possible someone's so bad that they can only make potshots" but assuming that a character that's usable, but still potentially negative, will only make potshots is something that I don't agree with.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Slize

[Dat Nick]

Well there are people who claim she's great once she's trained up so, I it's obviously possible.

Edit: I agree with the whole "It's possible someone's so bad that they can only make potshots" but assuming that a character that's usable, but still potentially negative, will only make potshots is something that I don't agree with.

People claim Meg's great once she's trained up, what's your point?

10/0 Wendy: 27 HP, 8 str, 7 skl, 7 AS, 11 def, 10 lck

I guess durability wise she's not awful (If you ignore the fact that mages and armorslayers rape her up the ass), but do you see how bad she is offensively? 8 str, 7 AS, NINETEEN BASE HIT WITH LANCES, and 4 move on top of this? Factor in that it'll take her a LONG time to get there due to how inexcusable her base offense is (4 str, 3 AS, 9 base hit? Are you fucking shitting me?) meaning she'll be fighting MUCH stronger enemies than someone like OJ would at 10/0, and...there just isn't an excuse. Wendy sucks no matter how you use her, debate over. Maybe she's not GOD AWFUL once you promote her, but who the hell is going to want to try?

Oh, and her supports mean dick too because she just supports morons like Bors and Lolina. So don't even try to cop "But she kan has fix her hit wid OJ SUPPORT!!!!oneoneone"

Edited March 7, 2010 by s Portsman

[dondon151]

The point of a tier list is not to list how good characters are when used best (Otherwise Wolt should be out of Bottom Tier for his earlygame and then no possible negatives) but to entertain the people making it.

I strongly disagree. I think the point of a tier list is to convey information, not for a bunch of people to lounge about smoking their sophisticated pipes and speaking in pretentious accents over some arbitrary criteria best suited to their interests.

[Rewjeo]

Well, I agree that it SHOULD convey information, but first and formost it should be entertaining to the people making it. Why else would they bother? The point is, it's more interesting to do that, and as long as it's made clear that people are placed assuming they're seriously used, then people will still be able to see something useful: Wendy is really, really bad if used seriously.

@s Portsman: I meant it's possible, not that she's good. The fact that people have made that claim means that they must have (I just typed havened and thought it was a real word until the spell check thing reminded me that it wasnn't ) managed to seriously train her up.

[Florete]

@s Portsman: I meant it's possible, not that she's good. The fact that people have made that claim means that they must have (I just typed havened and thought it was a real word until the spell check thing reminded me that it wasnn't ) managed to seriously train her up.

Any chance these people were playing on NM?

[Dat Nick]

"The fact that people have made that claim means that they must have"

I claim that Alan is a bottom tier unit.

Oh, and half of the people who train Wendy are arena abuse whores.

Seriously, knock it off. I made a post describing how much Wendy sucks when levelled and you hand-wave it with biased testimonials. Over and over again. Start using actual reasoning as to why Wendy doesn't suck instead of repeating "BUH MY BEST FRIEND BILLY BOB SEZ SHES GOOD WHEN TRAINED"

Edited March 8, 2010 by s Portsman

[-Cynthia-]

Eh, Wendy does have some advantages over Sophia. She joins earlier, which means she's facing weaker enemies and also will have a level lead and if we can somehow get Wendy to promotion she'll be less terrible. Sophia might make more accurate potshots (though still very inaccurate), but Wendy has a large durability lead (+4 HP/ 7 Def at base) so she can avoid getting ORKOd by some things.

Ugh, they both just suck so hard.

[Rewjeo]

Wow. I said that people have trained her up before, so it must be possible, and you assume that I'm using MY personal experience to say that she's GOOD? All I'm saying is that it's possible to train her. Where did I say that she's good, or even that she isn't awful?

And yes, it's very possible that they also play on NM. Although I expect that it's possible to train her on HM, however inefficient it may be. Thus the whole worst unit in the game thing.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Slize

[Salad Utensil]

"The fact that people have made that claim means that they must have"

I claim that Alan is a bottom tier unit.

Oh, and half of the people who train Wendy are arena abuse whores.

Seriously, knock it off. I made a post describing how much Wendy sucks when levelled and you hand-wave it with biased testimonials. Over and over again. Start using actual reasoning as to why Wendy doesn't suck instead of repeating "BUH MY BEST FRIEND BILLY BOB SEZ SHES GOOD WHEN TRAINED"

I think the argument that he's making is that Wendy, despite being really difficult to train up, is still trainable if being used, if it takes the arena and resetting 103912302 times until she wins is what it takes to raise her up until she can start contributing positively even if its at 20/15 or something at chapter 13. Obviously that immense favoritism required to use her until she is viable as a unit is a huge negative for her so she would obviously be separated by 2 tiers compared to say Treck who does have some positive utility early on and once promoted will contribute to completing the game faster.

The gross opportunity cost is confusing me as to why this concept even applies to Fire Emblem at all. Treck is worse than Thany on this tier list and is thus contributing negative utility because he incurs the opportunity cost of using him when you could have used Thany. Opportunity cost assumes that one knows the best possible action to be taken and anything else that is inferior to that best action has that cost applied. However, in a Fire Emblem tier list who determines what is the best? Logically this seems like the tier list is. However this gets into tautological arguments saying that the "best and efficient" players would not use Treck besides some pot shots with Javilens b/c they would use Thany in the long run instead because the tier list says so. If Thany and Treck's position swapped arbitrarily, using Thany would always be negative because Treck is better because the list says so even Thany was more useful.

Than if you devolve from this Wendy discussion because her period when she can start contributing positive peaks really late and look to someone relevant like Ray who is a good unit if trained a bit and promoted, loses merit because he is only used to take potshots. Ray's positive utility peaks after promotion, but under the opportunity cost argument he can never reach that because he isn't used to begin with because the tier list says so. If Ray arbitrarily went into high tier he suddenly loses almost all of his negative utility because he doesn't have opportunity cost applied against him, since he is now part of the top 12 units in the game club. Assuming for no reason at all a deity determined that Fa was the best character in the game just because she was and Miledy is in lower mid just because the deity says so, than opportunity cost dictates that Miledy should never be used once Fa joins and will be stuck with her 'bad' period early on because of the opportunity cost of using her over Fa. AP Economic concepts barely even apply to real world firms let alone Fire Emblem

Edited March 8, 2010 by User Account

[Dat Nick]

I said that people have trained her up before, so it must be possible, and you assume that I'm using MY personal experience to say that she's GOOD?

read what i'm accusing you of plz

I'm not saying you're saying Wendy is good because you got an RNG blessed one.

I'm saying you're placing way too much faith in unreliable testimonials that likely heavily favored Wendy while being incredibly inefficient turn-count wise, and those people may have gotten RNG blessed Wendys too, never mind that all this shit could have been on NM.

Eh, Wendy does have some advantages over Sophia. She joins earlier, which means she's facing weaker enemies

It doesn't matter, because Wendy's stats and joining situation are worse. I.e, joining near the Western Isles. With a shitload of axes flying around that ORKO her to bits.

Furthermore, with her awesome 4 strength and 9 base hit, she can't even do DAMAGE, so it's hard as shit to set up kills for her and even harder to make her connect. ESPECIALLY if it's an axeman!

and also will have a level lead and if we can somehow get Wendy to promotion she'll be less terrible

To promotion? When it already takes an astronomical amount of time, effort, and luck to get her to 10 unpromoted? Yeah. Good luck with that. For context, I asked Colonel M to give me a serious answer as to when Wendy would hit 10/0, and he said C24. I think that's a slight exaggeration...but note the emphasis on SLIGHT. My guesstimate is like, C18. TO GET TO 10/0.

Sophia might make more accurate potshots (though still very inaccurate),

Wendy has 10 mt and 64 hit with Javelin that targets defense and may get even worse with WTD (like it matters if it gets better with WTA since she'll do such godawful damage anyway). That's terrible.

Sophia has 14 mt and 75 hit with Flux, isn't affected by WTD, targets res, and that hit will improve too since it's so much easier to get Sophia kills on account of the fact that her chips can actually do damage (and that her mov doesn't suck). It's night and day, if just for the massive damage disparity.

but Wendy has a large durability lead (+4 HP/ 7 Def at base) so she can avoid getting ORKOd by some things.

She can't avoid getting ORKOd by shit, seeing as how everything and their mother doubles her. So Wendy's only "strong point" doesn't even work in her favor.

Look. I'll condense the argument and say this. Chad gets credit for chests opened pre-Astol. Matthew gets credit for the Silver Card. Can anyone think of a reason why Sophia shouldn't get credit for the Guiding Ring under this line of logic? Just the Guiding Ring alone>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Wendy, really, because the Guiding Ring is a very sought-after promotion item.

Edited March 8, 2010 by s Portsman