FE6 HM Tier List

[grandjackal]

Actually, if people seriously think Cecilia is useful lategame, then I have to agree with Inui about Ray > Cecilia. Let's just give Ray a level in his join chapter since he's free there,

Already have a problem, he joins at the end of the chapter.

then use him in 14 since he can actually move there, and say he gets another level in that chap while Cecilia doesn't. Then Cecilia gets 1 level before you can buy a Guiding Ring in Ch 16.

14/1 Ray w/ Flux: 24.9 Atk, 97.35 Hit, 11.8 AS----27.1 Hp, 7.3 Def, 12.7 Res, 29.9 Avo

2 Cecilia w/ Elfire: 19.3 Atk, 95.1 Hit, 10.2 AS----30.6 Hp, 7.2 Def, 13.2 Res, 30.6 Avo

Ray wins growths so that's not gonna get any better for Cecilia. lol.

Yeah? Well, Cecilia wins leveling speed thanks to Valkyrie class leveling speed and access to staffs up to C rank.

Also, why no Aircalibur?

Citing hit issues for Ray, but not for the armors? Douglas and Barth have defense, but their offense is a complete failure. They can't hit those nomads with FE6's low-hit weapons, and the nomads won't target them anyways since their Def is high. They're not worthwhile in Sacae either.

Someone in danger? Barth or Douglas could rescue them, Douglas is always ensured that whoever he rescues while in Sacae is sure to live. Barth with a single level can already take 4 rounds from these nomads. On the other hand, we need to train the mages just to not die, first off.

Doug's also got the brave lance, so while he doesn't have too hot of accuracy, he's at least got two attempts to do something. They could flub all day, they effectively go unpunished here.

The fact that they exist significantly cuts down the time period where you can even try to argue that Cecilia is useful. Healing gets significant more redundant around Ch 20. Not counting 14 because lol1move, this gives Cecilia 7-8 chapters where she might be worth using. Put that up against Zealot's Ch 7-12/13. If Cecilia's "useful" period beats Zealot's, i.e. being a 4th or 5th healer beats being a powerful combatant, then Ellen, Saul and Clarine need to be top tier, since they're only 2nd or 3rd healers until Cecilia joins.

I'll bring up the other staffers in a moment, and I agree with the Zealot issue.

Regardless of "redundence", how many spare staffers you got with C rank? Everyone you promote suddenly doesn't have the ability to Restore, or some various other staff abilities?

Are you saying they're worse than Cecilia stat-wise?

Ellen's similar, while Saul's got his own problems. Cecilia, however, has a superior weapon choice (Aircalibur, compared to them being stuck with Lightning forever with only one Divine tome), a mount (for it's uses), and no need of a promotion item to get combat.

Would argue supports, but...Bleh. Cecilia's list is either shit, or don't care (Percival's dark does not mix well with anima)

Mounts? Depends. Can Cecilia afford to rush ahead 8 spaces every turn, i.e. separate herself from the main group, with her 30 Hp/7 Def/10 Spd?

Depends, how often you see Saul or Ellen healing frontliners or split off teams (which is always the cavs in both situations) with something other than physic staff, of which she can also use as her magic stat is not much different from theres?

You see Ellen or Saul doing rescue runs?

Yep. I notice my post for that was basically ignored yet again.

It's a pity, I think it's been shown numerous times he's upper mid material.

[Balcerzak]

@Bold: I don't remember this game having that kind of AI from FE5. I do specifically remember sending a Delphi Shield Miledy south in Monke's (Nomad Trooper dood with Brave Sword and Brave Bow) chapter to lure the Nomads away and the idiots took the bait like the pedos you see on any "To Catch a Predator" segment. Seeing as how we don't care about the combat rank, Douglas and Barth distracting Nomads would be of more help than that feisty little Shaman you babied just to end up in a constant danger zone.

Oh and here's your

I'm pretty sure that's just because the AI isn't smart enough to look at the items and the Nomads still think they have effective damage vs fliers. I know for a fact that the AI will preferentially target units with lower defense, and indeed exploited this fact on my hard mode run in Chapter 16 and getting Douglas to run a circle around the map following the weaker defense cav of Alan/Lance instead of messing up the stronger defense cav who needed to stick around and protect Chad from enemies as he looted stuff.

[Colonel M]

Reikken sort of nailed why Cecilia was kind of high to begin with. Not to mention her C Staves and mount. Even though I agree with that Cecilia is not the greatest unit on earth, she still has the upper hand. C Staves nets Hammerne, Recover, and Barrier. I wouldn't entirely doubt B Staves before we hit Bern which nets a shitload more of Staves. With Aircalibur she's not a total failure in Ilia. Sacae I might give you just because her durability is nothing to speak of (30 HP | 7 Def though to be fair I doubt she's ORKOed).

Putting it bluntly, you'd have to hype the shit out of Ray and even then: you have Geese and Niime still standing in your way. Now if you want to make the suggestion of Cecilia down, then it'd be a different story, maybe one that I might listen to. I really don't see Ray > Niime because Niime's net utility has aleady been stated: she needs little work to be useful (slap an Angelic Robe or two and just let lose with Nosferatu. That's about it really). Not to mention her Staff rank alone makes Ray look meeker since she has access to an abundance of staves that can be used with her high Mag (Physic, Warp, Sleep / Berserk if necessary).

Edited March 2, 2010 by Colonel M

[Dr. Tarrasque]

I'm pretty sure that's just because the AI isn't smart enough to look at the items and the Nomads still think they have effective damage vs fliers. I know for a fact that the AI will preferentially target units with lower defense, and indeed exploited this fact on my hard mode run in Chapter 16 and getting Douglas to run a circle around the map following the weaker defense cav of Alan/Lance instead of messing up the stronger defense cav who needed to stick around and protect Chad from enemies as he looted stuff.

Hmm, that does seem to be the case but I still spotted some inconsistency, a couple troopers could've done more damage with a Steel Sword to Rutger but they chose Douglas instead and the same was true for a few nomads when testing with different DEF units.

[Inui]

I don't know why Cecilia is that high either. All she can do is give you a 4th or 5th healer for the second half of the game, which isn't useful. You don't need 6 healers or something like that, especially not on efficiency where Exp rank doesn't matter, and you have many other options besides Cecilia for just healing. Niime, Yodel, even a base level Ray or Hugh that are just fed a Guiding Ring instantly after joining. That's quite a few options without even considering the 3 actual primary healers that are available.

Is she worse than Ray? I don't know. I don't see much reason to use Ray either. But there's no reason for her to be over Zealot, whose presence is actually adding something to your overall efficiency, considering he has a period of time where he is very good or atleast clearly useful in combat.

Indeed. Ray can be instantly fed a Guiding Ring and be better than Cecilia, but I guess that's not considered at all. You can field Ray only in Cecilia's joining chapter where she's unusable and then promote Ray later and he's outperforming her.

Also, I agree on the notion of Lillina and Ray going below Doug and Barth in Sacae.

Lolina should be below both of them on both routes imo. Well, MAYBE not Ilia, but definitely Sacae.

Actually, if people seriously think Cecilia is useful lategame, then I have to agree with Inui about Ray > Cecilia. Let's just give Ray a level in his join chapter since he's free there, then use him in 14 since he can actually move there, and say he gets another level in that chap while Cecilia doesn't. Then Cecilia gets 1 level before you can buy a Guiding Ring in Ch 16.

14/1 Ray w/ Flux: 24.9 Atk, 97.35 Hit, 11.8 AS----27.1 Hp, 7.3 Def, 12.7 Res, 29.9 Avo

2 Cecilia w/ Elfire: 19.3 Atk, 95.1 Hit, 10.2 AS----30.6 Hp, 7.2 Def, 13.2 Res, 30.6 Avo

Ray wins growths so that's not gonna get any better for Cecilia. lol.

Citing hit issues for Ray, but not for the armors? Douglas and Barth have defense, but their offense is a complete failure. They can't hit those nomads with FE6's low-hit weapons, and the nomads won't target them anyways since their Def is high. They're not worthwhile in Sacae either.

The fact that they exist significantly cuts down the time period where you can even try to argue that Cecilia is useful. Healing gets significant more redundant around Ch 20. Not counting 14 because lol1move, this gives Cecilia 7-8 chapters where she might be worth using. Put that up against Zealot's Ch 7-12/13. If Cecilia's "useful" period beats Zealot's, i.e. being a 4th or 5th healer beats being a powerful combatant, then Ellen, Saul and Clarine need to be top tier, since they're only 2nd or 3rd healers until Cecilia joins.

Are you saying they're worse than Cecilia stat-wise?

Mounts? Depends. Can Cecilia afford to rush ahead 8 spaces every turn, i.e. separate herself from the main group, with her 30 Hp/7 Def/10 Spd?

Yep. I notice my post for that was basically ignored yet again.

I agree with this entire post.

Oh and here's your

I don't think the AI realizes the Delphi Shield exists.

[Balcerzak]

Hmm, that does seem to be the case but I still spotted some inconsistency, a couple troopers could've done more damage with a Steel Sword to Rutger but they chose Douglas instead and the same was true for a few nomads when testing with different DEF units.

It's possible you're right, and there could be exceptions to the general rule, or things we're overlooking. I didn't do any in-depth testing, only seemed to note a general trend, with specific examples of where it worked splendidly, and quite possibly overlooked other counter-examples.

[Colonel M]

I can buy Zealot > Cecilia. Done.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Tyranel M

[grandjackal]

Still reluctant to see Zealot to upper mid I see...

[Colonel M]

Still reluctant to see Zealot to upper mid I see...

I'm not as reluctant as you think. If anything since he footholed over Cecilia he has a decent chance of doing so.

[grandjackal]

I'm not as reluctant as you think. If anything since he footholed over Cecilia he has a decent chance of doing so.

Sacae route, you think Lou's doing much better there than any of the other mages? 20/4 Lou, if he's screwed even 1 HP, he's 3RKOd. What level would you say Zealot would be then? Level 8? 5RKOd. Level 11? 11RKOd, as 15 AS is no longer doubled by 18. Failing that, could toss a speedwing on him, and it practically doubles his durability.

Lou might have accuracy on him, but he's not doubling either (18 AS). On the other hand, Zealot's nearly twice as tough, unless he's higher levels of which case he's nearly quadruply tough.

Ilia? Well, he might need something a tad stronger than iron to ORKO, but he's still capable of doubling...Ok, it's debateable for Ilia.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Galactica Leader Cyrus

[CATS]

I wouldn't worry about lategame as neither one is getting used there.

-Top Tier-

Lance

Alan

Dieck

Rutger

Miredy

Percival

-High Tier-

Clarine

Gonzales

Echidna

Lalum

Elphin

Chad

Astohl

-Upper Mid Tier-

Marcus

Thany

Shin

Lot

Saul

Roy

Ellen

Fir

Klein

Tate

Lugh

-Lower Mid Tier-

Zealot

There's nearly 20 units above them, neither one has anything meaningful to contribute during lategame. It's similar to Zealot vs Noah, simply a question of tier list consistency. Lugh's Ch 3-5 vs Zealot's Ch 7-whatever (probably used up through 13 or 14 at least), an obvious win for Zealot. A trained and supported Bartre will be stronger than Geitz. If Geitz > Bartre on the FE7 list because he's good or atleast usable for a while without needing to be trained first, then Zealot > Lugh.

[-Cynthia-]

I could see Zealot> Lugh, but I don't think I could see him much higher. Ellen's staff utility trumps Zealot being a decent unit for a few chapters pretty easily IMO. I guess Fir/Klein/Tate could be more debatable.

[dondon151]

Klein's not quite as useful as Zealot is when they're both viable, but Klein is useful for longer.

Zealot might be able to rise above Fir, but I think Fir needs to drop below Klein anyway, and I think Roy needs to drop some more as well.

[Narga_Rocks]

Klein's not quite as useful as Zealot is when they're both viable, but Klein is useful for longer.

Zealot might be able to rise above Fir, but I think Fir needs to drop below Klein anyway, and I think Roy needs to drop some more as well.

Please not another Klein v Fir. Please?

[dondon151]

Well, it's all about how you approach it. If you think Fir is worth investing a bunch of EXP and a late promotion in, then that's fine and dandy, but Klein satisfies all of the same basic criteria as Zealot, so if Zealot > Fir then I don't see why Klein > Fir is unreasonable.

[Narga_Rocks]

Well, it's all about how you approach it. If you think Fir is worth investing a bunch of EXP and a late promotion in, then that's fine and dandy, but Klein satisfies all of the same basic criteria as Zealot, so if Zealot > Fir then I don't see why Klein > Fir is unreasonable.

I don't care where they end up since I have no real opinions on either of the characters. I just don't want to see GJ and RF butting heads again for dozens of posts.

[Inui]

Hmm... Fir > Lot?

So Lot gets to do some suff in the earlygame. He has big HP and decent Atk. That's about it, though. Personally, I'd sooner give Marcus some axes and call him the best axe user until you get Gonzales/Echidna and promote Dieck, lol. Lot's not doing anything special at all. He's a below average fighter. Everyone with swords is generally better. He has some use against loldiers and a few Knights, I guess. I'm going to awesome we're not fielding Ward full time since he's pretty bad. If we want an intolerably slow axe user, we can just field Garret and his free promotion and +30 Crit later or something, lol.

Lot: Level 12 Fighter

HP: 36.2

Str: 9.7

Skl: 8.7

Spd: 10.1

Lck: 4.7

Def: 7.6

Res: 2.3

C Dieck/C Thany: 1 Atk, 2 Hit, 5 Crit, 7 Evd, 1 Def/Res, 10 Crit Evd

Fir: Level 1 Myrmidon

HP: 25 - 75%

Str: 9 - 25%

Skl: 12 - 50%

Spd: 13 - 55%

Lck: 5 - 50%

Def: 4 - 15%

Res: 2 - 20%

Fir is NOT hard to level up AT ALL. There is no real babying required. She's already doubling almost every axe user, and rare one she doesn't double will be doubled after she gains 1-2 levels, which happens instantly. She gets huge EXP gains for doing anything due to her low level, but her Str/Skl/Spd combo is already on par with or better than everyone on your team. Dieck and Rutger have her beat, as well as supported Lance/Alan, but that's it. Even Lot is getting owned in offense here with his supports. I put Fir's growths there because they matter. By the time Lot gains 1 level, Fir will gain 3 or more, and that continues throughout the Isles until she catches up. As you can see, her Evd will skyrocket and her Str will be the same as Lot's in no time. If Lot misses even 10% of the time vs Fir missing 0% of the time, that's quite huge for a difference between two units. And that's probably being kind to Lot considering that even with an iron axe, he's not even breaking 100 hit before enemy avoid won't do so for a long time.

Let's see how they do against some enemies.

The slowest enemies ever on the Isles have like 18 Evd. Base Fir has 95 Hit with the Wo Dao and 100 with an Iron Sword. Our leveled up Lot has 68.4 Hit with his most accurate weapon and his supports. This against the absolute slowest pieces of shit on the Isles. Everything else has more Evd. 20-25 on Archers and much more on sword users plus WTDA for Lot. Lot's chances of missing are significant even with the double RN system. Fir's don't exist. With a 50% Skl growth and 50% Lck growth, she'll never have Hit problems.

That slow weighed down enemy has like...5 AS. Fir doubles it at base. She has high Crit with the Wo Doa and has a real chance to just one-round it, and even with just an Iron Sword she's hitting it twice with 9 Str, which is what someone like Lance without his supports is doing and the same as Lot is doing since Fir's WTA makes her do not much less than Lot. Against a 37 HP/5 Def Fighter, Lot does 13.7 x 2 with a legit chance of missing. Fir does 10 x 2 and won't miss. Not much of a difference there since both of them can't reliably one-round and both of them reduce it to enough HP for anyone else to kill or finish off anything someone else attacks.

Now, that's against slow stuff. Lot has 10.1 Spd on average, so he can only double enemies with 6 Spd or less. That means he's not getting Hand Axe enemies, but Fir does. Lot's not really getting Archers, but Fir does. Lot has about a 12% chance of not even being able to double the slowest enemies. Even after gaining a few more levels, he's really borderline against weighed down Cavaliers. With 11 Spd and a Steel Lance, they have 7 AS, which you need 11 to double. He'll have that at level 13-15 with some luck, but even at level 15 there's a 36% chance he won't have enough Spd. He's very borderline when it comes to doubling while Fir starts off doubling and has a huge Spd growth.

Let's look at durability against a Steel Axe Fighter. How's 15 Str, 9 Skl, and 4 Lck sound? I'm just going by memory here. Let's give Fir a few kills since doing so is very easy. Her offense has already shown to be better than Lot's and on par with good characters. Put Fir at level 5 for the next chapter or something. Steel Axe d00ds kill her in two hits. Exposure to two them creates a 1% chance of death. This drops quickly and eventually goes into nothingness due to her big Spd/Lck growths. Fir faces 10.81% True Hit on Steel/Hand. Lot dies in three hits. Lot faces 29.26% True Hit. Lot can't die in two rounds, but he can die in three. In three rounds, he has a 2.5% chance of death. Fir's chance of death in three rounds is 3.3%. Not much of a difference, and this when Fir is 5/0 and Lot is 13/0 with supports. Things get much better for Fir really quickly.

Fir has a 1/+2 support with Shin. I guess she can look forward to it happening at some point. I don't why a C can't happen right after the Western Isles and then a B through Sacae/Ilia and an A by the time you're fighting Murdock. I know efficiency counts, but it's not like we're going out of our way to not build supports or something.

What I'm seeing is that Lot has some earlygame mediocrity under his belt before Fir joins. Fir instantly has much better offense and that never changes. Fir loses durability a bit but then gets extremely h4x Evd in no time at all. She's not hard at all to raise up and it's not "babying" to let a unit with top-notch offense kill things.

Edit: I'm looking at a 12 Spd Cavalier in Chapter 17 Sacae that Lot can't double until 20/3 or so...and that's if he actually hits his average. =/ Looking at more of them, 12 seems to be their normal AS value, and the Mages and Sage have the same. The Nomads have 17.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Inui

[Florete]

I don't care where they end up since I have no real opinions on either of the characters. I just don't want to see GJ and RF butting heads again for dozens of posts.

I no longer care enough about this game to bother arguing it if it comes up again.

[Dat Nick]

Hmm... Fir > Lot?

it's seriously not already like that? wtf

Edited March 2, 2010 by Fred Fuchs

[Inui]

it's seriously not already like that? wtf

Nope, even in Sacae where Lot can't pull the "I rape Pegs" card...

-Upper Mid Tier-

Marcus

Thany

Shin

Lot

Saul

Roy

Ellen

Fir

Klein

Tate

Lugh

[dondon151]

So Lot gets to do some suff in the earlygame. He has big HP and decent Atk. That's about it, though. Personally, I'd sooner give Marcus some axes and call him the best axe user until you get Gonzales/Echidna and promote Dieck, lol. Lot's not doing anything special at all. He's a below average fighter. Everyone with swords is generally better. He has some use against loldiers and a few Knights, I guess. I'm going to awesome we're not fielding Ward full time since he's pretty bad. If we want an intolerably slow axe user, we can just field Garret and his free promotion and +30 Crit later or something, lol.

Lot is forced and always deployed until chapter 8. In chapter 7, you get to choose 13 units to deploy, and you have 19 at your disposal. Lot is competing with Bors, Wolt, Dorothy, Merlinus, Ellen, and Ward. This is already assuming that you're deploying 2 other healers, Chad (just for the 2 chests), and Lugh. Even if his combat is "nothing special," he is still considered optimal deployment, and his combat isn't that bad to begin with. It's superior to Lance's combat, for example, since Lance doesn't have enough AS yet to double enemies (other than, of course, soldiers and armors, but Lot doubles those too). Occasionally ORKOing soldiers is nice and not doing completely shitty damage to armors is nice as well. Lot also has access to the Halberd in chapter 4 to blick cavs, and Marcus doesn't have a high enough axe rank generally to do so.

This is already superior to Fir's join situation. Chapters 10E and 11E have 12 slots for deployment each. 1 goes to Roy, 2 go to Marcus and Zealot, Alan and Lance each get one, Clarine, Shin, Dieck, and Rutger get one too. 9 slots are already taken. Lilina is required for 10E and Thany is required for 11E (in addition to neutralizing Tate, she does rescue-drop). The 2 slots remaining are still highly contested for: Fir has to compete with Lot, Noah, Gonzo, Saul, and Astohl for those 2 spots. Astohl is basically Fir except with superior combat (Astohl can use Steel Sword with less AS loss), Noah has WT control in addition to mount, Gonzo occasionally ORKOs in 11E, Saul is secondary healer when Clarine isn't enough, and Lot supports Thany and Dieck while being a fairly decent fighter himself. Lot gets 6 chapters of virtually free deployment whereas Fir gets about a half. And from there on, there is even more deployment competition that Fir has to deal with. You get Tate and Klein for chapter 12 and Miledy for chapter 14.

That's the basic summary for earlygame. Both have promotion issues. After chapter 16, Lot kind of wins no matter where you go. In Ilia, Fir faces WTD everywhere while Lot has WTA against the most common enemy types with little AS issues (except for mercs), and he gets a Halberd to play around with against mounted units he can't double. He also has bows to blick enemy fliers. In Sacae, Fir has superior player phase offense, but Lot has bows and counters the most common enemy type, plus he is quite literally invincible (18 atk Short Bow nomads against ~15 +3 def from A Dieck). And countering is pretty important; between the swarms of nomads on 18S and the nomads + WKs in 19S, Lot does better against all of them where it matters most.

Fir loses mostly because of deployment competition and lack of 2 range. Even if a statistical comparison shows that Fir is outright better later on, that's not enough to counteract these 2 weaknesses.

Edited March 2, 2010 by dondon151

[grandjackal]

Also, even if it wasn't RF bringing up the argument, I refuse to touch Fir vs. Klein with a 10 foot pole.

In fact, I won't touch any Fir argument with a 10 foot pole.

[CATS]

Also worth noting that you get a killer axe in Ch 6. Who other than Lot will be able to use that, until Gonzales joins? Nobody. Marcus has E Axes and Zealot has D, and weapon ranks build slow in this game. Zealot might be able to use it around Ch 10 or 11, but that still leaves Lot with a significant period of time where he has a monopoly on it. Gives him pretty notable offense in situations like those Ch 7 dragon knights.

[dondon151]

In the same vein, Klein > Fir because he commands a deployment slot immediately after he joins and claims utility over the course of the entire game (where there are enemy fliers or nomads, Klein is optimal deployment). You have to put EXP and a promotion item into Fir to get a unit with passable offense that never commands enemy phase priority due to lack of 2 range and WTA plus poor concrete parameters, but Klein requires very little resources.

Edited March 2, 2010 by dondon151

[Inui]

Lot is forced and always deployed until chapter 8. In chapter 7, you get to choose 13 units to deploy, and you have 19 at your disposal. Lot is competing with Bors, Wolt, Dorothy, Merlinus, Ellen, and Ward. This is already assuming that you're deploying 2 other healers, Chad (just for the 2 chests), and Lugh. Even if his combat is "nothing special," he is still considered optimal deployment, and his combat isn't that bad to begin with.

Being at the bottom of "optimal deployment" and forced in a few chapters where he's average (Dieck, Marcus, and Rutger are significantly better and the Cavs are generally better as well) doesn't make him automatically better than Fir if Fir is on par with him when she joins and then way fucking better after promotion with not much effort or babying at all.

It's superior to Lance's combat, for example, since Lance doesn't have enough AS yet to double enemies (other than, of course, soldiers and armors, but Lot doubles those too). Occasionally ORKOing soldiers is nice and not doing completely shitty damage to armors is nice as well. Lot also has access to the Halberd in chapter 4 to blick cavs, and Marcus doesn't have a high enough axe rank generally to do so.

Shittiest loldier in Chapter 8: 33 HP, 2 Def. Lot needs 10 Str to kill it. That means he needs to be level 12 or so and/or have a Thany support to kill the shittiest loldier. The others have more HP than this one and don't have 0 AS. Can Lot double with a Steel Axe? Yes, barely. So I guess he can kill it with that. Lance has the same Atk due to supports and significantly more Hit. Lot misses too much.

Level 1 enemies have 6-7 Spd. At level 4-5 you can expect Lance to get 6 Spd things, and at level 6-7 he gets 7 Spd things. Some faster axe d00ds have like 8 Spd, right? He gets those at level 8-9. Lance is doubling shit that Lot can't double really frequently and he has way better WT control. Comparing Lot to the Cavalier duo, even early, is a joke.

This is already superior to Fir's join situation. Chapters 10E and 11E have 12 slots for deployment each. 1 goes to Roy, 2 go to Marcus and Zealot, Alan and Lance each get one, Clarine, Shin, Dieck, and Rutger get one too. 9 slots are already taken. Lilina is required for 10E and Thany is required for 11E (in addition to neutralizing Tate, she does rescue-drop). The 2 slots remaining are still highly contested for: Fir has to compete with Lot, Noah, Gonzo, Saul, and Astohl for those 2 spots. Astohl is basically Fir except with superior combat (Astohl can use Steel Sword with less AS loss), Noah has WT control in addition to mount, Gonzo occasionally ORKOs in 11E, Saul is secondary healer when Clarine isn't enough, and Lot supports Thany and Dieck while being a fairly decent fighter himself. Lot gets 6 chapters of virtually free deployment whereas Fir gets about a half. And from there on, there is even more deployment competition that Fir has to deal with. You get Tate and Klein for chapter 12 and Miledy for chapter 14.

By that logic, units that are not optimal for deployment need to immediately be placed into bottom tier. You are assuming those better units are constantly and always in play and never rotated out or just not used at all. If you only want to use top tiers, then put everyone else in graveyard tier please. Too bad nobody plays the game like that. Also, Lot is competing for deployment as well. And guess what? He's clearly worse than Fir. Sure, Lot starts off better in terms of durability and can give support bonuses, but that shit ends FAST. Fir always rapes him offensively overall and then gets more durable by not getting hit. This happens after like two chapters.

Did you know that relative to the enemies around them, Fir's joining situation is better? She starts out with great offense and the same durability Lot had in the earlygame relative to the enemies, except both her offense and durability go up really fast initially, while Lot can't do that early on.

That's the basic summary for earlygame. Both have promotion issues. After chapter 16, Lot kind of wins no matter where you go. In Ilia, Fir faces WTD everywhere while Lot has WTA against the most common enemy types with little AS issues (except for mercs), and he gets a Halberd to play around with against mounted units he can't double. He also has bows to blick enemy fliers.

rofl @ Lot vs this thing ever

His only advantage there is one-shotting Pegs (very iffy on Falcos IIRC) and Hand Axes.

20/2 Fir with C Shin and a Steel Sword doubles everything, has next to no chance of missing even with WTDA, and has 25 Atk and 43 Crit. Hey look at that Peg...it dies without a Crit.

Defensively? She faces 32.40 True Hit if she's not weighed down and dies in 4 hits to Javelins and 3 hits to Steel Lances. There are a fuckton of forests, so she can chop that Hit down to very little and survive an additional round due to the +1 Def. She can use a Lancereaver to become invincible. Each Peg squad in Chapter 18 seems to have 1-2 Axereaver Pegs with them and the enemies on the ground are Mercs. Fir doubles and destroys Mercs. Lot does not. He never can. He has good shots at missing even with bows.

Observe the Spd of that Peg. With -6, it still has 12. Guess when Hand Axe Lot can double that? 20/4 on average. At 20/5, he has a 36% chance of not having enough Spd to double them. Fir's chance of such garbage is virtually 0%.

20/5 Lot with B Dieck/B Thany and a Steel Bow: 36 Dmg, 71.50 True Hit. Iron Bow gives more Hit, way less Dmg.

20/2 Fir with C Shin and a Killing Edge: 15 x 2 Dmg, 95.04 True Hit, 61 Crit.

Rape rape rape. Fir actually will kill them quite consistently while Lot has no chance in hell.

No details needed here. Fir clearly wins defensively and offensively. Lot with a Silver Axe is borderline on one-shotting, while Fir rapes it without breaking a sweat. Hand Axe? Lot can counter, but this bitch has good Evd and Hand Axes suck. 68.40 True Hit is not impressive at all, and that's if it's not in one of the many forests.

In Sacae, Fir has superior player phase offense, but Lot has bows and counters the most common enemy type, plus he is quite literally invincible (18 atk Short Bow nomads against ~15 +3 def from A Dieck). And countering is pretty important; between the swarms of nomads on 18S and the nomads + WKs in 19S, Lot does better against all of them where it matters most.

Unfortunately for Lot, a plethora of units can mimic what he does. Klein, Clarine, Percival, Lance, Alan, Dieck, Lugh, Ray, and many others all have solid durability and offense with 1~2 range right now. Dieck's supports grant him Hit and Crit to make up for Hand Axe failure. Klein's supports give huge defensive boosts. The mounted d00ds are rape. Shin does what Lot does except way better since he doubles. Lot is doing nothing that many other units can do just as well or better.

What does Fir have? For starters, possibly the second best player phase offense in the entire game. Gonzales wins Atk, but Fir slaughters him in Hit and swords generally trump axes in non-lance situations. Who can mimic Fir's ability to pick any enemy on the map and kill it without breaking a sweat? Rutger, and most of the time Gonzales. That's it. Pesky Nomad Trooper? Druid? Wyvern Lord? Every boss ever? These are all tough and dangerous enemies that Lot can't kill, and most of your team can't kill. You know who can kill these bastards? Fir.

Fir loses mostly because of deployment competition and lack of 2 range. Even if a statistical comparison shows that Fir is outright better later on, that's not enough to counteract these 2 weaknesses.

She's better by a massive amount really soon.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Inui