FE9 Tier List

[Inui]

Jamuka frees Edain and Dew, so I'd assume one of them can recruit him. Ayra...I don't really have any idea. You're probably supposed to think about getting Shanan first so they have nothing to control her with. Then Hannibal is the same thing.

Oh, FE 9. Well, it's not as good as FE 4 at all, sadly. :(

[Reikken]

srsly. I killed Ayra with Cuan.

[Narga_Rocks]

srsly. I killed Ayra with Cuan.

And I probably would have if not for faqs. Still, I suppose you could argue that it's the type of thing you should be able to reason out, like Inui said. Now, Lex and his Hero Axe and Ardan and his Pursuit Ring definitely aren't.

Now, with Altenna I think they make it pretty clear for you to try to talk to her with Leaf, so there is that. But all the FEs seem to have something you need a guide for. Especially RD if you want all the items.

As for this list, any explanation for Makalov > Marcia? Is it the bow thing? I think Mak starts underleveled enough that he's in about the same boat for that and the only stat in which he has big wins at base is hp. She flies and is around longer.

[Reikken]

It's defense in general.

[Colonel M]

I think her mediocre defense could be made up slightly with her flying utility. Her + Jill basically makes Rescue chains over mountains possible (by this you carry someone like Ike over to Shiharam).

[Junkhead]

High

Oscar

Boyd

Mordecai

Kieran

Muarim

Hm...is Mordecai above Kieran just because he comes one chapter earlier? (This counts as him being playable)

I think Muarim is actually better than Mordecai...Muarim's offense is pretty good as he does couple that with good Str/Spd/Def bases as well as good growths to get it even higher. Mordecai's base Spd won't take him to double much, if not anything that isn't a heavely equipped soldier.

Kieran should go above Mordecai IMO, Kieran has good offense and decent speed and a good support with Oscar who is in the top of the list.

As for this list, any explanation for Makalov > Marcia? Is it the bow thing? I think Mak starts underleveled enough that he's in about the same boat for that and the only stat in which he has big wins at base is hp. She flies and is around longer.

I thought the same, what gets him up there is his Mov utility and a slight Def difference at the same level, Makalov is only winning in +8 HP there. But joining underleveled is pretty bad, in his case, he is locked to swords and with pretty low base Atk, it's good being able to not get too damaged, but it's a bit useless when you yourself can't do a good counter...why would you waste BEXP on an underleveled unit when you could be using it on thers who could turn out better, have been better before and can actually realize the same functions.?

Makalov seems more like a filler, you already have Titania, Oscar & Kieran for high Movility and combat utility. Then there's Marcia and Jill for flying utility.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Soul

[Vykan12]

In the case of assuming an imperfect player, there are certain distinctions which are fairly obvious and easily made. For example, the assumption that the player does not know the growth rates of his units or the exact details of his items (with the Knight Ward being the best example); in other words, the assumption is that the player does not have access to, or does not utilize, resources beyond the game disc itself in order to acquire information about the game mechanics.

If a player were unaware of the 30% speed growth boost that the knight ward imparts, they’d use it mainly for the +2 def/res bonus. This should logically make characters like Gatrie/Devdan/Brom/Tauroneo and to a lesser extent all mounts drop a bit, though perhaps this has been accounted for already (Devdan appears to have dropped significantly at least). Moreover, the most viable candidates for the knight ward’s durability boost would jump for obvious reasons. There might be some overlap, though.

[Anouleth]

It's not guaranteed that the Knight Ward even exists, since Astrid/Gatrie won't necessarily be recruited, so really they should all move down, except for people like Neph or Oscar who don't really need the KW.

[Dat Nick]

Astrid/Gatrie are easily recruited on Turn 1, and the Knight Ward is extremley helpful (And Astrid's a pretty good character) so why on earth would you NOT recruit at least Astrid?

[Interceptor]

A shove chain? You must be joking.

The tier player is an ignoramus, see the rules in the OP. He/she does not know the secret effect of the Knight Ward, that Astrid is a good character, or perhaps even that she's in danger and that a Turn 1 recruitment is advisable/possible.

[Colonel M]

Astrid/Gatrie are easily recruited on Turn 1, and the Knight Ward is extremley helpful (And Astrid's a pretty good character) so why on earth would you NOT recruit at least Astrid?

With the rules of this tier list, I could give you a sarcastic answer. But, I'll refrain from doing so.

[Progenitus]

hey champs...

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19097&view=findpost&p=865108

[Colonel M]

hey champs...

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19097&view=findpost&p=865108

So when do you figure the tier player learns how to shove units? I'm looking at C15 with a 60% chance of knowing by that point, but I got screwed in that category once.

[Progenitus]

Clarifications on the first condition:

--Player has access only to the information on the game disc (and the manual, if anyone even knows what is actually contained in it), i.e. he does not have access to information sites such as Serenes, but he will not ignore what limited information he does have.

--Player has completed the game before and has a reasonable knowledge of it, though not excessively so. It is not his first time through.

troll moar plz

[Interceptor]

hey champs...

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19097&view=findpost&p=865108

I know that reading AdjectiveNoun's screed makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, but it never actually addresses the core complaint.

I don't expect you to understand all of the nuances of my point here, since trying to have a substantive discussion with you is as productive as arguing with a dining room table, but you should at least notice that all he did was refute the most dumbshit argument whilst leaving the reasonable one untouched.

What's the likelihood of someone knowing how to shove chain to Astrid? That's the real question, not whether your entire army is dead by Endgame. It's the question that AdjectiveNoun never addresses, probably because it's the hard one to answer, and it's not particularly well-suited for a post full of accusations of fallacy.

[Rodykitty]

My issue is assuming that the player is assumed to completely lack knowledge of the game, not that the player is imperfect (which can simply be defined as a player that might need to sacrifice turn count once in awhile).

If you want a tier list where a player is completely ignorant of the game and makes every possible mistake, simply make a list of the units with the best growths to the worst, and you'll have an accurate list that takes account every mistake a player will make.

[-Cynthia-]

I don't think creating a shove train to get to Astrid counts as basic knowledge. First off, they may not even know Ike recruits her. Secondly, they might think Astrid is a poor unit because of her level at recruitment time, and not bother.

Playing the game once doesn't really clue you in to what units you should bother recruiting, and Ike recruiting Astrid is fairly non obvious. Add in that we have to do a pretty specialized series of actions to get Ike to talk to her turn 1, and I would say her recruitment is less likely than her not being recruited.

[Colonel M]

You know smash, my copy of PoR never came with an instructional manual. How was I supposed to know what Shove did? Smite couldve been Desoul from Shining Force for all I care.

So now all the player has to hinge himself on is personal experience, which means whichever characters he got RNG-lucky with will be used a second time. For all we know the person couldve got lucky the second time with the unit. Then we're on limited resources of the game, so in that case Mia > Stefan and Stefan should be near the bottom of the tier list because how the hell should I know how to recruit him? He's probably the easiest character to miss, and with limited resources (so no Serenes), Stefan probably doesn't exist in the game and might as well be considered Mew.

I'm almost glad this wasn't FE8. I wouldve just said Garcia > Gerik on Ephraim route because the average player might just Arena / Tower abuse the game.

Edited March 15, 2010 by Tyranel M

[Narga_Rocks]

I don't think creating a shove train to get to Astrid counts as basic knowledge. First off, they may not even know Ike recruits her. Secondly, they might think Astrid is a poor unit because of her level at recruitment time, and not bother.

Well, before I looked online I'd always look through the list of which units can talk. In the talk area, you can see that Ike can speak with Astrid. Now, her bases are low enough that you may not care, and by now the player might decide that +2 def/res aren't that significant or something, but not knowing Ike recruits her is a non-issue.

Playing the game once doesn't really clue you in to what units you should bother recruiting, and Ike recruiting Astrid is fairly non obvious. Add in that we have to do a pretty specialized series of actions to get Ike to talk to her turn 1, and I would say her recruitment is less likely than her not being recruited.

I do agree with this, though.

You know smash, my copy of PoR never came with an instructional manual. How was I supposed to know what Shove did? Smite couldve been Desoul from Shining Force for all I care.

Tutorial. I made sure to ask whether the player looks through this. Apparently our Scrub here actually bothers to read the tutorial (CATS said so, I think). Don't know why some guy that is unwilling to search for info online is willing to read the tutorial, but whatever.

So now all the player has to hinge himself on is personal experience, which means whichever characters he got RNG-lucky with will be used a second time. For all we know the person couldve got lucky the second time with the unit. Then we're on limited resources of the game, so in that case Mia > Stefan and Stefan should be near the bottom of the tier list because how the hell should I know how to recruit him? He's probably the easiest character to miss, and with limited resources (so no Serenes), Stefan probably doesn't exist in the game and might as well be considered Mew.

It is true that a person really has no idea how good characters are on average even after two or three playthroughs, considering that's not enough trials for the stats to approach the averages.

Also, the player does have the manual. Just because you didn't get it, doesn't mean they can't stipulate that Scrub has one. I'm pretty sure CATS at least stated that the player has it.

[Vykan12]

Stefan should be near the bottom of the tier list because how the hell should I know how to recruit him?

Reikken indirectly suggested that we only rate characters when they're recruited. Thus Stefan being missed 99.9999% of the time wouldn't count against him. It would however matter if we were talking about his supporters, the vague katti or the occult on some random team that very likely wouldn't include him.

Edited March 15, 2010 by Vykan12

[Colonel M]

Reikken indirectly suggested that we only rate characters when they're recruited. Thus Stefan being missed 99.9999% of the time wouldn't count against him. It would however matter if we were talking about his supporters, the vague katti or the occult on some random team that very likely wouldn't include him.

Except that contradicts the list. This list assumes limited resources, which means that an absurd amount of players will just miss him. There are only two ways that you could possibly get Stefan without relying on shitty luck:

- Asking a friend, but if I were to do that he / she could become an infinite resource when it comes to growths and such, so I wouldn't exactly be in the dark when using a unit.

- Looking on the internet, which again indicates that we are breaking the rules.

Either way that you look at it, you might as well slap recruitment penalties on this list because the player has no clue on getting some units. I didn't know that Zihark was recruited with Mordecai or Lethe until I looked on Serenes. Therefore, it is possible to miss out on recruiting a character, which limits its chances of being used over a unit such as, say, Mia who has a greater chance of existing because all we need to do is have Ike talk to her. The first line of thought when recruiting a unit is Ike, then perhaps a relationship (siblings, friends, etc). I had no clue that Zihark required a laguz at first, and thus it's very possible the character misses out on Zihark.

With limited resources, I only know so much about the game. The tutorial does not describe how to recruit either of these characters. Before you strawman with Haar, keep in mind that it's likely that the player will think of Jill, due to relations, to recruit him.

Either way, if we are assuming limited resources (which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but I digress), it is only logical to factor in recruitment cost.

[Florete]

Now, her bases are low enough that you may not care, and by now the player might decide that +2 def/res aren't that significant or something, but not knowing Ike recruits her is a non-issue.

I disagree, seeing as the player probably hasn't used too much BEXP and might not have built good supports, so +2 Def/Res would be really nice. Also, the player would probably want to recruit Gatrie since he's a defensive powerhouse and only Astrid can do that.

[Colonel M]

At the same time, a player could just steal the Knight Ward and never recruit Astrid and Gatrie.

[CATS]

Except that contradicts the list. This list assumes limited resources, which means that an absurd amount of players will just miss him.

What does it contradict? Stefan's position is based on how he will do in the event that he is recruited, not on how often he is recruited.

[Florete]

At the same time, a player could just steal the Knight Ward and never recruit Astrid and Gatrie.

No, because you can't steal equipped items.