Integ's gon' rank the characters!

[Anouleth]

First off, I'd mention that Amelia's Ewan support prolly won't happen since training BOTH of them in a non-abusive run is ridiculous.

Pretty much.

Well, I guess Vanessa has supports (C Moulder/C Lute by now seems doable) meaning she actually has significantly better STR/SPD/DEF/RES when Tana joins. So, I think she can double more with heavier weapons and does more damage per hit with the same weapon.

C Moulder C Lute isn't doable, seriously. It's 33 and 35 turns respectively.

But yeah Vanessa will have an extra point of strength, two of defense and three of speed.

Availability is also a pretty big factor.

Yeah, Vanessa has flying utility in lots of chapters before this.

I think if you're going to give Tana a 8.0, Vanessa should be getting a 9.0 or a 9.5. Tana is only likely to get C Cormag to Vanessa's nothing, and Vanessa has crucial earlygame roles and a minor stat lead. Plus the option of an early promotion for Phantom Ship, which Tana can't realistically emulate. Tana's only edge is some better strength and also recruiting Cormag. I guess not having to make Duessel do it is nice. But Tana probably needs Vanessa's help anyway since she's not really surviving a round against the Wyverns at base level. Eph. Route Tana is seriously cursed.

AmeliaxEwan wasn't serious. The point was he's her best option because all the others have better. :P

Well, Amelia's supports are actually pretty fast. She can easily take supports with Duessel, Franz, and Neimi.

EDIT: I argue, but please do try to convince me. I WANT to place Vanessa half a point higher on the charts but I don't see why I should.

EDIT2: As for availability, Vanessa only has maybe two or three chapters of real usefulness before Tana shows up, since the early and late-early game is Brigand territory.

Vanessa has Mogall killing in C4, Ross-rescuing in C2, house visiting in C5, spider fighting in C6, and Colm/Eirika ferrying in C7.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Anouleth

[Tables]

When Tana joins, Vanessa won't have any supports. She's only really likely to get up to C in any of her supports, although she has quite a variety of possibilities (Moulder and Lute are likely, Forde and Innes are possible). Tana can get probably either Ephraim or Eirika, whichever route they're on, although both have better options. Then there's Cornmug or Innes, both of which are maybe's. So, neither really has much in the way of supports, but Vanessa's supports even at C are pretty good (STR, DEF, avoid IIRC).

Vanessa has good earlygame utility as stated, and also can claim her kills far more easily than Tana so is easier to train. 9/0 is a conservative level estimate, I'd expect more like 11 or 12, promoting when Tana is about level 16. So she also maintains some lead over Tana for quite a while, and with that earlier promotion she can either work on getting swords up for AS or have very good SPD for a few chapters (22+ with 9 CON) while Tana struggles with CON issues.

[dondon151]

I think 9/0 at chapter 9 for Vanessa is a very liberal estimate. I had her at 3.86 going into chapter 9, but I wasn't using her for combat; even so, it doesn't make much of a difference with Seth doing most of the work in the earlygame chapters. I'd put her at 7/0 at the highest.

[Integrity]

Anouleth: By "usefulness" I suppose I meant "experience gainage" - ferrying Eirika/Colm and rescuing Ross are getting her a grand total of fuck-all.

As I said for leveling l'il V, I've not used her in a while without totally abusing her (read: she promotes when Cormag's whip shows up.), so I'm not sure what level she ought to be in C9. 12 is CERTAINLY out - I often have FRANZ sitting around there then, and Franz is God.

[Tables]

Hmm, normally my whole team is around that level by then but in retrospect, Vanessa might be a little lower. I guess I normally use small teams (about 8 people, tops) so my levels would naturally be higher. Normal would be about 9-10, I expect, then.

[Integrity]

Well, Vanessa is typically a little lower due to facing WTD on everything until C4 and monsters, and then there's C5 where she can do some picking off among the archers, C6 is Fog of War and dangerous for her but you still want her to save the villagers from the spider if you don't Seth-rush it - and if you Seth-rush it you forgo all her kills, 7 she can get a few kills outside of ballista range, and C8 she can probably get a few kills, but that chapter is a lot of knights she'll tink or a massive clusterfuck around doorways where the only people doing anything are Lute, Artur, and maybe Neimi.

[Anouleth]

Well, she can fight okay in C4, C5, C6. And if she's not fighting, she's doing something more useful than fighting... ferrying Eirika in C7 is more useful than any character's contributions to efficiency bar Seth.

As I recall, I had her at about level ~14 in Phantom Ship in my last run. So maybe 10 at C9? Keep in mind that Tana effectively joins in C10 on Eph. Route. I wasn't really playing at maximum efficiency, but it was still fairly fast. I also gave her the Dracoshield and Seraph Robe for extra durability.

@Dondon - you are playing 0% growths, so obviously you have no incentive to give kills to Vanessa. As you admit, you weren't using her for her combat anyway. Vanessa would need to get about 20 kills over her 7 chapters of availability to be at 7/0, which seems awfully low.

[dondon151]

@Dondon - you are playing 0% growths, so obviously you have no incentive to give kills to Vanessa. As you admit, you weren't using her for her combat anyway. Vanessa would need to get about 20 kills over her 7 chapters of availability to be at 7/0, which seems awfully low.

It doesn't really matter. If the name of the game is to finish with low turncount, regardless of whether I want to give EXP to Vanessa or not, she's still not getting much. She'd probably be 5/0 at best in my playthrough. And if you do decide for whatever reason to dedicate her to combat (like on chapter 7), you're forgoing her utility because she can very easily facilitate a 4 turn clear with Seth's help. The catch is that she only gets one player phase's worth of combat. Or for example, on chapter 5 she facilitates a 3 turn clear with Seth while allowing you to obtain all items and in turn obtaining the Angelic Robe. But she's only going to fight on enemy phase.

And then, what if you decide for some reason that it's worth taking extra turns to give kills to Vanessa? Chapters 2 and 3 are not really good for her anyway. Let's say that you took 2 extra turns each on chapters 4-8 to get her to 10/0. That's 10 extra turns that you've lost getting Vanessa 3 levels. Is she going to gain those 10 turns back for you later in the game with those 3 extra levels? Probably not. So it's probably best, at least strictly from a turncount standpoint, to not give Vanessa EXP as a serious combat unit and only to buffer her durability when performing flying tasks.

The real purpose of my 0% growth playthroughs is to help establish the playstyle of the tier list player. It shows that your units can be RNG screwed to the maximum extent and you should still be able to finish the game in x amount of turns.

Edited April 29, 2010 by dondon151

[Rewjeo]

I remember why I was so anti-Vanessa now...

[Anouleth]

It doesn't really matter. If the name of the game is to finish with low turncount, regardless of whether I want to give EXP to Vanessa or not, she's still not getting much. She'd probably be 5/0 at best in my playthrough. And if you do decide for whatever reason to dedicate her to combat (like on chapter 7), you're forgoing her utility because she can very easily facilitate a 4 turn clear with Seth's help. The catch is that she only gets one player phase's worth of combat. Or for example, on chapter 5 she facilitates a 3 turn clear with Seth while allowing you to obtain all items and in turn obtaining the Angelic Robe. But she's only going to fight on enemy phase.

And then, what if you decide for some reason that it's worth taking extra turns to give kills to Vanessa? Chapters 2 and 3 are not really good for her anyway. Let's say that you took 2 extra turns each on chapters 4-8 to get her to 10/0. That's 10 extra turns that you've lost getting Vanessa 3 levels. Is she going to gain those 10 turns back for you later in the game with those 3 extra levels? Probably not. So it's probably best, at least strictly from a turncount standpoint, to not give Vanessa EXP as a serious combat unit and only to buffer her durability when performing flying tasks.

The real purpose of my 0% growth playthroughs is to help establish the playstyle of the tier list player. It shows that your units can be RNG screwed to the maximum extent and you should still be able to finish the game in x amount of turns.

I suppose you're correct. Although even in 0% growths, Vanessa would be miles ahead of Tana for the turns she saves in other chapters.

Also, I don't think that 0% growths should establish the tier list playstyle. It's not really representative of even an efficient playthrough to assume that characters never gain stat-ups, since the chance that characters would fail to gain anything, ever, is very very slim. And on some games such a playthrough could never approach the speed of a regular one. Can you imagine what the turncount would be like for FE9 or 10?

[dondon151]

FE9 gives you Titania and a few good units (Muarim, Devdan, Kieran, other prepromotes). FE10 would be a little harder in some respects, but for example, part 2 stays literally the same, part 1 gives you tons of good units near the end, part 3 gives you some decent units to start out and Ranulf, Janaff, and Ulki halfway through. The only real issue would be part 4 where you have a dearth of good units that you can split between routes, but even then it shouldn't be too difficult.

0% growths is what I'd call baseline efficiency. The tier player goes at least as fast as I do, and turns to more viable strategies if he has more units good enough to execute them.

[Integrity]

I think RD part 4 wouldn't be terribly hard, one would just spam the Laguz Royals and heal sticks, and probably have to take a while since they're all Rout maps. Well, 4-5 wouldn't be hard at all because pimp!Bastian would show up and demolish everything with Tibarn.

Could be wrong, though.

Anyways, good morning! Therefore:

KYLE

Kyle is ridiculous.

So Kyle's our very green cavalier, and he also holds the title of only green cavalier I prefer to their red counterpart in all of FE6-10. Kyle also is a remarkable unit taken on his own merits, hampered only by the existence of Franz, who is even more ridiculous. Ludicrous, maybe. Kyle will also always demolish Forde in every stat. Okay, that's not entirely true, but Kyle > Forde anyway because who cares about Skill.

Numbers-wise? KYLE! This dude joins us in the Gaiden Chapter, so called because it's the only one of its kind in FE8. He comes with Ephraim and Forde, who are coincidentally his fastest supports, requiring only 20 turns (with Ephraim, the slower of the two) to get to a C. What this means is via C5x and C8, one can probably build a C support with Kyle and whichever one prefers. Kyle is also enough of a badass to take on most of C5x on his own (most.), meaning he can get some levels before going into C8, where he has the entire left side of the map to play with. This is of significant note because it lessens or completely negates Franz's level lead he gathers over C1-8 himself, depending on how much you feed Kyle instead of Forde or Ephraim.

Level-for-level, Kyle is roughly a wash with Franz. He has a slight STR lead for a slight SPD deficit for a slight DEF lead for a slight LCK deficit for a slight HP lead for a slight RES deficit. Considering my public opinions on Franz, that's a very very good thing to say about a Cavalier. As compared to his fellow Red Cav, everything I just said re-applies except more-so. Kyle has a significant STR lead for a hefty SPD deficit, etc. etc. but the biggest thing is Kyle is the strongest and the most DEFended of the Cavaliers, while not lacking the SPD to double regularly. Kyle is gorgeous, stat-wise.

Supports? Kyle is, hilariously, Ice affinity. This means that he can actually support for MORE DEF, but his only options that actually reciprocate the DEF are a late-start slow-growing Syrene, or an early-start slow-growing Lute. However, supporting him with either Ephraim or Forde gives him extra HIT, allowing him to laugh at Forde's SKL lead. Supporting him with Ephraim even gives him EVADE! Unfortunately, Kyle's incrediblity is hampered by his inability to double-support for awesome things, like Crit. Essentially, Kyle has fast supports for decent gain, or slow it down and build him a Lute support and PROFIT.

8.5

EDIT: The reason Kyle is a 9 alongside Gerik and Cormag, even though it looks cluttered, is that I have reserved 9.5 and !10 for one character, each.

EDIT2: Kyle is being updated to his 8.5 score.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Integrity

[Rewjeo]

I think Colm could squeeze in for a 9.5. But for the most part, I agree with that. Seth and Franz are so good that even great characters can't really grab the same score.

[Integrity]

I think I may have to drop some of the 9s to 8.5, because Colm is certainly getting a 9, and Lute *might*, but she's more likely a 8.5 anyway.

[Narga_Rocks]

I think RD part 4 wouldn't be terribly hard, one would just spam the Laguz Royals and heal sticks, and probably have to take a while since they're all Rout maps. Well, 4-5 wouldn't be hard at all because pimp!Bastian would show up and demolish everything with Tibarn.

Could be wrong, though.

It's not relevant that you could have Nailah kill everything in 4-4 with little difficulty. dondon is talking about keeping good turncounts. Nailah can't be everywhere and 4-4 is rout. Good Luck getting 10 turns or less with just Nailah. And all your non-Mia GMs are doubled by swordmasters quite spectacularly. Many of them are even doubled by warriors. Tanith and sigrun may actually be good units, too, with 25 and 26 spd after promotion. Aside from resolve sucking in Japan, it might actually be easier to accomplish 0% growths on an import because of all the extra master crowns they have. Maybe not, though. I wonder what RD would do with their "must get at least one point" if you are on 0% growths? I guess you could find out if it cycles through until getting something or if it uses some kind of "closest to getting a point naturally" system.

[Integrity]

dondon is talking about keeping good turncounts.

So he is. My bad. I didn't look back far enough before responding.

[Integrity]

Jinked the list about. Hijinks ensue! Jinkies!

FORDE

So Forde is Kyle with faster supports.

Amusingly, on that note, Forde actually does mirror Kyle's affinity choices *almost* perfectly. Kyle/Forde, Ephraim/Ephraim, Light/Light, Anima/Anima, and a wildcard (Light/Thunder). I dunno why, that just tickled me pink.

Forde joins at the exact same time as Kyle - 5x, then 8-forever. He actually starts a level higher than Kyle, for some odd reason, but that doesn't make anything up. The only thing Forde has on Kyle in 5x (that we care about) is a one (1) SPD lead. Yay. Once they start to level, Forde and Kyle actually have much the same growths - all within +/-10% of the other's - except Kyle has the lead in HP, STR, and DEF. You know, the Cavalier stats. He loses in SPD, sadly - by a 5% margin. What's this mean for stats? It means Kyle hits critical durability significantly sooner than Forde does, and Forde's tiny RES advantage is negated by Kyle's slightly-less-so-but-still-tiny HP advantage. Thus, Forde will be somewhat reliant on Evade for longer than Kyle will, who will in turn quickly be tink!ed by many lesser enemies. Once he's tink!ed, you can drop him in the middle of whateverthefuck you want to and laugh as he sponges XP into his Olympian body.

Forde isn't without merit. He's actually still a decent unit, all told - he's got that SPD lead, he does have a SKL and a LCK lead, meaning more crits even though Paladins/GKs don't naturally crit much, so on. As stated above, his supports ARE rather faster than Kyle's, with the exception being a 5+2 xVanessa that you'll probably never build, but gives good bonuses - exactly like Kyle's xLute. Forde's table, in addition to being faster, is also slightly better - boasting a decent xEirika and xFranz to compare to Kyle's slow-ass xColm and xSyrene.

So Forde? He's not Kyle - he's DEFINITELY not Franz - and he doesn't grow fast enough to be Duessel ever. Where's that leave him?

7.5

EDIT: Forde's up half a point.

(I'm aware this was bland, but I'm trying to be a little fair. My Fordes are always RNG-screwed in, oh, everything. :()

Edited July 19, 2010 by Integrity

[Anouleth]

A 2-point gap between Forde and Kyle based on two points of defense/strength/hp?

[Integrity]

A 2-point gap between Forde and Kyle based on two points of defense/strength/hp?

I TRIED TO BE FAIR, DAMMIT. I just can't ever get Forde to work. :(

Plus, it's only a point and a half.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Integrity

[Anouleth]

Kyle is at 9.0, Forde is at 7.0. That's a two-point gap.

Ah, you updated the OP but not the actual ranking.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Anouleth

[Integrity]

Brah, my rankings in the posts are so far behind right now. I think L'Arachel and Saleh are still riding their original controversial ratings.

I'm probably going to do a run-back-update of all of them afterwards, when I settle things down.

[Rewjeo]

Forde is not THAT much worse than Kyle. Yeah, he might miss a few KOs and might not be quite so durable, but he's certainly not more than .5 points lower than him.

[Integrity]

As I said, I'm *trying* to be fair to Forde, but I can't do it. He's always terrible for me. :(

[Integrity]

Forde is up half a point. He's sitting at 7.5 now to Kyle's 8.5. What's that make it time for?

EPHRAIM

amg, ephraim. He's got one of the best names in the series, to be quite honest.

Where do I start with this guy? He's a fucking badass. Ephraim will crush everything forever starting with his introduction in 5x. Did you pick Ephraim's route? Ephraim's probably getting TINKED, if he gets HIT, by C12, because he has awesome stats at that point.

Ephraim is not all good, and I want to get this said. He has sublime SPD and DEF (SPD on par with most Mages, DEF growth better than KYLE'S), and a rather great STR and SKL (55 each) and even LCK (50) - added on to an 80% HP growth. His only poor stat, relatively, is a 25% RES growth. ONLY. However, his HP base isn't all that great, meaning he has comparatively low HP of account of his comparatively late promotion (taking average, 35 in C16). That actually sums up Ephraim's issues - he promotes very late. He's probably going to hit his peak in C13 or C14, and then he'll be riding no XP with stats that eventually can't quite keep up until C17. Once he promotes, however...

greatlord!Ephraim is a monster of a man. Consider, if you will, the consequences of 16 levels and a promotion with ridiculous SPD AND DEF growths, and you have a man untouchable by physical weapons. His RES, even so, is higher than the Cavalierses, so he is, level for level, one of your most durable units versus everything. Add on top of that his STR, SKL, and LCK growths and you turn out with a Lord possibly better than Ike or Hector. The only downside - ONLY - to his post-promotion is he's still locked to spears. On the other hand, Regenleif. Add to that the fact that he's got his own PRF Sacred Twin and probably S-ed Lances so you can happily break the-one-that-isn't-Sieglinde (Siegmund?) and just use Vidofnir instead? Crikey.

Compounding Ephraim's greatliness is something getting it's own offset line: Regenleif. You get one Regenleif when you recruit Ephraim in C5x. It has the WT, durability and HIT of an Iron Lance, with the MT of a Steel Lance, with 10 CRIT for good measure. It's also Super Effective against Horses and Knights and holy shit I just realized why Thani gives me a hard on. It's the magical Regenleif. Er, anyway, to make it even better Regenleif gives 2 WEXP per shot instead of the 1 offered by everything except Steel and Axereavers. Regenleif is also PRF, so Ephraim gets all the points for it.

Back to the man himself, Ephraim is Fire affinity. I love Fire affinity, because it's ATK, HIT, and CRIT, making it silly-good for offense - and it has Evade because Evade rocks. How does Ephraim's list lend itself to using this awesome affinity? His first one is an ultra-fast XEirika - it's the third-fastest in the game behind ColmXNeimi (lol auto-c) and GarciaXRoss, and tied with GerikXTethys - that's FireXLight. FireXLight shares ATK, HIT, and CRIT - all the best qualities of a Fire affinity. It's also half-DEF and half-Evade. The downside is it doesn't really start until C16, though it's possible to build a C in C8 before you lose the other Lord. What's on the rest of his list? A 20+3 with Forde gives all the offensive stats - nice. A 20+3 with Kyle gives full-Evade and half-DEF - a'ight. A 25+3 with Tana gives the same benefits as Forde, and he gets married - score. A 30+3 with Duessel (anima!) gives full ATK and Evade and half DEF - balanced. A 10+4 with Myrrh gives him the same benefits as Forde but starts way later so Eirika is a better option at that point. L'Arachel at 5+3 gives the same benefits as Eirika, but slower - but starting earlier, but getting Ephraim married. Essentially, there's NO BAD OPTION in Ephraim's support list, and most of them are even pretty fast.

So where's that leave us? Ephraim is a SUBLIME unit for C8-14 and tapers off in the Desert and Renais to just being a GREAT unit. He then promotes into a GREATER unit and grows back into a SUBLIME unit in time for the endgame. In Eirika's route he doesn't really show until C15 when he's a PRETTY GOOD unit, while being low enough and tough enough that you can - with some babying (it's worth it) - get him 20 by the end of C16, where he promotes into a GREATER unit and grows back into a SUBLIME unit.

I'm going to break my own rules here and let there be one !10 and two 9.5s. That seems fair.

9.5

you're free to do Ephraim now, Fuery, because I beat you to it. :o

Edited May 4, 2010 by Integrity

[Junkhead]

Add on top of that his STR, SKL, and LCK growths and you turn out with a Lord possibly better than Ike or Hector.

Possibly? He is better than Ike and Hector, he's already great from the start, his performance is much better than both of those guys.

The only downside - ONLY - to his post-promotion is he's still locked to spears. On the other hand, Regenleif. Add to that the fact that he's got his own PRF Sacred Twin and probably S-ed Lances so you can happily break the-one-that-isn't-Sieglinde (Siegmund?) and just use Vidofnir instead? Crikey.

There is just no good downside to it, he is dodging Warriors, Bersekers and Cyclops reliably, and he's 1RKO'ing most enemies with an average lance, an Iron Lance.

Anyway, great review.