Gold Efficiency Tier List

[Paperblade]

Units are ranked on how much overall gold they use.

FABULOUS

Heather

Sothe

LOYALTY

Black Knight

Lehran

Caineghis

Nailah

Tibarn

Naesala

Rafiel

Leanne

Nasir

Gareth

Ike

TOP

Gatrie

Haar

Titania

Reyson

Janaff

Ulki

Volug

Micaiah

HIGH

Kurthnaga

Ena

Renning

Stefan

Volke

Skrimir

Elincia

Nealuchi

Muarim

Vika

Tauroneo

Geoffrey

Kieran

Mordecai

Sanaki

Tormod

Nolan

Lucia

Brom

Bastian

Oliver

Rhys

Laura

Mist

MIDDLE

Zihark

Makalov

Aran

Boyd

Oscar

Ranulf

Danved

Calill

Pelleas

Jill

Tanith

Sigrun

Marcia

Shinon

LOW

Soren

Leonardo

Edward

Rolf

Nephenee

Kyza

Meg

BOTTOM

Fiona

Lethe

Astrid

Lyre

Ilyana

MIA

Mia

6/15/2010: Heather above Sothe.

Edited June 16, 2010 by Paperblade

[Mekkah]

How much gold they use to do what? Save the most turns / be the most efficient?

[Paperblade]

How much gold they use to do what? Save the most turns / be the most efficient?

Lower turns is preferred but costing less gold is most important.

[Mekkah]

Then wouldn't you just deny them 99% of their resources unless it's really cheap (including Olivi Grass etc), making everyone nearly equal?

[Anouleth]

Lower turns is preferred but costing less gold is most important.

So I guess you're just going through the game with Bronze weapons and Laguz, since they're cheapest? This includes Endgame, as well, since the SS Rank weapons are all really valuable.

I think Edward and Leonardo should go up, as should Nolan. Having access to Prf weapons that are awesome and don't cost money puts their attack waaaaaay above people like Aran who will need to use a Bronze Lance. Especially since they can pull out Beastfoe.

Physic is no longer usable, since it's 250 per use to Vulnerary's 200. Rhys down.

Volug and Ike should be at the top of Loyalty Tier. Ike starts with the free Ettard, gets a fresh one after a couple of chapters, and then gets Ragnell, so he generally doesn't cost much. Volug has a free weapon. And both Ike and Volug are saving you more turns than anyone else in Loyalty.

I'm not sure why Rafiel and Leanne are an entire tier above Reyson. Reyson likes to have laguz stones and stuff, but he can make do without them. Obviously, he's your worst choice for Endgame, but Endgame isn't everything.

I don't know why Stefan is in High Tier either. He can't damage Generals with a Bronze Sword due to only 30ATK, so until Alondite shows up he's useless. He should definitely be below Elincia, who can beat that at base level with Amiti.

Sanaki also needs to be a little bit higher. Sure, spells aren't cheap, but Cymbeline is free, and Sanaki can help Micaiah kill Jarod. The Wishblade is worth a ridiculous 15500 gold. Although, since we're not beating 4-E-2 quickly, we might have time to take him out with a Royal.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Slowking

[Interceptor]

Then wouldn't you just deny them 99% of their resources unless it's really cheap (including Olivi Grass etc), making everyone nearly equal?

Of course you would; Paperblade didn't properly vet his troll thread for sanity before he posted it. Mia could use Silver Card purchased Steel Blades at 700g a pop, for instance, retain most of her useful offense, and easily jump into High tier. The criteria will need to be adjusted, naturally, perhaps to indicate that the tier player is supposed to be a moron.

I guess that PB is still sore about my efficient playlog sending his arguments into a flaming tailspin. When Mia only used one forge in all of Part 3, no unit wanted for anything that money could buy, and I had enough gold left over to purchase a small country... that sort of undermines the argument that Titania is killing enemies with her fists for lack of Poleax funds.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Interceptor

[Anouleth]

Interceptor, you shouldn't be so negative. Don't you see the comedy value of ending a playthrough with over 200000 gold and then charging into Endgame with Bronze weapons to save money? Don't you want that money to go to (I assume) the rebuilding of Begnion and Daein? Don't you care about the children?

[Renall]

Someone needs to start a Maximum Gold Efficiency playlog. Are we going with efficient turncounts while spending as little funds as possible, or just earning as much gold as humanly possible? If the latter, Heather to Super Mega Lesbian Tier for Disarm steals. If the former, I'unno.

Also, which difficulty does this assume?

EDIT: To maximize gold, one would need to:

1) Use as few weapons as possible. Laguz and Ike and any DB with Prfs obviously shine.

2) Never use heals, grass, gems, or any salable consumables. These will all be sold.

3) Sell all stat boosters and promotion items, unless they are unsellable. Sorry, DB, seals are salable but crowns are not. Naturally we will early-crown whoever we can.

4) Never purchase anything unless it can create more money than it costs. Avoid making any major purchases until the Silver Card. Remember to sell the Silver Card when done with it.

5) Find all hidden treasures, steal all stealable valuables.

6) (Potentially) Use Disarm as much as possible.

7) (Hmmm) Sell all skills before Endgame. Attempt to beat BK, Dheg, Lehran, and Ashera without Nihils.

8) Recruit everyone, if only for the free weapon(s) they're carrying.

EDIT EDIT: Fiona should be top tier. I'm serious. She is untrainable in this mode and not necessary for progress, so she will always be benched. This means her cost is zero. She comes with a Javelin (300g), Steel Lance (480g), Vulnerary (400g), Imbue (500g + Healing Savings), and Savior (1000g). Therefore, her most efficient use by the terms of this tier list is to be recruited, pawn or give away her stuff, and never be deployed again. The LEA is similar; you can pawn all of Tormod, Muarim, and Vika's stuff, then pawn their new stuff when they appear again in Part 4.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Renall

[Anouleth]

Eh, it's a little bit too risky to try and beat BK/Dheg without Nihil. I think that actually being able to beat the game is a higher priority than gold.

Another thing you can do is leave as much fighting as possible to Partner units. For example, you can just wall unequipped in 3-13 and 3-E. In fact, many GM chapters can be done pacifistically. 3-P, 3-3, 3-5, 3-7, 3-E. I don't know how much we can rely on the CRKs in 3-10, though.

[Renall]

Eh, it's a little bit too risky to try and beat BK/Dheg without Nihil. I think that actually being able to beat the game is a higher priority than gold.

Well, this concept has only two real forms of efficiency:

1) Being good at helping us clear a chapter efficiently, where "efficiently" here means "takes the least gold and produces the lowest turncount." So 3-11 and on, an Ike solo is obviously money-efficient, but having Haar or Ranulf there is pretty efficient for turncount. However, we must factor in healing as well. Characters who need less healing are better than ones who need more. The ideal character finishes every map in a single turn with a free infinite-use weapon and never takes a hit. That's unlikely to happen, so we have to go for the most efficient healing. Micaiah is the most efficient healer since Sacrifice is free, but unless she has a means to heal herself she can only heal once per chapter. Otherwise Herbs (6g/HP) are less efficient than Vulneraries and Concoctions (5g/HP each), and they're all less efficient than a Heal staff provided you're healing at least 10 HP.

2) If one cannot accomplish anything in terms of making it more efficient to clear fast, the only efficient use of a character is to be cannibalized for their weapons and skills and benched. This one's easier because it's inherently quantifiable; I can tell you exactly how much money Fiona and Meg are worth relative to Calill, because we're not using any of them and can tally that. In that sense, we can objectively tier people for once.

Note that doubling and having Braves and Adept are all bad things. It's better to have skills and weapons that deal the maximum possible damage in a single strike. Of course 2HKOs are fine if it's impossible to 1HKO, so Mia with a Steel Blade can still be pretty good (and blades are theoretically stealable). However, some offense skills are better than others (Adept is worse, Gamble is potentially better, Luna is better than Astra, Corrosion is crap-tier).

Edited June 14, 2010 by Renall

[Mekkah]

Why's Skrimir above Elincia? Before you get to the money, Elincia has him beat for turncutting: she makes a very low-turn clear of 2-E possible, or if we're doing it the long way for all the ping ping, then she is a free kill or two every turn, essentially the MVP along with Haar. Then on Tibarn route she has her work cut out for her: the most impressive and mobile units will probably be with Ike (for 4-4) or Micaiah (for desert), so her 4-2 contributions will be appreciated. I guess for her to be great she needs to burn money on staves, but Skrimir will have to do with laguz stones...both use free weapons. And Elincia is infinitely better in endgame.

[Renall]

Elincia actually has huge efficiency; she can equip a high-end staff to heal herself for free with the inherent regeneration. And Amiti, being completely free (and impossible to sell, heh), is obviously efficient.

I haven't really bothered to look at the list itself because other than the top end where the characters are always giving more gold than they take, it's far too flawed.

EDIT: Also stones would be assumed to never be in use, same with grass, unless they save us more money than they cost. I don't think that's ever the case any time Skirmir is playable.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Renall

[Anouleth]

I'm not sure why Lethe is bottom tier. Zero cost fighting in 2-2 and 2-E isn't bad (certainly more than Meg or Fiona will ever do without a mountain of forges).

Oh, and Skrimir can take Wildheart. With Resolve active, Wildheart Skrimir 1-rounds Paladins in 4-P. Obviously not enough to match Elincia, but still good.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Slowking

[Renall]

I'm not sure why Lethe is bottom tier. Zero cost fighting in 2-2 and 2-E isn't bad (certainly more than Meg or Fiona will ever do without a mountain of forges).

Lethe and Mordy would need to go up quite a bit for Part 2. Probably Nealuchi too. You just bench them when they become useless (or in Nea's case, he benches himself essentially). As long as you're using few/no stones/grass, they cost nothing but healing (and Mordy barely needs healing) and time. So yeah, most laguz up, except Lyre because I don't think she ever contributes a damn thing.

Maybe have two lists, one for "is efficient through being used at least once" and one for "is never used and is strictly tiered by quantity of gold provided in goods and skills." The second list is just math.

[nflchamp]

People, read plz. This list is only about how much gold they use. No one gives a crap about how much gold they make us.

EDIT: Sothe and Heather down plz.

Edited June 14, 2010 by nflchamp

[Rewjeo]

Wouldn't Imbue be either 500g or healing savings? We can't use it to heal if we sold it. Unless you mean sell it at Endgame.

[Renall]

People, read plz. This list is only about how much gold they use. No one gives a crap about how much gold they make us.

EDIT: Sothe and Heather down plz.

Contributing gold is equivalent to costing negative gold. Costing negative gold is better than costing zero, which is itself better than costing some positive quantity.

And yes, I'm taking this totally seriously. And yes, I'm aware it wasn't posted totally seriously.

Wouldn't Imbue be either 500g or healing savings? We can't use it to heal if we sold it. Unless you mean sell it at Endgame.

It's both. We use it until the final convoy and then sell it. This is true of all skills. It's more efficient to utilize them until the last possible opportunity to sell them. Edited June 14, 2010 by Renall

[Anouleth]

I don't really like the idea of tiering characters on the basis of their starting equipment or skills. We never need to use or touch Fiona to take her weapons and skills away, so she's not really contributing anything.

[Renall]

I don't really like the idea of tiering characters on the basis of their starting equipment or skills. We never need to use or touch Fiona to take her weapons and skills away, so she's not really contributing anything.

This is why I suggested a second list, for the characters who are not and will never be used to be "tiered" based on contribution by loot.

And you're looking at this the wrong way; per the terms of "costs the most gold," Fiona does contribute something by showing up, handing over valuable things, and getting the hell out of the way. It's the only way she can contribute. And unlike a regular efficiency tier list, where people with negative efficiency are arguably best shuffled off into an "untierable" category, we can rank the contributions of cost-prohibitive-to-use characters, based on their starting equipment. It's perfectly valid for this very limited set of conditions.

[Anouleth]

Well, I don't like the idea of a tier list of starting items/equipment because it's boring. It's just evaluating their items and putting the total value into order. It's completely trivial and a waste of time.

And I'm not really seeing how taking Fiona's equipment and selling it is 'contributing'. We don't have to deploy or touch her to get her equipment. We may as well credit Pelleas for giving us 10000 gold in 1-9.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Slowking

[nflchamp]

Contributing gold is equivalent to costing negative gold. Costing negative gold is better than costing zero, which is itself better than costing some positive quantity.

Contributing gold is only equivalent to costing negative gold if we care about how much gold we have. We do not. As such, contributing gold means jack squat. We only care about how much gold people use, as stated in the OP. I will not stand for any other ridiculous bologna.

[Renall]

Well, I don't like the idea of a tier list of starting items/equipment because it's boring. It's just evaluating their items and putting the total value into order. It's completely trivial and a waste of time.

Well, that's why no one seriously posts a Gold Efficiency Tier List, and why nobody likes the Funds rank in FE7. Of course it's trivial and a waste of time. But to be accurate to the spirit of the tier list, that's what we'd have to do.

And I'm not really seeing how taking Fiona's equipment and selling it is 'contributing'. We don't have to deploy or touch her to get her equipment. We may as well credit Pelleas for giving us 10000 gold in 1-9.

In this tier list we would give credit for that, actually. Pelleas up!

Well okay, it might not count for Info conversations when a character isn't yet playable (as there's thus no risk of them being dead).

The point is, we're not counting "contributions" as following the same metric as a regular tier list. To maximize money we're forced to play as efficiently as possible, which means "project" characters and people that require a lot of babying absolutely cannot be used. Only "profitable" characters can actually fight; that is, characters who cost the least possible amount in order to permit us to continue playing.

Thus, the Black Knight ranks highly because he costs us nothing (hell, he won't even get hurt) and kills lots of stuff. Conversely, Heather doesn't kill many people, but she steals things which completely counterbalance any operating cost she might have (and then some, usually making up for others as well).

Imagine for a moment that Heather never fights, and is never in a situation where she will be attacked, and that this is the most efficient possible use for her. She costs a negative amount of gold, which is good, but she contributes nothing to efficient clearing because she never fights. However, the most efficient use of her is to never fight, as that produces the most gold. In the case of, say, Haar, he costs money every time he attacks. However, Haar (and Gatrie and Beastfoe Nolan in 3-6) is more efficient at clearing the map in the quickest possible time while costing the least to maintain thanks to his maneuver, defenses, and attack.

Heather's contribution of gold is positive. Haar's cost of gold is a non-negative because his efficiency in combat makes up for what he cost, since any other character would have cost more gold to accomplish the same clear, or could not have cleared as quickly at a comparable cost. That's an odd comparison, but it's tierable. I would submit that the most efficient use of Fiona is not using her; in that case, her cost is at least zero, her combat contribution is null. This is true of all inefficient characters.

Essentially you're saying Fiona is equal to Meg and Lyre because they all have no-cost and can't contribute. Well, I think that's equally silly as counting starting equipment. At least with starting equipment we can say "Fiona, when used at her most gold-efficient (i.e. not at all), produces x more gold than Meg through her weapons and skills." Again, it's a totally valid comparison.

Contributing gold is only equivalent to costing negative gold if we care about how much gold we have. We do not. As such, contributing gold means jack squat. We only care about how much gold people use, as stated in the OP. I will not stand for any other ridiculous bologna.

How shortsighted. Contributing negative gold improves the vitality of the tier list by allowing cost-positive contributors to defray the cost of efficient but cost-negative contributors.

Also, we do care about how much gold we have, as that is the best metric for scoring how well we did. If we care only about strict costs, then things we find free in-game are perfectly valid, meaning stat boosters etc. The very notion that stat boosters are acceptable runs counter to Paperblade's clear intent to troll Mia.

I must respectfully disagree with your assertions!

Edited June 14, 2010 by Renall

[Narga_Rocks]

The very notion that stat boosters are acceptable runs counter to Paperblade's clear intent to troll Mia.

Why? Mia doesn't need stat-boosters. One forge for generals and a bunch of steel blades for the rest (for part 3, anyway). If you can use stat boosters for free it allows the units reliant on boosters or the laguz gems and stones and grasses you find to easily be > Mia since they can use them for free. Now, he doesn't assume wing on Titania and Haar because he doesn't seem to care about going quickly like Interceptor, but assuming there is an actual attempt to reduce turncount it's a good idea. But that costs them 4000 each, which is around the cost of Mia's forge. And if you want to give Titania anything else for better bexping, like dragonshield or talisman or secret book, that's already up to 16000. Probably more than Mia will ever cost (well, there's Vague Katti, I suppose). But now, those boosters can go wherever (since he never really cared about being efficient with them) and nobody faces a cost.

Anyway, he said "overall", as well. I think he meant for some kind of "net cost" type thing that would be [cost = used - earned] or something. The positions of Heather and sothe pretty much prove that much. Though what a character can apply to "earned" is still up for debate, as is what actually goes into "used".

Of course, the biggest question is "how are we even playing the game?" Are we going for the lowest turncount as if we didn't care about money and then once we are done analyze how much everyone cost? Or are we playing with an intent to be ridiculously cheap and thus wielding iron and bronze and free weapons all the time? And letting laguz transform over time and just taking as long as it takes to finish maps cheaply?

Edited June 14, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Renall]

Anyway, he said "overall", as well. I think he meant for some kind of "net cost" type thing that would be [cost = used - earned] or something. The positions of Heather and sothe pretty much prove that much. Though what a character can apply to "earned" is still up for debate, as is what actually goes into "used".

Earned would be semi-similar to the pseudo-logic used for Funds, so the thieves have credit for stealables and most findables, and I'm not sure how you'd classify other things. Do Mist and Boyd split the sale price of a Magic Dust? They have to actually do something to get it...

As for cost, that's easy to calculate. Every time the unit uses a use of a weapon or item, they're costing you money. Cost is doubled if the weapon was purchased. If Jill swings a Bronze Axe 5 times, she cost you 5 * g/Swing of a Bronze Axe. If Nolan swings it the same number of times, he costs the same, but if one of them has higher strength, their uses were more "valuable" for the cost.

Of course, the biggest question is "how are we even playing the game?" Are we going for the lowest turncount as if we didn't care about money and then once we are done analyze how much everyone cost? Or are we playing with an intent to be ridiculously cheap and thus wielding iron and bronze and free weapons all the time? And letting laguz transform over time and just taking as long as it takes to finish maps cheaply?

If I were creating such a list, the paradigm would be "completing the game in a reasonable period of time while remaining as cost-efficient as possible and ending with as much gold as possible." The goal is not Int-level turncounts, but you also wouldn't be wasting time. A turn lost here or there for failure to kill everyone possible on the Player Phase would be okay, waiting around for gauge would not.

[nflchamp]

Units are ranked on how much overall gold they use.

Use. Use. Use.

I do not care if Paperblade posted a list with blatant falsities out of benevolence/spite for characters he loves/hates, I wish to make this list the best possible for its stated way of ranking. And I shall do so one step at a time if necessary. And to begin we need Sothe and Heather down. Their thieving means nothing. This is not Ranked are anything silly like that.