H3 (Lunatic) Tier List

[Parrhesia]

While it was certainly not a positive statement, don't a ton of us make insulting comments like that? The whole "oh, I guess I need to make it simple for <insert name>", or "was that too complicated for your little mind? how about this <insert statement with lots of talking down to person>", etc?

I blame the fact that I once worked on an acting production with an overacting, fundamentalist bitch with the unfortunate conception that extremely tightly-fitting hand-sewn costumes would accentuate rather than exacerbate her physique and a penchant for essentially being a sour version of Brian Blessed without any of the talent, awesomeness or charisma...

Anyway, basically her every word and action seemed to regard me as a lesser being. I resent this. If she were male I'd probably have physically assaulted it by now.

...yeah. I hate condescending comments.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Furetchen

[fatgamecat]

No worries.

Anyway, now that I've demonstrated that Malliesia is useful for killing Gharnef, it's not hard at all to get her to 20/20 by Ch 23 even when going for low turn count, and she requires less stat boost money in comparison to how much you'd need to whip Etzel into shape, I'd like to see her placed on the tier list.

Edited September 14, 2010 by mjemirzian

[Narga_Rocks]

No worries.

Anyway, now that I've demonstrated that Malliesia is useful for killing Gharnef, it's not hard at all to get her to 20/20 by Ch 23 even when going for low turn count, and she requires less stat boost money in comparison to how much you'd need to whip Etzel into shape, I'd like to see her placed on the tier list.

So would you want her tiered while ignoring her healing ability? Because I thought part of the problem with those types of units was that healing is so important or helpful that they'd auto-top if you placed them on the normal list. "thieving and healing are so vital to the game, and their stats are so irrelevant to their ability to perform this task, that other than Malliesia’s access to Hammerne, all of the healers are basically interchangeable in this regard. You "must" have at least 1 thief and at least ~2 healers, so just pick some from this list and you're good to go."

So even if she can be good just based on her combat ability, you'd need to ignore part of her ability in order to tier her on the main list.

[General Spoon]

No worries.

Anyway, now that I've demonstrated that Malliesia is useful for killing Gharnef, it's not hard at all to get her to 20/20 by Ch 23 even when going for low turn count, and she requires less stat boost money in comparison to how much you'd need to whip Etzel into shape, I'd like to see her placed on the tier list.

Nobody's stopping you from making your own tier list.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

No worries.

Anyway, now that I've demonstrated that Malliesia is useful for killing Gharnef, it's not hard at all to get her to 20/20 by Ch 23 even when going for low turn count, and she requires less stat boost money in comparison to how much you'd need to whip Etzel into shape, I'd like to see her placed on the tier list.

"no"

When she is not "killing gharnef", what is she? A. HEALER. Fuck tiering healers. End of story. Killing Gharnef is just one enemy in one chapter. It may be a fairly important enemy, but it is again only one single enemy. The rest of the time, Malliesia is just another healbot. That's 28 chapters (1-22, including 6 gaidens) where she is a staff with legs.

@Narga

The issue isn't that they'd auto-top the list in this case (though they are significantly more useful in a game like this). The issue is that if they don't top the list, tiering them is a nightmare. What amount of combat prowess is more useful than healing? At what point does killing stuff and healing become comparable? The answer is never, and trying to wedge a healer into a tier list where combat contributions are given the main weight is quite possibly my least favorite activity.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Seven Deadly Sins

[Narga_Rocks]

@Narga

The issue isn't that they'd auto-top the list in this case (though they are significantly more useful in a game like this). The issue is that if they don't top the list, tiering them is a nightmare. What amount of combat prowess is more useful than healing? At what point does killing stuff and healing become comparable? The answer is never, and trying to wedge a healer into a tier list where combat contributions are given the main weight is quite possibly my least favorite activity.

So basically you are taking the Interceptor approach to tiering. Basically, you recognize that dancing and stealing and healing are important parts of the game, but when the rest of the units on the list are tiered off of how well they kill things without dying it's too much of a pain to compare dancing/stealing/healing to combat units to bother.

Regardless, my point is the same. Even if she has a combat element, even if she can fight a few things along the way while also using staves to get to a good enough level to beat the guy, her healing is an important part of her existence and thus it's too much of a pain to tier her.

Anyway, from your argument it seems like you think the only thing mjemirzian wants her to fight is Gharnef. While he does want her to kill him, I'm not sure that this is the only thing he wants her fighting. Hence, more than a "staff with legs" for 28 chapters. Heck, she needs to reach C tomes somehow, right? Granted, arms scrolls exist. If you are willing to tier her just off her combat while ignoring how she's using a staff every other turn (or however often) then you could still tier that combat ability. (I would, of course, understand not wanting to tier half a character, though)

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Actually, he claims she IS a staff with legs for the whole game. Starlight is C, and in his playthrough he just made her a Sage and gave her an Arms Scroll. Bam. C tomes with no tome training.

Also, as you said, I have no appetite to tier half a character. Honestly, I had that exact idea for something like FE7 (tier healers as combat units by simply acting as though they do not exist until they promote), but tiering half a character is no fun, and also, I don't want my tier list to reflect some idea that Malliesia is some trash character. Malliesia is great. She's the best healer, and she might even be Gharnef-fighting caliber. But she is not a combat character by nature. She can be made to be a combat character for a specific purpose, but other than that specific purpose, she is a healer.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Seven Deadly Sins

[arvilino]

I think Mallesia could have a combat role throughout the game, her growths as a cleric(40% mag, 60% spd) give her combat magic user stats once she promotes to a Sage. You can level her up quickly by spamming 3 early physic staves(Chapter 5 Bishop, Chapter 7 Dragon cave, Chapter 10 Chest). They are worth 800-1200 EXP(since the chapter 5 one will likely have a couple of missing uses).

This can work because there are 3 Physic staves in the chapter 13 secret shop for 1,500 gold each. Since the first three can give Mallesia atleast 8 levels and can be replaced upon chapter 13, it's the equivalent of spending 4,500 gold for 8-11 level ups, much more levels for a lot less than other characters might spend in the arena.

Because of this I'd believe Mallesia could reach level 18,19 or 20 for promotion extremely quickly even when chapters 7 and 8 can be completed with low turn counts, if you factor in the additional necessary Rescue and Theif stave uses and the EXP she gained before getting the Physic Staves I'd say she'd could easily be 20/1 by the end of chapter 10. Ignoring her healer capabilities(except as the method of getting her the EXP), I'd imagine she'd be better than Etzel, due to her superior stats and Nosferatu tanking being possible.

[fatgamecat]

Her high MAG levels make her good at dealing damage if needed. If we're looking at casters based on only their damage potential then Etzel isn't exactly the most amazing character. On my latest run I used him to attack a total of 13 times, and some of those attacks weren't even against fliers. The rest of the time he was a (gasp) healbot - I had him at A staves as a Bishop by the end of ch 20, which incidentally helped a ton in Ch 22 and 23 for dual Fortify spam. Anyway, when you can figure out a cheaper way to kill Gharnef in a Malliesia/Etzel run (which are the two sages that will get the lowest turn counts), let me know. I would place the 'value' of being able to clear ch 23 with one arms scroll on Malliesia instead of a bunch of stat boosts on Etzel as being pretty high, especially if you are concerned about low turn counts.

And I know I could start my own tier list, but I'd rather be playing the game than managing a tier list. And I do have a tier list 'of sorts' located in my guide.

Edited September 14, 2010 by mjemirzian

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I intend to use Linde to do so on my run, we'll see how that one turns out. I'll probably end up blowing some Spirit Dust on her anyway just because I want to, but it'll help.

EDIT: Also, please don't claim that not tiering a character is claiming that said character has "no value" when it infact means exactly the opposite. It means that character has "infinite" value, and that performing the game without either that character or one of the other characters that performs that action is foolhardy. Hell, I might as well put Marth there as well, considering there is a 0% chance of finishing the game without using him.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Seven Deadly Sins

[Colonel M]

Pre-note: If this list is assuming Rainbow Potion, add it to the rules please.

I know that I haven't quite completed Lunatic mode and that perhaps I'm speaking a bit too early perhaps, but I think I'll at least make general comments within what went on with my play through and my general thought process at least thus far. Obviously some things may change in the future, so don't take my complete word for it. First I want to discuss some of the philosophy here, in particular with "Free Silvers" list.

To me, I think this list should be broadened greatly. Any dumbshit unit that has very little to 0 potential or does absolutely nothing at base should simply be sent here. And I'm speaking further than just Ellerean. I mean units like Matthis, Radd, and Caesar that don't do diddly squat for you in any specific map. I can make a "small" exception to Cord, Yubello, and Castor since they have some action in a chapter specifically.

Secondly, we also need to figure out how to argue any character within Free Silvers "out". There are units that are serious borderline candidates (Michalis, Darros, Jake) while the rest of them are going to fail no matter what you do with them really (Aurelian Knights, Samson, Sheema). I think we need to concede that units will have to use a stat booster somewhere. Lunatic Mode does not give a unit a lot of breathing space, and granted any character can use the permanent boost we aren't assuming an already-built team nor have we dived further into optimal stat booster distribution. Here's all I'm saying: in an efficient play through, you're going to have to accept that a unit is likely taking a stat booster. Perhaps random like Catria could be an exception, but even My Unit will likely be swalling stat boosters whole. Just not as many as say Sirius or Minerva will. We probably should also accept that Rainbow Potion could be used on a unit if it proves significant benefits; even if they are in the lower end of the barrel.

I think we discussed this on IRC, but yes: Marth should get the Maturity Drop. I wouldn't assume it on anyone else really. Pretty simple to explain: gotta kill Medeus, might as well increase the chances of doing it. I'd almost argue him to Unique Utility but w/e.

I won't touch High just yet only because I want to see what happens in particular with Sirius and Shiida.

Mid needs some clean up. Let's see:

- Ryan

- Jeorge

- Tiki

- Nagi

- Ellerean

- Minerva

- Leiden

- Cain

- Frey

- Roger

- Nabarl

- Ogma

- Barst

Not 100% sure on Ryan > Jeorge, though perhaps Fighter MU sort of has made Ryan a bit... well you get the point.

Minerva vs. Jeorge is a weird scenario. Like Jeorge can OHKO enemies in two chapters, Minerva can OHKO enemies in one chapter. She also has the freedom to move anywhere in the desert for the most part. C Lances also means she isn't as gimped thanks to having access to DragonPike. Jeorge can still OHKO DracoKnights in Chapter 17 with Parthia and Flying Dragons. His 32 HP | 13 Def means he can buffer a hit from the Flying Dragons too (they have 40 Atk). With the Energy Drop, a Str proc, and the Leo Orb shard Minerva can even OHKO Dark Mages in Chapter 13 with Hauteclere. Best of all Minerva is only inches from being usable. I guess having to use the faster classes like Palla later on is a small price to pay, but she has some great immediate uses and potential later on at least from a glance. I'd consider putting Minerva over Jeorge if she does well for me.

Maybe I can bust Darros out of Free Silvers. Before I go on: note that I'm aware that this has severe costs in certain areas, but he's more versatile than most units that join at his time. Check out his absolute bases:

Minerva - 12 HP | 5 Str | 0 Mag | 7 Skl | 8 Spd | 11 Luck | 6 Def | 0 Res

Darros - 17 HP | 9 Str | 0 Mag | 8 Skl | 6 Spd | 9 Luck | 7 Def | 0 Res

That's actually not too far off from base Minerva. Okay he loses in Speed. But enemies sort of slow down by a point in Chapter 13 (Bandits can have 17-18 AS). Darros with the Rainbow Potion has 21 AS as a Swordmaster. Hero can be used with a Speedwing assumed (which I would obviously assume. You'd be crazy not to). Slap the Arms Scroll on him and he can keep his Silver Axes too. Swordmaster Darros with the Wyrmslayer can ORKO Ice Dragons with the Rainbow Potion + Leo Orb shard. He won't ORKO the Bandits though (then again they're getting tougher: 32 Atk to ORKO). Even Hero Darros is 3 points off with the Rainbow Potion assumed. :( If you stack almost everything on Berserker Darros (Arms Scroll, Speedwing, Scorpio Shard, Rainbow Potion), you can:

- ORKO Bandits

- OHKO Dark Mages with the Gemini / Taurus guaranteeing it

- Severely dent Ice Dragons (technically you can ORKO with Hauteclere)

And before you ask, not many units can do the combination of the first two. 41 Atk is needed to OHKO Dark Mages. Base Minerva has 33 with Hauteclere.

In other words, he might have some legitimacy to be taken out of Free Silvers. Perhaps I'll investigate further with Minerva first before I make a rash decision.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Parasect's Meaty Chip

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I think I should remind you that Free Silvers and Bottom Tier are effectively identical. The fact that "Free Silvers" is spatially below Bottom Tier is not meant to imply that the people in Bottom Tier are better. It's just that Free Silvers is the "I don't give a good goddamn" tier, which is where I don't feel it's worth actually bothering to tier them. The benefit of merging and having a "not completely fucking useless" tier is more effort than I'm willing to put into comparing shit units.

That said, it's not THAT hard to argue people out of Free Silvers. As long as a character provides some semblance of actual utility beyond being a warm body in their join chapter, I'm willing to pull them out (see: Leiden) as long as they do something.

That said, time to talk about some stuffs.

1: Minerva should go up. Yeah, I said it. Rainbow Potion solves a lot of her issues, and her growths aren't awful. Axe rank really helps her there too, which helps.

2: Jeorge should go down. Parthia is his only claim to fame, but him killing things with it is basically a black hole of disappointment. If I really wanted a Parthia user I'd probably either a: have a sniper already (mine was Draug and he hit A Bows in ch14) or b: throw the Ch11 Arms Scroll onto Sniper Jake and have a unit that actually does cool things with EXP given to him. Jeorge is only special because of Parthia, and once any other character can use it he stops being special.

3: I agree that Darros has some merit to coming out of Free Silvers. That 6 Speed is kinda annoying, but Rainbow Potion, access to Swordmaster and Hero, and maybe a Ch11 Speedwing (I was having trouble tinking of someone to Wing given the Rainbow Potion) give him a bit more flexibility. His growths aren't amazing, but they're also not terrible, and he's pretty durable too. I'm not full sold on it, but I'm OK with giving people a relatively legitimate amount of stuff.

4: I WANT LINDE UP. I know it's far from proof, but in my Rainbow Potion run, all she needed was an Angelic Robe to pull off some truly ridiculous stuff. Her Speed is pretty amazing once you get out of her relatively short-lived rut, and Aura provides some ridiculous utility early on in the game (2hkoing Dracoknights while also countering them? Who does that?) as well as a little later if you conserve it. On top of that, Resire Tanking can make a couple notable things doable- before my run died, I was able to tank the brutal Ch15 Paladin / Horseman Rush on the right side of the map and kill everything with Resire, which was pretty awesome.

[Don Draper]

.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Don Draper

[Colonel M]

Yeah, definitely agreeing with IOS here. Small amounts of Arena use to guarantee a Spd point and using high Spd growth classes makes Sirius become a monster. Aside from My Unit and possibly Catria, he's climbing to be one of my best units. Needing a Goddess Icon and Speedwing is no big deal either since the former has little competition (not to mention only small amounts of Gold earned from selling it) while the latter has a huge impact on him. Mix Rainbow Potion and you got a machine that's easy to structure.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Works for me. Sirius is now in top above Catria (but below Palla). For that matter, Top Tier has been restructured to Palla > Sirius > Catria. Also, as a result of some IRC chatting, Luke is now above Shiida at the top of High.

Edited March 4, 2011 by Seven Deadly Sins

[grandjackal]

Let's also not forget that Sirius has promoted classes to switch around with. Seriously, General Sirius in Lang's chapter? Yes please. My only real issue with Sirius is by the end, one has to do something about his weirdly meh HP (it's a big deal when things start trying to bomb you with magic. 2RKOd by Meteor is not fun). But hell, toss a robe on that, everything's cool.

Anyways, if we're arguing people out of silvers, can I please be humored by at least a passing thought to Malice again? Her first chapter, as we know, is basically nothing but self-improvement at this point. Then we got the desert. Admittedly yeah, that's sort of a problem. However, I could argue the desert is basically self-improvement as well (well, until you get to the final part of it. Fucking swordmasters). Basically someone pulls them in and chips (possibly someone like George with Scorpio and Silver or something, he's had a few chapters and the arena so he could manage a speed proc), and she runs in and finishes it off with a wyrmslayer. If you don't happen to like that, you could just promote her on the spot, flip her to Sniper, and she could at least handle herself decently.

I'd probably go and say that she is...exceedingly average, actually. In the least, one thing she won't have to worry about is sword rank, cause C base and Swordmaster is auto-boss. It's after her start that she doesn't really excel or falter. However, I could still find using her actually possible. She can be salvaged, unlike most of silver.

[Paperblade]

Malice's main problem is that her Defense is balls

[grandjackal]

Malice's main problem is that her Defense is balls

Being 3HKOd in this game is a miracle anyways, it's not THAT big a deal in comparison to anything but high tier. As a note, I'm not trying to argue her to high. I'm not that crazy.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Malice's problem is that she doesn't bring anything interesting to the table. Anyone can Swordmaster and insta-C, and the pegs on promo or with Cavalier can use Lady Sword just as well as she can. The issue is that while being uninteresting on her own, she also shows up later than characters that are actually good and do the same thing, such as Ogma and Navarre. Finally, her essentially nonexistant defensive growths mean that she's MUCH harder to extend than other characters. 3HKOed? That's pushing it.

[grandjackal]

Malice's problem is that she doesn't bring anything interesting to the table. Anyone can Swordmaster and insta-C, and the pegs on promo or with Cavalier can use Lady Sword just as well as she can. The issue is that while being uninteresting on her own, she also shows up later than characters that are actually good and do the same thing, such as Ogma and Navarre. Finally, her essentially nonexistant defensive growths mean that she's MUCH harder to extend than other characters. 3HKOed? That's pushing it.

Uninteresting to YOU...

...Well, I should note that I'm again not arguing her to be anything other than salvageable (See:Raiden). That's basically what mid tier is, either people with insta-utility but instantly suck right afterward, or the salvageable (though srsly, Roger up dawg). I'd argue her a tier below merely because she doesn't have hte time and is rather bland on top of it.

But hey, if we're gonna stop at Malice but not Raiden, then whatever man.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Maris joins in 10x, Leiden joins in 13. Between the two, there's 11 and 12. In 11, Maris is never getting close enough to Flying Dragons to do anything to them, as you basically have to be flying, magic, or a Bow user in order to fight the Flying Dragons effectively. In 12, if you don't ORKO the dragons you're more of an impediment than a help, and she also gets 2HKOed by the world, so she's likely at base coming into Chapter 13. Leiden comes in at the same time, but has male classes AND much better stats (7 HP, 1 Str, 9 Skl, 4 Spe, 4 Lck). It's a pretty clear win.

[fatgamecat]

You need to go into more detail on what definition of efficiency this tier list is based on. What sorts of player defined limitations or goals are you setting for it? Is it based on the official goal of getting the best score at the end of the game, all A ranks? Keep in mind that "efficient" is an opinion.

[Rodykitty]

"- Efficiency is defined as "Turncount per Chapter", not flat out lowest turncount."

[Colonel M]

In 12, if you don't ORKO the dragons you're more of an impediment than a help

(Note: Not intended to be a potshot at him, just clarifying something)

SDS, the only units that could ORKO the Flying Dragons was My Unit. The only units that could ORKO the Fire Dragons were My Unit, Catria, and Luke. Watching my video, I highly doubt that Shiida, Palla, and Minerva for example were a impediment than help.

With regards to Malice, the biggest issue is Chapter 11. Okay, 10X she can get a Roro Kill. Idgaf about giving her one. Chapter 11 forces these options:

1) Promote to a Swordmaster and swallow Rainbow Potion. Now this means she loses an extra amount of levels. This does give her about 3 more Atk though (+2 from base, +1 possibly for the weapon rank). That's not exactly a bad thing though.

2) Swallow a Speedwing AND Rainbow Potion. Once again, this is probably not a huge ordeal as it's made out to be. Still, you're missing ORKOes on the Bandits with a meager 24 Atk. Though granted it's on the edge (42-43 HP | 5-6 Def to give you a clue). I don't recall needing the Star shards anywhere, so you can give her the Leo Orb shard to ORKO 42 HP | 5 Def Bandits. Gemini / Taurus ensures it on any combo barring 43 HP | 6 Def. Which is better than what most units are probably doing. Though you're moving at 3 paces and a Vulnerary drop won't allow you to survive 2 Bandit attacks (4 HP w00t).

Chapter 12 pretty much forces Malice to promote. She needs 22 AS to double. Since she has 16 at base, that's a 6 base difference. That would require two Spd procs which roughly takes 3 levels or a promotion; assuming Speedwing and Rainbow Potion are generously given to her. That's kind of awful. I'm sorry. Don't mention the Scorpio Orb Shard. This prevents Spd capped Draco!MU from doubling the Flying Dragon. You can bypass this with a forge I guess, but there is always a cost to forging too.

I'll admit Leiden is not an "awesome" unit. But his jointime is simply a little more... "lax" shall we say.

Also the goal is simply rigging AK!MU to obtain +Spd and Def to ridiculous measures.

Edited March 7, 2011 by Parasect's Meaty Chip

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Cmon, you're aiming too low! You can rig STR too.

Also the difference is that Scorpio Star and Speedwings are actually very sought after, while Leo / Taurus / Gemini and Energy Drops aren't quite as rare or clutch for many units. Leiden can actually double Ch13 Ice Dragons at base, and only needs one level to double the Ch14 variants (which also means he'll double basically everything in the upcoming human chapters). Leiden comes with 12 Str as a Swordmaster, so 13 Atk at base. You need 40 Atk to 2HKO Ice Dragons in Ch13. Leiden can reach this in a number of ways. Maris has to deal with the same issue but ALSO make up a 4 Speed deficiency. That means eating either a Speedwing or the Scorpio Star, and considering that Palla and Minerva want the Speedwings to do MUCH better things, and MU probably wants the Scorpio Star to break the speed cap and double Flying Dragons and the boss, it's hard to justify giving her either.