H3 (Lunatic) Tier List

[Colonel M]

Dropping Sirius can be done, but doing so makes Final a lot harder since Sirius has to survive a Dragon. Either that, or use Minerva. Sirius isn't as bad ass as Caeda, but he still gets the job done usually if you force levels through him. Best way is to have him nab as many bosskills as possible and, of course, kill some Dragons. I doubt any Horseman can even boast B Swords, which does help when fighting enemies up close (and I have done this before). Horseman is also pretty slick for the last couple chapters.

[grandjackal]

Well in honesty, I was kinda confused when he said that Sirius isn't long term. So, I suppose I gotta see what level Linde will be by chapter 6x. I'll be back with results.

EDIT: Seems I could get her to 10-11, but according to SDS I was underusing her as I had gone about things differently. I used all 3 base Dusts (figured she was my Gharnef killer, she was getting them eventually anyways) instead of a Robe. I was getting more kills out of stuff like one shotting Hunters, Thieves and Mages with Aura while he was dicking around with Rezire.

I would estimate that if she had 3 Dusts and a Robe, she'd be like level 12 for Roro, which just barely kinda maybe avoids the double without a potion.

However, that's also like 10K on one unit which is pretty unreasonable, so...Yeah.

Edited June 30, 2012 by grandjackal

[grandjackal]

Was told as an unspoken rule that tier lists could be revived at any time by Red Fox, but regardless I am sorry for the double post.

Anyways, kinda wanted to mention a strat for P-6 that is a 2 turn, P-7 that is a 3 turn, and P-8 which is a 7 turn. This strat requires Ryan, meaning not Luke or Rody or others aside from the likes of Shiida, Maric, MU, Athena.

P-6 (Ogma) is simple. Maric and Ryan shoot the northern fighter, of which Athena or MU kills, and then the other goes to kill the northern archer while Shiida goes in front of the southern fighter to make herself a juicy target. Ogma should go for whoever is at the bridge be it Athena or MU (I've had MU kill the archer and Ogma goes for Athena, but if that doesn't work, you can have Athena kill the archer, and Ogma still goes after MU on the bridge. Espinosa can back me up on this), Cav goes for whoever killed the archer as they're the only available target. Ryan and Maric shoot Ogma and MU finishes off, Shiida flies over to kill the cav, and Athena deals a finishing blow to the fighter as she's the only one who can.

P-7 Est (Why Est? Well, until someone can 7 turn P-8 with Cain...). Basically Ryan moves all the spaces he can in order to reach Est by turn 3, which allows him a free potshot at the north fighter, to which Maric can help chip, and Athena kills, Ogma blocking the south chokepoint to block the mercenary, Shiida chipping the mercenary up top and MU finishing. MU takes a shot from an archer, the other archer should move north, and Ogma hits the Merc on enemy phase. Uhh...I forget if the free archer moves north or south actually, because I recall Athena should kill it. I think south so Athena can kill it while Ogma blocks off the merc so that she can attack the fighter on enemy phase. Either way, Shiida attacks the archer near her and Maric finishes (don't want the merc killing him), MU healing on a fort while Ryan moves towards Est. Following turn is pretty simple. Can have MU chip Est and then Ryan kills with the steel bow, vice versa so MU gets the kill, or can use the more accurate Iron so that Shiida can get the kill as she's in range.

P-8 is long winded. Team is Est/MU/Maric/Ogma/Athena/Ryan/Shiida. Yes, no Wrys. Anyways, Marth pulls the left bandit and hunter, Ogma the right side while you postion Est and Shiida so that the only other target for the 2 thieves is MU (and they go after him, or at least they should). Marth kills a thief, as does Ryan, or Est because either Est or Ryan have to kill Marth's bandit after help form Maric. Ogma kills his hunter and Shiida finishes his bandit, and Athena should move behind Marth's hunter to kill, MU retreats to the throne and uses a vulnery so he'll be full healthnext turn.. Athena pulls the silver bandit, and all hell breaks loose. The point of moving Athena n that specific spot is so you have 3 extra spaces to hide your Pegasi and other unit, while MU can stand a space away from the mage's attack range to buy more space for Marth and Ryan. Ogma heals up on the throne, Maric stands in range of the hand axe bandit (although if you have trained Ryan and he doesn't get doubled, I actually suggest he be in that position instead). Athena retreats to heal up of course. The silver bandit suicides into MU, and now the 2 thieves and mages are in your sights, and you have Ogma, Est and Shiida at full health along with an archer and Maric to deal with this problem. The chapter is pretty self explanitory form here, but the turn you save should be the same turn you kill the last thief reinforcements. I had Athena in range, and she doesn't need to heal for the last turn so I suggest you have Athena save (Shiida and Est need to be in range to pull the last thieves, and at least about 16 HP, so use heals if necssary). MU needs to be above 25 HP to not get smoked by Katarina as he will be killing her. Ogma should be at HP to take a hit, as well as Maric (For a levin thief) Shiida can possibly ORKO her silver thief, so check if you can. Mop up from there should be simple, though notably Athena has to kill a thief herself.

MU build to note was Male Cavalier with Speed past, Strenght Present, HP future.

Why mention these strats? Because they are the lowest turns that I know of, and it means Luke isn't there to garner levels. Ryan believe can do at least P-6 and 7 at base, Ryan having to be more reliant on Steel for P-8 if you're going that route, so I'm not suggesting you have t put levels into Ryan before anyone jumps to that conclusion. This hurts Luke immensely, since he no longer gets the early exp he was supposed to get.

For Ryan though, it does also mean he gets a bit more credit out of prologue. While I'm talking about Ryan, in the event you do train him, I've at least gotten him to level 6 with C rank while doing this. With Rainbow Potion and Steel, he can still lower enemies low enough in chapter 1 to allow Luke to get kills anyways, this time without worry of counters. Level 7 is possible by chapter 2, so as a Hunter with rainbow, he only needs a +3 Forge instead of +4 to one shot Dracoknights, saving us a nice chunk of gold. However, I'm still kinda testing Ryan out so I don't have anything solid yet for thelikes of chapter 1 and 2 and so forth, but I guess I can say expect that in the future.

The main focus here is Luke, and the fact that his early levels dissapoofs. Thoughts?

Also, if anyone can match these turns with guys like Luke, etc, I would love to see it.

[Dark Sage]

Grandjackal I don't think the tier list is assuming the absolute minimum turncounts every time, meaning that Luke and Rody can still get their early exp.

Also what exactly are you arguing for? Are you pushing for Ryan to be above Luke? Are you pushing for Luke to move down?

[grandjackal]

Grandjackal I don't think the tier list is assuming the absolute minimum turncounts every time, meaning that Luke and Rody can still get their early exp.

Also what exactly are you arguing for? Are you pushing for Ryan to be above Luke? Are you pushing for Luke to move down?

Notably, Luke going down. Generally, if we're going by the ideal of "not necessarily lowest turncount", I would say he would probably be around...high mid? In that he's obviously solid, but he doesn't necessarily move things along faster while at the same time not slowing us down any. Like I'm in chapter 2, and I can see I don't need Luke to be at levels to get like a 6-7 turn (and I have to wonder how people 6 turn this chapter as it requires Marth to be in a suicidally stupid position to get to the throne in time).

EDIT: like above Linde/below Ryan, around that range.

Been also trying to go through prologue with going chapters to get like Gordon, Draug, etc. I think a 3 turn of P-4 George is possible...Just need a specific enemy position to just happen.

Edited December 18, 2012 by grandjackal

[Espinosa]

Isn't an efficient choice of MU somewhat influential upon how much experience the rest of the characters get in the Prologue chapters? For example, an Archer MU has to rely on other units moreso than the other MUs, which makes Ryan/Luke/Rody better as they end up growing more. Similarly, Knight MU really slows down the completion of P-2 (can't make the AI attack MU instead of Ryan because of the defence difference and therefore no counter on enemy phase).

[grandjackal]

Isn't an efficient choice of MU somewhat influential upon how much experience the rest of the characters get in the Prologue chapters? For example, an Archer MU has to rely on other units moreso than the other MUs, which makes Ryan/Luke/Rody better as they end up growing more. Similarly, Knight MU really slows down the completion of P-2 (can't make the AI attack MU instead of Ryan because of the defence difference and therefore no counter on enemy phase).

Well yeah. Lke with Myrm or Fighter MU I tend to find that MU gets a lopsided amount of exp. Cav MU is one of the more flexible since you naturally just kinda have +2 speed after P-2 due to the nature of how Cav MU short turns them. After that though, like with P-3 you're pretty free on how you distribute exp. Like, I've gone into P-4 with a level 4 MU, or I got a level on Ryan, or Rody. Luke I think could get a level too, r be near enough one that he can manipulate one in P-4 anyways.

[Bluedoom]

I know I argued for this earlier, but I feel Ogma should move up to the bottom of Upper Mid. Whether he is better than Leidine/Virgil(forgot who's at the bottom of Upper Mid curently) is arguable, but Ogma is certainly better than most of the other guys in Lower Mid.

First off, let's assume we do NOT use Ogma in Prologue. See, the nice thing about him is the fact that he can double the pirates in C4 at BASE with a rainbow potion. If you do use him in prologue, getting two lvls is very reasonable, because in my lunatic draft I'm playing(MY TCs are decent but nowhere near an LTC lol) I kinda LTC'd prologue until P8, and my Ogma at the end of Prologue was at Lvl 9.99. You could say I should've done P8 a bit faster, which means cut of maybe 3-4 turns at most, but even then Ogma,thena and MU are doing the most fighting. So its possible to have a 15 Spd Ogma who doubles everything on chapter 4(bar the boss) without the RP, and 14 Spd is possible on average. But he surely doubles everything at base with an RP, so luck usually plays no factor.

In C4 most of the time you're gonna be rescuing someone to help with the rush near Ogma's group, so its very much possible for Ogma to use the RP if the rescued person has the RP in his inventory. No doubts over here. In my draft I rescued SM MU but maybe it costs too many turns. In any case Ogma is very much usable if he can double stuff. Especially the hunters.

In C5 Myrmidon! Ogma doubles everything except the Sniper near the boss, and if he got a spd proc, then with an RP he can double the sniper too(its not really needed though IMO) Those bases look good on him right now.

In C6 Ogma can double the knights without a spd proc as a myrmidon, and needs a spd proc as a merc(basically, anything above 13 spd). With 17 spd as a myrmidon he can double even the mages(not like you're ever gonna do that with him). This is awesome because he can use the armourslayer, and yeah, an armourslayer user who can double is awesome. I believe only Luke could pull off something like that, but it depends on him having C swords and having similar stats to Ogma(in my draft Cecille is lvl 9 and she's still stuck with D swords so yeah)

Finally in C8 as long as he has sufficient spd, he can double the generals with an armourslayer(if you trained him he'll usually have enough) This is better than whatever Cain and Frey can do, and DEFINITELY Roger.

Roger's base spd as a myrmidon is 18 but he has E swords and a trained Ogma can usually match that along with having possibly B swords. Not only that but Roger needs a couple of levels until promotion while Ogma at that point can promote. So Roger is out.

Cain's base spd is the same as Ogma's but he has better lance rank and comes 4 chapters later. Don't see how he's winning anything over here.

Frey isn't ever competing with Ogma wrt sword ranks, and comes at lvl 8. He can't even use an armourslayer. And before you say Dragonpike, Wyrmslayer exists.

So Navarre is the only actual competition to Ogma. He comes with similar growths, same weapon rank, but has better bases. Well, you had C 4,5 and 6 and possibly prologue to use Ogma, so that's situational. Ogma has better availability and therefore wins. Oh and Tiki comes late and her bases are horrible but I guess its for dragon slaying? Still pretty late though : S

Long story short- Ogma's solid bases at join time and earlier availability make him better than the other growth units that are in his same slot. If in my draft he could gain 7 lvls, the in an LTC it could be reduced to 4-5. That's still good enough to give him the statistical advantage over the other units and therefore, I think he should be moved to Upper Mid below Leiden/Virgil.

[-Cynthia-]

Isn't an efficient choice of MU somewhat influential upon how much experience the rest of the characters get in the Prologue chapters? For example, an Archer MU has to rely on other units moreso than the other MUs, which makes Ryan/Luke/Rody better as they end up growing more. Similarly, Knight MU really slows down the completion of P-2 (can't make the AI attack MU instead of Ryan because of the defence difference and therefore no counter on enemy phase).

This is true- Luke is a lot more useful with a weaker MU than he is with a stronger one. Since the list doesn't seem to assume a specific MU, Luke's peoisiton might be warranted.

[dondon151]

Isn't an efficient choice of MU somewhat influential upon how much experience the rest of the characters get in the Prologue chapters?

yes, but it doesn't affect their tier position

let's say that luke is worse because MU is better. that also means that rody gets worse as well. cecile too, but slightly less so. so luke > rody > cecile is preserved. and there's a couple of units in between, but draug also gets worse (draug blows anyway) and minerva probably doesn't even deserve to be in that tier. she's so bad on this difficulty.

[Paperblade]

Well yeah. Lke with Myrm or Fighter MU I tend to find that MU gets a lopsided amount of exp. Cav MU is one of the more flexible since you naturally just kinda have +2 speed after P-2 due to the nature of how Cav MU short turns them. After that though, like with P-3 you're pretty free on how you distribute exp. Like, I've gone into P-4 with a level 4 MU, or I got a level on Ryan, or Rody. Luke I think could get a level too, r be near enough one that he can manipulate one in P-4 anyways.

You can't just assume units are getting RNG blessed because that's what they need to be on par with alternatives

[grandjackal]

You can't just assume units are getting RNG blessed because that's what they need to be on par with alternatives

It's a single point of speed of "being blessed", sine you love to cry over spilt milk over it. A very easy to control issue since P-1 and 2 you basically can't screw up.

Besides, currently we consider Fighter MU the best. Getting this innocent point is peanuts compared Fighter having a much wider chance of missing generally anything.

[Paperblade]

I don't consider Fighter the best for that very reason

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Quick note: Prologue turncounts don't count since they lean exceedingly on the performance of MU to be reasonable. This doesn't mean we're going nuts and taking 15 turns on every prologue chapter to get perfect stuff, but I don't think that "luke down because specific mu does specific thing" is valid. Also, this is the best way to actually validate "no specific mu is assumed", since some of the less effective MUs are going to get absolutely wrecked in Prologue. Whether they're terrible in the rest of the game is another story.

This is similar to saying that while Lyn Mode performance is discounted in FE7, we still assume it's played and that its benefits are available to characters equally reasonably.

(ooh ooh does this mean we can finally drop Athena into free silvers?)

I'd also like to point out how much I like HORSEBIRD's post here. The amount of EXP given to non-MU units is inversely proportional to how much MU can take for himself, but in general it hurts all prologue characters about evenly. I happen to disagree on Draug and Minerva, but that's a question for another post.

[PKL]

I find Draug awful in H3. Minerva is useful because of Dragonpike, Hammer and Hauteclere but shes also kinda awful beyond that.

[grandjackal]

I'm willing to take the prologue not being tightly ruled as a valid point.

I find Draug awful in H3. Minerva is useful because of Dragonpike, Hammer and Hauteclere but shes also kinda awful beyond that.

Well if I can find a way to get Draug a point of speed in prologue, I think Draug will actually be pretty great. I mean, he's already pretty useful past prologue, but I would disagree on the awful part.

As for Minerva being awful......You're just wrong.

[dondon151]

minerva is basically just sirius without the earlygame and without the freedom and weapon ranks to switch between more classes. i love minerva as a character but she definitely blows pretty hard on H3. she needs to receive a whole slew of stat boosters just to stay usable for the endgame and that does not constitute a high tier character (or one that is above cecile).

she actually even sucks pretty badly on H2 without being fed a bunch of stat boosters.

draug looks good on paper, but i can't quite put my finger on why he just never works out. it's a combination of his durability not being very good, being not quite fast enough in classes he'd prefer to stay in such as cavalier, and lack of reclass options when unpromoted.

(also sirius still hasn't dropped yet)

[Blademaster!]

Maybe this isn't the best place to ask this, as it is more of an advice question, but how do you factor the need to bring Sirius, Minerva, Julian, and Merric into the final chapter to recruit the 4 clerics? Does this add to any need to use them more so that they don't drag down your team in the final chapter at all? Do you kill someone off and then bring them back in the final chapter with the Aum staff to help make up for this (that is how the Aum staff works right? They come back to life in the chapter you use it allowing for an extra unit to participate)? Or is it just something not worrying about?

[dondon151]

aum is inaccessible in H3

[-Cynthia-]

Maybe this isn't the best place to ask this, as it is more of an advice question, but how do you factor the need to bring Sirius, Minerva, Julian, and Merric into the final chapter to recruit the 4 clerics? Does this add to any need to use them more so that they don't drag down your team in the final chapter at all? Do you kill someone off and then bring them back in the final chapter with the Aum staff to help make up for this (that is how the Aum staff works right? They come back to life in the chapter you use it allowing for an extra unit to participate)? Or is it just something not worrying about?

I don't believe any of them need to be trained to recruit any of the Endgame bishops, so it doesn't seem like much of a factor. Merric providing a support bonus to Marth for Medeus is nice though (and is in fact one of the only reasons to use Merric period).

Minerva isn't great outside of Hammer, Dragonpike, and Hauteclare, but the OHKOs from these things give her enough use in midgame to be an acceptable SM/Sniper by Endgame. She's not as good as Palla or Catria but she's already below them. She also provides a support bonus to Palla and Catria which is a nice bonus.

As for Draug- what do people usually class him as? I was finding his offense, even with doubling, pretty substandard at base because in most classes he starts with E rank. I didn't get him any level in Prologue though, because I was playing Prologue chapters for speed+reliability and found Ogma more helpful for clearing P-7 and P-8.

[Blademaster!]

aum is inaccessible in H3

You actually just can't obtain it? I didn't see anything on the site to suggest that before like with the silver card...

[Espinosa]

I still can't make sense out of Luke's AI behaviour against Fighter MU right now, after experimenting with it for a few days. It's not terribly unlikely that Luke picks his target based on MU's past/present/future, his facial features or even his first level-up. I'm also surprised that during not a single one of these attempts I've seen MU whiff either of the two attacks against Luke, and I've hit him a lot by now.

Sage says that whom Luke attacks is random, but it's always the same when I restart from the chapter save, yet different depending on the playthrough. Can't figure out all the laws behind it at all.

[Dark Sage]

Minerva isn't great outside of Hammer, Dragonpike, and Hauteclare, but the OHKOs from these things give her enough use in midgame to be an acceptable SM/Sniper by Endgame. She's not as good as Palla or Catria but she's already below them. She also provides a support bonus to Palla and Catria which is a nice bonus.

Minerva only OHKOs stuff if she gets all the strength boosting shards. Even then the only stuff she OHKOs is like, Dark Mages. Granted that's pretty useful since Dark Mages hit really hard but still.

Also Minerva blows as a Swordmaster because her strength is too low while she kind of blows as a Sniper because her speed isn't good enough.

As for Draug- what do people usually class him as?

Hunter Draug and Pirate Draug are pretty common options. Hunter allows him to avoid taking counters while Pirate Draug is useful for doing strategies that would only be possible with a Fighter MU. He's still extremely flawed in them though. His exp gain is pretty slow as a Hunter and he gets wrecked defensively as a Pirate without any sort of durability boost. And in both cases he only has Iron to work with.

[LeaderR Elliot]

I still can't make sense out of Luke's AI behaviour against Fighter MU right now, after experimenting with it for a few days. It's not terribly unlikely that Luke picks his target based on MU's past/present/future, his facial features or even his first level-up. I'm also surprised that during not a single one of these attempts I've seen MU whiff either of the two attacks against Luke, and I've hit him a lot by now.

Sage says that whom Luke attacks is random, but it's always the same when I restart from the chapter save, yet different depending on the playthrough. Can't figure out all the laws behind it at all.

I experimented with fighter My unit.

I placed ryan on the fort below and fighter!my unit next to ryan (left) basically between luke and ryan, and luke went directly towards my unit... not sure if anyone wants to check if this placing has to to something, or if luke attacks the one who moved first...

[dondon151]

Sage says that whom Luke attacks is random, but it's always the same when I restart from the chapter save, yet different depending on the playthrough. Can't figure out all the laws behind it at all.

it's dependent on MU's durability relative to ryan's. in general i think luke will attack MU if MU's def is lower than ryan's, give or take a point because of the effects of the weapon triangle. so if MU goes fighter, myrm, merc, etc. then luke will attack MU (obviously dependent on past/present/future in addition to the prologue level up), whereas armor MU will never be attacked by luke, which is why armor MU takes an extra turn on the chapter.

You actually just can't obtain it? I didn't see anything on the site to suggest that before like with the silver card...

the aum staff is in a chest that is only accessible by warp/thief. however, an enemy covers the chest, so you can't use thief on it. hence you have to use warp, and warp doesn't exist in H3.

Minerva isn't great outside of Hammer, Dragonpike, and Hauteclare, but the OHKOs from these things give her enough use in midgame to be an acceptable SM/Sniper by Endgame. She's not as good as Palla or Catria but she's already below them. She also provides a support bonus to Palla and Catria which is a nice bonus.

she's not "acceptable." dark sage has already pointed out that minerva's str blows as SM and she's not usually fast enough as sniper (plus she's still kind of weak). so in order to make her any sort of long-term unit, minerva needs to eat at least some combination of energy drop and speedwings, plus whatever she needs to fix deficiencies in other areas.

As for Draug- what do people usually class him as? I was finding his offense, even with doubling, pretty substandard at base because in most classes he starts with E rank. I didn't get him any level in Prologue though, because I was playing Prologue chapters for speed+reliability and found Ogma more helpful for clearing P-7 and P-8.

i always thought cavalier was best, but he probably likes a couple of spd procs in other classes first before going cavalier.

Edited December 18, 2012 by HORSEBlRD