FE7 HHM Unranked Tier List v4

[Radiant Dragon]

I agree with Cynthia that Sain is not that much better than Kent to warrant being a whole tier over him. To be honest, I think having one unit in a tier of their own is petty semantics anyway.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Sain promotes at 13 in Lyn Mode and is Marcus but better from 16 on. Kent is limping along with questionable strength until promotion time, and even after promoting doesn't even come close to matching him.

There's definitely a tier difference there.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Seven Deadly Sins

[-Cynthia-]

Sain being at 12/10 by Genesis is not an unlikely proposition. In fact, in my HHM playthrough, that's exactly the level Sain's at (with B in axes to boot).

Yeah I mostly rely on Marcus and Sain to do all the heavy lifting. What of it?

I question the efficiency there. Assume 12/2 Sain exiting Lyn Mode, that's 11 levels in 8 chapters- which is a lot considering 18 is 2 turned 17x and 21 are probably 3 turned, we're probably not taking Sain to 23 etc., and he's promoted to boot (which means his exp gain per enemy is pretty low).

Sain's better than Marcus?

--/4 Marcus

33 HP 16 Str 12 AS 10 Def 9 Res

12/2 Sain

31 HP 16 Str 12 AS 10 Def 3 Res

2 HP, 6 Res, B/A instead of E Axes, A swords instead of probably D swords (C tops), A lances instead of at best B lances. Sain does eke out some leads eventually, but saying he's a "better Marcus" is misleading.

Kent's Mt is often sufficient for the task. For example, 12/2 Kent with a Steel Lance ORKOs all the Archers, Cavaliers and magic users (can also OHKO some thieves). Using a Javelin, he can counter and ORKO some of the Nomads (they range from 8-11 AS).

Sain's additional Mt allows him to ORKO the Knights (which Kent can do with the Heavy Lance anyway), and get the OHKO on the one myrm and one of the thieves. He can't KO as many of the Nomads here( he can borderline OHKO with the Steel Lance). Defensively Sain has 31 HP, 10 Def, 3 Res vs. Kent's 32 HP, 10 Def, 5 Res- pretty much identical.

Long story short, Sain's Str lead looks pretty, but FE7 enemies are generally so easy to ORKO it's not actually that big of a deal breaker.

Edited September 11, 2011 by -Cynthia-

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Someone hasn't been reading.

READ THIS POST BEFORE YOU DISCUSS KENT VS SAIN FURTHER

Granted, 13/2 is a more stable level, but I achieved 14/2 in my first playthrough, which was done with an efficient LM turncount.

[Dark Sage]

I question the efficiency there. Assume 12/2 Sain exiting Lyn Mode, that's 11 levels in 8 chapters- which is a lot considering 18 is 2 turned 17x and 21 are probably 3 turned, we're probably not taking Sain to 23 etc., and he's promoted to boot (which means his exp gain per enemy is pretty low).

What's wrong with that? Sain and Marcus are just so flat out awesome that it's not that farfetched for them to see that much combat. As I said Sain might be at 12/10 by Genesis, so that means that he gains 8 levels in around 9 chapters (19xx and 23 not counted obviously), or around 8/9 of a level per map. Sounds reasonable to me.

Sain's better than Marcus?

Nobody said anything of the sort.

[dondon151]

What's wrong with that? Sain and Marcus are just so flat out awesome that it's not that farfetched for them to see that much combat. As I said Sain might be at 12/10 by Genesis, so that means that he gains 8 levels in around 9 chapters (19xx and 23 not counted obviously), or around 8/9 of a level per map. Sounds reasonable to me.

That doesn't actually sound that reasonable to me. I had Marcus at 3.99 before chapter 16 and 11.84 before chapter 23x, which corresponds to 8 gained levels in the interim. That's the difference between 12/2 Sain in chapter 16 and 12/10 Sain before chapter 23x. The difference here is that Sain has had to share EXP with Marcus for all of the maps between chapters 16 and 23x, meaning there's no way he should be able to gain the same amount of levels in that time frame compared to a paladin solo.

A lot of Marcus's gained EXP came from bosskills as well (Bernard, Zoldam, Uhai, Aion, Darin, Eubans), so he and Sain would both lose maybe 2 levels each if they had to split the bosskills. Then maybe 1 more level from splitting generic enemy kills.

[-Cynthia-]

Sain promotes at 13 in Lyn Mode and is Marcus but better from 16 on. Kent is limping along with questionable strength until promotion time, and even after promoting doesn't even come close to matching him.

^ This

Like I said before, low turning hurts the amount of EXP Sain gains per chapter, particularly since as dondon said, he's probably sharing kills with Marcus. Unlike Marcus's earlygame chapters, Sain isn't clearing 80% of the map by himself in any chapter he's in.

@comparison I've read it before. Notice that in most cases, Kent is still ORKOing most of the enemies (save Knights, but he could use the Heavy Spear for that). The issue isn't Sain>Kent, it's whether Sain's combat leads actually constitute a tier's worth of difference and their combat on C17 at least looks fairly similar to me. I also don't see how getting Steel weapons is a problem, Sain/Kent generally aren't much help in clearing C16 anyway and we could have Lyn or Wil shop if necessary.

[Anouleth]

Well, there were places where other units like Oswin and Canas took kills that otherwise could have gone to Sain. For example, using Oswin to take out the mounted unit pile in Chapter 20. Ordinarily, those kills would have gone to either Marcus or Sain.

[Dark Sage]

Why isn't Merlinus on the tier list?

He should be high tier at minimum.

[Espinosa]

Merlinus should be added to the Tire Tier.

[Dark Sage]

Merlinus should be added to the Tire Tier.

B-b-but

Tires don exits

Edited April 9, 2013 by Tyrant Sage