FE7 HHM Unranked Tier List v4

[Geriba]

We already have a lot our plates here, so I hope I'm not adding too much by suggesting we raise Heath and Fiora to above Hawkeye and Geitz. Early promotions open up huge opportunities for both of them, and while Fiora serves as a Florina-lite (aka really really good), Heath secures an important niche as your sole offensive/tanky transporter until Vaida.

[dondon151]

Combat-wise, they're actually pretty mediocre. Good enough to destroy like, monks, but not anything else.

[Geriba]

Combat-wise, they're actually pretty mediocre. Good enough to destroy like, monks, but not anything else.

Sure, they're great mage killers, but I was referring more to their ferrying capabilities. Since we seem to be going in the direction that "killing things" isn't as useful as "letting the monsters Marcus/Sain/Kent/Raven kill most things while using utility units to their fullest," that only seems right. Heath, however, is pretty great offensively; his real weaknesses are low resistance and late recruitment, and the former can be easily fixed with barrier/pure water.

[Colonel M]

*Grumble* We still need a play through where we get Geitz too...

*Crowd stares*

...What? You saw the figures. I'd have to take turns to get Geitz. Like a lot. <_<

[Life]

- Good god, don't fucking argue with mods in this topic. Simply by posting here you agree to subject yourself to the rules and the decisions of the moderators. Don't like it? Head back to whatever sad little hole spawned your dullardry.

I called Narga a "patronizing fuck" and will gladly do again (if he ever sets me up as nicely as the last time). So?

That being said, arguing about trivial stuff like what rules you broke and what you didn't isn't going to get you far, to be honest.

EDIT: I expect a warn for that comment but fuck Narga, it was such a perfect set-up.

Edited January 17, 2011 by King Russell Hantz

[Narga_Rocks]

I called Narga a "patronizing fuck" and will gladly do again (if he ever sets me up as nicely as the last time). So?

That being said, arguing about trivial stuff like what rules you broke and what you didn't isn't going to get you far, to be honest.

EDIT: I expect a warn for that comment but fuck Narga, it was such a perfect set-up.

But you did it in fftf. If you'd done it here, and not in a situation where I was intentionally misinterpreting what you were saying (in an amusing way, btw) then the results would have been different.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

HOLY CRAP A POST

Okay, I'm going to say some things here that will be semi-obvious and some that will be slightly contentious.

1: Florina above Lowen. Potentially just having Florina and Lowen switch places, since I honestly think Sain and Kent have a full tier gap between them and Lowen.

2: Raven down to immediately above Florina, below Priscilla and Ninils. Potentially down to top of High, either above or below Serra. Let's face it, being Sword-locked in the chapters after his join hurts, and being a long 5 levels away from promotion really hurts him.

3: Potentially questionable, but... Lyn moved up to just below Guy. I'd say that the two are fairly comparable, but Lyn ties / beats in Strength if she gets the Ring or is almost equally durable if she gets the Robe, but she ORKOs Cavaliers right out of the gate and can actually hurt Knights. Promotion really opens up the gap, as access to 2 range (especially 2 range with eff mt against the most common lategame enemy) as well as awesome promotion bonuses (+3 HP / +3 Def / +5 Res) makes her pretty solid. Meanwhile, Guy has to wrest the Hero Crest out of Raven's hands, which is no small feat considering how much better Raven is than him (and how dependent Raven is on said promotion). Lyn also has at least one usable support while Guy's basically hung out to dry there. I'd say that the two should be adjacent, and Lyn's still good enough to be above Dorcas/Dart and a tier up on Eliwood.

4: Bartre down to the top of Lower Mid, Dorcas down to the top of Middle. Neither of them is very usable outside of their short shining moments of "acceptable" earlygame.

Hopefully this'll foster a bit of discussion. If you've got any other ideas about what should be done with the tier list, fire away.

[Janissary]

Why isn't Nino top tier? This is unranked, so we can feed her all the kills she needs to be a beast and not suffer for it.

[Smiley Jim]

Why isn't Nino top tier? This is unranked, so we can feed her all the kills she needs to be a beast and not suffer for it.

Actually, I think she's fine where she is because Nino forces the player to slow down and feed her kills. The whole point of efficiency is to get a low turn count, and in order to give Nino, a Lv5 MAGE, the absurd amount of kills needed just to get her to 20/1, you'd basically have to have her kill reinforcements in NoF and Cog, which of course costs us turns as we'd have to stall out until reinforcements arrived, not to mention that Cog is not a map that you want to stay on for too long. Even something like 15/1 is pushing it.

And besides, why waste time with her when Pent basically does the same shit and more for absolutely free, with no opportunity cost?

[samthedigital]

Potentially questionable, but... Lyn moved up to just below Guy. I'd say that the two are fairly comparable, but Lyn ties / beats in Strength if she gets the Ring or is almost equally durable if she gets the Robe, but she ORKOs Cavaliers right out of the gate and can actually hurt Knights.

I can see Lyn getting the Robe, but it's not very efficient for her to get the Ring; only Florina can really get it in time, and she sacrifices a turn to use it in the first place. If you sacrifice a few turns for her to get the Ring it should be more than justifiable to steal the Hero's Crest on New Resolve for Guy sacrificing one turn.

Just as a note, I don't think time should be wasted getting any of the two items, but anyone with the LHM Energy Ring shouldn't be assumed really.

Edited July 10, 2011 by samthedigital

[Ardan]

Why isn't Nino top tier? This is unranked, so we can feed her all the kills she needs to be a beast and not suffer for it.

there's still a heavy (if not heavier) emphasis on turn count and combined with the fact she still has limited availability, there isn't much reward for training her. Infact, iirc she's worse here as she loses her exp rank contribution which was like the only reason for touching her in ranked iirc.

[Florete]

I think Janissary was joking.

HOLY CRAP A POST

Okay, I'm going to say some things here that will be semi-obvious and some that will be slightly contentious.

1: Florina above Lowen. Potentially just having Florina and Lowen switch places, since I honestly think Sain and Kent have a full tier gap between them and Lowen.

2: Raven down to immediately above Florina, below Priscilla and Ninils. Potentially down to top of High, either above or below Serra. Let's face it, being Sword-locked in the chapters after his join hurts, and being a long 5 levels away from promotion really hurts him.

3: Potentially questionable, but... Lyn moved up to just below Guy. I'd say that the two are fairly comparable, but Lyn ties / beats in Strength if she gets the Ring or is almost equally durable if she gets the Robe, but she ORKOs Cavaliers right out of the gate and can actually hurt Knights. Promotion really opens up the gap, as access to 2 range (especially 2 range with eff mt against the most common lategame enemy) as well as awesome promotion bonuses (+3 HP / +3 Def / +5 Res) makes her pretty solid. Meanwhile, Guy has to wrest the Hero Crest out of Raven's hands, which is no small feat considering how much better Raven is than him (and how dependent Raven is on said promotion). Lyn also has at least one usable support while Guy's basically hung out to dry there. I'd say that the two should be adjacent, and Lyn's still good enough to be above Dorcas/Dart and a tier up on Eliwood.

4: Bartre down to the top of Lower Mid, Dorcas down to the top of Middle. Neither of them is very usable outside of their short shining moments of "acceptable" earlygame.

Hopefully this'll foster a bit of discussion. If you've got any other ideas about what should be done with the tier list, fire away.

1. Agreed. Why isn't she already? Wait, why isn't she in Top?

2. Agreed. Good, but not *that* good.

3. Definitely. I've always felt that Lyn is very underrated and have never found Guy to be superior aside from his availability, so this works for me.

4. No opinion.

[frat_tastic]

Yeah, I'm thinking Florina should move up to Top for sure. If she goes there, I think Fiora needs to go up to High also.

Agreed on Lyn being adjacent to Guy. They both would seem awfully high at that point, although I don't really have a suggestion on where to put them.

[Mekkah]

1. Don't move Lowen out of the tier with Kent/Sain. Sain and Kent have slightly better stats, but Lowen has important utility earlygame to offset it.

2. Stating Raven's disadvantages have already been taken into account for where he is. There is no point in stating them again to change his relative position. Everyone below Raven is worse than him at either combat or availability anyway (other than like, Oswin and Hector), even with swordlock taken into account. Move Priscilla and Florina above him, maybe, but that's starting to smell awfullly like horse humping and putting a lot of emphasis on as-low-tc-as-possible strategies.

3. Don't forget the opportunity cost of the robe and the ring. And even without that, Guy has some earlygame availability. Lyn above Legault Dorcas Dart is fine I guess as long as she doesn't go above Guy ever.

4. Don't really care about the axe guys. 20/1 Dorcas beats 5/0 Raven though.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

re: horse-humping

I said it earlier in this thread, but regardless of whether you're going low-TC or merely efficiency, having a horse and more movement does a lot to make a unit good. The more movement a unit has, the easier it is to get it into the right position, both defensively and offensively. Priscilla is the most versatile healer because she'll be able to reach your whole army in slower runthroughs and keep up with your cavaliers in faster runthroughs. Flight adds another advantage by allowing you to attack from angles that are normally closed off, regardless of whether or not it's the fastest or most direct approach. I know there's this stigma of "high mov units are only good if you want to rush" but that's absolutely not true.

As for other stuff: Lyn probably isn't going above Guy ever, since he's still better than her in combat until she promotes and has more earlygame utility.

Lowen's "important earlygame utility" is questionable- his earlygame consists of mopping up after Marcus. It's his midgame, where he can be promoted early and used as a freely extensible unit with mediocre offense and excellent defense, where he shines. That said, Lowen doesn't have much longevity. He's either not promoted at which point you drop him for Kent (since Sain is probably LM promoted), or he is promoted, in which case his offense never really catches up and he is, again, dropped for Kent after the second Knight Crest. His midgame is good, but not great, and he's just not that interesting at any point in the game. Playing second fiddle to the god trio of Marcus Hector Oswin does not "important utility earlygame" make, and getting benched as soon as Sain/Kent show up or benched once his promotion shiny wears off should definitely put him a tier down.

re: Raven. His combat is overkill, his start is mediocre, and his performance is probably the most replicatable of any unit in top tier. Consider the other units in the tier. Nobody shows up and essentially replicates his performance and/or wipes the floor with any of those characters like Raven. All the high tier units stand out in some way- horses and great stats, early flight and a solid starting level, mounted staves, thief utility, dancing. Raven has "i hit stuf gud" and while he indeed hits stuff probably the best in the game, it's not enough to keep him in top tier IMO. 5/6 move offense isn't something we have a dearth of in this game. Flying combat, mounts, mounted healing, dancing, thieving? Different story.

[Life]

re: Raven. His combat is overkill, his start is mediocre, and his performance is probably the most replicatable of any unit in top tier. Consider the other units in the tier. Nobody shows up and essentially replicates his performance and/or wipes the floor with any of those characters like Raven. All the high tier units stand out in some way- horses and great stats, early flight and a solid starting level, mounted staves, thief utility, dancing. Raven has "i hit stuf gud" and while he indeed hits stuff probably the best in the game, it's not enough to keep him in top tier IMO. 5/6 move offense isn't something we have a dearth of in this game. Flying combat, mounts, mounted healing, dancing, thieving? Different story.

I feel like you're turning into dondon. As in "growth unit? BADDDDDDDDDD!" style.

Raven's "i hit stuf gud" is the only "i destroy everything from 1~2 range" unit that we have aside from Marcus (who does not keep this ability for long) and Sain (who's had a ridiculous headstart on Raven). This is clearly a significant bonus that only Raven has. Observe.

Raven at 12/1 has 14 Str and 20 Spd, a level very easily obtainable when you realize that Raven has WTA against level 17ish pirates in his first real chapter (70 Exp per kill alone) and then faces a boatload (no pun intended) of Mercs in his second. Hand Axe gives him 21 Atk and 17 AS which is very respectable. Raven's ORKOing Iron Sword 28 HP, 6 Def Cavs from a distance. This is two chapters after we've gotten him and yes, with a bit of babying but it's not like it's not worth it. We're not asking something unreasonable, just fielding a good sword user in an axe heavy chapter and then fielding a good unit with some decent defensive parameters (33 HP, 7 Def at level 10) in the following chapter.

Please name me another unit that comes even close to the amount of RAPE RAPE RAPE that Raven can deliver? Marcus and Sain (only if the latter was promoted)? So great, two units that either start out as a god (Marcus) or has a major headstart on Raven are beating him at 2 range offense. Everyone else doesn't even come close.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Kitty Admiral

[-Cynthia-]

Well there's Pent and Harken, but Raven's significantly more available than them.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I think you forgot how shitty standard enemy units in this game are. Attack speed is on average 7 or 8 for the vast majority of the game- the only units that break it are Mercenaries (11-12) and the few promoted units that you see throughout the game, like Heroes and Wyvern Lords. 20 speed is cute and all until you realize that anything more than 12-16 is more than you'll need for the entire game.

As for the pirates in the center of 17x, that's dicey- there's one pirate with a Swordslayer that will maul him, as well as a Killer Bow Archer, Nosferatu Shaman, and Elfire Mage there. The Killer Bow Archer is the biggest problem, since again, Raven has *2* Luck, and that guy has 50 hit and 34 crit on him for a 17% chance of death even if Raven is on a forest tile. Meanwhile, checking the enemy data- those pirates have 35-36 HP and 5-6 Def. Even with WTA and the best weapon Raven has available (Guy's Killing Edge), that's 20 Atk. He still doesn't ORKO them without a crit. Claiming Raven is getting all those kills is not happening, especially because even with the forest tile there's still a frighteningly high chance of death for Raven, and that's only if the Swordslayer is completely out of the picture. The likelihood is either Raven is getting all the kills on the top path or 1-2 kills in the middle tops. That still leaves him a long 3 levels away from promotion at best.

As for murdering everything at 2 range, sure. His combat is good. His combat is actually downright great. It's still the only replaceable combat in the game. Hawkeye with a Wing can take advantage of that whole "everything has 7-8 speed" thing and double / orko everything. Harken is a better Raven as soon as he shows up. Pent blows *everything* up at 2 range AND can heal. Most any of your mages will be ORKOing eventually. A trained Heath can probably twoshot enemies at range. And that's still ignoring the fact that Kent will get there eventually, and Marcus and Sain are doing it all game long. And no, Marcus does *not* slow down. No unit ever shows up and completely replicates the best asset of any other top tier unit. There's no shortage of units that do that for Raven.

[Life]

As for murdering everything at 2 range, sure. His combat is good. His combat is actually downright great. It's still the only replaceable combat in the game. Hawkeye with a Wing can take advantage of that whole "everything has 7-8 speed" thing and double / orko everything. Harken is a better Raven as soon as he shows up. Pent blows *everything* up at 2 range AND can heal. Most any of your mages will be ORKOing eventually. A trained Heath can probably twoshot enemies at range. And that's still ignoring the fact that Kent will get there eventually, and Marcus and Sain are doing it all game long. And no, Marcus does *not* slow down. No unit ever shows up and completely replicates the best asset of any other top tier unit. There's no shortage of units that do that for Raven.

Hawkeye with a wing doesn't show up until Chapter 24 to be exact since he's going to be used for wall destroying in 23x. Pent is only available at 26. Most of my mages that will be ORKOing will not be on the frontlines like Raven is due to trash durability (13/1 Lucius has a whopping 25 HP and 5 Def, for example). A trained Heath shows up in 22 AND needs to be fed a lot of kills at this point. Kent is never going to be ORKOing stuff like Cavs from 2 range since Kent isn't hitting 14 Str until 20/0, possibly 20/1, even if he has the speed.

You're vastly underestimating how good Raven is at his combat job. A promoted Raven with the stats to murder anything shows up for Chapter 19 at the earliest. That's a full 4 chapters before then next guy (Heath) appears and Heath still needs to be babied a lot more just to match Raven (Heath won't have the required Speed until 14/1 at the earliest and that's assuming that we're going to promote him over one of the Pegs). Let's face it, nobody can properly match Raven in his combat ability and availability. Or does the fact that Raven shows up in the early midgame while Hawkeye and Pent appear at the start of the endgame mean nothing?

Edited July 11, 2011 by Kitty Admiral

[Florete]

Hawkeye with a wing doesn't show up until Chapter 24 to be exact since he's going to be used for wall destroying in 23x.

Hawkeye with a Wing doesn't show up until 27 Kenneth at the soonest since that's when we actually get our first Wing.

[Life]

Hawkeye with a Wing doesn't show up until 27 Kenneth at the soonest since that's when we actually get our first Wing.

Thank you, even better.

So that means that the first person to equal Raven's chapter 18 offense is... Heath in chapter 24 (he gets murdered in 23, flight is useless in 23x) ASSUMING that Florina doesn't get promoted. She probably doesn't but that's still a long ways away. Not to mention that Raven's moved on to better stuff by now.

Dropping Raven out of Top is flat out silly.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Way to completely ignore the part where you made a huge claim about Raven's levelling ability that happened to be complete bullshit.

His durability is questionable at best in Pirate Ship, and when he's ORKOing that just means he gets exposed to the perfect number of enemies to kill him. Then we have the low-density Chapter 19, the Knight/Mage hell of 19x (and no he's not promoted by then), and cav hell of 20. I think you're overestimating how quickly Raven levels.

And sure, there's about 4 chapters where Raven is the third best combat on your team (behind Marcus and Sain, since yes, I consider movement a combat stat), and then a slew of characters that can completely replace him show up. I'm not underestimating his combat at all. I'm just stating that he's replaceable at little to no cost, and not using him doesn't deny you access to awesome 1-2 range combat later in the game.

[chococoke]

His durability is questionable at best in Pirate Ship, and when he's ORKOing that just means he gets exposed to the perfect number of enemies to kill him. Then we have the low-density Chapter 19, the Knight/Mage hell of 19x (and no he's not promoted by then), and cav hell of 20. I think you're overestimating how quickly Raven levels.

Chapter 19 isn't that bad for Raven, there are a number of spots where Pirates show up where you can just place him and have him raep a few enemies.

As for 19x, you seem to be forgetting about a few Pegasus Knights with axereavers that aggro at the beginning of the map. Raven+Sword+Mountain = many dead pegasi, and a few levels for him.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Ah, so I am. Completely forgot about the Axereaver Pegasi. Okay, I'll accept him promoted by 20. Still doesn't hurt my case.

[General Banzai]

This list looks pretty good, somewhat surprisingly.

My main question though is what is Rath doing in mid tier?