FE8 draft tier list

[eclipse]

Also even for Eir I would espouse Duessel up over at least Rennac. If Rennac can be used by people who haven't drafted him in the desert (please verify?) that's like all his value gone there. And plus there's that trick that gives you 100% item finding rate in the desert. What is Rennac doing past that? There's nothing really for him to steal at that point in the game that's going to make a difference. Meanwhile Duessel can take on like the entire bottom half in C15 and then makes for way better filler combat than Rennac for C18.

Alright, since I can sort of use Rennac and can't use Duessel for beans, here goes.

Rennac and Duessel are doing about the same thing on Chapter 16 (bait, maybe), though Duessel's slightly better at rescue-dropping. On Chapter 17, Rennac can cross the river and get a hit on the Heroes if he REALLY wants to - Duessel, can, uh, go shopping. On Chapter 18, Rennac gives zero shits about trap tiles or the jerkface that spawns with Horseslayer (I usually have him go north, then east; oddly enough, didn't find the lack of 2-range on Rennac to be a hindrance here, since he's popping eggs). Rennac's final uses are C19 (Torch) and the first part of final (if you're unable to finish Lyon before turn 3, he can grab the Angelic Robe, which usually goes to Eir).

In the last draft that I participated in, Cormag was unrecruited FSR.

[PKL]

I wouldn't draft Joshua ever. Kinda like Marissa and Cormag. Of course, its just because they cost turns, not because Joshua is THAT bad.

EDIT: Actually, Joshua can be recruited without a turncost with some (most) teams. But I dislike using more brain cells than I need to beat the chapter, so...Joshua doesnt actually have very good combat or 1-2 and has no mount move though, so he's not amazing even if recruited.

Edited June 24, 2014 by PKL

[General Horace]

joshua never costs turns

just use seth

he's pretty good in chapter 9 and 12 at the very least.

Edited June 24, 2014 by General Horace

[King Marth]

Again, excuse my ignorance, but is Amelia ever saving turns?

[General Horace]

she gets to be a cavalier in chapter 10

she's not all that much worse than kyle/forde.

[Refa]

If you draft Kyle and Forde, you can save a turn in Chapter 5x whooooooooooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh~

[BBM]

not as good as drafting Kent and Sain

[PKL]

joshua never costs turns

just use seth

he's pretty good in chapter 9 and 12 at the very least.

Requires use of brain. Dont like that. :P

[Elieson]

Dozla has hand axes hurp. He competes with farm too. He's not bad considering his recruitment time involves a bunch of quick clears and gorgon egg killers are never in high enough supply. OK, Dozla>Innes I support.

Colm over Natasha because earlier recruitment and doestn start at a piss poor level, offering more overall. Unless Natasha is your only warped, in which case, Saleh, Artur, Moulder and Lute are all gone already

[PKL]

I never quite realized theres only 3 good warpers in the game and FE8 draft have 4 people. Moulder is incredibly subpar compared to the others (the others have more mag potential because of ease of leveling)

[Refa]

Requires use of brain. Dont like that. :P

I don't get it, using Seth is actually the easiest way to beat any given level.

[PKL]

I don't get it, using Seth is actually the easiest way to beat any given level.

I know, but in the case of the undrafted Seth strat, you have to play it well or he's attacked.

[Hawk King]

Saleh and Lute moved above Tana; and Moulder and Natasha moved above Kyle, Forde, Gerik because warping saves that many turns.

Thoughts on Lute > Saleh?

Dozla's rout contributions and ability to go south on Chapter 14 to get the items all by himself keep him above Innes's minor sniper-ing.

Syrene moved out of bottom. Only Cormag and Marissa deserve that "honor".

Heres the thing with Joshua, I think he is garbage. Like bottom 5 bad. Although, most of my experience is with Vanessa teams so IDK what he might be able to do on the 3rd or 4th teams. In Chapter 7, if you have 2 units who can rescue Eirika, you can drop her in the river on turn 1, thus saving a turn. So Joshua has that going for him. Thoughts on Joshua going down to just above Rennac?

[General Horace]

lute > saleh easily

innes can easily get the chapter 14 items too, if not easier than dozla. all the mages but one will suicide on him at 2 range, dozla isn't doubled and actually has hit issues

but neither of them really do anything honestly, dozla is probably slightly more useful just because of his class

joshua is better than Innes and Dozla in rout chapters, he should probably be above them since he can help in the chapter 9 rout pretty well even at base level. His offence is either slightly worse (on a team with Franz/Nessie) or slightly better (on a team without) than Innes's, and he can actually counter. He's one of the better Caellach killers too, and he requires pretty much zero investment to do so, a lot of underleveled units struggle to double him (which is kinda sad...) and Joshua will have Audhulma access.

I still think Rennac is totally worthless. Sure he "helps" with the chapter 15 rout, but so does every non Syrene unit in the game, and almost everyone else (even somebody with awful combat like Colm) does it better. Nobody uses theives to get the boots/warp anyway, and while someone said he could be a torch in chapter 19. you have torch staves anyway, and if you don't well, you're doing it wrong. At least put him under Duessel. Syrene is probably better too just because she has more movement to kill eggs. He's probably not even recruited in Ephraim route either, getting L'Arachel through all those enemies is nigh impossible.

Edited June 24, 2014 by General Horace

[Elieson]

Joshua has almost exclusive access to the early game Armorslayer, and can do things like rescue Eirika for rescuechains early on, and help with clearing a path in the midgame chapters like against the chapter 9 mooks early on. He's probably one of the lower tier Hero Crest units, which is a lower tier thing all together bar GARcia, but he still has unique utility in dodgetanking and contributes in Rout chapters, like the desert and such. He's practically got sole access to Audhulma, and isn't a bad choice to use as a warp->Critkiller against Riev, and Calleach

Edited June 24, 2014 by Elieson

[Hawk King]

Im sticking strictly to Eirika route for placement. I guess I can add in Ephriam route for Cormag, Duessel, Rennac, Saleh, Innes and anyone else that changes alot. Other than Rennac, is anyone else Bottom tier material on Ephriam route? I've never gone Ephriam route in a draft.

I've used both Rennac and Duessel in Eirika though, and I think I would give Rennac the slight edge. I usually rout Chapter 15 before Duessel can even get over to do anything. And if you only have 1 staff user, Rennac using a torch in Chapter 19 is definitely needed. Especially if Moulder or Natasha is your warper.

Anyone else care to weigh in on Rennac VS Duessel?

[General Horace]

you definately don't need rennac to use torch. you could deploy undrafted colm and he'd give enough vision without using torch to warp somebody in range of riev

even something horrible like 14 magic moulder can 1 turn the chapter without the use of a torch staff or a torch itself.

duessel doesn't really do anything either, but at least you can warp him somewhere and he can not die and kill stuff reasonably well.

He's honestly not very good on Ephraim route aside from Phantom ship either. I'd say he's worse than Eirika route Gerik. You have no buisness going Eph route anyway without Cormag.

im not sure why we're arguing over the the last round picks anyway lol

forde should probably be over kyle since his base level is higher

Edited June 25, 2014 by General Horace

[Vorena]

Duessel

-S rank axes with 9 Devil axe uses and you get the Devil Axe for free anyway.

-Goddess Icon (who else is going to use it and what are you going to buy with it?) (21% backfire rate)

-Dunno about chapter 16 with his movement.

-Some enemies to kill in 17 near the snag (low turn map anyway)

-Chapter 18 for a few smashed gorgan eggs (1 warp usage to get him into place).

-Chapter 19 some units to help clear out.

-With all of that he should be at S Axes by now and can be the user for Garm if there is no other user for it.

-Final few chapters where monsters are rampant and he gets +5 speed now.

Rennac

-Open a couple of doors in ch14

-Help kill a couple of things

-Not really doing anything in 16 or 17

-Can take down a couple of gorgan eggs, but cannot really handle anything else on that map.

-1 turn torch maybe usage in ch 19

-What usage in the final few chapters without the strength to KO anything unless he got to use Audhulma?

Duessel above Rennac.

What is knoll doing exactly?

[Refa]

Summoning which helps distract long range tome users which happen to start appearing right after Knoll joins. Also I guess they can finish off eggs in Chapter 18 maybe. Also hilarious Rescue-drop strategies, although I'm not sure any of those actually save turns.

[Hawk King]

I split Low tier into Low and Bottom, and changed Bottom to "Unrecruited".

Duessel (Ephriam) moved down.

Forde over Kyle because LV lead and closer to doubling. Doubling > 1-2 STR lead.

Duessel over Rennac, although it really comes down to your team and how quickly Chapter 15 is cleared.

[Elieson]

Kyle has 1 Con over Forde, and Forde has 1 Spd over Kyle. For the time that they're both Cavaliers, Kyle is equally as fast as Forde if using Javelins and/or Steels of all kinds (and Horseslayers too I guess).

After they promote, Forde has 11 Con while Kyle has 12, and still it's just 1 spd difference between the two forever because of the 5% spd growth difference between the two of them. That means that Forde is 1Spd faster with a Javelin, Steel Sword, or Iron/Silver anythings.

By the time you're utilizing Silvers, their speed should be good enough that 1 is negligible. +2 Str and identical AS with Steel Lances doesn't scream "worse than Forde".

The only thing Forde really has going for him is the +1 level over Kyle, for closer promotion time.

[Vorena]

Assuming base.

5x

Soldiers - Both can 1RKO with steel lance.

Lvl 4 Fighters: 25-26 HP, 5-6 Spd, 3 Def

Neither can double with the iron sword. 3HKO with iron sword from both. Both can 2HKO with steel lance.

Lvl 4 Cavaliers: 24-25 HP, 7 Spd, 6-7 Def (iron sword)

Kyle can always 2HKO with steel lance while forde might depending upon def/hp stat.

Armor - Both 3HKO with Steel Lance and both double it.

Mage/Shaman/Monk

Both can 2HKO (forde cannot sometimes) with Javelin. Neither can double with iron sword.

Pretty much there is no difference between the two on 5x. I probably could go into stuff about them on chapter 8, but looking at enemy stats for AS Forde and Kyle will not be doubling anything significant in this chapter, so a +1 doubling speed is not very exceptional in those chapters while a +2 strength helps turn a 3HKO into a 2HKO.

I am not sure how many turns would be wasted to get to 10/1 by chapter 9 for either of them. But, after some time leveling up a +1 speed gets diminished in value and a +5% speed boost is not as significant. A +2 str lead and a 10% boost in strength is not as diminishing and again helps get those 3HKOs into 2HKOs. If Kyle can reach appropriate speed benchmarks, then any additional speed is not meaningful for Forde over Kyle.

I guess I would say how many turns are saved in not having to get an additional level up for Kyle to promote at 10/1 in chapter 9. Otherwise, I would say Kyle wins in the long wrong. Oh, I forgot about Kyle's shaky hit rates on bosses though.

[eclipse]

Okay, I'm fine with the new tier placement strategies (though my strategy with regards to Rennac is grab a bunch of Killing Edges and go to town).

I'm super-salty about Lute, but that's because she decided to flip me off in the last run, which put a huge damper on my strategy.

[Hawk King]

I just want to say that we shouldn't be using average stats here, but rather potential stats because lets face it, key units are always blessed in draft play. If they aren't, the player isnt trying hard enough. So units like Ewan, Amelia, and the warpers will generally have blessed stats. 100% growth is a bit absurd but stuff like 8/10 MAG procs for the warpers is kind of assumed.

I forgot about the CON difference with Kyle and Forde, but its really not that big a deal. With heavy weapons they have equal AS; with light weapons Forde has 1 higher AS.

Im thinking Lute should go up to Top tier. She is closer to Artur than she is to Saleh. Thoughts?

[General Horace]

She's pretty much Artur without chapter 4 access anyway. I agree. She has access to mageknight I guess too in case you get something dumb like lute/saleh