Finally making my own, personal, rating topic/tier list.

[Life]

Sage, I also don't hang around in the tier list topics learning every argument. I didn't know about Elincia's instrumental role in endgame. At the same time, I'm not sure it is worth more than a .5 increase. It is only one chapter of the two she's even around after all.

Elincia's Rescue staff shenanigans in the final 4 chapters is much better than what someone like Largo or Tauroneo can ever hope to achieve. In fact, it's even better than earlygame scrubs like Ilyana/Rolf/Sothe. If any of those three get ranked above her, you clearly don't understand how to use certain characters.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Bblader

[Snowy_One]

Elincia's Rescue staff shenanigans in the final 4 chapters is much better than what someone like Largo or Tauroneo can ever hope to achieve. In fact, it's even better than earlygame scrubs like Ilyana/Rolf/Sothe. If any of those three get ranked above her, you clearly don't understand how to use certain characters.

Alright. Fair enough. I'll raise her score. Not like I'm against it. I love Elincia and wish I had known better. I just don't want my love for a character to place them as higher or lower.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

when are volke and Elincia gonna be on the opening post?

[Snowy_One]

When I get some free time. Some idiot decided to forget to return some things tonight and I had to spend the night returning them.

[Brad Pitt]

I disagree with the Volke rating.. I used only two units in the endgame, Ike and Volke. (setting aside giffca as it was hard mode) Sent Ike after Bryce, then retreated a bit to wait for Ashnard to come. Volke had ALL other units on the field slain by turn 9 when Ashnard decides to hunt you down. Skills, lethality, and miracle. Setting aside Generals as the best defensive units, (stiletto shatters through that anyways) I would say Wyvern Lords or Dragons have the best defense. Volke was doing 16 damage to one of the dragons on endgame, plus 43% crit chance. And to wyvern lords, he was killing them in two non-crit, non-lethality hits. I'd say he's far from useless. At least after he's promoted, beforehand, yeah kinda.

[Brad Pitt]

Berserk doesn't exist in FE9.

There is a berserk in the game database

But you need an action replay to get it, and absolutely no way to get it through normal means.

[Lord Raven]

31 max attack sucks. That's all i have to say.

[Life]

Volke had ALL other units on the field slain by turn 9 when Ashnard decides to hunt you down. Skills, lethality, and miracle. Setting aside Generals as the best defensive units, (stiletto shatters through that anyways) I would say Wyvern Lords or Dragons have the best defense. Volke was doing 16 damage to one of the dragons on endgame, plus 43% crit chance. And to wyvern lords, he was killing them in two non-crit, non-lethality hits. I'd say he's far from useless.

Couple of questions.

1. Why did it take you 9 Turns? Pretty sure you can field Elincia and a bunch of horsies/fliers and get Ike to Ashnard long before then.

2. So... your argument is personal experience? Yeah... that don't fly.

3. The weakest Dragon has 31 Def. Assassin's Str cap is 23 Str. Strongest knife available is the Stiletto (8 Mt). That's 31 Att. Volke's one support with Bastian gives him no Att. So what can we learn from this? Get off of Easy Mode.

[Snowy_One]

I am not saying Volke cannot be good. If I wanted to, I could field Ena in the endgame and have her turn out to be amazing. However, consider the following.

The absolute best knife in the game is the Stiletto, which has 8 MT. Volke has a maximum STR of 23, meaning the most attack Volke could possibly have is 31 (he gets none from supports). For comparison, Mia (who joins a few chapters earlier) and Zihark (who joins one chapter later) end the game with a STR of 21 (24 with supports) and 24 (25 with a Brom support). The best weapons that they can wield (without getting involved in forging or specialized weapons) are silver blades. Even adjusted for the weapon triangle, that is 14 MT. This means that Mia has, at worst, more MT than Volke (35) or... even more MT (38 with a forged silver). Zihark has the same at worst, or slightly more than his counterpart.

Assassination rocks, sure, but it's activation rate sucks. 1/2 critical. For comparison, Adept has a activation rate equal to the skill stat and Vantage has a 100% activation rate and is amazing when paired with certain other skills (Adept, wrath, guard, and resolve come to mind). So really, the only thing Volke has on the swordsmasters is his ability to steal. If you're looking for a combat unit, both Mia and Zihark preform better and have better access to weapons on the whole.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Snowy_One

[Anouleth]

Couple of questions.

1. Why did it take you 9 Turns? Pretty sure you can field Elincia and a bunch of horsies/fliers and get Ike to Ashnard long before then.

2. So... your argument is personal experience? Yeah... that don't fly.

3. The weakest Dragon has 31 Def. Assassin's Str cap is 23 Str. Strongest knife available is the Stiletto (8 Mt). That's 31 Att. Volke's one support with Bastian gives him no Att. So what can we learn from this? Get off of Easy Mode.

Easy Mode Dragons have about 30DEF, but they have more HP (above 60 while HM Dragons have 59HP). So even in EM it shouldn't be possible.

But yes, Volke does have abysmal attack. Even idiots like Janaff, Lethe, Mist, Elincia, and Lucia have more ATK at max level. He is weaker than literally every physical unit in the game that doesn't wield knives.

[Brad Pitt]

Couple of questions.

1. Why did it take you 9 Turns? Pretty sure you can field Elincia and a bunch of horsies/fliers and get Ike to Ashnard long before then.

2. So... your argument is personal experience? Yeah... that don't fly.

3. The weakest Dragon has 31 Def. Assassin's Str cap is 23 Str. Strongest knife available is the Stiletto (8 Mt). That's 31 Att. Volke's one support with Bastian gives him no Att. So what can we learn from this? Get off of Easy Mode.

Incorrect. Wasn't easy mode. And no, not personal experience. Personal knowledge of the game, different styles of playing. Overall look over of Volke's abilities in general, and a long term point of view, he is a tremendous investment.

9 turns? Because as said I was using ONLY IKE AND VOLKE. ONLY. Learn to read. 16 damage explanation.... Resolve bitch. Plus (as said) if you had much intelligence of the game you would know the most Volke can do is 1 damage to the Dragons on Easy Mode.

And to snowy, I actually agree with you on that explanation. I just get a lot more use out of Volke than I would Zihark or Mia. I've tried bringing Mia and Zihark to endgame with Ike alone, and they.. don't fare as well as Volke does. Even with Mia/Zihark all maxed stats (volke is too) volke seems to lay down lives far faster, and easier than the two swordsmasters. And that's not just from personal experience. It has been the same with tons of people on youtube, and real life friends. Not to mention the fact that it takes Mia and Zihark a while to even get into a usable state. Unless you really know how to balance kills in your game, and let's face it, most don't. Then you will have to spend your BEXP on them, and the end result isn't worth it seeing as Volke can equip a lot better skills than they do. Mia, has Vantage but unless you want to waste the ONE wrath scroll you get from Chapter 18 on her, she ain't much. Same with Zihark except the fact he has Adept.

And with Shade on him, he has a much better survival rate than Zihark/Mia

Edited December 14, 2011 by Desoato

[Mekkah]

in before life, volke/ike solos dont hold much weight in tier lists

Edited December 14, 2011 by Mekkah

[Brad Pitt]

Okay, I'll say it again. I do Ike and -other unit- solos all the time. Seeing how each unit fares against Ashnards army. I do it 3 times for each and every character. It's perfect research for anyone with a brain

edit;

I like how the younger generations have 1% strategic minds and 99% stupidity.

Mercenary Raven, if you dish out all your BEXP to get Mia to the next promotion, usually around chapter 14-16 if you don't use a master seal, she isn't all that useful, as you already have your main sword user since the prologue, she isn't that useful vs. Volke's stealing and chest opening. I'd say it pretty much counterbalances each other. Yes, she may have more STR. Brawn is not the only important thing in a strategy game, even 6 year olds should figure that one out.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Desoato

[Lord Raven]

No, the person who finishes the endgame the quickest is Ike with Wrath/Resolve/being warped (rescued...) to Ashnard.

Zihark has more attack at base than Volke (Volke's got 15 and Zihark can have way more than that; 10 base str with an Iron Sword has 15ish and that does jack all at that point in the game). Mia's got a better weapon type too and she gets BEXP earlier (+ availability) so she can be raised to be much better than Volke. On top of how most of these units, under an ideal playthrough, will be promoted chapters before Volke will and you have Volke still sucking dick.

Volke's max attack, I repeat, is 31. Mia/Zihark can hit 36-40 if they needed to + have laguz effective weapons (laguz slayers) + have killer weapons + Mia has vantage + Mia can use Sonic Sword lolololol + god knows what else.

Furthermore, let's think for a moment. Resolve on Zihark/Mia is probably better than resolve on Volke due to higher max attack. Now, let's add more to that; those two have supports that give them more evade so they can survive more than Volke. Also they have Luck giving them greater evasion! And I'm fairly sure Zihark has greater durability than Volke.

In terms of raw numbers, you are wrong.

I heavily doubt you do that too unless you really have no life and really love to sit through the map animations. FE9's my favorite and all and that's the main one I'm doing an efficiency playlog of but christ do you have friends?

Edited December 14, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[I.M. Gei]

Okay, I'll say it again. I do Ike and -other unit- solos all the time. Seeing how each unit fares against Ashnards army. I do it 3 times for each and every character. It's perfect research for anyone with a brain

Understand that most people here measure units on their performance over the whole game, both before they reach their potential and when they reach it, as opposed to performance in just one chapter.

[Brad Pitt]

Understand that most people here measure units on their performance over the whole game, both before they reach their potential and when they reach it, as opposed to performance in just one chapter.

I do it for almost every chapter too, except the ones that are a pain in the ass to do with only 2 units (chapter 15 and 22)

Anyways, since you guys clearly took a small comment about a rating and completely blew it out of proportion I'll give it a rest. Fact is, Volke's str is 31 at best, Mia and Zihark can easily get over that. It's obvious, never denied that. But you kids get set in your pigheaded ways :D

Some people in fact, most people get more and better quality overall use out of Volke, than they do Mia and Zihark. Don't be butthurt kids.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Desoato

[Life]

Incorrect. Wasn't easy mode. And no, not personal experience. Personal knowledge of the game, different styles of playing. Overall look over of Volke's abilities in general, and a long term point of view, he is a tremendous investment.

This is bullshit and you know it. It's like saying Amelia or Ewan are worth the investment. They're not and neither is Volke. He's not a combat unit whatsoever. His defensive parameters are pretty bad (34 HP and 12 Def in Chapter 20 is not good for any combat unit ever). His Max Att is a joke. 24 Atk in that same chapter (Stilettos aren't available until 21 and store-bought until 26) 2HKOs only the magic enemies who have ass defensive stats anyways (22 Atk 2HKOs the strongest Sage) and 3HKOs the Archer/Sniper. That's it. Even fucking Soldiers escape the 3HKO.

This is not a good performance and you know it.

9 turns? Because as said I was using ONLY IKE AND VOLKE. ONLY. Learn to read. 16 damage explanation.... Resolve bitch. Plus (as said) if you had much intelligence of the game you would know the most Volke can do is 1 damage to the Dragons on Easy Mode.

1) If you use any other units, you can get Ike to Ashnard before Turn 9. Welcome to the "we don't move 1 space per turn" club. People here actually try to maximize the usage of good characters.

2) Resolve on Volke? He can't even fit Resolve due to 20 capacity for Lethality and 5 for Shade, both skills you claim to use. Pretty sure that's max Capacity too (not fully sure though).

3) Sorry kiddo, I haven't played in a bunch of years due to a dead Gamecube. And I've never played Easy Mode. So pardon me for not knowing the exact stats for Easy Mode since the Hard Mode stats are posted on this very sub-forum. I guess that makes you SOOOOOOOO much more knowledgeable about the game that I am.

And to snowy, I actually agree with you on that explanation. I just get a lot more use out of Volke than I would Zihark or Mia. I've tried bringing Mia and Zihark to endgame with Ike alone, and they.. don't fare as well as Volke does.

This is motherfucking personal experience. My last FE9 run had Ike with 20 Str at 20/20. He barely damaged the BK. Does this mean that Ike sucks? Nobody gives a shit about what YOUR Volke did.

Even with Mia/Zihark all maxed stats (volke is too) volke seems to lay down lives far faster, and easier than the two swordsmasters.

Volke can't kill anything in the Final chapter. The only stuff he ORKOs is the Sage and the Bishop. And here's a nice tidbit. Both have 32 Atk. Against Volke's 8 Res, that's a 2HKO. Volke does not "lay down lives far faster and easier" than Mia and Zihark when the only enemies that he can reliably kill tandom 2HKO him in return and at scary enough hit rates.

And that's not just from personal experience. It has been the same with tons of people on youtube, and real life friends.

This is still personal experience. It might not be your personal experience but it's someone's personal experience. Which still makes it invalid. My god, do you think before you try to formulate ideas?

Not to mention the fact that it takes Mia and Zihark a while to even get into a usable state. Unless you really know how to balance kills in your game, and let's face it, most don't. Then you will have to spend your BEXP on them, and the end result isn't worth it seeing as Volke can equip a lot better skills than they do.

Oh my god, you did not just refer to Lethality as a better skill than the generic shit that Mia and Zihark can both equip. FYI, you can unequip Skills in this game. I'll just give either of them Wrath and Resolve and they destroy face much better than Volke (guaranteed critical does that to you).

Mia, has Vantage but unless you want to waste the ONE wrath scroll you get from Chapter 18 on her, she ain't much. Same with Zihark except the fact he has Adept.

See, this is why you are wrong. Mia doesn't NEED Wrath to be better than Volke, she just naturally is.

And with Shade on him, he has a much better survival rate than Zihark/Mia

Got news for you, kid. This game came out in 2005. To this day, we still have no idea what Shade exactly does.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Tangerine

[Anouleth]

Incorrect. Wasn't easy mode. And no, not personal experience. Personal knowledge of the game, different styles of playing. Overall look over of Volke's abilities in general, and a long term point of view, he is a tremendous investment.

Not really. On paper, Volke is absolutely abysmal. Like I said: aside from like, Sothe, he is physically the weakest character in the entire game, and he has no skills that improve his offense or critical bonus, no horse, no flight, a late promotion, and no access to powerful specialty weapons such as Brave weapons or anti-laguz weapons. Why would anyone train him just to get an inferior version of Lucia?

Fun fact: Lucia with Spirit Dust/Mage Band/Sonic Sword has better offense than max level Volke.

9 turns? Because as said I was using ONLY IKE AND VOLKE. ONLY. Learn to read. 16 damage explanation.... Resolve bitch. Plus (as said) if you had much intelligence of the game you would know the most Volke can do is 1 damage to the Dragons on Easy Mode.

Well, in fairness, he has probably never played Easy Mode, but it's not really necessary since most discussion assumes Hard Mode. Who wants to talk about Easy Mode anyway?

And to snowy, I actually agree with you on that explanation. I just get a lot more use out of Volke than I would Zihark or Mia. I've tried bringing Mia and Zihark to endgame with Ike alone, and they.. don't fare as well as Volke does. Even with Mia/Zihark all maxed stats (volke is too) volke seems to lay down lives far faster, and easier than the two swordsmasters. And that's not just from personal experience. It has been the same with tons of people on youtube, and real life friends. Not to mention the fact that it takes Mia and Zihark a while to even get into a usable state.

It's a lot more difficult for Volke. For instance, he only has 14ATK at base, which is far behind Mia and Zihark. He also promotes later than them.

Unless you really know how to balance kills in your game, and let's face it, most don't.

You don't need to have any knowledge of balancing kills. Base level Zihark has 20ATK with a forged Iron Sword. Base level Mia has 17ATK with a forged Iron Sword. Both of them are doing better than Volke: even leaving out that Mia will gain some levels over chapters 7, 8, and 9. Moreover, Mia and Zihark both have good skills.

So yeah, Volke is the one that needs to be painstakingly fed kills.

Then you will have to spend your BEXP on them, and the end result isn't worth it seeing as Volke can equip a lot better skills than they do.

Mia and Zihark start with free skills. That are free. The only difference between Volke and them is that Mia and Zihark have free skills, and Volke gets Lethality instead of Astra... but Lethality is not significantly better than Astra anyway (their activation rate is quite similar iirc).

Mia, has Vantage but unless you want to waste the ONE wrath scroll you get from Chapter 18 on her, she ain't much. Same with Zihark except the fact he has Adept.

And Volke has the pretty useless Shade skill. Vantage is a genuinely useful skill: it prevents weakened enemies from attacking Mia and it also lets her avoid counter-attacks sometimes thanks to her naturally high crit. Adept is not really that great for Zihark since he should ORKO generic enemies without needing a skill to help him, but I guess he can take a Vantage scroll for the same benefits that Mia gets.

[Life]

Also Snowy, you have been trumped in the stupidity category. This is a very good thing.

[Brad Pitt]

Kid? Use your resources. Not only am I older than you, but I act at least 30 years older than you. Don't know what shade does? Then you really are as big of a dumbass as I thought.

Personal experience, I only mentioned my own personal experience once. All the other times, was what the normal experience with the character would be for anyone. Okay, really? He can't 2HKO a soldier? That proves to me how really uninformed you are. 34 health upon promoting? What the fuck was your deal? My little toddler cousin can train his health far past that before promoting without a Seraph robe, and so can anyone.

Did I EVER say Lethality is a better skill than adept, or wrath? Fuck. No. What I said was this, it gives him an ADVANTAGE. Key fucking word. Advantage.

Swordsmaster Mia level 20, on 3 seperate save files without Wrath vs Volke level 14 on 3 seperate save files without any skills. Let's see, Volke got 2 attacks on all 3. Mia. 1. I used no stat boosters of any kind.

Do I even need to explain the rest? I'm sure you could figure it out big man.

And snowy is stupid? He is one of the only people I have seen that gives well rounded, full complete info on the characters he has done. And at least he can see when he is right, or wrong. His intelligence far outweighs your own a thousand fold.

And me being stupid is very laughable. If you knew who I was or anything about me you wouldn't be able to piss straight, not that you can anyways undoubtedly.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Desoato

[I.M. Gei]

Kid? Use your resources. Not only am I older than you, but I act at least 30 years older than you. Don't know what shade does? Then you really are as big of a dumbass as I thought.

Personal experience, I only mentioned my own personal experience once. All the other times, was what the normal experience with the character would be for anyone. Okay, really? He can't 2HKO a soldier? That proves to me how really uninformed you are. 34 health upon promoting? What the fuck was your deal? My little toddler cousin can train his health far past that before promoting without a Seraph robe, and so can anyone.

Did I EVER say Lethality is a better skill than adept, or wrath? Fuck. No. What I said was this, it gives him an ADVANTAGE. Key fucking word. Advantage.

Swordsmaster Mia level 20, on 3 seperate save files without Wrath vs Volke level 14 on 3 seperate save files without any skills. Let's see, Volke got 2 attacks on all 3. Mia. 1. I used no stat boosters of any kind.

Do I even need to explain the rest? I'm sure you could figure it out big man.

I love the sheer, delicious irony present in this post.

PS: I love how you dodge the best arguments people have brought against your case.

[Snowy_One]

I will not be increasing Volke's score based on his combat utility. As I said earlier, the most possible damage he can deal simply fails in comparison to the swordmasters, who join at almost the same time with him and with skills that are far more useful (Even if Shade outright made it so we didn't have to worry about his durability as he wouldn't be attacked unless he was the only unit in range, Vantage is still incredibly useful, Adept can become quite potent, and the critical boost both get is simple dominating over Volke). Volke's one combat advantage over them is that he can hit 23 STR long before either can get close to that mark, but even then he is held back by his inferior weapon type.

Leveling Volke is simply useless as almost any other combat unit would be a better fighter than he would be. I did not make my choice lightly though. I knew I had to choose between either giving him a low score that I would not agree with (while I don't think Volke is awesome, unless there is almost nothing to steal, a thief should not be a 4 or lower) or a score I did agree with and give him a unfair review boost. I chose to give him the score I did not agree with because I did not want to suddenly start making exceptions because I felt a unit should be higher. To make up for it, in my review, I made it clear that he was getting a low score because the things he, basically, 'only opens the door. It is other units who still have to pass through it for victory'.

[Brad Pitt]

Snowy, I wasn't wanting or asking you to raise it. I agree with what your rating is. You missed the point, all I have said was he isn't useless. Nothing more, or less.

I'm not some little kid who has time to explain everything to some thickheaded idiot. Nor do I care. It's just a game, in some cases Volke is better than Mia or Zihark, just as Mia/Zihark is better than Volke in others. That is the main point of everything I've been saying. But yet here we are, in a big argument. Filled with nothing but-- I'll stop myself. Because no really gives a rats furry ass now do they? Life goes on gents.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Desoato

[Life]

Kid? Use your resources. Not only am I older than you, but I act at least 30 years older than you. Don't know what shade does? Then you really are as big of a dumbass as I thought.

6 years later and people still don't know the mathematics behind Shade. So no, nobody knows what it does. Or if it works.

And yes, you are a "kid". See, I don't care about age. To me, you're measured on smarts. And kid, you have none.

Personal experience, I only mentioned my own personal experience once. All the other times, was what the normal experience with the character would be for anyone.

You mentioned YOUR personal experience once. Then you mentioned someone else's personal experience once. Unless we have different meaning of the term "personal experience" (as in what actually happens when you play vs. theorycraft), I'd say that you're still talking about personal experience.

Okay, really? He can't 2HKO a soldier? That proves to me how really uninformed you are.

Really? Hmm...

Volke has 24 Atk after promoting. 20 Str (and that's being generous) and a 4 Mt knife (again, Stilettos don't exist yet). The level 19/20 Soldiers have defensive parameters of 37 hp and 11 def. In case you don't know how to do math, I'll walk you through it.

24 - 11 = 13 damage.
13 x 2 Hits = 26 HP
Soldier has 11 HP left.

So no, he doesn't 2HKO average Soldiers. But I guess I'm the uninformed one...

34 health upon promoting? What the fuck was your deal? My little toddler cousin can train his health far past that before promoting without a Seraph robe.

You might want to check again before saying stupid shit. Volke has a 49% chance of having 33 or less HP after promotion. The math don't lie.

Did I EVER say Lethality is a better skill than adept, or wrath?

Volke can equip a lot better skills than they do.

Considering that Zihark starts with Adept and Mia is a fine candidate for Wrath (and usually gets it if we don't want Wrath/Resolve Ike)... yeah, you kinda did. Whoops?

Fuck. No. What I said was this, it gives him an ADVANTAGE. Key fucking word. Advantage.

You have better persuasion skills than Rick Perry!

Anyway, Lethality is so pointless because it really doesn't do anything. Oh sure, it OHKOs an enemy. Great, that's critical / 2 chance. So that's a 12.5% chance of happening assuming that Volke's maxed his Skill (18% chance of not happening) and using a Stiletto (really only viable once Chapter 27 comes around and we can buy them in bulk due to the first one only have 20 uses between Chapter 21 and 27). 1 in 8 enemies. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.

Swordsmaster Mia level 20, on 3 seperate save files without Wrath vs Volke on 3 seperate save files without any skills. Let's see, Volke got 2 attacks on all 3. Mia. 1. I used no stat boosters of any kind.

Do I even need to explain the rest? I'm sure you could figure it out big man.

Actually, you could bother to explain this last part. What does it even mean?

Edited December 14, 2011 by Tangerine

[Aethereal]

Personal experience, I only mentioned my own personal experience once.

Swordsmaster Mia level 20, on 3 seperate save files without Wrath vs Volke level 14 on 3 seperate save files without any skills. Let's see, Volke got 2 attacks on all 3. Mia. 1. I used no stat boosters of any kind.

I'd love to point these two quotes out. In the same post no less.

If you knew who I was or anything about me you wouldn't be able to piss straight, not that you can anyways undoubtedly.

Best insult I've ever heard.

Man, this is the best thing to come home to. Desoato, this was really thoughtful. You shouldn't have. <3