FE13 Skills Tier List

[dondon151]

i have never been concerned with weapon uses in any other fire emblem game and i cannot imagine how i will be concerned enough with weapon uses in this game to justify weapon saver being a top tier skill

[cheetah7071]

It's definitely marginal at best in-game. This tier list is incredibly fuzzy on how it weighs different aspects of a skill, but post-game seems to be considered, where Weapon Saver saves effort but doesn't actually make a character any stronger. I plan on doing testing with a movement+1/carrier/lockpick/limit break/renewal character with no weapons equipped (to get around enemies with counter) to see if grinding IDW can be gotten down under two minutes. You have a ~10% chance of getting any given weapon on a single IDW run, so if it can be brought down to two minutes, you can get three of each item in an hour on average (enough to outfit most postgame teams, or at least the manakete-heavy type of team I prefer)--less time than it takes to grind a character from base stats up to limitbroken caps.

EDIT: This does ignore the potential value weapon saver has in preserving Inverse's darkness, which if I recall is the only worthwhile weapon available neither in shops nor in IDW. I've been banning myself from using enemy-phase healing in my postgame teams, so I'm not really sure how much of a difference Inverse's Darkness makes over Nosferatu in the postgame.

Edited September 12, 2012 by cheetah7071

[dondon151]

also why is postgame important

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Because of the harder DLC chappies.

Edited September 13, 2012 by L95

[cheetah7071]

also why is postgame important

Because this list makes almost no sense in-game. You just don't have the freedom to set up complicated skillsets until postgame, where the enemies are hard enough to almost require them.

[arvilino]

also why is postgame important

Depends on what other people think, but I'd count the Spotpass chapters for Inverse, Gangrel, Valhart, Paris and Emelia as the post-game content, especially Paris' chapter.

Edited September 12, 2012 by arvilino

[dondon151]

Because this list makes almost no sense in-game. You just don't have the freedom to set up complicated skillsets until postgame, where the enemies are hard enough to almost require them.

but you don't need complicated skillsets in-game, yet the quality of skills still has a marked influence on potential outcomes

i mean, just because you can't stack weapon saver, sword expert, and lightning speed doesn't mean that you can't judge the quality of these skills

[cheetah7071]

I'd also maintain that postgame content is at least as fun as the game itself. That opinion seems to be shared, and if people enjoy postgame content and want to discuss it in a tiering context, why shouldn't they be able to?

[Ein]

dondon says so.

[Raven the Obsidian]

I'd argue Astra for Top or High tier. Damage just shy of a critical without the chances being marred by enemy Luck? Sounds good. Aether, too. This does mainly apply to postgame, where your Skill will be high enough for their activation rates to become significant. Royal Weapon/Aether/Astra is a lethal combination.

[Lord Raven]

Astra is fun when you have a critical weapon too, because of the chances of a critical. 1 Critical boosts the output to x3.5 and 2 boosts it to 4.5. Also, it only uses one weapon use, and not 5, which is even more cool. If only- yeah- it had higher activation rates.

[cheetah7071]

I can now confirm that will the right build you can get an IDW run down to a minute and a half; with the normal set of distractions I was able to open about 100 chests in an hour.

That doesn't help with Inverse's Darkness, but it suggests that weapon saver is less useful postgame in general.

[dondon151]

I'd also maintain that postgame content is at least as fun as the game itself. That opinion seems to be shared, and if people enjoy postgame content and want to discuss it in a tiering context, why shouldn't they be able to?

i dunno, FE8 has a postgame, and some people think it's fun; why do we never talk about it?

similarly, in an environment when you can just grind for anything (and i'm fairly sure that you're encouraged to grind for postgame content), how much depth is there really to the discussion?

Edited September 13, 2012 by dondon151

[Bryan]

I can now confirm that will the right build you can get an IDW run down to a minute and a half; with the normal set of distractions I was able to open about 100 chests in an hour.

That doesn't help with Inverse's Darkness, but it suggests that weapon saver is less useful postgame in general.

But what about forges? If I wanted to forge a brave sword, it's going to cost me a ton to forge it, so wouldn't I want to keep it around? Besides, that just means more money for other things that you need.

And Skills aren't just rated on how powerful they make you. Just like regular tier lists, having other uses helps, otherwise Weapon Saver, Lockpick, & Carrier would all be bottom tier, since they don't make you stronger.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Bryan

[cheetah7071]

But what about forges? If I wanted to forge a brave sword, it's going to cost me a ton to forge it, so wouldn't I want to keep it around? Besides, that just means more money for other things that you need.

And Skills aren't just rated on how powerful they make you. Just like regular tier lists, having other uses helps, otherwise Weapon Saver, Lockpick, & Carrier would all be bottom tier, since they don't make you stronger.

Well, Carrier does actually make you stronger--movement is a very powerful stat. Lockpick is definitely bottom tier for postgame purposes, but is quite strong in-game because it gets you items much earlier than you otherwise could. And I'm making the claim here that Weapon Saver isn't actually good.

Forging brave weapons turns them into silver weapons, so forged braves aren't actually a thing (this is something I heard in another thread and haven't tested, so it it's not true correct me). You can't forge ultimate weapons either (or anything worth 0 gold), or Slime. That leaves Nosferatu and Inverse's Darkness as the only forges you actually want. Inverse's Darkness is so vanishingly rare I haven't even seen one after over 100 hours of play (though I didn't go out of my way to sit at sparkling tiles or use everyone's room as often as possible). Forging Nosferatu costs 10290 (5145 if the silver card affects forging, I haven't tested). You get a bit more than 60000G from a single run of silver and gold.

Weapon saver just isn't very good postgame unless you happen to find an Inverse's Darkness. In-game it has its merits to preserve forges since you aren't swimming in money.

[Othin]

I can now confirm that will the right build you can get an IDW run down to a minute and a half; with the normal set of distractions I was able to open about 100 chests in an hour.

That doesn't help with Inverse's Darkness, but it suggests that weapon saver is less useful postgame in general.

Okay, so that's an hour for 2500 weapon uses, and most of them are probably the wrong ones. 2500 weapon uses don't last all that long in postgame. On my Normal file, my main fighters are maxed-out Othin and Mark with Holy Tome Naga and Excalibur, respectively; with Weapon Saver, they've used their preferred weapons probably over a thousand times. There are what, 30 weapons available in IDW? So you get Holy Tome Naga about one in ten times, with plenty of possibility of getting below the average. To get 1000 uses of holy tome Naga, I'd need 40 books of it, or 400 runs of the chapter, or 10 hours. That's a colossal waste of time, even if the odds work out properly.

Without Weapon Saver, you don't spam ultimate weapons. None of us are dumb enough to waste that much time just to use them, especially since those IDW runs themselves consume weapon uses. With Weapon Saver, you can spam them and anything else.

i dunno, FE8 has a postgame, and some people think it's fun; why do we never talk about it?

similarly, in an environment when you can just grind for anything (and i'm fairly sure that you're encouraged to grind for postgame content), how much depth is there really to the discussion?

FE8's postgame is pretty much just Lagdou. It's underrated, but also very insubstantial. And there's far less to discuss.

Well, Carrier does actually make you stronger--movement is a very powerful stat. Lockpick is definitely bottom tier for postgame purposes, but is quite strong in-game because it gets you items much earlier than you otherwise could. And I'm making the claim here that Weapon Saver isn't actually good.

Forging brave weapons turns them into silver weapons, so forged braves aren't actually a thing (this is something I heard in another thread and haven't tested, so it it's not true correct me). You can't forge ultimate weapons either (or anything worth 0 gold), or Slime. That leaves Nosferatu and Inverse's Darkness as the only forges you actually want. Inverse's Darkness is so vanishingly rare I haven't even seen one after over 100 hours of play (though I didn't go out of my way to sit at sparkling tiles or use everyone's room as often as possible). Forging Nosferatu costs 10290 (5145 if the silver card affects forging, I haven't tested). You get a bit more than 60000G from a single run of silver and gold.

Weapon saver just isn't very good postgame unless you happen to find an Inverse's Darkness. In-game it has its merits to preserve forges since you aren't swimming in money.

Enemy Brave Axes turn into Silver Axes when forged. Only Brave Axes, and it only happens with enemy weapons.

[cheetah7071]

The IDW runs don't actually consume weapon uses (well, it uses 2 true dragonstone uses to actually kill the boss).

How have you actually managed to use those weapons that many times? For anything short of ultimate training, ordinary silver and brave weapons are perfectly sufficient. Are you just repeating Est and Catria's maps over and over and over again? Or are you using an incredibly overkill weapon that doesn't contribute to making the map easier in any noticeable way and then going "I'm sure glad these unneeded weapons aren't breaking"? Even as far as Ike's map, ordinary brave weapons are one-rounding, as are true dragonstones and thoron. A limit-broken character in a reasonably tanky class is almost invincible, as is any character hit by rainbow+love cry.

There just isn't enough DLC content currently to warrant 1000 uses of holy tome Narga.

I did just test the brave weapon thing and you're right. Silver card also doesn't affect forges.

[Othin]

Hmm, I guess pacifist with Pass would work, especially due to having the great bonus of ignoring Counter. Still no sense in not using Lightning Speed, but that wouldn't take many more.

It's not about needing the weapons. Yeah, I'm using ultimates where ordinary weapons would work. But ultimates are even better, and the effect of Weapon Saver is that you can spam those ultimate weapons for even better results. Without Weapon Saver, you can use them, but you can't spam them. Not reasonably. That's what you get out of Weapon Saver: being able to spam whatever you want, not just the common weapons.

Being able to freely replace Bolganone with Holy Tome Naga means getting +3 Mt, +5 Def, and +5 Res. It's not necessary, and a lot of skills, Limit Breaker included, can do even more. But it's better than what a lot of skills have to offer.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Othin

[cheetah7071]

I guess I can buy it being in around the same space as all stats +2--it's never going to be amazing, but it's better than a lot of the dreck running around.

As for the IDW in 1.5 minutes, the build I used was a pacifist capped dark knight MU with limit breaker, pass, movement +1, carrier, and lockpick. I doubled him with a bosskiller and just ignored the enemies for a 6-turn win.

EDIT: I'd still argue it's below all stats +2 itself, but above the filler garbage you lamentably have to put onto first-gen units most of the time.

Edited September 13, 2012 by cheetah7071

[dondon151]

FE8's postgame is pretty much just Lagdou. It's underrated, but also very insubstantial. And there's far less to discuss.

i find this statement rather ironic when you guys are playing FE13 postgame maps over and over again

[Dat Mattress]

Lol I loved fe8's postgame, but I can understand why other people get bored with how repetitive it is. I spent 70+ hours on a file maxing out everyone's stats; it was a really boring summer that year.

[Trickster]

i find this statement rather ironic when you guys are playing FE13 postgame maps over and over again

Well the enemies are only monster classes, more maps, and with reclassing and skills it makes more diverse of an experience.

[Missile]

I like this topic but with NA release it seems a bit confusing with new skills names...

And what about despoil ? Especially when you don't want to buy the DLC "gold & silver", good tier ?

[Onestep]

I like this topic but with NA release it seems a bit confusing with new skills names...

And what about despoil ? Especially when you don't want to buy the DLC "gold & silver", good tier ?

Having played the game for more than ten minutes now, I can already tell this Tier List needs a major overhaul.

Also, if you don't want to buy it then Despoil is pretty much the only source of infinite money and thus Good. But most people will buy it, reducing Despoil to pretty much Worthless.

Also, Wrath. I never thought I could love a skill so, but then I found out about forging Ruin Tomes

Mmmmm Wrath-Vantage-Ruin tanking everything from Normal to Lunatic.

[GinRei]

I'm also rather curious how Rightful King stacks up against Aether (mostly from a M!Morgan vs F!Morgan point of view). In terms of end-game/post-game, not mid-game.

Edited February 15, 2013 by GinRei