FE13 Hard Mode Tier List

[Lord Raven]

Heya everyone... not sure how much you guys trust me in charge of the tier list, but I guarantee you I'm fairly neutral in terms of this kind of stuff. If you have an argument, I will listen to it so long as it is backed by logic and some degree of personal experience.

The baseline and conditions are efficiency (relatively reliable and nothing reliant on RNG), assume that everyone is recruited, paired, we go to all sidequests, everyone is kept alive, and no grinding (except to pair up characters we do not use - this is the basis behind why Chrom/Olivia is allowed). We can assume anything about reclassing and classing, however, but no DLC classes. Units do not exist in a vacuum, but difficulty of recruitment does not affect one's placement, and the difficulty of acquiring that character (such as Olivia!Lucina) is not relevant to their placing on the tier list. Their quality as parents are not relevant either. Also, no renown bonuses and no bonuses due to sparkling tiles/the other thing whose name I don't remember. No Spotpass ANYTHING, no special Annas.

Avatar is argued using his best build, which is subject to debate - I'd go +Mag -Lck but Paperblade loves +Mag -Str or -Skl. But it really doesn't make a difference in certain instances, and I expect Avatar's place to never actually change regardless of what we argue; his optimal bundle will evolve over time and he will stay damned good. However, I will place two Avatars on this tier list; one without Veteran and one with. The rest of the tier list will actually assume Veteran-less Avatar once we are given the ability to remove skills, simply on the grounds that Veteran makes him overpowered.

Because there is some degree of personal experience involved in this, and because I don't 100% trust the growth rates posted on SF for personal reasons, I will allow some personal experience - the difference here is that you have to bring up actual numbers of recent runs and you must make use of the central limit theorem to back up your point. This means the following - you cannot assume your personal experience triumphs over the levels unless you can post stats over a total of 30-40 levels (with assumed changes in growth rates). The only real exception is if you see a +2 when the website says there are no +2s.

I will run this tier list a little differently than others. I will bring up a handful (5-7ish) of units at a time and we will discuss them and come to a consensus about their tier placements as we go. Please refrain from posting if you have not played FE13. I do not want theoryemblem. Also, please refer to hard mode only; lunatic mode arguments are fine but their use in lunatic mode doesn't directly correspond to their use in HM due to HM having more units usable in general, and requiring a little less of healers (but not that much less).

Once we hit children character, I will actually do them by father (or mother in one or two instances). Some units (Morgan) will not be affected much at all. Some units will be affected a bit (Lucina).

Anyways, the units I'm starting with are our Prologue-Paralogue 1 units, probably our most biggest bundle. The rest I will cover in 4-5 chapter increments too. I expect two days of discussion before we move on (that way I can get my Pre-Lab done in time for it).

Units:

Lon'qu

Ricken

Maribelle

Panne

Gaius

Cordelia

My thoughts and reasoning:

Top of Top

Avatar (F>M) with Veteran

Top

Avatar (F>M)

Chrom

Lon'qu

Panne

Lon'qu and Panne are on here for very similar reasons, and their only difference is in availability. Their reasons for being on here is that together, they are an absolutely ridiculous pair. Lon'qu comes with stats that look somewhat weak and unappealing but he is 3HKO'd in his base chapter with good evasion rates, comes with his own Killing Edge, and doubles much earlier than any unit in your army. He grows to be a killing machine in every way possible and he has enough durability to not be worried about death at every turn. Both of their class sets are extremely similar, the only difference is Taguel vs Myrmidon, and while Panne will have a little trouble due to E ranks when she starts, her stats will be so monstrous and her EXP gain as a Taguel is so amazing that it doesn't matter too much at all. A Level 15 Taguel Panne has her way with enemy mounted units, to get rid of pesky Pegasi, Valkyries, and Paladins/Bow Knights (although you'll have reclassed her long before that point anyway). Even still, Lon'qu as a Swordmaster -> Assassin/Trickster and Panne -> Draco trees are a monstrous combination and they are some of the strongest offensive units in the game from start to finish, especially when paired together.

High

Frederick

Virion

Miriel

Sumia

Frederick was moved to high because he is a tank while he is useful. Think of FE6 Marcus but actually legitimately extremely powerful until a difficulty spike makes him less important. Plus, double bonuses, although you may give up your slot later to one of Avatar's children who will have Rally Spectrum.

Mid

Lissa

Maribelle

Cordelia

Stahl

Sully

Vaike

Ricken

Kellam

Gaius

A lot of mid-tier additions here. Lissa and Maribelle are both similar but the difference is that Lissa has a little while before she can hit Valkyrie, and Maribelle can hit Valkyrie as soon as possible. They both have extremely good class sets that complement their strengths, but their problem is the same in that their offense is kind of crappy after promotion and their staff usage is limited by their mediocre magic stat. Still, they are more useful than many other characters in mid-tier.

Cordelia is like Sumia with better Str/Def/HP and a vastly different class set (Knight vs Mercenary, Cleric vs Dark Mage). I like Mercenary a little better for Cordelia but I think Sumia's class set and speed/magic advantage (as minute as the magic is) wins out over Cordelia's superior supports and strength/def/HP. The availability and ability to support with Chrom is something Sumia has that Cordelia does not, as well. But Cordelia is still a solid unit on her own.

Stahl's problem is that his speed will not rise as fast as his Strength/Defense. He will rarely double by endgame unless he goes Myrmidon. But the thing is that his class set is very good at helping him through his Speed deficit. Myrmidon gives him some decent speed gains, but is it worth his massive Strength/Defense as a Great Knight to do? It's up to you. He is flawed and his start is a little weak, but he can support with Sully pretty well and he actually doesn't take much damage from enemies towards the endgame (unlike Sully who has to rely on dodging and pair ups sometimes - Stahl only needs them to boost his already massive Str/Defense or give him some ability to double attack). It also helps he has a very good sword rank at base and it only gets better (he'll grow into Steel Swords before you get Lon'qu as a matter of fact), coupled with a lot of axe users in the game.

Sully's problem is that her start is weak and she stays weak for a little while. She has a good stat spread but she just isn't that great until she starts gaining speed. Then she becomes a well-balanced sort of character to Stahl's gung-ho strength/defense. Her lance rank starts out as her best rank and it's hard to get a sword onto her to face the axe users until Stahl gets his iron sword, so being proficient at lances when axes are in most of the first thirds of the game is a hard deficiency to get past.

Vaike has low defense for a while despite his high growth, and he will actually have decent defense by the end. His class set actually blows if I recall correctly, but his offense and defense is solid once built up... once built up. It's really hard to get him to that point and he really doesn't come into play until Chapter 3 where he has his Iron Axe the whole chapter. A good unit to use with many flaws, hence he's mid tier.

Ricken is a good source of chip damage and doesn't have very much in his class set. He starts out with a C ranked tome iirc that has its way with the dracoknights of the chapter, but the thing is that his bases are such shit and his join time is actually awkward enough that he won't be that great on your team for a while. Makes a solid Dark Knight or Sage because of his growths though, but he's not the best unit. Hence, mid tier.

Kellam is a great double partner for his massive defense boosts, and he has more defense before class growths are added than most units have after. His reclass options are actually pretty bad but he has, at the very least, General and Great Knight as good options. He's best as a great knight, if he can get to that spot; it's doable since he does a lot of damage and takes so little for a while, but his speed is generally mediocre. He can take a magic hit decently but he will get doubled by mages quite a bit. A flawed unit with a lot of niche uses, but falls too far behind too quickly as a result of poor speed, movement, and reclass options in the early game.

Gaius is the glass cannon. His offensive growths and HP are very large yet his defensive capabilities are limited. He's really not that great a dodge tank either because his luck is pretty mediocre. It's a good thing that he can support Sumia though, because she can boost his evasion through the roof. Once he gets past his okay start (which is decent overall because he uses swords against axe users) he can become a monster with ridiculous amounts of strength and speed, and the fact that all his reclass options are incredibly viable for him sweetens the deal. His only flaw in in reclass options is starting at E Axes for Fighter, but he makes a solid Myrmidon/Swordmaster/Assassin too. Once again though, his start is a little shaky and he has very weak durability, with no +10 Avoid skill to start with.

Low

Bottom

Donnel

Proposed changes so far:

Virion down because I may be overestimating him.

Sully > Stahl due to supports

Sully and Stahl > up due to better bases than Virion

Edited February 8, 2013 by Lord Raven

[Samias]

Is there any point to making the distinction to Avatars with and without Veteran? By default it's the very first skill you have, so the player doesn't exactly have the option to take it off for most of the game. In a regular playthrough, I doubt you'd be able to reclass more than once or twice. Female is far superior to the male for pegasus knight alone, though. Who would miss Wrath and Aptitude when you have access to Rally Speed and Galeforce? (not counting demon fighter for obvious reasons)

[Othin]

Is there any point to making the distinction to Avatars with and without Veteran? By default it's the very first skill you have, so the player doesn't exactly have the option to take it off for most of the game.

You have the option to remove any and all skills from the moment you can access preparation screens.

In a regular playthrough, I doubt you'd be able to reclass more than once or twice. Female is far superior to the male for pegasus knight alone, though. Who would miss Wrath and Aptitude when you have access to Rally Speed and Galeforce? (not counting demon fighter for obvious reasons)

No.

[Ema Skye]

Cool, been looking forward to having this up.

Really don't see anyone but Avatar sitting at the top. I do prefer Female over Male because Female gets a lightning fast support with Chrom (both of my runsn had the S support by Chapter 7, and my turn counts are what I consider to be great). I haven't tried a Sorceror build yet - I went Tactician Lv.20 -> Grandmaster Lv.15 -> Dark Flier for Galeforce in both of my runs). Avatar's massive EXP gain makes a great Lucina as well, giving her awesome bases. I don't know if it's necessary to separate Veteran Avatar from Veteran-less Avatar on the list though.

I think Lissa is a bit too high as it is, but I'll wait and see how Libra and Anna stack up against her on this list before I complain about it. I find her Rescue Range to be really lacking, which is a problem considering most of the missions after Ch.15 are all defeat boss (I think Ch.23 is the only one that isn't). 13 Magic at Lv.10/1 Sage gives her 6 range, which is "decent", but fails to compare to Libra and Anna's 8 range, and 10/1 Sage!Miriel's 9 Range. Lissa may get Rescue before them, but she's not very good at using it until promotion.

No complaints about Chrom. Dual Strike+ is great in the beginning to help Avatar get more EXP, and Divine Falchion makes him great for beating Grima. Ch7-11 have quite a few Dracoknights, letting Falchion shine with its effective Mt.

Haven't used Virion enough to criticize where you have him.

I think Miriel is worthy of top tier. Given her great magic growth, and her class set, I would highly consider her to be the best Rescue staff user in the game. 10/1 Sage can happen once Master Seals are purchasable in Ch.12 (which is also when Rescue staffs can be bought too), and she has no problems getting to Lv.10/10 Sage and reclassing to Valkyrie once Second Seals can be bought. At this point, she'll hover around 9-10 range for Rescue, while also being mounted. I didn't need Sorceror at all for her, because her Rescue range made beating several maps easier, such as Ch.19 which can be 1-turned with this Rescue range. Access to a mount and this high magic makes her a better lategame rescuer than Anna and Libra.

No complaints about Sumia. I'll wait and see where Cordelia falls before I talk about Sumia.

Frederick's Pair Up bonuses are fantastic from the moment you get him. He doesn't need level ups to be useful. 3 Strength, 3 Defense and 1 Movement are essential for quick clears of the desert. Pairing up with Sumia or Cordelia for Ch.8, 9 and 11 lets them be done very quickly. His combat does fall a bit as enemies start promoting around Ch.15, but his pair up bonuses still remain useful and really make him worthy of a deployment slot. I think your position for him is pretty fair though.

[Barbot]

I don't think there's any situation where you'd want to take Veteran off of Avatar, so I'm a bit confused on the separate placement for non-Veteran.

[Redwall]

I don't think there's any situation where you'd want to take Veteran off of Avatar, so I'm a bit confused on the separate placement for non-Veteran.

The rest of the tier list will actually assume Veteran-less Avatar once we are given the ability to remove skills, simply on the grounds that Veteran makes him overpowered.

There's your answer.

[Lord Raven]

I think Lissa is a bit too high as it is, but I'll wait and see how Libra and Anna stack up against her on this list before I complain about it. I find her Rescue Range to be really lacking, which is a problem considering most of the missions after Ch.15 are all defeat boss (I think Ch.23 is the only one that isn't). 13 Magic at Lv.10/1 Sage gives her 6 range, which is "decent", but fails to compare to Libra and Anna's 8 range, and 10/1 Sage!Miriel's 9 Range. Lissa may get Rescue before them, but she's not very good at using it until promotion.

Possibly. I could move her down quite easily, actually, but generally pairing her with someone boosts her Rescue range greatly (Miriel gives a lot of magic). I could see her moving to high, though.

I think Miriel is worthy of top tier. Given her great magic growth, and her class set, I would highly consider her to be the best Rescue staff user in the game. 10/1 Sage can happen once Master Seals are purchasable in Ch.12 (which is also when Rescue staffs can be bought too), and she has no problems getting to Lv.10/10 Sage and reclassing to Valkyrie once Second Seals can be bought. At this point, she'll hover around 9-10 range for Rescue, while also being mounted. I didn't need Sorceror at all for her, because her Rescue range made beating several maps easier, such as Ch.19 which can be 1-turned with this Rescue range. Access to a mount and this high magic makes her a better lategame rescuer than Anna and Libra.

I'll keep this in mind. I want to hear more Virion arguments and more stuff with respect to this before I go on to move him. Great points, though, although my problem is her durability later on because some enemies will have pretty good accuracy and attack against her. She is very flexible though, so I will definitely consider her placement (and in fact I will gladly take notes on your stuff too).

Frederick's Pair Up bonuses are fantastic from the moment you get him. He doesn't need level ups to be useful. 3 Strength, 3 Defense and 1 Movement are essential for quick clears of the desert. Pairing up with Sumia or Cordelia for Ch.8, 9 and 11 lets them be done very quickly. His combat does fall a bit as enemies start promoting around Ch.15, but his pair up bonuses still remain useful and really make him worthy of a deployment slot. I think your position for him is pretty fair though.

Fair. He's a good filler in that sense, but I want to see a discussion of the kids before I budge on his position. Somehow I'd almost prefer someone like a child who can use a Cry to Frederick who can double. Frederick is pretty much fucked by everything that exists come Chapter 16, and I don't feel he may do enough damage to warrant keeping him on the field at some point. It's a fair point but I feel that by the time we hit Chapter 16, Frederick is more or less Kellam but with supports and the ability to hit for maybe 15-20 damage around 30-50% of the time for most of the cast.

Frederick/Sumia is a monster combination in the desert. He is absolutely clutch until Chapter 10 or 11 or something if you need him.

I don't think there's any situation where you'd want to take Veteran off of Avatar, so I'm a bit confused on the separate placement for non-Veteran.

In short, it's the same exact situation as Sethless FE8. Edited February 3, 2013 by Lord Raven

[Paperblade]

Miriel sux

[Lord Raven]

When I asked you to post I wanted you to say something productive.

[Onestep]

Is there a particular reason that the Avatar's are rated like so:

'My thoughts and reasoning:

Top of Top

Avatar (F) with Veteran

Avatar (M) with Veteran'

I wasn't aware that either gender of Avatar had any significant advantages over each other.

[IkeandMia]

Different options for S supports and children inheretence would be the differing factor between them I would think.

[Onestep]

Different options for S supports and children inheretence would be the differing factor between them I would think.

Even that doesn't quite make sense. In a game where magic dominates, you won't get a suitable magic husband until Ricken, and Tharja and Miriel both probably have superior stat bonuses to him. Whereas an a Male Avatar can start building an S support with Lissa right off the bat.

Well, I'd be interested to hear Raven's argument. If this actually is an argument, and not just him having the rank format in a weird way.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Onestep

[IkeandMia]

Well I have yet to study the game in-depth as I haven't had it in front of me to play with yet, that's just the only thing I could come up with in regards to what would make them different

[Strunk]

All versions of the Avatar are probably going to end up at the very top of the list, so wouldn't it be better to just use one Avatar listing for all of them? I get that there are some differences between the genders, and that, thanks to skills and stats, some are going to be better than others, but aren't they all still pretty much the units with the most potential and availability, and therefore the best?

[Paperblade]

You don't need a +Magic Pair to be an effective magic user. Most magic classes do enough damage, and what you really want is Speed so you ORKO stuff, which Chrom gives you

Female also has better skills available (Galeforce > Everything from the male classes)

Edited February 3, 2013 by Paperblade

[Lord Raven]

Well, I'd be interested to hear Raven's argument. If this actually is an argument, and not just him having the rank format in a weird way.

I definitely posted an argument. It's in the OP. Note how I mentioned things that applied to both (supports) and then things that applied to each individually. In which case, paperblade said exactly the thing that I was looking for.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Lord Raven

[Onestep]

You don't need a +Magic Pair to be an effective magic user. Most magic classes do enough damage, and what you really want is Speed so you ORKO stuff, which Chrom gives you

Female also has better skills available (Galeforce > Everything from the male classes)

Magic classes tend towards having lower base damage than physical classes on the whole. Take Sage vs Berserker, with a 4 point gap between them. Though that's caps and so perhaps not relevant to this arguement.

And barring having horribly overpowered skills common only to the endgame, the enemy phase will always be the most dangerous one. Things like Counter, Nosferatu and Vengeance go hand in hand pretty well.

Galeforce blows Counter out the water postgame though, of course.

[arvilino]

I'd sort of argue Sully could go above Stahl(possibly even higher). Mostly because she has a lot of flexibility and more opportunity to develop advantageous supports that help physical units(STR,DEF,SPD) really early on(Chrom,Virion Vaike,Kellum,Frederick,Sumia,Stahl himself) whereas Stahl has Kellum,Sumia and Sully due to more of the earlier females being magic based.

Additionally the ability to re-class to Dracoknight(Discipline helps her reach D-rank earlier and STR compensates for the loss of weapon rank until promotion to Dragonlord) provided she reaches level 10 by chapter 8 makes her really useful for the following Desert chapters. I'm unsure if that's more effective than staying as a Cavalier(because discipline lets her reach B-rank Lances for Frederick's starting Silver Lance early on).

Edited February 3, 2013 by arvilino

[General Horace]

i don't see why virion is as high as he is, and his defence base is mediocre at best and his growth is pretty bad so i don't see what you're getting at there.

Stahl and Sully are better than him in like almost every way possible the way I see it.

His pair up bonuses are worse than vaike's too as a support unit

Edited February 3, 2013 by General Horace

[Ike of Paris]

How are we factoring the children into this? Or are they automatically pushed to the top?

[arvilino]

How are we factoring the children into this? Or are they automatically pushed to the top?

I think they'd be better in their own tier list(except perhaps Lucina who there is more of a fixed expectation of). Depending who the kid is and the father/mother are, when they are recruited,etc. they vary really wildly(especially Morgan).

[Redwall]

Magic classes tend towards having lower base damage than physical classes on the whole. Take Sage vs Berserker, with a 4 point gap between them. Though that's caps and so perhaps not relevant to this arguement.

Mages might have slightly lower Atk, but from glancing at some of the data at http://kamikouryaku.com/fe/kakusei/, it seems like enemy Defense tends to be noticeably higher than enemy Resistance on average, so I would generally expect a magic user to hit harder.

[Onestep]

Mages might have slightly lower Atk, but from glancing at some of the data at http://kamikouryaku.com/fe/kakusei/, it seems like enemy Defense tends to be noticeably higher than enemy Resistance on average, so I would generally expect a magic user to hit harder.

A fair enough point, but more attack power is always a solid plan. My main complaint is the current way that this discussion is set up, especially the 'Their quality of parents is not relevant' part. When the quality a character possesses as a parent is quite blatantly exceedingly important.

At any rate, I'm just going to say that the difference in power between the Avatar's gender is pretty much non-existent, and that there's no real reason to split them apart by it.

[Lord Raven]

Everyone's making good points. I'll comment after the Super Bowl. 8 left in the second and it's 14-3

[Paperblade]

Virion's bases aren't the greatest, but he does good damage because he starts with an Iron Bow, and his growths are quite good.