FE13 Hard Mode Tier List

[Onestep]

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

Get your priorities straight, man!

Nah, have fun.

[Samias]

Virion is more valuable than his stats belie. He has instant D bows and starts with an iron bow, but if you're lucky you could pick up a Wolt's Bow or Underdog Bow to make use of (how are we going to factor sparkly tiles into weapon availability by the way?). Later on, his access to longbows makes him an excellent boss chipper/killer who will almost never be counterattacked. He didn't really seem great in the early game as enemy fliers became more and more common and enemy magic became extremely dangerous, Virion was one of the better units who could deal with those threats. I'm not sure if I would put him top of high, but he's noticeably useful.

I wouldn't underestimate magic in this game. Generals sponge physical attacks to the point where even armorslayers and hammers might not deal with them in one round. Miriel is quite good but also very, very fragile, despite her great class set. However, I haven't used her enough to really form any good arguments for or against her performance.

I get the feeling the children shouldn't be tiered, due to the number of variables, Lucina being the exception.

[Lord Raven]

I'll figure out children when we get there. I think we can assume when side quests should be accessed (based on difficulty of side quests, so Kjelle would come sooner than Yarne or Azure) to make it easier to tier.

I will add a clause at the front. No sparkling tiles.

[Samias]

You should also exclude Renown bonuses, since on multiple playthroughs you could end up having a longbow from the moment the wireless menu opens up (though this is more or less a given that they are excluded).

Edited February 4, 2013 by Samias

[Lord Raven]

Oh I know. I forget they're separate things sometimes. Should include no spot pass if I haven't already. Once again, after the Super Bowl. 21-6 ravens yeah boiiiii

Edited February 4, 2013 by Lord Raven

[Othin]

Heh, so many bonuses removed that would benefit Virion so much more than any other character.

[GinRei]

Oh I know. I forget they're separate things sometimes. Should include no spot pass if I haven't already. Once again, after the Super Bowl. 21-6 ravens yeah boiiiii

I don't know, I'd include Prince Marth if only because his DLC is free.

Edited February 4, 2013 by GinRei

[Lord Raven]

If its like the Japanese game it's for a limited time. So for now, no, because it'll be paid in the future.

[Lord Raven]

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).

I do see what you're saying, but my problem with Dracoknight is the fact that she has to start out with a Bronze Axe off of her average attack. Her stats are too well-rounded for her to be amazing. Granted, Stahl has his fair share of speed problems too, but his offense and physical defense is actually pretty ridiculous and his HP lets him hold out for a magic attack (but not two, lol, and by "a magic attack" i did factor in a double bonus). Stahl may not have the supports that Sully has (he has Sully lol, gives him the boosts he needs) but they're not getting past C in the early-game anyway. And Stahl will have Cordelia later on, and Miriel helps his Speed a little bit (or he helps her Defense). I'm waiting on more arguments with this, but I see what you're saying and I don't know which is honestly better; they are both strangely almost perfectly balanced.

Stahl starts out with a better Sword rank, so he can move to Iron very quickly (quicker than Sully) and he does more damage allowing him more kills. Neither are really doubling in early game and Stahl doesn't get doubled for quite a while (and when he starts getting doubled he starts tanking them like a boss).

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

The problem with Stahl and Sully is that they can't attack from behind as easily. Early on they can't get ganged up on either, they can counter on enemy phase but they always get counter attacked and 3HKO'd on hard mode. I could move the two up, since I'm waiting to see how the rest of the list fans out too. I will post my reasoning for them once I'm done with this prelab (tomorrow night or Tuesday).

Virion's defense shoots up when he promotes to Sniper.

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.

I see what you are saying, but my point is that their difficulty to recruit and the difficulty of their parents to conceive is irrelevant. Olivia being difficult to build up is actually very relevant to her children's quality, but the fact that Chrom/Olivia is very hard to do does not factor into Lucina's quality.

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.

I think the flexibility allows for it. I see what you are saying and I will actually combine them as a result (but with a > in them).

(Also, Ravens won. :D)

Edited February 4, 2013 by Lord Raven

[Samias]

I kind of want to say Vaike is above Stalh and Sully. He's not the best unit on his own, but his +5 strength bonus in double is a huge boon to anyone he pairs with, moreso than the balanced spreads that the cavs give. He also gets access to the hammer in chapter 3, when the boss is actually very problematic to kill for anyone who else who isn't Chrom, Frederick, Avatar, or Miriel. When paired up with Virion, you get a significant earlygame chip that actually has the potential to OHKO squishier enemies like mages.

[Lord Raven]

Also, if anyone is skeptical, here's my reasoning for going so slow on this tier list:

[03:10:36] <Paperblade> although idk why you randomly decided to only have like the first 10 characters tiered for now

[03:10:41] <Raven> i want to go slow

[03:10:46] <Raven> though it'll gradually change as we go on

[03:10:50] <Paperblade> o

[03:10:53] <Raven> because

[03:10:54] <Raven> here's my idea

[03:10:59] <Raven> we'll realize who deserves to be higher than who better

[03:11:03] <Raven> and be able to discuss it in more detail

[03:11:05] <Paperblade> mm

[03:11:19] <Raven> as opposed to the other lists

[03:11:21] <Raven> which are a clusterfuck

[03:11:32] <Raven> because one dude who doesn't give a flying shita bout 50% of the characters just randomly crams them into a tier

[03:11:42] <Raven> i literally almost did that before i realized i h ave no idea what i'm talking about with some of these chars

[03:11:51] <Raven> and if igure everyone will have the game soon

[03:11:55] <Raven> so it's better this way

[03:12:02] <Raven> and also we can see people progress through the game with the tier list

[Knight]

We should probably do a thread to rate the DLC characters some time, as they can be big contributors to the game. I'd think DLC Marth would be among the highest, as he has good growths right off the bat, and probably isn't as much a pain as Donnel.

[Paperblade]

Marth isn't ORKO'd the instant he joins so that immediately makes him better than Donnel

Edit: Also from what I understand most of the DLC maps require an endgame team to complete, so there's not much use in tiering them

Double Edit: And checking their base stats vs. the stats of the enemies in the map required to beat them, pretty much everyone that isn't Marth seems terrible

Edited February 4, 2013 by Paperblade

[Othin]

The postgame DLC maps are the 10 contained in LvD, UT, and FoD, containing seven of the 17 DLC characters.

Their usefulness varies. Can't speak about Hard, but I used Leaf, Alm, Celice, Elincia, and Eltshan for some period of time on my Lunatic run, and while they definitely had issues, they were nonetheless better than most characters.

[Onestep]

I see what you are saying, but my point is that their difficulty to recruit and the difficulty of their parents to conceive is irrelevant. Olivia being difficult to build up is actually very relevant to her children's quality, but the fact that Chrom/Olivia is very hard to do does not factor into Lucina's quality.

Yes but the fact is, this game now has a vast number of elements that previous Fire Emblem's don't, or only had once. The Double system and the generation system most notable among them. Ignoring the elements of who a character can pair up with, and the boosts they pass on seems silly in light of that.

I mean, if you want to seperate the Combat Effectiveness and the Parental Effectiveness into two lists, then I'm fine with that, but discounting it entirely is bit silly.

I think the flexibility allows for it. I see what you are saying and I will actually combine them as a result (but with a > in them).

(Also, Ravens won. :D)

I'm forced to agree that a Female Avatar is probably slightly better efficiency wise than a Male Avatar, at least once she gets Lightning Speed. But as a parent character, she's far more limited. She can only marry Chrom to produce two children, you have to rush her to Dark Flier lvl 15 to get Lightning Speed on Lucina ASAP due to Lucina's forced recruitment halfway through the game, and Chrom isn't a very good Double partner for a Mage Avatar in the mid-game and onwards, due to having no classes that boost magic in Double at all and no +Magic modifier. And then there's fact that you're likely to be comfortably doubling most enemies anyhow.

And really, putting a '>' instead of ordering them is just semantics.

[Paperblade]

The thing is that, in the main game, a lot of the kids really aren't that usable because their stats are so bad compared to how good you have to be to complete their Paralogue. I haven't played Hard, but on Lunatic, pretty much everyone on my team was OHKOing Cynthia in her recruitment chapter, and without double she could barely even hurt the enemies. There's not much reason to make them better when I could just improve MU

[Ema Skye]

But as a parent character, she's far more limited. She can only marry Chrom to produce two children, you have to rush her to Dark Flier lvl 15 to get Lightning Speed on Lucina ASAP due to Lucina's forced recruitment halfway through the game, and Chrom isn't a very good Double partner for a Mage Avatar in the mid-game and onwards, due to having no classes that boost magic in Double at all and no +Magic modifier. And then there's fact that you're likely to be comfortably doubling most enemies anyhow.

Not really. Chrom gives massive amounts of speed, netting anywhere from 3 to 9. Speed is obviously important, and after Ch.15, bosses start getting rather fast. Fels (Valkyrie boss in Ch.16) takes 33 Speed to double. Yen'fay needs 37 speed to double. You need 35 speed to double Walhart, and 41 speed to double Aversa. These are really high numbers. In my latest run, Avatar couldn't double Fels without Chrom supporting her in Dual Attack. Having magic isn't too big of a problem because Ignis helps out by boosting your damage output, and Chrom's Dual Attack percentage is great with Dual Strike+ (around a 70% chance of a Dual Strike with an S support), and Chrom has good offense too if you aren't neglecting him. Speaking from experience, Galeforce Lucina isn't nearly as valuable as Rally Spectrum Lucina. Lucina's combat at base isn't spectacular, so Galeforce won't be activating a lot. But Rally Spectrum requires no good combat. Just walk up to a good tile where you can effect lots of teammate, hit rally, and she's done her job for the map. 4 points in everything is obviously great, and it makes objectives like getting a flier up to Cervantes easier (since there's a lot of Silver Bows on that map, taking reduced damage and having more avoid is always helpful).

[Onestep]

Not really. Chrom gives massive amounts of speed, netting anywhere from 3 to 9. Speed is obviously important, and after Ch.15, bosses start getting rather fast. Fels (Valkyrie boss in Ch.16) takes 33 Speed to double. Yen'fay needs 37 speed to double. You need 35 speed to double Walhart, and 41 speed to double Aversa. These are really high numbers. In my latest run, Avatar couldn't double Fels without Chrom supporting her in Dual Attack. Having magic isn't too big of a problem because Ignis helps out by boosting your damage output, and Chrom's Dual Attack percentage is great with Dual Strike+ (around a 70% chance of a Dual Strike with an S support), and Chrom has good offense too if you aren't neglecting him. Speaking from experience, Galeforce Lucina isn't nearly as valuable as Rally Spectrum Lucina. Lucina's combat at base isn't spectacular, so Galeforce won't be activating a lot. But Rally Spectrum requires no good combat. Just walk up to a good tile where you can effect lots of teammate, hit rally, and she's done her job for the map. 4 points in everything is obviously great, and it makes objectives like getting a flier up to Cervantes easier (since there's a lot of Silver Bows on that map, taking reduced damage and having more avoid is always helpful).

A Dark Pegasus in support would give + 8 Speed, plus +8 to Magic. That's probably a decent bit better overall.

And if you want a support character, it's probably best to have one with multiple Rally's so that they can use them all simulatanously. And the Spotpass units tend to be better for this, as their lack of supports combined with the access to all gender based classes makes them ideal support units. Turning an Avatar child, Lucina or not, into a supporter is just a waste.

The thing is that, in the main game, a lot of the kids really aren't that usable because their stats are so bad compared to how good you have to be to complete their Paralogue. I haven't played Hard, but on Lunatic, pretty much everyone on my team was OHKOing Cynthia in her recruitment chapter, and without double she could barely even hurt the enemies. There's not much reason to make them better when I could just improve MU

But this tier list isn't about Lunatic. It's hard, which almost everyone will tell you is entirely different due to sheer relative strengths.

[Paperblade]

Characters are still (for the most part) the same strength relative to each other

[Espinosa]

The game has an underwhelming Jeigan character (i.e. not Seth) and a dozen of optional Nino archetype children. I think I can see where this is going. At least Serenes is safe.

Is Lucina even good enough, or also requires babying?

[arvilino]

The thing is that, in the main game, a lot of the kids really aren't that usable because their stats are so bad compared to how good you have to be to complete their Paralogue. I haven't played Hard, but on Lunatic, pretty much everyone on my team was OHKOing Cynthia in her recruitment chapter, and without double she could barely even hurt the enemies. There's not much reason to make them better when I could just improve MU

Some of them can be pretty useful even without combat use. For example Morgan, in one of my runs(though it was Lunatic) I had her mother be Lissa and she inherited both Rainbow Cry and Magic Cry, which is beneficial since Morgan could both Heal(with C-rank Staves so Even Physic to start with) and had Rainbow Cry and Magic Cry, freeing MU up from having to use his turn at-least for Rainbow Cry.

[Onestep]

Characters are still (for the most part) the same strength relative to each other

Characters are, but relative to enemies, any of the children characters are much stronger and thus easier to work with. Their sidequests aren't as challenging either and so they can be obtained sooner, with less effort.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Onestep

[Ema Skye]

A Dark Pegasus in support would give + 8 Speed, plus +8 to Magic. That's probably a decent bit better overall.

And if you want a support character, it's probably best to have one with multiple Rally's so that they can use them all simulatanously. And the Spotpass units tend to be better for this, as their lack of supports combined with the access to all gender based classes makes them ideal support units. Turning an Avatar child, Lucina or not, into a supporter is just a waste.

Yeah, but the support isn't kicking into A rank until at least Ch.16, and I doubt you're building B and A rank supports in Ch.14, Ch.15 and Ch.16 (since Ch.14 can be one turned, and Ch.16 can be 2 turned very reliably thanks to Cherche). Meanwhile, an S rank support with Chrom can be in effect by Ch.8, and Avatar's Magic Problem easily fixes itself once it gets Ignis. I also doubt how efficient it is in getting Galeforce Lucina. In my latest run, Avatar just hit Lv.15 for Rally Spectrum as she killed the boss on turn 1, and it takes longer to get Galeforce as well (since you can't reclass or promote until Ch.8 at the earliest).

I don't know if we should be tiering spotpass units on this list, due to the randomness in obtaining them (example being Eliwood on my current file. He's a Lv.20 Paladin, obviously I'm not getting him until way later on). The kids are fine supporters, because you don't need anyone but Chrom, Avatar, Anna, Cordelia, Sumia, Cherche and S rank supporters for the three fliers later on anyways. Gerome's Paralogue is tough, as is Severa's (enemies on average have attack somewhere in the 40s, which is a 2HKO on most units at the Ch.13 point), and Paperblade already touched on Cynthia's Paralogue. Pretty much all the kids are useless, with Lucina and Morgan being what I'd consider the best simply due to Rally Spectrum inheritance.

[Onestep]

Yeah, but the support isn't kicking into A rank until at least Ch.16, and I doubt you're building B and A rank supports in Ch.14, Ch.15 and Ch.16 (since Ch.14 can be one turned, and Ch.16 can be 2 turned very reliably thanks to Cherche). Meanwhile, an S rank support with Chrom can be in effect by Ch.8, and Avatar's Magic Problem easily fixes itself once it gets Ignis. I also doubt how efficient it is in getting Galeforce Lucina. In my latest run, Avatar just hit Lv.15 for Rally Spectrum as she killed the boss on turn 1, and it takes longer to get Galeforce as well (since you can't reclass or promote until Ch.8 at the earliest).

I don't know if we should be tiering spotpass units on this list, due to the randomness in obtaining them (example being Eliwood on my current file. He's a Lv.20 Paladin, obviously I'm not getting him until way later on). The kids are fine supporters, because you don't need anyone but Chrom, Avatar, Anna, Cordelia, Sumia, Cherche and S rank supporters for the three fliers later on anyways. Gerome's Paralogue is tough, as is Severa's (enemies on average have attack somewhere in the 40s, which is a 2HKO on most units at the Ch.13 point), and Paperblade already touched on Cynthia's Paralogue. Pretty much all the kids are useless, with Lucina and Morgan being what I'd consider the best simply due to Rally Spectrum inheritance.

The difference between an A rank support with Chrom and an S rank support with Chrom is 5 hit, and 10% activation on Dual Strike and 3% Activation on Dual Guard while in Double. It's certainly something, but it's not the end of the world if you don't have it. Later in the game, the buffs you would get from having an being in Double with an S supported Sage or Dark Pegasus would be better for a Magic based Avatar overall.

At the same time, you could have a female character build up a C or B rank or so with Chrom, then focus on levelling her supports with other characters until the forced marriage event, where she'd effectively get a Free Buff to S rank.

And any spotpass character can fulfill the duty of a supporter. They have all the class options of an Avatar of their gender after all. Though I suppose some are harder to work with than others.

Edit: Actually, screw it. This discussion is a waste of everyone's time (Most particularly mine, since I really want to play the actual game right now) and I keep having this annoying itch to move away from my 3DS to look at this thread instead of playing. So I'm calling myself out of this debate for now.

About the only way we could sort this out at all fairly would be an actual poll, much like the Rate the Unit's of FE12, because then everyone could use their own personal experiences of how things worked out for them to vote. Though even that method is hardly perfect.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Onestep

[PuffPuff]

Units:

Chrom

Avatar M/F Veteran

Avatar M/F

Frederick

Lissa

Sully

Virion

Stahl

Vaike

Miriel

Sumia

Kellam

Donnel

Virion is a monster. He has great Def and gives great Def boosts; he does indirect damage and as he progresses, he gains very good HP/Str/Skl/Def but average Speed. Whatever he gets doubled by doesn't tend to do much to him, but he does a lot of damage back in a mode where not many characters double anyway. Valkyries and mages are big against him, but bow lock is not bad at all in this game. As for promotions and class sets - he has decent magic growth but by the time you want to reclass him, you probably don't care anymore because he has to remaster his weapons. I guess Dracoknight complements his amazing Def and Mage complements his decent Magic growth as it stands, but I doubt you will want to keep him outside the Sniper/Bow Knight line. He does very well in both of those sets and, while he lacks skills, Bow Expert is generally all you'll need. He doesn't *need* skills.

It's personnel experience.

His Def growths are only 35% and he gets outclassed on the harder difficulty settings without RNG abuse.

Miriel is more of the same without Virion's durability (unless she goes Dark Knight). The difference here is that she has a very good class set - she can go Dark Knight, Sorcerer (!!!), Sage, and Valkyrie and she does a great job in all of them. They all have their perks but complement her ridiculous offensive growths very well, and it helps her case a lot that Staff starts with E rank in this game. She is somewhat frail if she goes anything but Dark Knight/Sorcerer, but her utility increases as does her magic defense ability (which is overrated sometimes, especially if you aren't Libra). Still, having an indirect attacker that can become a great healer helps no matter what.

And not to mention that she is around longer than any other Sage in the game!

Sumia is an early flier and she has a decent enough class set. Knight helps her defense, and Dark Flier/Falconknight are her natural choices with great skills and perks. I like Dark Flier and General on her, but she still has enough options to keep her going for a while. Her magic growth kinda sucks but with the right pairing she actually doesn't do bad with Tomes as a Dark Flier; beats the hell out of Falconknight where she has nowhere near enough magic to heal for enough to be useful. Still, before you get access to reclassing she has a flying advantage, which allows her to ferry people very easily (so you can move Frederick down the field to dominate much faster than any other game has allowed, and if not Frederick then Avatar). Her support list is lacking but she has a whole lot of utility and options to keep her going.

Um...u can't ferry units in this game. They only can be rescued with Rescue staves.

Mid

Stahl

Sully

Vaike

Kellam

Will talk more on these later. I'm exhausted and need to get ready for the Super Bowl!! I need to make my way down to Virginia too...

Low

Donnel

Requires no explanation. If we assume he gets his one level he needs for recruitment, he is still pretty bad because he still has lower stats than Lissa. He gets doubled by everything at base, his class set sucks, etc... He may have really phenomenal growths but they mean nothing when he has trouble doing damage to everything. He is a monster once he gets built up, but his EXP gain isn't fast or reliable enough to make this happen, and there aren't enough instances where enemies are left at enough HP for him to kill them (which tends to max at 5, even for Thieves).

He only gets any good with forges. Otherwise he's more trouble than he's worth.

Proposed changes so far:

Lissa down because of staff range and offense later on.

To be honest, she would be best to be a Valkyrie as her str is too shitty on the harder modes even with iron forges.

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.

Well...anyone who marries Tharja will have the utmost interesting life. >=)

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.

It's all personnel experience when he is actually a pretty awful character when his stats will never get good enough beyond Chapter 12.

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

Miriel is quite good but also very, very fragile, despite her great class set.

That's Virion's biggest problem.

His defense is very fragile and will have a hard time improving especially with his def growth only at 35%.

Marth isn't ORKO'd the instant he joins so that immediately makes him better than Donnel

Donnel cannot really be used without a forged lance as even on normal he can barely damage anything upon his joining time upon which Marth starts pwning upon his. ^^

Is Lucina even good enough, or also requires babying?

She can hold a league of her own as her base stats is near her fathers upon her joining time!

-----

Why is Miriel below Virion when she can promote by the time the first Master Seal becomes available in the game and getting access to staves which is the utmost important utility in the game?

Edited February 4, 2013 by Katarina