Does this game render tiers as abitrary?

[Loki Laufeyson]

This kinda jumped on my mind while playing. Just about every unit is subject to lots of tweaking to the player's tastes and usage. Want a bunch of fliers? Reclass everyone who can into wyverns or pegknights! Want LTC? Reclass peeps who can into mounted units and watch the fun!

"But this guy's growths kinda smell!" Try reclassing until they come out right!

"When's the best time to promote [insert unit here]?" Until you like their skills/stats? /shrug

"Whos kids will turn out the best?" Depends on your guys....

I think theres only a few absolutes when it comes to this kind of thing: Avatar and Avatar's Rugrat = gr9mazing. Due to the overall customization of just about everything going on, does this make discussing tiers and what not a little...pointless? The whole PEMN thing also seems to not apply due to what the player can do.

What do you guys think?

[Samias]

Tier lists for Lunatic and non-grind Hard mode play will probably exist, probably on the metric of turncounts. However, unlike previous tier lists, mobility of mounts and fliers is way down so I don't think the upper tiers are going to be so dominated by cavaliers and fliers anymore. Plus a huge chunk of the cast can put on wings anyway. But it will end up being very tight, since everyone in this game is very usable, with the only notable "bad" character in Hard mode no-skirmish runs being Donnel. There's so many random elements here and shifting dynamics through Annas, Renown and shining tiles, though. I think a tier for children is pretty much impossible to compile, though, unless someone is willing to go through ALL of the pairings and rate everything with the best possible inheritances or something, but that's so unrealistic for an efficient playthrough, with Lucina being the exception.

It will be at least an interesting discussion about how the early second seals and master seals will be used and who makes the best use of them, before you can go hog wild with them at midgame.

[Sigue]

The fact that tier lists for this game are much less influential than they are for its predecessors should come as nothing but a blessing. If your favourite character keeps dying just grind until he isn't. I had Dark Knight Ramza before the end of the Prologue so you can do whatever you want.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Sigue

[Loki Laufeyson]

Yeah Sam, i was totes thinking that. I know theres a few around here who are hardcore enough to go through everything with a fine toothed comb, but will it matter in the long run? Even on like, Lunatic Classic, theres still so much one can do....

I mean, Virion ended up as Haar 2.0 for me, but would he do that in the very next run i do? Or for someone else? Its possible but rather unlikely due to my next run's choices or the other player's choices. Like you said, Lucina may be the only one to possibly determine numbers with for obvious reasons.

I suppose one way to do it is if a tier list determined by everyone's base classes....maybe.

[HeroMystic]

For the most part, a Tier List would only exist for Lunatic Mode. Even then, this game is pretty much begging you to just use your favorite character and make him/her the ultimate badass. You'd have to add some pretty arbitrary rules just to get a list going (No grinding, No Spotpass shopping, No Reclasses, etc).

Honestly the game is better this way. PoR/RD were dominated by mobility classes, and I suspect this is why IS removed Rescue post-RD and added the Pairing system in this game. Way more options and opens up a helluva lot more strategies.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Honestly the game is better this way

Oh i agree. And it almost feels like its FE saying "Hey...be quiet and enjoy your game, peeps. Holy crap." But a lot of discussion on these boards have a lot to due with this kind of stuff so i was wondering what the tier peeps thought.

[Samias]

Generally I think it's best to assume everyone will be in their base class and maybe go through 3 reclasses at the most, if you bar challenges and DLC. But it will take many, many playthroughs and experimentation with class paths. There are very few instances where I can definitively point out a class x character better than y. Like Lissa's early join time and earlier access to Healtouch is generally more useful than Maribelle's join time later on with poorer skills (for some reason I just don't like troubadour/valkyrie as a class in this game either. IDK?)

Edited February 12, 2013 by Samias

[riariadne]

There's already a start to a Hard mode tier list and there will end up being one for Lunatic as well.

If anything FE13 gives tier lists more to talk about than ever. Classes, skills, supports that are relevant, and pair up add a lot more to think about!

[Barbot]

It might be possible to tier Gen 1 characters, but with the number of possibilities for Gen 2, I don't think they can be tiered.

Though in a Lunatic list, they'd probably all be bottom tier anyway. Maybe with Brady at his own special place below that.

[zahlman]

However, unlike previous tier lists, mobility of mounts and fliers is way down so I don't think the upper tiers are going to be so dominated by cavaliers and fliers anymore.

Er, what? A ton of maps are "defeat commander" and easily single-turned if you can get there, and fliers are a big part of how you do that. You *have* heard of the Galeforce skill, yeah? But even ignoring that, how do you figure "mobility of mounts and fliers is way down"? They have typically 7-8 mov in a game where infantry mostly have 5, exactly like the GBA games. The only real difference I noticed is that woods slow down cavalry a lot more than they used to (it seems to be 4 cost for them).

Plus a huge chunk of the cast can put on wings anyway.

Sure, but you'll have to get them levels first and it's hard(er) to do that at LTC speed.

everyone in this game is very usable, with the only notable "bad" character in Hard mode no-skirmish runs being Donnel.

This much I agree with, at least from the experience I do have (I haven't tried out Nowi and some others said she's similarly bad if you're trying to be fast).

There's so many random elements here and shifting dynamics through Annas, Renown and shining tiles, though.

Assumptions would have to be made for any tier list.

I think a tier for children is pretty much impossible to compile, though, unless someone is willing to go through ALL of the pairings and rate everything with the best possible inheritances or something, but that's so unrealistic for an efficient playthrough, with Lucina being the exception.

... Yeah, more or less.

I'd also say it's worth having separate tier lists for performance as main unit and as paired unit.

PoR/RD were dominated by mobility classes, and I suspect this is why IS removed Rescue post-RD

I don't get what you're talking about here; Awakening has buyable Rescue staves all over the place, and they're E rank, too. Oh, you mean the command. Yeah, well, there's kind of a Paralogue whose gameplay really only makes sense because you don't have the command :3 and you can still ferry a low-movement unit with a high-movement one, and in fact eventually you get combat from both of them. Plus the ferrier can move forward on the same turn that the units join up.

Edited February 12, 2013 by zahlman

[Tormod]

The thing is... even if there's a huge amount of possibility, it doesn't mean every option is as good as another. For instance, yes, you can reclass. But that requires getting a character up to level 10 to begin with, then swapping them into a new class. Aside from the time involved, there's also the issue of the fact that the new class may not have the same weapon availability - and the harder difficulty you're on/the further you are, the more being stuck with an E weapon hurts. How well do the old skills impact the new class, etc. etc... there's just a lot of stuff to ponder on that front! I think the general end result will be that the tier list feels a lot tighter than before - a whole lot more units will be sitting in higher tiers and very few of them will be ashamed of their low placement.

To be fair, though, tier lists in FE are somewhat arbitrary on some level - if not solely decisions about what difficulty it's measured on and the restrictions that will be set. But I very much doubt that, once that arbitrary set of rules is settled upon, the decisions of what units fall where will be anything but arbitrary.

[CinderSkye]

Generally I think it's best to assume everyone will be in their base class and maybe go through 3 reclasses at the most, if you bar challenges and DLC. But it will take many, many playthroughs and experimentation with class paths. There are very few instances where I can definitively point out a class x character better than y. Like Lissa's early join time and earlier access to Healtouch is generally more useful than Maribelle's join time later on with poorer skills (for some reason I just don't like troubadour/valkyrie as a class in this game either. IDK?)

I think I'm alone in this but I think Battle Cleric/Battle Priest is a pretty terrible class for most of the game, for Lissa and Maribelle at least (Libra seems to turn out a bit better). Sage and Valkyrie are the only two decent options for them promoted.

Edited February 12, 2013 by CinderSkye

[shadykid]

heh, don't hold your breath about mounted units suddenly sucking

cause aside from Avatar (no shit), i'm sure units like Sumia, Cordelia, and Frederick will all end up high tier

[Tormod]

I think I'm alone in this but I think Battle Cleric/Battle Priest is a pretty terrible class for most of the game, for Lissa and Maribelle at least (Libra seems to turn out a bit better). Sage and Valkyrie are the only two decent options for them promoted.

You wouldn't be alone in this, if not solely for the fact that Maribelle and Lissa don't have notable STR growths on their own and being a priest beforehand isn't really going to help either, and even with axes' high damage they're just not going to do any real noteworthy damage. Rally Luck and Renewal aren't necessarily bad skills, but there are definitely better options. About the only advantage it really offers over the other two is that it's a little hardier physically than the other classes.

Fortunately, they have Sage and Valkyrie available as options (though one will require a second seal to go sideways first), and both of those give the two a better self-defense option and way to put their MAG to use.

[Samias]

Neither of them have to go sideways. Lissa can go straight into sage and Maribelle can go straight into valkyrie. Notably tomes are probably the least worrisome E rank to be in. However I just think sage is the better class to begin with because the troubadour line learns poor skills while cleric-sage is going to have healtouch, rally magic, AND tomefaire. Maribelle can never pick up healtouch (though this only really matters with physic and fortify).

Fliers are great, learning some of the best skills in the game. There are some chapters where charging is necessary and 1-2 turn counts or something as low as necessary is needed. But generally archer density is up, the archers are more dangerous and holding forged silvers, and there are also many, many mages set to ruin a wyvern rider's day. Galeforce comes pretty late and dark fliers in the meantime are actually very bad at taking hits with their low def base. The quality of fliers isn't exactly FE12 Palla/Catria and there is no non-DLC Iote's Shield. However, when I mentioned the mobility of riders going down, I specifically mean that their movement numbers are nerfed from the DS games, and they also can't re-move like in Tellius, and to a lesser extent the GBA era. Galeforce kind of throws things for a loop, but the skill once earned doesn't just go away when you reclass either.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Samias

[CinderSkye]

Sage is unquestionably better than Troubadour, but Troubadour is hardly bad; IIRC it grants +1 move as a pair-up, so it's a great partner.

And again, my answer to fliers being weaker in this game is that they seem stronger than ever to me. In the long run, you can get Bowbreaker or Tomebreaker or Pavise or Aegis as appropriate. Picking up Sol or Renewal helps a lot for durability. In the short run, pair up lets me take risks with fliers that I never did before. Before, if I sent a flier out into an archer heavy area, I had to make sure that there was no way an archer could get to them or I'd waste turns just running around. Instead I can play peekaboo, I behead you by pairing them with a sword-wielding Merc or something.

[Samias]

Troubadour and Valk do not give +Mov in a pair up. IIRC the classes who give mov are thief, trickster, great knight, dark knight, bow knight, and griffon rider.

I do find the best strategy is to pair a flier and non flier and switch as needed. But the best flier isn't necessarily Sumia or Cordelia or even Cherche.

[zahlman]

But generally archer density is up, the archers are more dangerous and holding forged silvers, and there are also many, many mages set to ruin a wyvern rider's day. Galeforce comes pretty late and dark fliers in the meantime are actually very bad at taking hits with their low def base.

Speed and Luck get you avoid, and HP (robes) avoids OHKOs.

[Folt]

And again, my answer to fliers being weaker in this game is that they seem stronger than ever to me. In the long run, you can get Bowbreaker or Tomebreaker or Pavise or Aegis as appropriate. Picking up Sol or Renewal helps a lot for durability.

To get those skills, you'd have to reclass them though. I'd imagine tier lists might put some kind of restriction on that and maybe grinding as well.

In the short run, pair up lets me take risks with fliers that I never did before. Before, if I sent a flier out into an archer heavy area, I had to make sure that there was no way an archer could get to them or I'd waste turns just running around. Instead I can play peekaboo, I behead you by pairing them with a sword-wielding Merc or something.

This I agree with, though Pair Up in general seems to allow for strategies that you could never do before. Fliers aren't the only ones that benefit from pairing up, and there is no such thing as a foolproof strategy.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

If tier list is "fire", awakening's customization is the "fuel" that can enable a tier list thread to become massive because of people constantly bringing up "food for thought" in the form of class/skill/pair/etc combinations that are more "efficient". Not to mention people that don't like the tier placement of their favorite characters will pop in with some argument to try and change this often to just have people repeat shit that's been already discussed and this occasionally turns into silly flame wars.

Hopefully the likely to be established "no grinding" rule will at least silence some class options that involve going from 1 accessible weapon type to completely different things.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Sirius

[Tormod]

To get those skills, you'd have to reclass them though. I'd imagine tier lists might put some kind of restriction on that and maybe grinding as well.

Usually, tier lists are constructed with the expectation of NOT grinding at all. FE8's ignores skirmishes and the Tower of Valni; FE7/6's ignores Arena Abuse, etc. Mostly because these tier lists are based around what is arguably the most stringent set of conditions - clearing the game in as few turns as possible.

So for that reason, you can probably expect that there won't actually be a 'hard cap' on what could actually be done - but rather a question of 'how likely is it you'll actually get enough levels to pull that off before the game's done?'.

[CinderSkye]

To get those skills, you'd have to reclass them though. I'd imagine tier lists might put some kind of restriction on that and maybe grinding as well.

This I agree with, though Pair Up in general seems to allow for strategies that you could never do before. Fliers aren't the only ones that benefit from pairing up, and there is no such thing as a foolproof strategy.

The "long run" sentiment is basically the counter to "the lady fliers get Galeforce." During the campaign itself, those skills are largely irrelevant.