FE: Awakening Hard Mode Tier List

[Constable Reggie]

Your argument's riding an awful lot on Sumia, and Henry's supposedly easy-to-fix speed, while ignoring that Tharja's one issue (skill) is even easier to fix with any combination of skill tonics, skill+speed pairup (Avatar, Gregor, Gaius), and the dark mage skills. Luck is so insignificant in calculations that it really isn't an issue needed to be fix. You're horribly overstating Tharja's problems while greatly understating Henry's. Resistance isn't really an issue for either of them since mage damage and resistance isn't terribly high, which allows for easy nosferatu healing.

Henry can take a dedicated speed pairup and a speed tonic to double regular enemies, sure, but Tharja can do the same and double non speed-based promoted enemies, too. She's not forced to only two potential pairup partners like Henry is.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Chiki]

It's impossible Olwen's obsession with LTC leaks into his entire argument and he has everyone else debating as if Galeforce and LTCing is more important to this tier list than the factors that we're actually tiering on.

Do you have an issue with reading my posts?

It doesn't matter if it isn't LTC. Even if it is, according to the tier list, the thing that is valued on the current tier list (reliability and killing units) can be fixed with Pair Ups, Tonics and supports and so on.

So my point is that even if the tier list is an LTC one or not it doesn't make a difference.

When I said 2-3 I meant 2-3 partnered units.

[General Horace]

Henry is better than Tharja when both double. It's just judging Tharja's performance before he can do so.

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Tharja has a 10% higher magic growth than Henry. How is he "hitting harder, healing more"? Also, why can't Tharja do exactly what Henry does in chapter 14? The only notable advantages he has on her are skill and concrete durability and the skill only really hurts her for the first couple chapters after she joins. As a minor point, Tharja joins in Chapter 9, not 10 meaning she has 4 chapters to grow before Henry shows up.

Tharja starts 2 Mag behind Henry, and Henry has C Tomes, meaning Tharja has to pick up 3 mt (either in tome skill or raw magic) somewhere to simply match him at base. Combine that with the fact that Tharja is unlikely to have a magic-boosting support, and Henry has the clear advantage in raw mt during the heads up.

e: Tharja has to be in 20 combats in 4 maps in order to hit C tomes. If she's doubling, that means she has to be in 10 non-nosferatu combats in order to hit C Tomes. On average, she'll get that 3 mt in 5 levels, which isn't insane for Tharja, but it also means that a level 15 Tharja can only match a level 12 Henry in raw damage, not even considering supports.

Your argument's riding an awful lot on Sumia, and Henry's supposedly easy-to-fix speed, while ignoring that Tharja's one issue (skill) is even easier to fix with any combination of skill tonics, skill+speed pairup (Avatar, Gregor, Gaius), and the dark mage skills. Luck is so insignificant in calculations that it really isn't an issue needed to be fix. You're horribly overstating Tharja's problems while greatly understating Henry's. Resistance isn't really an issue for either of them since mage damage and resistance isn't terribly high, which allows for easy nosferatu healing.

Henry can take a dedicated speed pairup and a speed tonic to double regular enemies, sure, but Tharja can do the same and double non speed-based promoted enemies, too. She's not forced to only two potential pairup partners like Henry is.

1. It's not that the argument is riding a lot on Sumia, it's that Henry has much better options for supports than Tharja in order to deal with his potential issues. Tharja's best shot at patching up her issues is Libra, who doesn't give Speed, and she has no supports with Dark Flier, the best class possible to leverage her utility. As a result, Tharja's support options are basically "win speed, lose everything else" or "almost be as good at things as henry" with a Libra support.

2. Sumia is already assumed to get Frederick, and it's basically a universal acceptance among people at the moment that Fred hits a wall around Valm, how is it hard to assume that if Henry is in play, he's getting the Dark Flier Sumia support? Fred either has been benched and is no longer in active rotation, or he's still a powerhouse, and he's spending some quality father-daughter time while Sumia has a fling with a dangerous man with a mysterious past?

3. "forced to only two potential pairup partners" is a questionable way of putting it. It's not that Henry only has two supports, it's that Dark Flier is literally the perfect support in every way possible. A flying chauffeur, a huge Speed boost, a power boost, and a non-insignificant res boost. It's very similar to earlygame Sumia, actually. Sure, she "has options" but why pair her with anyone other than Frederick? Likewise, why pair Henry with anyone other than Dark Flier Cordelia or Sumia?

Edited May 7, 2013 by Seven Deadly Sins

[Da Bear]

1. It's not that the argument is riding a lot on Sumia, it's that Henry has much better options for supports than Tharja in order to deal with his potential issues. Tharja's best shot at patching up her issues is Libra, who doesn't give Speed, and she has no supports with Dark Flier, the best class possible to leverage her utility. As a result, Tharja's support options are basically "win speed, lose everything else" or "almost be as good at things as henry" with a Libra support.

2. Sumia is already assumed to get Frederick, and it's basically a universal acceptance among people at the moment that Fred hits a wall around Valm, how is it hard to assume that if Henry is in play, he's getting the Dark Flier Sumia support? Fred either has been benched and is no longer in active rotation, or he's still a powerhouse, and he's spending some quality father-daughter time while Sumia has a fling with a dangerous man with a mysterious past?

3. "forced to only two potential pairup partners" is a questionable way of putting it. It's not that Henry only has two supports, it's that Dark Flier is literally the perfect support in every way possible. A flying chauffeur, a huge Speed boost, a power boost, and a non-insignificant res boost. It's very similar to earlygame Sumia, actually. Sure, she "has options" but why pair her with anyone other than Frederick? Likewise, why pair Henry with anyone other than Dark Flier Cordelia or Sumia?

Frederick doesn't hit a wall if he gets favoritism!

Edited May 7, 2013 by bearclaw13

[Seven Deadly Sins]

No, he gets Cynthia.

Also, try not to be snarky. One-liners like that don't help the discussion, they just distract. Let's keep things focused.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Seven Deadly Sins

[Interceptor]

No reason for units to be married (literally and figuratively) for supports all the time. It's perfectly reasonable to me for Henry's team to have a Sumia that rides A-rank Frederick until Valm, and then takes her as a trained partner for the duration of the game going forward. What's important is making the best moves for a team that includes Henry on it, and then taking the downsides into account appropriately when he's compared to someone else.

[Da Bear]

No, he gets Cynthia.

Also, try not to be snarky. One-liners like that don't help the discussion, they just distract. Let's keep things focused.

I wasn't trying to be snarky it's mainly the argument for Frederick...

But Cynthia does help your idea of having Sumia marry Fred then switch to Henry while Fred switches to Cynthia is very smart.

[Zkirsche]

Where do I even begin.

I suppose I should first dispel the myth that Tharja has trouble hitting things. I'm assuming Libra support, because you seem to have simply assumed that Sumia, who has been around for 10 chapters and is an A tier level combatant, has noone to pocket support and that we're not using her. Frankly this is already a HUGE opportunity cost but let's see if it's worth it:

Base Tharja w/Elthunder & Libra: 25 HP, 20 atk, 97 hit, 13 AS, 31 Avo, 11 Def, 10 Res

Note that I have incorporated the pocket support bonuses (the +10 hit and avo) to prove a point. Enemies in chapter 10 and paralouge 4 have ~20 avo so Tharja faces 80% hit rates. This is before skill and luck tonics. That isn't unreliable, and if you really think so, why don't you let her just drop down to elfire for the +10 hit. She'll lose 1 atk but she'll manage. Funny thing, though, she doesn't care, because enemies have ~30ish health and 1-2 res so she actually ORKOs anything she doubles. How many units do that, exactly? Well, she has to double them I guess so let's see enemy speed levels.

Luckily for Tharja enemies are hovering around 10 speed so with a speed tonic she doubles and ORKOs most things. Although, why don't we let her get the boss kill from chapter 9? The guy has 20 def and 4 res so we might as well let a mage do it, and we don't need to funnel our avy all the kills. This means that she's practically level 11 where she has a 60% chance of getting +1 spd letting her double pretty much everyone except the thieves and the boss.

Oh but I forget, you are also under the misconception that Tharja is too squishy to take on any kind of opponent. Well, with a def tonic she has 13 defence. The only enemies to surpass 20 atk in paralouge 4 are the steel axe fighters, which can be focused down if necessary, and the boss, who's on the other side of the map. So enemies are actually 4HKOing Tharja, not bad when it's too early for one to actually face more than 4 attack in the enemy phase. Oh yeah, and the steel axe fighters who 2HKO Tharja only have ~50% hit anyway, so considering we can already just ORKO them without a counter attack they're not even that threatening to her. It takes a steel axe fighter and two, possibly more, enemies to take her out (with 26 Hp from a level up, she can survive an atatck by a 20 atk archer and a myrmidon, the former is ORKO'd in return).

And that is all ignoring one thing: Tharja has nosferato, which only sees hit rates of 70% at first but that is still pretty reliable durability considering that it's just a back-up precaution if we think she's going to get hit one too many times.

With 4 maps until Henry and the Chapter 9 boss, it's very feasible to put Tharja at level 15 going into Chapter 13. She will then have a C/B rank with Libra, giving her more skill and luck. But you know what, let's be mean and say Tharja is at level 14, looking at them before supports:

Level 14 Tharja w/Elfire: 28.6 HP, 18.4 Atk, 14.4 AS, 97.1 Hit, 11.8 Def, 8.2 Res

Level 12 Henry w/Elfire: 29 Hp, 19 Atk, 9 AS, 112 Hit, 13 Def, 5 Res

That speed. Henry has just *slightly* better durability and *slightly* better offence, and yes that is only slightly (with the better approximation of level 15 Tharja would have equal atk and HP and only 1 less Def which does jack squat). With speed tonics and Sumia Henry has 15 AS; that was just barely enough to double when Tharja joined so he's not doubling anything, so Tharja deals more damage due to doubling. At this point, Libra gives Tharja +2 skl (+3 to hit), + 4 luck (+2 to hit) and +10 to hit from a pair up bonus so again she has like 110 hit against like 30 avo enemies so that's 80 which is a hit pretty much every time still. And of course Libra gives +4mag so Tharja actually has more atk than Henry. And they are KO'd in pretty much the same time again with the same amount of avoid: not much.

And tbh I don't really need to go on from there because Tharja has better growths: both in speed and in mag. Sure, Henry has a 5% def growth but that isn't turnign anyone's head. If Tharja is a bad tank then so is Henry, give them both Nosferato and it doesn't matter because durability no longer matters: only offence does, and Tharja wins offence the whole game with a better growth and a support partner that gives her mag.

Oh and I'm again going to point out that pocket Sumia is a ridiculously high cost for Henry to just about lose to Tharja because that means an A tier combatant is taken out of the picture. Libra however doesn't mind supporting Tharja because it's very convenient for him to do so.

Hell, we can even take Anna's base support bonuses (+3 mag, +3 skl, +5spd, + 2 lck) to help Tharja in her early stages if we need be, as it gives her teh same mag as Libra would, fixes her hit and then let's her double everything.

Tharja has more atk than Henry if he takes Sumia, and a vastly superior speed stat if he doesn't. And neither will ever die so 1-2 points in def hardly matter. Tharja > Henry.

Henry should be in B though.

Edit: Wrt to mages, they probably won't even attack Tharja this early on anyway, as Tharja likely has more res than others in your party and she can always counter attack, making her a low priority for them. Either way, they 3HKO at best, and 4HKO like usual when she first joins.

Edit2: Fun fact, don't pay it any mind if you like but I thought it was interesting. Because of paralouge 4 and a skirmish my Tharja entered chapter 10 as a level 20/2 dark mage. I also sealed two other units and have 3 sitting at level 20 waiting, so it wasn't even favouritism. Level 14 by chapter 13 seems very very harsh on Tharja from my perspective. Although I'm not doing an efficient run so maybe this is moot.

Edited May 7, 2013 by kirsche

[Constable Reggie]

I had a counterargument partially written up, but kirshe's post just popped up and does a far, far better job of arguing than I could ever do. I'll just add that Anathema (or Hex if 1-range) further increases Tharja's hit rate.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Titamon]

Why is Sumia always assumed to get Fredrick?

[Zkirsche]

Why is Sumia always assumed to get Fredrick?

Well, they do go well together. She has good second choices though: Kellam and Chrom.

Edit: Just forgot that she can't directly support Kellam, but he gives her good boosts if need be to set her off.

Edited May 7, 2013 by kirsche

[Galenforcer]

Has anyone ever given Avatar x Sumia a try? She does come like two chapters after Sully, but Sumia gives better bonuses in form of Speed and Resistance. It does give leeway to her limited support options.

Edited May 8, 2013 by 春閣下

[Shadow Mir]

Has anyone ever given Avatar x Sumia a try? She does come like two chapters after Sully, but Sumia gives better bonuses in form of Speed and Resistance. It does give leeway to her limited support options.

Judging by the lack of discussion on that pairing, I guess not.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Levant Fortner

[Da Bear]

Has anyone ever given Avatar x Sumia a try? She does come like two chapters after Sully, but Sumia gives better bonuses in form of Speed and Resistance. It does give leeway to her limited support options.

Yes.It sucks. Avatar can double with lower speed boosts and Sumia doesn't get defense.

[Sol Hiryu]

Not sure with the hesitance on Chrom down to A. He literally has nothing on everyone else in S tier besides his superior Pair Up skills, but those don't even work on him whenever he's in the lead. He's swordlocked until he takes a Second Seal (which is contested too), and really doesn't get any skill that benefits him in the lead position until he hits 10 Cav or 5 GL, and Aether isn't even good without Rightful King. I'd rather see both him and Lucina fall down to top of A, since I don't think their overall contributions are as important as everyone else's in that tier.

Also, anyone get the feeling that Anna is too high? She's definite A tier, but is her thief utility + staff utility better than the Pegs? Her combat is okay until you get to Valm, where it falls off a cliff. You can reclass her to Sage, but she would be stuck at E tomes and that's not cool unless you feed her Arms Scrolls, which a lot of people want. I'm not even sure when she can get to C staves unless she's using a staff each turn in each chapter, since she and Libra using Physic would probably be as much healing as you want. Again, you could feed her an Arms Scroll, but is that really optimal on her?

[ZemZem]

Has anyone ever given Avatar x Sumia a try? She does come like two chapters after Sully, but Sumia gives better bonuses in form of Speed and Resistance. It does give leeway to her limited support options.

Avatar/Sumia is good. Sure, Avatar doesn't give Sumia as much DEF as Frederick does (it isn't even a big deal, because HM is easy and if you play smart, Sumia won't die), but the two compliment each other well. They have quite the strong endgame, and Morgan and Cynthia are monsters.

Anyway, I actually gave Vaike a try in my new FE13 file. He...doesn't help as much in earlygame as say Chrom (which is a given), but he's definitely the best foot unit to use after Avatar, Chrom, and Lon'qu. The +5 STR he gives Lon'qu from Pair Ups right from the get-go makes Lon'qu easier to train, which was very, very nice. Also, he likes going Barbarian, but the change seals have Panne and Avatar's names written all over it.

I still wouldn't put him over Cherche, though. He just doesn't contribute as much since maps get bigger and longer, and Cherche in some ways is similar to him, but she has better durability and flight. When he gets weaker, she only gets stronger.

[Da Bear]

Anyway, I actually gave Vaike a try in my new FE13 file. He...doesn't help as much in earlygame as say Chrom (which is a given), but he's definitely the best foot unit to use after Avatar, Chrom, and Lon'qu. The +5 STR he gives Lon'qu from Pair Ups right from the get-go makes Lon'qu easier to train, which was very, very nice. Also, he likes going Barbarian, but the change seals have Panne and Avatar's names written all over it.

I still wouldn't put him over Cherche, though. He just doesn't contribute as much since maps get bigger and longer, and Cherche in some ways is similar to him, but she has better durability and flight. When he gets weaker, she only gets stronger.

Yes he does give great pair ups. I recommend giving him a second seal and the avatar a master seal, it allows you to get rally spectrum sooner.

[RNG Princess]

I tried the Anna > Mage > Sage route and I got her to level 2 sage by the end of Chapter 13. She was like avatar 2.0 but a little squishier owo. I did give her Kellam though.

[Da Bear]

I tried the Anna > Mage > Sage route and I got her to level 2 sage by the end of Chapter 13. She was like avatar 2.0 but a little squishier owo. I did give her Kellam though.

The amount of favoritism this must have taken isn't really viable.

[Redwall]

Rational favoritism isn't a bad thing; we don't penalize Marcia for taking BEXP, we don't penalize Avatar for swallowing tons of kills, etc. Sage Anna seems like a decent offensive threat, though I'd be interested to see how she performs lategame, by which time her slowed EXP gain may start to change things.

[Da Bear]

Rational favoritism isn't a bad thing; we don't penalize Marcia for taking BEXP, we don't penalize Avatar for swallowing tons of kills, etc. Sage Anna seems like a decent offensive threat, though I'd be interested to see how she performs lategame, by which time her slowed EXP gain may start to change things.

Yeah but at this point she's taking EXP from higher tiered units, which is a bad thing.

[General Horace]

Yeah but at this point she's taking EXP from higher tiered units, which is a bad thing.

Units usually aren't penalized for taking exp from higher tiered units, unless it's a ridiculous amount, otherwise there isn't much point to using anyone but S tier and pairupbots. Anna has quite a few chapters to get exp to promote (while I haven't tried it myself, it seems pretty feasible, chapter 10, 11 and 12 all have quite a bit of exp). Her durability is still going to be a massive issue though.

[Shadow Mir]

Yeah but at this point she's taking EXP from higher tiered units, which is a bad thing.

This again... Ugh...

Let's put it this way.

Chrom gets a kill. No one else can get that kill.

Anna gets a kill. No one else can get it.

Avatar gets a kill. No one else can get it.

Ricken gets a kill. No one else can get that kill.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Levant Fortner

[Da Bear]

Units usually aren't penalized for taking exp from higher tiered units, unless it's a ridiculous amount, otherwise there isn't much point to using anyone but S tier and pairupbots. Anna has quite a few chapters to get exp to promote (while I haven't tried it myself, it seems pretty feasible, chapter 10, 11 and 12 all have quite a bit of exp). Her durability is still going to be a massive issue though.

She's getting nine or so levels while leveling like a level ten unit in three maps. That's pretty ridiculous IMO.