New tier list method

[Zaprong]

Lissa is not bad, I mean by the time you got time on grinding her she has a lot of Staff usage which one does NOT reach easily, so Lissa has the function of being an omnistave user.

Same as Anna and Libra, which both come before midgame

Lon'qu must be higher since he has tons of useful skills.

[General Banzai]

Depends on how much the bolded part contributes to completion.

High availability generally makes a character better than a low availability character. It's a rule of thumb. It's not 100% accurate, but it's what is generally true.

High availability is better because meh performance over 20 chapters generally is worth more than great performance in one chapter. Since we just aim to complete chapters here, if a meh performance is killing 3 enemies per chapter and a great performance is killing 20 enemies in one chapter, then the unit with a decent performance. The meh performance unit killed 60 enemies overall. The great killed 20. You see the difference?

As you can see, you don't need to be a mathematician to understand the basic reasoning behind this. You simply need to be a human being.

You claim that unique utility isn't kid friendly. But I honestly think anyone can understand that having a unique contribution to clearing a certain chapter is a good thing. Ex: any simpleton can understand that Athos being able to use Luna when no one else can for that dragon is a really good thing.

The thing is, however, that meh units usually aren't simply only defeating three enemies or otherwise making only minor positive gains to the team, but they themselves are a liability because they tend to be underleveled or defensively weak, and that actually makes completion MORE difficult.

For instance, Donnel. Ignoring any potential benefits Donnel has as a dad and simply looking at his combat prowess, for most of the game Donnel's going to be an extreme liability, who is not only contributing next to nothing for completion but also someone who must be constantly guarded, who has to be taken into account during every strategy to make sure he is safe from harm, and who, if we're actually trying to train him, we must give resources (at the very least, highly-desired pairup partners) and in many cases actively gimp the combat ability of our other units in order to set up kills for him.

The problem here is that you seem to assume that characters can only make positive or null contributions to the team, when in fact in many situations they actually contribute negatively to the team as far as completion is concerned.

I say, that a character who makes a highly positive contribution to the team, albeit for a short time (i.e. Harken), is far better than a character who makes a negative contribution to the team for most of the game (i.e. Bartre).

Edited September 13, 2013 by General Banzai

[Chiki]

The thing is, however, that meh units usually aren't simply only defeating three enemies or otherwise making only minor positive gains to the team, but they themselves are a liability because they tend to be underleveled or defensively weak, and that actually makes completion MORE difficult.

For instance, Donnel. Ignoring any potential benefits Donnel has as a dad and simply looking at his combat prowess, for most of the game Donnel's going to be an extreme liability, who is not only contributing next to nothing for completion but also someone who must be constantly guarded, who has to be taken into account during every strategy to make sure he is safe from harm, and who, if we're actually trying to train him, we must give resources (at the very least, highly-desired pairup partners) and in many cases actively gimp the combat ability of our other units in order to set up kills for him.

The problem here is that you seem to assume that characters can only make positive or null contributions to the team, when in fact in many situations they actually contribute negatively to the team as far as completion is concerned.

I say, that a character who makes a highly positive contribution to the team, albeit for a short time (i.e. Harken), is far better than a character who makes a negative contribution to the team for most of the game (i.e. Bartre).

I agree with you that availability can be a bad thing sometimes in certain cases like Donnel.

But this doesn't negate the fact that, as a rule of thumb, availability is better than no availability.

I'm not so sure that meh units make completion more difficult. It only depends on if your other units are strong or not.

Late game babying indeed makes things harder, but not so much early game because your units aren't really that strong. Every bit of chip damage helps. Babying Miriel is actually a positive here rather than a negative.

[Snowy_One]

Question. Virion... Bottom? Why?

I know I got lucky here, but when I played I managed to get a tower bow from a sparkle tile early on and that little bit of extra chip damage at 3 range has been very useful since it allows for extra flexibility and makes him very easy to support as well as allowing other units to get extra kills. Donnel wouldn't have been recruited (well, would have been harder for sure) if Virion hadn't chipped a few enemies first as well. Not saying he's the best, but BOTTOM? Huh?

[Chiki]

Question. Virion... Bottom? Why?

I know I got lucky here, but when I played I managed to get a tower bow from a sparkle tile early on and that little bit of extra chip damage at 3 range has been very useful since it allows for extra flexibility and makes him very easy to support as well as allowing other units to get extra kills. Donnel wouldn't have been recruited (well, would have been harder for sure) if Virion hadn't chipped a few enemies first as well. Not saying he's the best, but BOTTOM? Huh?

Good for you Snowy.

[General Banzai]

Yes, I agree to the extent that "liability vs. non liability" isn't a black and white issue. I can tolerate some amounts of babying early in the game, and in fact the game basically expects you to do it, which seems to be the design rationalization of including the Jeigan.

But I think that there's something to be said for units who require no babying at all and who are at no point in their existence a liability, as those units are incredibly rare (or, in other terms, "unique"). Pent and Harken basically zero downside to using them; there is no reason for anyone not to throw them on their team as soon as they get them, and keep them there for the entire game. Whereas, even earlygame standout units like, say, Kent and Sain, have drawbacks that could potentially be good arguments for not using them (at least, if we assume no LM--if there is LM, they will never be liabilities either).

If we were making recommendations to less experienced players on who to use, which is basically what this tier list is, then recommending they use Pent and Harken is a given that few if any other units would share. If we talk about this in terms of "unique combat contributions," we might even say that never being a liability at any point in the game IS their unique contribution, and a pretty substantial one as well in a tier where we want to judge units solely by their positive contributions.

I don't know if this is still done, but in FESD tiers a major contributing factor to a unit's worth was how long they were stuck in what was called the "suck zone," i.e. the time period where they were more of a liability than a boon (because in FESD every unit is a liability for at least some part of their existence). Units like Barst, then, who were able to relatively quickly become capable, self-sufficient combat units were praised over units like Cain and Abel, who despite having movement advantages and eventually good stats were going to be a liability longer than Barst was.

I believe the principle of the "suck zone" should be applied to tiers like this. The equation of boon minus liability should far trump concerns of availability. Using Harken and Pent makes the game easier without making it harder in any way; using Kent and Sain (or Florina, or Lowen, or Guy, or even Raven) may make the game easier after ten chapters or so, but until then will make the game more difficult (as opposed to simply Marcus-stomping the early chapters).

[Chiki]

I do agree that the principle of the suck zone should be applied.

It's just that the "suck zone" is a lot harder to find in a tier list without turns.

Miriel helps contribute to beating the chapter by babying her, since chip damage can be very helpful. I don't think that's a negative. It's a small positive.

Donnel though, he definitely does get penalized for having high availability.

I still think that there is a general principle which tells us that availability is good and low availability is bad.

[General Banzai]

I do agree that the principle of the suck zone should be applied.

It's just that the "suck zone" is a lot harder to find in a tier list without turns.

Miriel helps contribute to beating the chapter by babying her, since chip damage can be very helpful. I don't think that's a negative. It's a small positive.

Donnel though, he definitely does get penalized for having high availability.

I still think that there is a general principle which tells us that availability is good and low availability is bad.

I agree with chip damage being a positive (which is why I find Virion's placement on the list baffling, he's doing roughly the same chip damage as her early on and it's not like he doesn't become a competent unit in his own right if given the similar amount of babying Miriel would need to receive; he's even a better earlygame pairup partner than her, giving +2 str +2 def).

I don't think low availability is bad. Is the fact that Pent and Harken aren't around the entire game (or, sticking with FE13, Tiki, who I notice you put pretty high on the list for only being around 8 chapters) really a detriment to their contributions? Would anyone ever not use Pent/Harken/Tiki because they're only around for a short period of time?

"I want to beat this game as easily as possible. I'm not going to use Pent/Harken/Tiki because their low availability makes the game harder if I use them."

What I'm trying to say is, units shouldn't be PENALIZED for low availability. If a unit has a minimal suck zone and is available much more (say: MU), then yes, that unit would be higher than the low availability unit with no/very little suck zone. In FE13 HM, Tiki is capable of being flung into the action with permanent 1-2 range and great all-around stats (including defensive stats) as soon as you get her and only becomes more valuable as you use her. Compare to much of the rest of the cast, which is at the very least either a defensive or offensive liability until they promote, and sometimes even beyond their promotion. You have Tiki in high tier, so I know you understand this sort of worth.

[Chiki]

Units aren't penalized for low availability. They simply don't have as many chances to "gain points," or contribute, as high availability units do. I thought my example made this clear.

[General Banzai]

Units aren't penalized for low availability. They simply don't have as many chances to "gain points," or contribute, as high availability units do. I thought my example made this clear.

But, in the case of low availability units who start/stay strong for their existence, they also never anti-contribute, or in other words become a liability.

To bring this into an actual tier argument, I would argue that Tiki is better than both Panne and Stahl. As noted before in this thread, Stahl's base speed means that he will have a difficult time ORKOing for a long period of time, and will sometimes even need high-speed pairup partners simply to avoid getting doubled, a problem exacerbated if he fails to receive immediate speed level-ups in his early levels (this is a much a similar problem Bartre from FE7 faces). This issue can cause Stahl to be an offensive, and occasionally defensive, liability for a significant chunk of the game.

Panne, meanwhile, starts offensively capable with her high base speed but is weak defensively and remains weak defensively her entire existence. If Panne remains a taguel she has permanent 1 range only, and if she reclasses to wyvern lord (her most preferable reclass option, right? I'm not as well-versed with this game as I am with the rest of the series, so politely correct me if I am wrong on this count) she will still be a defensive lategame liability because she can be one-shotted by the plethora of forged silver bow/forged rexcalibur enemies that proliferate from about Ch 19 on (there are indeed many chapters after this threshold where forged silver bow/forged rexcalibur enemies spawn as reinforcements, which can be particularly frustrating for new players who were not expecting these asinine developments and get to watch as their 55 HP 30 def flier goes down in one shot to the Dark Flier who popped out of a random tile on the side of the map on Ch 25).

I argue that the negative contributions of both these characters (Stahl earlygame and Panne lategame) mean that despite their much higher availability, they will not make overall more positive contributions toward completion than Tiki will. (Tiki, as I already described, can basically be thrown into the melee from join without any drawbacks, and her strong growths mean she will only become stronger as the game draws on). Tiki's permanent 1-2 range without the offensive drawbacks of using Javelins or Hand Axes also means she will be able to more reliably contribute offensively over both Panne and Stahl, who must rely on such weakened weapons to achieve similar results. And Tiki's inbuilt weakness, which manifests itself only in the Wyrmslayer item, is such a nonissue as to be irrelevant.

[Phantom037]

If I may interject, the examples you gave (well, Stahl at least) bring up an interesting point. That being their usefulness brought on by their availibility allows them to surpass the suck zone period, whereas a unit with less availibility wouldn't be able to do, for obvious reasons. A unit like Edward starts out with poor defense and questionable avoid, but becomes one of if not the best unit of their class if trained.

Also, back to the actual tier list, if you give Gaius a steel sword early on, he can become strong enough to hang onto until his massive speed and skill growths kick in.

[Chiki]

Doesn't Gaius also have a giant str growth?

[Baldrick]

It depends to the extent to which you penalise the early unit for taking resources versus his contribution, and how both units compare while they're both around. For example, Stefan has no "suck zone", and does the same job as Edward for endgame while needing very little in the way of resources. Edward isn't the easiest unit to get kills early on, and with the situation the DB are in, it's best to funnel everything into one or two units so that can be competitive with the GM and the part 4 superunits. And if Stefan can do the same endgame job it's not worth trying to train him, and it's a question of Edward's part 1 and part 3 vs Stefan's part 4.

[Phantom037]

Doesn't Gaius also have a giant str growth?

icing on the cake

Gaius pun count: 1

[General Banzai]

Another thing I'd like to argue is Sumia's placement above Cordelia. Sumia joins 4 chapters before Cordelia while 7 levels lower, and one of the chapters Sumia is available over Cordelia, Chapter 4, has a very low unit cap and so it's not guaranteed Sumia will get a spot there even if she is being used. Meanwhile, Cordelia has much better initial offensive and defensive parameters compared to Sumia upon join (even relative to the improved enemy statistics), which when coupled with Cordelia's superior growths in Strength and Defense (she has +15% over Sumia in both categories) means that Cordelia will be a liability for far less of the game. (I would even argue that Sumia's strength and defense are so low that barring special resource consumption she will always be a liability in those regards).

The only advantage Sumia really has on Cordelia is the ability to help rescue Maribelle and Ricken in Ch 5, but the Rescue staff received from Paralogue 1 is a much safer and more effective way of doing that anyway.

[Chiki]

A common misconception is Cordelia being better than Sumia at base. Funnily enough, on average they should have around the same stats.

Sumia actually beats Cordelia in both durability and combat because Sumia has time to get S Frederick by the time Cordelia joins.

Sumia is better than Cordelia in every way really, apart from Nosferatanking.

[Nobody]

Another thing I'd like to argue is Sumia's placement above Cordelia. Sumia joins 4 chapters before Cordelia while 7 levels lower, and one of the chapters Sumia is available over Cordelia, Chapter 4, has a very low unit cap and so it's not guaranteed Sumia will get a spot there even if she is being used. Meanwhile, Cordelia has much better initial offensive and defensive parameters compared to Sumia upon join (even relative to the improved enemy statistics), which when coupled with Cordelia's superior growths in Strength and Defense (she has +15% over Sumia in both categories) means that Cordelia will be a liability for far less of the game. (I would even argue that Sumia's strength and defense are so low that barring special resource consumption she will always be a liability in those regards).

The only advantage Sumia really has on Cordelia is the ability to help rescue Maribelle and Ricken in Ch 5, but the Rescue staff received from Paralogue 1 is a much safer and more effective way of doing that anyway.

I agree with Celes on this one. Sumia lead on Cordelia is huge. By the time Cordelia joins Sumia will be around 5 levels ahead of her and will probably have a A or S support with Frederick. Most times I play this game, Cordelia is only able to catch up by the end of the game.

[General Horace]

its a pretty common belief that Cordelia is more durable than Sumia

a 20/10 sumia with fred support has 42hp/21def

a 20/8 cordelia (a very genourous estimation, since Sumia probably has a larger level lead) with stahl support has 46 HP/24 Def

and Sumia clearly wins earlier, so if the difference near endgame is this small i'd say its a pretty big point in Sumia's favour

not to mention Cordelia's base speed is pretty poor for a pegasus knight and has doubling issues on some faster enemies.

so really its not really an accurate statment and cordelia doesn't really have any other advantages over Sumia otherwise.

Edited September 14, 2013 by General Horace

[Elieson]

In a "turn less limit" situation, why is Donny not recieving milk'd experience? He rams his caps so fucking hard and has Sol to back up with an extremely high growth rate all around. His tiny negative modifiers don't make themselves even known until when, chapter 23 (when other units are capping multiple stats)?

I Stand by my argument two pages ago that Donny is trained easily and worth Second Sealing by chapter 7 into a Merc because skirmishes exist and you're all forgetting about it, especially since the "rules" don't ban skirmishes. Swords dominate until chapter 12 and Donny will be beating your teammates by the time he hits D-swords.

His "suck zone" escape yields incredible results that rival nostankers due to Sol procs at every corner.

His non-mounted movement isn't a serious boon in this style of gameplay. His increased support boosts via pairUp (due to capramming) are.

Donny for the top of mid tier under Nowi at least.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Elieson

[Florete]

A common misconception is Cordelia being better than Sumia at base. Funnily enough, on average they should have around the same stats.

Sumia actually beats Cordelia in both durability and combat because Sumia has time to get S Frederick by the time Cordelia joins.

Sumia is better than Cordelia in every way really, apart from Nosferatanking.

What is this.

With the following listed as the criteria:

Combat potential: being able to kill as many units as possible is good.

Durability: being able to take as many hits as possible is good.

There's no way Sumia beats Cordelia at all.

6 maps (that includes Paralogues) is not enough time for an S rank unless you assume map grinding (if map grinding/DLC is fair game, disregard this entire post). That's most likely an A. But either way, Cordelia can also support Frederick...as well as any other male character in the game barring Chrom. On the other hand, Frederick is basically Sumia's only choice if she wants to stand a chance against Cordelia. That's not a good situation.

But let's see here. "Combat potential: being able to kill as many units as possible is good." Cordelia has +3 Str at base over Sumia and +15% growth. Sumia will, at best, have caught up to that when Cordelia joins, but Cordelia will only pull ahead as time goes on. Sumia wins in Spd, but Cordelia's Spd is good enough that she's really not going to have trouble doubling for the most part.

"Durability: being able to take as many hits as possible is good." Like Str, a +3/+15% win for Cordelia, but Sumia's Def growth is low enough that she's basically never catching Cordelia there. Then Cordelia has a +7/+15% HP win, meaning even if Sumia gets HP on every level she still won't reach Cordelia's base HP at Cordelia's base level. Sumia does win Res, and if this were Lunatic I'd consider that more significant, but the difference isn't big enough to matter here.

How much turtling and babying is being done here such that Sumia ever has a significant level lead? I know this isn't based on fast completion and turns, but there's still a team surrounding Sumia and her maps before Cordelia joins aren't that enemy-heavy. Hell, you may not even want to take Sumia to Ch 4 given the limited deployment and the fact that she doesn't perform all too well against Fighters and Knights.

And then yeah, there's the re-classing thing where Cordelia basically just gives Sumia the finger because Sumia's options are out of the question while Cordelia's options, despite not being as good as her base class, have situational uses.

When it comes down to raw combat and durability performance, Cordelia just wins completely. Sumia only has an availability advantage, but it's not very big.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Red Fox of Fire

[General Banzai]

Okay holy jesus how does Sumia have S Fred support by the time Cordelia joins, that sounds ridiculous

Secondly, Cordelia can pair with Frederick too, why are we assuming he automatically goes to Sumia

Thirdly, as for the Donnel post, claiming this tier list is "turnless" is for starters a misrepresentation of events. This game is designed so that enemies attack in waves and assault your position in most of the maps. A common map design is:

1) Wave 1 of enemies assaults your position from Turn 1

2) After Wave 1 is dispatched, a rest period where you can spend an infinite amount of turns healing up and repositioning units, with maybe occasional solitary enemies that can be dispatched

3) A second wave near the boss that moves en masse once one of their member is attacked/when someone gets in range of two or three of the wave.

In later levels, reinforcements and additional waves are added, but the formula remains more or less the same throughout the game. Chapter 23 and 24 are literally just flat squares of map in which enemies charge in waves after a certain turn. Chapter 20 is another ultimate example of this kind of level design.

The reason this is relevant is it is not conducive for babying units, especially not units who start as ass as Donnel. You cannot simply lure one enemy out, beat them, then lure the next enemy out, the game does not allow you to do that. Thus, bringing low level Donnel into these maps is about the biggest liability I think a player can create for themselves in this game.

Furthermore, the fact that exp gains are not significantly higher for Donnel as for any of your other units at any point in the game means that Donnel's higher growths are irrelevant because almost every unit should be able to keep such a substantial level lead on him that they will have stats that are either much higher or functionally equivalent to him.

And as if that wasn't enough, Donnel starts E lances and then has to reclass into another class where he is locked to E rank. That's going to gimp his offensive capabilities even more, stats notwithstanding.

Honestly Donnel ought to be at the bottom of this list, not Virion, unless for some reason Donnel's ability to give a kid aptitude is itself enough to make him where he is now, which is mid tier.

[Vashiane]

Agh, I'm quite behind on this, and I'm still complying my sister's knowledge of Hard Mode and what I've learned so far about it, so I'm going to catch up and see if I can't contribute a bit more, okay?

[Elieson]

Donny can be babied to D lances in his own Paralogue, and Javelins are buyable quite early. Paralogues 2 and 3 have choke points, do they not? Chapter 6 has an extremely easy to exploit choke point, doesn't it? Why can't Donny chip himself to promotion while Fred!Kellam or whoever sits and takes 0 dmg at the points? It's easy grind time if the blocker takes damage to rotate in a healer every three or four hits. This is Hard mode we're talking about, and Hard isn't very hard

And E swords isn't a boom when he hits harder with a forged Bronze sword than Sully with an Iron Lance.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Elieson

[General Banzai]

Donny can be babied to D lances in his own Paralogue, and Javelins are buyable quite early. Paralogues 2 and 3 have choke points, do they not? Chapter 6 has an extremely easy to exploit choke point, doesn't it? Why can't Donny chip himself to promotion while Fred!Kellam or whoever sits and takes 0 dmg at the points? It's easy grind time if the blocker takes damage to rotate in a healer every three or four hits. This is Hard mode we're talking about, and Hard isn't very hard

And E swords isn't a boom when he hits harder with a forged Bronze sword than Sully with an Iron Lance.

Babying Donnel to D lances in his Paralogue is more difficult than not doing that, and every choke point in Ch 6 is attacked by at least two dark mages who can ORKO Donnel, and since enemy AI isn't dumb in this game like they are in the GBA FEs, those dark mages will make a beeline first thing for Donnel if they see his soft, squishy body standing behind megahunk!Fred.

Paralogue 2 requires you go fast because Anna will eventually get chipped down by the archers even in Hard, meaning the only real choke point is the bridge on the bottom part of the map, where a measly four enemies (including the boss) wait. And that choke point can't even be choked because the boss can walk across rivers, meaning if Donnel's there he's gonna get fucked, which is a recurring pattern in the short life of Donnel.

Paralogue 3 is a classic wave 1-rest-wave 2 setup. Even if you don't give a fuck about getting the arm scroll from the chest (and arm scroll that Donnel would coincidentally want very very much), you still have to do wave 1 fast or else Anna runs up the middle of the map and can potentially meander her way into the range of the boss. And wave 2 is accompanied yet again by the boss moving, and since the boss has a tomahawk, Donnel can't freely stand behind armor-plated Frederick for free Javelin chunks.

And let's keep going. Chapter 7 has no choke points and you are beset on all sides by wyverns that aggressively pursue you, including the boss. Chapter 8 is a class wave-rest-wave chapter, where you can effectively choke regular units due to the sand but not the fairly large number of mages who attack from all sides of the start. Chapter 9 has your flank get swarmed by wyverns and no choke points on top of a wave-rest-wave setup. Chapter 10 requires you move fast to get swag loot from thieves (including a crest and a speedwing, two items probably more valuable than anything donnel will ever do for me), as well as bunches of wyverns. Hell, "bunches of wyverns" describes almost every chapter in the game after Donnel joins.

Nowhere is there an easy place for Donnel to get exp, except for his first Paralogue where there are a couple of archers that one can lure out one by one, then surround, and then let donnel poke 20 times to kill.

[Thor Odinson]

Why would a 20/8 Cordelia be considered with no supports while Sumia gets to have Fred S? At jointime, yes, Cordelia doesn't have supports, but by 20/8 There should be at least a B or something built up if not A or S.

I haven't used either enough to really talk about them, but I feel comparing an S support Sumia with a no support Cordelia at a high enough level where both would realistically have some supports built up given being in use is unfair.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Ezio Auditore da Firenze