FE Awakening Lunatic Tier List

[gochooindontgo]

This is a tier list based not based on turn count, but based on a unit's strength and usefulness overall in lunatic. Parenting influences this list.This is also not a lunatic+ tier list. No sol, nosefartu, DLC grinding, risen grinding, no renown. Anna shop only for seals, no barracks, no event tile weapons, no wifi shop, no staff grinding, no dance grinding, no logbook.

Top Tier:

Avatar-self explanatory. Def asset avatar with water trick=broken. Second best daddy. Veteran OP.

Donnel-You have 3 chapters to get Donnel to lvl 10. If he gets to lvl 10 by ch 6 and you can reclass him, then Donnel becomes a god. Otherwise, Donnel becomes useless. But we're assuming you have the patience to grind the farmboy for 3 chapters. He's also the best daddy.

Nowi-Like Donnel, if you can train her, then she becomes game breakingly strong with just her stats. If you don't give her a dragonstone +, then she's going to be harder to train, and she's going to run of her dragonstone before ch 11. Still a really strong unit.

Morgan-Veteran.

Children Tier: Children are better than High Tier units, but I would put top tier units as overall better than Children units. All children will turn out better than the parent units. I'll put chapter 16 as a cutoff. Starting from lvl 17, it's going to be really hard to train lvl 10 unpromoted units. (I'm assuming you paired your children properly and trained both parents.)

High Tier:

Panne-Panne is useful right from her join chapter(which is rare in lunatic), so she can become a core member of your team right from join. She doesn't need as much training because she starts off with good bases, and she has really good growths. The two downsides to Panne are that beaststone is one range and beaststone runs out before chapter 10. Almost a top tier unit.

Chrom-He's the main lord. It's a pain in the ass not to use him, and he's the father of a mandatory child, so why not just use him. His growth rates are pretty good for a daddy unit. The problem with Chrom is that if you don't get him strong by chapter 3, he'll be a terrible unit, and give you a terrible daughter. On the other hand, if you do train Chrom, he'll be good throughout early and mid game, and give you a good daughter. Chrom starts to fall off pretty heavily late game.

Miriel-She's the only unit besides the avatar(if you don't reclass into magic or stay tactician) that is both viable in lunatic and puts out ranged magic damage. A lot of lunatic is about defensive positional gameplay and formations, and having a ranged damager is very valuable in these kinds of situations. And Miriel is one of the few characters in lunatic that retains this role, while having good growths. She also gives you a child that can be obtained right away starting chapter 14. Miriel's biggest downside is that she is really squishy and needs to be given extra care. Can also be given a healing role.

Lon Qu-Like Panne, he's one of the few characters in the game that's not a "growth" unit. He comes with C rank swords and killing edge which makes him really strong early game. You'll see his power start to dip in the mid game, and then in the late game, he'll fall off harder than Chrom in the late game due to low strength and defense. He's also one of those few daddys that are actually usable in lunatic. The problem with Lon Qu is that he comes at a similar join time as Panne, and when you theoretically "should" be training Donnel. This forces you to make decisions on who to train, and Lon Qu just numberwise is inferior to those two.

Mid Tier:

Anna-She provides a lot of utility with healing and lockpick. Lower exp gains vs not yet promoted units causes her to fall off later on in the game, but she's still your primary lockpicker.

Sumia-Really fast, starts doubling from join time. Her mobility is really useful in a lot of maps, plus she's a lucina mom candidate. I think if you owain's paralogue, you can unlock Cynthia's. Sumia's downside is her squishiness as a character and her low str. If you get unlucky growths, you can always switch her over to a rally role. She may be placed higher.

Sully-She's a lucina mom candidate, and her own daughter is really easy to recruit. She should theoretically be a slightly worse version of Chrom, so she won't end up that great. She's in this really awkward position where she won't get enough speed, str, or def(Unless you get really lucky), and won't end up as strong as the other units. She needs pretty extensive babying to reach a point where she's available. Kjelle and Lucina might be good enough to warrant using Sully. She may be placed higher.

Cordelia-She comes at this really awkward time where she comes really close to the time you get Nowi. Nowi will end up better than her, and it is possible to split exp between Cordelia and Nowi, but you'll find that Cordelia is in a Sully like position where she doesn't have enough speed, def, or str, to really excel. She needs a longer period of training than other units to be useful, but the other units might end up better with less of a training period. Plus, her kid's paralogue is hard. She and Sully will still end up better than any1 below them on this list.

Lissa-sucks later on in the game, but she's needed for early stages of the game.

Frederick-You have to use him in paralogue to kill the myrmidons and weaken the barbs. Useless after that. He's mid tier because his pair ups make him relevant for a bit.

Gaius-Pickpocket bot. He has pretty good growths but compared to Lon Qu who fulfills generally the same combat role, he's squishier, and not as good. But he's still usable.

Tharja-One of your few viable sources of magic dmg for Lunatic. Low skill, low luck, and a split dmg growth child make her a not that attractive choice for a combat unit. The good thing about her is that she joins at a time when chapters are getting easier, and you likely won't have units to hard baby, leaving Tharja as an option for feeding exp to and growing. Tharja's growths aren't too bad either, so she's definetely usable.

Libra-Heal bot.

Low Tier:

Maribelle-Healer. Low durability keeps her here. She has the option of going in as second healer for a portion of the game.

Stahl: Never used him before in Lunatic. He may have potential as a tanky unit.

Say'ri:She's not a bad unit. However, the lack of supports and late join time hurt her a lot. At that point in the game, you probably wouldn't want to waste exp leveling her up.

Tiki:Comes way too late. Good growths, not high enough bases to make a difference. At the point when you get her, it's going to be a pain in the ass trying to train her.

Kellam: Useful early game as a pair up

Vaike: He might be useful early game as a pair up

Virion:May be slightly useful in the early chapters due to being ranged and dealing potshot damage. He has no future though, and his pair up bonus is pretty bad too.

Gregor: He has okay stats when he joins, but I don't see him getting the growths that would make him a relevant unit later on in the game. Would rather not use him at all. Gregor may be placed higher.

Bottom Tier:

Cherche:She can survive more than one hit in her join chapter. Amazing. Cherche may be placed higher.

Ricken:He comes with Elwind in his join chapter. Might be slightly useful in that chapter. Useless after that.

Flavia: Flavia is more useful than Basilio in her join chapter, but both are terrible.

Basilio:

Henry:Joins too late, stats not good enough. I don't even find him useful in his join chapter.

Olivia

Edited October 17, 2014 by gochooindontgo

[Czar_Yoshi]

Those restrictions are absurdly precise. Using Anna/Spotpass shops specifically for one item? You're going to have a hard time finding many people who play specifically like that. This is also the first time I've seen someone explicitly ban Lifetaker. Things like this are why tier lists don't last long, by the way- changing one little rule changes the whole list, and there's no "generally accepted playstyle" for anything except Apo (no restrictions). By throwing in that much random stuff, you're practically telling people to ignore your list.

Donnel needs to be way lower, he's a chump. There's no way he's above Morgan, especially if you're banning Sol. And even if you get him going before Cht.6, after Cht.6 you're over the hump in Lunatic- congrats, you just dragged the hardest-to-get-going unit through the hardest section of the game. He may make the rest of it easier, but he'll never pay off the effort it took to get him started. He'll also be stuck with Bronze for a while longer.

If you're keeping Panne as a Taguel, you're doing it wrong- Taguel are one of the worst classes in the game. She should be reclassed to Wyvern Rider ASAP in Lunatic- and probably bumped up to be on par with Nowi. The Beaststone also sells for a good amount of Gold once you no longer need it.

Sumia and Cordelia both should go up due to how easy it is to get them Galeforce in time for inheritance. 6 easy Gales if you married them to Chrom and Avatar- doing this gives you enough offensive momentum to play offense for the rest of the game, which significantly reduces the difficulty of Cht.23 and 24 (two of the three major lategame stumbling blocks in Lunatic).

Stahl also needs to go up. He has a lot of good class options for Lunatic, decent growths and very early availability, as well as strong marriage options in Panne, Nowi, Cordelia and possibly Lissa.

So does Gregor, he comes at Lv.10 right around when Master Seals are starting to show up, in a class with excellent pairup boosts- promote him and get a C support, and he'll be a premier hard support for a good few chapters. Also early Second Seals.

Finally, Logbook Avatars need to go way up. They wreck Lunatic, and you didn't ban them. Neither did you ban Streetpass, so I can just recruit one with LB/Res+10/AT/Renewal/Pavise and buy it some forged Celica's and Superior weapons.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Terrador]

TL;DR:

Sully and Sumia are bros, Stahl is okay (and apparently Miriel's workable too), the rest of the Shepherds don't last long as combat units.

Avatar, Frederick, Morgan, and maaaaaybe good Lucinas are the only units that deserve Top Tier status.

Donnel way, WAY down. He's a chump. The resources you put into training HIM could instead turn Sumia or Sully or Chrom into a champ.

Lon'qu and Panne are interesting; Panne holds up not so well lategame (when she has to choose between Taguel, Rexcalibur pain, and no durability), and Lon'qu kinda sucks to begin with and has trouble training.

Lissa isn't as important as you say she is; she's handy, but certainly not instrumental.

Gregor's a total bro and makes Nowi, who's already arguably the best late join not counting kids, buffer. He should go seriously up.

Tharja and Henry should be in the same ballpark; they perform very similar functions.

Maribelle isn't good. She comes late in a slow class and the necessity of a healbot is already pretty much done with.

Kellam and Cherche are better than you give them credit for; Kellam can go into Thief for Pass shenanigans and Nowi backup, or stay in bulky classes to make a BRICK WALL OF KELLAM. Cherche, on the other hand, can eat a bunch of armors, promote in her join map, and distinctly not suck for quite awhile.

---

Also, wow, the banning of skills and items is pretty asinine, not going to lie. Nobody does that, and frankly, if you're afraid of people having durability, ban bowtanking instead. There's a reason it works in L+, and that's not just because of Counter. Allowing SpotPass shops for a single item is asinine, too; you should probably expect Anna shopping and no explicit grinding, but the rest is up in the air and varies from person to person.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Terrador

[isetrh]

Why make an exception for Dragonstone+? It doesn't seem any more or less legitimate than Spears or Levin Swords. I have a similar issue with allowing Anna shops only for Seals. And not sure those skills really deserve bans. Sol is good, but I don't often even hear of people using Lifetaker in no-grind. Plus if we're going to start banning useful skills, how about Dual Strike+, Dual Guard +, Veteran, Charm, Galeforce, Armsthrift, weapon faires...

Lol at Avatar being the second best dad. Donnel has the potential to give bad bases, while Avatar gives amazing bases. Aptitude and Veteran are both good, but Veteran gives you more flexibility. Not to mention that the Avatar gives near unlimited class choice. Not sure where you're going to get enough early game seals to give Donnel one if you aren't allowing Renown. In vanilla Lunatic, Nowi or Panne makes a better growth unit, especially Nowi if you don't have the Renown seal.

I guess Frederick's placement is fair enough. He can go anywhere from mid to god tier depending on how you think about it.

I don't agree with placing Sumia and Sully in the same tier with the likes if Gaius and Tharja.

Kellam is a good pair up bot. I think he's better than Gaius at least.

Not sure you should try to tier Stahl at all if you haven't used him.

Children vary in how good they are just as much as parents. The difference between say, Chrom!Morgan and Ricken!Inigo, is huge.

Edited October 17, 2014 by isetrh

[burgerkong]

Welp, if any actual FE:A efficiency players come here, this list is gonna get torn apart.

How are you getting Donnel to Level 10 by Chapter 6? While you said turns aren't a consideration in this list, you haven't really defined "strength & usefulness overall". If you're talking raw stats, yes, Donnel will have higher stats than everyone once he gets going. But he takes painfully long to get there, and I'm assuming you're spending many turns and hours eeking out EXP in Lunatic when you could just be breezing through it with Avatar, Frederick, Cavs, etc.

Also, ranking Stahl as Low because "never used him before in Lunatic" is definitely not good reasoning.

Lissa & Maribelle are generally bad since they're squishy and completely obsoleted by Libra (tankier, at least has combat) & Anna (thief utility).

Lucina should probably be up there considering she's a forced recruitment; I believe previous tier lists separated her via mother, though I'm not sure if there's any better way of doing it.

[Florete]

I wanted to complain about Sully and Cordelia being too low, but then I saw Donnel's position and the arbitrary rules and restrictions and decided this list needs a lot of saving before I'm going to bother with it.

[gochooindontgo]

Yo, let's chill out here. I said things are debatable. Personally, I feel like Lifetaker is kind of bs considering it's a free heal, with so many high hp units in lunatic, and makes the mode way too easy. Yes, I feel it's gamebreaking on the level of sol and nosefartu.

Donnel without sol is still an amazing character. I put Donnel at top tier because it's really not that hard to get him going, and I feel whatever "effort" is worth it to use him because of how amazing he is.

Cordelia, Sumia galeforce without grind? Galeforce isn't worth it. You're putting all your exp into two characters. I really don't see this working without grind. Especially when you're taking exp cuts with fast promotion, and hard leveling only two units. More like one unit.

I'll ban avatar logbook.

Gregor, meh. You're burning 2500 to get a "good" support for a "few" chapters at a point when you probably don't need that support. Well played. I'll test this out, and get back to you on it later.

Those restrictions are absurdly precise. Using Anna/Spotpass shops specifically for one item? You're going to have a hard time finding many people who play specifically like that. This is also the first time I've seen someone explicitly ban Lifetaker. Things like this are why tier lists don't last long, by the way- changing one little rule changes the whole list, and there's no "generally accepted playstyle" for anything except Apo (no restrictions). By throwing in that much random stuff, you're practically telling people to ignore your list.

Donnel needs to be way lower, he's a chump. There's no way he's above Morgan, especially if you're banning Sol. And even if you get him going before Cht.6, after Cht.6 you're over the hump in Lunatic- congrats, you just dragged the hardest-to-get-going unit through the hardest section of the game. He may make the rest of it easier, but he'll never pay off the effort it took to get him started. He'll also be stuck with Bronze for a while longer.

If you're keeping Panne as a Taguel, you're doing it wrong- Taguel are one of the worst classes in the game. She should be reclassed to Wyvern Rider ASAP in Lunatic- and probably bumped up to be on par with Nowi. The Beaststone also sells for a good amount of Gold once you no longer need it.

Sumia and Cordelia both should go up due to how easy it is to get them Galeforce in time for inheritance. 6 easy Gales if you married them to Chrom and Avatar- doing this gives you enough offensive momentum to play offense for the rest of the game, which significantly reduces the difficulty of Cht.23 and 24 (two of the three major lategame stumbling blocks in Lunatic).

Stahl also needs to go up. He has a lot of good class options for Lunatic, decent growths and very early availability, as well as strong marriage options in Panne, Nowi, Cordelia and possibly Lissa.

So does Gregor, he comes at Lv.10 right around when Master Seals are starting to show up, in a class with excellent pairup boosts- promote him and get a C support, and he'll be a premier hard support for a good few chapters. Also early Second Seals.

Finally, Logbook Avatars need to go way up. They wreck Lunatic, and you didn't ban them. Neither did you ban Streetpass, so I can just recruit one with LB/Res+10/AT/Renewal/Pavise and buy it some forged Celica's and Superior weapons.

[Roflolxp54]

-sends in a bunch of DLC/Spotpass/Streetpass/past-Avatars from his Avatar Logbook to tear s*** up in Lunatic(+)-

Really now, Lifetaker isn't all that good since it relies on being able to actually kill an enemy unit during the Player Phase. I honestly don't use it much -- I much prefer using Renewal. And since the difficulty is Lunatic and that grinding and such are banned, I don't see any unit being able to feasibly kill something quickly outside of perhaps Dark Knight Henry running a Ruin without support. I honestly don't see it OP enough to get a ban. (I honestly enjoy being able to legally break the game [no Powersave involved since I only have the digital copy of the game].)

Sol+Nosferatu is a legitmate strategy, hence players would choose to create a team of Nosfertanks. Also, it doesn't exactly deserve a ban as you will probably have to grind for those reclasses (have to reclass to a Hero, train to level 10, then reclass again to Sorcerer). Not really that game breaking since you would probably have to invest time in grinding and invest hard-earned gold into Nosferatu and Second Seals.

Risen grinding can't even happen in Lunatic/Lunatic+ to begin with (without assistance from Logbook units) as the Risen skirmishes that show up Chapter 5 onwards are all promoted Risen with capped stats on top of A-rank weapon levels and running B rank hackforges and staves.

Sumia and Cordelia have excellent Speed and mobility on top of Galeforce access, which is something Nowi doesn't have.

Donnel is garbage in Lunatic(+) unless he has a lot of support (his paralogue can have him commit mass murder primarily if he has help from Logbook units and all sorts of BS most players can't be bothered with which would most likely involve some DLC grinding -- he can be above lv. 10 by the time his paralogue is completed).

[gochooindontgo]

Frederick doesn't deserve top tier status.

Morgan sure, but I didn't want to seperate children, because people play differently and they're harder to class.

Donnel doesn't deserve to go way down. Donnel will outclass any parent unit really really fast.

Panne holds up better than Chrom late game. Lon Qu can solo axe weilders from join, and he has access to killing edge and C swords. He's easier to train than most of your other units.

Lissa isn't instrumental? So you're telling me you play through Lunatic with no healer, and no Maribelle too, until at least Libra comes around, or you reclass a mage or the avatar.

Maribelle acts as a second healer. She's not instrumental, and you can pass by without a second healer earlier on, but she has her uses.

Kellam and Cherche being so low. How about I just say that there are other units that do what they do, but better. Kellam realistically, is not above low tier because the other units that join with him are way better, and you don't want to waste exp on him. Cherche joins too late, and you need to train her. And she still doesn't turn out that great even with all that training.

TL;DR:

Sully and Sumia are bros, Stahl is okay (and apparently Miriel's workable too), the rest of the Shepherds don't last long as combat units.

Avatar, Frederick, Morgan, and maaaaaybe good Lucinas are the only units that deserve Top Tier status.

Donnel way, WAY down. He's a chump. The resources you put into training HIM could instead turn Sumia or Sully or Chrom into a champ.

Lon'qu and Panne are interesting; Panne holds up not so well lategame (when she has to choose between Taguel, Rexcalibur pain, and no durability), and Lon'qu kinda sucks to begin with and has trouble training.

Lissa isn't as important as you say she is; she's handy, but certainly not instrumental.

Gregor's a total bro and makes Nowi, who's already arguably the best late join not counting kids, buffer. He should go seriously up.

Tharja and Henry should be in the same ballpark; they perform very similar functions.

Maribelle isn't good. She comes late in a slow class and the necessity of a healbot is already pretty much done with.

Kellam and Cherche are better than you give them credit for; Kellam can go into Thief for Pass shenanigans and Nowi backup, or stay in bulky classes to make a BRICK WALL OF KELLAM. Cherche, on the other hand, can eat a bunch of armors, promote in her join map, and distinctly not suck for quite awhile.

---

Also, wow, the banning of skills and items is pretty asinine, not going to lie. Nobody does that, and frankly, if you're afraid of people having durability, ban bowtanking instead. There's a reason it works in L+, and that's not just because of Counter. Allowing SpotPass shops for a single item is asinine, too; you should probably expect Anna shopping and no explicit grinding, but the rest is up in the air and varies from person to person.

Bow tanking doesn't break the game outright like nosefartu or sol where you can beat the game with a one man army. I honestly didn't think any1 would mention this because, who the fk does this outside of L+. It makes the game hella boring. I banned a lot of things that I thought made the game way too easy. Like the broken things from wifi shops, renown rewards, not so much anna shops(but I've seen people QQ that this shit made the game too easy, so I just took it out to avoid potential QQ,), DLC, etc. The seals I felt were okay to leave in. I left Dstone + up because I knew there were going to be people QQ'ing about Nowi top tier for various reasons and wanted to take out one potential counter arguement. For skils, sol tanking, and lifetaker tanking is broken.

I took out all the things you mentioned. Sol stays, lifetaker is strong, but a lot of people don't know it, so I took it out. I put in second seal, only for Donnel. Rest of list stays relatively the same. I wanted newer people to look at this list, and get a relative strength of units in Lunatic, and who they should use(Because I haven't seen a good one yet). And I think my list was mostly accurate on the placing of units. I put in a lot of restrictions at first because I wanted to just shuffle out the things I felt made the game too easy or broken, and newer players could get a general sense of relative power of units without broken stuff.

Aptitude>Veteran. Which is why I put Donnel above avatar in terms of daddy. Realistically, I guess Avatar>Donnel maybe, because of better and more flexible classes. With Aptitude, I don't see bad bases happening. Early seal(one seal) from Anna shop. Although, if you leave armsthrift, hero will never be a bad class.

Why make an exception for Dragonstone+? It doesn't seem any more or less legitimate than Spears or Levin Swords. I have a similar issue with allowing Anna shops only for Seals. And not sure those skills really deserve bans. Sol is good, but I don't often even hear of people using Lifetaker in no-grind. Plus if we're going to start banning useful skills, how about Dual Strike+, Dual Guard +, Veteran, Charm, Galeforce, Armsthrift, weapon faires...

Lol at Avatar being the second best dad. Donnel has the potential to give bad bases, while Avatar gives amazing bases. Aptitude and Veteran are both good, but Veteran gives you more flexibility. Not to mention that the Avatar gives near unlimited class choice. Not sure where you're going to get enough early game seals to give Donnel one if you aren't allowing Renown. In vanilla Lunatic, Nowi or Panne makes a better growth unit, especially Nowi if you don't have the Renown seal.

I guess Frederick's placement is fair enough. He can go anywhere from mid to god tier depending on how you think about it.

I don't agree with placing Sumia and Sully in the same tier with the likes if Gaius and Tharja.

Kellam is a good pair up bot. I think he's better than Gaius at least.

Not sure you should try to tier Stahl at all if you haven't used him.

Children vary in how good they are just as much as parents. The difference between say, Chrom!Morgan and Ricken!Inigo, is huge.

For children, I put assuming children were paired properly.

I put Gaius above Kellam because as a standalone unit, gaius has potential. Kellam stays as pair up bot forever.

I agree that mid tier is a little too wide ranged, but I didn't want to make too many tiers. I'll think about splitting mid tier up.

For stahl, I had to put him somewhere, otherwise, people would be like, yo, you forgot stahl. LOLOLOLOL

Raw stats>utility>having none of that.

Unless I actually post a video on how to level up Donnel in 3 chapters, and people see how easy it is to do it, I don't think the Donnel arguements will ever stop.

Welp, if any actual FE:A efficiency players come here, this list is gonna get torn apart.

How are you getting Donnel to Level 10 by Chapter 6? While you said turns aren't a consideration in this list, you haven't really defined "strength & usefulness overall". If you're talking raw stats, yes, Donnel will have higher stats than everyone once he gets going. But he takes painfully long to get there, and I'm assuming you're spending many turns and hours eeking out EXP in Lunatic when you could just be breezing through it with Avatar, Frederick, Cavs, etc.

Also, ranking Stahl as Low because "never used him before in Lunatic" is definitely not good reasoning.

Lissa & Maribelle are generally bad since they're squishy and completely obsoleted by Libra (tankier, at least has combat) & Anna (thief utility).

Lucina should probably be up there considering she's a forced recruitment; I believe previous tier lists separated her via mother, though I'm not sure if there's any better way of doing it.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Red Fox of Fire

[Czar_Yoshi]

It doesn't matter one bit what you think is broken or not broken, because if people don't play by your rules, your list is useless. And even if you could ban stuff for everyone, banning stuff just because its power is above average will only send you the way of the Pokemon G5 metagame, and get people riled up.

Donnel does indeed deserve to be at the very bottom, because he won't be good fast enough. Nowi, Panne and Cordelia join just before/in the middle of the best patch of training maps in the game. Donnel joins in the middle of the hardest part of the game, and he's weaker compared to the rest of your team than those other three will be. There's simply no way he'll ever return a positive investment on the effort required to get him going, let alone make a bigger return than many other units

Complaining about people thinking they can do without a dedicated staff user after banning most of the self-healing skills is silly.

I'm not spending any Gold to promote Gregor. The game is showering me with free Master Seals around that point. That's also when every other boss is carrying Bullion, and my AT units are getting into gear so I'm not even needing cash for weapons.

Cordelia, Sumia galeforce without grind? Galeforce isn't worth it. You're putting all your exp into two characters. I really don't see this working without grind. Especially when you're taking exp cuts with fast promotion, and hard leveling only two units. More like one unit.

All my exp into two characters? No, I train them, their husbands, and one or two more pairs (promoting at Lv.20, of course). Don't tell me stuff I've done doesn't work.

And being able to transition out of turtling every map is a very fresh chage of pace. I'd much rather be able to do that (while keeping my tanks intact) than get a few more tanks.

Wait, you're banning Second Seals? That's a legitimate challenge run, not an expectation for normal gameplay.

Aptitude is not better than Veteran. Veteran multiplies exp gain by 1.5, Aptitude boosts growths by 20%- your growths would have to be 40 across the board for that to even be a contest. But Veteran also makes it easier to pick up other skills, allows children to get into good classes sooner, and so on. Aptitude also creates an issue where Donnel's other stats dramatically outpace his HP, leading to complications early on.

Raw stats>utility>having none of that.

Unless I actually post a video on how to level up Donnel in 3 chapters, and people see how easy it is to do it, I don't think the Donnel arguements will ever stop.

Only because you've banned half the utility skills in the game.

You're not going to convince anyone of anything about Donnel with a video that you couldn't do with a well-made text guide. Got a magic strat for training him that's quick, efficient and reliable? Post it. Hint: Seals from Anna aren't reliable.

[gochooindontgo]

-sends in a bunch of DLC/Spotpass/Streetpass/past-Avatars from his Avatar Logbook to tear s*** up in Lunatic(+)-

Really now, Lifetaker isn't all that good since it relies on being able to actually kill an enemy unit during the Player Phase. I honestly don't use it much -- I much prefer using Renewal. And since the difficulty is Lunatic and that grinding and such are banned, I don't see any unit being able to feasibly kill something quickly outside of perhaps Dark Knight Henry running a Ruin without support. I honestly don't see it OP enough to get a ban. (I honestly enjoy being able to legally break the game [no Powersave involved since I only have the digital copy of the game].)

Sol+Nosferatu is a legitmate strategy, hence players would choose to create a team of Nosfertanks. Also, it doesn't exactly deserve a ban as you will probably have to grind for those reclasses (have to reclass to a Hero, train to level 10, then reclass again to Sorcerer). Not really that game breaking since you would probably have to invest time in grinding and invest hard-earned gold into Nosferatu and Second Seals.

Risen grinding can't even happen in Lunatic/Lunatic+ to begin with (without assistance from Logbook units) as the Risen skirmishes that show up Chapter 5 onwards are all promoted Risen with capped stats on top of A-rank weapon levels and running B rank hackforges and staves.

Sumia and Cordelia have excellent Speed and mobility on top of Galeforce access, which is something Nowi doesn't have.

Donnel is garbage in Lunatic(+) unless he has a lot of support (his paralogue can have him commit mass murder primarily if he has help from Logbook units and all sorts of BS most players can't be bothered with which would most likely involve some DLC grinding -- he can be above lv. 10 by the time his paralogue is completed).

Nosefartu tanking is not a legit strategy. You can grind the gold off of risens to get the nosefartu and seals. Avatar and Donnel can easily grind risens with their OP growths.

This is not a lunatic + tier list. It's easier on Lunatic to train Donnel. Lunatic + is a different story.

Galeforce is overrated. And gl getting enough offensive power to actually use galeforce on Sumia. If you want galeforce on Lucina, you just f'ed up your entire game by feeding exp to one unit.

[shadowofchaos]

Top:

Donnel-You have 3 chapters to get Donnel to lvl 10. If he gets to lvl 10 by ch 6 and you can reclass him, then Donnel becomes a god. Otherwise, Donnel becomes useless. But we're assuming you have the patience to grind the farmboy for 3 chapters. He's also the best daddy.

Bottom:

Olivia

...The OP needs to give me some of what they're smoking, but it must be HELLA good.

Honestly speaking, this is quite the assumption of investment to put him high on the tier list.

...This is really just like the whole Nino BS in the forums before.

And sure we can go ahead and let you do your thing there...

But man, you must be smoking something to not utilize Dancer utility.

Edited October 17, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Czar_Yoshi]

Nosefartu tanking is not a legit strategy. You can grind the gold off of risens to get the nosefartu and seals. Avatar and Donnel can easily grind risens with their OP growths.

This is not a lunatic + tier list. It's easier on Lunatic to train Donnel. Lunatic + is a different story.

Galeforce is overrated. And gl getting enough offensive power to actually use galeforce on Sumia. If you want galeforce on Lucina, you just f'ed up your entire game by feeding exp to one unit.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Scrub

You banned Risen, remember? And Gold is not an issue.

You seem pretty quick to call anything but Donnel overrated, and I'm starting to detect bias. Especially if you're getting on someone's case for babying one particular unit.

[gochooindontgo]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Scrub

You banned Risen, remember? And Gold is not an issue.

You seem pretty quick to call anything but Donnel overrated, and I'm starting to detect bias. Especially if you're getting on someone's case for babying one particular unit.

Alright, I'll make a new file today, and use Cordelia, Sumia, and their husbands only, and two pairs(8 units). Only master seals, since we're rushing galeforce, and by chapter 14(since we want that stuff on Lucina amirite), all with no grinding. I'm calling bs.

Remember what you said about all those free seals and gold, cuz we're only using dark mages and nosefartu later on in the game once enemies start getting stronger?

It doesn't matter one bit what you think is broken or not broken, because if people don't play by your rules, your list is useless. And even if you could ban stuff for everyone, banning stuff just because its power is above average will only send you the way of the Pokemon G5 metagame, and get people riled up.

Donnel does indeed deserve to be at the very bottom, because he won't be good fast enough. Nowi, Panne and Cordelia join just before/in the middle of the best patch of training maps in the game. Donnel joins in the middle of the hardest part of the game, and he's weaker compared to the rest of your team than those other three will be. There's simply no way he'll ever return a positive investment on the effort required to get him going, let alone make a bigger return than many other units

Complaining about people thinking they can do without a dedicated staff user after banning most of the self-healing skills is silly.

I'm not spending any Gold to promote Gregor. The game is showering me with free Master Seals around that point. That's also when every other boss is carrying Bullion, and my AT units are getting into gear so I'm not even needing cash for weapons.

So you're telling me that you're not using master seals to promote your 8 units, but on Gregor, you don't have master seals legitly at this point and you're calling seals from shops reliable, and you called leveling Donnel bs, but you're getting galeforce on 2 units, while training 2 pairs of couples, haven't tried out Donnel, but call it bs because you can't think outside the box, or find clever ways to train him?

Oh, also, let's call nosefartu a legit strategy, and also sol(lolol). Let's lock down this tier list, because there's no reason to use anything other that can reclass to dark mages. Also, since all these rules are getting people riled up, let's take out grinding too. No restrictions at all. Oh wait, we don't need dark mages, let's all just buy DLC and beat lunatic, and have no discussions, or anything whatsoever. Because spending extra money on the game is the only, I mean best way to beat this game.

I might be going a little overboard on the whole wifi stuff, but I have no wifi at my house. Until I went off to college, I played this game on no wifi. Wifi skews things. Oh right, now that I think about it, why use Donnel, when you can pretend you're really great at fire emblem, by having logbooks that bring you broken items and infinite money, and then go on wifi to buy braves and celicas and then forge them, and then talk about how I must be on crack for taking the effort to train Donnel. Fk that, it's 100x easier to just get them ch 10 galeforce units, move them into the center of the map, and just outright win. Like woah, who needs defensive formations on lunatic, when we can get an over leveled sumia to solo the entire map with galeforce and forged items. Am I right?

Like I'm off guys, to smoke my weed while I fantasize about my overly unhealthy fetish for Donnel.

Edited October 17, 2014 by gochooindontgo

[Roflolxp54]

Since Risen grinding can't happen to begin with and the OP has banned grinding in his run and that he kept saying that it's possible to grind for gold on Risen in a Lunatic run even with DLC banned...

This thread is implied to be:

A. a troll thread

B. written by a player who has never played at Lunatic difficulty

C. written by a complete scrub

D. any combination of the above

E. All of the above

Edited October 17, 2014 by Roflolxp54

[Elieson]

Can we rename this "Inexperienced and Biased Turtling Casual's Lunatic Tier List"?

[lazydoggamer]

Op this list isn't going to go anywhere until you admit Donnel is trash

[Shadow Mir]

I know I'm just echoing the masses at this point, but I see no way in hell Donnel's going to become good enough fast enough, given that he has to spend quite a bit of time getting out of Villager, AND needs a precious Second Seal just to function worth a damn, to say nothing of the part where there's better uses for those.. Of course, that was but the FIRST thing I noticed that was wrong with this.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Levant Caprice

[Ownagepuffs]

Can we rename this "Inexperienced and Biased Turtling Casual's Lunatic Tier List"?

I agree with this. Where the flying fuck in the seven hells does one get the idea to put Donny at second place? I honestly think this thread should be locked due to just how bad this tier list is.

Okay, so here's the things I found wrong just at a glance.

The dancer is bottom tier (this is the easiest indicator of a troll or a scrub)

Donnel is second place. Donnel is considered a better parent than Avatar, the parent who gives literally every fucking class, passes down great bases, and Veteran. OP has either never played Lunatic, or has a hard on for growth units.

The cavs and pegs, who have kickass availability, solid growths, and great move are mid tier and below Lon'qu, a fucking foot locked sword unit at base. This is the type of person who would consider Larcei a better unit than Delmud.

All of these arbitrary restrictions.

Stahl is far below the rest of the early game mounts despite having the same availability.

The tier list claims that it is ranked on overall usefulness, yet Freddy, who makes the early game a breeze, is mid tier below Lissa.

The mounted healer is far below the foot healer.

Did I mention all these restrictions?

[isetrh]

The restrictions seem legitimate enough to me, if a little odd. The problem is that it's a little dishonest to present this as a tier list for Lunatic, when really it's a tier list for a very specific Lunatic challenge run. I've already said my thoughts on the placement of individual units.

Edit: One point in OP's favor is that while 15 Veteran levels may be just as good as 10 Aptitude levels, Veteran increases your level faster, so eventually the increased exp rate won't win ojt entirely. Nothing will save Donnel from his bad start and caps though.

Edited October 17, 2014 by isetrh

[GrySun]

Whats with ignoring Vaike? Ore-sama is quite strong, especially if you can get him the hero class before going berserker. His high skill + sun becomes increadibly good. Tho he will always be bad against mages, and his early game is kinda hard, but with a Panne support he always worked for me.

[Alastor15243]

The cavs and pegs, who have kickass availability, solid growths, and great move are mid tier and below Lon'qu, a fucking foot locked sword unit at base. This is the type of person who would consider Larcei a better unit than Delmud.

Well, yes, but only because FE4 has no difficulty levels and therefore is so laughably easy if you breed the children properly that ranked runs are pretty much the only way to bring challenge to the game, placing a massive emphasis on mounted units. Larcei and Ulster are a great deal more durable as front-liners than Delmud, and if there were any difficulty levels above normal, that would actually matter.

[Carmine Sword]

I came into this thread thinking that there would be useful information pertaining to a unit's viability in Lunatic.

Then I saw Aptitude>Veteran, bottom tier dancer, and large quantities of arbitrary restrictions.

I wasn't expecting a great, dondon-quality tier list or anything, but this is just awful.

[Czar_Yoshi]

...Well then.

Alright, I'll make a new file today, and use Cordelia, Sumia, and their husbands only, and two pairs(8 units). Only master seals, since we're rushing galeforce, and by chapter 14(since we want that stuff on Lucina amirite), all with no grinding. I'm calling bs.

You're telling me I haven't done something I have done? You're telling the community they haven't done something that many people consider to be one of the optimal strategies? Then you're just digging your hole deeper.

Remember what you said about all those free seals and gold, cuz we're only using dark mages and nosefartu later on in the game once enemies start getting stronger?

Nobody said "ban everything but DMs and Nos". You're making that up.

So you're telling me that you're not using master seals to promote your 8 units, but on Gregor, you don't have master seals legitly at this point and you're calling seals from shops reliable, and you called leveling Donnel bs, but you're getting galeforce on 2 units, while training 2 pairs of couples, haven't tried out Donnel, but call it bs because you can't think outside the box, or find clever ways to train him?

Slow down, bro. Too many self-contradictions in one sentence.

I use Masters whenever I fell I'll get the most worth out of them. On units who can afford to wait 'til 20 and who I'll be using for a significant period of time, I wait 'til 20. On units who are going to be support bots for a few chapters before fading into obscurity, I'll use them ASAP to get the better pairup boosts earlier. The two options aren't mutually exclusive.

I do indeed have Seals, because there are a ton of enemies at that point in the game that drop them.

I said Seals from Shops aren't reliable. You implied they were, by using one in your "reliable" Donnel strat- Renown (which you banned) and Anna/Streetpass are the only ways to get one before Cht.8.

Training units that don't pay off in the long run is different from training units that do pay off in the long run.

I never said I haven't used Donnel. I said he's bad.

Thinking outside the box? You're the one who fails to see the value in Veteran, Galeforce, Olivia, and not playing by an absurdly rigid set of rules.

Of course I can find ways to train Donnel. I've done so. I've dragged him through Lunatic+ nogrind as well as Lunatic. He's very possible to use. But all those exp funneling tricks could be used to funnel exp into a character with a better payoff (read: skills and ending classes)- nay, a payoff at all, or a character who doesn't take as much work before they can fend for themselves. Training Donnel is a waste of time.

Oh, also, let's call nosefartu a legit strategy, and also sol(lolol). Let's lock down this tier list, because there's no reason to use anything other that can reclass to dark mages. Also, since all these rules are getting people riled up, let's take out grinding too. No restrictions at all. Oh wait, we don't need dark mages, let's all just buy DLC and beat lunatic, and have no discussions, or anything whatsoever. Because spending extra money on the game is the only, I mean best way to beat this game.

It's called Nosferatu. There, see? By blatantly dismissing a skill and a weapon that are possible to spam, you've just failed to think outside the box. And nobody said anything about banning everything that's not a DM. You need to learn to tell the difference between not banning something and banning everything that's not it.

People getting riled up? You made a topic about a subject that has a known risk of Internet backdrafts (tier lists), put a bunch of obvious joke post indicators in it, and then told everyone you were serious before marching off in a huff. Of course there was a bit of an audience reaction.

Quite frankly, you should be glad nobody else is seeing "the amazing value of Donnel" or playing by your restrictions, because if enough people did then this thing would have exploded much harder.

I might be going a little overboard on the whole wifi stuff, but I have no wifi at my house. Until I went off to college, I played this game on no wifi. Wifi skews things. Oh right, now that I think about it, why use Donnel, when you can pretend you're really great at fire emblem, by having logbooks that bring you broken items and infinite money, and then go on wifi to buy braves and celicas and then forge them, and then talk about how I must be on crack for taking the effort to train Donnel. Fk that, it's 100x easier to just get them ch 10 galeforce units, move them into the center of the map, and just outright win. Like woah, who needs defensive formations on lunatic, when we can get an over leveled sumia to solo the entire map with galeforce and forged items. Am I right?

No, you're wrong.

Wifi changes the way the game is played, but it doesn't invalidate gameplay. If you want to use Logbook units, you can- it completely changes the game, but neither prevents you from playing without them nor completely breaks the game. Think outside the box for a minute here, if you were using Logbook units, what would be your goal now that reaching the end is virtually guaranteed? There are several very good ones out there.

Like I'm off guys, to smoke my weed while I fantasize about my overly unhealthy fetish for Donnel.

Have fun.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Ownagepuffs]

Well, yes, but only because FE4 has no difficulty levels and therefore is so laughably easy if you breed the children properly that ranked runs are pretty much the only way to bring challenge to the game, placing a massive emphasis on mounted units. Larcei and Ulster are a great deal more durable as front-liners than Delmud, and if there were any difficulty levels above normal, that would actually matter.

Front liner implies they're in front. If your foot units are in front of your mounts in Genealogy, you're not playing efficiently. On a hypothetical higher difficulty, 8 Mov and charisma would make Delmud that much better than the sword twins.

I came into this thread thinking that there would be useful information pertaining to a unit's viability in Lunatic.

Then I saw Aptitude>Veteran, bottom tier dancer, and large quantities of arbitrary restrictions.

I wasn't expecting a great, dondon-quality tier list or anything, but this is just awful.

I feel you. I was hoping to learn something. I'm no pro but come on, Donnel at second place and Olivia being bottom of the barrel? How bad do you have to be to come up with a list this terrible?

I prefer RTU's to tier lists honestly. Did Awakening even have one?