Want to make a new tier list?

[Irysa]

I didn't say EXACTLY replicable.

The other units preform significantly worse for sure, and will need even more resources likely than Jill does just to do that

The fact is, the role of a mounted unit who has 1-2 and good offence is not something that's exclusive to Jill in this game. We don't need to get the minimum TC on every single map because we don't need to assume an optimal spread of units, so a unit who can help routing in a suboptimal setup (with significant investment) is in a vaccum, still a pretty good unit. Still worse than Jill though, obviously.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Irysa

[Chiki]

I didn't say EXACTLY replicable.

The fact is, the role of a mounted unit who has 1-2 and good offence is not something that's exclusive to Jill in this game. We don't need to get the minimum TC on every single map because we don't need to assume an optimal spread of units, so a unit who can help routing in a suboptimal setup (with significant investment) is in a vaccum, still a pretty good unit. Still worse than Jill though, obviously.

It's not "replicable" under any sense of the word. The role of a flying mounted unit with 1-2 and good combat is exclusive to Jill in the DB in Parts 1 and 3. The role of an 11 move flying mounted unit with good combat and 1-2 range is exclusive to Jill in Part 4.

[Snowy_One]

i did explain this. you want the veteran tier debaters to stay out because the newbies don't know your track record of being unable to understand fundamental concepts that dictate why characters are better than others.

also skrimir is blegh. doesn't fly, has no 2-range, needs substantial help to ORKO anything in 4-3. tanith at least increases reliability for the 3-11 4-turn and she can do a lot in 4-2 with investment.

I was gonna keep quite but you had to keep talking. Hey dondon. Did you miss the bit about me considering myself a vet and, therefore, beholden to my own suggestion? Right. Had things worked out I wouldn't have been talking either. So sorry, your hate is unfounded. Doesn't matter now anyways since you people just had to keep talking.

Needing them isn't the problem, the question is what they do with them. Undoubtedly, Jill makes great use of those resources, but what she does is replicable by other units if they recieve similar investment. The other units preform significantly worse for sure, and will need even more resources likely than Jill does just to do that. But if the list allows us to evaluate basically an optimally invested Jill, why can we not evaulate other optimally invested units? I have a problem with the tier list ranking chars basically assuming they are getting a lot of favouritism and ranking them highly as a result, then saying that the other characters aren't any good because we invested a lot into some other characters so we can't invest them. That doesn't sit well with me if we are making a general tier list for the game. I feel that the current list and the arguments behind it assume using a specific team in a specific way and then evaulating who contributes what in these specific scenarios. That's all well and good for a tierlist of a particular playthrough, but for the game as a whole I think it should be broader. You can make Tanith a pretty strong unit if you work on her for example, and she can and will significantly improve your turncounts and reliability if you chose to do so.

A logical extension of this, and another problem that needs addressing, is the notion of 'a unit is good, but there are other units who can do their job, so they're pointless'. For example, with the Dawn Brigade I could argue that, while Sothe is good, units like Volug and Jill are around that also are good and, thusly, Sothe isn't as good. Or, a better way to put it would be that, since Ike is good, but part of the GM's who are all-around good, his contributions are less and, as a result, he should be ranked lower than a unit in the DB (which doesn't have as many good units) simply because other units can take Ike's place.

Just because other units 'can' replace Jill as a 1-2 ranged mounted unit, possibly even better (I'm not going to judge), doesn't serve as a mark against Jill. What matters is that Jill does her job as a 1-2 ranged mounted unit well. Otherwise you end up in a situation where all the good units are just meh cause any unit 'could' take their place while a bad unit with a unique contribution (like a thief) is ranked higher. A top-end fighter with no match? He can be replaced with another unit that's also good. A thief who steals one unique stat-booster possibly enabling another unit to do well? You don't have anything like that!

[Irysa]

It's not "replicable" under any sense of the word. The role of a flying mounted unit with 1-2 and good combat is exclusive to Jill in the DB in Parts 1 and 3. The role of an 11 move flying mounted unit with good combat and 1-2 range is exclusive to Jill in Part 4.

Yes it is. What is Jill's job in this game? To kill shit. I know she's the only flier you've got for Part 1 and 3 (minus like, Vika lol), but in terms of just clearing those maps via having good enough combat to engage multiple enemies on EP and ORKO and not die, Jill does not hold onto that exclusively. In Part 4 she is not the only flying mounted unit with 1-2 who can pull off good combat, she IS however the best at it.

You need to stop thinking in pure LTC terms. It's okay for us to assume that we drop turns for heavily investing into a different unit, because that is how we're able to rank the units. But we have to first examine the units fairly, and that means we need to actually give them equal footing. Because of the way BEXP, Forges, and Skills work in this game, you can give a buttload of favouritism to quite a lot of Beorc units in this game and get competant combat units. Most of this shit is also not done on the map so it's not a case of "I have to slow down to baby this unit" or whatnot.

At absoloutely no point am I saying that Jill is not the best with those resources. But it makes no sense to compare a fully resource invested Jill to a not fully resource invested other unit in the grand scheme of the list. Jill is better regardless, but other units will inevitably move up the list rather than being considered mid for just kinda helping out in a few maps.

Just because other units 'can' replace Jill as a 1-2 ranged mounted unit, possibly even better (I'm not going to judge), doesn't serve as a mark against Jill. What matters is that Jill does her job as a 1-2 ranged mounted unit well. Otherwise you end up in a situation where all the good units are just meh cause any unit 'could' take their place while a bad unit with a unique contribution (like a thief) is ranked higher.

I think unique contributions do deserve to be rated higher, but I agree with the bolded part. Aside from the fact Jill's endgame is not beatable by other units.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Irysa

[Chiki]

but in terms of just clearing those maps via having good enough combat to engage multiple enemies on EP and ORKO and not die, Jill does not hold onto that exclusively.

She's the only one who can do that and fly. It's why FE9 Marcia is so good.

In Part 4 she is not the only flying mounted unit with 1-2 who can pull off good combat, she IS however the best at it.

You know you're just supporting my argument here.

But we have to first examine the units fairly, and that means we need to actually give them equal footing. Because of the way BEXP, Forges, and Skills work in this game, you can give a buttload of favouritism to quite a lot of Beorc units in this game and get competant combat units. Most of this shit is also not done on the map so it's not a case of "I have to slow down to baby this unit" or whatnot.

We do consider what units can do with the favoritism we give Jill. They just can't do what Jill can.

But it makes no sense to compare a fully resource invested Jill to a not fully resource invested other unit in the grand scheme of the list.

No one does that. We compare a fully invested Jill to a fully invested Nolan or Volug, and look at the opportunity cost. That's what I've always argued from the day I did my first LTC run with Jill.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Chiki

[Junkhead]

Why does snowy hate me. ;u;

EDIT: Updated the OP with "Important Links" (Averages & HM Enemy Stats) for future reference. シ

Edited March 17, 2015 by The Red Queen

[Elieson]

Why does snowy hate me. ;u;

wat?

---

I think the question to answer is, you have a Finite amount of resources. Jill's performance with a resource dump (BEXP, boosters, battle exp) allows her performance and contribution to be exemplary. Does crafting the perfect Jill cost such an incredible amount of resources that it leaves a significant amount of other units starving for favouritism just to keep up? It's almost like we're getting to the point where we should just say "Jill's getting A B C X Y and Z. Now let's build the tier list using what's left and available for the rest of the cast", which is a pretty bad idea IMO

If a new player to the FE franchise comes to this thread looking for just general advice on who's worth using and who isn't worth using [read; who's easy to use and who's difficult to use], they would likely just want to look at the tier list and say "Oh, ok Jill's worth using, Haar's worth using, Lyre's definitely not worth using...Hmm, Ilyana looks middling...I wonder what's up with that I should see how she does or look at her growths or something"

If a "vet" comes to this thread for serious efficiency advice, they're likely already informed enough to have a pretty decent understanding of which units perform better than others.

I'm not as familiar with FE:RD as the idea of constantly switching parties just ruins the game for me, but for the amount I've learned through SF, I understand that Jill's top tier because of her performance when given the entirety of your favouritism. With that, how hard is the rest of your team left in the dust?

[Irysa]

She's the only one who can do that and fly. It's why FE9 Marcia is so good.

She is not the only person who can have good combat in Part 4 and flies...and in FE9, Jill is considered just below Marcia and they are broadly interchangable with the same investment, just Marcia has an availability lead.

We do consider what units can do with the favoritism we give Jill. They just can't do what Jill can.

If we were actually considering what units can do with the favouritism Jill gets then there's no way Tanith should be mid tier.

No one does that. We compare a fully invested Jill to a fully invested Nolan or Volug, and look at the opportunity cost. That's what I've always argued from the day I did my first LTC run with Jill.

The opportunity cost doesn't matter if we're not using Jill though. Not every team composition will use her. Doesn't it seem absurd that if Jill is assumed not to exist, suddenly a bunch of units would be considerably better because the opportunity cost of not dumping resources into Jill is gone?

Sothe or Volug being good is not what makes us consider Leonardo bad, Leonardo is bad because of various other reasons (shitty offence, 2 range locked, bad bases, not good growths, etc). Sothe and Volug are good because they kill shit effectively without much investment. Jill is not actually very good at base but is rated high because she has the ability to grow into a unit who kills shit effectively, and has extra pluses that characters like Sothe and Volug lack. This is fine, but there are other units in the game who can grow and kill shit effectively, do not have to be babied in maps, and yet they get rated significantly lower because of not investing in a better unit?

Edited March 17, 2015 by Irysa

[Florete]

If we were actually considering what units can do with the favouritism Jill gets then there's no way Tanith should be mid tier.

Let me ask again: what resources do you want to give Tanith? I don't see how anything is bumping Tanith up out of mid tier. She's just not that good.

[Irysa]

What you would expect. Adept, Forges, BEXP to at least third tier, (iirc she gets str skl spd or def on 3 statter so this is fine anyway), a robe, probably an energy drop. If you really want to push it, I could say Paragon via transferring it to the GM army. This is all completely unreasonable of course.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Irysa

[Ownagepuffs]

In the event that we give Tanith 2 Seraph robes, a dracoshield, and an energy drop, she would probably still be mid tier by virtue of availability. 3-11 is too late to the party. Length of contribution plays a factor, doesn't it?

[Junkhead]

She only needs an Angelic Robe & a Secret Book, it's BEXP slowplay from there. Neither of those are high on demand.

EDIT: Actually, she doesn't even need the Angelic Robe. She caps Skill and she'll just get Str/Spd/Def level-ups though BEXP. Sigrun is a similiar case.

Edited March 17, 2015 by The Red Queen

[Loki Laufeyson]

Nephenee > Haar.

Fiona > Ike.

Whoa there, whats this? How in the world is Fiona > Ike? Did i...miss something? Are you referring to Part 3? Im also not sold on Neph > Haar.

the first sentence is not true; there have been at least 2 users who have tried to suggest effective use of skrimir.

Suggesting effective use of a unit is not "hyping" them up. Its simply saying "heres how this unit can be used."

Let me ask again: what resources do you want to give Tanith? I don't see how anything is bumping Tanith up out of mid tier. She's just not that good.

I agree. Transfer!Tanith is pretty cool but not overly fantastic. I also dont see why anyone would feed her that much stuff. I dont even think she needs a Drop. Shes better than Sigrun imo.

[Yojinbo]

Tanith mostly needs the horseslayer for 3-E.

[Florete]

What you would expect. Adept, Forges, BEXP to at least third tier, (iirc she gets str skl spd or def on 3 statter so this is fine anyway), a robe, probably an energy drop. If you really want to push it, I could say Paragon via transferring it to the GM army. This is all completely unreasonable of course.

That's a pretty high opportunity cost. In comparison to Skrimir, just a Speedwing will keep him killing all the way through 4-E-1. Range is not that valuable and flight is good but hindered by Bow enemies (and Skrimir has 9 Move anyway).

She only needs an Angelic Robe & a Secret Book, it's BEXP slowplay from there. Neither of those are high on demand.

EDIT: Actually, she doesn't even need the Angelic Robe. She caps Skill and she'll just get Str/Spd/Def level-ups though BEXP. Sigrun is a similiar case.

There's little-to-no BEXP "slowplay" being done this late.

Whoa there, whats this? How in the world is Fiona > Ike? Did i...miss something? Are you referring to Part 3? Im also not sold on Neph > Haar.

It's a joke.

[dondon151]

Suggesting effective use of a unit is not "hyping" them up. Its simply saying "heres how this unit can be used."

yes, it is. there are actual effective uses for units (which for really bad units, amount to nothing, shove, or rescue) and there are proposed uses for units that are beyond what the unit should be doing. one user mentioned resolve, which doesn't help skrimir because it's either hard for him to get into resolve range or it requires that he be untransformed for an enemy phase, and it doesn't resolve his problems of no 2-range plus laguz gauge. another user hyped up skrimir's statistical leads over tanith without providing an adequate context for why those statistical leads are important (i.e., how many turns does skrimir save) and sandbagging tanith all the while.

here's the actual breakdown of tanith vs. skrimir. notice that i'm not going to inundate this argument with a million irrelevant statistical comparisons like we did back in 2009. this is how comparisons should be done.

- tanith is not strictly needed to 4-turn 3-11, but she significantly increases reliability. without tanith, haar has to proc a crit or a stun to ORKO the boss. with tanith, haar can attempt to kill the boss in combination with ulki, who gets OHKO'd but faces pretty low hit.

- i wouldn't be surprised if tanith is needed to 4-turn 3-E.

- tanith is required to minimize 4-P, 4-2, and 4-3 turncounts.

tanith being deployed in 4-2 allows for both of the dragonmasters to go to 4-P and 4-3. these 3 points alone should secure tanith > skrimir, but some are no doubt going to cast skepticism on the claim that tanith can do anything in 4-2, so that's what most of this post is going to address. in 4-2 she just has to be good enough to deal with the enemies, and the issue is getting her there. here are the magic numbers to consider:

- 29 AS for all enemies except SMs

- 39 atk to 2HKO SMs and 4HKO generals

- 42-43 atk to 2HKO warriors and L6 halbs

- 46 atk to 2HKO L9 halbs

first of all, there are a lot of stat boosters available that aren't in high demand that can be used on tanith to help cap tier 2 stats for BEXP use. they are:

- 1-4, 1-8, or 3-1 seraph robe. there are 3 of these and 1 of them should go to jill; the other 2 are up for grabs.

- 2-2 secret book. no one needs this, it can be stolen in a 3-turn, and the extra money isn't necessary.

- 2-E energy drop. the good GMs don't need this and the bad GMs don't make good use of it.

- 3-3 dracoshield. the good GMs don't need this. it does cost 8000G, but there is enough money to be spent.

- 3-9 speedwings. the only unit who might want this is haar.

not all of these stat boosters have to be used before promotion, either. tanith can use seraph robe (capping HP), secret book, dracoshield, and cap skl (75%) and def (40%) after a level. her highest growths in descending order are skl, str, spd, and def. with a regular level up in 3-11 and 3 BEXP level ups in 3-E, tanith can be estimated to cap HP, skl, def and reach 23 str, 26 spd. promo + energy drop puts her at 28 str, 28 spd. at this point she only needs 1 str, 1 spd to reach her statistical goals, which shouldn't be difficult with paragon in 3-E. 29 str tanith has:

- 39 atk with brave lance (2HKOs SMs, 4HKOs generals)

- 42 atk with spear (2HKOs most warriors)

- 47 atk with tempest blade or forged silver lance (2HKOs all warriors and halbs)

this is just what we need for tanith to do well in 4-2 so that both dragonmasters can go to 4-P and 4-3 and get the super low turncounts there.

we know that skrimir mauls anything that he doubles, but it's not necessary to perform any statistical comparisons to show that he's clearly not as useful; we can just play the laguz card. first of all, he doesn't exist in 3-11 or 3-E whereas tanith is evidently helping out. second of all, he can't counter 2-range enemies in maps that have rout objectives. third of all, he doesn't have formshift, so he takes the first player phase to transform and he may require later player phases to use olivi grass. fourth of all, he doesn't have canto, so it's hard to reposition him for leanne's vigor when there are 3 other fliers in the same route who do have canto. finally, he can't be expected to double most enemies in 4-3 without the speedwings that tanith and haar prefer.

endgame doesn't really matter when there are laguz royals and dragonmasters out and about.

i anticipate many objections that illustrate why tier lists for FE10 should be dead and buried. the page numbers are still in the single digits and we already have arguments over tiering philosophy.

Edited March 17, 2015 by dondon151

[Florete]

Gonna take issue with one thing:

finally, he can't be expected to double most enemies in 4-3 without the speedwings that tanith and haar prefer.

If Tanith can be fed 4-5 stat boosters (and an Arms Scroll, since she can't use Tempest Blade without one), one of which we have to buy ourselves (and the others could be sold anyway for better forges or something), Skrimir is getting a Speedwing if the only case against it is "Tanith or Haar might want it."

Otherwise, this is now boiling down to tier philosophy (do we take strict turn counts/how do we handle such resource distribution?). You have shown how Tanith can be used effectively, and under the context you used, I have no other disagreements (though I do think you're treating the lack of range too harshly).

[dondon151]

4-3 has, like, 15/50+ starting enemies with 1-2 or 2 range? that doesn't seem like a lot, and it wouldn't be a problem if all of the enemies with 1-2 range came in a group. the problem is that the 1-2 range enemies are interspersed among the 1 range enemies, so basically if skrimir is positioned anywhere in range of a 1-2 range enemy, then that's a suboptimal positioning because he could be drawing combat away from a beorc unit.

Edited March 17, 2015 by dondon151

[Florete]

So on player phase, have him kill the ranged enemies. I don't recall there usually being more than one in a given area unless it's specifically a group of them (like I think there's a group of Crossbow Warrior reinforcements).

It's not like Skrimir needs to be fighting alone, either, if Jill and/or Haar and whoever else is used are around.

[dondon151]

since skrimir doesn't have canto, that means that he's covering half as many enemies as a 1-2 range beorc with canto, and he also can't do much on the final turn of an enemy phase unless there's a specific positioning where he can cover some enemies and not get in the way. either way, it's a big deal. it's not as big of a deal as being too shitty to fight at all, but skrimir is definitely fighting maybe half as many enemies as jill or haar at best.

[Junkhead]

There's little-to-no BEXP "slowplay" being done this late.

Wait, did I use that word right? I got it from you, lol. I thought it referred to BEXP a character up, taking advantage of certain stat caps. Or did you mean there's not much BEXP to go around, by that time of the game? IIRC, there was plenty. Many characters don't seem to be in huge need of it, and then there's the fact the CRKs join in with their own lot of BEXP...

Also, she only really needs a Secret Book to BEXP her way up!

Edited March 18, 2015 by The Red Queen

[Chiki]

She is not the only person who can have good combat in Part 4 and flies...and in FE9, Jill is considered just below Marcia and they are broadly interchangable with the same investment, just Marcia has an availability lead.

She is in Part 1 and 3, like I said before, and she is the only one with 11 move in Part 4. Come on, don't give me these nitpicky wishy-washy objections.

If we were actually considering what units can do with the favouritism Jill gets then there's no way Tanith should be mid tier.

Erm, I think Tanith's pretty good personally.

The opportunity cost doesn't matter if we're not using Jill though. Not every team composition will use her. Doesn't it seem absurd that if Jill is assumed not to exist, suddenly a bunch of units would be considerably better because the opportunity cost of not dumping resources into Jill is gone?

Uh.. they would be good, but they can't shave as many turns/contribute to reliability as Jill can. That's why Jill is so good.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Chiki

[Irysa]

I really don't get what you're arguing at this point. I'm not asking for Jill to be lowered, I'm asking for other units to be raised.

[Chiki]

I really don't get what you're arguing at this point. I'm not asking for Jill to be lowered, I'm asking for other units to be raised.

I'm arguing that they shouldn't. No one can do what Jill can with favoritism, period.

[Ownagepuffs]

since skrimir doesn't have canto, that means that he's covering half as many enemies as a 1-2 range beorc with canto, and he also can't do much on the final turn of an enemy phase unless there's a specific positioning where he can cover some enemies and not get in the way. either way, it's a big deal. it's not as big of a deal as being too shitty to fight at all, but skrimir is definitely fighting maybe half as many enemies as jill or haar at best.

Honest question here, who else is performing as well in the desert as Skrimir? Aside from the Dracos and Naesala, of course. Pegs are in danger from the crossbow brigade, mages are lol, and infantry beorc with 1-2 range suffer desert penalty. You could rescue drop them or something but which infantry beorc would have good enough offense to consistently ORKO? Honestly curious.

I don't think not being as good as the best characters makes you bad. That last statement was sounding like Chiki's reasoning for why Volug is bad.