FE9 Tier List

[Swordsalmon]

...Reikken already showed what a Tier List is about. -_-

Regardless, I'll move Kieran up.

[Don Draper]

Will you move Soren above Ilyana too? I'll provide more examples of Ilyana's failing at doubling if you want...

[Reikken]

Ilyana failing doesn't warrant Soren moving up. Rather, Ilyana down (which I agree with btw).

[Doom103]

btw the list is wrong

[Tino]

Then tell us what's wrong with it <_<

[Swordsalmon]

Rofl isn't Top Tier, duh. ;)

But really...where should Tormod and Devdan go? They both have pretty good offense, and Tormod has Celerity.

[Doom103]

Then tell us what's wrong with it <_<

I'm not gonna get into too much detail but, nephenne has great growths and usually caps 3 or 4 things, Ike>Marcia for sure move Soren up and move Astrid down, I would say more, but I'm not in the mood to debate, unless it's a smash teir list

[CGV]

Rofl isn't Top Tier, duh. ;)

But really...where should Tormod and Devdan go? They both have pretty good offense, and Tormod has Celerity.

Are you ever gonna learn not to spell it like that?

[Tino]

Rofl isn't Top Tier, duh. ;)

But really...where should Tormod and Devdan go? They both have pretty good offense, and Tormod has Celerity.

I say... just above Stefan. At least Devdan and Tormod should be right after eachother.

@ Doom:

Nephenee caps only Skill and Speed and that's when she's 20/20. If she is 20/14 at the end of the game, though (which I doubt) she can still cap Speed, though.

Marcia is mounted, is not locked to swords, has flying utility and great supports with Tanith and Kieran, two of the best units in the game. Ike is locked to swords, has only average movement and has his level capped for some chapters. Marcia > Ike.

Soren has crappy durability, no supports, a fail earlygame and crappy Strength, making his offense not much superior to Ilyana's.

Astrid is mounted, has Paragon and axes after promotion, plus an awesome Makalov support. Great unit.

[Reikken]

I can't see Tormod better than Stefan. Tormod joins (very slightly) after Stefan and much weaker. I can't see him turning it around fast enough and by a large enough margin to even be close to Stefan, let alone better.

[Tino]

Tormod has Celerity, hits Resistance, has good Strength and Speed and Devdan x Tormod is a good support. You'll want to use both of them if you decide to use one.

Stefan has no supports, is locked to swords and has pretty horrible Luck.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Tino

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

I can't really say that Marcia is better than Ike. Considering the pluses you stated about Marcia, she also has weakness to bows, is quite fragile with low defense and HP, and is harder to level up than Ike (Lv5 Peg Knight at Chapter 9 = not good). I say that they're both equal.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Black Luster Soldier

[Don Draper]

Devdan should stay where he is, or drop due to Phail Speed and Phail Defense. Tormod is good where he is.

Ilyana should go down further to upper mid (Fail speed and magic)

Brom has low movement in a game where all the good characters are mounted. He should move down

Zihark needs to move below Stefan. Zihark starts out really bad, while Stefan is amazing once you get him. Stefan will also have a gigantic level lead, and will cap Strength/Skill/Speed much faster.

[Reikken]

Tormod has Celerity, hits Resistance, has good Strength and Speed and Devdan x Tormod is a good support. You'll want to use both of them if you decide to use one.

"hits Resistance" is not necessarily a good thing. Some enemies have higher resistance than defense.

Additionally, magic tomes are overall weaker than physical weapons (ex: compare Elfire to Iron Blade, Bolganone to Silver Sword, Thoron to Silver Blade), and the higher-end ones have much less availability (ex: Silver Swords, and later, even Silver Blades, can be bought, while the strongest purchasable magic tome is Elthunder.)

and they have little in the way of special weapons. Stefan, for example, can make use of the Vague Katti, forged weapons of higher rank than E, etc.

"Stefan has no supports"

Mordecai and Soren both support Stefan.

"Tormod ... has good Strength and Speed"

Tormod joins with 10 mag (2 str) and 9 spd. Stefan joins with 19 str and 25 spd. Stefan's is far better. Indeed Tormod grows much faster, but he never even catches up, so clearly his overall is much lower.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Reikken

[Tino]

"hits Resistance" is not necessarily a good thing. Some enemies have higher resistance than defense.

Additionally, magic tomes are overall weaker than physical weapons (ex: compare Elfire to Iron Blade, Bolganone to Silver Sword--or even Silver Blade), and the higher-end ones have much less availability (ex: Silver Swords, and later, even Silver Blades, can be bought, while the strongest purchasable magic tome is Elthunder.)

and they have little in the way of special weapons. Stefan, for example, can make use of the Vague Katti, forged weapons of higher rank than E, etc.

Most enemies have lower Resistance (a lot lower Resistance, in fact) than Defense. There are those mages and priests and such which have better Resistance, sure, but they have such crappy HP that Tormod might actually be able to kill those, too (not at base level).

Magic tomes being weaker than physical weapons is cancelled out by them hitting Resistance.

Forging tomes is also possible, and it's not like you want to spend craploads of mony on an already expensive weapon like a Silver Sword.

Mordecai and Soren both support Stefan.

Crap. Mixed him up with Soren who has only two support options >_>

Tormod joins with 10 mag (2 str) and 9 spd. Stefan joins with 19 str and 25 spd. Stefan's is far better. Indeed Tormod grows much faster, but he never even catches up, so clearly his overall is much lower.

Perhaps Stefan always has a Power (Stefan's Strength vs. Tormod's Magic), you must not forget the extra utility Tormod gets out of his Celerity skill and the ability to heal after promotion. And to get back on the promotion thing, you probably want to promote him at level 15 or something to give him that extra healing utility faster.

[Reikken]

Most enemies have lower Resistance (a lot lower Resistance, in fact) than Defense.

The average def-res gap is about 5.

"Forging tomes is also possible, and it's not like you want to spend craploads of mony on an already expensive weapon like a Silver Sword."

Yes, you do. What else are you doing with that money? Anything not forged is incredibly cheap. Elthunder is just about the most expensive unforged weapon.

Tormod has +1 move and the ability to use staves over Stefan after he promotes. Stefan has an incredibly huge lead in combat ability before then and still leads by a substantial amount afterwards. I can see them being close if only time after Tormod promotes is considered, but looking at the whole picture, Stefan is higher.

[Swordsalmon]

Devdan should stay where he is, or drop due to Phail Speed and Phail Defense. Tormod is good where he is.

Ilyana should go down further to upper mid (Fail speed and magic)

Brom has low movement in a game where all the good characters are mounted. He should move down

Zihark needs to move below Stefan. Zihark starts out really bad, while Stefan is amazing once you get him. Stefan will also have a gigantic level lead, and will cap Strength/Skill/Speed much faster.

Devdan can use the Knight's Ward for massive AS.

Ilyana also has excellent supports (Mordecai A, Zihark B) that boost her durability greatly and can use Thunder magic, the strongest in the game. Ilyana has enough Speed to double most common enemies like Loldiers and Weapon Knights, and later on Halberdiers and all Axe-users. Combined with healing and a pretty decent joining, and Ilyana's pretty good.

Brom has one of the best offenses with Knight's Ward and supports.

Zihark doesn't start bad. :/ He's doubling most enemies and two-rounding like most characters, and has decent enough durability. Stefan is beating him mid-game, but Zihark is benefitting earlier and beats Stefan after promotion.

[Reikken]

Ilyana isn't bad, but she's not good enough for high tier. Borderline speed, and thus, mediocre offense, without any particularly impressive traits is not high tier material.

Brom only has good offense a few levels after promotion. The Knight Ward only increases speed growth, not base. And that's if he's using the thing the entire time, leaving very little time for others to make use of this awesome item.

And good offense does no good when you can't put it to use. Just about anything Brom attacks several others could have attacked a turn or two ago. You don't need good offense to finish off something that has already been attacked.

This applies to Ilyana as well.

has decent enough durability.

not really

Low starting durability is what gives Zihark a poor start. 7 def and 25 hp isn't good, especially when lances are the most common enemy weapon type. A steel lance and 9 str is all it takes to kill him in two hits.

Edited September 25, 2008 by Reikken

[Don Draper]

Zihark doesn't even beat Stefan when he promotes, because Stefan will have a massive level lead which Zihark never catches up to.

Those three need to drop a tier for the reasons that Reikken and I mentioned.

Edited September 25, 2008 by IOS

[Tino]

Zihark doesn't even beat Stefan when he promotes, because Stefan will have a massive level lead which Zihark never catches up to.

Zihark also has wtf supports with Brom/Muarim and Ilyana, granting him very good Avoid, making him almost immortal weren't it for all those lance users who have a small hit boost against him. His Avoid is still very good, though. So good, in fact, that he'll barely get hit, even by lance users.

[Swordsalmon]

Brom only has good offense a few levels after promotion. The Knight Ward only increases speed growth, not base. And that's if he's using the thing the entire time, leaving very little time for others to make use of this awesome item.

And good offense does no good when you can't put it to use. Just about anything Brom attacks several others could have attacked a turn or two ago. You don't need good offense to finish off something that has already been attacked.

Brom also has +5 Atk from Boyd A, Zihark B, and both want him for supports. The Knight's Ward increases Brom's Speed to double most things, with the exception of some Paladins, Swordmasters, and a few Myrmidons. I think his offense is pretty good.

Though I've moved all three down a bit.

[Don Draper]

...And you moved Soren and Nephenee down for no reason at all. Those two>Ilyana, Brom, or Zihark.

And you act as if every character is using the Knight Ward as well :(

Edited September 25, 2008 by IOS

[Tino]

Nephenee > Zihark? Please think twice before you say something :P

[Swordsalmon]

...And you moved Soren and Nephenee down for no reason at all. Those two>Ilyana, Brom, or Zihark.

And you act as if every character is using the Knight Ward as well :(

Nephenee has pretty mediocre bases and an awful starting Lance level. No supports and average offense doesn't make Nephenee too good. Brom, Ilyana, and Zihark are all better than her.

Soren has little offense for a while, and very arguable supports. At best, maybe Ike B, but Soren's durability is still terrible regardless.

Because they probably will. ^_^

[Reikken]

Nephenee > Zihark?

indeed.

She starts out with weaker offense but better defense, and then both grow faster than Zihark's. By near promotion, she has offense about tied. After promotion especially, she also has 1-2 range options while Zihark doesn't. By ch 22, Zihark's avoid starts picking up (B Muarim), so he stops losing defense.

No supports

Brom, Devdan, Calill

Because they probably will.

You only get one...

oh, missed this...

Brom also has +5 Atk from Boyd A, Zihark B, and both want him for supports. The Knight's Ward increases Brom's Speed to double most things, with the exception of some Paladins, Swordmasters, and a few Myrmidons. I think his offense is pretty good.

That's +4 atk

and none of that addressed anything I said.

Edited September 25, 2008 by Reikken