What is a Tier List in FE?

[CynicalCrit]

I am bit confused on what exactly a tier list in a Fire emblem game suppose to stand for. I was thinking of using Odin in the Fate Revelation despite hearing him being the equivalent of Meta Knight Tier on the opposite spectrum so Ive been looking around on why that is the case.

So upon seeing a few post, I thought tier list meant for people playing strictly on story with no extra/grinding in between so that made sense, a char that appear late in the story as a low level unit would be terrible. But then I read that despite grinding said terrible character, they are still bad unless they are overleveled.

So including my topic question, are the "terrible" units in a FE game just bad because they require additional time investment when you could of made a similar character with less effort? Or because when they reach the max level or cap, they actually perform horribly compare to even the average units.

[Shadow Mir]

In a sense, a tier list shows how effective characters are overall in terms of gameplay (someone else might do a better job of explaining than I did). Anyways, Odin sucks in Revelations because...

-He joins late (I read he's one of the last units you get)

-He comes in underleveled (he comes in at level 12 at a point where the characters you're using would likely be promoted or close to it)

-His bases suck (whilst he comes in seven levels higher than he came in Conquest, his bases only improved by 3 points at most)

Any one of these alone would be a major mark against a unit on a tier list, btw.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Jiac]

So including my topic question, are the "terrible" units in a FE game just bad because they require additional time investment when you could of made a similar character with less effort? Or because when they reach the max level or cap, they actually perform horribly compare to even the average units.

The answer above answered your main question, I'll finish up what he missed.

Your first question is correct.

The "terrible" units are terrible because they require additional time invesment when another unit could have been way better with the amount of time you invested in the current character. Further considerations are stats, time of recruitment, resources consumed, reward for babying, weapon ranks etc.

I believe a good example to demonstrate this is FE 7's Mages. Notably we'll compare Pent and Nino

If you invest a bunch of time in training Nino, she undoubtedly becomes one of the best mages in the game due to her high growth. However, growths are still uncertain therefore she could be screwed in terms of stats because RNG did not favor you. Even then if you train Nino, Pent still comes with an automatic A in staves, while upon promoting Nino she still has to climb from weapon rank staves E --> A. Nino also comes at an inconvenient time where pretty much all the enemies can kill her in a single hit, to the point that you would need to force yourself to make the situation absolutely right, for Nino to get some EXP. Furthermore, she's a level 5 mage with 11 speed who is recruited near endgame, so almost everything pretty much doubles her. Lastly, you had a mage and a Sage recruited way earlier, so your reason for using her sharply decreases because you probably used one or the other.

Now let's consider Pent. Pent comes automatically able to wield almost any anima tome or stave in the game because he has an A in both weapon ranks. He comes with an automatic A support, with his wife Louise, which means you don't need to get supports to already receive bonuses. His Ice affinity makes up for his lack of defense, increasing it by 1.5. His growths are still solid despite being promoted, having a 50% in HP growth compared to Nino's 55%. No resources need to be consumed because he has decent enough magic, HP and speed to stand his ground nor does he need additional EXP to make him a good unit. If you didn't use the other mage or his growths didn't pan out, this Sage fills in nicely, coming at a convenient time where units are getting strong and less opportunities to feed them.

In fact, the mage you get earlier has comparable stats (assuming average growths) to Pent at the same level, even though you dedicated EXP to him, which affects his ranking on the tier list. I'll add on Nino's averages as comparison as evidence for a later point. Let's compare:

Erk (Level 6/20 Sage):

HP - 36.6

Mag. - 15.6

Skl. - 15.6

Spd. - 19

Lck. - 10.2

Def. - 9.8

Res. - 16.6

Pent (Level 6 Sage [Recruitment])

HP - 33

Mag. - 18

Skl. - 21

Spd. - 17

Lck. - 14

Def. - 11

Res. - 16

Nino (Level 6/20 Sage):

HP - 33

Mag. - 18

Skl. - 19

Spd. - 23

Lck. - 19

Def. - 10

Res. - 20

So assuming you're not screwed by the randomness of RNG, and get average growths or slightly above average growths. At the same level they're still comparable. Pent leaves nothing to chance. Furthermore, Pent's stats are only slightly worse/better than Erk and Nino's with NO INVESTMENT. Which is where weapon ranks also add, he comes with the ability to automatically use a Physic and Recover, which is super valuable and you do not need to train up to be able to use. Undoubtedly, assuming average growths, Nino WILL BE better than Pent. It's just the time worth investing and the EXP you're feeding to her could be used on other units to strengthen them and uses less resources, such as needing to attack with a lot of your weaker units to chip an enemy down for her to kill. It ultimately makes the reward for babying really bad when another unit that exists that can do their job without needing EXP exists. This in turn, makes Pent jump to top tier if not high tier on most tier list.

I hope this helps you understand tier list.

EDIT: To tie this back to the Odin case.

You get Nyx at an earlier chapter with comparable stats to him. Odin also cannot keep up with the rest of the cast without needing his food to be weakened to give him EXP. Even then, the reward for feeding him does not pay off. At this point you also probably have better magic users and if you reclass him, other units at this point can do his job better than him.

Edited March 28, 2016 by ~Summer~

[henrymidfields]

Do we also take into consideration the difficulty in grinding/babying as well? For example, Est in Shadow Dragon also arrives late. However, in both my Normal and Hard 1 runs, I took the time to grind her levels through the arena, which happens to be easier overall due to in-chapter saves, and also perhaps the arena opponents don't seem to be as overpowered compared to arenas in earlier chapters. As a result she was a Level 5-10 Wyvern Knight in the final chapter.

I also raised Ewan into a Summoner in Sacred Stones as part of my main party as his was even easier to level grind due to Tower of Valni (and he also doesn't have such bad luck as Knoll).

In contrast, I benched Sophia in Binding Blade the entire time due to her crippling accuracy and speed issues (both from low Skill/Speed and the very nature of Shaman and Druids), which rules out arena grinding, let alone grinding levels in the main game.

Edited March 28, 2016 by henrymidfields

[Tamanoir]

Do we also take into consideration the difficulty in grinding/babying as well? For example, Est in Shadow Dragon also arrives late. However, in both my Normal and Hard 1 runs, I took the time to grind her levels through the arena, which happens to be easier overall due to in-chapter saves, and also perhaps the arena opponents don't seem to be as overpowered compared to arenas in earlier chapters. As a result she was a Level 5-10 Wyvern Knight in the final chapter.

I also raised Ewan into a Summoner as part of my main party as his was even easier to level grind due to Tower of Valni.

In contrast, I benched Sophia in Binding Blade the entire time due to her crippling accuracy and speed issues, which rules out arena grinding.

That's partly answered above, but generally yes. Especially if , like here, they're combined with join time.

Every unit can be great if you gives them all your investment. If a unit is already great with minimal investment, she will definitely be better than a unit that may be slightly worse in the absolute, but with no investment at all. The Erk/Nino/Pent is a good example.

Same with Ewan.

Firstly, he has the worst Phantoms. Knoll can be promoted as soon as he join, and have better Phantoms, so he'll rank higher.

If you chose the Sage path with Ewan, he have to compete with Saleh and here, see Pent above, or Lute who joins earier and is already able to nuke ennemies at this point if you trained her.

His only niche is Druid, but I'm not sure the Dark Magic utility is enough to makes it worthwile here.

So, he'll probably rank lower on the Tier List.

For Est, I don't really know, but she has to compete her spot with Catria, Palla, and Minerva (and Caeda.).

However Ross vs Dozla, or even Ross vs Garcia may not be as clear cut. (He may win against Dozla, but I'm not sure he would against Garcia.)

Meanwhile, using personal experience to prove your point won't be accepted.

No matter how many pics of my awesome Ninos I show, or how much I insist it's not that hard to train her (just insanely tedious), that won't change the fact Pent is better.

I may be missing some finer points, but that should be the general idea.

[Knight]

In simplest terms, I think higher-tiered characters are the ones who will bring you to the end of the game fastest with leaving little to chance. That said, I think that unless you're going for speed, almost any character is a viable option on almost any difficulty in pretty much every Fire Emblem game, as long as you're skilled. I wouldn't worry about using Odin.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Knight

[Parrhesia]

Keep in mind that units aren't ranked against each others of the same class. For instance, Paladins in FE9 - it's kind of the more the merrier. Oscar isn't penalised because Titania's the same class, they're both excellent units in very strong classes.

(I could be wrong about Oscar tbf, I haven't looked at actual tier lists in ages, but my point stands)

Edited March 28, 2016 by Parrhesia

[CynicalCrit]

So interesting how these all work out, odd that throuout the series, even now have low level unit that appear late in the game. I wonder why they constantly keep doing that unless its so that people might not go into a situation where they just keep swapping older unit with newer one, making u value less the unit uve been fighting with.

Much appreciated on the clarification and examples. Ill put time into Odin despite the odds. Has much as min maxing stats can be fun, just like in disgaea, i pref to use character that i enjoy over the most optimal ones. I was worried that even with time put in, Odin would of came out horrible (a possible case if he joined near level cap but stats were horrenduous for w.e reason, or rng screwed).

Edited March 28, 2016 by CynicalCrit

[Radiant Dragon]

So interesting how these all work out, odd that throuout the series, even now have low level unit that appear late in the game. I wonder why they constantly keep doing that unless its so that people might not go into a situation where they just keep swapping older unit with newer one, making u value less the unit uve been fighting with.

People enjoy these types of characters, that's why we keep seeing them.

For example, Amelia is quite possibly the absolute worst character in Sacred Stones if we're looking at her from an efficiency perspective, yet she is very popular regardless. As mentioned, Nino from FE7 is a similar case, as are Wendy and Sophia from FE6, Donnel in Awakening, and Mozu in Fates. They're all extremely popular yet extremely bad (Mozu slightly less so). For every person like myself, who only cares about beating the campaign as quickly and painlessly as possible, there is someone who enjoys grinding these kinds of units up to see their potential.

You can make the same argument for the existence of Jagen characters. While many people shun them because they believe these characters 'steal EXP' from your weaker units, they are some of the most important characters to those that care about efficiency and/or tier lists. Not every type of unit is designed for every player.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Radiant Dragon