FE10 Tierlist 2017

[Junkhead]

Well, I'm not, but I still think is the case. A lot of people do indeed handwave something for the mere cause of "costing". What's the cost? Is it hurting the team, or is it merely but another method to make a badass unit even more broken? A fantastic example of this is how people cast of Gatrie because of his "bad mobility" (aka, literally only -1 from the standard), when Celerity fixes his one real issue (and yes, there's people that actually argue you're missing out on an even more broken bar unnecessary upgrade for Haar). 

The whole "effeciency", or rather, Communist Emblem, is pretty harsh. It's not any less linear than rating units based on an LTC run (who at the very least get something out of shoving a person in a very exclusive situation). 

I wasn't even saying Sanaki is anything among a 5 or more, but she's definitely no 3. She fills a really helpful role with very little cost. Edward is the same deal, and he literally only takes 2 statboosters two work (Secret Book & Angelic Robe, one which nobody fucking wants and the other which you have a spare of). For the record, Nolan's contribution isn't a ton different than his' is. I'd even argue Edward does more in Part 1. 

 

I'm not going to propose something that either completely sabotages the team just to be usable.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Soul~!

[Snowy_One]

I agree that 'cost' gets way too heavily applied in tier lists regardless of pay-off, especially when certain fan-favorites slip away without repercussion for their own costs. ESPECIALLY when communist emblem and LTC playstyles get mixed together in an unholy alliance that makes it so that, unless you started godly, you have 0 chance of rescue or ever reaching potentially even D tier (regardless of where your invested form would be at).

[ping]

Well, Armor Knight has higher terrain costs as well, if I'm not mistaken. ;)

Of course it's a good point to look how a statbooster of skill can boost a unit. But to take the Celerity example, it's only fair to check how others would do with the same treatment. Obviously, Gatrie will benefit from +2 movement, but moreso than other characters? I'm not so sure about that, tbh. Mounted units might even make a little bit more use out of it, thanks to Tellius!Canto being awesome, allowing them to use their full movement more often than foot units. But even if that's a nonrelevant advantage, I still don't see why I should give Gatrie in particular a bonus because Celerity exists. It's a resource literally everyone can use just as well as he does, so while it's up to debate how relevant -1 movement compared to other foot units is, it's still a disadvantage Gatrie has.

Also, what the fuck does communist emblem even mean? All characters get the resources they need, all characters contribute as well as they can? It honestly seems more like a buzzword than an actual argument to me.

[Augestein]

1 hour ago, ping said:

Well, Armor Knight has higher terrain costs as well, if I'm not mistaken. ;)

Of course it's a good point to look how a statbooster of skill can boost a unit. But to take the Celerity example, it's only fair to check how others would do with the same treatment. Obviously, Gatrie will benefit from +2 movement, but moreso than other characters? I'm not so sure about that, tbh. Mounted units might even make a little bit more use out of it, thanks to Tellius!Canto being awesome, allowing them to use their full movement more often than foot units. But even if that's a nonrelevant advantage, I still don't see why I should give Gatrie in particular a bonus because Celerity exists. It's a resource literally everyone can use just as well as he does, so while it's up to debate how relevant -1 movement compared to other foot units is, it's still a disadvantage Gatrie has.

Also, what the fuck does communist emblem even mean? All characters get the resources they need, all characters contribute as well as they can? It honestly seems more like a buzzword than an actual argument to me.

Gatrie would benefit from this more than other characters to be honest. Even with Canto being as good as it is, the ability for Gatrie to keep up with the rest of your team and not have to be rescue chained by mounts or refreshed is a pretty good boon for him. As opposed to mounted units that go from having the best move in the game... To ... The best move in the game. That said, Gatrie shouldn't get a "bonus" with it. Instead, what needs to happen is that let's say we're arguing Gatrie versus Titania. If Gatrie gets Celerity, then a hypothetical Titania should be able to use Celerity too or something that's of equal value as well. The issue is that Celerity on Gatrie goes a lot farther than it does on Titania despite being the same thing, because he goes from having an annoying disadvantage to moving slightly faster now. And unlike Titania, he doesn't just make an advantage larger (which is less significant). It's like the difference between being OHKO and 2HKOed versus 4 HKOed versus 5HKOed. The thresholds make a hell of a difference. 

 And sometimes this DOES matter. Example. Aran. Aran starts with a D in lances, but putting discipline on this guy can get him to A rank (something that's normally not possible) for that nice Silver Lance before the end of part 1. Having that is incredible to have, and while selling it would indirectly benefit the team (stronger forges with less of a dent in the funds), no one else really can make use of it very well. Edward is rocking a C when Aran joins, sometimes doubles, and can easily reach A without it, and getting there faster doesn't help because there really aren't anything higher than B in part 1.  Micaiah can use all of the part 1 tomes, Ilyana leaves and needs no help, Nolan STARTS with C (damn), so on and so forth. So in the end of the day, using it for him is a good thing. But in tier list land, people will be like "Oh that sucks, and hurts the team." Despite the fact that unless you're some kind of demented freak that literally ensures that you have 0 funds at every given point, it's kinda hogwash. 

Communist Emblem is basically this: everyone must be equal. No matter what. IE, you can't give a unit something because that's favoritism, so we assume that the units constantly have nothing except for when the community really likes them, even when giving them something sorta nice can take a unit out of a bad spot which makes units appear to be much worse than they really are. IE, Wil from Blazing Sword is a pretty noticeable gap from Rebecca on a tier list despite the fact that if you just give the man a bloody speed wing he has the same growth rate and base as Eliwood practically (Eliwood gets exactly 1 level over Wil and that is offset by the fact that Wil gets Lyn mode for levels AND doesn't have a fixed promotion time Eliwood mode or not) -- a character people generally consider fast enough to double., and has better everything else over Rebecca that's worth noting. But instead, the argument is that "everyone wants a speed wing," so we instead just compare everyone without this supposed speed wing that everyone wants. unless you're really good of course, then feel free to give them the speed wing because they make "the best use of it." So instead of comparing a hypothetical "Wil team versus Rebecca team," it degenerates into this weird world where no one is getting anything and they are supposedly equal, but not really because the weaker unit has dumb things like "less kills" despite the fact that we're apparently trying to actively use the person. 

 

[Sweet_Basil]

3 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Have you actually stopped to think as to why I might think this way, or are you just saying this to chastise me?

I'm not chastising you, but you're not even listening to the other people. Like you make it seem only one way of playing is good and nothing else.

2 hours ago, ping said:

Well, Armor Knight has higher terrain costs as well, if I'm not mistaken. ;)

Of course it's a good point to look how a statbooster of skill can boost a unit. But to take the Celerity example, it's only fair to check how others would do with the same treatment. Obviously, Gatrie will benefit from +2 movement, but moreso than other characters? I'm not so sure about that, tbh. Mounted units might even make a little bit more use out of it, thanks to Tellius!Canto being awesome, allowing them to use their full movement more often than foot units. But even if that's a nonrelevant advantage, I still don't see why I should give Gatrie in particular a bonus because Celerity exists. It's a resource literally everyone can use just as well as he does, so while it's up to debate how relevant -1 movement compared to other foot units is, it's still a disadvantage Gatrie has.

Also, what the fuck does communist emblem even mean? All characters get the resources they need, all characters contribute as well as they can? It honestly seems more like a buzzword than an actual argument to me.

I think it means stubborn, not open to suggestions, and set on only one type of play. 

[Junkhead]

4 hours ago, ping said:

Well, Armor Knight has higher terrain costs as well, if I'm not mistaken. ;)

Of course it's a good point to look how a statbooster of skill can boost a unit. But to take the Celerity example, it's only fair to check how others would do with the same treatment. Obviously, Gatrie will benefit from +2 movement, but moreso than other characters? I'm not so sure about that, tbh. Mounted units might even make a little bit more use out of it, thanks to Tellius!Canto being awesome, allowing them to use their full movement more often than foot units. But even if that's a nonrelevant advantage, I still don't see why I should give Gatrie in particular a bonus because Celerity exists. It's a resource literally everyone can use just as well as he does, so while it's up to debate how relevant -1 movement compared to other foot units is, it's still a disadvantage Gatrie has.

Also, what the fuck does communist emblem even mean? All characters get the resources they need, all characters contribute as well as they can? It honestly seems more like a buzzword than an actual argument to me.

This is literally the people who argue Celerity on a 9 Mov unit. It's just what it fucking is. Not only does it add something completely unnecessary, but it takes off the one important "weakness" Gatrie has going for him. So one of Haar, Titania, or Oscar (whom I'll be getting to in a minute) go from having great mobility to...having great mobility??? Gatrie goes from "im almost catching up to standard" to almost keeping up with two badasses, turning him into one himself (again, his only real weakness). And no, I'm not ignoring the Spd cap either (which I did explain, too). And "others use it as good as he does"? Who does? Ike has shitty 2-range, Mia's basically stapled to Adept, Soren's self-explanatory, Oscar prefers Adept, etc. 

Thing about "Communist Emblem" I meant was more about the linear approach people have to things. They automatically assume the very best is in play literally 99% of the time, so they may as well entirely dismiss any chance of other characters using resource because they're automatically "entitled" to it. 

2 hours ago, Augestein said:

Gatrie would benefit from this more than other characters to be honest. Even with Canto being as good as it is, the ability for Gatrie to keep up with the rest of your team and not have to be rescue chained by mounts or refreshed is a pretty good boon for him. As opposed to mounted units that go from having the best move in the game... To ... The best move in the game. That said, Gatrie shouldn't get a "bonus" with it. Instead, what needs to happen is that let's say we're arguing Gatrie versus Titania. If Gatrie gets Celerity, then a hypothetical Titania should be able to use Celerity too or something that's of equal value as well. The issue is that Celerity on Gatrie goes a lot farther than it does on Titania despite being the same thing, because he goes from having an annoying disadvantage to moving slightly faster now. And unlike Titania, he doesn't just make an advantage larger (which is less significant). It's like the difference between being OHKO and 2HKOed versus 4 HKOed versus 5HKOed. The thresholds make a hell of a difference. 

 And sometimes this DOES matter. Example. Aran. Aran starts with a D in lances, but putting discipline on this guy can get him to A rank (something that's normally not possible) for that nice Silver Lance before the end of part 1. Having that is incredible to have, and while selling it would indirectly benefit the team (stronger forges with less of a dent in the funds), no one else really can make use of it very well. Edward is rocking a C when Aran joins, sometimes doubles, and can easily reach A without it, and getting there faster doesn't help because there really aren't anything higher than B in part 1.  Micaiah can use all of the part 1 tomes, Ilyana leaves and needs no help, Nolan STARTS with C (damn), so on and so forth. So in the end of the day, using it for him is a good thing. But in tier list land, people will be like "Oh that sucks, and hurts the team." Despite the fact that unless you're some kind of demented freak that literally ensures that you have 0 funds at every given point, it's kinda hogwash. 

Communist Emblem is basically this: everyone must be equal. No matter what. IE, you can't give a unit something because that's favoritism, so we assume that the units constantly have nothing except for when the community really likes them, even when giving them something sorta nice can take a unit out of a bad spot which makes units appear to be much worse than they really are. IE, Wil from Blazing Sword is a pretty noticeable gap from Rebecca on a tier list despite the fact that if you just give the man a bloody speed wing he has the same growth rate and base as Eliwood practically (Eliwood gets exactly 1 level over Wil and that is offset by the fact that Wil gets Lyn mode for levels AND doesn't have a fixed promotion time Eliwood mode or not) -- a character people generally consider fast enough to double., and has better everything else over Rebecca that's worth noting. But instead, the argument is that "everyone wants a speed wing," so we instead just compare everyone without this supposed speed wing that everyone wants. unless you're really good of course, then feel free to give them the speed wing because they make "the best use of it." So instead of comparing a hypothetical "Wil team versus Rebecca team," it degenerates into this weird world where no one is getting anything and they are supposedly equal, but not really because the weaker unit has dumb things like "less kills" despite the fact that we're apparently trying to actively use the person. 

ohmyfuckingod, you get it. 

2 hours ago, Sweet_Basil said:

I think it means stubborn, not open to suggestions, and set on only one type of play. 

...I actually meant this, yeah. Worded it really bad, it seems. Communist Emblem actually propose a sense of equality, in which you'd be spending on a whole team. My idea is about being open to suggestion, and not go in the linear route an "effeciency" tier lists proposes.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Soul~!

[Samias]

I'm pretty sure the argument for giving Haar/Jill Celerity boils down to insane achievement of objectives thanks to flight. 2 tiles is a big deal no matter who has Celerity on. For Gatrie, it makes him slightly better than his peers so he can simply keep up. For Haar, it helps him exceed his limits and have a legendary EP no one else could do. Not to mention he can simply share the movement with anyone via rescuedrops.

However I don't feel like anyone is particularly entitled to Celerity. You can do so many things with it and since you can shuffle it around for your needs, no one *has* to have it while Adept is at least a skill that has to be taken from a unit who has good availability already just to give it to someone who might use it better. Whereas Tormod is gone the whole damn game so you might as *well* peel Celerity off of him if only because he isn't around to use it.

Also Edward is a good unit. Not a 9/10 or anything like that, but his strength growth is super high and his accuracy woes not *that* bad. Wind edges suck but Edward can make it work. I'd say he's better than Aran slightly mostly from getting the equivalent of a free silver forge, and slightly worse than Zihark because Zihark has the same role, but I don't see Zihark's existence as a reason to completely drop Edward. Since Edward is so instrumental in early chapters for reasonable clears even if you have to hope for a few speed level ups, I don't think it's really that unreliable. Once Edward gets going, he snowballs the rest of his stats quite nicely and swordmasters are a nice endgame class from having such high speed and evasion.

[Radiant head]

edward is bad for the same reason sothe is considered extremely good imo.  by the time his growths lead him to being a decent unit, he's not really needed.  the dawn brigade chapters just don't lend to units who rely on evasion and player phase combat.  that's not to say he can't be useful, especially with specific set-ups like wrath + wind edge, but it'll never make him more than mediocre. 

 

[Junkhead]

yeah whats so useful about snowballing part 3

[Samias]

2 hours ago, Radiant head said:

edward is bad for the same reason sothe is considered extremely good imo.  by the time his growths lead him to being a decent unit, he's not really needed.  the dawn brigade chapters just don't lend to units who rely on evasion and player phase combat.  that's not to say he can't be useful, especially with specific set-ups like wrath + wind edge, but it'll never make him more than mediocre. 

 

Edward has a 60% growth in strength and speed, and 65% in skill. He's got 7 base strength and 12 base speed. Sure, it could be better, but considering he's with you from chapter 1 you have some uncontested deployment to get Edward rolling. He even gets a free "silver" that comes with added +8 luck and 40 uses! He's only barely worse than Zihark in the long run, as Zihark has a big res lead that Edward never really bridges without a large amount of BEXP favouritism. And once Edward gets rolling, which is really just "he promotes by 1-E", he's far above mediocre. The only knock against him is that the DBs can only really afford to train 2-3 1st tiers and that midway through part 1. And as much as a tier list assumes you give everyone their fair shake, a smart player would invest in Jill, your only available flier for part 3 in myriad swamp and mountain chapters. After that, Edward pretty much dukes it out with Nolan and maybe Aran for the rest of the BEXP and other odds and ends. The only reason Edward looks like a "worse" choice is because he doubles up roles with Zihark, but in reality Edward is going to prefer having the Caladbolg in hand for its absurd MT that Zihark can't match for a long time.

[ping]

5 hours ago, Soul~! said:

This is literally the people who argue Celerity on a 9 Mov unit. It's just what it fucking is. Not only does it add something completely unnecessary, but it takes off the one important "weakness" Gatrie has going for him. So one of Haar, Titania, or Oscar (whom I'll be getting to in a minute) go from having great mobility to...having great mobility??? Gatrie goes from "im almost catching up to standard" to almost keeping up with two badasses, turning him into one himself (again, his only real weakness). And no, I'm not ignoring the Spd cap either (which I did explain, too). And "others use it as good as he does"? Who does? Ike has shitty 2-range, Mia's basically stapled to Adept, Soren's self-explanatory, Oscar prefers Adept, etc.

So... may I call you uncreative because you can't see the value of a 11 movement unit that can move after attacking? Because it's higher than the value of a 9 movement unit that can move after attacking.

But i'm out of here. Disagreeing =/= not getting it.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Caladbolg is still the worst of Daein's "holy" weapons. +8 luck is pretty bleh. It gives him ~+10% evasion. Even with A-support in earth Edward's evasion is still ~10% lower than Zihark's with A in earth. 

Wrath + paragon + wind edges / strom swords is still the safest way to tran him effectively. And no, no one here comes up with possible evasion issues again, please. There are multiple ways to fix it.

That Edward doubles up the role with Zihark is no issue at all - honestly it's rather good because you want to have units who can double constantly in hard mode. And their function is quite different despite being the same class mainly because of their different affinity and personal skill. Zihark is rather the front unit while Edward mainly fulfills his purpose as range weapon user besides Leo. Caladbolg only really becomes useful in part 4, if he's high enough leveled (maybe even promoted) to take at least two hits. Sending him to Tibarn's group is definitely the best choice to benefit from +20% evasion.

[Augestein]

7 hours ago, Samias said:

I'm pretty sure the argument for giving Haar/Jill Celerity boils down to insane achievement of objectives thanks to flight. 2 tiles is a big deal no matter who has Celerity on. For Gatrie, it makes him slightly better than his peers so he can simply keep up. For Haar, it helps him exceed his limits and have a legendary EP no one else could do. Not to mention he can simply share the movement with anyone via rescuedrops.

However I don't feel like anyone is particularly entitled to Celerity. You can do so many things with it and since you can shuffle it around for your needs, no one *has* to have it while Adept is at least a skill that has to be taken from a unit who has good availability already just to give it to someone who might use it better. Whereas Tormod is gone the whole damn game so you might as *well* peel Celerity off of him if only because he isn't around to use it.

Also Edward is a good unit. Not a 9/10 or anything like that, but his strength growth is super high and his accuracy woes not *that* bad. Wind edges suck but Edward can make it work. I'd say he's better than Aran slightly mostly from getting the equivalent of a free silver forge, and slightly worse than Zihark because Zihark has the same role, but I don't see Zihark's existence as a reason to completely drop Edward. Since Edward is so instrumental in early chapters for reasonable clears even if you have to hope for a few speed level ups, I don't think it's really that unreliable. Once Edward gets going, he snowballs the rest of his stats quite nicely and swordmasters are a nice endgame class from having such high speed and evasion.

There's a difference with Haar and Jill though; they can fly, so they already have the ability to cut through certain terrain that others can't. This combined with +2 movement is pretty significant. Jill for instance can make great use of it in 3-6, but in something like 3-12, it's not that great. Rescue drops still don't work too well with Celerity because you don't really have someone to do it with. Which means that you'll end up taking 2 turns to safely attack-- which at moments can actually be worse, and I can't think of many maps where picking someone up and flying around actually works. I guess 3-4 could work for Ike and Haar though, but Ranulf needs to get there too. 

And I agree, no one has the right to anything. The issue is that people seem to use "makes best use of" as a weak counter argument for why other people can't have things. That's why it starts to annoy me. "Favoritism" is also another weak argument in many instances, because some people drag it to the point that it actually starts ignoring reality-- ie, speed wings are highly contested, so we just throw it out and assume that NO ONE on the team has the speed wing. Sort of like how people exaggerate not needing money in the later game, but it's pretty easy to run out if you get to happy with forging. 

All of the swordmasters are decent in this game except Lucia in my opinion. Mia is really easy to use, Zihark has the best innate skill for a swordmaster (although Lucia's is really good too for endgame), Edward has the best growths, and Stefan is RNG proof. Lucia is the only questionable one. 

[Sweet_Basil]

5 hours ago, ping said:

So... may I call you uncreative because you can't see the value of a 11 movement unit that can move after attacking? Because it's higher than the value of a 9 movement unit that can move after attacking.

But i'm out of here. Disagreeing =/= not getting it.

That depends the map if you ask me, there's maps where Titania and Oscar are limited by terrain. Then there's Haar who prefers savior on several maps because of him being the safest ferry.

[Dunal]

The whole "units are unfairly judged because people are close-minded" thing is highly debatable really... Generally speaking, at least.

"Costs" or opportunity costs is something that does matter. A lot, actually. It really all just comes to "how much do I need to take away from the rest of the army to give this unit what they need" or "how much time and effort does this take? Is it efficient?".

These are generally agreed upon to be the best metric on a tier list. It's not that people are closed-minded or not open to 'different strats or playstyles' it's just that the entire point of a tier list is rating/judging said playstyles/strats, not disregarding them. 

If I'm 'creative' I can use Fiona in Hard and make her really useful at Endgame. But while it's an extreme example it's technically true -- it just comes down to massive opportunity cost and effort. And thus why she is rated badly. All other units are just rated under the same logic.

So it's not like people are unfairly judging Edward because "they're just not creative enough"... because you could say the same about any unit and the whole point of a tier list or these debates is taking these ideas and concepts into account. But if a specific idea is unreliable (risking ~50% on a wrath proc that can give you a game over), costs time or takes away from (non-specifically) other units (based on total opportunity cost) then that is also taken into account. I doubt anyone even thinks Edward is bad or anything; just not stellar/amazing. It's not exactly close-minded to come to that conclusion.

Edited February 3, 2017 by DLuna

[Radiant head]

5 hours ago, Samias said:

Edward has a 60% growth in strength and speed, and 65% in skill. He's got 7 base strength and 12 base speed. Sure, it could be better, but considering he's with you from chapter 1 you have some uncontested deployment to get Edward rolling. He even gets a free "silver" that comes with added +8 luck and 40 uses! He's only barely worse than Zihark in the long run, as Zihark has a big res lead that Edward never really bridges without a large amount of BEXP favouritism. And once Edward gets rolling, which is really just "he promotes by 1-E", he's far above mediocre. The only knock against him is that the DBs can only really afford to train 2-3 1st tiers and that midway through part 1. And as much as a tier list assumes you give everyone their fair shake, a smart player would invest in Jill, your only available flier for part 3 in myriad swamp and mountain chapters. After that, Edward pretty much dukes it out with Nolan and maybe Aran for the rest of the BEXP and other odds and ends. The only reason Edward looks like a "worse" choice is because he doubles up roles with Zihark, but in reality Edward is going to prefer having the Caladbolg in hand for its absurd MT that Zihark can't match for a long time.

i didn't even bring up zihark, though i think his base at tier 2 makes him infinitely more useful for part 1 which is by far the part that counts the most in this game.  ed's "uncontested deployment" is when he's at his worst.  it's the reverse of sothe where he's better when it matters less.   the prf sword is fine i guess (not significantly more useful than say a steel forge or even a blade that you would give zihark), but i think earth affinity and higher bases are much more useful tbh.  

[Shadow Mir]

With regard to the Celerity argument: I can see where the points are coming from - whilst Gatrie can use it to keep up, which does away with his main weakness, there are situations where it might help to give it to a unit who's already highly mobile (a certain chapter with suicidal NPC AI and a boss who uses a bow, anyone?).

On February 1, 2017 at 7:27 PM, Florete said:

Almost anyone who has an alternate weapon on promotion can make decent use of an Arms Scroll to use stronger weapons immediately. I was making a list but it's pretty pointless, anyone who isn't a solo weapon user can probably get help from an Arms Scroll. It's not a huge deal in many cases, but it's not hard to see it as being more valuable than +2 luck. Some examples of stuff I like to do, though, include:
-Getting Micaiah SS Light for Rexaura.
-Getting Ike SS Axes for Tomahawk and Urvan.
-Getting any Archsage a decent staff level.
-Getting Ilyana C Fire for Meteor.

Discipline is cool, but also takes time and skill space.

Wait, what's the actual point of this Arms Scroll discussion? If you think they're just trash, giving one to a unit shouldn't be any issue at all.

The way I see it, while there are some situations that Arms Scrolls might come in handy in theory, in practice, money tends to be an issue, for most of the game at least, and I highly doubt that instantly achieving a higher weapon rank is more impactful than 4 grand. It doesn't help matters that Arms Scrolls are too expensive for what they do. As a result, about the only time I do see Arms Scrolls as having a modicum of use is endgame.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

On 3.2.2017 at 4:32 PM, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Money tends to be an issue, for most of the game at least.

Seriously there are only very few situations you might lack of money:

• in 1-4 to forge a weapon
• in 3-6 to buy all the special weapons (storm sword) and staves (physics)
• in 3-3 and 3-5 to buy the draco shield and secret book

Otherwise you have more than enough at latest when the money of the CKs and the GM's is merged. There are so many weapons and items (vulneraries, skills, keys, olivi grass, lagiuz stones...) you can make money out of them.

 

Random note: I added my final rate to all my comments. I noticed that I haven't done it yet.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by Eleanor Hume

[Junkhead]

I never had any issues with money past Part 1, really.

scratch that i can actually get away with 3 forges + beastkiller in 1-4 alone and make it fine and dandy through the other half

Edited February 6, 2017 by Soul~!

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I guess it's true, but I usually increase all parameters except for weight to have a higher chance to oneshot enemies with Nolan.

I think you can forge two weapons with maxing out all parameters, if you sell Meg's fortune skill.

[Junkhead]

I just buy Max Mt Sword, Axe and Light (assuming I couldn't get Thani in an LTC run) and Max Crit. for Edward. Just sell all the useless shit (this includes skills) and some weapons. Most of the time I have like 500 or less gold by then, and I still make it (hello two hidden scrolls).

[Shadow Mir]

On February 5, 2017 at 4:32 AM, Eleanor Hume said:

Seriously there are only very few situations you might lack of money:

• in 1-4 to forge a weapon
• in 3-6 to buy all the special weapons (storm sword) and staves (physics)
• in 3-3 and 3-5 to buy the draco shield and secret book

Otherwise you have more than enough at latest when the money of the CKs and the GM's is merged. There are so many weapons and items (vulneraries, skills, keys, olivi grass, lagiuz stones...) you can make money out of them.

 

Random note: I added my final rate to all my comments. I noticed that I haven't done it yet.

 

I don't know why, but I honestly feel that I need to play conservative with my money in RD. It ain't like it constantly showers you with money like was the case in, say, Awakening.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Snowy_One]

On February 3, 2017 at 8:59 AM, DLuna said:

The whole "units are unfairly judged because people are close-minded" thing is highly debatable really... Generally speaking, at least.

"Costs" or opportunity costs is something that does matter. A lot, actually. It really all just comes to "how much do I need to take away from the rest of the army to give this unit what they need" or "how much time and effort does this take? Is it efficient?".

These are generally agreed upon to be the best metric on a tier list. It's not that people are closed-minded or not open to 'different strats or playstyles' it's just that the entire point of a tier list is rating/judging said playstyles/strats, not disregarding them. 

If I'm 'creative' I can use Fiona in Hard and make her really useful at Endgame. But while it's an extreme example it's technically true -- it just comes down to massive opportunity cost and effort. And thus why she is rated badly. All other units are just rated under the same logic.

So it's not like people are unfairly judging Edward because "they're just not creative enough"... because you could say the same about any unit and the whole point of a tier list or these debates is taking these ideas and concepts into account. But if a specific idea is unreliable (risking ~50% on a wrath proc that can give you a game over), costs time or takes away from (non-specifically) other units (based on total opportunity cost) then that is also taken into account. I doubt anyone even thinks Edward is bad or anything; just not stellar/amazing. It's not exactly close-minded to come to that conclusion.

 

Except this degrades extremely rapidly into communist FE, especially through the argument/mindset of 'if X is better than Y without Z, then if we give Y Z and X Z, then X will still be better than Y' despite how outright foolish this is in actuality. Cost vs. reward is a thing, but the mindset of 'how much does this take away from the rest of the army' needs to be slain dead on the spot as it's not only inaccurate but detrimental to a proper list.

No one in their right mind is going to argue that FE9 Bastion is better than Soren. Especially since the BEXP/item cost to make Bastion as good as Soren is very high (assuming Bastion can ever be as good as Soren) but there are people out there who will gladly point out that using Soren means that the mounted units don't get as many kills (debatable at best) as they'd normally get if Soren wasn't around thusly dropping his position on the team and turning every argument into 'well they're a mounted unit so they auto-win' or 'both take away from the mounted units so this is really about which hurts the mounted units the least'. Neither of which are good for tier lists.

And that is NOT hyperbole either as that mindset dominated the FE9 tier lists for quite a while back on Gamefaqs. Where the metric of the units was not how good they were but how much they hurt the mounted units in the process of helping the team. It took several months to go away.

Edit: I want to also point out that this mindset also leads to the 'unholy alliance' in which, if a unit isn't actively reducing turncounts, they get nothing at all while the units who do get showered in BEXP/items/whatever despite, supposedly, being 'equal' and getting 'equal treatment'. Shockingly like real communism. 

Edited February 7, 2017 by Snowy_One

[Dunal]

5 hours ago, Snowy_One said:

 

Except this degrades extremely rapidly into communist FE, especially through the argument/mindset of 'if X is better than Y without Z, then if we give Y Z and X Z, then X will still be better than Y' despite how outright foolish this is in actuality. Cost vs. reward is a thing, but the mindset of 'how much does this take away from the rest of the army' needs to be slain dead on the spot as it's not only inaccurate but detrimental to a proper list.

That's not untrue. But it's not a grey area.

To simplify things, the player has a finite amount of resources/EXP at their disposal. It all comes down to "how much of that do I need to make X unit usable?" or "how much of that do I need to make X unit good?" or "how much of that do I need to make X unit great?".

Each separate instance is compared to other units, and often times, to do the latter, is at the cost of multiple units performing adequately (to meet the 'par' in terms efficiency which might not even be that strict). This is factored because it does very per unit. And therefore should affect tiering to a degree. The whole Arm Scroll > Sanaki thing is a part of this. If Arm Scroll were extremely contested, then giving it to her may effect the efficiency that you can beat the game considering the other units you are using. Sanaki isn't soloing the game, so there does need to be consideration to what we give her compared to other units (not specifically, just overall).

Meg can be given a lot of stat boosters and such, but the argument against her is that not giving them to other units will guarentee that you are not clearing the game as efficiently as giving them to others. However, that does not mean we are ruling out giving lots of things to her. It's just that in the circumstance that we are doing this, it's not to the player's benefit and you are using units other than Meg that are helping you efficiently clear the game. Therefore, to no one's surprise, she is rated lowly.

 

On the flip side, I addressed the the extreme viewpoint of this earlier. In the end, it's all about context and there's a fine line between judging a unit based on helping said unit out for them to perform well, or omitting it almost completely because of other units (or because they are "bad" and don't deserve anything).

On a similar note, the whole "I can't give X to someone because I need/want to use it on someone else" is a bad argument for the same reason. And in these discussions I've seen a huge amount of contradiction as to how a few certain people view this (units that they like get dibs on anything they want -- others units, when used, don't get that some luxury).

Basically anything that exists in favor of a unit that they can potentially use, should be considered. To an extent.

Same could be said for the opposite scenario. I generally think needing to pump a ton of resources into Jill to reach her potential is a point against her, even if she's still really really good without most of those. I don't think anyone should assume she's given all of them and then rate them (and other units) based on that. A point should be made that she makes better use of them than most other units (which is definitely a point in her favor) but let's say in the circumstance you do not deploy her or use her overly much (gasp) units like Aran/Meg would definitely get extra opportunity to acquire additional resources that Jill would be given instead. So it's mostly fair to just rate units on either getting most resources, or not many at all. So Poor!Jill should be compared to Poor!Aran which Rich!Jill should be compared to Rich!Aran. Skewing this then becomes a matter of win more / lose more. 

(I mean, Jill is still a ~9 or so, but the point is that she shouldn't be given higher just because we assume she's getting more than her fair share of resources).

I think that in a lot of these debates, people's logic on this differs greatly to the point where it's difficult to make a general evaluation on a unit. One person may be arguing on the basis that X is given to a unit where the other person disagrees that they even should get X to begin with. Which is completely outside of discussing units, but becomes a debate about how to debate units instead.

And even then, it's not even all black/white or even something we can completely figure out because opportunity costs and overall value are hard to measure unless you do a ton of number crunching. Going back to the while 'setting arms scroll' debate, this is one of them.

(Granted, some cases are obvious (Jill w/ speedwing can potentially be a good boon to her; Fiona w/ speedwing does nothing because it's not like she's doubling with it or anything). But that goes without saying)

 

Keep in mind, that someone like Jill is rated higher because if we funnel most of our stuff on her, she performs the best out of it. So in terms of the "anti-communism" approach, she wins there as well. 

It's all about rating units under different circumstances instead of just one. Meg is F with little resources, E with some resources and maybe C with a lot of them. Jill would be C, A and S respectively (not concrete or anything, just examples). So Jill > Meg.

However, the question then comes down to "Is having two C units as good as an F and an S?". Well, based on how Radiant Dawn is balanced (and this goes for most FEs) low manning is the most efficient way to play objectively. That isn't just people not being open minded about alternatives to that, but generally speaking, that's just how the game is. Evasion is generally high or reliable. With extension, unit survivability can be made really high. 1RKOing is not too difficult, chokepoint-ing is a thing. EXP is scarce etc... It's a problem most FEs have TBH (and is fixable by addressing a lot of these things; FE Fates did to some extent with its EXP formula or overall difficulty in conquest, or nerfing dodge tanking etc...). If anything the "anti-communism" approach is objectively the best way to do things. But that doesn't change the fact that some units make use of it far more than others. And doing it for some units have huge costs just on the basis that doing so is impacting how the game is going to pan out when done (then we rate the unit on this accordingly).

The important part is that units are just rated consistently, aside from some slight nuance involved.

Unit A is average without speedwings. But Great/amazing with them. Unit B is average with them and average without. Unit C is good with them and bad without.

With your understanding of "anti-communism", unit C is better than unit B. Because their potential with resources here is better. If you're focusing on that unit, they will be superior.

But that isn't the whole picture. Again, it's not black/white. A is super good with the resource, but B is still okay here while C is worse. Which means that rating C as a unit is to do with rating based on a more "communism" approach (to a degree). otherwise it's unfair on unit B if we're strictly rating on resources to unlock potential (because the latter has sacrifices to it). Therefore, rating units on shared units does matter to an extent just as any alternative would.

Someone like Edward would be C in a lot of different contexts. Some people are adamant that they should be rated based on potential. Some argue that they should be rated based on taking resources away (whether that be from other units or efficiency as a whole) to unlock that potential. Others argue he's simply worse than a Unit B equivalent because they're most consistence no matter what you do with resources. 

What's right and what's wrong is debated and personally, all three viewpoints should be factored into the overall raking of a unit. Multiple perspectives and scenarios need to be taken into account.

No, Edward doesn't get dibs on EXP/resources and therefore should be rated as such. But that doesn't mean we do not take into consideration how good he is when it happens. And we do need to consider various amounts of said resources, whether that be little/some/a lot of resources etc... And does he need to take a cherished resource other units will want? We're not omitting it from him at all, but again, it's taken into account.

So while there are multiple viewpoints, the best compromise is to include all of them to evaluate a unit.

[Sweet_Basil]

Here's a mock-up tier list based on the heroes poll. I did it just for fun of course.

God Tier
Ike- 17,684
Micaiah- 13,491

Top Tier
Mia- 8,946
Nephenee- 5,557
Black Knight- 4,878
Soren- 3,470
Sothe- 2,863
Haar- 2,678
Elincia- 2,502
Tibarn- 1,872

High Tier
Ilyana- 1,696
Ranulf- 1,578
Shinon- 1,553
Edward- 1,446
Jill- 1,437
Mist- 1,391
Sanaki- 1,308
Nailah- 1,206
Titania- 1,169
Volke- 1,131
Naesala- 1,128
Zihark- 975
Oliver- 902

Up-Mid Tier
Lucia- 861
Volug- 838
Lethe- 836
Leanne- 788
Vika- 681
Stefan- 675
Tormod- 668
Aran- 648

Mid Tier
Caineghis- 616
Pelleas- 608
Heather- 599
Boyd- 587
Marcia- 527
Meg- 516
Reyson- 462
Lyre- 460
Rolf- 434
Geoffrey- 422
Leonardo- 398
Sephiran- 367

Low-Mid Tier
Sigrun- 323
Astrid- 321
Oscar- 315
Laura- 312
Nolan- 297
Gatrie- 282
Muarim- 279
Rhys- 258
Mordecai- 250
Kurthnaga- 247
Kieran- 246
Skrimir- 244

Low Tier
Brom- 221
Fiona- 212
Janaff- 187
Rafiel- 149
Kyza- 142
Danved- 140
Tauroneo- 137
Tanith- 129
Calill- 129
Gareth- 122
Ulki- 118
Bastian- 110
Ena- 96

Bottom Tier
Nasir- 93
Giffca- 88
Makalov- 85
Renning- 85
Nealuchi- 47