Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Tybrosion]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I also notice that they actually kept the Emblem Buff tier list up to date for once. I also find it hilarious that every armor is ranked S+ on the Armor Emblem tier list.

Mostly, but there are certain characters (Walhart and flier Olivia at least) who are arbitrarily missing.

[Vaximillian]

21 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Most units have zero trouble with their advantageous match-ups, so if you're like me and almost never fight without an advantageous match-up, the tier list is rather meaningless in a practical sense since half the characters in the game instantly win almost all relevant advantageous match-ups, and you typically have teammates that can help with the rest.

If the tier lost is meaningless in practice, what is the point in theory? Heroes is a team-based game. You can’t expect any unit to solo no matter how high they rank.

Just mental gymnastics?

Edited September 12, 2018 by Vaximillian

[XRay]

Ugh. The tier list still looks like a digusting eyesore. I am still triggered every time I see armor units on top.

WOF!Hinoka and ASS!Takumi are superior to TOD!Jakob, and those three are better than BH!Lyn.

SA!Tana is at least as good as Celica.

NS!Corrin should be comparable to ASS!Camilla too.

Green ranged unit section looks like a mess. WOT!Olwen and LA!Lilina should not score that low. LOTW!Lyn definitely does not deserve to be bottom teir, what the hell are they thinking? Julia and Deirdre do not even deserve to score that high, let alone be above SF!Nino. Soren should be lower with his lower Spd, he is no Nino.

Edited September 12, 2018 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Vaximillian said:

If the tier lost is meaningless in practice, what is the point in theory? Heroes is a team-based game. You can’t expect any unit to solo no matter how high they rank.

It's meaningless in practice for me because I don't play in a way that differentiates the top half of the tier list. Half of the value that the tier list conveys is in arcade coins for me (useful for someone who goes to the arcade often, but not me). The Gamepedia tier list (and every good tier list) should be using same-color match-ups to differentiate the top tiers, but same-color match-ups don't matter much due to how I play.

Furthermore, there is a difference between "expecting a unit to solo" and "expecting a unit to do its job". No tier list expects a unit to solo. "Doing its job" is being defined here as "being able to win advantageous match-ups and neutral match-ups with only rudimentary support", which is a valid job to expect of a unit.

Neutral match-ups happens to be an area that some players don't have a need for, but other players do. And it would be a disservice to not give arcade coins out to everyone just because some people don't need them (especially when it doesn't cost extra to hand them out to people who don't need them).

 

@XRay Read the damned notes. All of the damned notes. Including the notes on which columns haven't been re-tiered yet.

[redlight]

@Ice Dragon  I reached out in the tierlist jam channel to talk about barrier blade and from what it sounded like it might be actually worth revisiting in a later tierlist update. But that remains to be seen

Edited September 12, 2018 by silveraura25

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

On the topic of the furries, I’m probably the one in this thread and maybe the whole subforum to give the least amount of care about them. Only Keaton’s and Velouria’s outfits are somewhat nice to me, while everything else is completely yawn-inducing.

It isn't necessarily visuals that draw me to them. Tibarn is a double-edged sword looking like a Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff, it's good, and a slight way to sorta allude to historical Phoenicia being the world's first maritime trading empire. Yet at the same time, the PotC knockoff thing can be kinda eh. Naesala also has a double-edged issue, he looks good, but is anachronistic to FE with his late 1940s-1960s(?) Americana outlaw stylings- hair grease didn't exist in the Middle Ages. Ranulf's hat is love it or hate it, and blue-orange are generally speaking a bad combo, even if he puts his best spin on it. Rafiel looks a little too elvish too. Kyza/Kysha is drab and looks too Beorc.

And I can't say they're all AMAZING either in character. But it is certainly more the characters, for some depth, for others charm, which draws me to them. Personality is also independent in many ways of their race. Ranulf would be great to me regardless of whether he had a tail or not, as would Dheginsea. And it wouldn't be hard to write either's personality while dropping the shapeshifter aspect. I'm not inherently into them for the fur, feathers, or scales.

I'm not trying to proselytize, only state my personal case. And I'll only do this this one time so as to not ever annoy thee or anyone else.

 

3 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I see them gameplay wise as a gimmick, with ties to the story of Tellius.

And with this I'll admit that the Laguz in neither PoR nor RD were handled perfectly.  A combination of nonexistent 1-2 range in games with loads of enemy phase, not being at the top of their game all the time and yet not statistically that much better than Beorc (which they kinda need if they lack 1-2 range), and slow EXP gain in RD with poor growths. 

I'd give IS another chance to set things right though with Laguz-like beasts though. Or they could take the Beastrune and Beaststone of Fates and expand these further- weapons radically altering the combat abilities of their users.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[XRay]

26 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

@XRay Read the damned notes. All of the damned notes. Including the notes on which columns haven't been re-tiered yet.

I do not see notes anywhere saying they are retiering things on the tier list page.

[Sunwoo]

While I'm not super hyped for the laguz and shifters, as the only ones I really liked were Reyson and Leanne and Janaff to an extent, laguz are a huge part of Tellius. You can still represent Awakening and Fates without putting in the shifters -- they're a very small part of the story and gameplay and don't really have much focus aside from that one chapter where you fight Keaton or Kaden. But Tellius will always be criminally underrepresented as long as the developers refuse to put in laguz.

[Ice Dragon]

53 minutes ago, XRay said:

I do not see notes anywhere saying they are retiering things on the tier list page.

Always refer to the Reddit links. They have only applied the re-tiering criteria to the colored ranged units so far.

They also provide a lot more detail into why characters are where they are. The comments to the thread are also worth reading as it basically serves as a FAQ section (since those are literally the same comments and questions on every single one of their update threads).

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Most units have zero trouble with their advantageous match-ups, so if you're like me and almost never fight without an advantageous match-up, the tier list is rather meaningless in a practical sense since half the characters in the game instantly win almost all relevant advantageous match-ups, and you typically have teammates that can help with the rest.

Depends on the team---I ran green green blue blue this season, which never has advantage vs. green. The point of running the best characters in the game is so that you can use worse characters and build less balanced teams and still cover everything---if Reinhardt actually needed people to cover blues and greens he'd need other teammates than, say, OG!Cordelia. But he doesn't, so I get to run some janky looking teams.

 

That's part of the reason I rated melee armors around 6/10, it's not so much that they're bad as I needed a way to show that other units are better. Giving them 9/10 or 10/10 is also okay, but then I'd have to give people like W!Tharja, Bow!Jakob, Rein, etc. scores around 17/10 or 19/10. Melee armors do enough, sure, but other people do more than enough, which lets you run people that do less than enough. Which helps a lot for me, since I'm too lazy to change skills around. Rein has Hone Cav despite being the only cavalry on my arena team this season.

 

Off-topic: I'm pretty sure the Odin over Reinhardt thing is just another meme thing, like with Setsuna over TKJ. Odin's Prf brought his support and combat to comparable levels, but Rein still has better Sustain, Consistency, Mobility, and Player Phase.

[Johann]

Not that I'm paying any attention to tier lists and stuff, but I absolutely loved using Marth in Arena and having him personally decimate a team that had Fjorm, Valter, and Effie on it.

[XRay]

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Always refer to the Reddit links. They have only applied the re-tiering criteria to the colored ranged units so far.

They also provide a lot more detail into why characters are where they are. The comments to the thread are also worth reading as it basically serves as a FAQ section (since those are literally the same comments and questions on every single one of their update threads).

Ah, okay, found the link and read the post; I will go through the comments later though.

I get their reasoning, but I disagree with it. I personally think specializing in one phase is sufficient and grading units on dual phases punishes units who cannot do that too much. In my opinion they are putting too much emphasis on dual phase flexibility.

I did not see anything in colorless, so I assume they have not gotten around to it yet.

[DehNutCase]

7 minutes ago, XRay said:

I get their reasoning, but I disagree with it. I personally think specializing in one phase is sufficient and grading units on dual phases punishes units who cannot do that too much. In my opinion they are putting too much emphasis on dual phase flexibility.

I think they put too little emphasis on dual phase flexibility.

 

Seeing how Reinhardt isn't 2 tiers above everyone else.

 

Edit: Mind, Rein isn't an end all be all unit or anything---there are very much tier lists that should put him at the bottom of the barrel---but on any performance based tier list he should crush everyone else. His capabilities whether budget or fully invested, supported or unsupported, in terms of combat or supporting, are simply too god damn high.

Armors and Rein shouldn't ever be near the top slots together, is pretty much my main problem: either arena score matters, in which case staves and Rein and dancers are jokes, or it doesn't, in which case armors are jokes.

Edited September 12, 2018 by DehNutCase

[XRay]

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I think they put too little emphasis on dual phase flexibility.

 

Seeing how Reinhardt isn't 2 tiers above everyone else.

Everyone values different stuff differently. Maybe I should start my own tier list and tailor it towards Player Phase players. It still bugs me to see armor units rated so high, but to each their own.

[Ice Dragon]

14 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Depends on the team---I ran green green blue blue this season, which never has advantage vs. green.

...?

A single unit not having trouble with advantageous match-ups doesn't depend on your team. Reinhardt demolishes red units regardless of his teammates when given the same buffs.

Your team composition determines which match-ups are relevant to each unit, not the standalone performance of each unit on the team against each opponent. Your team not having a red unit doesn't change the fact that the best red units in the game demolish green units.

 

You seem to be very good at being very off-topic.

 

1 minute ago, XRay said:

I get their reasoning, but I disagree with it. I personally think specializing in one phase is sufficient and grading units on dual phases punishes units who cannot do that too much. In my opinion they are putting too much emphasis on dual phase flexibility.

The biggest problems of units that specialize in one phase are that there are common opponents in the Arena that are difficult to handle on a specific phase. Green units have the problem that they need to be able to deal with Fjorm, Effie, and Nowi, who are all extremely popular on Arena defense teams in the relevant score range.

 

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

Seeing how Reinhardt isn't 2 tiers above everyone else.

Can you actually present an argument why Reinhardt should be 2 tiers above everyone else when his performance is no longer leagues above other units' with actual match-up results under simulation conditions? If the tier list czars are truly not valuing dual phasing enough, then certainly you can use the same match-up data they are to support your argument.

[XRay]

5 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The biggest problems of units that specialize in one phase are that there are common opponents in the Arena that are difficult to handle on a specific phase. Green units have the problem that they need to be able to deal with Fjorm, Effie, and Nowi, who are all extremely popular on Arena defense teams in the relevant score range.

Should not LOTW!Lyn be top tier then? Firesweep Bow makes Enemy Phase units completely irrelevant. Firesweep Bow trivializes the game.

[Alkaid]

The only tier list that really matters for arena is scoring potential. Between SI, team comps and the way arena actually works now (only the bonus unit ever fighting with the rest built to support), traditional tier lists seem mostly pointless to apply to this game.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Should not LOTW!Lyn be top tier then? Firesweep Bow makes Enemy Phase units completely irrelevant. Firesweep Bow trivializes the game.

No, because she is pretty terrible at actually killing blue and green units in one round of combat with Firesweep. She requires dancer support, multiple turns, or preexisting damage to get her free kills, which seems to fit the description of B tier rather well:

Quote

B Tiers (6.0 - 7.0)

These units are still effective but require heavy support to provide the degree of coverage of the units above.

These units generally suffer losses against some critical meta MUs within WTA and Neutral MUs under simulation conditions, but are still generally serviceable with adequate team coverage.

Dancer support is better used getting two kills on one turn or getting unit in for a kill and back out, not helping a unit get their kill in two rounds of combat.

 

3 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

The only tier list that really matters for arena is scoring potential. Between SI, team comps and the way arena actually works now (only the bonus unit ever fighting with the rest built to support), traditional tier lists seem mostly pointless to apply to this game.

If you're already in Tier 19.5 and don't have ambitions to go up any higher, scoring potential is extremely pointless. Because the Arena tier list is targeted at players aiming for Tier 19.5, it makes sense to not have to deal with scoring potential. The difference between Reinhardt and Hector, for example, is less than 5 merges.

You also don't need to feed kills to the bonus unit much if at all to stay in Tier 19.5 if you are on the higher end of the Tier 19.5 range.

 

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Off-topic: I'm pretty sure the Odin over Reinhardt thing is just another meme thing, like with Setsuna over TKJ. Odin's Prf brought his support and combat to comparable levels, but Rein still has better Sustain, Consistency, Mobility, and Player Phase.

Taking into account the tiering conditions, I think Odin deserves his place. Player-controlled units are currently given +6 to two stats of their choice in addition to any buffs provided by their own weapon. This means Odin is tiered while running +6/6/6/6 instead of +6/6/0/0 (or another permutation), which gives him a 24-point stat advantage over other non-armor blue tomes.

Under simulation conditions, Odin has significantly better combat performance than Reinhardt.

+5 Odin [+Atk, -HP] (Odin's Grimoire [unique], Moonbow, Close Counter, Quick Riposte 3, Close Def 3) +6/6/6/6
+5 Reinhardt [+Atk, -Spd] (Blarblade+, Moonbow, Close Counter, Quick Riposte 3, Close Def 3) +6/0/6/0
+5 Reinhardt [+Atk, -Spd] (Dire Thunder, Moonbow, Death Blow 4, Lancebreaker 3, Quickened Pulse) +6/6/0/0

Odin has about 50% more wins than Blarblade Reinhardt on both player and enemy phase. Dire Thunder Reinhardt has fewer wins on player phase than Odin has on enemy phase and no wins on enemy phase compared to Odin winning about 1/3 of relevant match-ups on player phase.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

...?

A single unit not having trouble with advantageous match-ups doesn't depend on your team. Reinhardt demolishes red units regardless of his teammates when given the same buffs.

Your team composition determines which match-ups are relevant to each unit, not the standalone performance of each unit on the team against each opponent. Your team not having a red unit doesn't change the fact that the best red units in the game demolish green units.

I meant: Reinhardt demolishes blues and greens---him killing reds was assumed. Reinhardt having a magical brave means that every single enemy unit needs a minimum amount of res to not be useless, greens included. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

e.g., Effie can run Berkut's, but then it's a Berkut's Effie versus a Cordelia that's min-maxed versus melees. Or M!Grima can run Warding Breath Vantage QR, but then the B-slot being Vantage means that I can just kill him over 2 enemy phases with Vantage Anna, the fact that QR is on Grima would also weaken everyone else on the enemy team, since there's only 1 QR seal. If it's not Warding Breath then Reinhardt has a pretty good shot at doubling M!Grima to death by surviving the first, non special'd hit---since people love giving Grima -spd for some reason.

It's a bit more complicated than this, of course, but basically ultra-strong neutral and disadvantage match-ups forces the units that can deal with him to be very specific in terms of skill set and stat spread. Which, in turn, means that their teammates don't need to be all that specific---since the less the teammate needs to deal with the less specific the teammate has to be.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Can you actually present an argument why Reinhardt should be 2 tiers above everyone else when his performance is no longer leagues above other units' with actual match-up results under simulation conditions? If the tier list czars are truly not valuing dual phasing enough, then certainly you can use the same match-up data they are to support your argument.

Sure:

3 move, 2 range. (This is basically Dull AI if you use it properly---Reinhardt pretty much never fights into buffed AI unless they're horses. This is a trait shared by every team with good mobility.)

Type Buff access.

Dire Thunder & -blade access. (This lets the rest of the team choose between whether they want to fight people with sky high hp + res or just high res, since everyone who fails that check just dies to Rein.)

Reposition.

 

When I said player phase, I was taking into account the fact that Reinhardt's non-combat player phase is insanely good, off the back of his Type Buff access and 3 move. (If you watched my Abyssal Marth video you can see this in action, except it's Horse!Lyn doing it. Almost all she did was ride next to where Rein wanted to be next for the +2 all stats Ally Support Spur, since I didn't really need her combat that much.)

I also rate player phase combat based on how good units are at reaching their targets---Zelgius is better at killing staff users, but Reinhardt is better at reaching them.

Edit: That said, it looks like the tier list doesn't care about non-combat performance at all? (Which is kind of weird, seeing how player phase is as much about positioning as hitting things to death.)

 

 

+Atk/-Res -blade CC Moonbow Vantage QR Rein with +6 all stats has 237:28:5 when the enemy initiates.

+Atk/-Res Grimoire Prf Refine Odin Moonbow QR Spd + 3 Odin with +6 all stats has 254:5:11 when the enemy initiates. (Vantage or Desperation QR has 252:7:11)

@ 1 hp Rein has 216:54:0 on defense, and 223:25:25 on offense.

@ 1 hp Odin with Vantage & Atk +3 has 185:85:0 (Without Vantage he's obviously dumpstered.) On offense he has 215:38:17 with Vantage and 233:20:17 with Desperation.

 

Unexpectedly, Vantage over Desperation didn't actually matter too much for Odin, even when you give everyone DC. Looks like the 1 MT & easier access to +6 all stats basically fixed that particular issue. Just ignore the above for a bit, I need to take a bit more time to run the numbers.

 

Edit: Should you really be giving Odin +6 all stats but not Rein? I feel like the positioning & skill-slot costs of Type Buffs are cheaper than an action-turn.

Double Edit: Nevermind, didn't read that bit about the tier list conditions.

Edited September 12, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Korath88]

Tier list still looks like a pile of crap to me, but to be fair, I don't give a shit about some of the supposed new "meta" builds *cough* CC mages *cough*

not to mention how pointless the armor emblem buff list is, since despite following the criteria, completely undermines the point of an emblem specific list.

Though I don't see as much of a problem with armors at the top of the lists as others, especially after running armor emblem for the past 2 weeks of arena. Positioning with armors isn't really as awful as people make it out to be. The only maps they tend to struggle on are flier biased maps like the lava one, but pretty much any grounded melee unit struggles on that.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Korath88

[DehNutCase]

I mean, I rather enjoyed how they said 'tiering is about how good a unit is at doing their jobs' and then went and pretended 'all armors are equally good at doing an armor's job.'

 

Edit: @Korath88 The main problem I have with armors, melee armors in particular, is that they don't have real ways to deal with their checks other than just straight up out-scoring them. Dazzle Staffs with strong debuffs isn't something melee armors have tools to solve (ranged armors don't give a damn, though, Bow Jakob can just put on his armored boots and shoot the staff to death).

This is a lot more visible in PvE content where their lack of tools means that it's pretty damn rare that an armor is the best pick, but low scoring area (where a new player tends to be---and new players need good tier lists the most) also tends to have more of an armor's natural checks.

Edited September 12, 2018 by DehNutCase

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

13 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, I rather enjoyed how they said 'tiering is about how good a unit is at doing their jobs' and then went and pretended 'all armors are equally good at doing an armor's job.'

Isnt that just because lololol Bold Fighter/Vengeful Fighter DC god build literally murders everything no exception

Because dudes like Sheena with 30 ATK or something tragedy looks strong when she nukes with Ignis while having 50/40/33 bulk

[DehNutCase]

5 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Isnt that just because lololol Bold Fighter/Vengeful Fighter DC god build literally murders everything no exception

Because dudes like Sheena with 30 ATK or something tragedy looks strong when she nukes with Ignis while having 50/40/33 bulk

Even in that case you can still have differences caused by spreads.

 

The fact that, say, Amelia has 34/34 offenses but lackluster magical bulk would mean she's better with special fighter sets designed to gimp opposing fighter skill users (by messing with the special charge gain) while Sheena would be better at not dying to Reinhardt (23 base res isn't where you want to be even as a Green when Reinhardt is walking around---not an issue if you have enough score to out-score Rein, but not everyone running armors is in tier 20 or whatever). This would mean that Sheena is a bit better in low  arena tiers but Amelia is better in higher tiers since the distribution of enemies change.

^The above is just something I pulled out of a hat, mind, I won't vouch for that being how the difference between Amelia & Sheena would actually play out.

Edited September 12, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Alkaid]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

If you're already in Tier 19.5 and don't have ambitions to go up any higher, scoring potential is extremely pointless. Because the Arena tier list is targeted at players aiming for Tier 19.5, it makes sense to not have to deal with scoring potential. The difference between Reinhardt and Hector, for example, is less than 5 merges.

You also don't need to feed kills to the bonus unit much if at all to stay in Tier 19.5 if you are on the higher end of the Tier 19.5 range.

Not really. Knowing to prioritize armors, Nowi, etc. over mages to boost score will make a player's path to 19.5 easier and take less resources, if that's their goal. And if you want to use favorites over just building for score, you'll use and merge whoever you want regardless of what the tier list ranks them at.

It seems to accomplish little more than being an outlet for some veteran players to spend time theorizing about and ordering units because we don't have much else to do in-game between banners. I dislike it because I think it misrepresents how this game works for newer players, who are the most likely to check a tier list.. There's not as many clear cases of "X unit is better than Y" due to how this game is structured, and even the low-tier units can be made pretty good most of the time. They even include that to a degree with how that make C the lowest rank(with almost nobody in it), and every other letter is broken into 3 sections to stretch it out. Something more like our analysis sections feels like the way to go.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Alkaid

[Korath88]

8 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, I rather enjoyed how they said 'tiering is about how good a unit is at doing their jobs' and then went and pretended 'all armors are equally good at doing an armor's job.'

 

@Korath88 The main problem I have with armors, melee armors in particular, is that they don't have real ways to deal with their checks out than just straight up out-scoring them. Dazzle Staffs with strong debuffs isn't something melee armors have tools to solve (ranged armors don't give a damn, though, Bow Jakob can just put on his armored boots and shoot the staff to death).

This is a lot more visible in PvE content where their lack of tools means that it's pretty damn rare that an armor is the best pick, but low scoring area (where a new player tends to be---and new players need good tier lists the most) also tends to have more of an armor's natural checks.

But how many healers is an armor team going to encounter at their score range anyways? Especially since the most commonly recommended ones are cavalry healers who have lower BST. I think the most I saw was one Veronica every 10 matches or so. While definitely a threat, it's not one so common that all melee armors should be dropped several tiers.

Same can be said for the dumb decision to rank mages for EP. Are those specific omnibreaker/wary builds so common that the criteria for mages has to be completely overhauled? Because I'm pretty sure forcing a PP mage to run a niche EP build is only going to kill every other matchup they have just to counter one threat, that should arguably be another unit's job to kill. And if team synergy isn't taken into account, then why is Odin assumed to have +6/6/6/6?