Tier List Version Pi (3.141592654)

[The Black Knight FE10]

The most up-to-date tier list I found was tier list 3.5 , see https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/932999-fire-emblem-radiant-dawn/78706267 , although perhaps there's a better one on r/fireemblem .

===

SS Tier

Haar
Ike
Volug
Reyson
Titania

S Tier

Sothe
Janaff
Rafiel
Nailah
Zihark
Nolan
Ulki
Gatrie
Leanne
Shinon
Tibarn
Mia

A Tier

Naesala
Caineghis
Giffca
Jill
Oscar
Ranulf
Mordecai
Micaiah
Aran
Black Knight
Tauroneo
Laura
Elincia

B Tier

Heather
Nephenee
Skrimir
Muarim
Mist
Rhys
Nasir
Boyd
Volke
Stefan
Marcia
Tanith
Kieran
Geoffrey
Nealuchi
Lucia
Tormod
Lehran

C Tier

Soren
Edward
Brom
Ena
Calill
Danved
Makalov
Vika
Sigrun
Leonardo
Gareth
Rolf

D Tier

Bastian
Renning
Kurth
Oliver
Kyza

E TIER

Sanaki
Pelleas
Ilyana
Lethe
Meg

F TIER

Lyre
Astrid
Fiona

===

Let the best arguments win :)

Edited January 31, 2022 by The Black Knight FE10

[The Black Knight FE10]

I was able to find this as the first result from google searching "Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn tier list" : 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/azailb/rfireemblem_made_an_fe10_radiant_dawn_nutier_list/

The fact that it has Sothe at the top speaks volumes about the disconnect between the Gamefaqs Radiant Dawn board, where Smashfanatic is mostly arguing with himself out of boredom, and the r/fireemblem subreddit community at large.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Jill being only in the third tier, and only three spots above Mordecai, jumps out as very wrong to me. Wyvern is broken in this game. Jill has a case to be the best unit in the Dawn Brigade side of the game (I think she probably falls just short due to the extra exp she requires compared to Volug/Sothe, but there's a case).

I do like how the Reddit list just separates out the royals/herons. I don't like how it has Boyd above Gatrie, that seems almost actively nonsensical. I love move, but 1 move is not worth 3 str, 2 spd, and 9 def.

[Florete]

If you're going from 3.5 to Pi, doesn't that mean you're downgrading?

[lenticular]

I'm not really a big fan of tier lists at the best of times, but trying to create one for Radiant Dawn seems especially futile. Because of the way that RD availability units, most of the units just aren't in competition with each other. How can you reasonably compare Gareth, Leonardo, Black Knight, Heather, and Leanne? You can't, and yet that's what a tier list does. I genuinely have no idea what sort of information a tier list like this is even trying to communicate.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, The Black Knight FE10 said:

I was able to find this as the first result from google searching "Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn tier list" : 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/azailb/rfireemblem_made_an_fe10_radiant_dawn_nutier_list/

The fact that it has Sothe at the top speaks volumes about the disconnect between the Gamefaqs Radiant Dawn board, where Smashfanatic is mostly arguing with himself out of boredom, and the r/fireemblem subreddit community at large.

I find myself agreeing with the Reddit list more. In particular, I agree with all the top 5 (although, not necessarily in the order presented).

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I do like how the Reddit list just separates out the royals/herons. I don't like how it has Boyd above Gatrie, that seems almost actively nonsensical. I love move, but 1 move is not worth 3 str, 2 spd, and 9 def.

Agreed - no way does a no-transfers Boyd belong up there with Oscar, Mia, and the Hawks.

Also putting Ena in the same tier as Gareth is ??? when she effectively does the same thing as him, but for longer.

4 hours ago, Florete said:

If you're going from 3.5 to Pi, doesn't that mean you're downgrading?

Math major here, can confirm. Maybe it's a countdown?

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'm not really a big fan of tier lists at the best of times, but trying to create one for Radiant Dawn seems especially futile. Because of the way that RD availability units, most of the units just aren't in competition with each other. How can you reasonably compare Gareth, Leonardo, Black Knight, Heather, and Leanne? You can't, and yet that's what a tier list does. I genuinely have no idea what sort of information a tier list like this is even trying to communicate.

I remember a recent YouTube video by Mekkah that looked at "Unit Stonks" - basically, how valuable each unit is on a chapter-by-chapter basis. I have to imagine that sort of approach would be especially suited to a game like Radiant Dawn, with how broken-up the availability is.

[Vicious Sal]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Jill being only in the third tier, and only three spots above Mordecai, jumps out as very wrong to me. Wyvern is broken in this game. Jill has a case to be the best unit in the Dawn Brigade side of the game (I think she probably falls just short due to the extra exp she requires compared to Volug/Sothe, but there's a case).

I do like how the Reddit list just separates out the royals/herons. I don't like how it has Boyd above Gatrie, that seems almost actively nonsensical. I love move, but 1 move is not worth 3 str, 2 spd, and 9 def.

I'll start with the notion that Tier lists usually take the highest difficulty and Ltc in mind when being made, so this argument is only applying to Jill in Ltc HM setting: Jill kinda sucks. For a TL;Dr, maps go by so quickly Jill cannot reach her benchmarks for effectively dealing with enemies. She gets too few levels to be able to do stuff in 3-6, which in turn makes her too weak in 3-12 and so forth. This applies even with all stat boosters. 

Zihark has been crowned as the new best dB carry, long may he reign. For an in depth look, ussgordoncaptain has made a lengthy Reddit post explaining it all.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I find myself agreeing with the Reddit list more. In particular, I agree with all the top 5 (although, not necessarily in the order presented).

Agreed - no way does a no-transfers Boyd belong up there with Oscar, Mia, and the Hawks.

Also putting Ena in the same tier as Gareth is ??? when she effectively does the same thing as him, but for longer.

Math major here, can confirm. Maybe it's a countdown?

I remember a recent YouTube video by Mekkah that looked at "Unit Stonks" - basically, how valuable each unit is on a chapter-by-chapter basis. I have to imagine that sort of approach would be especially suited to a game like Radiant Dawn, with how broken-up the availability is.

RD is shown in that video and it isn' really helpful. Because of the army switching you don't have continuous lines, you get multiple dots sprinkled throughout and that makes it really unclear.

[Jotari]

Astrid is C tier. Fight me.

[Radiant head]

Mine is something like:

S Tier: Haar, Ike, Jill, Titania

A Tier: Nolan, Sothe, Volug, Mia, ZIhark, Elincia, Janaff, Ulki, Shinon

B Tier: Oscar, Tanith, Micaiah, Gatrie, Ranulf, Mordecai, Tauroneo

C Tier: Marcia, Neph, Geoffrey, Heather, Skrimir, Mist, Rhys, Kieran, Lucia, Nealuchi, Sigrun, Soren, Rolf, Laura, Tormod, Muarim, Boyd, Leonardo, Brom

D Tier: Edward, Aran, Sanaki, Calil, Pelleas, Vika, Danved, Makalov

E Tier: Illanya, Oliver, Kyza, Astrid, Lethe

F Tier: Meg, Fiona, Lyre

I omitted the herons, royals, and late joiners bc not sure how to compare them with the others

Edited February 1, 2022 by Radiant head

[SnowFire]

19 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

I'll start with the notion that Tier lists usually take the highest difficulty and Ltc in mind when being made, so this argument is only applying to Jill in Ltc HM setting: Jill kinda sucks. For a TL;Dr, maps go by so quickly Jill cannot reach her benchmarks for effectively dealing with enemies. She gets too few levels to be able to do stuff in 3-6, which in turn makes her too weak in 3-12 and so forth. This applies even with all stat boosters. 

Zihark has been crowned as the new best dB carry, long may he reign. For an in depth look, ussgordoncaptain has made a lengthy Reddit post explaining it all.

I'm willing to believe that somebody did a Hard Mode LTC that didn't use Jill, that's not weird.  I *might* even believe that the "fastest"  LTC is done without much Jill, although I'm skeptical.  I don't believe that Jill "kinda sucks" in an "LTC tier list" unless the tier list is literally just listing the units that get used in the current "best" LTC playthrough (and that's not a tier list then, that's just a list list IMO).  If someone decides they're LTCing and also trying to make use of Jill, she'll provide good use in maps like 3-12 where throwing a BEXP'd Jill in the middle of a sea of enemies will clear the map objective in no time (especially with some light save/load cheezing if necessary for survival's sake).  Meanwhile a unit like Meg is just flat deadweight that slows your LTC down if you try to use her for some reason, and a unit like Nolan - while solid - has infantry move and thus simply can't provide tricks like Jill flying through the 3-6 swamp.  Basically, even with LTC "rules", you can still tier characters based on whether using them speeds you up or slows you down.  Jill is, at absolute worst, a character who doesn't speed you up enough because the turns spent feeding her XP in act 1 don't pay off with enough turns saved in act 3 - but this is still substantially better than the bystanders of the world that slow you down even more and the laggards who actively hinder the ability to win the map under LTC rules.  So Jill should outpace them even if you want to give whoever ussgordoncaptain used all S ranks, Jill would just be a credible alternate at A rank or the like, and the many actively bad units for LTC will fill up D, E, and F.

---

Also, while I'm here, that Reddit list linked above is overall pretty good, but it used to be better.  They did a set of "resubmissions" where controversial picks could be re-arranged, and they generally went the wrong direction in the resubmissions.  Edward & Rhys both went from D to C.  In Edward's case, I'd have argued D to E myself (and I trained Edward and brought him to the tower!).  The Reddit voters were inexplicably hyping him up for contributing in the pre-Sothe Prologue / 1-1, where you cannot even pick a party, but eh, there's clearly no single definition of what goes in a tier list.

[Vicious Sal]

9 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I'm willing to believe that somebody did a Hard Mode LTC that didn't use Jill, that's not weird.  I *might* even believe that the "fastest"  LTC is done without much Jill, although I'm skeptical.  I don't believe that Jill "kinda sucks" in an "LTC tier list" unless the tier list is literally just listing the units that get used in the current "best" LTC playthrough (and that's not a tier list then, that's just a list list IMO).  If someone decides they're LTCing and also trying to make use of Jill, she'll provide good use in maps like 3-12 where throwing a BEXP'd Jill in the middle of a sea of enemies will clear the map objective in no time (especially with some light save/load cheezing if necessary for survival's sake).  Meanwhile a unit like Meg is just flat deadweight that slows your LTC down if you try to use her for some reason, and a unit like Nolan - while solid - has infantry move and thus simply can't provide tricks like Jill flying through the 3-6 swamp.  Basically, even with LTC "rules", you can still tier characters based on whether using them speeds you up or slows you down.  Jill is, at absolute worst, a character who doesn't speed you up enough because the turns spent feeding her XP in act 1 don't pay off with enough turns saved in act 3 - but this is still substantially better than the bystanders of the world that slow you down even more and the laggards who actively hinder the ability to win the map under LTC rules.  So Jill should outpace them even if you want to give whoever ussgordoncaptain used all S ranks, Jill would just be a credible alternate at A rank or the like, and the many actively bad units for LTC will fill up D, E, and F.

---

Also, while I'm here, that Reddit list linked above is overall pretty good, but it used to be better.  They did a set of "resubmissions" where controversial picks could be re-arranged, and they generally went the wrong direction in the resubmissions.  Edward & Rhys both went from D to C.  In Edward's case, I'd have argued D to E myself (and I trained Edward and brought him to the tower!).  The Reddit voters were inexplicably hyping him up for contributing in the pre-Sothe Prologue / 1-1, where you cannot even pick a party, but eh, there's clearly no single definition of what goes in a tier list.

That bolded part is precicely what Jill can't do in the setting that is being discussed. To remind you, BEXP is only worth 1/4th the amount compared to NM. So she's not getting a lot of levels. Also, BEXP levels turn Jill's 45% Str growth into a 21% STr growths since BEXP level roll stats from highest growth to lowest, and in the case of ties they go from Res to Hp. So all her 45% or higher growths get rolled before STR. 

Meg is pretty much deadweight aside from shoving in P1. Using Meg to become viable costs turns that she won't gain back in the later maps. However, how is this different for Jill? Training Jill in P1 so she's viable and meeting required benchmarks for P3 costs extra turns. But she isn't performing those maps any faster so your P1 is slower to have the same turncount as Zihark in P3.  Jill still deserves a higher spot on the tier list because of rescue possibilities and such, but using her as your main DB carry will cost you turns compared to the current lowest turn count. And to reiterate, from the POV that I outlined at the start of my first post: That makes Jill worse than she is regarded to be. She kinda sucks as the main carry unit, which is what role people attribute to her generally. Jill is usefull for a myriad of other things, but in HM LTC  setting she cannot reach her "god empress of the universe-everything in my vicinity vaporizes" status. 

 

Meta's shift over time and strategies are found that are faster and make the expected best unit worse. In this case the turn counts get so low that Jill can't gain enough stats through BEXP or combat anymore to get up to speed and achieve god status and mow down enemies. 

[Shadow Mir]

I'ma be honest, I agree with lenticular. Making a tier list for this game is enough of a pain in the ass because availability is all over the place, but include transfers, and it gets even worse.

On 1/31/2022 at 3:40 AM, Vicious Sal said:

Zihark has been crowned as the new best dB carry, long may he reign. For an in depth look, ussgordoncaptain has made a lengthy Reddit post explaining it all.

I'm interested in the reasoning, so link to the thread pls.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 1/31/2022 at 4:40 AM, Vicious Sal said:

I'll start with the notion that Tier lists usually take the highest difficulty and Ltc in mind when being made, so this argument is only applying to Jill in Ltc HM setting: Jill kinda sucks. For a TL;Dr, maps go by so quickly Jill cannot reach her benchmarks for effectively dealing with enemies. She gets too few levels to be able to do stuff in 3-6, which in turn makes her too weak in 3-12 and so forth. This applies even with all stat boosters. 

Zihark has been crowned as the new best dB carry, long may he reign. For an in depth look, ussgordoncaptain has made a lengthy Reddit post explaining it all.

I disagree with the notion that tier lists use LTC as a standard. In my experience, they use a more nebuloys "reliable efficiency" standard. A character who helps enable a 9-turn clear (with a 10% chance of success, based on RNG) may not be as useful if you're playing on an 11-turm clear (with a 90% chance of success, again based on RNG). Certainly, you can make a tierlist with a strict LTC in mind, but it's not my assumption when I see one.

On 1/31/2022 at 4:40 AM, Vicious Sal said:

RD is shown in that video and it isn' really helpful. Because of the army switching you don't have continuous lines, you get multiple dots sprinkled throughout and that makes it really unclear.

IMO that's less due to the underlying theory, and more to the method of presentation. Showing a grid, where each chapter is a column, would probably work better for RD than a line graph.

15 minutes ago, Vicious Sal said:

That bolded part is precicely what Jill can't do in the setting that is being discussed. To remind you, BEXP is only worth 1/4th the amount compared to NM. So she's not getting a lot of levels. Also, BEXP levels turn Jill's 45% Str growth into a 21% STr growths since BEXP level roll stats from highest growth to lowest, and in the case of ties they go from Res to Hp. So all her 45% or higher growths get rolled before STR. 

Interesting, did not know that about BEXP. Still, if Jill hasn't yet capped any stats, I'd imagine the optimal approach to be "bump her to 99, and let her level up naturally". Since she averages 3.6 stat ups from a natural level, as opposed to 3 from BEXP.

[Radiant head]

Weirdly i've always preferred sending Jill to the GMs and making Zihark the MVP of the DB using paragon and a master crown but never really had a tier list science logic to it, id be interestred in reading that post

i think i take it for granted that my Jill has str/spd, and skill transfers, I imagine trying to get her going is rough for others.  I think her contributions in part 4 are more useful than in 3-12 or 3-13

Edited February 1, 2022 by Radiant head

[Vicious Sal]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I disagree with the notion that tier lists use LTC as a standard. In my experience, they use a more nebuloys "reliable efficiency" standard. A character who helps enable a 9-turn clear (with a 10% chance of success, based on RNG) may not be as useful if you're playing on an 11-turm clear (with a 90% chance of success, again based on RNG). Certainly, you can make a tierlist with a strict LTC in mind, but it's not my assumption when I see one.

Even in that setting the same logic applies. The post goes over that as well. The most overrated unit in FE history (Jill radiant dawn analysis) : fireemblem (reddit.com) True LTC only exacerbates the problem. Since turn counts go down by another turn or two.

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

IMO that's less due to the underlying theory, and more to the method of presentation. Showing a grid, where each chapter is a column, would probably work better for RD than a line graph.

I'm interested, but it would be quite cumbersome imo since you'd need to have a graph for every unit.

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Interesting, did not know that about BEXP. Still, if Jill hasn't yet capped any stats, I'd imagine the optimal approach to be "bump her to 99, and let her level up naturally". Since she averages 3.6 stat ups from a natural level, as opposed to 3 from BEXP.

By not giving multiple levels of BEXP you're also stifling her stats. She doesn't reliably reach he stat benchmarks from combat + bexp, but going for almost solely combat she won't be gaining enough either. For the complete read though, I recommend the post I linked. 

 

Also don't get me wrong I love Jill she's one of my 3 favourite characters in FE, the others being Micaiah and Zihark. And she is a god anything below HM Casual. If she gets the resources and time she's amazing. HM LTC however just doesn't allow for that growth into a monster, time's too short. 

 

1 hour ago, Radiant head said:

Weirdly i've always preferred sending Jill to the GMs and making Zihark the MVP of the DB using paragon and a master crown but never really had a tier list science logic to it, id be interestred in reading that post

i think i take it for granted that my Jill has str/spd, and skill transfers, I imagine trying to get her going is rough for others.  I think her contributions in part 4 are more useful than in 3-12 or 3-13

I've added the link in this post. =]

[Radiant head]

Thanks. 

I think her performance in Part 4 is much more noteworthy than 3-12 and 3-13 so sending her to the GM's works out bc she still shines in 3-6 and is less likely to be underleveled by part 4; admitedly she has to play catch up but its not too bad if she had a steel forge in 1-E.  I'm trying to think who helps more in 4-4 besides haar and naesala.  4-E can be cheesed with royals sure, but i think only tibarn and naesala have canto and that too neither of them need to be positioned near Nasir so its not like she isnt still one of the better units to use. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Radiant head

[Florete]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

 The most overrated unit in FE history (Jill radiant dawn analysis) : fireemblem (reddit.com) 

> Calls her the most overrated unit in FE history.
> Says she's still 8-10th in the game.

This person clearly has not seen many FE tier lists lol. Nino was once considered top tier.

For the record I don't disagree that Jill has seen too much praise by certain individuals in the past (mostly if she doesn't get transfers), but this title is pretty blatant clickbait.

[Radiant head]

i think he admitted it was clickbait

[Eltosian Kadath]

I get the funny feeling that the Gamefaq tier list was created with the idea that availability wasn't being considered. It accounts for a lot of oddities, like seeing Tormod so high, and Ilyana so low, etc.

[lenticular]

10 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I get the funny feeling that the Gamefaq tier list was created with the idea that availability wasn't being considered. It accounts for a lot of oddities, like seeing Tormod so high, and Ilyana so low, etc.

If that is the case, then it just introduces a bunch of new oddities. Like, why would Volug be higher than Nailah or Ulki be higher than Tibarn if not for availability? And why are characters like Caineghis and the Black Knight languishing down in A tier? Black Knight is below Aran, even. More likely that availability is being considered, but that it's being considered very inconsistently.

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I get the funny feeling that the Gamefaq tier list was created with the idea that availability wasn't being considered. It accounts for a lot of oddities, like seeing Tormod so high, and Ilyana so low, etc.

imo Illyana still isn't great even after factoring in her availability..

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

imo Illyana still isn't great even after factoring in her availability..

Sure she isn't great, but the list put her in Meg tier...

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sure she isn't great, but the list put her in Meg tier...

I'd probably keep her where she is and move Meg down a peg. Ilyana being about on par with Sanaki feels right.

[bsterbster]

I think it depends a lot on what mode your playing.  But would agree that Gatrie deserves a bump.  As for the dragons… Nasir is the only one that  gives a speed boost - thus he prob ranks highest imho

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 2/2/2022 at 12:47 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I get the funny feeling that the Gamefaq tier list was created with the idea that availability wasn't being considered. It accounts for a lot of oddities, like seeing Tormod so high, and Ilyana so low, etc.

Availability is clearly being considered. I don't think Tormod is too high myself, he has three maps of being very good which is more than what most people below him on that list have. Sure, he sucks when he returns, but the argument would be that there are lots of people who aren't going to be used in the tower, so it doesn't matter that much. For example, Renning is better than him for the tower, but realistically you aren't using either.

I agree with Jotari re Ilyana. Second tier from the bottom seems perfectly reasonable.