Rate the Unit - Felix

[Fabulously Olivier]

This is my attempt at a Serenes Forest community tier list. Every few days, the character to rate will change. Only Overall Ranking will be factored.

 

S Tier - An S tier character is the best of the best. Has a value of 5 points. For a character to achieve this ranking, they must have an Overall Ranking value between 4.5 - 5.0.

A Tier - An A tier character is above average. Has a value of 4 points. For a character to achieve this ranking, they must have an Overall Ranking value between 3.5 - 4.5.

B Tier - A B tier character is average. Has a value of 3 points. For a character to achieve this ranking, they must have an Overall Ranking value between 2.5 - 3.5.

C Tier - Below average. Has a value of 2 points. For a character to achieve this ranking, they must have an Overall Ranking value between 1.5 - 2.5. 

D Tier - Noticeably subpar. A character in this tier is still completely useable, as this is a surprisingly well-balanced Warriors game, but they are not optimal. Has a value of 1 point. A character is D tier if they score below 1.5.

F Tier - Not a final character ranking because it implies unusability. This isn't Hyrule Warriors. But you can use this to assign a 0 point value for influencing the ranking, or to denote that you feel a certain criteria (ie: Skills, Availability, etc.) is zero credit or non-applicable. 

 

Consider the following when making your Overall Ranking:

Availability - Shez and all of the house students have perfect availability on their routes, when it counts. Recruitable students have even higher availability. Rhea, Sothis, and Arval get an availability rating of F by default due to not being available outside of Record Keeper.

Stats - primarily growths. Consider how stat average actually works into their learned skills.

Skills - how many and what quality of high value skills (Luna/Flare, Big Game Hunter, Dual Onslaught, etc.) are available to that unit overall.

Assist - How good is a unit as an adjutant specifically? Rallies, Harmonius Special, Elemental Assists, etc. can give a unit a substantial support role. 

Arts - How good is that unit's Combat Art/Spell pool. Due to teaching, I would suggest weighing this category low or not at all in your overall ranking. Exception - exclusive lord arts should probably constitute an S ranking and should probably be weighed even if you otherwise wouldn't weigh arts.

Preferred Class - I would suggest weighing in every class that shares the same weapon type here, bearing in mind how good that character may be at those classes. Also, how well does a character perform in their preferred class relative to others. Characters with exclusive classes should probably get an S by default. 

Alternative Class - does that character have very heavy synergy with a class outside of their preferred class line (such as through their crest weapons or unique abilities)?

Crest - How useful is the character's crest, if applicable. Factor in how useful any relic/sacred weapons are for that character.

Unique Ability

Unique Tactical Ability

Unique Support Ability

Bias - Please don't actually factor this into the overall ranking. But if you like a character, feel free to say so.

 

It is up to you how much you weigh each category for each character when determining an Overall Ranking. Your standards do not have to be consistent, and perhaps they shouldn't be. You may reasonably consider Availability to not be important at all, but then consider it a deal breaker where it is prohibitive (NG+ units). You may consider Sacred Weapons for a character's Crest to not be a big deal, except where they have Lifeforce/Impossible Feat/etc. You might not even factor Arts into your ranking unless they have exclusive ones. That's up to you.

 

Character Rankings:

S Tier:

Edelgard (5.0)

Claude (5.0)

Ferdinand VON AEGIR (4.75)

Shez (4.67)

Hilda (4.67)

Dimitri (4.50)

 

A Tier

Hubert (4.25)

 

B Tier

Yuri (3 - 3.5?)

Seteth (3)

Hapi (3)

 

C Tier 

Dedue (1.5)

 

Shez

Spoiler

Availability - S

Shez is available in all missions, aside from the first secret mission.

Stats - B

Shez's stats are mostly average. Their speed is particularly exceptional, and their Charisma will be exceptional if you do Expeditions. Their dex is rather lacking, however, and Asura does not help it.

Skills - A

Shez lacks most of the big name skills. No Luna/Flare. No Dual Onslaught. No Big Game Hunter. No Undaunted. However, they do have some strong unique skills - Renewed Carnage, True Awakening, and The Creation - and they have access to some pretty potent skills like Essence of Darkness and a bevy of Warrior Gauge fillers. They'll get more out of Charm Catalyst than anyone else. They also have access to a wider range of skills than anyone else thanks to both male and female class exclusives. All of this factors them much higher than others with similarly lacking core skill pools (like Holst and Shamir).

Arts - S

Shez has the full arsenal of Dark spells - arguably the best element in the game, but what sets them apart is their exclusive Swift Slice skill - an even better sword-equivalent of War Strike that factors in Shez' absurd speed.

Assist - F

No rallies, Harmonious Specials, Trust, or Elemental Assists make Shez a distinctly bad adjutant. All they have going for them is One Heart One Mind and Warrior Assist. But seeing as how they're force-deployed as a lead unit in main missions, this is largely an irrelevant category.

Preferred Class - S

Shez has an exclusive class, and therefore gets an S by default, but being a sword default unit also lets them perform exceptionally well as a Dancer, Trickster, or Mortal Savant.

Alternative Class - A

Their high magic growth and dark spell pool are great for Gremory and Dark Bishop, and they'll also be able to rock Dark Knight pretty well. They do not, however, have any crest weapons that make them particularly lean into any of these.

Crest - F

Shez has no crest and no personal weapons.

Unique Action - B

The mobility of this is its main appeal. The peon execution secondary effect is also strong, but not amazing. But even combined, I don't think these effects are quite on par with Sylvain, Felix, Ferdinand, Balthus, Byleth, Holst, Catherine, Lorenz, Leonie, or an exceptionally well-played Rodrigue in this regard.

Unique Support - S

Perhaps I'm cheating by also factoring in Shez' limited warp ability here. But seeing as how you don't lose it when you equip another Unique Action, I couldn't rate it there. Even without that powerful exclusive warp, Shez' unique support perfectly complements all the other Warrior gauge fillers in their kit.

Unique Tactical - S

I do not weigh this category heavily, if at all. But offensive ones are generally more useful than defensive ones.

Bias - B

Not weighed, of course. But I like Shez within reason.

Overall Ranking - A

Perhaps it is insane to rate the powerful protagonist anything below an S tier. However, factoring in their lack of a Crest, their subpar Dex growth, their lack of many of the game's best skills, and the fact that you can't give them both a crest and an S tier ability at the same time, I think bumping them down just one tier is not out of the question. I'd say they are the very top of A.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Pie Burritos]

Shez
 

Spoiler

Availability - S

Stats - B
Low dex is annoying but high strength is pretty good.

Skills - B
Shez lacks several extremely powerful damage boosting skills, but does make up for it by having some of them and also having other unique abilities. Range Master is amazing and the unique stuff from Fluegel and Asura are good too, and they get a lot of warrior special boosting stuff. And male Shez gets Impossible Feat, one of the strongest damage boosting skills, so that definitely makes up for missing some other skills.

Arts - S

Preferred Class - S
Asura is out of control. It has combos for smashing revealed stun gauges, gathering enemies, and sweeping up lines of enemies while traversing from stronghold to stronghold, and all of them are available immediately. It also accumulates hits extremely fast, which synergizes with Shez's Unique Action. And of course it can use magic. I don't see any reason why Shez shouldn't always be in this class, unless you're training another class for abilities.

Alternative Class - A
I don't really know since I'm quite adamant that Asura is the best, but I'm sure Shez does just fine in magic classes with Essence of Darkness, or in other sword classes.

Crest - F
Obviously no crest or prf weapon means an F, but I don't think this category matters very much. Crests are nice to have but only a few of them feel like they matter, and a normal weapon with excellent attributes will be on par with (or outperform) divine and relic weapons.

Unique Action - A
The mobility is amazing but I think the auto-attacks are getting a little undersold here, since they do a pretty decent amount of stun gauge damage. Hard to call it S rank when Felix and a few others exist, but this is good.

Unique Support - S

Unique Tactical - S
Offense oriented abilities are generally better.

Bias - S
To be honest, I like Shez quite a bit.

Overall Ranking - S
I'd give Shez an S on Asura's capabilities alone. Asura obliterates crowds, and the arts and magic destroy single targets. Depleting stun gauges with the help of Windsweep and a charged up Unique Action auto-attacks feels extremely easy and kills everything in the area if you have Range Master equipped. Getting around the map with Unique Action movement and teleportation feels extremely good. No other character has this level of mobility while still retaining windsweep/firesweep capabilities, other than Yuri (though he can't teleport), so I'd say Shez is a pretty easy S.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wouldn't it make sense to use 4.5-5, 3.5-4.5, 2.5-3.5, etc., for calculating scores? For instance, using the example below:

4 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

C Tier - Below average. Has a value of 2 points. For a character to achieve this ranking, they must have an Overall Ranking value between 2.0 - 3.0. 

If there's a character who receives 19 C votes and 1 D vote, they'll get 1.95 and would get a D, when obviously they should get a C based on overwhelming majority opinion.

Anyway I strongly lean towards Shez being in S tier because the warp functionality is busted and Fleugel/Asura is an outstandingly good class. The former is way above par for an Intermediate class in particular.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[Fabulously Olivier]

10 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Wouldn't it make sense to use 4.5-5, 3.5-4.5, 2.5-3.5, etc., for calculating scores? For instance, using the example below:

If there's a character who receives 19 C votes and 1 D vote, they'll get 1.95 and would get a D, when obviously they should get a C based on overwhelming majority opinion.

Anyway I strongly lean towards Shez being in S tier because the warp functionality is busted and Fleugel/Asura is an outstandingly good class. The former is way above par for an Intermediate class in particular.

Fair point. I'll adjust accordingly. 

 

I'm also adding an Assist Rank for pair up adjutants.

[ZanaLyrander]

Shez is kinda a fascinating main character because as detailed here, Shez, while extremely powerful, still isn't the strongest unit in the game in terms of winning fights. Their personal skill is more geared towards mobility than winning fights with enemy commanders, not that they really need the extra help for winning fights with such powerful dark magic spells and a tremendously powerful unique class. But what Shez has over every other unit in my mind is the ability to win battles. The ability to just zip to trouble spots with their personal ability and Shadow Warp is so tremendously useful that they beat out basically any other character in terms of guaranteeing the overall success of the mission. There are certainly units I think are stronger in a 1 on 1 fight, but in terms of achieving victory in the larger context of the battle, Shez can't be beat.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Edelgard

 

Availability - A

This is the ranking I'll assign to a unit is available in all chapters of one route. Not weighing this category substantially, if at all.

Stats - A

Mostly exceptional in both offense and defense, though low Lck is notably disappointing for a Flare/Luna character. She'll likely be a primary recepient of luck boosters.

Skills - S

Flare, Luna, Lifeforce, Offensive Tactics, Stormer of the Land, Harmonious Specials, Dual Onslaught, and Burst of Resolve. Edelgard is stacked.

Arts - S

Edelgard's got multiple exclusive combat arts.

Assist - S

Fire Assist, Harmonious Specials, Trust, One Heart One Mind and Warrior Assist. Only lacks a Rally, but whatever.

Preferred Class - S

Edelgard has a powerful exclusive class, and axes also make her proficient at Fortress Knight and Wyvern Lord. 

Alternative Class - S

Crest of Seiros means she is working with serious Mortal Savant/Trickster/Dancer potential with the Sword of Seiros. She also has both Luna and Flare, making her proficient in a variety of physical and magical classes.

Crest - S

With 2 crests, Edelgard has the most crest items of any character. Aymr, Labraunda, Sword of Seiros, and Shield of Seiros. Just a shame SotC was character-locked rather than crest-locked.

Unique Action - A

Free Essence of Fire and burning on every attack. Boring, but very effective. Just maybe not on par with the very best unique actions.

Unique Support - B

I don't notice guard damage all that much. I'm going to rate it as average and unremarkable.

Unique Tactical - B

An offensive tactical, but one that reduces damage. And it's not like she needed damage reduction.

Bias - S

Not weighted. I really like Edelgard.

Overall Ranking - S

Hard to avoid an S ranking here. Edelgard is one of the most broken units in the game, not unlike in Three Houses. And here, she's broken no matter what you do with her. She excels in categories that matter, while only being average in categories that don't. With Edelgard, I'm primarily weighing Primary Class, Alternative Class, Skills, and Crest.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[ZanaLyrander]

Hard agree on this one, Edelgard is definitely S tier, she's one of the strongest units in the game, certainly one of the most versatile. She can be a powerful axe user with Amyr, and immortal sword user with the Sword of Seiros, you could even make her a full on Gremory if you want. She's definitely the strongest of the house leaders, and that's high praise, Dimitri and Claude are damn good at what they do. Edelgard is just good at everything.

[vanguard333]

5 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Crest - S

With 2 crests, Edelgard has the most crest items of any character. Aymr, Labraunda, Sword of Seiros, and Shield of Seiros. Just a shame SotC was character-locked rather than crest-locked.

I haven't played Three Hopes, but I'm pretty sure there's a good reason the Sword of the Creator is character-locked: I remember that, in Three Houses, the true power of a hero's relic is in the crest stone, and the sword's crest stone isn't in the sword; it's inside Byleth, so only Byleth can use the sword at its full power. Does Three Hopes change that in some way?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Edelgard's unique support ability is kinda busted, honestly. Definitely one of the best in my experience. Enemies guarding can slow down a lot of forms of offence in this game, which can be a pain if time ranks are tight. Enemies guarding against Edelgard is just hilarious as they literally just sit there and take massive damage (80% of Edelgard damage is still pretty high, as it turns out). Particularly useful for some slow-starting but blockable combat arts.

[ZanaLyrander]

12 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I haven't played Three Hopes, but I'm pretty sure there's a good reason the Sword of the Creator is character-locked: I remember that, in Three Houses, the true power of a hero's relic is in the crest stone, and the sword's crest stone isn't in the sword; it's inside Byleth, so only Byleth can use the sword at its full power. Does Three Hopes change that in some way?

Nah, it's the same in Three Hopes, only Blyeth and Sothis can use the Sword of the Creator because the story demands it. It's just a shame the writers decided to do that, because Three Houses made a big deal about the fact that Edelgard also has the Crest of Flames, but she still can't use the only legendary weapon associated with the Crest of Flames, so all it really does is give Edelgard some healing now and then.

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

46 minutes ago, ZanaLyrander said:

Nah, it's the same in Three Hopes, only Blyeth and Sothis can use the Sword of the Creator because the story demands it. It's just a shame the writers decided to do that, because Three Houses made a big deal about the fact that Edelgard also has the Crest of Flames, but she still can't use the only legendary weapon associated with the Crest of Flames, so all it really does is give Edelgard some healing now and then.

To be fair, "some healing now and then" makes it one of the most useful Crest effects, though admittedly few Crest effects are particularly decisive in gameplay. I think lore-wise the Crest of Flames is also supposed to impart incredible strength (Byleth and Edelgard tie for the highest base strength in the game) and also possibly some time-related powers besides, with Byleth's manifesting in Divine Pulse thanks to actually possessing the Crest Stone, and Edelgard's manifesting in the turn shenanigans of Raging Storm.

[Fabulously Olivier]

15 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

To be fair, "some healing now and then" makes it one of the most useful Crest effects, though admittedly few Crest effects are particularly decisive in gameplay. I think lore-wise the Crest of Flames is also supposed to impart incredible strength (Byleth and Edelgard tie for the highest base strength in the game) and also possibly some time-related powers besides, with Byleth's manifesting in Divine Pulse thanks to actually possessing the Crest Stone, and Edelgard's manifesting in the turn shenanigans of Raging Storm.

Crests are definitely a bigger deal here than they are in base Three Houses since crests are significantly upgradeable, and crest weapons aren't destructible items that are literally too good for the average player to use (the RPG potion effect).

[ZanaLyrander]

3 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Crests are definitely a bigger deal here than they are in base Three Houses since crests are significantly upgradeable, and crest weapons aren't destructible items that are literally too good for the average player to use (the RPG potion effect).

God, I can not tell you how annoyed I was about that in Three Houses. People give Fates shit, but removing weapon durability was a fantastic change imo, and one I was really hoping would stick around. Three Houses allowing you to repair weapons was a decent compromise, but they still fucked up by making the materials needed to repair the legendary weapons finite, which still lead to the absurd situation of 'oh boy I got a super strong weapon, better never use it until the last mission'. Honestly, Three Hopes has the best version of weapon durability I've ever seen, I think this should become the standard for future fire emblem games: weapon durability is only consumed by combat arts/spells, and automatically refills at the end of battle. That's honestly the perfect compromise.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Agreed that Hopes handles weapon durability better and I hope it's the standard going forward.

That said repairing relics really wasn't a problem in Houses, except for Aymr (which badly needed such a limitation) - the game rains so much Umbral Steel upon you (at least if you break the monsters you come across in story fights / paralogues) that I usually end up selling a bunch of it for extra cash. I can still understand the worry about using something which is nominally finite, though.

[Fabulously Olivier]

I know it's tempting to take a meritocratic view of crests don't matter in rating a unit. But if a unit has a crest that actually works with their current playstyle (lets ignore healing ones entirely since they're mostly pointless), that unit effectively has two, or even three (in the case of Edelgard and Lysithea) unique support abilities. Occassionally you get a crest that even perfectly complements their playstyle, like Bernie's crest effect making combat arts EVEN MORE SPAMMABLE with The Inexhaustible.

 

I'd argue we should be weighing crests highly. Not as high as skills or unique abilities, but highly.

[ZanaLyrander]

2 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I know it's tempting to take a meritocratic view of crests don't matter in rating a unit. But if a unit has a crest that actually works with their current playstyle (lets ignore healing ones entirely since they're mostly pointless), that unit effectively has two, or even three (in the case of Edelgard and Lysithea) unique support abilities. Occassionally you get a crest that even perfectly complements their playstyle, like Bernie's crest effect making combat arts EVEN MORE SPAMMABLE with The Inexhaustible.

 

I'd argue we should be weighing crests highly. Not as high as skills or unique abilities, but highly.

Honestly just having a crest, even if it doesn't help your current playstyle, is still a big deal because it allows you to equip Hero's Relics without using a Crest Stone accessory. I feel like the difference between the best crest and the worst crest isn't huge, but there's still a very large, qualitative difference between units with and without crests, and that should definitely factor into their rating.

[Fabulously Olivier]

So here's a question. Do we want to take this one linearly down the class (Edelgard -> Hubert -> Ferdinand) or alternate based on similar characters (Edelgard -> Dimitri -> Claude, Hubert -> Dedue -> Hilda, Ferdinand -> Felix -> Lorenz). I'm leaning towards the second because it doesn't keep us in one house for weeks.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[ZanaLyrander]

2 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

So here's a question. Do we want to take this one linearly down the class (Edelgard -> Hubert -> Ferdinand) or alternate based on similar characters (Edelgard -> Dimitri -> Claude, Hubert -> Dedue -> Hilda, Ferdinand -> Felix -> Lorenz). I'm leaning towards the second because it doesn't keep us in one house for weeks.

I support the second option, for the same reason, it'd keep it much fresher to swap back and forth between houses. I might even suggest having the Ashen Wolves + Church of Seiros characters as a fourth column to iterate through, if only so we don't have to do all of them in a row once we finish with the main three houses.

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, ZanaLyrander said:

Nah, it's the same in Three Hopes, only Blyeth and Sothis can use the Sword of the Creator because the story demands it. It's just a shame the writers decided to do that, because Three Houses made a big deal about the fact that Edelgard also has the Crest of Flames, but she still can't use the only legendary weapon associated with the Crest of Flames, so all it really does is give Edelgard some healing now and then.

I see.

I've seen many claims, though none of them could provide sources, that apparently there were once plans for Edelgard's Crest of Flames to be more important; I've seen people claim that it was going to give her space abilities similar to Byleth's time abilities and I've seen others claim that it was going to enable her to interfere with Byleth's divine pulse. Of course, none of them provided any sources, but, if true, it would explain why the story of Three Houses made it a big deal that Edelgard has the Crest of Flames.

[vikingsfan92]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I know it's tempting to take a meritocratic view of crests don't matter in rating a unit. But if a unit has a crest that actually works with their current playstyle (lets ignore healing ones entirely since they're mostly pointless), that unit effectively has two, or even three (in the case of Edelgard and Lysithea) unique support abilities. Occassionally you get a crest that even perfectly complements their playstyle, like Bernie's crest effect making combat arts EVEN MORE SPAMMABLE with The Inexhaustible.

 

I'd argue we should be weighing crests highly. Not as high as skills or unique abilities, but highly.

I actually think healing can be most important for some builds. Lifeforce for instance  can really improve Edelgards power (especially early game) and having a way to mitigate the self damage a bit so you don't take quiet so much self damage isn't nothing imo. And also sets Edelgard apart from some other lifeforce users who are more all in on it.

Edited July 28, 2022 by vikingsfan92

[Fabulously Olivier]

16 minutes ago, vikingsfan92 said:

I actually think healing can be most important for some builds. Lifeforce for instance  can really improve Edelgards power (especially early game) and having a way to mitigate the self damage a bit so you don't take quiet so much self damage isn't nothing imo. And also sets Edelgard apart from some other lifeforce users who are more all in on it.

Err, I was more referring to Crests that effect healing spells, like Lamine. Self-healing may be useful depending on what skills you have. But there are very few situations where you even need to bring support spells at all, let alone would significantly benefit from them being stronger or having more uses. That's the kind of crest I would probably rank a D, as in barely notable, except where they have good relics/sacred items.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[ZanaLyrander]

1 minute ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Err, I was more referring to Crests that effect healing spells, like Lamine. Self-healing may be useful depending on what skills you have. But there are very few situations where you even need to bring support spells at all, let alone would significantly benefit from them being stronger or having more uses. That's the kind of crest I would probably rank a D, as in barely notable.

Healing spells are fairly situational, it's true. But in most main missions I find that having a single unit with a healing spell, preferably one of the ones you're not controlling, can be very useful. Like, with elixirs, you don't usually need them for your own units, but there are so many "don't let X be routed" objectives that being able to heal NPCs is extremely handy. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Healing spells can definitely be useful for NPCs and I typically like to have one on someone for that reason. But I don't think it's a niche you really need to invest in; just one or two timely heals of an NPC should be all you need; Crests (as well as the Faith Prowess skill) are overkill in my experience.

I think Crests matter more in Houses but I've generally not found them too decisive yet. Sounds like they're more significant in NG+.

[Fabulously Olivier]

It is unfortunate that base defense isn't really a niche that exists in this game, outside of the rare exception. It was a pretty big part of FEW1, and is one of the few select areas I feel that it was better. Characters like Linhardt and Mercedes (and anyone with a Defend tactical skill) would definitely feel better if enemies more aggressively went after your main fort.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[ZanaLyrander]

1 minute ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

It is unfortunate that base defense isn't really a niche that exists in this game, outside of the rare exception. It was a pretty big part of FEW1, and is one of the few select areas I feel that it was better. Characters like Linhardt and Mercedes (and anyone with a Defend tactical skill) would definitely feel better if enemies more aggressively went after your main fort.

That's a solid point, there aren't that many missions where you have to defend a base. There are some, and I've lost missions where I wasn't paying attention and a point I was supposed to protect fell, but it doesn't happen often enough for dedicated healers to be more than a very situational niche.