Path of Radiance Tier List

[Uscari]

Thoughts?

05/28/2023 - Edited to include both Original list and Updated list after reviewing deliberation in the thread.

Original List:

 

Updated List:

Changes:

(+) Stefan promoted to C tier.

(-) Volke demoted to B tier.

(-) Rolf demoted to F tier.

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Uscari
Include Updated List

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Dunno if these are ordered within tiers but Ike seems like he's in the wrong tier. I feel like the only map in the game in which he's uniquely good before Ragnell is Chapter 8. Because there's a ton of horses to the south and he can sit there knocking them out with the regal sword. You can feel free to deplete it there too since cavaliers become pretty rare enemies from then on.

Soren and Tormod are also real questionable. Soren's combat is just not up to par with physical units and he's going to cause you a bunch of resets on every difficulty trying to keep him away from not only the front lines but javelins and archers. Tormod isn't noteworthy for anything either, and annoyingly joins after the laguz-filled desert chapter where he would be outperforming some of your units. All in all these two deserve to be wherever you put Illyana. They're fun projects for casual play - and vital backup healers for iron man play. But their combat never surpasses "please feed me a kill every turn" on Hard mode. They won't naturally hit double thresholds for many enemies and magic damage is just really weak with 1-3MT tomes. If they do start one rounding it can cause new problems now that more enemies with 2 range are suiciding themselves on their low defense/hp.

[ping]

I've never put myself through Maniac mode, which you might have based this on given your other topic, so I can only say what I know about Hard and make educated guesses about how things change in Maniac with its (as far as i know) huge swarms of vary HP-tanky enemies.

• Marcia is widely regarded as the best character in the game, because of her wings, comparable combat to non-flyers, and earlier joining time than Jill. How much does she notice the difficulty increase, compared to other S and A tier units?
• Volke is not A tier, I'm pretty confident in saying that. His combat abilities are very underwhelming, between low might on knives and his low defensive stats. Although maybe his stealing ability is more important on Maniac? I do believe gold is more sparse. However, if this were the case, then Sothe probably deserves to be a bit higher than E tier, since he can open chests just fine.
• I'd expect Titania to be better on Maniac than on Hard, and I'd already put her in S tier on Hard. Her lower Str and Def might be more impactful in Maniac lategame than in Hard, but she's probably invaluable in the earlygame.
• What makes Makalov better than Astrid? Paragon is really good, honestly, and after promotion, they both run around with axes, so Astrid's bad initial weapon type (not that swords are amazing) doesn't matter as much.
• To be honest, I wouldn't expect Brom and Gatrie to be as good as B tier. Their low movement and Spd (yes, Knight Ward exists, but it takes a while to kick in) hold them back a lot.

Again, I don't want to talk with authority here. Those are just characters that stand out as not sitting where I would expect them to be.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, ping said:

Marcia is widely regarded as the best character in the game, because of her wings, comparable combat to non-flyers, and earlier joining time than Jill. How much does she notice the difficulty increase, compared to other S and A tier units?

I'd probably give Jill the edge over Marcia personally even though it's close on hard mode. Marcia has one or two good chapters before Jill joins, but past that Jill's access to axes along with the extra bulk means she's the better unit the rest of the way through, and we're using bonus experience to level them anyway. On Maniac Jill's strength is more noticeable and is even better if we're also using the crit forge bug.

 

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

But their combat never surpasses "please feed me a kill every turn" on Hard mode.

He probably based this off of Maniac mode where they are more useful given how bulky some enemies can be. They're also useful for cheesing the chapter with the priests and the odd siege tome use outside of that map occasionally on hard mode.

I'll write out some thoughts on the tier list itself when I have more time later on.

Edited May 12, 2023 by samthedigital

[ping]

25 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

I'd probably give Jill the edge over Marcia personally even though it's close on hard mode. Marcia has one or two good chapters before Jill joins, but past that Jill's access to axes along with the extra bulk means she's the better unit the rest of the way through, and we're using bonus experience to level them anyway. On Maniac Jill's strength is more noticeable and is even better if we're also using the crit forge bug.

I can see it. On Hard, Marcia doesn't ever slow down after an initial BEXP dump, so there's not "efficient" reason not to give her preferential treatment, but it would make sense to maybe make the chapters between Marcia's and her joining times a bit more difficult on yourself in favour of the long-term benefit of having Jill as the main carry on Maniac.

I'd still expect Marcia to be above most of the other characters that are in A and S tier in the OP. Probably not Titania because of the earlygame, Dancer vs. combat carry is always a bit of a tricky question, and maybe there is a point to be made in favour of Kieran's higher Str (and Axe rank, as well), but I don't know if anybody else has too much of a claim there.

[Shadow Mir]

Off the top of my head...

Soren, Tormod, Ike, Volke, and Makalov are all too high. I wouldn't consider Rolf anything other than F tier, also. He has nothing going for him.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Dunno if these are ordered within tiers but Ike seems like he's in the wrong tier. I feel like the only map in the game in which he's uniquely good before Ragnell is Chapter 8. Because there's a ton of horses to the south and he can sit there knocking them out with the regal sword. You can feel free to deplete it there too since cavaliers become pretty rare enemies from then on.

Soren and Tormod are also real questionable. Soren's combat is just not up to par with physical units and he's going to cause you a bunch of resets on every difficulty trying to keep him away from not only the front lines but javelins and archers. Tormod isn't noteworthy for anything either, and annoyingly joins after the laguz-filled desert chapter where he would be outperforming some of your units. All in all these two deserve to be wherever you put Illyana. They're fun projects for casual play - and vital backup healers for iron man play. But their combat never surpasses "please feed me a kill every turn" on Hard mode. They won't naturally hit double thresholds for many enemies and magic damage is just really weak with 1-3MT tomes. If they do start one rounding it can cause new problems now that more enemies with 2 range are suiciding themselves on their low defense/hp.

I put Ike very high because he doubles everything pretty much the entire game, he has better growths in almost every area than the other sword masters, he has fantastic supports, and as demonstrated becomes at absolute monster at the end of the game. The only reason he isn't S-tier is because he is locked to 1 range for most of the game.

I disagree about Soren and Tormod doubling enemies. Maybe it's because I tend to use a minimal team size, but I find both consistently doubling any enemy that isn't a myrmidon/swordmaster throughout the game. I think both of them are well above Illyana since they both on average end up having about 4 more speed than her, enough to consistently double in situations where she doesn't. I also find their healing/staff use to be quite helpful for keeping my frontline units where they need to be without putting themselves in danger.

Although magic tomes generally have low might, most enemies in this game have fairly low resistance, so Soren with his high magic growths and Tormod with his ability to use Elthunder without being weighed down are often able to 1-round or seriously damage armored enemies like Paladins, Wyverns, and Generals.

True they aren't enemy phase units due to lack of durability, but they are a huge asset on player phase and often deal with the units you don't want to mess with on enemy phase. Also once they promote, healing on player phase I find outpaces the experience you get with battle exp on enemy phase, and my sages consistently out level my other units.

 

2 hours ago, ping said:

I've never put myself through Maniac mode, which you might have based this on given your other topic, so I can only say what I know about Hard and make educated guesses about how things change in Maniac with its (as far as i know) huge swarms of vary HP-tanky enemies.

• Marcia is widely regarded as the best character in the game, because of her wings, comparable combat to non-flyers, and earlier joining time than Jill. How much does she notice the difficulty increase, compared to other S and A tier units?
• Volke is not A tier, I'm pretty confident in saying that. His combat abilities are very underwhelming, between low might on knives and his low defensive stats. Although maybe his stealing ability is more important on Maniac? I do believe gold is more sparse. However, if this were the case, then Sothe probably deserves to be a bit higher than E tier, since he can open chests just fine.
• I'd expect Titania to be better on Maniac than on Hard, and I'd already put her in S tier on Hard. Her lower Str and Def might be more impactful in Maniac lategame than in Hard, but she's probably invaluable in the earlygame.
• What makes Makalov better than Astrid? Paragon is really good, honestly, and after promotion, they both run around with axes, so Astrid's bad initial weapon type (not that swords are amazing) doesn't matter as much.
• To be honest, I wouldn't expect Brom and Gatrie to be as good as B tier. Their low movement and Spd (yes, Knight Ward exists, but it takes a while to kick in) hold them back a lot.

Again, I don't want to talk with authority here. Those are just characters that stand out as not sitting where I would expect them to be.

I will say that most of my insights come from Maniac Mode, but for the most part I think what is good in Maniac Mode translates to Hard Mode in terms of overall effectiveness.

I like Marcia because of her convenient join time, excellent speed growths, and abnormally high resistance for a non-magic unit. She has genuine utility and is a force to be reckoned with in the mid-game. However, the big reason I don't place her higher is her painfully low 23 strength cap and being locked to lances/swords. As someone else mentioned, Jill does quite a bit better in the endgame due to the higher strength cap and access to axes, while only coming in 3 chapters later.

Volke I must admit probably got his ranking due to Maniac Mode. In Maniac Mode there are a lot more physic staves and siege tomes for you to steal, making Volke's stealing ability much more important. There is even a special Laguz Stone which I believe is exclusive to Maniac Mode that you can steal a ton of on Chapter 15, which allows laguz (Reyson) to transform immediately upon consumption. I still think he's a good unit though for his excellent bases and the fact he's the only decent thief in this game (Sothe is trash). I might concede that he should be knocked down to B-tier for an overall tier list.

Titania is a great unit and I rank her very high on the tier list. She is very useful in Maniac Mode because she saves you on critical resources like vulneraries, weapon uses, and heal staves. She also seems to do the perfect amount of damage to take out the enemies you need to take out but also leave others injured so your weaker units can finish them off. The only reason I don't rank her higher is that her awful bases catch up to her in the mid-late game, and she falls off. She is still serviceable in the late game but will be far outmatched by Oscar, Kieran, and Makalov.

Makalov on average has 6 more defense and 3 more strength than Astrid when capped. He is statistically one of the strongest units in the game. This makes him far more effective as an enemy phase map clearer than she is. Paragon is great and I like that Astrid comes with bows so I rank her fairly high on the list, but her relative squishiness for a paladin is a limitation that bars her from the top tiers.

I consider Knights/Generals pretty seriously underrated in Path of Radiance because they have stellar combat stats, with high enough defense to eat crits and high enough strength to 1-round most enemies once the Knight Ward allows them to double. I consider their lower movement to be a pretty unimportant weakness when most of the game is waiting on enemy phase for enemies to suicide into you rather than targeting key enemies/strategic points. The only reason I don't rank them higher is because they don't have canto, can't use axes, and I can only realistically use the KW to cap one of their speed in any given playthrough.

27 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Off the top of my head...

Soren, Tormod, Ike, Volke, and Makalov are all too high. I wouldn't consider Rolf anything other than F tier, also.

I would concede that Volke is probably a tier higher than he should be for an overall list. I agree that Rolf is a pretty bad unit but he does have access to the triangle attack with two good units (Oscar and Boyd), and his Longbow utility isn't totally worthless. I would never run him in a serious playthrough but he is a serviceable Wyvern killer and can compliment some defensive formations. As for the others I think they are right where they should be based on arguments above.

[Shadow Mir]

23 minutes ago, Uscari said:

I would concede that Volke is probably a tier higher than he should be for an overall list. I agree that Rolf is a pretty bad unit but he does have access to the triangle attack with two good units (Oscar and Boyd), and his Longbow utility isn't totally worthless. I would never run him in a serious playthrough but he is a serviceable Wyvern killer and can compliment some defensive formations. As for the others I think they are right where they should be based on arguments above.

The triangle attack is not worth it, to be blunt. Giving Oscar bows over axes is already questionable, but Rolf requires too much input for not enough output, and archers are arguably at their lowest here. Longbows are ass, too (lol 5 might).

23 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Makalov on average has 6 more defense and 3 more strength than Astrid when capped. He is statistically one of the strongest units in the game. This makes him far more effective as an enemy phase map clearer than she is. Paragon is great and I like that Astrid comes with bows so I rank her fairly high on the list, but her relative squishiness for a paladin is a limitation that bars her from the top tiers.

I don't see why you're emphasizing units being capped when they spend so little of the game at max level. IF you even get to cap levels in the first place.

Also, Stefan is way too low. Realistically, there's no way in the seven hells Stefan is *3* tiers below Ike.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

43 minutes ago, ping said:

I can see it. On Hard, Marcia doesn't ever slow down after an initial BEXP dump, so there's not "efficient" reason not to give her preferential treatment, but it would make sense to maybe make the chapters between Marcia's and her joining times a bit more difficult on yourself in favour of the long-term benefit of having Jill as the main carry on Maniac.

I like to use both of them on hard mode since there is so much bexp to go around. I find myself using Jill for the more important tasks though though simply because she is that little bit better. The exp is cut in half on Maniac, so it would make more sense to just use one of them, but I'm not sure; I haven't played the difficulty in a long time. The one advantage to training Marcia early is finishing the boat map quickly, but I'm not sure how doable that is on Maniac mode.

 

3 minutes ago, Uscari said:

The only reason I don't rank her higher is that her awful bases catch up to her in the mid-late game, and she falls off.

The reason a lot of people rank her as one of the best 3 units in the game is because that early game is invaluable. You can replace other units, but she's the best unit in the game by a lot for a long time.

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The only reason I don't rank her higher is that her awful bases catch up to her in the mid-late game, and she falls off. She is still serviceable in the late game but will be far outmatched by Oscar, Kieran, and Makalov.

I'm not sure about Maniac, but on hard mode Paragon pushes her above Makalov. On hard mode we're dumping experience into them until they promote, and Astrid has the advantage until her level advantage from Paragon wears off. I'm not sure how much of that applies on Maniac though.

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I consider Knights/Generals pretty seriously underrated in Path of Radiance because they have stellar combat stats, with high enough defense to eat crits and high enough strength to 1-round most enemies once the Knight Ward allows them to double.

Most people don't play Manaic where the defenses matter even less; on Hard there is never a situation where a General is useful because they just don't have the movement to do anything. Even if there were only route maps Generals still couldn't get to as many enemies in the amount of time a Paladin or flyer could. It's a little different on Maniac, but I don't find there to be an incredible gap between the two either.

 

Here are some of my thoughts on some of the placements on the tier list:

I'm of the opinion that Titania/Marcia/Jill should be alone in S tier. The order doesn't really matter to me that much; someone could make an argument for any of the three depending on what criteria they value more and it's perfectly reasonable. They do have an edge over the other units though. Titania has the early game and the other two are in the best possible classes.

Ike should go down a bit. He's amazing for two chapters, but otherwise his primary utility is in his supports. He's probably going to be on the front lines a lot because he's needed for objectives sometimes, but the lack of 1-2 range does hurt him, and he has to be ferried by other units.

There shouldn't be a large gap between Sothe and Volke. Regardless of your opinion of thieves they shouldn't be fighting. The one situation where Volke is clearly better (outside of join time) in my opinion is in the desert chapter if you want to go pacifist. He can tank some stuff that Sothe can't, but they're otherwise fairly similar.

For reasons listed above I think that Astrid and Makalov should be closer and that the Knights should be lower. There should also be a clear separation between Gatrie and Brom. Gatrie has all of the movement problems, but he is around as one of the best units for a few chapters early on which does give him that little something over Brom.

Stefan should be higher, and Zihark should be lower. If we're playing on hard mode my opinion would be different because there are more resources to go around, but Stefan has decent combat for no investment which is more of a premium on Manaic, and Zihark requires a lot of it to be effective.

Rolf should be on the bottom tier. If not that then I would at least put him below Shinon. Shinon has a few chapters of utility because there aren't many strong units early, but archers are just bad in this game otherwise. It takes a lot of investment for Rolf to one round anything, and even then there are better targets that have 1-2 range. I would never consider the triangle attack because I'd much rather give Oscar axes and never use Rolf.

There are probably a few more things I could add, but those are the things that stuck out to me the most.

[Shadow Mir]

49 minutes ago, Uscari said:

I consider Knights/Generals pretty seriously underrated in Path of Radiance because they have stellar combat stats, with high enough defense to eat crits and high enough strength to 1-round most enemies once the Knight Ward allows them to double. I consider their lower movement to be a pretty unimportant weakness when most of the game is waiting on enemy phase for enemies to suicide into you rather than targeting key enemies/strategic points. The only reason I don't rank them higher is because they don't have canto, can't use axes, and I can only realistically use the KW to cap one of their speed in any given playthrough.

How much investment will it take for them to actually get to the point where they can double??? Because I'm gonna be honest, it's prolly unrealistic.

[Uscari]

13 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The triangle attack is not worth it, to be blunt. Giving Oscar bows over axes is already questionable, but Rolf requires too much input for not enough output, and archers are arguably at their lowest here. Longbows are ass, too (lol 5 might).

I don't see why you're emphasizing units being capped when they spend so little of the game at max level. IF you even get to cap levels in the first place.

Also, Stefan is way too low. Realistically, there's no way in the seven hells Stefan is *3* tiers below Ike.

You might be right about Rolf. Maybe he has no redeemable qualities. 5 might is pretty abysmal even if it is up to 3 range.

Even if you don't cap, Makalov will pretty much always be several points of defense higher than her and noticeably stronger.

Stefan to me is not a very good unit. He does have insane speed for his join time, but his low luck is a liability that gets him killed due to crits. You can fix this by giving a couple ashera icons to him, but for me that's 8k gold I could be using for forging/buying. Swordmasters in general are not very good in this game due to low attack, locked to 1 range, squishiness, and no canto.

 

12 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

I like to use both of them on hard mode since there is so much bexp to go around. I find myself using Jill for the more important tasks though though simply because she is that little bit better. The exp is cut in half on Maniac, so it would make more sense to just use one of them, but I'm not sure; I haven't played the difficulty in a long time. The one advantage to training Marcia early is finishing the boat map quickly, but I'm not sure how doable that is on Maniac mode.

I just don't see much use for 2 flyers and Jill is better to me than Marcia. When it comes to the 2nd boat map (chapter 13) I find that although it is definitely nice to have a promoted flyer, you really just need one to tank and distract the crows on the left side so they don't bother your units. You don't really need to kill those crows and you don't really need to fly to the treasure. If you bring Mordecai, Lethe, and Titania along with your other units you can route that map and still have plenty of time to get treasure.

13 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

The reason a lot of people rank her as one of the best 3 units in the game is because that early game is invaluable. You can replace other units, but she's the best unit in the game by a lot for a long time.

I'm not sure about Maniac, but on hard mode Paragon pushes her above Makalov. On hard mode we're dumping experience into them until they promote, and Astrid has the advantage until her level advantage from Paragon wears off. I'm not sure how much of that applies on Maniac though.

Most people don't play Manaic where the defenses matter even less; on Hard there is never a situation where a General is useful because they just don't have the movement to do anything. Even if there were only route maps Generals still couldn't get to as many enemies in the amount of time a Paladin or flyer could. It's a little different on Maniac, but I don't find there to be an incredible gap between the two either.

I do agree that her early game contribution is major but I can't justify having her in my main group past the halfway point when there are so many other units that surpass her stats. Also I would point out that you do have Shinon and Gatrie in the early game as well to help out, so Titania isn't completely required. It's obviously much better to use to Titania but even in Maniac Mode it is possible to win without using her to kill a single unit.

Astrid has Paragon but starts at level 1. Makalov starts at level 10 and has much better bases. The level advantage from Paragon wears off when the game gets the hardest. Makalov catches up to her 20/20 defense at 20/7 and her strength at 20/13.

And really I feel like in the hard mode all of your units are overleveled and there is enough experience to go around that your whole team will be strong as they need to be. That's why the endgame and stat caps are important.

When it comes to Maniac vs Hard mode, even if you can do something in Hard mode faster with other units, I don't consider that more effective. I have a higher chance of success using units with strong combat stats rather than units that can move faster. I base the list on what team is mostly likely to win with the highest rate of survival, not on how fast they do it.

13 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

Here are some of my thoughts on some of the placements on the tier list:

I'm of the opinion that Titania/Marcia/Jill should be alone in S tier. The order doesn't really matter to me that much; someone could make an argument for any of the three depending on what criteria they value more and it's perfectly reasonable. They do have an edge over the other units though. Titania has the early game and the other two are in the best possible classes.

Ike should go down a bit. He's amazing for two chapters, but otherwise his primary utility is in his supports. He's probably going to be on the front lines a lot because he's needed for objectives sometimes, but the lack of 1-2 range does hurt him, and he has to be ferried by other units.

There shouldn't be a large gap between Sothe and Volke. Regardless of your opinion of thieves they shouldn't be fighting. The one situation where Volke is clearly better (outside of join time) in my opinion is in the desert chapter if you want to go pacifist. He can tank some stuff that Sothe can't, but they're otherwise fairly similar.

For reasons listed above I think that Astrid and Makalov should be closer and that the Knights should be lower. There should also be a clear separation between Gatrie and Brom. Gatrie has all of the movement problems, but he is around as one of the best units for a few chapters early on which does give him that little something over Brom.

Stefan should be higher, and Zihark should be lower. If we're playing on hard mode my opinion would be different because there are more resources to go around, but Stefan has decent combat for no investment which is more of a premium on Manaic, and Zihark requires a lot of it to be effective.

Rolf should be on the bottom tier. If not that then I would at least put him below Shinon. Shinon has a few chapters of utility because there aren't many strong units early, but archers are just bad in this game otherwise. It takes a lot of investment for Rolf to one round anything, and even then there are better targets that have 1-2 range. I would never consider the triangle attack because I'd much rather give Oscar axes and never use Rolf.

There are probably a few more things I could add, but those are the things that stuck out to me the most.

I can't justify putting Titania in S tier when she falters in the endgame the way she does. I really can't justify Marcia because she has pretty much the same problem as Titania except significantly less early game contribution.

Ike is good pretty much the whole time, and his support utility is amazing when his support partners are Oscar and Soren, with Oscar being one of the best units in the game. I never find myself having to ferry him, I think the difference between 6-7 and 8-9 movement is not that significant in most maps.

Volke is able to steal a lot more for much less investment than Sothe. His stealing ability might be less useful outside of Maniac Mode but I consider him pretty much required whereas Sothe is almost unusable for anything other than opening chests. Leveling sothe is a nightmare due to his low strength base, locked to knives, and bad join time. Most of the time he can't even chip the weakest enemies you through in front of him and you have to invest bonus exp to even give him a chance to level. No reason to do that when you have Volke.

Zihark to me is a better version of Stefan. He comes 4 chapters earlier and actually has enough luck to not be constantly in fear of getting crit. Yes Stefan has good bases but once they even out Zihark is simply the better choice. Admittedly since sword masters are bad in general, you could make the argument that Stefan contributes more due to being overleveled, but I don't think that outweighs Zihark's earlier join time and better endgame stats.

I think you and ShadowMir have convinced me that Rolf should go lower on the list. I stand corrected.

[Uscari]

16 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

How much investment will it take for them to actually get to the point where they can double??? Because I'm gonna be honest, it's prolly unrealistic.

With the KW I found them doubling pretty much after they promote against anything that isn't a Paladin/Swordmaster, which normally is chapter 15-16 when I'm running with a team of 8-9 units. Brom in particular is more likely to start doubling early.

[Shadow Mir]

45 minutes ago, Uscari said:

With the KW I found them doubling pretty much after they promote against anything that isn't a Paladin/Swordmaster, which normally is chapter 15-16 when I'm running with a team of 8-9 units. Brom in particular is more likely to start doubling early.

So you're trying to say they're good because of personal experience. Realistically, I wouldn't see Gatrie or Brom doubling much of anything that isn't other armors, largely because they have poor speed growths. They Knight Ward takes their speed growth from "awful" to "barely better odds than a coinflip". So not only I have to superglue the KW to them, I have to get lucky constantly for them to double. And I emphasize once again, it's unrealistic as fuck for Gatrie or Brom to be doubling in chapter 15 because the slowest enemy unit there has 12 speed. No way in hell either of them gets to 16 speed in that short a time. And that's ignoring the fact that bringing an armored knight to a desert map is questionable.

50 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Stefan to me is not a very good unit. He does have insane speed for his join time, but his low luck is a liability that gets him killed due to crits. You can fix this by giving a couple ashera icons to him, but for me that's 8k gold I could be using for forging/buying. Swordmasters in general are not very good in this game due to low attack, locked to 1 range, squishiness, and no canto.

Much as I consider low luck bad, I can't help but think you're blowing it out of proportion. Also, you have Ike in A tier despite the fact that most of those flaws apply to him too.

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

6 minutes ago, Uscari said:

I just don't see much use for 2 flyers and Jill is better to me than Marcia. When it comes to the 2nd boat map (chapter 13) I find that although it is definitely nice to have a promoted flyer, you really just need one to tank and distract the crows on the left side so they don't bother your units. You don't really need to kill those crows and you don't really need to fly to the treasure. If you bring Mordecai, Lethe, and Titania along with your other units you can route that map and still have plenty of time to get treasure.

The reason people would consider Marica to be better is because of the first boat map. She can clear everything and everyone else is stuck on the boat. It requires investment to do, so we already have a flier we've invested in before Jill joins. I don't fully buy the argument, but it is a reason to have trained Marcia. On Maniac mode it might be more difficult to have two fliers, but there's no reason that we can't have two (or even three) otherwise; it's a good class, and we also want to use multiple Paladins for the same reason.

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I do agree that her early game contribution is major but I can't justify having her in my main group past the halfway point when there are so many other units that surpass her stats. Also I would point out that you do have Shinon and Gatrie in the early game as well to help out, so Titania isn't completely required. It's obviously much better to use to Titania but even in Maniac Mode it is possible to win without using her to kill a single unit.

It's not that she's required but that she's significantly better than every other unit, and there isn't any incentive not to give her a lot of kills since we have bonus experience to patch up other units later. She's still useful past the halfway point too even if she's not the best unit anymore. I would also not rank units based on their endgame potential alone.

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Astrid has Paragon but starts at level 1. Makalov starts at level 10 and has much better bases. The level advantage from Paragon wears off when the game gets the hardest. Makalov catches up to her 20/20 defense at 20/7 and her strength at 20/13.

I added the caveat about Maniac mode because on hard we're dumping bexp into them and it takes a similar amount for both to promote. The game doesn't really get more difficult on that mode, and I also don't factor in a handful of chapters just because of difficulty; it's more subjective than just seeing how much longer one unit is better than the other for.

Quote

When it comes to Maniac vs Hard mode, even if you can do something in Hard mode faster with other units, I don't consider that more effective. I have a higher chance of success using units with strong combat stats rather than units that can move faster. I base the list on what team is mostly likely to win with the highest rate of survival, not on how fast they do it.

You can do something that's both faster and just as consistent on hard mode without making use of slow units, so it is more effective.

Quote

I never find myself having to ferry him, I think the difference between 6-7 and 8-9 movement is not that significant in most maps.

If this is the case then you're playing the game more slowly than I would. My primary strategy in PoR is to move my mounted units as far as possible to finish chapters as quickly as possible, and on Hard mode the enemy quality isn't good enough to discourage this.

Quote

Zihark to me is a better version of Stefan. He comes 4 chapters earlier and actually has enough luck to not be constantly in fear of getting crit. Yes Stefan has good bases but once they even out Zihark is simply the better choice. Admittedly since sword masters are bad in general, you could make the argument that Stefan contributes more due to being overleveled, but I don't think that outweighs Zihark's earlier join time and better endgame stats.

Zihark requires investment to be better than Stefan. We're spoiled on Hard mode, so if you prefer Zihark on that difficulty I don't really consider it much of a weakness. On Maniac bexp is far more valuable, so Stefan's bases become better as a result. He can be used either as a short or long term unit, but Zihark is only really useful if you invest in him for the long term, and as you said Swordmasters aren't particularly good anyway. Even if you look at their caps it's really close besides the luck too.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

43 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Stefan to me is not a very good unit. He does have insane speed for his join time, but his low luck is a liability that gets him killed due to crits. You can fix this by giving a couple ashera icons to him, but for me that's 8k gold I could be using for forging/buying. Swordmasters in general are not very good in this game due to low attack, locked to 1 range, squishiness, and no canto.

First, caveat that I've not played Maniac Mode. That said:

Let's compare Stefan's stats at joining...

Spoiler

HP: 38

Str: 19

Mag: 8

Skl: 27

Spd: 25

Lck: 5

Def: 12

Res: 9

To a level 20 Ike (with rounded-up stats)...

Spoiler

HP: 34

Str: 15

Mag: 5

Skl: 16

Spd: 18

Lck: 13

Def: 13

Res: 8

So, they're roughly equivalent in bulk. Ike's higher Luck helps him avoid crits, but Stefan has clear advantages in Strength, Skill, and Speed. Ike could be higher in Avoid, thanks to his Earth affinity (and time to build supports), but Stefan is almost certainly hitting harder, and more accurately. Plus, the Vague Katti he brings is practically a Prf weapon, until you get anyone else to S-rank Swords.

Point is, the problems you mentioned as endemic to the Myrm line in this game are at least as true of Ike as they are of Stefan. I can understand an "Ike > Stefan because he exists for the earlygame and has a better lategame with Ragnell" argument, sure. But D-rank seems criminally low for a unit who essentially has higher killing power than anyone else in your army at the time he joins.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

The reason a lot of people rank her as one of the best 3 units in the game is because that early game is invaluable. You can replace other units, but she's the best unit in the game by a lot for a long time.

Building off of this, I think most players would agree that it's totally possible to beat the game without using Reyson even once. But is it possible to beat the game, particularly on Maniac Mode, without using Titania? I'd be very skeptical of it, without either a lot of turns lost, or a lot of great RNG rolls.

[Uscari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

So you're trying to say they're good because of personal experience. Realistically, I wouldn't see Gatrie or Brom doubling much of anything that isn't other armors, largely because they have poor speed growths. They Knight Ward takes their speed growth from "awful" to "barely better odds than a coinflip". So not only I have to superglue the KW to them, I have to get lucky constantly for them to double. And I emphasize once again, it's unrealistic as fuck for Gatrie or Brom to be doubling in chapter 15 because the slowest enemy unit there has 12 speed. No way in hell either of them gets to 16 speed in that short a time. And that's ignoring the fact that bringing an armored knight to a desert map is questionable.

Much as I consider low luck bad, I can't help but think you're blowing it out of proportion. Also, you have Ike in A tier despite the fact that most of those flaws apply to him too.

 

I mean it's averages. If Brom gets to 12 speed after promotion normally, and KW gives 30% higher speed growth, he will on average have 15.6 speed by 20/1 if he had KW the whole time. So they can realistically double. That's not really personal experience, that's statistics.

The attack speed figures on these forums assume the laguz are transformed, and transformed laguz at this stage of the game will be faster than most enemies due to the transformation bonuses being high at base but falling off as the game progresses (which is why late-game beast laguz are unimpressive).

Ike does have all the weaknesses of sword masters, but he has several great benefits. He has more bulk/attack power than they do, he has much better supports than they do, he is available from the start, he gets a 40 use weapon that deals with his biggest counters, and he eventually does get a 1-2 range weapon with busted might and a broken defense bonus. 

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

The reason people would consider Marica to be better is because of the first boat map. She can clear everything and everyone else is stuck on the boat. It requires investment to do, so we already have a flier we've invested in before Jill joins. I don't fully buy the argument, but it is a reason to have trained Marcia. On Maniac mode it might be more difficult to have two fliers, but there's no reason that we can't have two (or even three) otherwise; it's a good class, and we also want to use multiple Paladins for the same reason.

It's not that she's required but that she's significantly better than every other unit, and there isn't any incentive not to give her a lot of kills since we have bonus experience to patch up other units later. She's still useful past the halfway point too even if she's not the best unit anymore. I would also not rank units based on their endgame potential alone.

I added the caveat about Maniac mode because on hard we're dumping bexp into them and it takes a similar amount for both to promote. The game doesn't really get more difficult on that mode, and I also don't factor in a handful of chapters just because of difficulty; it's more subjective than just seeing how much longer one unit is better than the other for.

You can do something that's both faster and just as consistent on hard mode without making use of slow units, so it is more effective.

If this is the case then you're playing the game more slowly than I would. My primary strategy in PoR is to move my mounted units as far as possible to finish chapters as quickly as possible, and on Hard mode the enemy quality isn't good enough to discourage this.

Zihark requires investment to be better than Stefan. We're spoiled on Hard mode, so if you prefer Zihark on that difficulty I don't really consider it much of a weakness. On Maniac bexp is far more valuable, so Stefan's bases become better as a result. He can be used either as a short or long term unit, but Zihark is only really useful if you invest in him for the long term, and as you said Swordmasters aren't particularly good anyway. Even if you look at their caps it's really close besides the luck too.

I like to use the first boat map to train my unpromoted units. The crow laguz give phat xp and since they are locked to 1-range with no canto, you can cheese them by chilling in the corner on the sides of the ships. For some reason the change of elevation means that they can't attack you from the side of the ship, so you can put a couple healers on those corners and farm xp. So I don't really need Marcia to clear anything quickly. I don't want to kill quickly, I want to spend 60 turns grinding for xp on those crows.

I'd keep Titania at A rank for the reasons you stated. I don't base entirely on endgame potential, that's why she isn't in C tier or D tier. Keep in mind she is only behind 4 units on this list. She's a great unit, she just doesn't quite make S rank to me. S rank is reserved for units that are almost required to be on your main team as long as possible if you want to be optimal.

We do seem to have a philosophical disagreement about the point of tier lists. I don't make lists based on who gives me a guaranteed result faster, I do it based on who is more likely to get me that desired result. Who can stand up to tougher challenges and come out on top. A "stronger" unit to me is a more capable unit, not a unit that does something easy faster.

You guys are making fairly compelling arguments about Stefan. Maybe I am being a little harsh on him. However, I should mention Zihark comes with Adept and actually has decent supports. He is like a mini-Ike with his earth affinity. Stefan meanwhile has pretty worthless supports and Astra wastes weapon used. I guess to me, Zihark is the only swordmaster I would consider using in my main team, whereas all the others are too flawed to have a chance, so that's why I rank him above Stefan. Having said that, it probably is true that Stefan is more useful in most runs of this game due to his excellent starting level for his join time. Maybe I can bump Stefan up to C tier.

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

First, caveat that I've not played Maniac Mode. That said:

Let's compare Stefan's stats at joining...

  Reveal hidden contents

HP: 38

Str: 19

Mag: 8

Skl: 27

Spd: 25

Lck: 5

Def: 12

Res: 9

To a level 20 Ike (with rounded-up stats)...

  Reveal hidden contents

HP: 34

Str: 15

Mag: 5

Skl: 16

Spd: 18

Lck: 13

Def: 13

Res: 8

So, they're roughly equivalent in bulk. Ike's higher Luck helps him avoid crits, but Stefan has clear advantages in Strength, Skill, and Speed. Ike could be higher in Avoid, thanks to his Earth affinity (and time to build supports), but Stefan is almost certainly hitting harder, and more accurately. Plus, the Vague Katti he brings is practically a Prf weapon, until you get anyone else to S-rank Swords.

Point is, the problems you mentioned as endemic to the Myrm line in this game are at least as true of Ike as they are of Stefan. I can understand an "Ike > Stefan because he exists for the earlygame and has a better lategame with Ragnell" argument, sure. But D-rank seems criminally low for a unit who essentially has higher killing power than anyone else in your army at the time he joins.

Building off of this, I think most players would agree that it's totally possible to beat the game without using Reyson even once. But is it possible to beat the game, particularly on Maniac Mode, without using Titania? I'd be very skeptical of it, without either a lot of turns lost, or a lot of great RNG rolls.

I would not use Vague Katti on Stefan. Astra wastes weapon uses on that thing. Far better in my opinion to train your general to S rank in swords so they can stack the +3 defense and become unkillable. They also make better use of the crits with their significantly higher strength caps.

Having said that, even with a steel sword Stefan's attack speed and astra skill can be asset in the mid-game. I think you guys have convinced me to place him next to Zihark in C tier.

You can beat the game without using Reyson, but Reyson makes it so much easier and makes your team far more effective, he's just a no-brainer to use. Titania is critical in the early game but does not contribute a lot once her bad bases catch up to her. I will say that Maniac Mode without giving Titania any kills would be very difficult in the early levels, but it is possible. Oscar has really good bases and can kind of replace Titania if you feed kills to him exclusively early on.

Of course, I don't mind losing turns. Admittedly I am used to Maniac Mode where I don't really focus much on bonus experience and instead hunker down in a corner, take 60-70 turns, and rout every map to farm all the battle xp. So some might feel like this tier list is based on a playstyle they feel is not appropriate, but I focus on beating the game without losing units, so that's how I make the list.

[samthedigital]

36 minutes ago, Uscari said:

We do seem to have a philosophical disagreement about the point of tier lists. I don't make lists based on who gives me a guaranteed result faster, I do it based on who is more likely to get me that desired result. Who can stand up to tougher challenges and come out on top. A "stronger" unit to me is a more capable unit, not a unit that does something easy faster.

I rank units based off of what unit provides more utility when playing the game efficiently. I don't need to spend 60 turns to clear a map reliably, and there is no need to grind that much to beat the game consistently. If you're just grinding to get the same results what makes the units better? Why does it matter that one unit is killing an enemy a little quicker? You lose that sort of thing if you don't take turns into consideration. Hard mode really is as simple as mounted units move forwards as much as possible and win the game from there; there's not a lot to PoR if I'm being honest.

Quote

She's a great unit, she just doesn't quite make S rank to me. S rank is reserved for units that are almost required to be on your main team as long as possible if you want to be optimal.

What do you mean by optimal exactly? By my definition of the term we're using Titania almost exclusively until we get bonus experience and we can start snowballing more units. That's by far the fastest and most consistent way to play through the early game. Titania is the best unit on the team until we start snowballing Marcia or Jill if we do this, and even if she falls off later no unit has provided what she has early on or more than the other two have later on in the game; they're filler units in a way compared to the carries.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

Of course, I don't mind losing turns. Admittedly I am used to Maniac Mode where I don't really focus much on bonus experience and instead hunker down in a corner, take 60-70 turns, and rout every map to farm all the battle xp. So some might feel like this tier list is based on a playstyle they feel is not appropriate, but I focus on beating the game without losing units, so that's how I make the list.

I am not going to say that you're wrong for using such a standard. However, I think most people here, who are taking issue with the list, are interpreting it on an "efficiency" metric. So, a strategy that takes 60 turns to clear a map is generally viewed as worse than one that only takes 10 turns. While consistency is a valuable consideration, strategies that are consistent and fast (so not LTCs that rely on specific RNG) tend to be viewed as the ideal for most of us filthy elitists.

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

You can beat the game without using Reyson, but Reyson makes it so much easier and makes your team far more effective, he's just a no-brainer to use. Titania is critical in the early game but does not contribute a lot once her bad bases catch up to her. I will say that Maniac Mode without giving Titania any kills would be very difficult in the early levels, but it is possible. Oscar has really good bases and can kind of replace Titania if you feed kills to him exclusively early on.

I am curious - when do Titania's "bad bases" catch up to her, exactly? Like, let's look at a level 6 Titania, with stats rounded down:

Spoiler

HP: 37

Str: 14

Mag: 5

Skl: 16

Spd: 16

Lck: 13

Def: 13

Res: 9

That's... essentially on par with a level 20 Ike, as shown above. But Titania has the horse, and the better weapon type. She was definitely a more significant contributor than Ike in the earlygame, and is at least better than him until he promotes.

But if we want more direct comparisons, how about 20/1 Oscar (rounded down):

Spoiler

HP: 38

Str: 15

Mag: 6

Skl: 16

Spd: 16

Lck: 10

Def: 15

Res: 8

...Or a 20/1 Kieran:

Spoiler

HP: 37

Str: 17

Mag: 4

Skl: 16

Spd: 17

Lck: 10

Def: 15

Res: 6

So the boys meet or beat her in most stats... but only barely. And Titania retains a lead in Luck and Res (both of which persist to Endgame) , along with high ranks in both Lances and Axes. So even by the time Oscar and/or Kieran are promoting, Titania is at least contributing on-par with them. Considered atop her undeniably bigger contribution in the earlygame, I'd say this positions her as deserving at least the same tier as those two. Sure, Kieran and Oscar will eclipse her in the lategame, but they take time and investment to get there. And even then, Titania will be at least your solidly "third best cavalry unit" in a game where cavalry is great, meaning even a little-invested Titania may still well be worth deploying. I'd argue that, viewed over the course of a playthrough, she's doing more for you than either Oscar or Kieran (although all three are clear A/S tier units).

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

I would not use Vague Katti on Stefan. Astra wastes weapon uses on that thing. Far better in my opinion to train your general to S rank in swords so they can stack the +3 defense and become unkillable. They also make better use of the crits with their significantly higher strength caps.

Having said that, even with a steel sword Stefan's attack speed and astra skill can be asset in the mid-game. I think you guys have convinced me to place him next to Zihark in C tier.

Interesting approach. Seems kinda grindy, when neither Gatrie nor Brom starts with Swords, and Tauroneo joins late. As for "better use of the crits", I don't imagine many units surviving a crit from Stefan - doing 60 damage is just as good as doing 75 damage, when it comes to killing a target with 55 HP. Even if you don't have him use it, merely having the option to is something exclusive to Stefan (or an early-promo Mia or Zihark) at his jointime.

I do believe that's a prudent tiering change. Stefan's in a bad class, with not-great availability, limited support options, and an Achilles' heel in Luck... but dammit, his other stats are just so excellent for his jointime, giving him great killing power. He's flawed, but he's far from basement-tier, and is probably the best swordlocked infantry for most of the time that he exists.

...I still think Ike should fall by at least a tier, but I'm not gonna litigate that one any further.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Most of my thoughts have been expressed by others, including the fact that I haven't played Maniac.

• I really think Titania should be in the highest tier. Actually I feel relatively strongly she should just be #1, but I can see arguments for others I suppose. But Titania is just your best unit by far for a third of the game, and never becomes bad. As mentioned it's unthinkable that any sort of efficient playthrough doesn't make use of her.
• Re Soren and Tormod, I think they're definitely too high for Hard Mode, but I've heard they're more useful on Maniac relatively. Can't attest for sure. Them being two tiers above Rhys/Mist seems weird to me though, given that staff use is the only reason to put them above Calill. I do agree with you that they're quite a bit better than Ilyana, who has all of their faults and then adds "has serious issues doubling mid-speed enemies" to the list.
• The Generals definitely seem way too high, you call their combat stats "stellar" and I can't see it. Like, compare base Brom to base Kieran, who conveniently joins at the same time... Kieran has +1 str, +5 speed, +3 move, canter, some minor wins in other stats (notably, 4 luck, pretty sure Brom faces dangerous crit rates from mages) all in exchange for just -3 defence. With better supports. Yes, Brom is 4 levels lower, but this barely matters: it takes 17 kills for the gap to close by even one level thanks to PoR's barely-curved exp formula. And yes, I know Kieran is a great unit, but still, you can't lose a comparison like that and claim to have stellar stats.
• Stefan has great base stats and is obviously better than Zihark.
• Later-joining laguz jump out as too high, Muarim and Ranulf in particular. They either have weak offence, no 1-2 range, and can only be used half the time... or they have terrible offence, no 1-2 range, and can be used all the time. Lethe and Mordecai are fine because they're around early. I might be underestimating Muarim a little (my kneejerk is the last time I'd use him is Chapter 17, but that's at least two decent maps of use before Tanith/Reyson come along) but Ranulf I think is just bad.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

I mean it's averages. If Brom gets to 12 speed after promotion normally, and KW gives 30% higher speed growth, he will on average have 15.6 speed by 20/1 if he had KW the whole time. So they can realistically double. That's not really personal experience, that's statistics.

They can realistically double what? Armors? Because that's about the only thing I can see them doubling without absurd levels of favoritism, which Brom having the KW the whole time is, ESPECIALLY since you don't get it until chapter 13, and he joins in chapter 11. Are you implying he goes from base level to promotion in two chapters, one of which is timed? Because that's as insane as insane gets. It's already bad enough that Brom loses hard to Kieran base stats wise, you're just digging him - and yourself - a deeper hole.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

high enough defense to eat crits

Unless it's a mage doing the critting, in which case, they're gonna go down, HARD.

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

I would not use Vague Katti on Stefan. Astra wastes weapon uses on that thing. Far better in my opinion to train your general to S rank in swords so they can stack the +3 defense and become unkillable. They also make better use of the crits with their significantly higher strength caps.

Unless, again, a mage comes knocking, in which case their HP will disappear in a hurry. Also, you'd have to dig Gatrie and Brom out of E swords for that. Just how realistic is it for them to get to S swords??? 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[lenticular]

I'm not going to quibble with most of the list, since it's made with Maniac mode in mind and -- like many -- my copy of the game doesn't have that. I do want to ask a question though. Why do you have Bastian and Lucia so low? By which I mean, what about them makes them so unusably terrible that you think they deserve a tier of their own below other bad units? For Hard mode, I'd put them roughly on a level with the units you have in E tier. I think of them as late-joining low-investment units who are mediocre but just about competent and can potentially replace another unit who gets stat screwed or lost in an ironman. Does Maniac have something that makes them uniquely worse than the likes of Rolf or Ulki?

[ping]

8 hours ago, Uscari said:

Titania is a great unit and I rank her very high on the tier list. She is very useful in Maniac Mode because she saves you on critical resources like vulneraries, weapon uses, and heal staves. She also seems to do the perfect amount of damage to take out the enemies you need to take out but also leave others injured so your weaker units can finish them off. The only reason I don't rank her higher is that her awful bases catch up to her in the mid-late game, and she falls off. She is still serviceable in the late game but will be far outmatched by Oscar, Kieran, and Makalov.

Counterpoint: You have Reyson as you #1 character and he's literally worthless for the first 17 out of 29 maps. I think Titania's track record of being your best character by a lot for the first 9 maps (if not more, depending on how you use your BEXP), and still one of your best for another third of the game cannot be understated, especially because she's still perfectly fine as a filler for the rest of the game, too. Her "usefulness graph" is inverted compared to Oscar, sure, but I think she does a lot more things than the other potential Paladins, in particular a lot of things that nobody else can do. Yes, Titania isn't technically required to beat the earlygame, at least not on hard, but boy does she make the experience a lot less aggravating. Meanwhile, if Oscar dies in chapter 8, you still have Kieran (who I actually think is the better unit on Hard), Astrid, and Makalov to fill that hole.

[Vicious Sal]

I'll grab the Tier Lost made by Typhoon carter as well for reference, as he's done a shitload of work on PoR, LTC and otherwise. 
 

 

[Uscari]

6 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I rank units based off of what unit provides more utility when playing the game efficiently. I don't need to spend 60 turns to clear a map reliably, and there is no need to grind that much to beat the game consistently. If you're just grinding to get the same results what makes the units better? Why does it matter that one unit is killing an enemy a little quicker? You lose that sort of thing if you don't take turns into consideration. Hard mode really is as simple as mounted units move forwards as much as possible and win the game from there; there's not a lot to PoR if I'm being honest.

What do you mean by optimal exactly? By my definition of the term we're using Titania almost exclusively until we get bonus experience and we can start snowballing more units. That's by far the fastest and most consistent way to play through the early game. Titania is the best unit on the team until we start snowballing Marcia or Jill if we do this, and even if she falls off later no unit has provided what she has early on or more than the other two have later on in the game; they're filler units in a way compared to the carries.

Admittedly although I didn't exactly base this list off Maniac Mode, I do take it into consideration. In that mode, you don't just throw mounted units forward, you need a team that is stronger, not faster. I guess that's where my definition of optimal comes in. To me optimal is the team with the highest rate of clearing maps with the lowest rate of death. Even if Hard Mode is so easy that you can rely on Titania to speedrun it for bonus exp to dump on other mounted units for an auto-pilot victory, I don't consider that making her a better unit, I just consider the difficulty too easy. To me it doesn't reflect so much on their effectiveness as it does on the difficulty itself. Having said that, I do think there is a difference in consistency between using units that have excellent endgame stats vs ones that have mediocre/serviceable endgame stats.

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

I am not going to say that you're wrong for using such a standard. However, I think most people here, who are taking issue with the list, are interpreting it on an "efficiency" metric. So, a strategy that takes 60 turns to clear a map is generally viewed as worse than one that only takes 10 turns. While consistency is a valuable consideration, strategies that are consistent and fast (so not LTCs that rely on specific RNG) tend to be viewed as the ideal for most of us filthy elitists.

I am curious - when do Titania's "bad bases" catch up to her, exactly? Like, let's look at a level 6 Titania, with stats rounded down:

  Reveal hidden contents

HP: 37

Str: 14

Mag: 5

Skl: 16

Spd: 16

Lck: 13

Def: 13

Res: 9

That's... essentially on par with a level 20 Ike, as shown above. But Titania has the horse, and the better weapon type. She was definitely a more significant contributor than Ike in the earlygame, and is at least better than him until he promotes.

But if we want more direct comparisons, how about 20/1 Oscar (rounded down):

  Reveal hidden contents

HP: 38

Str: 15

Mag: 6

Skl: 16

Spd: 16

Lck: 10

Def: 15

Res: 8

...Or a 20/1 Kieran:

  Reveal hidden contents

HP: 37

Str: 17

Mag: 4

Skl: 16

Spd: 17

Lck: 10

Def: 15

Res: 6

So the boys meet or beat her in most stats... but only barely. And Titania retains a lead in Luck and Res (both of which persist to Endgame) , along with high ranks in both Lances and Axes. So even by the time Oscar and/or Kieran are promoting, Titania is at least contributing on-par with them. Considered atop her undeniably bigger contribution in the earlygame, I'd say this positions her as deserving at least the same tier as those two. Sure, Kieran and Oscar will eclipse her in the lategame, but they take time and investment to get there. And even then, Titania will be at least your solidly "third best cavalry unit" in a game where cavalry is great, meaning even a little-invested Titania may still well be worth deploying. I'd argue that, viewed over the course of a playthrough, she's doing more for you than either Oscar or Kieran (although all three are clear A/S tier units).

I mean I guess if I was just thinking of Hard Mode with the list, I could concede that consistency beyond a certain point is irrelevant because the game is easy to the point where everyone above a certain tier is 100% consistent. Maybe I should make a separate list for Hard Mode and Maniac Mode.

I mean to me, Titania's bases catch up to her right around the point you described. While she is still good and among your top units for probably 2/3rds of the game if you still choose to use her, she's ultimately syphoning experience from other units that I'd rather train for the part of the game that I need my strongest units the most. To me, Titania has already done her job by helping shepherd Ike, Oscar, and Kieran to promoted status. You don't really need her anymore because your other promoted units will pick up the slack as you train your under leveled growth units to be promoted as well.

That's why I can't place her in S tier. Oscar and Kieran are among your best units pretty much the entire time they are on your team, while Titania is among your best for the first half of the game, and while still good, gradually diminishes beyond that point.

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

Interesting approach. Seems kinda grindy, when neither Gatrie nor Brom starts with Swords, and Tauroneo joins late. As for "better use of the crits", I don't imagine many units surviving a crit from Stefan - doing 60 damage is just as good as doing 75 damage, when it comes to killing a target with 55 HP. Even if you don't have him use it, merely having the option to is something exclusive to Stefan (or an early-promo Mia or Zihark) at his jointime.

Once again I am probably biased a little bit based on Maniac Mode stats, where most units do survive a crit from a swordmaster.

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Most of my thoughts have been expressed by others, including the fact that I haven't played Maniac.

• I really think Titania should be in the highest tier. Actually I feel relatively strongly she should just be #1, but I can see arguments for others I suppose. But Titania is just your best unit by far for a third of the game, and never becomes bad. As mentioned it's unthinkable that any sort of efficient playthrough doesn't make use of her.
• Re Soren and Tormod, I think they're definitely too high for Hard Mode, but I've heard they're more useful on Maniac relatively. Can't attest for sure. Them being two tiers above Rhys/Mist seems weird to me though, given that staff use is the only reason to put them above Calill. I do agree with you that they're quite a bit better than Ilyana, who has all of their faults and then adds "has serious issues doubling mid-speed enemies" to the list.
• The Generals definitely seem way too high, you call their combat stats "stellar" and I can't see it. Like, compare base Brom to base Kieran, who conveniently joins at the same time... Kieran has +1 str, +5 speed, +3 move, canter, some minor wins in other stats (notably, 4 luck, pretty sure Brom faces dangerous crit rates from mages) all in exchange for just -3 defence. With better supports. Yes, Brom is 4 levels lower, but this barely matters: it takes 17 kills for the gap to close by even one level thanks to PoR's barely-curved exp formula. And yes, I know Kieran is a great unit, but still, you can't lose a comparison like that and claim to have stellar stats.
• Stefan has great base stats and is obviously better than Zihark.
• Later-joining laguz jump out as too high, Muarim and Ranulf in particular. They either have weak offence, no 1-2 range, and can only be used half the time... or they have terrible offence, no 1-2 range, and can be used all the time. Lethe and Mordecai are fine because they're around early. I might be underestimating Muarim a little (my kneejerk is the last time I'd use him is Chapter 17, but that's at least two decent maps of use before Tanith/Reyson come along) but Ranulf I think is just bad.

I can't say I disagree with most of what you said on your first point. I guess I just define S-tier differently than everyone else. I reserve it for the units that you use for pretty much their entire time on your team.

I do find sages in general to be stronger on Maniac Mode due to the higher volume of Physic staves, Siege tomes, and high-defense enemies. Maybe if this was just a hard mode list I would knock Soren and Tormod down a tier.

Brom is pretty unimpressive at base but when he caps he is a monster. You can throw him at entire armies and he can handle them pretty much on his own. Same with Gatrie. Gatrie also behaves like a pre-promote at the start of the game even though he is only level 9 at base. To me that's a testament to how strong armored knights are as a class in path of radiance. What other class can fight 10 paladins on enemy phase, double half of them, and still have more than half hp after it's all over? (Admittedly Oscar and Kieran together with Sol can do that, which is why they are S-tier)

I can't call Stefan better than Zihark due to his terrible luck, but I have been convinced that he is not as bad as I thought initially.

Muarim is very good for a beast laguz. He comes at pretty much the same level as Stefan, he's fast enough to double most enemies, his claws are highly accurate, he is very strong, highly tanky, and the demi-band doesn't really hurt his transformed stats that much. Eventually you can give him Smite and replace Mordecai with him for the utility. He has a Thunder-Earth support with Zihark that I think is pretty good. Most beast laguz are not very good but I think Muarim is quite solid.

Ranulf isn't great but I wouldn't call him bad. His bases are even better than Muarim despite joining at the same starting level, and he has an earth-wind support with Ike. I wouldn't plan to use him on my main team due to his late join time and limitations as a laguz, but if I lost a good unit and need someone to fill the hole, Ranulf is actually pretty decent.

 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

They can realistically double what? Armors? Because that's about the only thing I can see them doubling without absurd levels of favoritism, which Brom having the KW the whole time is, ESPECIALLY since you don't get it until chapter 13, and he joins in chapter 11. Are you implying he goes from base level to promotion in two chapters, one of which is timed? Because that's as insane as insane gets. It's already bad enough that Brom loses hard to Kieran base stats wise, you're just digging him - and yourself - a deeper hole.

Unless it's a mage doing the critting, in which case, they're gonna go down, HARD.

Unless, again, a mage comes knocking, in which case their HP will disappear in a hurry. Also, you'd have to dig Gatrie and Brom out of E swords for that. Just how realistic is it for them to get to S swords??? 

Well remember I said Chapter 15-16, so that could be up to 3 chapters he gets to train. 2 of those chapters have a lot of laguz which give an unusual amount of exp. It does require some favoritism but the question was when can they double, and that's around when they can double, and I think it's worth the investment. Having said that I don't like using knights on the dessert map because as you said it's very cumbersome. Could be better to wait until Serenes Forest to promote your knight, but either way they will start doubling around that point in the game if they have KW level ups.

Mages really aren't that scary because there aren't that many of them, and you get pure waters which pretty much deal with that. KW + Pure water is +9 res which is enough to make an otherwise threatening mage pretty tame. As for sword rank, maybe it's just Maniac Mode for me, but I have no issue finding enemies to suicide into my generals for easy weapon xp. I don't even use an arm scroll and I can get them to S-rank before Clash.

 

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'm not going to quibble with most of the list, since it's made with Maniac mode in mind and -- like many -- my copy of the game doesn't have that. I do want to ask a question though. Why do you have Bastian and Lucia so low? By which I mean, what about them makes them so unusably terrible that you think they deserve a tier of their own below other bad units? For Hard mode, I'd put them roughly on a level with the units you have in E tier. I think of them as late-joining low-investment units who are mediocre but just about competent and can potentially replace another unit who gets stat screwed or lost in an ironman. Does Maniac have something that makes them uniquely worse than the likes of Rolf or Ulki?

The problem is that Bastian and Lucia join so late and both have atrocious bases. Lucia has 15 strength and 10 defense...practically a feather in a fight. She doesn't even cap speed on average despite being a swordmaster. She also has really bad supports. Same deal with Bastian, who has 16 speed at 20/13...and only 19 magic. These two are just terrible and contribute pretty much nothing to the team. Bastian does have high strength so I guess you can use siege tomes without getting doubled, but there are several other sages who can do that and not be totally useless in combat and can use staves. I can't even call these low-investment units because they come in so bad that despite being high-level, they almost behave like unpromoted units.

Maniac Mode makes them even more irrelevant because it jacks up the enemy count and the tankiness of your enemies. So low might units like Lucia hardly put a dent in them and are a huge liability on enemy phase due to awful durability. Bastian similarly due to his low magic/speed and lack of staves compares worse in Maniac Mode. You can dump 2 speedwings onto Bastian and he still hardly doubles anything...so bad.

3 hours ago, ping said:

Counterpoint: You have Reyson as you #1 character and he's literally worthless for the first 17 out of 29 maps. I think Titania's track record of being your best character by a lot for the first 9 maps (if not more, depending on how you use your BEXP), and still one of your best for another third of the game cannot be understated, especially because she's still perfectly fine as a filler for the rest of the game, too. Her "usefulness graph" is inverted compared to Oscar, sure, but I think she does a lot more things than the other potential Paladins, in particular a lot of things that nobody else can do. Yes, Titania isn't technically required to beat the earlygame, at least not on hard, but boy does she make the experience a lot less aggravating. Meanwhile, if Oscar dies in chapter 8, you still have Kieran (who I actually think is the better unit on Hard), Astrid, and Makalov to fill that hole.

Reyson is #1 because once he does join, he's a total no-brainer to put on your team. He requires no investment, he heals up to 4 units every turn, and he give up to FOUR units an extra turn on player phase once he transforms, and he flies. He just automatically makes your team 30-40% more effective, which is unbelievable for any single unit. I honestly feel like Reyson is overpowered and should have had his abilities adjusted before being introduced into the game because he is downright gamebreaking, trivializing maps that otherwise would have been difficult.

Titania to me is A rank for all the reasons you listed. As great as she is in the early game, to me she does not contribute as much overall to a successful playthrough as anyone in S-tier.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

Admittedly although I didn't exactly base this list off Maniac Mode, I do take it into consideration. In that mode, you don't just throw mounted units forward, you need a team that is stronger, not faster.

That's not necessarily true. There are still many situations where the faster team will still have the same amount of success, and if there is no difference between the "stronger" and "faster" team in terms of consistency the faster one has an advantage. That's not to say that mounted units aren't just innately better than armored units in the first place though, and even on Maniac mode there is a place for playing fast. I would even guess that some of the less reliable strategies would turn out better than reliable ones because of how slow enemy phase is in some situations as an aside. The last chapter comes to mind; taking a lot of turns to clear that map compared to taking 2 saves a lot of time especially on combat animations even if the strategy isn't as consistent.

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

Even if Hard Mode is so easy that you can rely on Titania to speedrun it for bonus exp to dump on other mounted units for an auto-pilot victory, I don't consider that making her a better unit, I just consider the difficulty too easy. To me it doesn't reflect so much on their effectiveness as it does on the difficulty itself. Having said that, I do think there is a difference in consistency between using units that have excellent endgame stats vs ones that have mediocre/serviceable endgame stats.

The fact that Titania can pretty much solo the first third of hard mode on her own (it doesn't even make the team any worse later on either) does make her a better unit, at least on that difficulty. This is why Stefan is better on Maniac than on Hard mode; his bases are more valuable because we don't have access to as many units as on Hard mode, so he should be viewed differently. To be clear I am not suggesting that Titania is any worse; she's still a Paladin later on even if she's the worst one, and she has many chapters where she's the best unit available. We can use almost any combination of teams and have similar success later on in the game, but the units individually will not help save time/turns (or make things more consistent, etc) as much as Titania did early on with the fliers and Reyson maybe being exceptions.

You mentioned factoring in difficulty, and it would probably be a good idea. Japanese Maniac mode is different enough from the difficulty most people have played. On Hard mode the rest of the team is going to be just as powerful later on even with liberal use of Titania earlier on given how strong of a tool bonus experience is. Maniac mode is a little different in this aspect, but it's not entirely dissimilar in terms of Titania usage. If the difference between using Titania a lot early on and not using her at all is a level or two for every other unit that is still worth the time it saved early on given that a handful of levels don't really change anything. Even then I'm not sure that this is the case given how much enemy spam there is in Maniac mode.

Edited May 13, 2023 by samthedigital