Path of Radiance Tier List

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

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

As in the difficulty where swordmasters are neutered because they don't have boosted crit (Fun fact, swordmasters, berserkers and snipers do NOT have boosted crit in the Japanese version)? 

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

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)

bruh
Being excellent when capped is nothing special. Also, you spend very, very little of the game's playtime capped, so saying that someone is a monster when capped doesn't convince me they're good, because needless to say (though it seems to need saying with you because you're obsessed with endgame potential to the point where you fixate on that and ignore everything else), you spend far, far, FAR more time not capped. What's more, I think you're exaggerating how good generals really are in PoR. Sure, Gatrie is good early, but earlygame in general is an all hands on deck situation. That said, Brom being in the same tier as him is nothing short of ridiculous.

EDIT:

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

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.

That doesn't make what I said any less valid. You're still setting unrealistic expectations. You expect Brom to get something like 4 levels a map??

Edited May 13, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

20 hours ago, Uscari said:

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.

We could continue that game and look at earlygame!Titania, who's just as much of a no-brainer to use (even when you have to start benching people), requires arguably even less investment (the investment in Reyson is "be very careful to never put him into enemy range (unless it's Naesala)"), has almost twice the movement that Reyson has until he transforms (at which point it's 8vs9 instead of 5vs9), and has overpowered combat to a gamebreaking extend. But I think it's clear that we're just not in agreement on how much we value the earlygame.

[Vicious Sal]

Sorry but if OP is talking about Maniac Mode, how is Marcia not at the number one spot still?

Bexp dump flier to have her instantly promote and give her a slim forge with 255 crit and she literally OHKO's everything, and I mean literally everything,  until chapter 17, after which she stil ORKO's until clash.

 

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think it's pretty iffy to consider the crit bug at all, given that it was patched out in later versions of the game and the only reason to talk about it at all is because they also patched out Maniac Mode entirely.

That said, even if you disagree, I don't think that automatically makes Marcia better than Titania, for instance. Titania can do the same thing, she just can't fly. Now, is flying in Chapter 11 onwards worth more than being the best combat unit by a mile in Chapter 1-9, and not taking a giant amount of BExp? Maybe? But I don't think it's clearcut by any means.

[Uscari]

7 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Sorry but if OP is talking about Maniac Mode, how is Marcia not at the number one spot still?

Bexp dump flier to have her instantly promote and give her a slim forge with 255 crit and she literally OHKO's everything, and I mean literally everything,  until chapter 17, after which she stil ORKO's until clash.

 

 

My list assumes a playthrough where I don't cheat by exploiting an obvious and totally avoidable bug.

I feel like Marcia is really overrated. She is still a great unit for her flying utility but her low might and no access to axes is such a liability in the late game. In my first successful maniac mode run I used Marcia and she was great for pretty much the whole mid-game, but as soon as she capped strength she just totally fell off, and could barely put a dent in Paladins, Wyverns, and Generals. I had to forge a silver lance just for her to stay relevant.

Admittedly in hard mode she probably wouldn't fall off as hard but even still 23 strength cap and no axes is a hard pill to swallow.

Also she is not very tanky, can't handle more than 2-3 enemies at a time. Jill meanwhile can handle 6-7 at a time and 1-round them.

[samthedigital]

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

Admittedly in hard mode she probably wouldn't fall off as hard but even still 23 strength cap and no axes is a hard pill to swallow.

On Hard mode (outside of the Japanese version) she doesn't really fall off because both because enemies aren't as strong and forges are half as expensive. Technically speaking in an LTC we save turns by skipping Jill entirely since Marcia can solo the map before we have the opportunity to get Jill.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

Also she is not very tanky, can't handle more than 2-3 enemies at a time. Jill meanwhile can handle 6-7 at a time and 1-round them.

Bruh

This sounds hard to swallow when you don't bother to actually back it up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Why would that be hard to swallow? Jill has more physical durability; I haven't played Maniac but those numbers sound reasonable based on where I'd expect Maniac attack stats to be. Jill also has substantially higher strength so she'll obviously be better at 2HKOing things both double. Granted, Marcia definitely has an easier time doubling some enemies, and I'd rate forges as a less significant investment than Speedwings.

3 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Technically speaking in an LTC we save turns by skipping Jill entirely since Marcia can solo the map before we have the opportunity to get Jill.

This is an excellent example of where LTC completely obfuscates the purpose of a tier list. Spending "turns" where this is no danger of death in order to recruit an excellent character is something any sensible player would do, so it should be considered (without attaching some sort of "turn cost"). I know you basically acknowledge this by using the word "technically" there but to me this really illustrates how silly pure-LTC-as-tiering-metric is.

Anyway on Hard at least, I consider Jill vs Marcia to be reasonably balanced and I generally feel they should be close together on any tier list. Marcia has a couple extra maps of being very good and has more RNG-proof speed, while Jill has a bit more physical bulk (Marcia's generally suffices for Hard, granted) and is less likely to need a forge to do what both can do.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

This is an excellent example of where LTC completely obfuscates the purpose of a tier list. Spending "turns" where this is no danger of death in order to recruit an excellent character is something any sensible player would do, so it should be considered (without attaching some sort of "turn cost"). I know you basically acknowledge this by using the word "technically" there but to me this really illustrates how silly pure-LTC-as-tiering-metric is.

To be clear I used the LTC as an example since it shows that Marcia is good enough as a carry on Hard mode despite the lower stats. It's not meant to advocate LTC tiering.

Quote

Granted, Marcia definitely has an easier time doubling some enemies, and I'd rate forges as a less significant investment than Speedwings.

It's definitely more of an investment than it would be otherwise given the forge costs and gold differences on the Japanese version, so it might be closer than you'd think. If Speedwings help Jill double more enemies then I'd say that there's more value in giving them to her than most other units; the only others I could think of would be mages, but I don't have enough experience with Maniac to be sure that they'd want them or not.

Edited May 14, 2023 by samthedigital

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/14/2023 at 4:08 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Why would that be hard to swallow? Jill has more physical durability; I haven't played Maniac but those numbers sound reasonable based on where I'd expect Maniac attack stats to be. Jill also has substantially higher strength so she'll obviously be better at 2HKOing things both double. Granted, Marcia definitely has an easier time doubling some enemies, and I'd rate forges as a less significant investment than Speedwings.

The part where it's coming from someone who thinks that Brom can get 12 levels in only three maps, one of which is timed. That's beyond ridiculous.

[Dark Holy Elf]

51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The part where it's coming from someone who thinks that Brom can get 12 levels in only three maps, one of which is timed. That's beyond ridiculous.

Then attack that claim, instead of the perfectly reasonable claim that Jill has more physical durability than Marcia.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Then attack that claim, instead of the perfectly reasonable claim that Jill has more physical durability than Marcia.

I already called BS on that claim about Brom. More to the point, if they're willing to say stuff like that, I'm well within my rights to be skeptical of ANYTHING they say.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I already called BS on that claim about Brom. More to the point, if they're willing to say stuff like that, I'm well within my rights to be skeptical of ANYTHING they say.

Skepticism needs be furnished with reason, though. Do you have a case to make that this claim

On 5/14/2023 at 10:46 AM, Uscari said:

Also she is not very tanky, can't handle more than 2-3 enemies at a time. Jill meanwhile can handle 6-7 at a time and 1-round them.

Is wrong?

[Vicious Sal]

19 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Skepticism needs be furnished with reason, though. Do you have a case to make that this claim

Is wrong?

If you're going for an ironman you want reliable units, because a fed unit snowballs harder and stays fed. So if you Bexp marcia and get her ahead of the curve she'll have a level and stat lead, including def.
You could do the same to Jill, but why do that when you can do it to Marcia and benefit from that fed unit for more chapters. Jill's speed is also suspect enough to consistenly miss doubling or get doubled.

[Shadow Mir]

53 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Skepticism needs be furnished with reason, though. Do you have a case to make that this claim

Is wrong?

Are you saying I should have just accepted their word at face value without question? Because I don't see any numbers or context to reinforce the point. It doesn't help OP's case that they tend to look at 20/20 stats and ignore everything else. Aside from that, the above mostly said what I'd have.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The part where it's coming from someone who thinks that Brom can get 12 levels in only three maps, one of which is timed. That's beyond ridiculous.

I don't think it. I know it, because I've done it. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

 

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I already called BS on that claim about Brom. More to the point, if they're willing to say stuff like that, I'm well within my rights to be skeptical of ANYTHING they say.

I think you are well within your rights to be skeptical of anything that anyone says. To me that is the catalyst for intelligent discourse.

My statement about Marcia's durability is a general one. How applicable it is depends on the types of enemies you are fighting. I wouldn't bother attempting to create a universally representative group of enemies to measure the exact difference in durability because that would just create a whole separate argument about what is "representative".

All I can tell you is that based on averages, Marcia has 4-5 less HP and Defense than Jill does from their promotions onward, which leads me to think that Jill is substantially more durable than Marcia. Further, all I can do is ask you, how much more punishment do you think Jill can take compared to Marcia? How many units would you feel comfortable sending Jill into instead of Marcia? I have a feeling we don't disagree as much as you seem to think.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

I don't think it. I know it, because I've done it. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

How, by having Brom solo those maps? Pass. I don't want to spend 1001 turns digging him out of his hole, especially when he doesn't bring anything of note to the table.

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

I think you are well within your rights to be skeptical of anything that anyone says. To me that is the catalyst for intelligent discourse.

My statement about Marcia's durability is a general one. How applicable it is depends on the types of enemies you are fighting. I wouldn't bother attempting to create a universally representative group of enemies to measure the exact difference in durability because that would just create a whole separate argument about what is "representative".

All I can tell you is that based on averages, Marcia has 4-5 less HP and Defense than Jill does from their promotions onward, which leads me to think that Jill is substantially more durable than Marcia. Further, all I can do is ask you, how much more punishment do you think Jill can take compared to Marcia? How many units would you feel comfortable sending Jill into instead of Marcia? I have a feeling we don't disagree as much as you seem to think.

Are you assuming they promote at the same time? Because that's a mistake. Jill hits harder, sure, but that's offset by her being more likely to miss doubles - or worse, get doubled herself.

I wouldn't know, I have never had a good Jill. Heck, I don't use her.

[samthedigital]

FE9 Maniac Mode Enemy Stats - Google Sheets

This was posted in the Hard mode enemy stats thread. It might be useful here.

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I already called BS on that claim about Brom. More to the point, if they're willing to say stuff like that, I'm well within my rights to be skeptical of ANYTHING they say.

You are free to doubt whatever you want. However, merely making a post say "I AM DOUBTING THIS" is useless (as well as rude). If your goal is to convince other people, be it the person you are responding to, or other people in the thread, the onus is on you to provide some sort of reason for why you have doubts. Otherwise, the assertion that Jill has more physical durability than Marcia given equal treatment stands.

Even something as simple as a bit of personal experience elaboration would be helpful here. "When I used both Marcia and Jill, and gave them equal amounts of bonus exp, I found Jill was only able to take one or two extra physical hits"* would be an example of a statement which would state your skepticism in a way which actually pushes discussion forward; at that point the two of you could compare notes further or somebody could pull out enemy stats, etc.

*not saying this particular statement is a true one, just an example

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

If you're going for an ironman you want reliable units, because a fed unit snowballs harder and stays fed. So if you Bexp marcia and get her ahead of the curve she'll have a level and stat lead, including def.
You could do the same to Jill, but why do that when you can do it to Marcia and benefit from that fed unit for more chapters. Jill's speed is also suspect enough to consistenly miss doubling or get doubled.

See, now, this is a good counter-argument! Actually providing a rationale for why Marcia's bulk issues may be less severe than previously stated.

My "counter"-counter-points are: I don't know that we're referring to an Ironman playthrough. And even on those runs, wouldn't I want to save at least some  BEXP? If my "carry" dies, then I want to have the means to bolster somebody to replace them.

4 hours ago, Uscari said:

I don't think it. I know it, because I've done it. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

I would be curious - how many turns did it take you to achieve this? And, how much BEXP did you miss out on as a result?

For my part, I don't doubt that such an undertaking would be possible. I moreso see it as tedious and impractical in a run with any mind for efficiency. Particularly in a game that provides mechanical incentives for completing maps quickly.

[samthedigital]

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

My "counter"-counter-points are: I don't know that we're referring to an Ironman playthrough. And even on those runs, wouldn't I want to save at least some  BEXP? If my "carry" dies, then I want to have the means to bolster somebody to replace them.

There isn't enough bexp to save until later on (where it might be more difficult to get an alternate unit to a high level) if we want to turn Marcia into a carry on MM. If we are talking about an ironman I'm not sure that the typical efficiency strategies and benchmarks would apply anyway without a lot of planning though.

[ping]

So I've started playing a Maniac run a few days ago, so that I don't have to keep saying that "Well, I haven't played it, but in theory something something Titania good"...

This is where I'm at - below is the last enemy phase of that defense map. Obviously, I'm playing far from optimised or perfect, and I didn't keep track how much of my experience comes down to good or bad level-up RNG, but my impressions thus far..:

• The earlygame isn't actually that difficult, despite how awful that first picture may look, but the reason why it's not that difficult has red hair and a horse. Titania's ability to not only survive a lot of punishment, but also deal big damage in return is invaluable. She isn't one-rounding consistently - in chapter 5 in particular, she tended to lack the power when using Iron and the speed when using Steel - but often enough to kill a couple enemies per turn. Thus far, I'm only getting more convinced that she belongs in S tier because she's so much more essential on Maniac than on Hard.
• Oscar sucked, with both Ike and even Boyd outperforming him. Now, this is definitely something where RNG plays a big role, I believe Boyd got a Str/Spd level right away and Oscar didn't, but Oscar was characterised by decent defense, but awful damage output. The latter is already a problem on Hard, but at least on that difficulty, Oscar's 8 Def make him pretty tanky against basically anything that doesn't have a Steel Axe (or the Hammer fighter in ch.5). It's a bit early to call it, but I might be inclined to put him below Kieran, who's the better Cav/Pala in the long run, since Oscar doesn't really do a whole lot with his availablity advantage.
• Shinon and Gatrie were both useful. Without the Crit bonus from the English version, Shinon is a bit better at setting up kills (although I honestly wouldn't have minded seeing him grab the occasional accidental kill), and Gatrie is tanky enough to just, well, tank for days without needing to be healed. He two-shots Soldiers and Myrmidons, too, although I think that unlike in Hard, he struggles to double even slowed down Soldiers.

[Reem]

On 5/12/2023 at 12:32 PM, Uscari said:

Thoughts?

 

You all are crazy.  Ike and Titanic Titanium is the best characters in the game. There there every chapter, there's never a time YOU WON'T use them or LOSE them. 1 range and weapon triangles don't mean anything to them. This game doesn't punish you like the other Fire Emblem games because the enemy lack stats and SKILL. I can literally make a sandwich on enemy phase because I KNOW they won't die OR get crit. Also to finish this off Everyone else can't even dmg a feral one without supports. Their Atk power can't pierce them without Luna or Laguz weapon and even then their luck not that high because unlike your starting character; You get them early to boost their luck. Especially where majority of the Luck stat Booster are in the first 12 chapters.

[ping]

Yes, yes, you are very funny. Good job.

[Uscari]

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

I would be curious - how many turns did it take you to achieve this? And, how much BEXP did you miss out on as a result?

For my part, I don't doubt that such an undertaking would be possible. I moreso see it as tedious and impractical in a run with any mind for efficiency. Particularly in a game that provides mechanical incentives for completing maps quickly.

I'm gonna level with you. Concentrating all battle exp on your armor knight in those chapters takes very long, I would say probably 120+ turns between Chapter 14 and Chapter 15. As for Bonus Experience, I was doing this in Maniac mode so I lost 150xp from Chapter 14 and 530xp on Chapter 15, but I should note that for the latter, you need to not kill any Laguz on that chapter in order to get about 1/3rd of the bxp.

You get far more in battle experience, particularly on Chapter 15 where the laguz are all effectively pre-promotes that give a lot of xp in battle. I found in general with Maniac Mode that bonus exp outside of the early chapters wasn't worth going for, and it was almost always better to take your time and route every map for maximum battle xp. Although on hard mode the bonus exp might be a lot more attractive, like twice as much.

So yeah, I would agree it's very tedious. However, I would not call it impractical. You need your units as strong as possible for the late-game so maxing battle exp as much as you can is in my opinion a good move, at least for Maniac Mode. It might be impractical for hard mode.

5 hours ago, ping said:

So I've started playing a Maniac run a few days ago, so that I don't have to keep saying that "Well, I haven't played it, but in theory something something Titania good"...

This is where I'm at - below is the last enemy phase of that defense map. Obviously, I'm playing far from optimised or perfect, and I didn't keep track how much of my experience comes down to good or bad level-up RNG, but my impressions thus far..:

• The earlygame isn't actually that difficult, despite how awful that first picture may look, but the reason why it's not that difficult has red hair and a horse. Titania's ability to not only survive a lot of punishment, but also deal big damage in return is invaluable. She isn't one-rounding consistently - in chapter 5 in particular, she tended to lack the power when using Iron and the speed when using Steel - but often enough to kill a couple enemies per turn. Thus far, I'm only getting more convinced that she belongs in S tier because she's so much more essential on Maniac than on Hard.
• Oscar sucked, with both Ike and even Boyd outperforming him. Now, this is definitely something where RNG plays a big role, I believe Boyd got a Str/Spd level right away and Oscar didn't, but Oscar was characterised by decent defense, but awful damage output. The latter is already a problem on Hard, but at least on that difficulty, Oscar's 8 Def make him pretty tanky against basically anything that doesn't have a Steel Axe (or the Hammer fighter in ch.5). It's a bit early to call it, but I might be inclined to put him below Kieran, who's the better Cav/Pala in the long run, since Oscar doesn't really do a whole lot with his availablity advantage.
• Shinon and Gatrie were both useful. Without the Crit bonus from the English version, Shinon is a bit better at setting up kills (although I honestly wouldn't have minded seeing him grab the occasional accidental kill), and Gatrie is tanky enough to just, well, tank for days without needing to be healed. He two-shots Soldiers and Myrmidons, too, although I think that unlike in Hard, he struggles to double even slowed down Soldiers

 

Titania is obviously extremely useful in the early game for Maniac Mode, and if you solo these maps with her it is very easy, but you're ultimately wasting hundreds, maybe thousands of battle exp if you don't feed kills to your weaker units. Titania gets decent xp from boss kills but almost nothing from normal enemies in these early chapters. The best way to go is to let her set up kills for units either by doubling with iron axe to get enemies low, or rescuing a unit and using steel axe to get them low. That way you save on vulneraries, weapon uses, and healing uses. Also, although Titania is even stronger in the early game, she falls off harder in the late game. You'll see what I mean once you get past Serenes Forest.

Yeah Oscar's strength is nothing to brag about, but his speed is decent, and his base defense is very high for a level 3 mounted unit. Definitely helps to set up kills for him by using Ike or Titania, since most of the early enemies use axes and Oscar's lances aren't too accurate against that. Also you don't get a lot of lances in the early game, so it's important to save on weapon uses. Oscar justifies use in the early game just by being a mobile meatshield. However, if you don't invest early in him, his unimpressive strength growths and lack of axes will impede his ability to contribute. I place him above Kieran in the tier list due to his double earth support with Ike, which I think is tremendously useful in the mid and late game. Having said that, Kieran is a strong competitor to Oscar due to higher strength growths and the ability to use both axes and bows. It's a close matchup to me.

Yeah Shinon and Gatrie are great. I find I can use Gatrie to rescue at no real risk due to his absurd base defense. Shinon like you said is really good for setting up kills, and I have noticed that his provoke skill can help him take out a few ranged units on enemy phase that otherwise are a threat to your weaker units.

The struggle of the early game in Maniac Mode isn't clearing the maps, but clearing them in a way that sets up you better in the mid-game to get critical loot and promote your important long-term units.

4 hours ago, Reem said:

You all are crazy.  Ike and Titanic Titanium is the best characters in the game. There there every chapter, there's never a time YOU WON'T use them or LOSE them. 1 range and weapon triangles don't mean anything to them. This game doesn't punish you like the other Fire Emblem games because the enemy lack stats and SKILL. I can literally make a sandwich on enemy phase because I KNOW they won't die OR get crit. Also to finish this off Everyone else can't even dmg a feral one without supports. Their Atk power can't pierce them without Luna or Laguz weapon and even then their luck not that high because unlike your starting character; You get them early to boost their luck. Especially where majority of the Luck stat Booster are in the first 12 chapters.

Titania doesn't care about 1 range, but Ike does for most of the game due to being locked to swords. Also I find Ike does get in danger in the early game, I often need to give him a seraph robe early on due to his low base hp. Also just being a sword user is dangerous due to most enemies using lances.

I'm not sure what you mean about everyone else not able to damage feral laguz. There are a lot of units with more might than Titania or Ike.