Fire Emblem Tiering Project

Thorns

Thorns

hello friends! what i wanted to start on smogon was a discussion of fire emblem (again) and what better way than to encourage you all to tear at each others throats as you argue who is better than whom! i know other sites like serenes and gamefaqs have their own tier lists, but i find the fe discussion to be of a much higher calibre on smogon and feto than on other sites. i hope you guys don't mind if we work together to make some tier lists then, do you?

the factors to be considered, as is common for tier lists:

  • availability (how much you get to use them)
  • power (how easily they can kill things and not die)
  • utility (how they serve to reach the chapter goal)
  • growth (how relevant they are throughout the game)
  • other factors that you guys might care to include
so the first game i want to be talking about is fire emblem 9, path of radiance. i'll just make a preliminary list since it's kind of hard to place everything correctly from the getgo. so here we go!

Titania and Friends Tier

Titania
Oscar
Marcia
Jill

Top Tier

Kieran
Ike
Boyd
Reyson
Tanith
Makalov
Astrid

High Tier

Mordecai
Lethe
Nephenee
Volke

Middle Tier

Soren
Mist
Muarim
Stefan
Zihark
Rhys
Mia
Calill


Low Tier

Gatrie
Haar
Sothe
Ilyana
Tormod
Janaaf
Ulki
Geoffrey
Largo
Devdan

Bottom Tier

Brom
Elincia
Tauroneo
Ranulf
Shinon
Lucia
Bastian
Rolf

Dragon Tier
Nasir
Ena
 
While marcia is certainly great and being a flying unit is awesome, I'd rather give the full guard to jill and move ike up to the best tier, considering its very difficult for him to get screwed, has excellent caps that he can reach very easily, and has access to ragnell. I haven't played fe9 as much as other games (im actually just finishing my first hard mode run when I have the time), so I don't have much input for this one sadly =( Just fyi, you didn't include sothe on your list
 
I don't understand the point of this when serenesforest has done it do death for every game and have access to enemy information and stuff we won't have.

Only noticeable complaint I have about your list is that tanith should be higher, if anything do to the fact that reinforcements are really good for distracting enemies with ballistae and siege tomes. It doesn't hurt that she has better strength than marcia unless you got ridiculously lucky.
 
wow, soren is definitely better than mid tier. though, i'm probably confusing how well my characters did in radiant dawn compared to path of radiance, but my MVPs were boyd, nephenee, and soren. soren is probably the most powerful magic user, but i am so out of synch with those games as i've only completed them both once that i would resist spouting any more opinions until i've played them each a few more times, and can remember with ease all the abilities and shit you can assign different units to benefit them.

all i know is in radiant dawn i gave nephenee her own custom colored javelin because she EARNED IT!!
 
Random question, but what is the point of a tier list really? Just to pick the best characters to blow the game out with, using the worst ones to make it harder, etc? I mean to me, it just seems kinda pointless since the majority of them don't have any semblance of multiplayer to begin with so it's not like you're competing with them, not to mention sucky rng stat gains can ruin even the ones with the best potential unless you abuse the system or SR a lot.
 
theamericandream38]words [/quote] ike has no pony which is why i am hesitant to move him [QUOTE=Fishy said:
words
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soren is a great mage and i agree with you in that he's the best caster in PoR (probably RD as well), but mages suck dick in fe9/10 due to shitty mobility (low movement and no canto, tormod has high movement but again no canto) and general squishiness. it takes too long for them to start doubling anyway

i too gave nephenee a blue spear, dirty critwhore

moonbound said:
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it's fun and a conduit for discussion of fire emblem which i find lacking (maybe just cause i've gotten really into the series lately)

also i agree with you on tanith's utility, i always fall into this trap as seeing flying ponies as nothing more than airbuses for ike/mobile pokers

Shinryu said:
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there is no real point in making a tier list other than to get you guys to pick me shitty units to play the game with, it's just a bit of fun as well as a conduit for discussion of fire emblem in general

but i've learnt a lot about efficiency and stuff from discussing tier lists and how characters match up against others
 
I hardly remember the gamecube FE games, I disliked them, but I do remember that at one point in the game I was able to send Ike straight into the enemies and he'd heal up to full just killing enemies. Never did complete the game though.
 
Ilyana is a terrible unit with weak offense (almost never going to double) and very poor defense. Tormod isn't really much better, IIRC he joins quite underlevelled and will take a lot of babying before doing anything significant offensively. Both of them should be down quite a bit, certainly below a good unit like Zihark with his Earth affinity (admittedly his partners are kind of limited, but Muriam isn't bad and I think you're underestimating Brom) and overall good stats.

Shinon should be bottom tier, he only joins late in the game and is pretty much garbage when he does. Certainly worse than the other usable units that populate low tier and some of the ones in Bottom even.

Kieran should probably be above Ike, he offers better mobility (and a baller support with his mounted buddy Oscar who doesn't have any real other options outside of Ike) for similar combat ability (until Ike gets Ragnell, anyways). Ike is around for longer but I found myself having to stop using him for awhile because timed promotion and the mobility difference probably overcomes that in the end.
 
good points made - i think zihark and stefan, maybe even mia should be above the mages after all. zihark's earth affinity is pretty retarded, the downside being of course that you have to use a myrm instead of a pony

i had shinon higher than bottom because i do value his contribution in the few early game chapters but i suppose he is ONLY relevant then

i was hesitant to place kieran above ike but now that i think about it he does have a pony, plus he joins pretty early and uses the best weapon type, and you made a good point about the oscar support (dodge is pretty g)
 
FE9 is so easy you should just rank them based on availability, barring some obviously terrible exceptions.
 
Its kind of true though, I've actually only had to restart like twice even in hard mode and that was only because I forgot that naesala will move out so you can talk to him easier so you don't actually have to survive a round in his attack range
 
Elincia in Bottom Tier wut.

Elincia is forced into the endgame, so giving her no experience isn't smart. Even then, she's pretty useful. She can healbot better than any other unit except possibly Mist due to her high movement, Canto and flight, and if nothing else, Amiti lets her hold her own. Low, certainly, but not bottom.
 
Elincia is trash, she has 4 chapters of gameplay and by that time your team should already be set and done so there's no point adding her to your team. Just because she's forced into your team doesn't mean you have to give her any experience at all, proper positioning due to Canto makes it easy to keep her safe. She's trash at fighting, 9 base strength with a 30% growth rate means she's going to hit for chip damage. She's fine with just a Mend/Physic which requires 0 babysitting because she already has an A rank in staves but there's 0 reason to actually TRY and level it up because she'll be nothing more than a healbot.

As for her vs other bottom tier people, paladins exist and Gatrie exists if you really want to use a general (for Tauroneo), Ranulf sucks and Lethe is generally better (at least Elincia can healbot), archers suck due to 2 range only, Lucia is outclassed by both Mia and Zihark, and Bastian is outclassed by the 3 other mages. At least Elincia can healbot, Canto, and rescue compared to those people, making her at least somewhat useful vs bottom people, whereas Danved has join time, Largo has great base stats, Geoffery is a paladin so she can't really be placed higher.
 
Nasir isn't actually that bad a unit...

Also I've always felt that the paladin you start with in these games are severely overrated on these tier lists. Yeah they're a get out of jail free card, but early game they soak up experience that should be going towards your lords and high growth rate characters, and later on they get left in the dust statistically (Seth from FE8 being the only exception).
 
New World Order said:
Nasir isn't actually that bad a unit...

Also I've always felt that the paladin you start with in these games are severely overrated on these tier lists. Yeah they're a get out of jail free card, but early game they soak up experience that should be going towards your lords and high growth rate characters, and later on they get left in the dust statistically (Seth from FE8 being the only exception).
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Dude have you seen titania's growths? Also, you don't need to give her experience other than a few boss kills in the first half of the game and she'll still stay ahead.
 
moonbound said:
Dude have you seen titania's growths? Also, you don't need to give her experience other than a few boss kills in the first half of the game and she'll still stay ahead.
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Titania's growths are great for a cavalier/paladin, I'll concede that, unfortunately this class is almost never an option late game, for example who in their right mind would take Titania or Kieran over Haar/Jill/Nolan/Boyd into part 4 in Radiant Dawn?
 
ranks should be based on the sizes of the axes they can physically carry.

Top
Largo

High
Boyd

Bottom
everyone else
 
New World Order said:
Titania's growths are great for a cavalier/paladin, I'll concede that, unfortunately this class is almost never an option late game, for example who in their right mind would take Titania or Kieran over Haar/Jill/Nolan/Boyd into part 4 in Radiant Dawn?
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...this is an fe9 discussion. Also, the fact that you brought up those four as a comparison for fe10 endgame (especially boyd) instead of the laguz royals raises serious questions.
 
moonbound said:
...this is an fe9 discussion. Also, the fact that you brought up those four as a comparison for fe10 endgame (especially boyd) instead of the laguz royals raises serious questions.
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Sigh, I was bringing up Radiant Dawn as an example because there's not really a defined "endgame for PoR", my point was that the further the game goes by, the less useful mounted knights in general are. Also, I'd love for you to tell me how you plan to fill 10 spots with 4 laguz royals (5 if you include Giffca) and how you plan to get them to wield Urvan.
 
the 5 extra spots go to a heron, an urvan user, and 3 staffbots/ whatever else you want because no one else you have can match the royals' performance due to rd being as balanced as a seesaw with shaq on one side and my little sister on the other
 
New World Order said:
Titania's growths are great for a cavalier/paladin, I'll concede that, unfortunately this class is almost never an option late game, for example who in their right mind would take Titania or Kieran over Haar/Jill/Nolan/Boyd into part 4 in Radiant Dawn?
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Titania is hilariously broken in FE9

Her high bases are enough to carry her throughout the entire game, provided you're smart enough to feed her boss skills, instead of wasting time grinding on mooks. Even then, let's hypothetically assume that she's bad in the endgame (she's not) that doesn't invalidate her awesome contribution throughout the entire game.

Titania is the overall best unit in FE9, bar none. She has Seth's blood I tell you.
 
New World Order said:
Nasir isn't actually that bad a unit...
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for what it's worth, on my first playthrough he did more damage to ashnard than tibarn or ike l0l

i don't want to consider this, but he is ungodly difficult to recruit considering you need to beat the black knight (pretty difficult unless your ike is 20/20 with capped or close to capped health AND speed, and your mist needs to be promoted for pony)

he's only usable for one chapter too, chuck him a laguz stone and he tears up daein like a hot knife through butter but literally every unit above him is more useful in some way due to superior availability. he's certainly better than ena too
 
Eh, Ike just needs to not get doubled by the Black Knight (20/10 on average) and needs to have 23 STR if he wants to have a 2 turn buffer to get Aethers with. There's no way Ike can beat the Black Knight without getting 2 Aethers, and it's perfectly possible to win without Mist. All you do is tell her to retreat and have Ike start chugging health pots and only counterattack.
 
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