Getting a Tier List on this bad boy

[Dat Nick]

I see "adjacent" mentioned way too often...

Vykan, you realize it's a 3 square radius, right?

[Vykan12]

Building supports requires being adjacent to someone.

[Dat Nick]

EDIT: Wait a minute...huh.

This whole time I was under the impression that they built up while in a three square radius...I guess not.

Never mind me...

Edited July 31, 2009 by Norton Sez What?

[Scarlet]

That works against her, actually. If we’re struggling a little in earlygame (at least relative to latter parts), adding her to the team adds to the injury. If she were a bad unit on a very strong team, however, we could work around her flaws more easily while maintaining efficiency.

I see. But wouldn't that be the case for any unit we add to the team until somewhere around mid- to lategame? I don't think this is enough of a reason to not be in High tier.

It doesn’t help that her durabilty is among the worst on the team.

Base Lute: 17 hp/3 def/22 avo

Base Ross: 15 hp/3 def/14 avo

Base Garcia: 28 hp/5 def/17 avo

Ouch. Being comparable to base level Ross in chapter 4 is really bad, and he’ll probably be 10/1 by this point, meaning he’ll actually beat her. He’s currently in lower-mid, btw.

Now let’s look at Lute’s durability growths:

45 hp/15 def/135 avo

That’s awful, as she’ll only be fixing 1/3 of her durability issues any time soon, and the latter has more to do with supports than anything. Now consider this:

20/20 Lute: 37 hp, 12 def, 73 avo

Base Gerik: 32 hp, 10 def, 34 avo

10/1 Gerik: 36 hp, 12 def, 38 avo

There are melee units that beat Lute’s maximum concrete durability before even promoting.

I never implied that Lute's concrete durability was good (or if I did, then only with supports), because that would be a lie. However, units can be next to immortal even without much concrete durability.

It can’t really more than make up for her bad durability since it’s giving her good durability but with conditions. She cannot have an overactive enemy phase, which isn’t that good when enemy phase is arguably more important than player phase on efficient runs. She also needs frontline protection, which is causing some movement restriction on others. In the even she gets hit, she’ll probably need to be healed immediately, and the list goes on.

I expressed myself in a different way than I meant to. I understand that it doesn't fix her durability for the Enemy Phase, so sorry for that statement. However, she has no problems attacking in Player Phase regardless of her actual durability (unless she targets enemies with javelins or hand axes, but that would be pretty dumb), which was what I wanted to say.

She starts off with 11 Mt using fire (anything better and she’ll weigh herself down even further), which 3RKOes enemies with 23 hp/0 res. Granted she’ll be growing atk at a monstrous rate (fast leveling + 60% growth), but the best she can manage before doubling is 2HKOing. You were implying she started there.

Sorry for the exaggeration. However, even so, 2HKOing stuff (after a few level ups) really isn't that bad, considering that pretty much no-one except Seth manages anything better than a 2RKO for a rather long time (even though some of them probably do more damage).

Indeed, but supports only help her when they occur. Let’s take her 2 fastest supports (Artur/Kyle): they take 15/35/62 for Artur and 19/39/65 for Kyle. Realistically, she’ll only start hitting C/B level somewhere around midgame, which leaves her with a lot of time to struggle defensively in between.

Yes. However, it's better than nothing, and even without full support levels, having supports at all already helps her a bunch, though I must admit that without all five slots, she isn't quite as immortal. But at least it allows her to see some front action, though she can't just go Rambo yet.

And it’s not like supports completely eliminate her problem, either. If she gets 2HKOed, supports merely reduce the chance of that happening, but it’s still there. Someone with –10 avo but who can take twice as many hits will always be safer to use against a moderate sized group of enemies.

At the latest when she's promoted (by that time at the latest she should really have all her support slots filled) I can't imagine any enemy capable of 2HKOing her anymore that is not a boss (or a berserker wielding a devil axe).

And even before her promotion, I don't think sword and bow users will 2HKO her, as that'd require them to have around 22 Atk or more, and actually, I recall to not have seen that anywhere except on axe users and some of the heavier lancers (like, knights). Given, there are enemies that are capable of 2HKOing her, but most of those have crappy hit rates against her anyway (2 axe users hitting her in a row has a probability of about 0.27%, which I say is neglible).

Let me get this straight: Artur was adjacent to Lute for 62 turns in 8 chapters? That’s 8 turns / chapter, and some earlygame ones don’t even last that long.

Some last longer than 8 turns, some require less turns than that. If you feel that I'm exaggerating on that point, maybe shift the full support thing one chapter further into the game, but I don't think it'll take much longer than that. (62 turns in 9 chapters would average to 7 turns adjacent in most of those chapters, which I think is fully doable. Given, they have to be adjacent all the time for that to work, but given the fact that they both have the same movement, should be used in similar ways and both absolutely want that support to finish, I think it is justified.)

You’re exaggerating low enemy AS a little. I distinctly recall pirates in chapter 11 Eph route with 9-10 AS, and mercs and myrms are even faster than that.

Most of them wield steel though, or other heavy stuff like hand axes that weigh them down. Maybe she doesn't double all of them, but I think she does double almost all of them. And monsters not named Mauthe Doog she doubles anyway.

Those don’t exist on many maps. Castles would be the obvious example, though I guess they do have some fortress tiles. Still, we can’t keep Lute waiting on specific tiles to survive since that just wastes time. She’s also taking up defensive spaces that other units can use well (who the hell doesn’t want 20 avo and 2 def).

I wasn't saying that every map has such tiles, but some do, and Lute can put them to excellent use.

I also wasn't trying to say that we should park Lute on one of those tiles and then wait until all enemies suicide against her, but I take it that you do use terrain to your advantage when fighting things at the front? Lute can claim that terrain and have all enemies in range of attacking her suicide against her since she's almost guaranteed to ORKO them regardless of range (I am not talking about earlygame here, mind you); with her "bad" durability she's also likely to be targeted (which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on the situation and/or the RNG) by most of them. It's true that other characters want such terrain tiles for themselves as well, but most of those (unless named Seth) cannot ORKO stuff regardless of range, and some cannot ORKO at all. Lute can, so giving her that tile to massively improve her Enemy Phase for that turn is justified.

Going by your earlier hit numbers, 10% real manages a 1% death chance in 2 attacks, or 2.8% in 3. Reducing her support levels inflates that even higher.

Except that lances hardly 2HKO her with full supports (even before promotion) unless backed up by knight-like STR. I can't recall cavaliers, soldiers or bonewalkers to have enough STR to reach 22 Atk with steel lances.

You’re still exaggerating. There’s plenty 16 AS doesn’t double and she has to go even lower than that to increase damage output.

What is there that 16 AS can't double in midgame? Some Myrmidons and Mercs, Mauthe Doogs and... ...uh, that's all? Remember that most enemies are weighed down by their steel weapons.

Also, while it is true that using anything else than fire will weigh Lute down as well, making her unable to double most stuff, she doesn't even need anything else than fire. Assuming the promoted Lute, around 26 or 27 Atk that targets RES and hits twice in a row should be enough to ORKO anything that is not a cyclops, a boss or maybe an enemy magic user, though with those it depends since they usually have very few HP; giving her something like thunder would thus likely damage her offense instead of improving it.

All in all, she's not perfect by any means, of course, but I dare say that she by all means is High tier material.

[Florete]

I can move Lute up to high (between Gerik and Saleh seems fair for the Eirike one), though then I might as well merge that mid tier.

As for L'Arachel, when hyping "healer on a horse", let's not forget Troubadours have only 6 mov in this game (as much as thieves and bishops and such), and she doesn't even have the staff level to use anything amazing until she uses like two entire Mends iirc.

L'Arachel is probably more useful in large teams than small ones (small ones of like 6-7 people at most can reasonably promote around the time she joins), but even in large ones I don't think she's useful at all.

So before promotion she's just as good as promoted units at healing and after promotion she's better. Also, Torch and Unlock are D ranked, Barrier and Restore are C, and then Physic is B. I don't see how it would be so hard for her to get her staff rank up. How again is this Bottom tier? We consider someone like Ross a detriment at least for a while, and if he ever grows out of that he doesn't even become that good. I can make good use of L'Arachel immediately and turn her into quite a good unit as well. It might require some staff abuse, but if you already have Bishops, who cares? It just doesn't make sense to me that she's Bottom tier simply because "we have Bishops."

[CT075]

So before promotion she's just as good as promoted units at healing and after promotion she's better. Also, Torch and Unlock are D ranked, Barrier and Restore are C, and then Physic is B. I don't see how it would be so hard for her to get her staff rank up. How again is this Bottom tier? We consider someone like Ross a detriment at least for a while, and if he ever grows out of that he doesn't even become that good. I can make good use of L'Arachel immediately and turn her into quite a good unit as well. It might require some staff abuse, but if you already have Bishops, who cares? It just doesn't make sense to me that she's Bottom tier simply because "we have Bishops."

There's soome truth in this, but just against your Ross example:

Ross can be promoted to Pirate by C4 if you just have him sit in the treasure room and take potshots with his Hatchet. In the next chapters, he doubles a bit more than before, his durability is no longer absolute shit, and his attack is increased by, like, 30%. I don't have the #s right now, but I'm pretty sure that this is > whatever L'Arachel does.

[CATS]

It doesn’t help that her durabilty is among the worst on the team.

Base Lute: 17 hp/3 def/22 avo

Base Ross: 15 hp/3 def/14 avo

Base Garcia: 28 hp/5 def/17 avo

Ouch. Being comparable to base level Ross in chapter 4 is really bad, and he’ll probably be 10/1 by this point, meaning he’ll actually beat her. He’s currently in lower-mid, btw.

Now let’s look at Lute’s durability growths:

45 hp/15 def/135 avo

That’s awful, as she’ll only be fixing 1/3 of her durability issues any time soon, and the latter has more to do with supports than anything. Now consider this:

20/20 Lute: 37 hp, 12 def, 73 avo

Base Gerik: 32 hp, 10 def, 34 avo

10/1 Gerik: 36 hp, 12 def, 38 avo

There are melee units that beat Lute’s maximum concrete durability before even promoting.

How is Ross 10/1 by Ch. 4? I have trouble getting him to 10/1 by the end of 4 without wasting turns to help him out or something. Anyways.

Lute's durability is certainly not that bad compared to many other units available at the time. Base Lute may be 17 HP and 3 Def, but:

3-4 Eirika: 17.75 HP, 3.75 Def

8 Journeyman Ross: 19.9 HP, 4.75 Def, surprisingly good

4 Moulder: 20.7 HP, 2.25 Def

3 Neimi: 18.1 HP, 3.3 Def

4 Colm: 19.5 HP, 3.5 Def

3 Vanessa: 18 HP, 6.4 Def, which is actually not bad, but then she can't use the forests which are everywhere in C4

Base Artur: 19 HP, 2 Def

Lute still has the worst pure durability on the list, no doubt, but it's by small margins against most of these people. C4 Revenants are 10-11 Atk, so Lute is usually 3HKO'd, but, so is everyone else I just listed except Ross and Vanessa. Then you add in that Lute doesn't get countered and she's beating some of these people, especially units like Colm and Eirika who can't avoid getting countered. Likewise, her Res is higher than most for the Mogalls, as none of the physical units save Vanessa (and obviously Seth) average 5 Res right now. I suppose Lute's Res really is 4 since the Mogalls use Dark, but that's still better than most people's Res.

While Lute obviously has worse durability than Gilliam, Franz, etc., everyone's durability is worse than theirs, and Lute's durability isn't the worst in the party either, and she can say her offense beats some people like Gilliam (who has a high chance of still having 3 Spd and thus not doubling even the 0 Spd Revenants).

Her defensive growths are much better than they look thanks to the fact that she can get full Def and Avo from supports, which some units can't or won't be able to realistically do. I'll keep playing and look at this more later.

[CATS]

Being amazing for a short time > being a detriment early on and always having AS issues.

How is Myrrh amazing?

Ross is not that much of a detriment early on. His HP, Atk and Def (the important earlygame stats) are quite high, even in his Trainee class.

Innes’ concrete durability is much worse than Duessel’s. 31 hp/10 def vs 41 hp/17 def is a huge difference, especially when enemies hover around 15-25ish atk until promoted enemies start showing up. I’ll grant that he doubles more, but that’s the only win he’d ever pull on Duessel if he had 1 range.

Why are you comparing them at their base stats?

There's not much of a difference between if he were required or if you had as many unit slots as you had units, but he'd still get credit for the latter.

True enough. Just a thought.

I've never been keen on Vanessa's supports, but her flier utility is hax.

Hm. She acquires the Orion's Bolt in C6, but how often are you using Neimi? Saves Ross in her joining chapter, I suppose. What else is there? It's been too long since I played. I remember Vanessa being very necessary to get the villages in 9 Eir.

She's also got most availability in the game though, but I think now she should be in the same tier as Gerik/Joshua/Colm actually.

Actually she's tied with Seth for most availability.

But yeah, availability is only important if you're contributing alot during that time. Eirika isn't particularly notable during the earlygame, so I'm hardly impressed by the fact that she's there the longest.

[Jaybee]

Hm. She acquires the Orion's Bolt in C6, but how often are you using Neimi? Saves Ross in her joining chapter, I suppose. What else is there? It's been too long since I played. I remember Vanessa being very necessary to get the villages in 9 Eir.

Seth is also a viable option, or Pirate!Ross can get to the bottom house.

Also, do we count C5, C7 and C8 as maps where we are guaranteed to get supports since we can wait while the supports build up?

Edited August 1, 2009 by Joshybear25

[CATS]

C5, eh, you need to be moving people around, as there's multiple directions to go and you want to recruit Joshua, if only for his Killing Edge, and this is one of the few things that Seth cannot do.

C7 and C8, I actually wouldn't be opposed. These are chapters where literally, if you honestly don't hold back with Seth, he will just blatantly solo the entire chapter, or close to the entire chapter (once again there's two paths in C8 so you can still have another group of people doing something). I just got done playing C8. Ross and Garcia went off to fight the 5 Knights in the top right corner, then Seth went down the other path, just killing everything and moving way too quickly for anyone to catch up with his 8 move, so it ended up with everyone else in the party except him just bringing up the rear and staying positioned for supports in the process, because they literally had nothing else to do >_>

[Jaybee]

C5, eh, you need to be moving people around, as there's multiple directions to go and you want to recruit Joshua, if only for his Killing Edge, and this is one of the few things that Seth cannot do.

C7 and C8, I actually wouldn't be opposed. These are chapters where literally, if you honestly don't hold back with Seth, he will just blatantly solo the entire chapter, or close to the entire chapter (once again there's two paths in C8 so you can still have another group of people doing something). I just got done playing C8. Ross and Garcia went off to fight the 5 Knights in the top right corner, then Seth went down the other path, just killing everything and moving way too quickly for anyone to catch up with his 8 move, so it ended up with everyone else in the party except him just bringing up the rear and staying positioned for supports in the process, because they literally had nothing else to do >_>

What I meant was killing the boss (or just waiting in Saar's case) for supports when the chapter is pretty much over.

[CATS]

I'd imagine not. Usually people say support abusing isn't an option.

I mean really, it's FE8, why would you want to make it easier than it already is.

[Vykan12]

How is Myrrh amazing?

50 attacks of domination, really.

Some people point out she has shaky durability and cannot double when she joins, but that lasts for all of a fraction of a chapter. Based on empirical data, Myrrh gains 22 exp for hitting as lv 14 enemy and 82 for a kill. Against a --/4 enemy, that jumps to 27/100. If we give her 4 hits and 4 kills on a single map, she’ll have already reached ~level 5.

Myrrh lv 5 (dragonstone): 20 hp, 35 atk, 136 hit, 23 crit, 8 AS, 23 def, 28 res, 20 avo

Franz lv 20/5 (silver lance): 40 hp, 31 atk, 116 hit, 8 crit, 20 AS, 14 def, 7 res, 51 avo

Myrrh already has crushing leads on the second best character in the game, and she’s nowhere near her full potential. Let’s look at her against some enemies in chp 7 now:

Paladin lv 4 (silver lance): 40 hp, 26 atk, 103 hit, 11 AS, 11 def, 9 res, 30 avo

Myrrh does 60% damage per hit while only taking 15% in return.

Wyvern lv 11 (slim lance): 37 hp, 19 atk, 105 hit, 11 AS, 13 def, 3 res, 26 avo

Myrrh does 59% damage per hit while taking nothing in return.

Then Myrrh 1HKOes most mage threats while taking 0 damage in return, and we could also save her for 17, 20 and F where she’ll 1HKO everything in sight while taking single digit damage at worst.

Looking at exp gain, now that she 1-2HKOes with virtually no fear of dying, her levelling will be even faster than it was in 16. Something I like to do in 17 is send Myrrh alone to the island north of your starting point. This way, nobody has to waste time breaking a snag and everyone can direct their focus on taking down Lyon. For picture reference, I’m talking about this area:

There are also wyvern reinforcements that show up in the NW mountain roughly every turn. Considering Myrrh gains a level roughly every 2 enemy encounters, she could easily max her level here, though that would probably deplete her dragonstones for little purpose.

So let’s say she hits lv 18 in time for chp 19, arguably the hardest in the game (nothing but high level pre-promotes, FOW, overwhelming enemy #s, etc).

Myrrh lv 18 (dragonstone): 37 hp, 46 atk, 29 crit, 162 hit, 16 AS, 35 def, 32 res, 40 avo

Seth lv 20 (silver lance): 47 hp, 38 atk, 11 crit, 137 hit, 21 AS, 19 def, 14 res, 60 avo

Myrrh’s leads are monstrous, particularly in def and res. Like the highest atk enemy in 19 I could find is a warrior with 32 atk, and he won’t even injure her. Some druids will have trouble killing her even with effective Mt bonus, same goes for archers. She’s invincible unsupported, and no one else in the game can ever claim such an honor. She’s not even that slow anymore, either. 16 AS doubles warriors, snipers, generals, sages, druids … basically anything that isn’t a hero, myrmidon or swordmaster. However, you need 20 AS to double those, a feat that many units won’t even reach anyway. For example, Lute only reaches it at 20/10, Forde only gets there at 20/12, Artur takes even longer, etc.

The fact that she has flight makes her even cooler. In chp 20 for instance, she can cut through the western mountains and clear the area so that a flier can safely ferry Eirika over to the throne instead of taking the long route. Picture ref:

Normally you have to do a reverse U turn around the level to reach Morva.

Relating this back to Ross vs Myrrh… it really all depends on how much weight you give to Ross’ availability.

Why are you comparing them [Duessel + Innes] at their base stats?

They’re promoted so they don’t level fast, for one thing. For another, Duessel will have a level advantage on Eph route due to joining earlier. If we’re talking Eir route, Innes has 3 chapters to himself, so assuming he gains 3 levels (IMO a bit generous), he’ll gain 2 hp and 0.6 def… that doesn’t really change the point I was making.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Vykan12

[Mekkah]

Some druids will have trouble killing her even with effective Mt bonus

Druids don't have effective might on Myrrh. They do use Luna from like 20 mag iirc, so Myrrh gets 2HKO'd by that. But they also have garbage hit. 50 base + whatever they get from skl/luk, estimate about 20-30 more. So 32% real at best. And she'll never really have to face two of those in a row.

[CATS]

Not too much to say about Myrrh right now, it depends on how quickly you level her and what levels your other guys are at. Probably come back to that once I get to C16 again. I will say this though:

Myrrh lv 5 (dragonstone): 20 hp, 35 atk, 136 hit, 23 crit, 8 AS, 23 def, 28 res, 20 avo

Franz lv 20/5 (silver lance): 40 hp, 31 atk, 116 hit, 8 crit, 20 AS, 14 def, 7 res, 51 avo

Myrrh already has crushing leads on the second best character in the game, and shes nowhere near her full potential.

I don't see any crushing leads. Franz actually has speed and avo, and his HP is twice as high. I guess Myrrh wins at magic durability.

Relating this back to Ross vs Myrrh… it really all depends on how much weight you give to Ross availability.

If you mean him sucking early on or something, I don't see it as that much of an issue. Until you get the preparations screen (C5 iirc), he's going to be there anyways, so you might as well use him. And it's not like using him is preventing you from fielding a better unit or something, either.

I suppose it depends on whether or not you can get him to L10 by the end of C4.

Theyre promoted so they dont level fast, for one thing. For another, Duessel will have a level advantage on Eph route due to joining earlier. If were talking Eir route, Innes has 3 chapters to himself, so assuming he gains 3 levels (IMO a bit generous), hell gain 2 hp and 0.6 def… that doesnt really change the point I was making.

First, yeah, I was talking about the Eir Route tier list.

3 chapters? He joins in 10 Eir. He has 4 chapters and part of C10 before Duessel shows up. And are you assuming he gets no supports? Because he has excellent supports with Gerik and Vanessa.

Druids don't have effective might on Myrrh. They do use Luna from like 20 mag iirc, so Myrrh gets 2HKO'd by that. But they also have garbage hit. 50 base + whatever they get from skl/luk, estimate about 20-30 more. So 32% real at best. And she'll never really have to face two of those in a row.

They can crit and OHKO her, though. They have 15-16 Crit, and 5 Myrrh has only 4 CEV. Their hit is like 73-74, and Myrrh's Avo is only 19 or 20, so it's extremely possible.

Edited August 1, 2009 by CATS

[Mekkah]

I was talking about Ch19 Myrrh vs Luna Druids, not Ch16 Myrrh. Though I underestimated Myrrh's CEV (confused her with Fa or something) since her actual luk is only 8 at --/18 and her Dragonstone doesn't give her luk.

[CATS]

Oh, indeed. She can still easily get critted though, if the Druids have 32% real hit against her as you said.

[Vykan12]

You get an iron rune just before Myrrh joins. Who else would honestly want it?

[Scarlet]

You get an iron rune just before Myrrh joins. Who else would honestly want it?

Moulder? Kyle? Artur? Dozla? Knoll?

Actually, there are quite a few dudes in FE8 that don't have very much LUK at all. Many of them might wind up facing dangerous crit rates from druids with luna or similar stuff.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Raymond

[Vykan12]

You can get cev from supports though. Myrrh can't have those when she joins, and her supports are kind of weak (she has wind affinity).

[Florete]

And, uh, yeah, what do people think about L'Arachel going up? Because no one addressed my last post on the matter.

[Vykan12]

L'Arachel < Dozla seems strange. The former helps team durability, the latter is just fairly durable in his own right while not having much else going for him. Moving her right below Rennac seems reasonable I guess.

[Jaybee]

It's a Hoplon Guard. Iron Runes were from FE7.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Joshybear25

[CATS]

Is anyone going to respond to smash's argument about Neimi moving up? If not, I think we should go ahead and move Neimi. I can agree that she's bad, but Bottom seems a bit too harsh.

Likewise, I see no reason not to move L'Arachel up as Red was saying. What she has is atleast better than someone like Marisa who just sucks at fighting for the whole game.

Edited August 2, 2009 by CATS

[Vykan12]

Mind backing up Marisa's poor combat? I know for one thing that she has very reliable crit proc% post promotion while being within 4HKO range of most enemies. That puts her at Joshua-level pretty much, and he's ranked much higher than her.