SF makes a FE8 Tier List - Round 2 (Post 27)

[SB.]

best: seth>vanessa>tethys

obvious, flight, dancing

franz is solid but dance is more valuable imo

worst: ewan>amelia>marisa

people saying that ewan can chip seem to forget that he has 4 mov and has to hope that the rest of your units arent killing everything first. amelia has /potential/ but ends up roughly similar to base franz 10~ chapters later. marisa is a growth unit that arrives too late for most maps she would matter in but can at least crit things for exp i guess?

Edited November 8, 2015 by SB.

[Ema Skye]

Alright. Round 1 is over.

Seth won (obviously) with 39 points. He beat Vanessa by 18.

Amelia "won" for worst unit with 37 points, beating Ewan by 11.

Round 2 starts now. Same process.

My vote:

Best: Vanessa, Tethys, Franz

Worst: Ewan, Knoll, Neimi

[Carmine Sword]

Best:

Vanessa +3

Franz +2

Artur +1

Worst:

Ewan -3

Marisa -2

L'Arachel -1

Changed my vote slightly.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Carmine Sword

[Refa]

Best:

Vanessa > Franz > Cormag

Thought about it and having another fairly good mount in Franz is better than Saleh's late game staffwork and his fairly good non mounted combat (although he fails to double an annoying amount of the time thanks to having not the best of bases).

Worst:

Ewan > Marisa > Rennac

Had a tough time picking between Neimi, L'Arachel, Rennac, and Knoll. I might actually change that last one if someone makes a convincing enough argument down the road.

EDIT Neimi's early contributions beat whatever else everyone is doing, Rennac can at least fight (poorly but he can ORKO with Killing Edges and a decent amount of luck), and Knoll has whatever else I said earlier. L'Arachel has D base staves and 6 move at a point when neither of those things are particularly helpful.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Refa

[Jedi]

Best

Vanessa>Franz>Tethys

Same logic applies as before,

Worst

Knoll<Ewan<Marisa

Mostly same logic as before

Edited November 9, 2015 by Jedi

[Lopey]

Best:

+3 Vanessa

+2 Franz

+1 Tethys

Worst:

-1 L' Arachel

-2 Ewan

-3 Marisa

[-Cynthia-]

Best:

Vanessa>Tethys>Franz

Worst:

Ewan<Marisa<L'Arachel

[General Horace]

Best: Vanessa > Franz > Cormag

Worst: Ewan < Marisa < Rennac

i seriously can't believe everyone seems to think Tethys is better than Franz/Eph Cormag or even someone like Saleh. She's around for less than half of the chapters and in a lot of the lategame chapters she just watches as the chapters are skipped by Warp/Flight. But like (assuming Eirika route since she comes earlier) she does nothing of note in her join chapter, is pretty good in Chapter 11, totally mediocre in chapter 12, very mediocre in 13, pretty good in 14, very mediocre in 15 and 16, does next to nothing in 17, is very useful in 18, and does next to nothing for the rest of the game. Compare that to someone like Franz who comes and is very strong from chapter 1 onwards (except the lategame warpskips) and Cormag, who joins right before a bunch of flier friendly maps with totally ridiculous stats and very good growths. I just don't see it. Cormag has roughly the same avalibility as Tethys, and almost immediately becomes your strongest unit (even better than Seth) within a few chapters, and is probably the best lategame bosskiller thanks to high durability/str/spd and has Pierce to boot.

As for the worst units, they all suck and I drew Rennac out of a hat of awful units, at least L'Arachel can use torch in a few maps and at the end of the day she's really not much worse than someone like Natasha. Rennac is a totally useless utility unit with bad offence and durability.

Edited November 9, 2015 by General Horace

[eclipse]

Best:

Franz > Vanessa > Cormag

Short of a bunch of arrows, not much is gonna take Cormag out. Still don't care for Vanessa.

Worst:

Marisa < Ewan < Rennac

Marisa still can't chip. Rennac's thieving utility comes in handy during Chapter 16. . .oh, wait, we're not going to stick around long enough to get stuff in there. No one cares about the flame tiles in Chapter 18, and L'Arachel with a Torch staff can sorta-mimic Rennac's vision in Chapter 19. While L'Arachel can't counter, Rennac has to contend with a lot of things that either hit him out of range (mages in Chapter 15) or stuff that he outright can't do anything about.

[Refa]

@Horace

Tethys saves like a turn every map (even the ones you've listed as very mediocre). Franz doesn't do anything that Seth couldn't (so he's just another good mount which is not a bad thing although Franz's offence is not actually that good until he can consistently double which is uh...Chapter 4 because monsters and he only consistently doubles by Chapter 7), and uh...you might be right about Cormag. He's not really replaceable by Vanessa because Vanessa has a pretty iffy offense although her turn saves are undeniable until then.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Refa

[General Horace]

Franz probably collectively saves more turns then Tethys (who doesn't save a turn in chapters 17/19/20 anyway), he exists and saves a turn in the chapters 2 and 4 rout maps, might save a turn in chapter 3 (not sure on this one) visits the villages for the guiding ring in chapter 5 (which potentially saves many turns longterm) saves a turn in chapter 6, and I could go on forever, and this is all before the existance of Tethys. This isn't pure LTC either, so stuff like her saving a turn in Chapter 13 by having Saleh survive like 10 enemies and kill the boss probably isn't assumed (actually you have to wait for Cormag for the purposes of the list so she actually does absolutely nothing). By extension Franz is probably a higher level than 10/1 or whatever and doesn't have to immediately promote (he can promote at level 13-15 or something after Chapter 9 or something for a much better midgame).

Seth is god yes, but he can't be everywhere at once in rout maps, and someone often needs to clear his path so he can move farther ahead, and Franz has the third best offence on your team (next to Joshua and Seth) in addition to the third best mobility until someone like... Gerik/Cormag show up. He's really a lot better imo. Tethys just is really underwhelming for a GBA dancer. She doesn't have the avalibility of Lalum/Elphin (or Ninils) and doesn't have any other cool things like Filla's Might or Ninis' Grace.

Edited November 9, 2015 by General Horace

[Refa]

She saves a turn in Chapter 20 if you don't have two warpers (which is not something you should be assuming people actually have). You can route Chapters 2 and 4 without Franz in the same number of turns, I'm pretty sure (and his offense is terrible in Chapter 2); actually sure about Chapter 4 because I did it in 0% growths since Franz's offence couldn't cut it (to be fair, he's a lot more useful in later routmaps especially Chapter 9). Fair enough on him getting villages and this not being pure LTC, though.

Thinking about it though, I guess I'd rather have Franz if I had to pick between Franz/Tethys? Mostly for the midgame rout maps because doing a Seth/Vanessa solo would be pretty rough.

EDIT Also not related to Franz but Rennac can use a Torch in the last few maps and probably has a larger range than L'Arachel considering her bad base magic...

Edited November 9, 2015 by Refa

[General Horace]

I guess Garcia can fill in for Chapter 4 if Seth drops him, didn't think about that (although I dunno who would kill the north zombies then)

If you're recruiting everybody I don't see why you wouldn't have two warpers. Even some awful dude like Moulder would probably be enough, and Saleh instantly makes it since he has many turns waiting for Cormag in Chapter 13 with the barrier staff.

In Chapter 2 unless Eirika has 11 speed (it's pretty unlikely she even has two levels let alone two speed procs) Franz is needed to rescue Seth down after he kills them so he can kill the boss on the turn 4 enemy phase.

Tethys gives (potentially) your best unit two actions which is really cool, but she does have issues keeping up in some chapters and while she's enabling good units to take two actions, at the end of the day, its still not Tethys that's performing these actions; I don't think it's really fair to credit her for doing something like boosting Cormag ahead so he can go kill 12 enemies on an enemy phase instead of 6 or something (and he'd potentially kill said enemies later on anyway without any real drawback).

She's really not that great in rout chapters aside from chapter 18 either, since they're so enemy phase centric.

[Irysa]

Best (3/2/1)

Franz > Vanessa > Cormag

Worst (3/2/1)

Ewan > Marisa > L'Arachel

[Yojinbo]

Best:

Vanessa > Franz > Eir!Saleh [or just Saleh if we seriously ignore the route spilt]. Tethys is definitely the "worst" GBA dancer, if not the worst dancer entirely. She's still good of course but she saves like maybe 7 turns or so over the course of the game. Saleh probably saves that through warping alone.

Worst:

Ewan < Marisa < L'Arachel; I think it's kind of a tough call [though probably irrelevant] between L'Arachel and Rennac. Rennac can at least "fight", open chests for free, increase vision in the defensive fog of war chapter ... idk, none of that really matters but L'Arachel probably gets to do even less. If she actually had a staff rank that can be worked with then the fact that she's mounted and could keep up with promoted foot units would maybe be a relevant factor. But as thing's stand she's pretty useless.

[Refa]

Also she has only 6 move.

[Sniper Knight]

Vanessa > Tethys > Franz

Torn between Franz and Cormag, went with Franz because availability. If someone is convincing enough, I'll change my vote.

Ewan < Knoll < Marisa

I still don't think Phantoms are that useful, baiting with another is better since they won't die in one hit. Even Marisa is good for baiting hordes of axe users. Rescuing is cool, but not as cool as +crit.

[Espinosa]

I'm not going to vote for a while until I figure out who's the better unit between Eirika route Saleh and an average-stats Artur. I have a feeling it's the former, though.

[Shadow Mir]

Best: Franz > Vanessa > Saleh

Worst: Ewan < Marisa < Rennac

[General Horace]

I'm not going to vote for a while until I figure out who's the better unit between Eirika route Saleh and an average-stats Artur. I have a feeling it's the former, though.

for what it's worth a 20/1 Artur has roughly the same bases as Saleh but has a lower staff Rank (if he's a sage) or has a lower magic cap if he's a bishop with equal staff rank.

I doubt Artur would be 20/1 by his join chapter either, and Saleh pretty much has exclusive use to Excalibur, since even if you use Lute, it lowers her speed to thwomp levels, and lol Ewan.

[Shadow Mir]

Saleh pretty much has exclusive use to Excalibur, since even if you use Lute, it lowers her speed to thwomp levels, and lol Ewan.

Erm... Excalibur boosts speed by 5, so....

[Mekkah]

As long as Tethys is above Tana I think she's fine, lol. But Cormag and Franz are definitely better.

[General Horace]

Erm... Excalibur boosts speed by 5, so....

it also has 13 weight so Lute loses 4 speed if she uses it as a Sage, and 2 speed if she uses it as a mageknight. Her speed is already suspect in the first place too.

[Yojinbo]

Don't see the point of giving Excalibur to Lute. She can just use any decent Anima spell and do fine with it.

Then again I don't think there's actually a point in the game where you use Excalibur except like ... against Caellach maybe? In that case Saleh would be the user. Seems like a pretty pointless argument to me.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Yojinbo

[Carmine Sword]

Excalibur is useful for OHKOing the Rangers down by Valter since they're pretty hard to double and ORKO otherwise, except with someone like Spear!Vanessa.