FE10 Tierlist 2017

[Zelgius]

As for actually considering her moving over to GMs as part of her utility, that's almost as dumb as saying Lords are the best characters because you literally can't beat the game without them. lol

?

I gave a specific instance as to why this is helpful. I voted her 3.5 myself, but named this as a small perk for her.

[DoctorSpectrum]

Illyana: I liked her, but she ended up being just a bit under what I'd consider good. If she had a bit better speed and skill then I would have used her a lot more, but as it is she was one of my better units in the Dawn Brigade. I'm also a bit biased since I used her a bit and liked her in Path of Radiance, so I voted 7.5. Definitely not endgame material, but alright for a bit.

Aran I somehow missed the opportunity to recruit him because I'm an idiot, so in the interest of fairness I gave him a 5.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Unless she procs 1 Spd, not even. Can't expect much from a 30% SPD growth, and Aran's on a similar boat.

Oh, right.

As for the tigers she needs 14 at least, and she only has 13 without speed boost.

[Junkhead]

Ilyana: Wow her speed is bad. Her defense is really bad too, as is the usual for mages. So she'll get doubled and killed very easily.

uhhh, even in HM, enemies don't (or rarely) proc 17 (unless you count Myrmidon) by 1-E, unless you meant her Part 3.

?

I gave a specific instance as to why this is helpful. I voted her 3.5 myself, but named this as a small perk for her.

Not specifically referring to you, but some might consider it. Like, I wouldn't give her an extra 2-3 points for enabling 2-3 of the best units in the game (Haar, Titania, maybe Ike).

[Augestein]

Ilyana: She should have been a promoted mage. Man, she is not good. Part 1 she's pretty solid, being the only mage that doesn't get destroyed by life itself in the event that a stray javelin happens to come flying her way, she starts out doubling in NM and can occasionally get lucky in HM with it especially if you got a transfer with speed. Her Biorhythm has no "worst" in it, so you never have to worry about super dips in accuracy or evasion which is a great boon as Part 1 is the only time I find biorhythms offensive. So what's wrong with her then? For starters, she's tier 1, so she's locked to the terrible Thunder tomes until she promotes, and even if she somehow DOES promote in Part 1, her stats are not enough to carry her into Part 3. She'll easily be the least durable, slowest, and weakest unit in the GMs that's supposed to be an attacker. Sure she can kill Wyverns on occasion, but that's still not enough. If she had gotten staves in tier 2, maybe she would have been okay (I'd have used her before Rhys on the account that she isn't OHKOed by enemies), but here? Just... Decidedly below average. Even if you invest a ton in her, what do you end up with? Great, another healer that can't attack worth anything and has "staff utility." Freaking mages.

4.5 /10 - Because at least she's pretty decent in the DB portion. Not great, but certainly not garbage levels. I remember that she might be kinda scrubby, but in comparison to people like Lyre, Lethe, Meg, Fiona, Tauroneo in part 4... She seems to come out okay. Just below average the whole game. She never brings about true hell if you try to raise her. She just fails to ever really impress. Quite a step down from Path of Radiance I'll say.

Aran isn't the tank you need, he's the tank you want (no, that isn't backwards). A tank that can grow with you. However, Aran's problem is the same thing as every DB unit: he needs time to actually grow into a good unit. If you use him immediately, he can be pretty useful, and can tank all sorts of nonsense coming your way. His affinity only assists with his tankiness in making him simply put a physical wall. However, any stray mage that appears is bound to tear through him like no one else's business. Fortunately, he doesn't run into many mages until part 4. He's also a character that's ripe for BEXP abuse because he caps str, def, and skill so easily. My biggest beef with him is actually his part 4 and early part 1 performance honestly. In Part 1, his biorhythm hurts him in a bad way which causes him to have a ton of hit problems which makes his seemingly average skill a bit inaccurate to his actual accuracy. It's a problem for him, because he usually will be at "worst" when you're fighting the Laguz enemies which can make it difficult to use him on the chapter which can cause him to fall behind in levels. He can also get doubled before he gets a chance to start growing into the tank you want. If that happens, he's pretty much sunk for the rest of the game. For part 4, he's 1 point shy of being able to double things on his own. This means that he'll have to spend a good portion of his time near Nasir to actually have 34 points of speed to double. Kinda annoying but not the end of the world. Those little things simply add up to him not being a great unit despite those super growths.

4.5/10 - Like a lot of DB units, doesn't double but has some monstrous strength, skill and defense growths. If he starts to get doubled he can be in some trouble though. I still think units like Edward are better than Aran. Sadly he continues the trend of being "okay for what he was, but not worth taking once you can not use him."

[Radiant head]

i've never used aran in endgame because of his low res, but can he not orko spirits with a brave lance?

[Augestein]

i've never used aran in endgame because of his low res, but can he not orko spirits with a brave lance?

Yeah, IIRC he can, but it's still a pain to save a brave lance for him and it's a bit of a let down to have to bless that instead of say... The Wishblade for units that can double naturally.

[Locke087]

Ilyana: would be good if she didn't defect to the greil mercenaries but she defects and is immediately made a irrelevant by Soren, this in my opinions by the games biggest mistakes taking one of the Dawn Brigade best members and giving it to the greil mercenaries, who do not need any more units. Overall she should be generally ignored as she just steals experience from the Dawn Brigade and will never be up to snuff for the greil mercenaries without hurting the Dawn Brigade. Her only uses in the game as it is is as a convoy and the loan holder of Rexbolt, but I'm not sure that spell is worth suffering with the Dawn Brigade for. 4.5/10

Aran: to be honest I never really used him because he doesn't get a legendary weapon, but really it's just him and Leonardo fighting for The last spot in the team of people who will actually get experience. But I hear he's Overall decent 5.5/10.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Locke087

[Radiant head]

Yeah, IIRC he can, but it's still a pain to save a brave lance for him and it's a bit of a let down to have to bless that instead of say... The Wishblade for units that can double naturally.

well yeah, i kind of assume the wishblade by default is going to neph or one of the pegs, and then you have the option of deploying aran or gatrie with the brave.

[BrightBow]

Ilyana

Ilyana starts decent enough but it's all downhill for her. For starters, she is a mage and mages are pretty bad in this game. Her growth distribution also leaves to be desired, with her having a low speed growth but only an average magic growth. And of course she is using the worst type of magic in the game. Not to mention it's hard to justify putting resources into her when she ends up moving over to the Greil Mercenaries where she is surrounded by characters who are far superior to her without needing any investment.

1.5/10

Arran

He is decent, I suppose. Unfortunately despite his overkill defense growth he never quite grows into a proper tank. Partly because of his low defense base and caps but also because enemies in Part 3 have crazy high attack power, to the point where some can actually damage the Black Knight. And yet he still struggles to avoid getting double attacked.

4/10

Edited December 16, 2016 by BrightBow

[eclipse]

Ilyana - Insane availability, except she can't really take advantage of it. I think she functions well enough, and being a mage in the DB is helpful (since Micaiah can't be everywhere and any investment in Tormod falls flat on its face unless you're dead-set on using him). The fact that she's not around for DB part 3 is what hurts her the most IMO. 5/10, mostly for utility.

Aran - Bias aside, he's fairly sturdy, though he'd rather have Laura heal him instead of Micaiah. Like Edward, if he doesn't proc certain growths, he winds up in a bad spot. Unlike Edward, he's got a few more chances to do so, since he can actually survive EP. 6/10, with a bit of bias thrown in.

[Jave]

Ilyana: She's by no means great, but I give her a lot of credit for all the niche utilities she has. Best availability in the whole game, can transfer items from the DB to the GM, and gets exclusive use to Rexbolt (Seriously, might as well be a Prf weapon), which might I add, has an absolutely BADASS animation. Seriously, training Ilyana is worth it just to see Rexbolt in action.

Her growths are pretty bad, but I blame most of her bad qualities on the fact that Thunder magic has AWFUL hit in this game. 5/10

Aran: This guy is a unit that shows up when you really need it. The problem is that he has a really rough start by joining in the hardest map in the game and followed by the map with all the super strong laguz. But once he gets going, he can be a great asset to the team. 7.5/10

[Junkhead]

Can't wait for Meg

plot twist

I literally think she's better than Aran.

[Shadow Mir]

Can't wait for Meg

plot twist

I literally think she's better than Aran.

Neither can I

Because I feel she's where we're going to start seeing zeros handed out

Edited December 16, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[ClLoulD]

Ilyana:

Sadly she's over looked and has issues in areas like speed, skill and weapon utility but she does have some redeeming qualities in PoR boosts. Ilyana with boosts is fairly decent in normal mode and if you can somehow scrape together funds for an expensive forged thunder tomb she can retain usefulness after moving over to the Greil Mercenaries too. Is all this effort worth it for Ilyana? Probably not, the Greil mercenaries don't need the extra muscle and they have a valuable mage in Soren anyway; so although Ilyana can turn out quite useful it's probably not worth the effort in a team that doesn't actually need another low level mage. Ilyana can turn out quite well, has a decent crit rate and has access to the RexBolt tomb which is good for the one dragon chapter I guess.

Ilyana can actually prove useful and I think I'd rate her much higher if she stayed with the DB but alas she does not; so in the interest of considering both NM/HM I'll give her an overall rating of 4.5 (6.0 with transfers).

Aran:

Aran is the type of unit I really wanted to turn out good and with the right investment he turns out pretty sweet...But nothing incredible. Aran starts out with some nice tanky stats but rather low hitpoints, this really affects his tanking utility and is very noticeable on hard mode. He's going to struggle to double literally anything and that's going to continue to be his problem throughout his lifespan due to that 35% speed growth and 1 speed gain on promotion; what's even worse is that he's completely overshadowed by Nephenee in this class so if you choose not to use Royals then Nephenee is going to be your first choice over this chump. Aran is also going to need a forge immediately if he hopes to hit/kill anything which although it isn't a heavy investment; could still be utilised by someone like Nolan or Jill first.

Aran can perform quite well in chapters like 3-6 but on NM+ He's not going to dodge anything and he certainly won't be doubling any cats, tigers are also going to hurt him quite badly so he's "meh" even at best. For front line characters just stick with Nolan, Jill, Zihark, Volug and Sothe.

5/10

[Augestein]

Can't wait for Meg

plot twist

I literally think she's better than Aran.

I believe it. Meg's base stats are nuts , and Aran's worst stat largely ends up being a stat Meg doesn't care about on the account that she cap rams it hard. She doesn't have hit problems like so many other DB members, and makes people more accurate when it actually counts. I think she's bad and I'd put her as one of the worst units in the game, but there is a pretty large gap in my eyes between Meg and the worst person in the game.

[Radiant head]

Neither can I

Because I feel she's where we're going to start seeing zeros handed out

pretty much, unless she is allowed credit for giving eddie a steel sword.

[Naturesshadow]

Ilyana - Not the best of mages in the game but to be honest she wasn't that bad on my last run. She does suffer in the speed area like a certain light mage but her damage output wasn't too bad (more of a nuke mage). Thunder magic does have the hit issues but the crits offered can be useful and in this games hit system, misses aren't happening as often as those games that dont have it or the new hybrid one in Fates. The transfer bonuses can be quite useful to make her better and of course endgame with the dragons she rips them apart (for one chapter in the whole game it's probably not worth it but it is entertaining). I miiiiight be a bit biased in my view of her just from my own experience with her but she was decent, at least she has more availability than Tormod.

6/10

Aran - Haven't given this guy a proper shot since I tend to favour Nephenee over him. He looks promising but at the time you get him he's just alright.

5/10 for now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have no idea how you can give Meg a 0 in a game where IMO there are several significantly worse units (to stick with the DB, ranking Meg <= Fiona strikes me as crazy talk as someone who has used both, multiple times in Meg's case), but I'll see the arguments soon enough I suppose.

Most starting mages are 2HKOed by physical attacks.

Not really? GBA mages weren't really notably less durable than other units the way Tellius ones are (to be clear, they're below average, just not by as much); most aren't 2HKOed except by strong attackers. Offhand I find Lugh, Erk, Lucius, Canas, Pent, Artur, Saleh, Calill9, Tharja, and Leo more effective out of the gate (note: this list is not necessarily exclusive, I think several others are comparable and/or I can't be bothered to look up their/enemy stats to confirm my memories), never mind long-term potential.

I'm not sure what you mean by rigging crits; she can't use Wrath. Is this some hype involving battle saves? Because while this may be relevant to some challenge runs (LTC or whatever) I wouldn't give it any serious consideration for a general rating. Your standards may be different!

I agree that she's not utter crap when she joins, though I don't think she's that impressive either.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Meg

HP: 60

Strength: 35

Magic: 15

Skill: 40

Speed: 65

Luck: 75

Defense: 35

Resistance: 50

Skill: fortune

Affinity: heaven

Meg has two main issues which disqualify her for me:

1. She comes underleveled at a point where the enemies can oneround her.
2. She’s Edward II with lower movement, bases and strength growth.

In hard mode she’ll be killed by a 12 speed tiger. It’s so hard and effortful to give her levels. And it’s not worth the effort. Since you have Edward already who has the bases to do some stuff, you don’t need another sword user with limited movement and low bases.

She’s absolute trainable in easy and normal and she can become pretty alright, but there’s no real argument in investing in her. The are better sword users and armor knights in FE10 who need by far less effort to become useful than Meg.

Fortune is another pointless skill like Leonardo’s cancel since she has a rather high luck base and growth. Make money from it or give it to Ilyana.

3 / 10

_______________________________________

Volug

Growthrates (%)

HP: 95

Strength: 25

Magic: 15

Skill: 35

Speed: 40

Luck: 90

Defense: 15

Resistance: 10

Skill: halfshift (forced in part 1), howl

Affinity: earth

Volug is the most usable non-royal-Laguz in the game because he’s another lifesaver for the DB. When he joins he can oneround pretty much everyone except for myrm maybe. And even later he has the same function as Sothe for being a tank. However unlike Sothe he won’t be able to double everyone at the end of part 1 since Laguz get like no experience and he can’t get any levels unless you killed some bosses with him. Another issue is that he can only attack from close range.

However when he can fulltransform in part 3, he’ll become much more useful than Sothe. With his high HP he can take two hits by the tigers and with S-strike he can oneround all the cats (with S+-strike even the tigers).

He has earth-affinity, another major plus point for him. Combined with his high speed transformed he’ll become a great dodgetank / wall.

Of course his growths are mediocre for being a Laguz but at least 40% speed isn’t too bad. Even in part 4 he’s still usable if he has a good support. With A-support in earth and being in Tibarn’s party the opponents have like no hit against him.

Sure, he’s no endgame material because of his bad growths, but from the time he joins till part 4 Volug is unquestionable a very useful unit.

I give Volug a higher rating then Sothe because he's still very usable in part 4 and because of his earth-affinity.

8.5 / 10

Edited January 10, 2017 by Eleanor Hume

[Shadow Mir]

Meg gets a shiny goose egg out of 10. Her bases reek, her growths are lopsided, and NOT in a good way, and she's underleveled, to boot. As if that weren't enough, she's - surprise, surprise - a real pain in the ass to raise, with a payoff that doesn't even come close to justifying the effort.

Volug gets a 4.5/10, He's helpful in part 1, but starts losing relevance by the time it's over, and then he has to contend with the usual laguz problems (1-range lock, needing to transform to contribute, and being a general pain in the ass to raise) on top of that.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Meg

She's pretty bad. I mean...I don't think she's the worst, and I have seen some people actually raise her, but it's really not worth it, in my opinion. It's just way too much effort, effort that could be better spent raising a better unit. She comes underleveled, and for an armor knight she really doesn't have great defense. You have Edward, who is a much better sword user, and he has better movement. 3/10.

Volug

He's pretty good, although I really don't use Laguz all that much. I think Skrimir and Mordecai are both better, but Volug is probably the next-best non-royal Laguz. In Part 1, he'll be handy and help Nolan, Sothe, and Jill carry you through levels, and even in Part 3 he can take a hit or two. 7/10.

[Radiant head]

meg - lol. i don't really know what else can be said here. even if you give her favoritism her growths go in the exact opposite direction of her class's caps. then you have her movement limitations and the fact that she can't really do an armor knight's job of taking blows. 2/10

volug - yeah he rules. he's a highly desired cushion for the dawn brigade. almost makes sothe obsolete, if it weren't for his lack of ability to two-range. his movement and earth affinity is icing on the cake here. he can still get damaged, especially with fire mages, but that just means that you can't just be playing on auto-pilot, he's got everything needed to make part 1 much less stressful. and then part 3 comes along, take off wildheart, and he hilariously outclasses the gallia laguz. unfortunately the gauge becomes an issue, but it's not that hard to manage. part 4 he's pretty much done unless you are able to invest in raising his strike rank. his level is also really low and it's hard to raise it without having him fight a lot untransformed. but that's fine, part 4 you have tons of good characters. part 1 is where you need volug. 8/10

Edited December 17, 2016 by Radiant head

[Samias]

[spoiler=Ilyana stuff]

GBA mages weren't really notably less durable than other units the way Tellius ones are (to be clear, they're below average, just not by as much); most aren't 2HKOed except by strong attackers. Offhand I find Lugh, Erk, Lucius, Canas, Pent, Artur, Saleh, Calill9, Tharja, and Leo more effective out of the gate

I don't count Pent, Saleh, Calill and Leo as mages, as they are already promoted and not mages anymore. However Lugh, Erk, Lucius, Canas, and Tharja are all not tanky when you recruit them. Even if they can take an extra hit, they aren't one-rounding their opponent back either. And you conveniently did not mention Lilina, Soren, PoR Ilyana, Miriel or Ricken. RD Ilyana is definitely more of a threat than base Lugh or Erk. If you factor in transfers, and I didn't, her offense is ridiculous. 17 MT on chapter 3 is damn strong. Erk has 10 MT on chapter 14 (4, 5 if you count the side chapter). Both are attacking enemies who still have negligible res. Both have abysmal starting durability. The only difference that makes Erk look better is that he's pitted against complete scrubs for the first few turns so you can actually recruit him without him dying and then the rest of the game doesn't scale up nearly as hard.

Also yes, when it comes to rigging crits I do mean resets. But since there's one tiger on the other side of the wall and Ilyana has roughly 18 crit to work with when she uses Elthunder, it's easy to just do it and then move on with the rest of the chapter. I don't religious employ that strategy, but it's also not a total crapshoot if you were to do it.

Meg: Ughhhh. She's an armor knight with myrmidon stats and growths. She's underleveled although her bases are strong for a level 3. The amount of work it takes to get her up to speed is much higher than average, only for her to continually lag behind the group and deal underwhelming damage. Coming a chapter after Aran and being less tanky, slower and less skillful than him is a terrible position to be in.

Volug: He is extremely strong in part 1 and shrugs off nearly all physical attacks, despite being halfshifted. However, his continued use relies on reaching S strike during part 1 or else his offense drops off pretty hard. He has an OK guage to deal with once part 3 rolls around, making him the kind of unit the cats wish they could be. He's just great during some of the most trying parts of the game and can keep up the entire time if you want him to be an army mainstay.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Samias

[eclipse]

Meg: She's not Wendy, and I suppose BEXP can be used on her once she's hit her Speed/Luck caps. But then it begs the question of WHY, since that same BEXP can be given to someone who will make better use of it. I guess Fortune's nice, and the Heaven affinity helps her or something. 1.5/10

Volug: He starts off a dominant force, and can eventually shift regularly. Wolf gauge isn't something to write home about, but it serves him well enough. His Earth affinity is nice, and if he can get his Strike rank up (which isn't that hard, thanks to the sheer number of things he'll munch on), he'll stay good. Not laguz-royal good, but still more than able to pull his weight. 9/10, with a half point of bias because what little support speech he has is really funny.