Conquest Tier List In Depth

[Shadow Mir]

On June 15, 2017 at 2:38 PM, JSND said:

Honestly Arthur is always in a weird position for me since his PU is so hilariously Op that its worth raising him to L10 just for that

 

Niles, for example(generic A tier unit) would drop all the way to B/C if not for Arthur

Ha. That suggests Niles's position is inflated if he's dependent on fielding a bad unit. In all seriousness, though, with only so many master seals to go around for most of the game, I'd want to get as much bang for my buck with the limited supply, and thus I'd prioritize units that WILL see endgame use over those who are going to be pair up bots (better known as benchwarmers).

10 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Conceivably, turning Arthur into and Armor Knight through Effie should give him enough defense to tank any crits his personal should attract. As long as the crit doesn't come from an effective weapon (which you would be stupid to put a knight against someone with an Armorslayer), he should be able to survive one or two. If you aren't reclassing, give him a Bronze Axe, or a Frying Pan if you find one (10 avoid and dodge, something he needs). I will concur that in Communist Emblem, he is average at best, but LTC and efficiency are hardly the standard playstyle of Fire Emblem.

That's assuming that I'm willing to put up with a liability on the scale of Arthur for that long, which, if you were paying attention, you know I'm not.

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

That's a fair description of Arthur, IMO.

The weak early game holds Arthur back just enough to make him an A Tier unit, IMO, because with his start time, if he was as consistently useful from the moment you get him as he is once he gets going, he’d be  S-Tier worthy (i.e. this is why I think Effie should be S-Tier. You get her on the first chapter of conquest. She’s immediately going to stand out as one of your best units. As long as you keep using her—and there’s no reason not to—she’s never going to drop off. There’s never going to be a point in the game where Effie isn’t an amazing frontline tank + murderer of squishies. Then she gets even more abusable when she learns wary fighter. I really want to hear the argument for why Effie does NOT deserve to be S-Ranked as one of the best units in Conquest)

…back to Arthur…a few more things to note…

1)            His weak early game can be somewhat mitigated by immediately dropping his [gamble] skill, and reequipping it only after he promotes to berserker + gets his killer axe.

+10 crit / -10 hit @ base 78% hit + 6% crit is kinda janky.

+10 crit / -10 hit @ base 92% hit + 65% crit? Yes sir.

2) He joins in the same chapter as and makes an optimal pair-up partner for Effie. Effie will give him some much-needed early game bulk, before his macho man growths start to kick-in, while Arthur will very often buff Effie’s already great strength to a level that turns 3HKOs into 2HKOs and 2HKOs into 1HKOs.

 

3) Briefly mentioned above by another poster and bares repeating—Arthur’s pair up bonuses are nuts.  His berserker pair-up is like +7 str / +4 Spd, or something stupid.

4) While some of the early game chapters are unkind to him, he still finds sufficient opportunities to grab the EXP he needs to take-off between Mozu’s Village + Ft. Dragonmaw + The Sevenfold Sanctuary + Palace Macarath. On the more troublesome early game chapters where Arthur has a hard time sticking around and finding opportunities to grab kills, he will always still be good as a pair-up bot for physical units in general and Effie in particular.

In any event; he should always be ready to promote sometime around the Ninja Ship or the Den of Betrayal. And once he promotes, he is going to be one of the best units on your time.

 

5) Conquest gives you a Dual Club on Chapter 10. This is a great boost to the general viability of axe users on the route—they are the only class with access to a weapon that reverses weapon triangle and can be deceptively versatile because of it. (all the other dual weapons are only available in Birthright and Revelations, or via DLC)  

At the time you get this item you have three potential users: Camilla, Beruka, and Arthur. (and a bit later, Charlotte)

Camilla is the best unit in the game with her thunder and basic axes—she doesn’t need it. You are wasting a weapon that could make another unit much more dangerous by giving it to her.

…Beruka starts with D-Rank Axes and can’t even use the dual club until she levels up a weapon rank…

That leaves Arthur—if you’ve been using him and putting weapon rank on him for the past 4 chapters—as the wielder of the club. And without competition as the wielder of the club until you recruit charlotte or put a weapon rank on Beruka, or for some inexplicable reason decide that Camilla isn’t already good enough at murdering things.

…and with that its almost like Arthur got a mini promotion-before-his-promotion; once he has the club he picks up a ton of utility that he previously lacked and is suddenly contributing much, much more to the team.

The availability of the Dual Club in chapter 10 I’d go so far as to say he’d be B-rank without it.

But its available. And this is Fates, where weapon durability is unlimited, so from-there-on-out its going to be available to him for the rest of the game.

…You will of course eventually recruit other viable axe users, who want to use the club. But by then Arthur should be a berserker with a killer axe and a tomahawk; at that point hes finneeeeeeeee. With or without the club.

For the midgame at least—I’d include the availability of the dual club in Arthur’s viability in the same sense that we include the availability of the Flame Shuriuken in Felicia’s (not a perfect comparison, but u see what I’m getting at)   
 

Even though the risk vs reward of Berserker is NEVER in your favor?? That's pretty naïve - and I consider it unacceptable even on normal mode, so what in the seven hells makes you think you can get away with recommending Derpserker Arthur on Lunatic???

Edited June 16, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Shoblongoo]

50 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

the risk vs reward of Berserker is NEVER in your favor

i know right?

I hate having fast, hard-hitting, bulky units that crit 80% of the time and only ever lose to bad RNG.  

Edited June 16, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Moblin Major General]

25 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

i know right?

I hate having fast, hard-hitting, bulky units that crit 80% of the time and only ever lose to bad RNG.  

But that's their point. Conquest's RNG is hella unforgiving, and that one crit is in fact 3 or 4 sometimes. I like Arthur, but trying to make LMC accept him as a good unit is pointless because his personal is THAT BAD. His gimmick can be useful a lot of the time, but it's still a gimmick, and one with a huge drawback. Also, this game is the last place I'd want to use Berserkers, as they have an innate -5 dodge, and couple with Arthur's personal, it would make him a crit magnet.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

i know right?

I hate having fast, hard-hitting, bulky units that crit 80% of the time and only ever lose to bad RNG.  

Never mind the fact that crit is terribly lopsided in terms of usefulness (and guess who it does more good for? Here's a hint: It ain't you.). . . Also, Arthur and bulky cancel each other out.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[joshcja]

Dracozerks really are tippy top tier in lunatic and crit (on eithery side) has little to no impact on their use. Splattering things with damage stack off the hardest hitting weapon  type in the game with WTA on most of the game and WTN on the rest is strong.

Crits win maps for the player. The AI needs multiple crits to force L+R+Start. It's lopsided alright.

Edited June 18, 2017 by joshcja

[Roy's Our Boy]

14 hours ago, joshcja said:

Dracozerks really are tippy top tier in lunatic and crit (on eithery side) has little to no impact on their use. Splattering things with damage stack off the hardest hitting weapon  type in the game with WTA on most of the game and WTN on the rest is strong.

Crits win maps for the player. The AI needs multiple crits to force L+R+Start. It's lopsided alright.

Agreed. One lucky crit can absolutely tip the scales. And the higher your crit chance, the more crit becomes expected than actual luck. On a damage side, most units have to land 3 times the amount of hits as your 1 crit (4 times with killer weapons). For me personanlly, only my tanks got crited against. Benny getting critted means taking an extra 2 damage most of the time so it really was only a slight nuisance. Anything under 10 percent crit against usually can be ignored.  

[Shadow Mir]

16 hours ago, joshcja said:

Dracozerks really are tippy top tier in lunatic and crit (on eithery side) has little to no impact on their use. Splattering things with damage stack off the hardest hitting weapon  type in the game with WTA on most of the game and WTN on the rest is strong.

Crits win maps for the player. The AI needs multiple crits to force L+R+Start. It's lopsided alright.

How naïve - power isn't everything. It takes more than being a hard hitter to be good, and as far as I'm concerned, Derpserkers fail miserably at offering more than that.

Lmao. Far more often than not, most of the crits I got were meaningless and little more than overkill on an opponent that was already going to die that turn or the next (and besides, most of my strategies are to revolve around reliably killing opponents - and crits don't help much in that regard). On the other side of the coin, high crit enemies are dangerous, and thus the threat of crit has to be addressed by either having enough crit evade to negate the crit or being durable enough to take them.

1 hour ago, Roy's Our Boy said:

Agreed. One lucky crit can absolutely tip the scales. And the higher your crit chance, the more crit becomes expected than actual luck. On a damage side, most units have to land 3 times the amount of hits as your 1 crit (4 times with killer weapons). For me personanlly, only my tanks got crited against. Benny getting critted means taking an extra 2 damage most of the time so it really was only a slight nuisance. Anything under 10 percent crit against usually can be ignored.  

See above. Also, if you get into a situation where your line of thought is "if I get a critical hit I'll be fine!", then, as far as I'm concerned, you oughta plan better, because you won't always get the outcome you want, and thus a plan B is an absolute must. And sure, anything under 10% can be safely ignored...NOT! (Unless you are tanky enough to shrug it off, that is.)

[Shoblongoo]

12 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

"if I get a critical hit I'll be fine!"

lol well of course Arthur going to suck if thats how you're playing him. That's not how you play Arthur.

You open with Arthur as your first move vs an enemy mob. Dual Club if you need the weapon triangle advantage or Tomahawk if you need the range or hammer if you need the armorcrushing..otherwise Killer Axe. You don't DEPEND on him critting. But you play out the rest of player phase based on whether or not he does. (the player error that makes berserkers unreliable is using them late in player phase, when the rest of the squad doesn’t have adequate moves left to play around bad rolls of the RNG + you miss out on abusing their game-breakingly overpowered dual strikes)

…you make sure to leave Arthur in a position where units placed next to him can use him as a dual striking partner

THEN what you do—and this is where the real magic happens, where berserkers as a class are busted-good, and where Arthur is particularly absurd—is you move in the rest of your attackers around Arthur. Trade with him before attacking to make sure hes holding the Killer Axe, if he didn’t end his combat holding the killer axe. And now what you're doing is effectively spamming Arthur’s high-strength 4x crit damage 80% crit hits as secondary attacks coming off of your dagger throws and javelins and the like. 

just like that…a 6 damage hit from Silas or Niles against a healthy Master of Arms is lethal damage.

You do this multiple times a turn.

Now you’re not “depending on crits.” You’re fishing for them. And in whatever number they just so happen to come up—you’re very rarely going to be getting less then 1 per turn—they clear out mobs that much quicker.

Bersekers are nuts in this game because they break dual striking. (among other reasons) 

And Arthur is one of the better Berserkers in the game. He's good.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Shadow Mir]

11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

lol well of course Arthur going to suck if thats how you're playing him. That's not how you play Arthur.

You open with Arthur as your first move vs an enemy mob. Dual Club if you need the weapon triangle advantage or Tomahawk if you need the range or hammer if you need the armorcrushign..otherwise Killer Axe. You don't DEPEND on him critting. But you play out the rest of player phase based on whether or not he does. (the player error that makes berserkers unreliable is using them late in player phase, when the rest of the squad doesn’t have adequate moves left to play around bad rolls of the RNG + you miss out on abusing their game-breakingly overpowered dual strikes)

…Making sure to leave Arthur in a position where units placed next to him can use him as a dual striking partner

THEN what you do—and this is where the real magic happens, where berserkers as a class are busted-good, and where Arthur is particularly absurd—is you move in the rest of your attackers around Arthur. Trade with him before attacking to make sure hes holding the Killer Axe, if he didn’t end his combat holding the killer axe. And you spam Arthur’s high-strength 4x crit damage 80% crit hits as secondary attacks coming off of your dagger throws and javelins and what not. 

…and hust like that…a 6 damage hit from Silas or Niles against a healthy Master of Arms is lethal damage.

You do this multiple times a turn.

Now you’re not “depending on crits” you’re fishing for them. And in whatever number they just so happen to come up—you’re very rarely going to be getting less then 1 per turn—they clear out mobs that much quicker.

Bersekers are nuts in this game because they break dual striking. (among other reasons) 

And Arthur is one of the better Berserkers in the game.  

Doesn't ghange the fact that using a Berserker or Arthur means I have to constantly take chances that other units don't have to - I'm not foolhardy enough to think playing Russian Roulette every time a certain unit enters combat is anything other than unacceptable (and if I have to contort my game to make him useful, that's also a bad thing). And fishing for critical hits is still a subpar strategy. Simply put, you're wasting your time - and mine.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Moblin Major General]

9 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

lol well of course Arthur going to suck if thats how you're playing him. That's not how you play Arthur.

You open with Arthur as your first move vs an enemy mob. Dual Club if you need the weapon triangle advantage or Tomahawk if you need the range or hammer if you need the armorcrushing..otherwise Killer Axe. You don't DEPEND on him critting. But you play out the rest of player phase based on whether or not he does. (the player error that makes berserkers unreliable is using them late in player phase, when the rest of the squad doesn’t have adequate moves left to play around bad rolls of the RNG + you miss out on abusing their game-breakingly overpowered dual strikes)

…you make sure to leave Arthur in a position where units placed next to him can use him as a dual striking partner

THEN what you do—and this is where the real magic happens, where berserkers as a class are busted-good, and where Arthur is particularly absurd—is you move in the rest of your attackers around Arthur. Trade with him before attacking to make sure hes holding the Killer Axe, if he didn’t end his combat holding the killer axe. And now what you're doing is effectively spamming Arthur’s high-strength 4x crit damage 80% crit hits as secondary attacks coming off of your dagger throws and javelins and the like. 

just like that…a 6 damage hit from Silas or Niles against a healthy Master of Arms is lethal damage.

You do this multiple times a turn.

Now you’re not “depending on crits.” You’re fishing for them. And in whatever number they just so happen to come up—you’re very rarely going to be getting less then 1 per turn—they clear out mobs that much quicker.

Bersekers are nuts in this game because they break dual striking. (among other reasons) 

And Arthur is one of the better Berserkers in the game. He's good.

This is assuming all the enemies coming against the plus sign formation only have one range. All it takes is a surprise Sorcerer and Arthur's practically dead. He could possibly survive a Sniper or Ninja, but he will kiss his ass goodbye if a mage so much as sneezes on him as a berserker (doesn't help that Onmyoji tend to have ludicrous Skill).

[Shoblongoo]

14 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

This is assuming all the enemies coming against the plus sign formation only have one range. All it takes is a surprise Sorcerer and Arthur's practically dead. He could possibly survive a Sniper or Ninja, but he will kiss his ass goodbye if a mage so much as sneezes on him as a berserker (doesn't help that Onmyoji tend to have ludicrous Skill).

...Oswin with his low speed, luck, and res could get critted and one rounded by every thunder sage in FE7. He was stll one of the best units in the game. 

You can have a weakness to magic and still be a good unit.

Arthur's magic vulnerability is even somewhat mitigated by the dual club. And I know I've talked about it a few times, by I can not emphasize enough how much the availability of the club in conquest from chapter-10-on helps him stand out (reverse weapon triangle utility is so nice).

Edited June 19, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Shadow Mir]

19 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

...Oswin with his low speed, luck, and res could get critted and one rounded by every thunder sage in FE7. He was stll one of the best units in the game. 

You can have a weakness to magic and still be a good unit.

Arthur's magic vulnerability is even somewhat mitigated by the dual club. And I know I've talked about it a few times, by I can not emphasize enough how much the availability of the club in conquest from chapter-10-on helps him stand out (reverse weapon triangle utility is so nice).

Except FE7 enemies, outside of HHM, were barely worth noting (not to mention routinely being weighed down by their weapons). Also, about the only magic heavy map I can think of in FE7 is Cog of Destiny (and even then that's only on HHM).

And sure, the dual club could make him serviceable, but why use it to make a scrub serviceable when I could instead give it to someone who's already good??

Edited June 19, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Moblin Major General]

Just now, Shoblongoo said:

Arthur's magic vulnerability is even somewhta mitigated by the dual club. (reverse weapon triangle utility is so nice) 

You specifically stated that someone should trade equip the Killer Axe to him so that he crits. That has -20 avoid, doesn't modify the WT, and that couples with his already terrible dodge being stacked alongside a -5 modifier thanks to class.

Also, there are only a few maps in Blazing sword that have magic-based enemy density like Conquest does, and almost all of them are poorly suited to Oswin in the first place. Also, as LMC said, not a one of them could double or had any magic stat to speak of (except bosses that Oswin would probably never reach.)

[Shoblongoo]

17 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

sure, the dual club could make him serviceable, but why use it to make a scrub serviceable when I could instead give it to someone who's already good??

...who else are you going to give it to?

-Camilla (doesn't benefit from it until the endgame--stomps all over the midgame without it, and kinda drops off toward the endgame anyway to the point that by the time she needs it "give it to someone who is already good" will generally entail giving it to a berserker instead)

-Beruka (alternatively usable berserker who needs a second seal to get into the fighter line--otherwise a subpar wyvern knight in a game that gives you Camilla)

-Charlotte (i.e. faster, squishier Arthur with worse join time)

-Characters that pick up axes as a secondary weapon after promoting or reclassing (i.e. aren't going to have the weapon rank to even lift the club when you want them to be using it without eating arms scrolls, and already have other weapons to use against the sword and tome users that trouble axe-wielders)

Realistically--you're going to be giving it to Arthur, Beruka, or Charlotte. (i.e. whosoever you choose to be your berserker of choice on a given playthrough)

And the Dual Clubs job is going to be tricking out your berserker for weapon advantage against tome and sword-users.

...Beruka is actually a pretty damn good berserker, and if it wasn't for the fact that she needs that reclass seal to get off her wyvern I might give her the nod over Arthur.

As is, I'd put Arthur at consistently the most usable of the 3. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Shadow Mir]

5 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

...who else are you going to give it to?

-Camilla (doesn't benefit from it until the endgame--stomps all over the midgame without it)

-Beruka (alternatively usable berserker who needs a second seal to get into the fighter line--otherwise a subpar wyvern knight in a game that gives you Camilla)

-Charlotte (i.e. a slightly faster Arthur with no defense growth and worse join time)

-Characters that pick up axes as a secondary weapon after promoting or reclassing (i.e. aren't going to have the weapon rank to even lift the club when you want them to be using it without eating arms scrolls, and already have other weapons to use against the sword and tome users that trouble axe-wielders)

Realistically--you're going to be giving it to Arthur, Beruka, or Charlotte. (i.e. whosoever you choose to be your berserker of choice on a given playthrough)

And the Dual Clubs job is going to be tricking out your berserker for weapon advantage against tome and sword-users.

...Beruka is actually a really good berserker, and if it wasn't for the fact that she needs that reclass seal to get off her wyvern I might give her the nod over Arthur>

As is, I'd put Arthur at consistently the most usable of the 3. 

I'd just give it to Camilla anyways - it ain't like I'm likely to use any other axe users, especially when the fighters are losers, failures, scrubs, the whole nine yards. I could go on, but my point is, the chance I'll see a fighter as a worthy addition to the team is 0%.

As for Beruka, I'd like to think there are better things to do with my precious heart seals than gimp her by putting her in a lame class.

 Being "the most usable" doesn't mean anything when you still fail so hard.

[Shoblongoo]

3 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I'd just give it to Camilla anyways 

lol thats why the rest of your axe users are shit

[Shadow Mir]

12 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

lol thats why the rest of your axe users are shit

lol I don't need any other axe users dragging the team down

Besides, if I don't, it's just gathering dust in the convoy.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dark Holy Elf]

Camilla's better than Arthur forever. She can even become a pretty cool berserker though if they're your thing; Beruka A+ is super-fast.

The Dual Club is hotly contested between axe-users, and you will use at least one axe-user. As such giving Arthur credit for the Dual Club seems wrong-headed, because if we don't use Arthur, someone else will benefit from it, and if we do use Arthur, we either make someone else worse, or he doesn't have the Dual Club. I feel similarly about most such limited resources.

I don't really feel that Charlotte is squishier than Arthur, because she has higher dodge, so I tend to find there are more situations she can be used safely despite her slightly lower def. She is underlevelled, sure, so you can argue Arthur is better than her just for that.

Crits aren't really that useful for the player, because they tend to form strategies which are safe, and thus based around not critting. Crits are a nice bonus but that's it (though as was pointed out, Berserkers have great offence even aside from crits). I do agree with LMC that enemy crits are far more dangerous; while you CAN plan around them, you basically have to if you want to be safe, and that can be a bit limiting. Arthur's low dodge is a major weakness that most other units don't have, and I don't feel the rest of his package makes up for that since his only particularly high stats are Strength and HP (and there are other units like Camilla/Effie/Charlotte who offer comparable strength, and Silas/Peri/Xander aren't that far behind).