Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 2:41 Flood Dragon 4:25 Archer 5:43 Astromancer 6:43 Berserker 9:34 Buccaneer 11:36 Cyclops 13:27 Cockatrice 13:50 Gryphon 15:44 Cleric 19:30 Fusilier 21:44 Light Dragon 22:53 Dark Priest 23:19 Divine Knight (and more Divine Knight explanation. See description for even more.) 26:40 Dragoon 29:50 Dust Dragon 30:03 Wind Dragon 30:06 Ice Dragon 30:40 Light Dragon 31:10 Faerie 32:37 Gremlin 34:14: Fire Dragon 34:45 Ghost 35:55 Skeleton 36:04 Golem (All, the differences are negligible) 38:27 Beast Tamer 39:39 Hawk 40:18 Hoplite 40:18 Juggernaut 40:18 Matriarch/Patriarch 43:00 Hydra 44:06 Terror Knight 46:02 Knight 48:08 Lich (Bit of a side note here, but I forgot to mention Nature Touch. Even though they don't match the elemental spells, their raw power up to that point make up for the lack of a match, putting them roughly on par with a NT Shaman of the same training. I only bring this up because this is seen as a meme setup, when in reality they can make great use of Apocrypha because of the double MP move setup down the road. Plus if using an Ogre Blade setup, you could have a Conserve MP/Engulf/NT/Lament unit casting free Ice over 2s with the full boost if body snatching the semi unique Ice Lich in Coda.) 49:24 Necromancer 50:32 Knight Commander 51:03 Lord 51:52 Valkyrie/Rune Fencer 52:46 Ninja 54:52 Swordmaster (Note that during the test I was using a Nodachi until late POTD when the Sweep and Bead dropped, relics are not required for them to function, but they do open up the class..before we get the usual "X needs Y to function" argument.) 58:07 Octopus (While poison tiles are basically harmless to them, I don't like them flashing, flight gives them way more.) 59:55 Paladin 1:00:57 Priest 1:01:40 Princess 1:02:23 Pumpkinhead 1:03:05 Ranger (Fun recommendation: Lobber/Dragonslayer/Cursed Fusil with Dragon bonus) 1:04:08 Rogue 1:04:13 Shaman (Just to reiterate on the above, Lich is locked into Dark, which means they technically will have 20% less, but make up for that power wise on the stats end, meaning Dark will still do more in most situations, but Nature's Touch will throw them into very close numbers to give them a closer comparison. They just lose a lot of options for a small damage bump compared to most of the rest of the category. Fun to watch, though.) 1:09:09 Songstress 1:10:18 Warrior 1:11:40 Pikachu Dragon 1:12:00 Vartan (Dragonslayer on Water Crossbow is Beautiful) 1:12:49 Warlock/Witch 1:14:48 White Knight 1:15:29 Wizard/Enchantress 1:15:50 Wicce 1:19:10 Punkinstopholes 1:19:28 Final Resort and Notes
Just finished this Game on the switch after putting it down for some time. Thinking about streaming this and your guides have definitely have helped me
Having played with Divine Knights quite a bit, I really think you're underselling them a lot. The ability to stay alive in a back line, block off units, and then just MP delete things into a near useless state is a hell of a combination alongside dual shadow access and meditate.
It's why I added that little extra but to clarify how much of a bit of an anomaly they can be. They stay out of mind, they're out of the way, but have a lot of fun ultra end game unique features that are hard to really compare to anything else.
Should probably clarify that this tier list is skewed towards the postgame viability. Never underestimate how many of the comfy nice things you don't have access to for like 90% of the game. The simplest example being, no, you can't just make anyone you want into a dragon/beastslaying machine until late ch.4. I'm very much a proponent of judging a class' performance throughout the whole time they're available. I'd wager most people don't even do PotD. Also wouldn't be surprised if most people dipped after beating just one route.
Fusilier and Patriarch are gotten around the same time as Dragonslayer gear (since you can just hire it in PG), while I wanted to point out Berserker just because they're often considered to fall off past chapter 4, despite really doing their job well all game.
Hey, CoffeePotato, thanks for another great video. I'd played Knight of Lodis and decided to give TO:R a shot, but felt somewhat overwhelmed by all the options, and your videos really helped clarify a lot of the mechanics without spoiling the game, allowing me to progress. I do agree that stacking debuffs is the way to go, not just for effectiveness, but for fun. I'm still at lvl 19 cap, but I'm running three Terror Knights and two Wizards who are all throwing down debuffs, while a Cleric and two Rune Fencers buff my guys, and two Vartans wreck the backline. Seeing everyone Frightened, Poisoned, Stunned, Asleep, Petrified... Is a great look. Thank you for all the videos, they're great. As a side note, some of the videos have distorted music in the background, although not all of them. The weapons video for example, has it throughout and it gets kinda headachey. That's my only criticism though, you have great delivery and everything is very clear.
It's nice to see that in all your tier lists that there are very few classes in the lower tiers. They did a great job with balance in this version, I am guessing, which is an awesome thing! :D
About the Ghosts and skeletons and getting them, in the law route you can get a generic necromancer before even chapter 4, in almorica passway, boss high commander xaebos and the next map "mount weobry" have ghosts (no need for Cressida)
I don't know who this guy who didn't put Archers in S is, nor what he did with Coffee Potato. In all seriousness, the main class placement I'd disagree with is for Paladin. Even then, I'd mainly just crank it up one rank for value as a meat shield for CODA 4.
I mean I did put him there as a joke. He's an excellent fighter, but when you go through that much to hire a dude, you almost want to avoid using them out of spite.
@@chaoticbravealisdair2925 Coda 3, even. Sometimes twice if you forget to save and kinda spectacularly faceplant trying to clear it with cudgel finishers for no apparent reason I don't know what you're talking about there's no evidence to back that up what are you implying have a nice day?
i like this list a lot better. a word on vyce tho. i've been running ranger with a cursed bow snipe gators and bombs. he's been really great at supporting my heavies with swiftness in the early rounds and then raining hell on the later turns. i still haven't found a use for back attack yet. they should have given him evade or something defensive. but as is he's not bad.
Yeah, Lobber bombs are fantastic. He just feels kinda...weirdly bare bones, you know? Personally been liking the Gun Dragoon setup for him, works well with the Lobber too.
@@CoffeePotato bombs have really been a trip in the remake. i even had a lord setup with them. they're great on "support " units that can pivot to nuking. do you think ranger was bare bones on the psp version also? back then it could stock up on spellward and tactician and other rando skills to carve out a niche along with daggers and bows being busted. but now it does feel sparse.
Your guides have been a huge help with Tactics Ogre Reborn and I've now put more time on Tactics Ogre than I have on Final Fantasy X, which may be over 100 hours easily. I am confused about something. You rated Rogues as difficult to use but how do you even recruit them? Do you have to recruit a Buccaneer first before then and use one of those clan marks on a regular unit? Thanks again for putting these videos out. Your joy is infectious.
If anyone wants to use angels, you can toss a 1H counterattack bow in their offhand and meditate II to help with the mana issues without needing an ogre blade. I do find them to be fun with body snatch, but I'd use one for Palace of the Dead and they're fun if not spectacular. If you're not using zombies, their ability to AoE remove all zombie status saves you exorcism time in early PotD. There are a lot of solid 1H swords, some with exorcism/rez to help them out further. One downside I don't see mentioned is level sync, though. It scales your stats down based on the stats you gained from levelling... and angels have the highest stat gains from levelling in the game. If you look at a special character who ate some dragon steaks or got stat charms and cards and your angel knight, then hop into a level sync place, the angel's stats dropped waaaaay down by comparison. They're the quintessential jack of all trades. Max rank holy attacks and AoEs, some weird draconics, AoE songs that do weird stuff or just charm everyone near them, the 1H bow + sword counterattack melee or ranged build, very tanky, free flight, and rampart aura. They're gonna be useful in any army, but they're not gonna be crucial to any army.
Forgot to add that late game, they've got free boon of swiftness on gloves plus the aegis shield to be faster and tankier, and you can give'em a counterattack sword at that point. Since their flight is innate, they're also a great choice for the flamecrest. And I don't think it's a coincidence that people who don't plan to farm ogre blades use their one free one to make a terror angel for fun.
i thought the angel was great for POTD with an oracion and its 3x free exorcism casts. Then I started body snatching... thats when the angel knight comes alive. I appreciate potates side note about that. I found angel to be a lot of fun
Ozma deserves her dominant status for the ability to deliver considerable damage and charm in one fell swoop. For that matter, Cupid's bow and tremendous shot on a archer is awefully nice. The Vartan tends to be an mvp for me because Canopus always ends up with lots of cards. Augment air works nicely because he's a mean counter-attacker. With an axe he often parries and counterattacks, then parries and counterattacks the pincer attack.
you suggest Dragonslayer on Vice with a Fusil, but I'm wondering how you get dragonslayer when he can only equip the armor and gloves? Which 3rd piece do you equip to get dragonslayer skill? They cant equip the helmet. Is there a gun thats considered 'dragon'?
@@soandsononame8750 Yup, apparently it's been a thing since PSP, I didn't even know about it until now, since there was little reason to try it when you always had the gloves or helmet, and third slot had to be in the hands before.
You know, I once tried to stack enfeeble and breach on the same unit. Was kinda disappointed the enfeeble only added a bit of damage to a summon, until I realized breach and enfeeble overwrite each other. Cudgel finishers ftw!
@@CoffeePotato Funny thing is summons and projectiles seem to have a physical component, so you don’t have to switch out breach unless you’re splashing. Makes me want to see what I can get up to with cudgel terror knight and a draconic caster. I’m pretty sure draconics are all magic, so will enfeebling everything do tons of damage?
I’ve always wondered, which “catiua” would you rather use? dark priest or princess. I’m debating myself. I’ve seen little of the princess in action and never seen a dark priest in action. New video idea? 🤔
This may be a weird request, but do you have the portraits for each character / class / race in the game somewhere? I have been using Tactics Ogre character portraits for a tabletop RPG I've been running for a while, and Im finding it annoying to need to go into the game, take a screenshot, and make it transparent each time. The wiki doesn't seem populated - Which I've been trying to help with, but it's slow going.
Sure, I just clip them from Spriters Resource, they have them all right there in the Portraits section for Tactics Ogre PSP. I know the Reborn ones must have been dumped somewhere in a similar fashion.
My wife laughed at me a lot when she walked in and saw that I search, "Coffee Potato Tactics Ogre tier list." Thank you for making this video. The beauty of the game is everyone can play it differently. One strategy that took me through the entire game is: Fly Canopus (as a Vartan) around the map picking up cards and shooting arrows at enemies. Save up enough MP to use a hammer finisher using a Spiked Flail +1. You can basically fly in past everyone and one shot most debuffed bosses to just end the level. I've collected many unique characters, and almost every class in the game, and nothing is more powerful than flying over everyone on the front line to get to the boss and one-tapping him with a hammer finisher.
Wait you can have rogues. I specifically remember reading you cant have them in this version of the game and the couple times i tried recruit human skill i got a red x. Gonna have to sit down and update some strategies with some of these insights.
You can't, they had a custom AI package or some such in PSP, so they were left out of RB due to apparently needing a second new AI package later in development, when it was an unfixable problem. They were on the list as a joke. You can get the same unit by just using a familiar or buccaneer.
Nice Nice Very Impressive sir Coffee Potato. I do agree this new classification system works for the better since your army it's a TEAM of soldiers, not just 1 Soldier. But you forgot to use the OG Dark Priest Avatar XD
is it possible to beat the san bronsa f3 with no relics or completed palace of the dead. i wanna make divine knight so i have to beat the f3 of san bronsa in order to the item to drop.
i went into san bronsa before potd, it was fine. I think before i had relics, i was using griffons and dragons to tank with beast tamer lobber healers. Floating ruins is where it will start to slow down, its not too hard to get to floating ruins 3. i was able to recruit the 2 divine knights from that battle. I think i did coda1 and got songstress and lich before I did san bronsa though.
@@soandsononame8750 yep i just completed it. now comes the boring and painful part that is geting/making a unit lvl 1 into a ghost/skeleton and farm the book of the dead and the Ensanguined Rood (T--T)
Yup, your baseline is really strong this time around. Just a basic debuff and normal soldier can melt most anything. It's why I rate the more traditionally powerful classes around the middle. They can eventually get it done, but if I can kill a god with some liquor and this knife, I mean...
No complaints here, as a random player currently collecting the remaining heavenly general items in the PotD, which I make use of the 4 sister shamans, haha. Tho I am yet to try to have a good archer and also am yet to test a dark priest on stinky set. Ive always been wanting to utilize a fairy but dont know how. Will try to employ what is presented here. Thanks for the info.
Faeries are really handy for doubling up on turns or using Virtuous to just ram in and get 3+ units converted. Especially handy when combined with the White Knights for a double Velocity Shift from their heal kiss. It gives them a free turn, which triggers one Velocity into another Velocity into another kiss turn. Really solid chain potential there.
I remember using Deneb way back when I played the game on PSP, because of how hard it was to unlock her. I don't remember her being weak, but I agree she is not meta 😁
She was a bit directly stronger back in PSP because Spellcraft helps with penetration, which was a big deal there. Meditate Armageddon is an awesome combo, though.
Okay, hear me out. Here's the opposing view to your Shaman only good with charm spam strawman. In chapter 4, if you are going to to do the shaman quest anyways, they are a significant upgrade compared to valkyrie (the only other summon class humans can use at this point). Using gear available at that point, the max int a no investment Valk Cerya was reaching at lv 36 was about 170, give or take stat cards I picked up. Upon switching to shaman, gear difference alone boosted int up to about 210 (a 23.5% increase). This translates pretty directly to damage, 100 damage summon goes to 122 damage summon. Additionally, she gains +5 range from cudgel access that valks don't get and engulf 2 to further boost that. To me, range boost is a speed boost, because the same enemy can be hit while saving ~20 RT of movement cost. This is a trade off for less durability, but I think the extra range compliments it well because any competent team can protect the backline casters without problems. Valks are still excellent finisher spammers and great units. Recruit access is awesome. But it is just simple fact that as summon users they are not as good as shamans. The gear and ability difference is what makes the difference, not just base stat change. I really don't get your logic with the "gear favoritism". If I have 1 summon caster, and one set of caster gear, how is it favoritism to put the gear that can ONLY be used by casters, not valks, on the caster? The gear access is part of the class. You argue terror knights are tanky because they have good gear. But then say you can't count Shaman gear towards their damage output over valks because that's favoritism? Seems like you made up your mind about it before testing then justified how to make the results work in your favor. They should be Specialized tier at least because they specialize in long range magic damage at speed better than valks. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Stop Shaman hate 😂
Guy just hates rushdown (which is easily the most braindead consistent way of playing this game imo). The fact that he called Ozma "boring" kinda speaks for itself really. Also that he almost didn't put her in S tier and the way he did it so begrudgingly should tell you all you need to know.
@@DarkSol13 yeah I was surprised by Ozma as well cuz she's even got his favorite damage mitigation, whips, plus a unique finisher with charm which he really likes. Plus she's ridiculously fast with personal RT. And honestly, I'm totally fine with him having a different play style, it's more the exact thing he claims Shaman fans do of saying "my way is the only way to play". Like even if you don't like using Shaman, don't claim they do the same damage and ignore all the differences because that's very hurtful to new players.
So counterpoint on that. A few clarifications, I guess. It's not that Shamans can't hit like a truck, moreso that they're held up as the *only* ones that can. They can hit well, and depending on the situation, harder than most others, but their weakness comes from a lack of counterplay. If their plan A doesn't work, their playbook is Plan A again. That's by design, they're artillery, and there's nothing wrong with this. Other casters in their playground tend to have some good counters for when things go wrong, and I'd always prefer a backup plan. The range argument comes up a lot, but they're not uniquely long range, and it's not as universal as it's often portrayed. The reason I mention the Lich there is that they still get summons, and those summons kill the same stuff. A T2 by itself will usually kill most of a heavy, and all of a lighter unit, whether from a Lich, Shaman, or Valk, or whatever else. A Crit booster one from all over the above will kill the heavy a good bit of the time too, and could allow for a splash spread if needed. Granted, splashes do the splash spread more economically. Range wise they are identical. So while they'll do more, and this tends to show more and more as the numbers go up, strategically all of them are accomplishing a similar rush action. The difference is what they'll do if it's not enough. They definitely could go into specialist, just always need to drop them down a peg for requiring 30+ battles to unlock. 🤣. I can just go grab a Lich or Patriarch in like 10 minutes, dang it! Net result is never wanting to go grab them for challenge runs, honestly.
@@CoffeePotato The problem is I like my unique units... so lich to me means repeat farming a floor of PotD for rings and I much prefer the cool elemental temple maps to more PotD than I already need. So for a same unit comparison, I'd rather do Cerya Shaman than Cerya Lich. But I fully recognize lich is easy to recruit generics and I always say Matriarch is best caster in the game. I just think that the biggest part of what makes them good is also something shaman does even slightly better (with nature power plus matching element summon). Lich gets nature power, but you can only utilize matching element summon in the very specific generic recruited with ice/water from Pirate's Graveyard. So I prefer to keep my Lich on dark and use Shaman for normal elements. Also on backup plans, I think that is where we might just view a "team" differently. I would rather have one unit focused on one thing, and use other units for the backup plans. Even if Shaman got sleep or poison, I would rather click damage on their turn and use my other units for something so easy. As you have shown a ton, debuffs can be dropped by fresh store units with no difficulty, so I would rather use them as the backup to slow down or disable gryphon/dragon scale walls while Shaman can still kill 1-2 units a turn without worrying about it. If you only had Shaman, yeah it would be rough, but debuffs are like the most common thing in the game, so I don't view it as a big downside that they don't get them. That's why I voted for Specialist tier, not adaptability tier. I don't even care if my specialist isn't super adaptable, because I want them to be specialized.
Hawkman beast tamer are awesome. San bronsa is full of them and they are one of the most annoying units to deal with that are not enemy exclusive (like those dragons and beasts...)
I made Cressida a Lich in San Bronsa of all places, and she refused to use salvation except on her first turn to steal mp from my healer who was fed 2 MP sticks. Uses life force on turn 2 if she doesn't get meditate on turn one and gave MP to other units one time. Had 3 skill cards for half the battle, just trying to get it to trigger. She's mostly a petrobreath stopper or mana battery and where I figured salvation would be a godsend on paper, it triggered for her twice only. And at the least opportune moments. Just horrid luck?
@@CoffeePotato She does have Hellhound 2 for that very reason. Usually do that if no one needs the MP boost. If she gets meditate on turn one, its that much sooner the artillery starts. Usually Hellhound 2 on one or two units since she has the power to one turn kill anything but (almost) beast units. If I risk friendly fire, she still does 400+ on life force.
@@michaelrichard7211 That's why Liches are great to have around. Almost anything they do, they turn to dust. Fitting, since I'm not sure even the moistest of lotions are doing much for their face.
You can always get both as the story ends, if you want both for the extensive post game and time travel shenanigans. But yeah, if she dies in any way before the announcement to attack Heim, you get Lord marks instead. Just killing her after changes the story, but doesn't give any marks. This also unlocks a side quest with a small rebellion of Fusiliers nearby.
Hobble is definitely useful. The AI aggressively tries to split up and isolate your units, and they’re just not as effective if they can’t pull it off.
This is a good tier list, and glad to hear some new experiences gave some fresh new perspectives on the classes :D In regards to deneb, i kind of just use her anyways as she tends to be in the back, mainly for debuffs and just overall doing more damage than even Cressida, but i swap between the two since i just like using both. Still grinding PotD unfortunately.
I enjoy using Deneb as well. Her life steal hits are huge and her low armor makes her a target for stuff. A few HP cards fixed here HP issue, of which PoTD spits them out like candy.
I meant to cover the auto charm setup for her, forgot about that. She's got some fun play for Charm and Stop abuse, but would still be in "I would be scared to have this lady on the team if we're being honest' tier 🤣
@@CoffeePotato fair enough! I did use her on my final team against the boss of the game during my Iinitial run, and was scared when she got knocked out during that second phase (thankfully, boss was at low health and I clinched it)
Something fun about dualwielding that the ninja sadly cannot do (to my knowledge) in Reborn is that in my experience, dual strikes often leave units almost dead, but only just so. In those cases, because two well-placed hits generate lots of MP, a recruit skill will often finish the job relatively nicely. I've been loving my "punch them into friendship" berserker Denam in One Vision (and I need to see if you can transfer recruit skills on ninjas in Vanilla), so this not being possible in Reborn only carried me further away from dualwield ninjas. Auto Benumb/Silence/Envenom with range is absolutely glorious though. I'm very surprised to see Swordmaster so high up all of a sudden, but I get it. On paper, their plan of action is awesome. I just never really got it to work personally. I'll need to try harder though, because the female Swordmaster sprite looks too cool not to use and in theory, being an early frontline that counters and pulls in enemies to later morph into a frontline buffer actually sounds great.
The trick is to keep them within range of only couple units, and rushing an Auto card asap. Fun note on ninja, but that also leads them to a fun setup with Songstress later. MP Song, Double, hit twice, take a counter into an Evanescence. Not perfect, but sorts out that almost dead issue.... especially if it's a zombie or has cleric backup.
@@CoffeePotato Exploding in their face? Ok, that sounds very fun. Especially with how resurrection works in Reborn (ironic). I already love my Lord with zero MP Resurrection at his disposal - this way I can abuse it offensively as well.
Vyce has been my MVP as a ranger, but it might just be due to his naturally high stats. I have him with Daggers, Lobber, Pincer, and Constitution. Have him equipped with the Dragon Fang, and one of the 1-handed counter attack bows. He basically goes hunting for Phys-Up cards, while making opportune attacks with the bow or dagger as he goes. Then with 1 or more cards he abuses the scaling on shots. The cards also usually leave him in a condition to wreck stuff with Dagger finishers when he runs out of shots. He's tougher than a Fusilier, and can take a beating. He can rush ahead or move away from the party. He has poison on counters, and when the party catches up to him he can assist with Pincer. You could probably get a similar build out of a Beast Master, but Beast Master is good enough at other stuff that I usually want to vary their loadout.
Having only reached like level 10 to the Palace of the dead and having just gotten to helm I feel like this is all foreign language to me cuz a lot of this just doesn't add up for me which gives me something to look forward to thanks for the time and effort
Update: Months later I have finally got the time over the course of time to finish the palace and understand much much much more of what your saying and this video was invaluable to my game and things make perfect sense now lol thanks!
Having had a chance to play through Chapter 4 of Reborn on Law and Chaos routes now, I'll just mention some classes I think might be a little better than you gave them credit for, albeit you still have them ranked highly: Griffin: I think that playing on a new game, getting your first Griffin is such a massive difficulty decrease that it merits placing them as high as possible on the list. I don't think there's any single early game class get that makes as much of a difference as Griffin. In the early game, you have to face a lot of annoying protection missions, and you also can get absolutely crushed by backliner gangbangs due to weak armor. The way Griffins allow you to manipulate enemy AI is honestly crazy and a little *too* strong. So I'd call them a Dominant class, at least for Chapters 1-4 of the game. Enemies will ignore your Knights, but they WILL target your Griffin. Which makes Griffin the "better" tank from that perspective. Oh, and as if that wasn't busted enough, dash+rock throw allows them to serve as superior Archers/Vartans. White Knight: Velocity Shift is busted. Two White Knights at the front of your formation can shelter a multitude of secondary frontliners and spike damage dealers standing behind. Grab an auto card with each and they'll be firing off Shifts all day, giving free turns to your Terror Knights, Warlocks, Ninjas, Berserkers, Juggernauts, Flood Dragons etc. Stone Chicken: Same as Griffin, except now they have a big spike damage + turn removal surprise with Stone Breath II+. Enemies like to clump together to swarm whatever they see as your weakest character. Removing 4 turns at once is insanely strong. I don't know about endgame, but anything through Chapter 4, they're as Dominant as Griffins, if not more so. Dragoon: I'd bump this up to Specialized because they are MVPs on maps with a lot of dragons or beasts. Again, when it comes to turn removal, they can OHKO a lot of annoying creatures or bring them down into kill range for another character to follow up.
The list is largely based on their performance in the story and also the post game. White Knights continue to be great, but losing mobility could be a problem if trying to abuse Velocity. It's good, but not mandatory good, if that makes sense. Beasts that rely on Status moves have a harder time if they're not automatic, like the chicken. Feed them Mind Charms, and they continue being good and reliable. Gryphons become more of a support/medivac unit, and do that job better than anyone else. Dragoons struggle a bit, but their arsenal keeps them going. They have a very hard time keeping up with end game death birds, see the Know Your Unit Dragoon video for more on what it takes to keep them operating. Love the class, love it's equipment options, they just struggle sometimes. Slayer Deathwail is brutal when it lands, though.
good way to use golems is with a warlock to empower golem then use them as trebuchets. They throw pretty far and can do a high amount of damage to back line units when they are empowered. Use mine to tank the front while bombing the back.
That wasn't Warren calling from the other side of the chaos gate, it was Rodrick. He states as such after Denam opens the gate, so the whole "world ending thing" wasnt even him. Warren for S tier.
Ok tier list overall. I will just rate the units from best to worse, not considering item optimization(aka item farming and min/maxing item distribution for each individual battle), bodysnatch 999 Int/mnd, multiple different classes bodysnatch into the same unit(when I played I did not know that was possible), and when you unlock the unit. Also it is based around their potential in the endgame. For dominant: Lord, Princess, Lich, Juggernaut, Songtress, smellly set gremlin familiar, smelly set fairy familiar, paladin, knight. For dependable: shaman, white knight, swordmaster, bucanner, hoplite, knight commander, terror knight, matriarch. For adaptable: necromancer, wicce, ranger, ninja, warlock,warrior, berserker. For specialized: archer, fusilier, dragoon, divine knight. Fun to use: Rune Fencer, Vartan, Cleric, Wizard, beast tamer. Good to have: water, dark, light, fire dragon, gryphon Situational: Cockatrice, Hydra. Liability: Priest, Cyclops, Golem, the other dragons, Astromancer, Octopus. Unfortunately monsters fall off hard in the endgame, gear just gets better and better and enemies outlevel you. Early game they are better but damage wise way worse then humanoids because of their empower dependency and less access to multipliers from gear and skills. Because items are op in this game beast tamer is ok because of lobber and because they can fly naturally because of hawkmen. Because a single bodysnatch is allowed, classes like jugg get a lot better because of weapon options and higher movement. Other classes like gremlin familiar, swordmaster, ninja, matriarch and terror knight improve greatly because of bodysnatch. Iuria is a great unique songtress because of her lower RT( one of the few cases where this advantage is a big deal ) and the fact that she flies naturally. Also as final funny request: OST tier list when?
Whichever you like. No matter what you pick, there will be upsides and downsides. The game's about teamwork over all else, there's not much special about Denam outside of his unique class in the late game. Best is relative to what you need at the moment.
I don't think it's really fair to put Lans in "Difficult to Use", considering that Lord/Princess/Dark Priest aren't available until like .... right before the final stretch of Ch4 and they're both in "Dominant". Having both Phalanx and Intimidate is ridiculously good. Add Rampart Aura to the mix and we're chillin'. The second I got Lans, he never left my party because he could basically just stand in the front and remove enemy Dragon Scale, Gordion Lock, Phalanx, etc. while staying at max HP. Didn't do damage, but he pretty much WAS my frontline from that point on.
He's solid, but saying he's available at the same time as the other two is a bit of the mark. You can get Princess/Dark Priest by end of Ch4 and Hanging Gardens respectively...but Paladin is, depending on route, over 145 maps later. He's a great unit, just shows up 5 maps before the Coda 4 finale. He's the latest named recruit in the whole game. He's great as a unit, the timing is why I put him there as a joke, said that in the video.
@@CoffeePotato I guess. I didn't get lord until my 2nd route run (got Catiua first run) so it didn't feel too far between making Denam a lord and getting Lans.
Dark Cockatrice exists!! In the Dievold fight during Cressida recruit mission. Now cyclops, gotta catch'em all 😁Dark Hydra probably doesn't exist but I am still hopeful. Btw if you want to use Hoplite's rapier glance efficiently, make sure to give them Rampart aura as well. Have few pumpkin familiar with sparagmos ready along with few witches or warlock with empower Golem, berserkers are great but sparagmos DOESN'T hit friendly units, finally have 2 mind controlling archers that will target any casters or healers. Also a songstress to get the perfect rhythm.
True, I've been setting up to do that video soonish. So far there's the Black Chicken, the Blue Lich, heard of a Dark Faerie, Dark Octopus, Dark Gryph, heard of a Fire Angel (but haven't seen any evidence to back that up, who knows), and I'm positive there's more. It's like set Shiny Hunting in a way.
@@CoffeePotato Exactly!!! As soon as I saw that dark cockatrice, it felt like a shiny Pokemon 😁ever since the dark griffin from Andoras fight, now I pay extra attention every time before a fight. I think I saw a dark gremlin in one of the Nybeth summon, that would be great to have, should have taken a SS because I forgot exactly which fight, I think Lawful POTD lvl 5.
@@CoffeePotato Btw Divine Knights are basically undead exterminator, they can use 1H bows to get counter, but I prefer them with Sanctuary, they also get meditate 2 and a move similar to virtuous dance. You are right though, a knight with flight is exponentially superior.
Fusilier and Buccaneer are some of my favourites. Fusilier can just hit from one end of the map to the other. Sharpshoot for mauling people. Course Correction for shooting through walls. Bucaneer with Double Attack with two different weapons (for lots of finishers) and Speedster is so underrated. I have Azelstan with 1H Sword + Dagger, Canopus with Axe and Dagger and Vyce with Dual Daggers. Daggers don't increase RT by much and give ranged finishers. It's insane. Everyone has ranged attacks. Everyone moves through the field like no tomorrow. So so underrated.
It's such an eye opening moment to see a Terror Knight set up for a Cleric to drop a Trinity Pulse on that chicken that pushed through, too. They're no slouches even on offense.
This might be considered too short for a tier list, but have you thought on making a video comparing and contrasting the protagonists between all the games?
I bought Reborn and I'm gonna prove you wrong about Vartan after I play it! Vartan in PSP TO was the shit. 2 amazing setups: either 2H bow for bird boi who parks on a building to snipe, or crossbow+knife for an assassin setup where you chase down weakened enemies. Any class that lets you position where enemies can't hit you is great.
@@CoffeePotato Your rating just looks a little low to me fam. ;P Vartan with a Griffin buddy can really make a mockery of whatever the enemy is trying to do. Oh, you got a formation over there? Sure would be a shame if something happened to it. Aw, did your healer get sniped by my flying bird guy? You'll just have to send your heavy hitters to beat him up-oh wait, you can't. Because he's on a roof tile.
Can I skip getting Deneb? Hate the idea of auctioning the dragons. Would it be problematic/would I be missing out on cool content if I skip recruiting her?
You're missing out on a small side quest involving pumpkin heads petitioning for their worker's rights....and Deneb's unique class is decent. You can always just do the side quest and sell the dragons later to get the class marks at the shop.
After 7 months of doubts, I decided to buy this version. I may not have the extended playtime as some folks but I do think Dragons should be Dominant. Why? Because I first tried the Oz&Balx fight in my no incap no time rewind run by placing three of them on the stairs, the battle ended much quicker than I expected, the mustache wizard suicided on them. And even without Dragon Scale, having 4 or more units with 1900-ish hp and AOE to keep healers busy is disgusting.
Absolutely one of the handier cheeses, and a really solid powerhouse, but mostly kept out of Dominant because of how passive their strength is. Fantastic offensive walls, but if they don't have their Autos or an elemental advantage, it can be hard for them to make much of a push or control an area. Well, I guess a Dash/Rampart/ Toxic (Lead) Breath dragon could hold some flyers at bay to an extent. Could argue for a Dash into phys and autos to kite into a breath and run. Honestly I have no idea if they'd keep up with the rest consistently, but that sounds like a really fun challenge run.
@@CoffeePotato I feel they are a "flock" class. Bringing one of them is only handy, but if you have 3 or more you can spam boulder after boulder or AOE breath after AOE breath, which is something that definitely carried my run at least
Technical shenanigans with them having a different AI or some such. Berserker got their back attack, Stealing back items is something anyone can do, and the Pumpkin was given Berserker access to compensate. Would've loved them too, but they were so technically half baked in PSP that I'm not too shocked they couldn't add more duct tape to the duct tape there.
Hard agree on the shaman, matriarch, and lich. First run I did the whole quest and immediately turned Cistina and Cerya into a shaman and was pretty underwhelmed even with their apocrypha. After postgame I recruited Sherri and raised her into a shaman and she did way better (guessing because she starts as a witch), and also made Olivya one and she had competitive damage, and on that end I dislike when people insist on just loading all of them up with white knights so they can spam summons every map, like you only need one if you're going to run them, even in a caster-heavy loadout because you're gonna want a debuff/control caster in there too which they can't do but Matriarchs can (and still summon besides). Cistina and Cerya are best kept as Valks or maybe even ninjas in my experience, but I'm playing with the idea of making Sherri a Berserker for my no incap/no chariot run
Technically, if you're feeling bored and goofy, pretty sure dragoons are the only class that can use spears and also have pincer. Its... it.... its a thing. Not sure what you'll do with that, but it's real funny.
I feel vindicated by @CoffeePotato. For a long, long time I'd advocated for Liches and Swordmasters; seeing them rank so highly -- after being made fun of and called all sorts of names on Reddit and Gamefaqs -- means a lot to me. And on a personal note, thank you for staying current with Tactics Ogre. It's one of my favorite games ever made and it deserves more praise than it gets. The effort put into this tier list shows.
Ozma, Vyce and Juggernaut Lizardmen are top for me, Necromancer is too... but I think the most solid unit for any situation is probaly Rune Fencer/Valkyire.
My Zombie Cyclops is based and legendary. Love me atleast one gryphon for most battles. Your explanation for both is spot on. Started a new playthrough recently on my switch version and decided not to exploit the money trick and thus I made sure to have at least one designated cleric that keeps a Heal 1 on 'em at all times for healing chip damage mainly and using items for 'oh shit' moments. I don't bother with resurrect since I am doing a no incap, no chariot run. Also agree on dragoon replacing crossbows with dash being a great way for them to stick out. I'd put Bucaneer into 'fun to use' due to lack of availability. Phantom Warlock = fun niche Sacrifice build. Fairy OP. Dark Priest OP. Love using the stinky strat. Hawkmen clerics are also top tier and I definitely have a designated one. LMAO Caught me off-guard with that Ozma joke. I could see the Ozma fanboi's sweating there for a hot second from your hesitation. I agree with pretty much everything on this list from my own 1000+ hours of gameplay in Reborn. >> Question though: How do blowdarts stat boosts work in right-hand versus equipped on left hand like with the example with a ninja using a sword + blowdart? Cuz of the many inconsistencies with how stats works in off-hand, I am wondering if there is a particular setup for maximizing on the stat boosts from both weapons.
Solid point on the ghost, I always forget about some of the more niche ultra late game Draconics. Blowdarts in the main hand will use all stats, and will use only stat boosts if swinging an offhand weapon, if I recall. In the offhand, they boost Luck, HP, and MP.
@@CoffeePotato Looking forward to the upcoming "HUGO VS. WARREN" videos on both your channels. HUGO: Useless information, kinda creepy, hates birthdays, obsessed with bridges, does not fall drunk into a chaos gate and nearly end the world. WARREN: Has lots of useful information, actually fights in two games, makes weird mouth noises, able to accurately predict DLC, falls drunk into a chaos gate and nearly ends the world. SARADIN: Actually shows up to fight when he's not stoned, casts female magic in the front row so possibly genderfluid?, often confused for Hugo or Warren, requires a girl to ring a bell to keep him on topic when he gets stoned again, smells like wolfbane (Palatinean werewolves won't join you if you get him), unable to identify poisonous plants. DARAVON: Boring story, you're sleepy!
Sorry but i think berserk being an auto skill completely crippled berserkers utility. They need to be knocked down a couple tiers just for that. I completely stopped using them the first time i had to wait because i couldn't find any enemies i could attack without targeting my own units. They're just not worth it when i can put in another class without that RNG.
Classes like Divine Knight and Astromancer are almost pointless to rate. There's nothing that can challenge you by the time you get them; they're basically trophies for having done everything. Like is the Zodiac Spear the best weapon in FFXII? No because by the time you get it you've got nothing to use it on.
Divine Knight can be recruited enough to still be handy in SB and POTD, honestly I didn't give them enough credit to be a charm tornado, always forget how effective it is to have a 35 MP 40-60% charm spin, the natural recruits are just way better at using it. Just had a video I ended up scrapping where one newly recruited angel managed to hold off 8 units on the other end of the map, 4 of which were dead by the time they needed to attack anything. Astromancer is kinda just for fun
I would bring Lich down to specialized, since their general limited movement and hp pool makes it tougher than most to collect skill cards. Wicce should be C-tier, but B tier strength. Her main problem is that she's not fun to use, she's just slightly better in several places and has a huge stat advantage.
The stat advantage varies. I'm not sure what the rules are, but her stats seemed to vary pretty widely the 3 times I got her. First one was a monster with whips, second was the most mundane thing. Lich has iffy movement, but usually you can save the nearby card spawns for him, and use splashes to spawn more. The MP Share alone makes me love using these guys.
@@benedict6962 bring 4 liches or more with reflection against any caster boss (eg: nybeth), or any caster heavy map and come back saying they arent dominant LOL. they make a lot of challenging boss fights in this game that many people have trouble beating into a complete JOKE. even without reflection up, they have dark summon and apocrypha for damage + infinite mp + can give said mp to the rest of the party
@@pauloafonso5808 That's a very specific strategy on a very specific type of boss that requires 4 people's worth of skill cards. It's the definition of specialized.
I don’t always agree with you but boi I was happy to see shaman in fun to use tier. I don’t like how a majority of the community always just metas shaman and says use 5 makes the game super boring.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Plus their supposed meta status basically boils down to "if I get lucky or take the same steps beforehand, and no one rushes me, and the whole team has to support them, they hit hard" Meanwhile beast Tamers are there in the back with a bandolier of grenades and hammers like "You guys need people to guard you?"
@@CoffeePotato I did recently discover how strong beast tamers are also I built gnapp as a lobber also with the coda 4 hammer and earring has been excellent
I've never seen a youtuber so dedicated to not being 'meta' that they're willing to lie to their audience. No. The lich, barring ogre blade shenanigans, won't outdamage NT Shaman at similar levels of investment. No, not 'everyone can do damage', not to the level of a shaman which is why they're the go to for post game stomps. Patriach, matriarch, and valk (lol valk) don't have the insane range and have substantially lower damage. "Nature power lich" doesn't have access to ice summons, which means it has poor damage. It's just laughable. Shamans also have lower RT than all of those classes meaning they have even higher damage, and due to their range, they don't need to move. Is it unfortunate that shamans with 'just damage' trivialize the game? Yeah. Doesn't change that they're leagues better than any melee DPS, archer, or almost any other caster (barring ogre blade liches in the post, post game)
Their eventual spike comes way down the road, when that small bonus gets to show. A damage bonus down the line at the cost of anything else is a fun fireworks show, but it's all they have, and unnecessary. Crit boosting is something anyone can do, and giving up on having any counterplay will never be worth it for me. Anyone can do damage, showed Dorgy getting one tapped with a mace the other day. Debuffs and counters matter far more in my book, don't go trying to call me a liar over preferences.
I think it’s rather harsh to say “lie to”, referring to Lord Coffee. He has some intriguing opinions and thoughts on playstyle, and has certainly done the Challenge Runs to backup the ‘verifiable Reliability’ of what he suggests, etc. I DO personally agree w you that Summons-2 (whether from Shamans or Matriarch / Patriarch / Lich) are the biggest single power jump one tends to get, in the Endgame. My own Summon-2 casters typically deal 750-1250 ish (total) damage to CODA-2 Potd depths Level-45 enemies, if you single them out so they take the full 5-7 hits from the cast. But, that said, some of my other characters CAN land hits of 500-ish+ too (w Finishers on Weak Element foes). I think Lord Coffee is trying to make endgame discussion more… interesting / thoughtful that simply “yeah, just make the 4 Sisters, Deneb, and Iuria all be Shamans, and run all 6 plus Lord Denam and Princess Catiua (both of whom can also hurl Summons-2’s), and just crush everything.” == Would that work ? Certainly ! But he’s trying to consider and analyze options beyond just that, at times, so I think we should be charitable / understanding, when we consider his overall themes and perspectives 🤝
@@AlekTrev006 I appreciate the backup, and will also probably be doing a follow up sometime this week to better explain this whole thing a bit. Part of the thing is also that everyone's rolling a completely different situation. There's so many different things that can skew how units go that I typically will value them on their initial state and tool box. That's also assuming everyone's talking about the same point in the game. A good chunk of why I always joke that birds eat wizards, for example, comes from floors 70+ of POTD and San Bronsa, where Hippogryohs and Phoenixes typically will be able to withstand absurd amounts of punishment, and multi round most things on the map. While in theory a full T2 summon spam could handle it, that's assuming turn orders line up, ranges line up, and enough hits land to stop the bird rush. It can happen, but in most cases some will still get through. It's why I'll always rate a caster with some other backup plans more. Every unit will have their downsides, but it's the difference between "oh they rolled a crit, this is RNG BS" and "this is fine, Plan B". Anyways, video showing what I mean when there's a minute.
@@CoffeePotato when a 'preference' is justified by provably untrue claims, it's called a lie. You can hate shamans, you can find them boring, you can not use them- that would all be fine. But you can't sit with a straight face and go "Liches outdamage NT shamans", even without you purposefully ignoring the RT differences, that's just not true outside of post-post game cheese. It's also purposefully disingenuous for you to claim "Anyone can do damage". Technically, yes, Shamans just do.... way more damage than almost every other class in almost all situations. And can do their damage consistently, constantly, without working around finisher costs, and from across the entire map. You not only do not need to build resources, you don't even need to waste turns moving into range. The kicker for me is your example of San Bronsa. You simultaneously act like it's impossible to have that utility with a shaman composition while ranking utility focused units like archers and terror knights highly. Even /if/ you run every shaman available, there's always still room for some monster-slayers (Ozma, pref), liches for utility, support classes, or white-knights for extra cheese. Just 'cause you have the best damage dealers and they're busy doing tons of damage every single turn (very quickly, due to low RT and staying in a spot to spam WKs) doesn't mean you lack anything else.
Lol archers suck,still no matter how you try to sell it any class can do good damage with breach/fear and they can't spam finishers like rune fencers can,you just wrong.
Ugh. Say it with me, "a Pos tate". Not "Apos tate" or "Apo state". "a Pos tate" I would not have commented on it, but the way you say it makes me reflexively wonder if you know what the word means. :)
Of course, basically anti religious...but I always pronounced it that way. Just like it took 3 years of angry comments to get me to stop calling it a Zwayhander, and call it a Zweihander. Most of the time. Usually.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:41 Flood Dragon
4:25 Archer
5:43 Astromancer
6:43 Berserker
9:34 Buccaneer
11:36 Cyclops
13:27 Cockatrice
13:50 Gryphon
15:44 Cleric
19:30 Fusilier
21:44 Light Dragon
22:53 Dark Priest
23:19 Divine Knight (and more Divine Knight explanation. See description for even more.)
26:40 Dragoon
29:50 Dust Dragon
30:03 Wind Dragon
30:06 Ice Dragon
30:40 Light Dragon
31:10 Faerie
32:37 Gremlin
34:14: Fire Dragon
34:45 Ghost
35:55 Skeleton
36:04 Golem (All, the differences are negligible)
38:27 Beast Tamer
39:39 Hawk
40:18 Hoplite
40:18 Juggernaut
40:18 Matriarch/Patriarch
43:00 Hydra
44:06 Terror Knight
46:02 Knight
48:08 Lich (Bit of a side note here, but I forgot to mention Nature Touch. Even though they don't match the elemental spells, their raw power up to that point make up for the lack of a match, putting them roughly on par with a NT Shaman of the same training. I only bring this up because this is seen as a meme setup, when in reality they can make great use of Apocrypha because of the double MP move setup down the road. Plus if using an Ogre Blade setup, you could have a Conserve MP/Engulf/NT/Lament unit casting free Ice over 2s with the full boost if body snatching the semi unique Ice Lich in Coda.)
49:24 Necromancer
50:32 Knight Commander
51:03 Lord
51:52 Valkyrie/Rune Fencer
52:46 Ninja
54:52 Swordmaster (Note that during the test I was using a Nodachi until late POTD when the Sweep and Bead dropped, relics are not required for them to function, but they do open up the class..before we get the usual "X needs Y to function" argument.)
58:07 Octopus (While poison tiles are basically harmless to them, I don't like them flashing, flight gives them way more.)
59:55 Paladin
1:00:57 Priest
1:01:40 Princess
1:02:23 Pumpkinhead
1:03:05 Ranger (Fun recommendation: Lobber/Dragonslayer/Cursed Fusil with Dragon bonus)
1:04:08 Rogue
1:04:13 Shaman (Just to reiterate on the above, Lich is locked into Dark, which means they technically will have 20% less, but make up for that power wise on the stats end, meaning Dark will still do more in most situations, but Nature's Touch will throw them into very close numbers to give them a closer comparison. They just lose a lot of options for a small damage bump compared to most of the rest of the category. Fun to watch, though.)
1:09:09 Songstress
1:10:18 Warrior
1:11:40 Pikachu Dragon
1:12:00 Vartan (Dragonslayer on Water Crossbow is Beautiful)
1:12:49 Warlock/Witch
1:14:48 White Knight
1:15:29 Wizard/Enchantress
1:15:50 Wicce
1:19:10 Punkinstopholes
1:19:28 Final Resort and Notes
I love timestamps :)
You can also put this in video description aswell. It makes them appear on the video player itself.
@@Burak_C oh, neat, I'll do that! I know, I'm bad at this, who knew? 🤣
Just finished this Game on the switch after putting it down for some time. Thinking about streaming this and your guides have definitely have helped me
Glad to help!
@CoffeePotato such an emmersive game and you did so great in your videos 💪😎
you've made my playthrough 10000000000x more fun coffee. i sincerely appreciate you brother!
Glad to help!
You posted thisn13 days ago. I just started Tactic Ogre R 2 weeks ago. Thank you very much....
Glad to help!
Having played with Divine Knights quite a bit, I really think you're underselling them a lot. The ability to stay alive in a back line, block off units, and then just MP delete things into a near useless state is a hell of a combination alongside dual shadow access and meditate.
potate plays "runs", and tends to tier things as such, with their availability in the story factoring into that rating
@@soandsononame8750 Oh, I get it, I just think it's such a great class that has so many different options.
It's why I added that little extra but to clarify how much of a bit of an anomaly they can be. They stay out of mind, they're out of the way, but have a lot of fun ultra end game unique features that are hard to really compare to anything else.
Should probably clarify that this tier list is skewed towards the postgame viability. Never underestimate how many of the comfy nice things you don't have access to for like 90% of the game. The simplest example being, no, you can't just make anyone you want into a dragon/beastslaying machine until late ch.4. I'm very much a proponent of judging a class' performance throughout the whole time they're available. I'd wager most people don't even do PotD. Also wouldn't be surprised if most people dipped after beating just one route.
Fusilier and Patriarch are gotten around the same time as Dragonslayer gear (since you can just hire it in PG), while I wanted to point out Berserker just because they're often considered to fall off past chapter 4, despite really doing their job well all game.
Skill names and animations alone make the pumpkinhead S tier. Looking forward to 2024 revision.
Understandable
Hey, CoffeePotato, thanks for another great video.
I'd played Knight of Lodis and decided to give TO:R a shot, but felt somewhat overwhelmed by all the options, and your videos really helped clarify a lot of the mechanics without spoiling the game, allowing me to progress.
I do agree that stacking debuffs is the way to go, not just for effectiveness, but for fun. I'm still at lvl 19 cap, but I'm running three Terror Knights and two Wizards who are all throwing down debuffs, while a Cleric and two Rune Fencers buff my guys, and two Vartans wreck the backline. Seeing everyone Frightened, Poisoned, Stunned, Asleep, Petrified... Is a great look.
Thank you for all the videos, they're great. As a side note, some of the videos have distorted music in the background, although not all of them. The weapons video for example, has it throughout and it gets kinda headachey. That's my only criticism though, you have great delivery and everything is very clear.
I'm trying to improve all of that, and thank you! I'm actually redoing those Tier Lists next, when there's time.
It's nice to see that in all your tier lists that there are very few classes in the lower tiers.
They did a great job with balance in this version, I am guessing, which is an awesome thing! :D
Definitely, the Terror Knight and Swordmaster in particular saw a massive glow-up
About the Ghosts and skeletons and getting them, in the law route you can get a generic necromancer before even chapter 4, in almorica passway, boss high commander xaebos and the next map "mount weobry" have ghosts (no need for Cressida)
True, but it's still annoying to chase down a ghost with a necromancer 🤣
I don't know who this guy who didn't put Archers in S is, nor what he did with Coffee Potato.
In all seriousness, the main class placement I'd disagree with is for Paladin. Even then, I'd mainly just crank it up one rank for value as a meat shield for CODA 4.
I mean I did put him there as a joke. He's an excellent fighter, but when you go through that much to hire a dude, you almost want to avoid using them out of spite.
Given that you need to do CODA 2, then yeah.
@@chaoticbravealisdair2925 Coda 3, even. Sometimes twice if you forget to save and kinda spectacularly faceplant trying to clear it with cudgel finishers for no apparent reason I don't know what you're talking about there's no evidence to back that up what are you implying have a nice day?
i like this list a lot better.
a word on vyce tho. i've been running ranger with a cursed bow snipe gators and bombs. he's been really great at supporting my heavies with swiftness in the early rounds and then raining hell on the later turns. i still haven't found a use for back attack yet. they should have given him evade or something defensive. but as is he's not bad.
Yeah, Lobber bombs are fantastic. He just feels kinda...weirdly bare bones, you know? Personally been liking the Gun Dragoon setup for him, works well with the Lobber too.
@@CoffeePotato bombs have really been a trip in the remake. i even had a lord setup with them. they're great on "support " units that can pivot to nuking.
do you think ranger was bare bones on the psp version also? back then it could stock up on spellward and tactician and other rando skills to carve out a niche along with daggers and bows being busted. but now it does feel sparse.
Your guides have been a huge help with Tactics Ogre Reborn and I've now put more time on Tactics Ogre than I have on Final Fantasy X, which may be over 100 hours easily. I am confused about something. You rated Rogues as difficult to use but how do you even recruit them? Do you have to recruit a Buccaneer first before then and use one of those clan marks on a regular unit? Thanks again for putting these videos out. Your joy is infectious.
Glad to help, and they are incredibly hard to use on account of being AI only 🤣
If anyone wants to use angels, you can toss a 1H counterattack bow in their offhand and meditate II to help with the mana issues without needing an ogre blade. I do find them to be fun with body snatch, but I'd use one for Palace of the Dead and they're fun if not spectacular. If you're not using zombies, their ability to AoE remove all zombie status saves you exorcism time in early PotD. There are a lot of solid 1H swords, some with exorcism/rez to help them out further.
One downside I don't see mentioned is level sync, though. It scales your stats down based on the stats you gained from levelling... and angels have the highest stat gains from levelling in the game. If you look at a special character who ate some dragon steaks or got stat charms and cards and your angel knight, then hop into a level sync place, the angel's stats dropped waaaaay down by comparison.
They're the quintessential jack of all trades. Max rank holy attacks and AoEs, some weird draconics, AoE songs that do weird stuff or just charm everyone near them, the 1H bow + sword counterattack melee or ranged build, very tanky, free flight, and rampart aura. They're gonna be useful in any army, but they're not gonna be crucial to any army.
Forgot to add that late game, they've got free boon of swiftness on gloves plus the aegis shield to be faster and tankier, and you can give'em a counterattack sword at that point. Since their flight is innate, they're also a great choice for the flamecrest. And I don't think it's a coincidence that people who don't plan to farm ogre blades use their one free one to make a terror angel for fun.
An interesting, but bizarre unit! Hell of a lot more useful than whatever was going on in MOTBQ, at any rate.
@@CoffeePotato Weren't they like... undead healers and support in LUCT, too? And similarly weird in KoL? I do remember having a lot of angels in KoL.
i thought the angel was great for POTD with an oracion and its 3x free exorcism casts. Then I started body snatching... thats when the angel knight comes alive. I appreciate potates side note about that. I found angel to be a lot of fun
This game is just delicious. Really dig the tier list.
Thanks! It's a joy to keep discovering this weird stuff for every class.
this is "S-tier" list for all "tier list" list
By no means is that confusing at all, yes.
Ozma deserves her dominant status for the ability to deliver considerable damage and charm in one fell swoop.
For that matter, Cupid's bow and tremendous shot on a archer is awefully nice.
The Vartan tends to be an mvp for me because Canopus always ends up with lots of cards. Augment air works nicely because he's a mean counter-attacker. With an axe he often parries and counterattacks, then parries and counterattacks the pincer attack.
Also, Water Crossbow, Dragonslayer set, and he's an insanely easy to set up Dragoon Sniper.
you suggest Dragonslayer on Vice with a Fusil, but I'm wondering how you get dragonslayer when he can only equip the armor and gloves? Which 3rd piece do you equip to get dragonslayer skill? They cant equip the helmet. Is there a gun thats considered 'dragon'?
Nope, Sparkguard boots.
@@CoffeePotato oh really, thanks I had no idea Lol
@@soandsononame8750 Yup, apparently it's been a thing since PSP, I didn't even know about it until now, since there was little reason to try it when you always had the gloves or helmet, and third slot had to be in the hands before.
You know, I once tried to stack enfeeble and breach on the same unit.
Was kinda disappointed the enfeeble only added a bit of damage to a summon, until I realized breach and enfeeble overwrite each other. Cudgel finishers ftw!
Which is what makes Pressure Whirl so fun. Got a good caster coming up, trade that breach in for an Enfeeble, it's such a good feeling pivot
@@CoffeePotato Funny thing is summons and projectiles seem to have a physical component, so you don’t have to switch out breach unless you’re splashing.
Makes me want to see what I can get up to with cudgel terror knight and a draconic caster. I’m pretty sure draconics are all magic, so will enfeebling everything do tons of damage?
I’ve always wondered, which “catiua” would you rather use? dark priest or princess. I’m debating myself. I’ve seen little of the princess in action and never seen a dark priest in action. New video idea? 🤔
If you think about it, Warren should be S tier for his report. So much of the game is inaccessible without it!
Fair point, but also the whole world ending thing... 🤔
This may be a weird request,
but do you have the portraits for each character / class / race in the game somewhere?
I have been using Tactics Ogre character portraits for a tabletop RPG I've been running for a while,
and Im finding it annoying to need to go into the game, take a screenshot, and make it transparent each time.
The wiki doesn't seem populated - Which I've been trying to help with, but it's slow going.
Sure, I just clip them from Spriters Resource, they have them all right there in the Portraits section for Tactics Ogre PSP. I know the Reborn ones must have been dumped somewhere in a similar fashion.
@@CoffeePotatoNot that I've found, but thanks for the heads up, I'll use that too
My wife laughed at me a lot when she walked in and saw that I search, "Coffee Potato Tactics Ogre tier list." Thank you for making this video.
The beauty of the game is everyone can play it differently. One strategy that took me through the entire game is: Fly Canopus (as a Vartan) around the map picking up cards and shooting arrows at enemies. Save up enough MP to use a hammer finisher using a Spiked Flail +1. You can basically fly in past everyone and one shot most debuffed bosses to just end the level.
I've collected many unique characters, and almost every class in the game, and nothing is more powerful than flying over everyone on the front line to get to the boss and one-tapping him with a hammer finisher.
Wait you can have rogues. I specifically remember reading you cant have them in this version of the game and the couple times i tried recruit human skill i got a red x. Gonna have to sit down and update some strategies with some of these insights.
You can't, they had a custom AI package or some such in PSP, so they were left out of RB due to apparently needing a second new AI package later in development, when it was an unfixable problem. They were on the list as a joke. You can get the same unit by just using a familiar or buccaneer.
Nice Nice Very Impressive sir Coffee Potato.
I do agree this new classification system works for the better since your army it's a TEAM of soldiers, not just 1 Soldier.
But you forgot to use the OG Dark Priest Avatar XD
I didn't forget, it wasn't the same size as the others, I noticed that too late 🤣
is it possible to beat the san bronsa f3 with no relics or completed palace of the dead.
i wanna make divine knight so i have to beat the f3 of san bronsa in order to the item to drop.
i went into san bronsa before potd, it was fine. I think before i had relics, i was using griffons and dragons to tank with beast tamer lobber healers. Floating ruins is where it will start to slow down, its not too hard to get to floating ruins 3. i was able to recruit the 2 divine knights from that battle. I think i did coda1 and got songstress and lich before I did san bronsa though.
@@soandsononame8750 yep i just completed it.
now comes the boring and painful part that is geting/making a unit lvl 1 into a ghost/skeleton and farm the book of the dead and the Ensanguined Rood (T--T)
Yup, your baseline is really strong this time around. Just a basic debuff and normal soldier can melt most anything. It's why I rate the more traditionally powerful classes around the middle. They can eventually get it done, but if I can kill a god with some liquor and this knife, I mean...
No complaints here, as a random player currently collecting the remaining heavenly general items in the PotD, which I make use of the 4 sister shamans, haha. Tho I am yet to try to have a good archer and also am yet to test a dark priest on stinky set.
Ive always been wanting to utilize a fairy but dont know how. Will try to employ what is presented here. Thanks for the info.
Faeries are really handy for doubling up on turns or using Virtuous to just ram in and get 3+ units converted. Especially handy when combined with the White Knights for a double Velocity Shift from their heal kiss. It gives them a free turn, which triggers one Velocity into another Velocity into another kiss turn. Really solid chain potential there.
I remember using Deneb way back when I played the game on PSP, because of how hard it was to unlock her.
I don't remember her being weak, but I agree she is not meta 😁
She was a bit directly stronger back in PSP because Spellcraft helps with penetration, which was a big deal there. Meditate Armageddon is an awesome combo, though.
Okay, hear me out.
Here's the opposing view to your Shaman only good with charm spam strawman.
In chapter 4, if you are going to to do the shaman quest anyways, they are a significant upgrade compared to valkyrie (the only other summon class humans can use at this point). Using gear available at that point, the max int a no investment Valk Cerya was reaching at lv 36 was about 170, give or take stat cards I picked up. Upon switching to shaman, gear difference alone boosted int up to about 210 (a 23.5% increase). This translates pretty directly to damage, 100 damage summon goes to 122 damage summon. Additionally, she gains +5 range from cudgel access that valks don't get and engulf 2 to further boost that. To me, range boost is a speed boost, because the same enemy can be hit while saving ~20 RT of movement cost. This is a trade off for less durability, but I think the extra range compliments it well because any competent team can protect the backline casters without problems. Valks are still excellent finisher spammers and great units. Recruit access is awesome. But it is just simple fact that as summon users they are not as good as shamans. The gear and ability difference is what makes the difference, not just base stat change. I really don't get your logic with the "gear favoritism". If I have 1 summon caster, and one set of caster gear, how is it favoritism to put the gear that can ONLY be used by casters, not valks, on the caster? The gear access is part of the class. You argue terror knights are tanky because they have good gear. But then say you can't count Shaman gear towards their damage output over valks because that's favoritism? Seems like you made up your mind about it before testing then justified how to make the results work in your favor. They should be Specialized tier at least because they specialize in long range magic damage at speed better than valks.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Stop Shaman hate 😂
Guy just hates rushdown (which is easily the most braindead consistent way of playing this game imo). The fact that he called Ozma "boring" kinda speaks for itself really. Also that he almost didn't put her in S tier and the way he did it so begrudgingly should tell you all you need to know.
@@DarkSol13 yeah I was surprised by Ozma as well cuz she's even got his favorite damage mitigation, whips, plus a unique finisher with charm which he really likes. Plus she's ridiculously fast with personal RT.
And honestly, I'm totally fine with him having a different play style, it's more the exact thing he claims Shaman fans do of saying "my way is the only way to play". Like even if you don't like using Shaman, don't claim they do the same damage and ignore all the differences because that's very hurtful to new players.
So counterpoint on that. A few clarifications, I guess. It's not that Shamans can't hit like a truck, moreso that they're held up as the *only* ones that can.
They can hit well, and depending on the situation, harder than most others, but their weakness comes from a lack of counterplay. If their plan A doesn't work, their playbook is Plan A again. That's by design, they're artillery, and there's nothing wrong with this. Other casters in their playground tend to have some good counters for when things go wrong, and I'd always prefer a backup plan.
The range argument comes up a lot, but they're not uniquely long range, and it's not as universal as it's often portrayed. The reason I mention the Lich there is that they still get summons, and those summons kill the same stuff. A T2 by itself will usually kill most of a heavy, and all of a lighter unit, whether from a Lich, Shaman, or Valk, or whatever else. A Crit booster one from all over the above will kill the heavy a good bit of the time too, and could allow for a splash spread if needed. Granted, splashes do the splash spread more economically. Range wise they are identical.
So while they'll do more, and this tends to show more and more as the numbers go up, strategically all of them are accomplishing a similar rush action. The difference is what they'll do if it's not enough.
They definitely could go into specialist, just always need to drop them down a peg for requiring 30+ battles to unlock. 🤣.
I can just go grab a Lich or Patriarch in like 10 minutes, dang it! Net result is never wanting to go grab them for challenge runs, honestly.
Well yeah, if I can avoid a mandatory genocide for recruitment, I'll take it 🤣
@@CoffeePotato The problem is I like my unique units... so lich to me means repeat farming a floor of PotD for rings and I much prefer the cool elemental temple maps to more PotD than I already need. So for a same unit comparison, I'd rather do Cerya Shaman than Cerya Lich. But I fully recognize lich is easy to recruit generics and I always say Matriarch is best caster in the game. I just think that the biggest part of what makes them good is also something shaman does even slightly better (with nature power plus matching element summon). Lich gets nature power, but you can only utilize matching element summon in the very specific generic recruited with ice/water from Pirate's Graveyard. So I prefer to keep my Lich on dark and use Shaman for normal elements.
Also on backup plans, I think that is where we might just view a "team" differently. I would rather have one unit focused on one thing, and use other units for the backup plans. Even if Shaman got sleep or poison, I would rather click damage on their turn and use my other units for something so easy. As you have shown a ton, debuffs can be dropped by fresh store units with no difficulty, so I would rather use them as the backup to slow down or disable gryphon/dragon scale walls while Shaman can still kill 1-2 units a turn without worrying about it. If you only had Shaman, yeah it would be rough, but debuffs are like the most common thing in the game, so I don't view it as a big downside that they don't get them. That's why I voted for Specialist tier, not adaptability tier. I don't even care if my specialist isn't super adaptable, because I want them to be specialized.
Hawkman beast tamer are awesome. San bronsa is full of them and they are one of the most annoying units to deal with that are not enemy exclusive (like those dragons and beasts...)
I made Cressida a Lich in San Bronsa of all places, and she refused to use salvation except on her first turn to steal mp from my healer who was fed 2 MP sticks. Uses life force on turn 2 if she doesn't get meditate on turn one and gave MP to other units one time. Had 3 skill cards for half the battle, just trying to get it to trigger. She's mostly a petrobreath stopper or mana battery and where I figured salvation would be a godsend on paper, it triggered for her twice only. And at the least opportune moments. Just horrid luck?
Just luck, you could always go for the usual approach of chomping on an MP stick round 1, Life Force round 2, then just become artillery.
@@CoffeePotato She does have Hellhound 2 for that very reason. Usually do that if no one needs the MP boost. If she gets meditate on turn one, its that much sooner the artillery starts. Usually Hellhound 2 on one or two units since she has the power to one turn kill anything but (almost) beast units. If I risk friendly fire, she still does 400+ on life force.
@@michaelrichard7211 That's why Liches are great to have around. Almost anything they do, they turn to dust. Fitting, since I'm not sure even the moistest of lotions are doing much for their face.
Im new to TO and read Catiua has to die for Danem to be a lord...? Can i get both still or that not an option?
You can always get both as the story ends, if you want both for the extensive post game and time travel shenanigans. But yeah, if she dies in any way before the announcement to attack Heim, you get Lord marks instead. Just killing her after changes the story, but doesn't give any marks. This also unlocks a side quest with a small rebellion of Fusiliers nearby.
Hobble is definitely useful. The AI aggressively tries to split up and isolate your units, and they’re just not as effective if they can’t pull it off.
Yup, it feels super lame until that Terror Knight is sitting one tile away from their target like "please don't break my butt".
I've noticed the same thing. I'm a big fan of mobility-impairing strategies, since the AI just kind of falls apart when you pin them in place.
@@Poillip Yeah. The AI’s preferred status effect is dead, and they don’t have a backup strategy.
do tier lists tier list :D
But there can only be so many F-- tiers on one list!
This is a good tier list, and glad to hear some new experiences gave some fresh new perspectives on the classes :D
In regards to deneb, i kind of just use her anyways as she tends to be in the back, mainly for debuffs and just overall doing more damage than even Cressida, but i swap between the two since i just like using both. Still grinding PotD unfortunately.
I enjoy using Deneb as well. Her life steal hits are huge and her low armor makes her a target for stuff. A few HP cards fixed here HP issue, of which PoTD spits them out like candy.
I meant to cover the auto charm setup for her, forgot about that. She's got some fun play for Charm and Stop abuse, but would still be in "I would be scared to have this lady on the team if we're being honest' tier 🤣
@@CoffeePotato fair enough! I did use her on my final team against the boss of the game during my Iinitial run, and was scared when she got knocked out during that second phase (thankfully, boss was at low health and I clinched it)
@@GBMouth Speaking of, I need to test Condemn...
@@CoffeePotatoThey toned down her evil personality A LOT after march of the black queen, shes not half as bad here lol
Something fun about dualwielding that the ninja sadly cannot do (to my knowledge) in Reborn is that in my experience, dual strikes often leave units almost dead, but only just so. In those cases, because two well-placed hits generate lots of MP, a recruit skill will often finish the job relatively nicely. I've been loving my "punch them into friendship" berserker Denam in One Vision (and I need to see if you can transfer recruit skills on ninjas in Vanilla), so this not being possible in Reborn only carried me further away from dualwield ninjas. Auto Benumb/Silence/Envenom with range is absolutely glorious though.
I'm very surprised to see Swordmaster so high up all of a sudden, but I get it. On paper, their plan of action is awesome. I just never really got it to work personally. I'll need to try harder though, because the female Swordmaster sprite looks too cool not to use and in theory, being an early frontline that counters and pulls in enemies to later morph into a frontline buffer actually sounds great.
The trick is to keep them within range of only couple units, and rushing an Auto card asap.
Fun note on ninja, but that also leads them to a fun setup with Songstress later. MP Song, Double, hit twice, take a counter into an Evanescence. Not perfect, but sorts out that almost dead issue.... especially if it's a zombie or has cleric backup.
@@CoffeePotato Exploding in their face? Ok, that sounds very fun. Especially with how resurrection works in Reborn (ironic). I already love my Lord with zero MP Resurrection at his disposal - this way I can abuse it offensively as well.
Vyce has been my MVP as a ranger, but it might just be due to his naturally high stats.
I have him with Daggers, Lobber, Pincer, and Constitution. Have him equipped with the Dragon Fang, and one of the 1-handed counter attack bows.
He basically goes hunting for Phys-Up cards, while making opportune attacks with the bow or dagger as he goes. Then with 1 or more cards he abuses the scaling on shots. The cards also usually leave him in a condition to wreck stuff with Dagger finishers when he runs out of shots.
He's tougher than a Fusilier, and can take a beating. He can rush ahead or move away from the party. He has poison on counters, and when the party catches up to him he can assist with Pincer.
You could probably get a similar build out of a Beast Master, but Beast Master is good enough at other stuff that I usually want to vary their loadout.
That'll do it. He's kind of a do-it-yourself class, I noticed earlier. I can't wait for the TK, I'll just throw the breach myself!
Having only reached like level 10 to the Palace of the dead and having just gotten to helm I feel like this is all foreign language to me cuz a lot of this just doesn't add up for me which gives me something to look forward to thanks for the time and effort
Glad to help, this game loves to recontextualize things over time.
Update: Months later I have finally got the time over the course of time to finish the palace and understand much much much more of what your saying and this video was invaluable to my game and things make perfect sense now lol thanks!
Having had a chance to play through Chapter 4 of Reborn on Law and Chaos routes now, I'll just mention some classes I think might be a little better than you gave them credit for, albeit you still have them ranked highly:
Griffin: I think that playing on a new game, getting your first Griffin is such a massive difficulty decrease that it merits placing them as high as possible on the list. I don't think there's any single early game class get that makes as much of a difference as Griffin. In the early game, you have to face a lot of annoying protection missions, and you also can get absolutely crushed by backliner gangbangs due to weak armor. The way Griffins allow you to manipulate enemy AI is honestly crazy and a little *too* strong. So I'd call them a Dominant class, at least for Chapters 1-4 of the game. Enemies will ignore your Knights, but they WILL target your Griffin. Which makes Griffin the "better" tank from that perspective. Oh, and as if that wasn't busted enough, dash+rock throw allows them to serve as superior Archers/Vartans.
White Knight: Velocity Shift is busted. Two White Knights at the front of your formation can shelter a multitude of secondary frontliners and spike damage dealers standing behind. Grab an auto card with each and they'll be firing off Shifts all day, giving free turns to your Terror Knights, Warlocks, Ninjas, Berserkers, Juggernauts, Flood Dragons etc.
Stone Chicken: Same as Griffin, except now they have a big spike damage + turn removal surprise with Stone Breath II+. Enemies like to clump together to swarm whatever they see as your weakest character. Removing 4 turns at once is insanely strong. I don't know about endgame, but anything through Chapter 4, they're as Dominant as Griffins, if not more so.
Dragoon: I'd bump this up to Specialized because they are MVPs on maps with a lot of dragons or beasts. Again, when it comes to turn removal, they can OHKO a lot of annoying creatures or bring them down into kill range for another character to follow up.
The list is largely based on their performance in the story and also the post game. White Knights continue to be great, but losing mobility could be a problem if trying to abuse Velocity. It's good, but not mandatory good, if that makes sense. Beasts that rely on Status moves have a harder time if they're not automatic, like the chicken. Feed them Mind Charms, and they continue being good and reliable.
Gryphons become more of a support/medivac unit, and do that job better than anyone else.
Dragoons struggle a bit, but their arsenal keeps them going. They have a very hard time keeping up with end game death birds, see the Know Your Unit Dragoon video for more on what it takes to keep them operating. Love the class, love it's equipment options, they just struggle sometimes. Slayer Deathwail is brutal when it lands, though.
good way to use golems is with a warlock to empower golem then use them as trebuchets. They throw pretty far and can do a high amount of damage to back line units when they are empowered. Use mine to tank the front while bombing the back.
That wasn't Warren calling from the other side of the chaos gate, it was Rodrick. He states as such after Denam opens the gate, so the whole "world ending thing" wasnt even him. Warren for S tier.
I have farmed out a team of divine knights for auto battling through potd and they seem really good at it. Not the fastest but I've never lost a unit.
They're pretty great down there.
Ok tier list overall.
I will just rate the units from best to worse, not considering item optimization(aka item farming and min/maxing item distribution for each individual battle), bodysnatch 999 Int/mnd, multiple different classes bodysnatch into the same unit(when I played I did not know that was possible), and when you unlock the unit.
Also it is based around their potential in the endgame.
For dominant: Lord, Princess, Lich, Juggernaut, Songtress, smellly set gremlin familiar, smelly set fairy familiar, paladin, knight.
For dependable: shaman, white knight, swordmaster, bucanner, hoplite, knight commander, terror knight, matriarch.
For adaptable: necromancer, wicce, ranger, ninja, warlock,warrior, berserker.
For specialized: archer, fusilier, dragoon, divine knight.
Fun to use: Rune Fencer, Vartan, Cleric, Wizard, beast tamer.
Good to have: water, dark, light, fire dragon, gryphon
Situational: Cockatrice, Hydra.
Liability: Priest, Cyclops, Golem, the other dragons, Astromancer, Octopus.
Unfortunately monsters fall off hard in the endgame, gear just gets better and better and enemies outlevel you.
Early game they are better but damage wise way worse then humanoids because of their empower dependency and less access to multipliers from gear and skills.
Because items are op in this game beast tamer is ok because of lobber and because they can fly naturally because of hawkmen.
Because a single bodysnatch is allowed, classes like jugg get a lot better because of weapon options and higher movement.
Other classes like gremlin familiar, swordmaster, ninja, matriarch and terror knight improve greatly because of bodysnatch.
Iuria is a great unique songtress because of her lower RT( one of the few cases where this advantage is a big deal ) and the fact that she flies naturally.
Also as final funny request: OST tier list when?
Good call on the OST list, that might be a fun one for next week.
New to the game, just started. What class i should aim for main character?
Whichever you like. No matter what you pick, there will be upsides and downsides. The game's about teamwork over all else, there's not much special about Denam outside of his unique class in the late game. Best is relative to what you need at the moment.
I don't think it's really fair to put Lans in "Difficult to Use", considering that Lord/Princess/Dark Priest aren't available until like .... right before the final stretch of Ch4 and they're both in "Dominant".
Having both Phalanx and Intimidate is ridiculously good. Add Rampart Aura to the mix and we're chillin'. The second I got Lans, he never left my party because he could basically just stand in the front and remove enemy Dragon Scale, Gordion Lock, Phalanx, etc. while staying at max HP. Didn't do damage, but he pretty much WAS my frontline from that point on.
He's solid, but saying he's available at the same time as the other two is a bit of the mark. You can get Princess/Dark Priest by end of Ch4 and Hanging Gardens respectively...but Paladin is, depending on route, over 145 maps later.
He's a great unit, just shows up 5 maps before the Coda 4 finale. He's the latest named recruit in the whole game. He's great as a unit, the timing is why I put him there as a joke, said that in the video.
@@CoffeePotato I guess. I didn't get lord until my 2nd route run (got Catiua first run) so it didn't feel too far between making Denam a lord and getting Lans.
Dark Cockatrice exists!! In the Dievold fight during Cressida recruit mission. Now cyclops, gotta catch'em all 😁Dark Hydra probably doesn't exist but I am still hopeful. Btw if you want to use Hoplite's rapier glance efficiently, make sure to give them Rampart aura as well. Have few pumpkin familiar with sparagmos ready along with few witches or warlock with empower Golem, berserkers are great but sparagmos DOESN'T hit friendly units, finally have 2 mind controlling archers that will target any casters or healers. Also a songstress to get the perfect rhythm.
True, I've been setting up to do that video soonish. So far there's the Black Chicken, the Blue Lich, heard of a Dark Faerie, Dark Octopus, Dark Gryph, heard of a Fire Angel (but haven't seen any evidence to back that up, who knows), and I'm positive there's more. It's like set Shiny Hunting in a way.
@@CoffeePotato Exactly!!! As soon as I saw that dark cockatrice, it felt like a shiny Pokemon 😁ever since the dark griffin from Andoras fight, now I pay extra attention every time before a fight. I think I saw a dark gremlin in one of the Nybeth summon, that would be great to have, should have taken a SS because I forgot exactly which fight, I think Lawful POTD lvl 5.
@@CoffeePotato Btw Divine Knights are basically undead exterminator, they can use 1H bows to get counter, but I prefer them with Sanctuary, they also get meditate 2 and a move similar to virtuous dance. You are right though, a knight with flight is exponentially superior.
Fusilier and Buccaneer are some of my favourites. Fusilier can just hit from one end of the map to the other. Sharpshoot for mauling people. Course Correction for shooting through walls. Bucaneer with Double Attack with two different weapons (for lots of finishers) and Speedster is so underrated. I have Azelstan with 1H Sword + Dagger, Canopus with Axe and Dagger and Vyce with Dual Daggers. Daggers don't increase RT by much and give ranged finishers. It's insane. Everyone has ranged attacks. Everyone moves through the field like no tomorrow. So so underrated.
Plus the good ol Lobber Bombs.
I love Clerics too. My Olivia I ended leaving in the class and she's a core team member.
It's such an eye opening moment to see a Terror Knight set up for a Cleric to drop a Trinity Pulse on that chicken that pushed through, too. They're no slouches even on offense.
This might be considered too short for a tier list, but have you thought on making a video comparing and contrasting the protagonists between all the games?
I have, it's a work in progress, of sorts.
I bought Reborn and I'm gonna prove you wrong about Vartan after I play it! Vartan in PSP TO was the shit. 2 amazing setups: either 2H bow for bird boi who parks on a building to snipe, or crossbow+knife for an assassin setup where you chase down weakened enemies. Any class that lets you position where enemies can't hit you is great.
What's to prove wrong? They're a vulture, and great at being one.
@@CoffeePotato Your rating just looks a little low to me fam. ;P
Vartan with a Griffin buddy can really make a mockery of whatever the enemy is trying to do. Oh, you got a formation over there? Sure would be a shame if something happened to it. Aw, did your healer get sniped by my flying bird guy? You'll just have to send your heavy hitters to beat him up-oh wait, you can't. Because he's on a roof tile.
Can I skip getting Deneb? Hate the idea of auctioning the dragons. Would it be problematic/would I be missing out on cool content if I skip recruiting her?
You're missing out on a small side quest involving pumpkin heads petitioning for their worker's rights....and Deneb's unique class is decent. You can always just do the side quest and sell the dragons later to get the class marks at the shop.
After 7 months of doubts, I decided to buy this version. I may not have the extended playtime as some folks but I do think Dragons should be Dominant. Why? Because I first tried the Oz&Balx fight in my no incap no time rewind run by placing three of them on the stairs, the battle ended much quicker than I expected, the mustache wizard suicided on them. And even without Dragon Scale, having 4 or more units with 1900-ish hp and AOE to keep healers busy is disgusting.
Absolutely one of the handier cheeses, and a really solid powerhouse, but mostly kept out of Dominant because of how passive their strength is. Fantastic offensive walls, but if they don't have their Autos or an elemental advantage, it can be hard for them to make much of a push or control an area. Well, I guess a Dash/Rampart/ Toxic (Lead) Breath dragon could hold some flyers at bay to an extent. Could argue for a Dash into phys and autos to kite into a breath and run. Honestly I have no idea if they'd keep up with the rest consistently, but that sounds like a really fun challenge run.
@@CoffeePotato
I feel they are a "flock" class. Bringing one of them is only handy, but if you have 3 or more you can spam boulder after boulder or AOE breath after AOE breath, which is something that definitely carried my run at least
RIP Rogue. They look so cool :( I wonder why they're not playable in reborn?
Technical shenanigans with them having a different AI or some such. Berserker got their back attack, Stealing back items is something anyone can do, and the Pumpkin was given Berserker access to compensate. Would've loved them too, but they were so technically half baked in PSP that I'm not too shocked they couldn't add more duct tape to the duct tape there.
Yay! Dark Priest is S Tier material! One of my fav classes :D
It's extremely useful.
Hard agree on the shaman, matriarch, and lich. First run I did the whole quest and immediately turned Cistina and Cerya into a shaman and was pretty underwhelmed even with their apocrypha. After postgame I recruited Sherri and raised her into a shaman and she did way better (guessing because she starts as a witch), and also made Olivya one and she had competitive damage, and on that end I dislike when people insist on just loading all of them up with white knights so they can spam summons every map, like you only need one if you're going to run them, even in a caster-heavy loadout because you're gonna want a debuff/control caster in there too which they can't do but Matriarchs can (and still summon besides). Cistina and Cerya are best kept as Valks or maybe even ninjas in my experience, but I'm playing with the idea of making Sherri a Berserker for my no incap/no chariot run
Glad to see I'm not the only one that found the sisters really handy as ninjas. Sherri even makes a pretty legit TK.
There’s a cutscene from before Warren wakes up where Deneb she was born in her current body.
Not a real improvement, honestly.
Is that the Canopus one? She does lie a lot.
@@CoffeePotato Yup
Do you have a guide on faeries?
Schoon!
Technically, if you're feeling bored and goofy, pretty sure dragoons are the only class that can use spears and also have pincer. Its... it.... its a thing. Not sure what you'll do with that, but it's real funny.
It is, and it's another reason they're in Fun to Use. It's fun to set up or see happen on accident!
I definitely appreciate it, I owe my first victory in Reborn on the Ozma and Oz fight in Chaos to downing Oz with a dragoon with pincer.
I feel vindicated by @CoffeePotato. For a long, long time I'd advocated for Liches and Swordmasters; seeing them rank so highly -- after being made fun of and called all sorts of names on Reddit and Gamefaqs -- means a lot to me.
And on a personal note, thank you for staying current with Tactics Ogre. It's one of my favorite games ever made and it deserves more praise than it gets. The effort put into this tier list shows.
That's why it took a few tries to get it right, glad to help!
@@CoffeePotatoYou're a beast - don't let anyone tell you differently!
Where's Dark Dragon? edit: oh it's together with Light
Yup 👍
As a professional dominatrix, I feel so seen by all these whip jokes.
Gotta keep it kinky 🤣
Ozma, Vyce and Juggernaut Lizardmen are top for me, Necromancer is too... but I think the most solid unit for any situation is probaly Rune Fencer/Valkyire.
My Zombie Cyclops is based and legendary. Love me atleast one gryphon for most battles. Your explanation for both is spot on. Started a new playthrough recently on my switch version and decided not to exploit the money trick and thus I made sure to have at least one designated cleric that keeps a Heal 1 on 'em at all times for healing chip damage mainly and using items for 'oh shit' moments. I don't bother with resurrect since I am doing a no incap, no chariot run.
Also agree on dragoon replacing crossbows with dash being a great way for them to stick out.
I'd put Bucaneer into 'fun to use' due to lack of availability.
Phantom Warlock = fun niche Sacrifice build.
Fairy OP.
Dark Priest OP. Love using the stinky strat.
Hawkmen clerics are also top tier and I definitely have a designated one.
LMAO Caught me off-guard with that Ozma joke. I could see the Ozma fanboi's sweating there for a hot second from your hesitation.
I agree with pretty much everything on this list from my own 1000+ hours of gameplay in Reborn.
>> Question though: How do blowdarts stat boosts work in right-hand versus equipped on left hand like with the example with a ninja using a sword + blowdart? Cuz of the many inconsistencies with how stats works in off-hand, I am wondering if there is a particular setup for maximizing on the stat boosts from both weapons.
Solid point on the ghost, I always forget about some of the more niche ultra late game Draconics.
Blowdarts in the main hand will use all stats, and will use only stat boosts if swinging an offhand weapon, if I recall. In the offhand, they boost Luck, HP, and MP.
Fire
Thanks!
featuring air conditioning
Yup. Is friggin hot.
Dislike...and you know why
Should have better plans for escaping hell is all I'm saying 😄
@@CoffeePotato Looking forward to the upcoming "HUGO VS. WARREN" videos on both your channels.
HUGO: Useless information, kinda creepy, hates birthdays, obsessed with bridges, does not fall drunk into a chaos gate and nearly end the world.
WARREN: Has lots of useful information, actually fights in two games, makes weird mouth noises, able to accurately predict DLC, falls drunk into a chaos gate and nearly ends the world.
SARADIN: Actually shows up to fight when he's not stoned, casts female magic in the front row so possibly genderfluid?, often confused for Hugo or Warren, requires a girl to ring a bell to keep him on topic when he gets stoned again, smells like wolfbane (Palatinean werewolves won't join you if you get him), unable to identify poisonous plants.
DARAVON: Boring story, you're sleepy!
@@ValeVin Do we get to add Erza from FFTA for this?
Sorry but i think berserk being an auto skill completely crippled berserkers utility. They need to be knocked down a couple tiers just for that. I completely stopped using them the first time i had to wait because i couldn't find any enemies i could attack without targeting my own units. They're just not worth it when i can put in another class without that RNG.
So you'd say that Deneb is just a basic... witch :)
Don't call her that, are you trying to ---
Classes like Divine Knight and Astromancer are almost pointless to rate. There's nothing that can challenge you by the time you get them; they're basically trophies for having done everything. Like is the Zodiac Spear the best weapon in FFXII? No because by the time you get it you've got nothing to use it on.
Divine Knight can be recruited enough to still be handy in SB and POTD, honestly I didn't give them enough credit to be a charm tornado, always forget how effective it is to have a 35 MP 40-60% charm spin, the natural recruits are just way better at using it. Just had a video I ended up scrapping where one newly recruited angel managed to hold off 8 units on the other end of the map, 4 of which were dead by the time they needed to attack anything. Astromancer is kinda just for fun
I would bring Lich down to specialized, since their general limited movement and hp pool makes it tougher than most to collect skill cards.
Wicce should be C-tier, but B tier strength. Her main problem is that she's not fun to use, she's just slightly better in several places and has a huge stat advantage.
The stat advantage varies. I'm not sure what the rules are, but her stats seemed to vary pretty widely the 3 times I got her. First one was a monster with whips, second was the most mundane thing.
Lich has iffy movement, but usually you can save the nearby card spawns for him, and use splashes to spawn more. The MP Share alone makes me love using these guys.
@@CoffeePotato Those are mitigating strategies which are the complete opposite of dependable, let alone dominant.
@@benedict6962 bring 4 liches or more with reflection against any caster boss (eg: nybeth), or any caster heavy map and come back saying they arent dominant LOL. they make a lot of challenging boss fights in this game that many people have trouble beating into a complete JOKE. even without reflection up, they have dark summon and apocrypha for damage + infinite mp + can give said mp to the rest of the party
@@pauloafonso5808 That's a very specific strategy on a very specific type of boss that requires 4 people's worth of skill cards.
It's the definition of specialized.
Agreed with lich, HP is lacking and they are sooooo slow as casters, they need a boon of swiftness bad at all times.
Knight is tied with warrior for HP growth, warrior has slightly higher overall growth. Ignoring monsters.
Makes sense, they're a solid class at everything else.
When my rouge took a skill from a gremlin, he can keep himself alive. I like rouges. I just wish steal has a good AI.
Steal didn't really do much in PSP, and never was an AI function. You're sure not mixing something up?
everyone in the comments saying why their pet class is actually good. If every class is good we probably need to stress-test them a bit more.
@@letsmakeit110 It's all situational. Folks love to praise Shamans until they get dunked on by a chicken 😆
I don’t always agree with you but boi I was happy to see shaman in fun to use tier. I don’t like how a majority of the community always just metas shaman and says use 5 makes the game super boring.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Plus their supposed meta status basically boils down to "if I get lucky or take the same steps beforehand, and no one rushes me, and the whole team has to support them, they hit hard"
Meanwhile beast Tamers are there in the back with a bandolier of grenades and hammers like "You guys need people to guard you?"
@@CoffeePotato I did recently discover how strong beast tamers are also I built gnapp as a lobber also with the coda 4 hammer and earring has been excellent
@@StarScreamBK201 Hammer Tamer is fun times
Female berserker is my waifu
Understandable 👍
Sherri as TK.................. What a waste of MAGIK
Rofl
I've never seen a youtuber so dedicated to not being 'meta' that they're willing to lie to their audience. No. The lich, barring ogre blade shenanigans, won't outdamage NT Shaman at similar levels of investment. No, not 'everyone can do damage', not to the level of a shaman which is why they're the go to for post game stomps. Patriach, matriarch, and valk (lol valk) don't have the insane range and have substantially lower damage. "Nature power lich" doesn't have access to ice summons, which means it has poor damage. It's just laughable. Shamans also have lower RT than all of those classes meaning they have even higher damage, and due to their range, they don't need to move.
Is it unfortunate that shamans with 'just damage' trivialize the game? Yeah. Doesn't change that they're leagues better than any melee DPS, archer, or almost any other caster (barring ogre blade liches in the post, post game)
Their eventual spike comes way down the road, when that small bonus gets to show. A damage bonus down the line at the cost of anything else is a fun fireworks show, but it's all they have, and unnecessary. Crit boosting is something anyone can do, and giving up on having any counterplay will never be worth it for me. Anyone can do damage, showed Dorgy getting one tapped with a mace the other day. Debuffs and counters matter far more in my book, don't go trying to call me a liar over preferences.
I’ve been going after Roderick, and shamans have been pretty useless. Even with nature’s touch.
I think it’s rather harsh to say “lie to”, referring to Lord Coffee. He has some intriguing opinions and thoughts on playstyle, and has certainly done the Challenge Runs to backup the ‘verifiable Reliability’ of what he suggests, etc. I DO personally agree w you that Summons-2 (whether from Shamans or Matriarch / Patriarch / Lich) are the biggest single power jump one tends to get, in the Endgame. My own Summon-2 casters typically deal 750-1250 ish (total) damage to CODA-2 Potd depths Level-45 enemies, if you single them out so they take the full 5-7 hits from the cast.
But, that said, some of my other characters CAN land hits of 500-ish+ too (w Finishers on Weak Element foes). I think Lord Coffee is trying to make endgame discussion more… interesting / thoughtful that simply “yeah, just make the 4 Sisters, Deneb, and Iuria all be Shamans, and run all 6 plus Lord Denam and Princess Catiua (both of whom can also hurl Summons-2’s), and just crush everything.”
==
Would that work ? Certainly ! But he’s trying to consider and analyze options beyond just that, at times, so I think we should be charitable / understanding, when we consider his overall themes and perspectives 🤝
@@AlekTrev006 I appreciate the backup, and will also probably be doing a follow up sometime this week to better explain this whole thing a bit. Part of the thing is also that everyone's rolling a completely different situation. There's so many different things that can skew how units go that I typically will value them on their initial state and tool box. That's also assuming everyone's talking about the same point in the game. A good chunk of why I always joke that birds eat wizards, for example, comes from floors 70+ of POTD and San Bronsa, where Hippogryohs and Phoenixes typically will be able to withstand absurd amounts of punishment, and multi round most things on the map. While in theory a full T2 summon spam could handle it, that's assuming turn orders line up, ranges line up, and enough hits land to stop the bird rush. It can happen, but in most cases some will still get through. It's why I'll always rate a caster with some other backup plans more. Every unit will have their downsides, but it's the difference between "oh they rolled a crit, this is RNG BS" and "this is fine, Plan B".
Anyways, video showing what I mean when there's a minute.
@@CoffeePotato when a 'preference' is justified by provably untrue claims, it's called a lie. You can hate shamans, you can find them boring, you can not use them- that would all be fine.
But you can't sit with a straight face and go "Liches outdamage NT shamans", even without you purposefully ignoring the RT differences, that's just not true outside of post-post game cheese.
It's also purposefully disingenuous for you to claim "Anyone can do damage". Technically, yes, Shamans just do.... way more damage than almost every other class in almost all situations. And can do their damage consistently, constantly, without working around finisher costs, and from across the entire map. You not only do not need to build resources, you don't even need to waste turns moving into range.
The kicker for me is your example of San Bronsa. You simultaneously act like it's impossible to have that utility with a shaman composition while ranking utility focused units like archers and terror knights highly. Even /if/ you run every shaman available, there's always still room for some monster-slayers (Ozma, pref), liches for utility, support classes, or white-knights for extra cheese.
Just 'cause you have the best damage dealers and they're busy doing tons of damage every single turn (very quickly, due to low RT and staying in a spot to spam WKs) doesn't mean you lack anything else.
Rogue? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH
100% DIFFICULT TO USE
Technically the Buccaneer or Familiar is basically the same thing strategically, but I had to 🤣
Lol archers suck,still no matter how you try to sell it any class can do good damage with breach/fear and they can't spam finishers like rune fencers can,you just wrong.
....and yet they have remained insanely useful for over a year straight. Weird how that goes 🤔.
Ugh. Say it with me, "a Pos tate". Not "Apos tate" or "Apo state". "a Pos tate" I would not have commented on it, but the way you say it makes me reflexively wonder if you know what the word means. :)
Of course, basically anti religious...but I always pronounced it that way. Just like it took 3 years of angry comments to get me to stop calling it a Zwayhander, and call it a Zweihander. Most of the time. Usually.
@@CoffeePotato Coffee a Po tater.