Knoll is so funny, this man would be broken if unchanged in literally any other game but the fact the games so easy actually works to his detriment since his summon skills don’t even help much outside of challenge runs
btw, Amelia already had a lower growth total than Seth in the japanese version, but then in the localization they increased Seth growths and decreased Amelia's even more the localization changes are wild, some make sense but then they screwed over the trainees, their special classes caps also got super nerfed for some reason
“Ross does have that potential dog in him.” There you have it boys, Ross is an s tier unit, matched only by the legend Seth himself! Jokes aside, I’m loving your tier lists!! Really appreciate it that you’re not so focussed on LTC style efficiency runs, but are factoring some of those strategies. I just find a lot of fire emblem tier lists end up being like the only good units in sacred stones are Seth and units that can carry around Seth and warp or Seth. It’s just a specific play style that doesn’t consider more casual runs, where you are still trying to see good combat, but with less perfect calculation in your strategy.
I'm glad you like them :-) the centralization of turn counts in fire emblem discussion has always been a little pet peeve of mine, since I think that most people playing casually don't play for them
I actually find Vanessa incredibly difficult to train early game. On her join map she faces weapon triangle disadvantage from every single enemy, except the lone archer, which is dangerous for her to fight anyway, because she doesn't one-round it so you have to set it up for her, otherwise she dies to effectiveness. In chapter 3, there are three non-axe enemies, one of whom is a thief she can easily dispatch over the wall with her javelin, but then faces retaliation from the archer on the other side of the wall, and then a lone mercenary in the throne room. Monster map is monster map, but I'm usually so ross-pilled at that point I use it as an opportunity to train him. Chapter 5 is working against Vanessa in like, every single way: lots of axe enemies, lots of archers, timed objectives that her high movement and flight is uniquely suited for over fighting in combat, Joshua taking up the center of the map that you want to avoid until you recruit him, and a boss with high defense and 1-2 range that she can scarcely damage. Chapter 6 is fog of war with a decent mix of weapon types, and with her low bulk and low defense, even those soldiers can take a sizeable chunk out of her HP. I usually send her down to the village if I bother to get it (I usually play Lizard's rebalance hack that replaces the antitoxin with a restore staff so it's actually worth getting) and then have her hide in the trees for the rest of the map while Seth goes on a killing spree to find the boss, because she usually isn't strong enough to handle the cav reinforcements. And then in Chapter 7, her main utility is rescue-dropping, and baiting out the mage with a pure water so Colm can safely steal the Energy Ring. There are archers near the castle that she has to avoid, an archer and some axe bros in the lower right corner that she'll struggle with, and a ballista that covers a majority of the right side of the map, so she's not doing much combat in this chapter either. And then in Chapter 8, by that point, she's usually so far behind that I just bench her in favor of my stronger combat units. I'll sometimes still deploy her in Chapter 9 if I have the slots open, but usually I prefer to field Franz, Kyle, and Forde, because they have similarly high movement, but better combat, especially against the archers near the top. I usually have Pirate Ross at this point and he's competent enough to take on the pirates heading for the Rapier village, and then I'll send Seth and my cavs forward to save the Dracoshield village. But it's at this point that I usually bench Vanessa in favor of Tana, who just has higher bases and is, at that point, usually closer to promotion. I did not realize I had this much to say about Vanessa lol
It also makes it more difficult to train her as Seth one rounds almost all early game enemies. This means you have to scrape up kills with one or two other units. This is a problem for pretty much everyone else in early game but thought it was noteworthy.
Oh man, I'm pretty surprised about Natasha. Even when I was playing slow as a kid, the reality of getting her promoted wasn't happening. Edit: Ok yeah, having her anywhere near units like Tana, Forde, Gerik is insane. Edit2: AND Saleh and Cormag wtffff
can I request a video topic? I've heard a lot of people say fe11 Marth is the worst lord in the series, and I just don't really know why. obviously he's a footlocked thief dude but he still feels a lot more competent as a lord than Lyn for example. fe11s rapier is probably the best rapier in the series imo. I'd appreciate a video analyzing that lil dude
I'm guessing a lot of it is because of Hard 5? Rapier is nice but Marth is sword locked in a game full of lance using units outside of the first 3 chapters and at capped speed he still gets doubled by Medeus. His growths aren't terrible but there's just so many other units that can fill a similar role to Marth with better bases, growths, classes like cav, and you could use your money to forge rapiers but you'd probably rather use that money on wing spears, armorslayers, ridersbanes, etc. Fwiw I still think Lyn is worse than Marth.
@metalgamer21 These are my thoughts too. Marth has a long list of shortcomings but I still think he's better than Lyn. Just the theif utility alone and village utility is enough to put him above Lyn in my mind.
I think Orson being on the list is kind of a meme, there’s no way you can say that he’s more valuable than units you get to keep the whole game. He can’t be invested in and he contributes nothing to the latter half of the game. You made a point to say availability was important, he’s not available enough to justify his one chapter usage. I think him being anywhere but last is kind of joke, unless you’re giving a lot of stock into his weapons you can take from him, I guess that’s something but idk
It's definitely a meme. His "contributions" on his 1 map are not unique in almost any way. If we aren't factoring turn count, he legitimately has zero things going for him. Kyle, Forde, and Ephraim can all solve 5x by themselves. Any action Orson takes, that isn't trade, rescue, or drop, is chipping at valuable resource. ie EXP. Orson can't even weigh himself down to not murder his opponents, so he's even contributing less than Neimi chip.
@@ThatGuyThai i mean, you don't have to use seth either, but that doesn't make Seth bad. A unit with real good combat should be appropriately rated for said good combat. His good combat lasts only one map, hence him being so low, but Neimi, Gilliam etc are uniquely bad.
@@DaniDoyle I suppose my argument there is, Neimi and co offer free chip and gain levels and exp without taking anything from anyone on the roster. Bar crits. Some can go all game without killing anything and provide a few actions like trade, chip, bait or even level ups and promos if you do give them kills. It translates to something, maybe nothing great, but to see Orsin's good combat, costs a kill. He wipes that entire map easily even with the steel lance but doing so hurts the campaign, even if only slightly. That opportunity cost can be exaggerated but it exists. Lets exaggerate and say he kills 5x entirely alone, it does hurt Kyle and Forde longterm. Someone like Neimi can get a lot of action commands throughout a campaign and that's why the scrub squad is better imo. Something as simple as trading for a frontliner to have a more ideal end phase and poking with a longbow is contributing. Orsin siphon isn't just a meme. Let alone Neimi being nice to stick in arenas if there are any extra turns, she makes you money as well because the enemies are much safer. Might even cover using a bolt on her. Her quick support with Colm for just thieving is worth more than anything Orsin is really doing for me, let alone all the other actions you can get out of her, even before she's undeployable.
I'd love to see an Ephraim Mode tier list! I was genuinely surprised that Cormag was that high despite his join time, but I guess I underestimate how good being a flier who's ready to promote is.
If Sacred Stones were significantly harder then Seth would only become even MORE broken because he’d be the only reliable killing machine you’d have for a while. Same reason Frederick gets better on Lunatic in Awakening.
My Amelia actually had slightly better stats than my benched Seth on the final chapter after I fed her every stat booster therefore she's unquestionably better and should be SSS tier
I think you really under-rated Gerik. His infantry movement has never been much of an issue with him for me. He can get danced very easily because the cavs outpace Tethys and Gerik is also great to be your first or second warp target for a boss skip. In maps where movement is important, you can send 1 of your 6 mounted units to do it. Gerik also takes virtually no effort to get cooking with. I also think getting a few levels for 1 or 2 speed can be a good idea sometimes. Basically, I think he's better than everyone above him in the B-tier.
2:20:10 Pirate > Berserker grants +3 Con upon promotion. Berserker Ross is not weighed down by Hand Axes. I use him every playthrough. He’s a great candidate for Speedwings. Having an early game axe user is very helpful for weapon triangle advantage, and I find it easy to level him up due to a lack of other early game axe users. It’s worth some favoritism to get past the initial Journeyman promotion.
Well, if you want to fight the early game soldiers, Garcia can kill them in one round. Franz and eventually Vanessa would be able to kill soldiers too.
I recall Lute being quite harshly judged in tier lists or rating topics around a decade ago(the same era where Franz got glowing mini seth reviews). Since Franz is getting a much more skeptical judgement now looking at his bases, what caused units like Lute get an overreaction as a crappy unit? After the 20/20 analysis era things did take a sharp turn to high efficiency, but was it taken too far? Her con is +3 going to Mage Knight, so she's at Erk level like that using Thunder without speed loss at least which isn't a terribly big drop from Elfire considering her high magic will have kicked in.
LTC dominating tier list discussions is probably a huge factor. In Mekkah's sacred stones tier list review with Jumpy, which was criticized for being too LTC focused, Lute was given an E tier while Artur was top of C.
I'm going through Sacred Stones using only bad units based off this tier list. I'll let you know if phantoms can drop their weapons when I get to that point.
@danidoyle sorry for the 2 week wait on the phantom thing. they cannot drop weapons. They can do something of interest though. They are unable to rescue units, however they can take a unit. So you could say, rescue saleh, take with a phantom, dance the phantom, walk the phantom over tiles normally you need to walk around like say chasms or mountains, then have the phantom die and they'll drop saleh somewhere. Saleh just being an example of a unit but they can take other units too, a staff bot just being a really good example of one to carry somewhere. So summoners have a weird utility in this case, even if not the intended one.
I have NEVER had a good Franz. He's consistently the worst cavalier in the game for me, even worse than Forde. Heck even Amelia usually outperforms him. From 5 out of 6 playthroughs my Franz never had any stat higher than 8~9 at lvl 10, and that one time where he was "good" was playthrough where I deliberately grinded everyone to lvl 20 in the Tower. Nice list by the way and it's pretty great for newer players but ever since Mekkah did Lunatic mode and released the Route split patch I can never go back playing the unpatched (normal non lunatic version) game again. It feels so much better and logical playing both routes of the game, and it opens so much possibilities when choosing which units are going with Ephraim and which ones with Eirika. It also pretty much negates the need to go to the Tower if you want to use some of the "less useful" members and actually makes some of them useful in the long term.
"I'm not factoring turn count here" she says right after saying that Lute wasting Vanessa's 1st turn on chapter 4 a big disadvange for Lute over Artur. Tbf, Lute can't deal with the monsters alone so it's not just 1 Vanessa turn (I know it was a bit of grasping at straws to separate her from Artur but it was funny)
Awkward phrasing, bit to cleairfy what i meant (because I don't think I phrased it well) Its not about the turn (it doesn't cost you turns), its about taking Vanessa away from the action and Lute starting far from the action herself. The monsters are weak enough that you actually have to try to not kill them if you want to save kills for the two of them. Which like, you can just disarm Seth, but it is still an inconvenience and like, something has to separate the two mages, right?
@@DaniDoyle yeah it makes sense, I mostly thought it was funny But yeah, the place where Lute starts is a big factor. Even if you didn't have to recruit her she would still be in a worse place than Artur. FE8 rebalance patch that only switches her with the Iron Axe when?
I like to factor in supports if the tier list isn't biased toward LTC or whatever. IMO Franz gains some stonks because Franz / Seth support is Light / Anima affinities. Each rank provides 1 attack and 1 defense, plus a smattering of everything else. So your strongest unit gets even stronger, and your training unit has a much easier time meeting 1RKO thresholds and surviving for his training arc. I think Franz / Seth is the strongest support pair in the game. Not strong enough to put Franz into S-eth tier, but pretty dang strong. Erika is also light affinity, but she can't keep pace with Seth till her late promotion, and also can't use ever use javs for that 1-2 range so it can be a awkward to put her around the same places that Seth wants to be.
This isn't about sacred stones specifically but I was a little surprised by a throwaway comment you made at the beginning of the video about hector being a pretty bad lord! Especially outside the context of efficiency, I always found him super easy to use and really tanky for a lot of the games maps... I think of a few Defend chapters in particular where even in higher difficulties, you could kind of just throw him and Oswin in different directions and let them handle flanks by themselves. he feels so strong and easy to use that I'm surprised he ranks poorly for you outside of that.
I talk more in depth about Hector in my fe7 tier list if you want to see why specifically I consider him a bad lord. Hes better than the other fe7 lords for sure, but still pretty bad.
@@DaniDoyle Yes, I was saying that mostly because none of those units will ever wield it. Neimi is really bad, Ross is best as a Berserker or Hero, Gerik is best as a hero, and Garcia I believe is also best as a hero. Thus he has realistically zero competition for it. You are right in saying it’s not great, but him being able to use it and do massive damage to strong enemies like Draco zombies is really nice.
Omg things have changed a bit huh? 😮 I remember when it used to be that Franz was considered Seth jr, but now it’s Kyle… and Marisa/Neimi/Gilliam below Ewan and Amelia also took me by surprise. I think the only ones who’ve remained in their place are Seth, Tethys, and Vanessa.
I wasn’t aware POR Ike and Hector were bad lords. I haven’t played much of any of the non-localized games, but I always felt like both of them were solid. Axes are bad in some of the older games I guess, but I never felt like that really effected Hector from being a Chad. Ike, to me at least, felt like Hector with a sword - so naturally I was a big fan. Maybe I just got stat blessed in non-fixed growth modes? I didn’t really take note of that stuff when I played way back when. Planning on playing FE7 again for old times sake, I guess I’ll see if I feel differently
I should note, when I was younger I was super anti-jaegen, I would use them as little as possible (which would vary depending on the difficulty mode obviously). So that being said, I guess I probably used my Lords a lot more than someone “playing optimally”.
I think Ike and Hector aren't so much "bad," but they're hilariously overshadowed by Titania and Marcus, respectively. I definitely wouldn't put them near as bad as Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika..
I didn't enjoy sacred stones particularly because of the unit balancing, so I'm interested to see unit opinions from someone who obviously does like the game
Can't really say I disagree with anything on this list overall. I would like to see how an Epharim list shakes up, but I feel like I personally know this game well enough to know the major changes between the two routes. Duessell and Ephriam going up a lot, Saleh and Innes dropping a tier more than likely, Knoll not really moving, Cormag might move around a little for his earlier join time and how good he can be on phantom ship, but he loses those hard mode stats from Erika route. As far as other changes, you could probably put Rennac in tower squad and no one would know the difference. He can pick locks without a pick in the 3 chapters left with chests, and you're probably skipping the chests in at least 1 of them. I could see an arguement for Franz over Kyle, the only other gripe I have is Syrene and Dozla over Knoll. I'm not going to go into the summoner tangent, but even as a druid, Knoll can provide decent staff utility even as a secondary staffer, but just because another staffer might outclass him doesn't make him bad, that's why there's a tier for outclassed but fine. He's usable when you get him, just outclassed by probably all other mages that aren't Ewan. I'd put him above Orson, and leave him there. Orson is best for 1 chapter, Knoll is bare minimum serviceable for 3 at least. That's more than Syrene and I'd argue more useful than Dozla. You could even slot him in behind Ross and I'd feel better about that. Edit: last change I would make is moving both Moulder and Natasha down 1 tier. Just because other people become better staff bots later on and can provide more utility than they can before they become staffers and still perform well after, where Moulder is probably never seeing combat unless it's monsters and Natasha should never see it at all. Moulder shouldn't move down very far, but down to top of the next tier since he's bottom of his current tier. And Natasha just above Joshua
Sadly I don't have time to watch the entire video so I skipped to the final tier list, and seeing Forde, Natasha and Tana on the same tier as Cormag, Saleh and Gerik is... interesting, looking forward to having the time to watch the entire vid to understand this blasphemy
@@Toxin-56 interesting. I go more in depth in the video but the TLDR if you still can't watch I'll be real, I think a lot of the community under rates Forde (hes worse than Kyle but still fine just cuz cav with decent stats) and overrates Gerik (His stats are pretty good, but he suffers from heavy infantry problems, and doesn't have Great stats to justify it). I've never been super high in Saleh, he shows up a little bit lateish (even in eirka route where he gets 3 extra chapters) and kinda needs to staff grind to be one of your warpers, since ch17 is the first big skip. Cormag is just the availability thing (his Ephraim ranking is better don't worry). Tana i did a whole video on but her bases and growths are fine, she just has a awkward relationship with the Elysian whips. And Natasha is a truly tragic unit, i can see her being lower, but i think staffbot /10 with the potential to be a mounted staffer is good enough. She and lute are your only reasonable options for staffers on horses (sad l'arachel noises) which i think is a good place to be. I think lute is a better choice, but natasia will have better staff rank if you care about like physic and whatnot
@@DaniDoylewhile I understand your argument for how you can train Vanessa early game, I really think it's really hard to train her because in the first 3 maps there only 4 non axe unit enemies in the first 5 maps and 2 of those are archers that one shot her (one of which guards a thief in the Colm&Neimi map and unless you rescue Vanessa he will kill her), then there's monster map which if you want to train Lute further limits the exp Vanessa can get. In chapter 5 while there are fewer axe units unless she's leveled up significantly she dies to about 2 hits from most enemies, not to mention that Joshua and the multiple archers on the map really limit her range of movements. In chapters 6-8 there are timed objectives that require her movement to complete, and then in comes Tana who will probably have comparable stats to a Vanessa that you don't go out of your way to train
@@DaniDoyle Yeah fair points about Forde and Gerik, though I simply can't agree with you on Saleh, Artur gets C staves on promotion and he can only promote 1 chapter before Saleh joins (since the first guiding ring should ideally go to your healer), so he shouldn't have that much of a staff rank lead over him, meanwhile Saleh joins with the same staff rank and arguably better combat stats with no investment whatsoever, also slayer is mad overrated unless you're doing CC, and if you're rating units based on CC performance then everyone should be S tier because lolinfinitestatboosters Yeah I agree with you on Cormag and Tana on second thought Fair point on Natasha, she's not really bad I guess she's just overshadowed by Moulder Also hopefully I'll be able to watch the entire in-depth video on Saturday, really love your content keep em going!
I loved this tierlist And the first thing that I agreed a lot is that while Arthur is prob technically better than Lute, they are way way way closer than most people say they are (I've seen people putting her on mid bottom C while Arthur on bottom A), and I like to compare those earlier fe8 chapters to mini lyn mode, so training chapters, which means that I weigh availability more than you do for those chapters, enough that I would put kyle much lower, like top of B or very bottom of A Also one less reason to argue that Amalia better than neimi and gilliam is the speedwing, which is def more worth than them, I know that using their otems as reason to rate them higher is polemic but like, it is not like you are gonna use o her anyway lol and it is as if she gave enough filler combat to feed 2 levels of speed to a character I would put Gerrik over Natasha at least personally, because she can contribute at all only if you want to invest a lot, otherwise she will be pretty irrelevant, which is kinda true for most staffers, but moulder obv requires much less and even saleh or lute can do that job somewhat, while gerrik offers somewhat uniquely good combat and solo a single front of a decent amount of chapters and with or without investment, he will contribute much more than natasha on average. A dancer dancing an unit to reach a point so they can attack the first time in their turn is a situation of "1 attack is infinitely bigger than 0", can ai describe how useful is that? I will say that you saying Duessel being ranked at C was very weird, made my mind have a revelation: I always found so weird how most lists ranked duessel so high, which is to me kinda crazy, only now I shamefully noticed they ranked ephraim mode while I only played eirika mode
Current first play through, on Difficult, and Gilliam has had nothing but insane level-ups for me lol. He's one of my best units at Chapter 16. Garcia is also really good for me. Just weird luck overall I suppose
i havent used Natasha so i cant say how much of a difference it makes, but it should be noted that Valkyrie and unpromoted Thief have a thing where they get exp faster? also relevant for L'Arachel i guess, but she, uh, she, errr... yeahhhh...
Saying POR Ike and Hector are some of the worst lords is crazy. I'm not gonna pretend they're top tier or anything, but they're easily better than Roy and Lyn. They're definitely better than Eirika as well. The only reason Eliwood would be better is because he gets a horse. You could argue them being better than Micaiah as well. That's like half the pre Awakening Lords!
Ike and Hector are way worse than Micciah. She's genuinely one of the better Dawn Brigade units, both as a glass cannon and as a Utility Staffer. They're also worse than Fe1 Marth, Fe4 sigurd/Seliph, Roy, Leif, FE2 alm and arguably even fe3 Marth. Lyn and Eliwood are definitely worse than them, and Eirika is debatable, but thats only 3 lords at most, which definitely puts them on the lower end of the series's lords.
@@DaniDoyle I severely disagree with Roy being better than them. I did mention Micaiah was arguable, so that one I do relent on, but Roy actively is more of a hindrance than even Lyn till he gets the Binding Blade. You can at least bench Lyn through a lot of the game.
@@jordandaigle6227 nah, Roy is solid chip early game with the rapier and a support bot both early and late game, giving the best affinity to some of the best units in the yame. Those are actual use cases. Lyn doesn't offer you anything of value. A lot of people call Roy bad but i think it mostly comes from parroting TH-camrs
Caveat: I'm talking about "good" / "bad" in a context of "how much easier do they make beating the game" - Regarding Roy & Ike, I feel like this is mostly a matter of context. On paper, Roy'd seem a bit worse than Ike: both are sword-locked foot units with a belated promotion and a very late-game 1-2 range Prf, though Ike has slightly more valuable growths and an earlier promotion. However, when taking into account the context of the game, Roy having access to a sword in FE6 is a lot more valuable than Ike in FE9 because FE6 is a game where you want swords for accuracy unlike FE9 where you want (forged) 1-2 range axes / lances to sweep entire enemy phases, his rapier comes online at a point where you need it more than the regal sword, and so are his supports. - Regarding Hector, I think a lot of cool factor comes into play when people say he's good. However when it comes down to it, he feels a bit like Dorcas+: - high HP for Dorcas vs high defense for Hector - slightly-better accuracy for Dorcas vs slightly better strength for Hector - the possibility to promote relatively early for Dorcas vs a good Prf for Hector. And Dorcas+ is ok filler at first, but very quickly becomes outclassed by units left and right in a game like FE7.
![[Vinesauce] Vinny - Super Mario Galaxy Compilation](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EvPyQyPQT3I/mqdefault.jpg)
"You're probably not gonna struggle no matter what units you use."
Amelia solo, gotchu fam.
Knoll is so funny, this man would be broken if unchanged in literally any other game but the fact the games so easy actually works to his detriment since his summon skills don’t even help much outside of challenge runs
btw, Amelia already had a lower growth total than Seth in the japanese version, but then in the localization they increased Seth growths and decreased Amelia's even more
the localization changes are wild, some make sense but then they screwed over the trainees, their special classes caps also got super nerfed for some reason
“Ross does have that potential dog in him.”
There you have it boys, Ross is an s tier unit, matched only by the legend Seth himself!
Jokes aside, I’m loving your tier lists!! Really appreciate it that you’re not so focussed on LTC style efficiency runs, but are factoring some of those strategies.
I just find a lot of fire emblem tier lists end up being like the only good units in sacred stones are Seth and units that can carry around Seth and warp or Seth. It’s just a specific play style that doesn’t consider more casual runs, where you are still trying to see good combat, but with less perfect calculation in your strategy.
I'm glad you like them :-) the centralization of turn counts in fire emblem discussion has always been a little pet peeve of mine, since I think that most people playing casually don't play for them
@@smithplayspokemon wow so you are also smithplaysfireemblem 0.0? I'm imagining a Fire Emblem 8 Legacy now haha
I actually find Vanessa incredibly difficult to train early game. On her join map she faces weapon triangle disadvantage from every single enemy, except the lone archer, which is dangerous for her to fight anyway, because she doesn't one-round it so you have to set it up for her, otherwise she dies to effectiveness. In chapter 3, there are three non-axe enemies, one of whom is a thief she can easily dispatch over the wall with her javelin, but then faces retaliation from the archer on the other side of the wall, and then a lone mercenary in the throne room. Monster map is monster map, but I'm usually so ross-pilled at that point I use it as an opportunity to train him. Chapter 5 is working against Vanessa in like, every single way: lots of axe enemies, lots of archers, timed objectives that her high movement and flight is uniquely suited for over fighting in combat, Joshua taking up the center of the map that you want to avoid until you recruit him, and a boss with high defense and 1-2 range that she can scarcely damage. Chapter 6 is fog of war with a decent mix of weapon types, and with her low bulk and low defense, even those soldiers can take a sizeable chunk out of her HP. I usually send her down to the village if I bother to get it (I usually play Lizard's rebalance hack that replaces the antitoxin with a restore staff so it's actually worth getting) and then have her hide in the trees for the rest of the map while Seth goes on a killing spree to find the boss, because she usually isn't strong enough to handle the cav reinforcements. And then in Chapter 7, her main utility is rescue-dropping, and baiting out the mage with a pure water so Colm can safely steal the Energy Ring. There are archers near the castle that she has to avoid, an archer and some axe bros in the lower right corner that she'll struggle with, and a ballista that covers a majority of the right side of the map, so she's not doing much combat in this chapter either. And then in Chapter 8, by that point, she's usually so far behind that I just bench her in favor of my stronger combat units.
I'll sometimes still deploy her in Chapter 9 if I have the slots open, but usually I prefer to field Franz, Kyle, and Forde, because they have similarly high movement, but better combat, especially against the archers near the top. I usually have Pirate Ross at this point and he's competent enough to take on the pirates heading for the Rapier village, and then I'll send Seth and my cavs forward to save the Dracoshield village. But it's at this point that I usually bench Vanessa in favor of Tana, who just has higher bases and is, at that point, usually closer to promotion.
I did not realize I had this much to say about Vanessa lol
It also makes it more difficult to train her as Seth one rounds almost all early game enemies. This means you have to scrape up kills with one or two other units. This is a problem for pretty much everyone else in early game but thought it was noteworthy.
@@wannabecinnabonThis is some eldritch knowledge I come to FE TH-cam videos for.
@@wannabecinnabonand that someone is usually Gilliam because he sucks so much
Oh man, I'm pretty surprised about Natasha. Even when I was playing slow as a kid, the reality of getting her promoted wasn't happening.
Edit:
Ok yeah, having her anywhere near units like Tana, Forde, Gerik is insane.
Edit2: AND Saleh and Cormag wtffff
Gilliam being F tier isn’t gonna stop me from using him every playthrough 😂
You forgot about the real reason to not go Draco Knight, the pierce glitch, where if a pierce javelin/spear doesn't kill it crashes the game
can I request a video topic? I've heard a lot of people say fe11 Marth is the worst lord in the series, and I just don't really know why. obviously he's a footlocked thief dude but he still feels a lot more competent as a lord than Lyn for example. fe11s rapier is probably the best rapier in the series imo. I'd appreciate a video analyzing that lil dude
Fe11 marth is certainly better than Lyn and I'd say Eliwood too.
he cant promote and gets doubled by medeus at the highest difficulty bad unit bad unit‼️‼️‼️
I'm guessing a lot of it is because of Hard 5? Rapier is nice but Marth is sword locked in a game full of lance using units outside of the first 3 chapters and at capped speed he still gets doubled by Medeus. His growths aren't terrible but there's just so many other units that can fill a similar role to Marth with better bases, growths, classes like cav, and you could use your money to forge rapiers but you'd probably rather use that money on wing spears, armorslayers, ridersbanes, etc.
Fwiw I still think Lyn is worse than Marth.
@metalgamer21
These are my thoughts too. Marth has a long list of shortcomings but I still think he's better than Lyn. Just the theif utility alone and village utility is enough to put him above Lyn in my mind.
@@Starwars-Fanboy oh yeah, completely forgot that the fire emblem just lets him open chests.
This was fun to watch. I would be interested in an Ephraim route tier list as well.
I think Orson being on the list is kind of a meme, there’s no way you can say that he’s more valuable than units you get to keep the whole game. He can’t be invested in and he contributes nothing to the latter half of the game. You made a point to say availability was important, he’s not available enough to justify his one chapter usage. I think him being anywhere but last is kind of joke, unless you’re giving a lot of stock into his weapons you can take from him, I guess that’s something but idk
He does more in that one chapter than the people below him do all game. Availability is a factor, but its the only factor.
It's definitely a meme. His "contributions" on his 1 map are not unique in almost any way.
If we aren't factoring turn count, he legitimately has zero things going for him. Kyle, Forde, and Ephraim can all solve 5x by themselves.
Any action Orson takes, that isn't trade, rescue, or drop, is chipping at valuable resource. ie EXP. Orson can't even weigh himself down to not murder his opponents, so he's even contributing less than Neimi chip.
@@ThatGuyThai i mean, you don't have to use seth either, but that doesn't make Seth bad. A unit with real good combat should be appropriately rated for said good combat. His good combat lasts only one map, hence him being so low, but Neimi, Gilliam etc are uniquely bad.
@@DaniDoyle I suppose my argument there is, Neimi and co offer free chip and gain levels and exp without taking anything from anyone on the roster. Bar crits.
Some can go all game without killing anything and provide a few actions like trade, chip, bait or even level ups and promos if you do give them kills.
It translates to something, maybe nothing great, but to see Orsin's good combat, costs a kill. He wipes that entire map easily even with the steel lance but doing so hurts the campaign, even if only slightly.
That opportunity cost can be exaggerated but it exists. Lets exaggerate and say he kills 5x entirely alone, it does hurt Kyle and Forde longterm.
Someone like Neimi can get a lot of action commands throughout a campaign and that's why the scrub squad is better imo.
Something as simple as trading for a frontliner to have a more ideal end phase and poking with a longbow is contributing. Orsin siphon isn't just a meme.
Let alone Neimi being nice to stick in arenas if there are any extra turns, she makes you money as well because the enemies are much safer. Might even cover using a bolt on her.
Her quick support with Colm for just thieving is worth more than anything Orsin is really doing for me, let alone all the other actions you can get out of her, even before she's undeployable.
@@ThatGuyThaiOrson carrying Ephraim can avoid doubling Knights and most Soldiers.
I'd love to see an Ephraim Mode tier list! I was genuinely surprised that Cormag was that high despite his join time, but I guess I underestimate how good being a flier who's ready to promote is.
I'd be really interested in the Ephraim route tier list!
If Sacred Stones were significantly harder then Seth would only become even MORE broken because he’d be the only reliable killing machine you’d have for a while. Same reason Frederick gets better on Lunatic in Awakening.
My Amelia actually had slightly better stats than my benched Seth on the final chapter after I fed her every stat booster therefore she's unquestionably better and should be SSS tier
I think you really under-rated Gerik. His infantry movement has never been much of an issue with him for me. He can get danced very easily because the cavs outpace Tethys and Gerik is also great to be your first or second warp target for a boss skip. In maps where movement is important, you can send 1 of your 6 mounted units to do it. Gerik also takes virtually no effort to get cooking with. I also think getting a few levels for 1 or 2 speed can be a good idea sometimes. Basically, I think he's better than everyone above him in the B-tier.
2:20:10 Pirate > Berserker grants +3 Con upon promotion. Berserker Ross is not weighed down by Hand Axes. I use him every playthrough. He’s a great candidate for Speedwings. Having an early game axe user is very helpful for weapon triangle advantage, and I find it easy to level him up due to a lack of other early game axe users. It’s worth some favoritism to get past the initial Journeyman promotion.
Well, if you want to fight the early game soldiers, Garcia can kill them in one round.
Franz and eventually Vanessa would be able to kill soldiers too.
I recall Lute being quite harshly judged in tier lists or rating topics around a decade ago(the same era where Franz got glowing mini seth reviews). Since Franz is getting a much more skeptical judgement now looking at his bases, what caused units like Lute get an overreaction as a crappy unit? After the 20/20 analysis era things did take a sharp turn to high efficiency, but was it taken too far?
Her con is +3 going to Mage Knight, so she's at Erk level like that using Thunder without speed loss at least which isn't a terribly big drop from Elfire considering her high magic will have kicked in.
LTC dominating tier list discussions is probably a huge factor. In Mekkah's sacred stones tier list review with Jumpy, which was criticized for being too LTC focused, Lute was given an E tier while Artur was top of C.
Great video to fall asleep to (and then rewind to what I last remember so I can finish it 😜)!
I love long tier list videos lol
Timestamps = 🥰
I love ALL Dani Doyle videos!!!! ❤
at least l'arachel and eirika are in the same tier. they're meant to be together in any universe.
NOOOOO
I'm going through Sacred Stones using only bad units based off this tier list. I'll let you know if phantoms can drop their weapons when I get to that point.
@danidoyle sorry for the 2 week wait on the phantom thing. they cannot drop weapons. They can do something of interest though. They are unable to rescue units, however they can take a unit. So you could say, rescue saleh, take with a phantom, dance the phantom, walk the phantom over tiles normally you need to walk around like say chasms or mountains, then have the phantom die and they'll drop saleh somewhere. Saleh just being an example of a unit but they can take other units too, a staff bot just being a really good example of one to carry somewhere. So summoners have a weird utility in this case, even if not the intended one.
I have NEVER had a good Franz. He's consistently the worst cavalier in the game for me, even worse than Forde. Heck even Amelia usually outperforms him. From 5 out of 6 playthroughs my Franz never had any stat higher than 8~9 at lvl 10, and that one time where he was "good" was playthrough where I deliberately grinded everyone to lvl 20 in the Tower.
Nice list by the way and it's pretty great for newer players but ever since Mekkah did Lunatic mode and released the Route split patch I can never go back playing the unpatched (normal non lunatic version) game again. It feels so much better and logical playing both routes of the game, and it opens so much possibilities when choosing which units are going with Ephraim and which ones with Eirika. It also pretty much negates the need to go to the Tower if you want to use some of the "less useful" members and actually makes some of them useful in the long term.
I remember myrrh loses uses whenshe gets attacked by a bow.
That’s funny af omg
Age of Mythology OST at the very beginning hit me like a truck, I love that game so much
"I'm not factoring turn count here" she says right after saying that Lute wasting Vanessa's 1st turn on chapter 4 a big disadvange for Lute over Artur.
Tbf, Lute can't deal with the monsters alone so it's not just 1 Vanessa turn
(I know it was a bit of grasping at straws to separate her from Artur but it was funny)
Awkward phrasing, bit to cleairfy what i meant (because I don't think I phrased it well) Its not about the turn (it doesn't cost you turns), its about taking Vanessa away from the action and Lute starting far from the action herself. The monsters are weak enough that you actually have to try to not kill them if you want to save kills for the two of them. Which like, you can just disarm Seth, but it is still an inconvenience and like, something has to separate the two mages, right?
@@DaniDoyle yeah it makes sense, I mostly thought it was funny
But yeah, the place where Lute starts is a big factor. Even if you didn't have to recruit her she would still be in a worse place than Artur. FE8 rebalance patch that only switches her with the Iron Axe when?
@@lordmudkip7344Awkward Lizard did it already
@@AlexT7916 I forgot that, but tbf, he made more changes to the game
I like to factor in supports if the tier list isn't biased toward LTC or whatever. IMO Franz gains some stonks because Franz / Seth support is Light / Anima affinities. Each rank provides 1 attack and 1 defense, plus a smattering of everything else. So your strongest unit gets even stronger, and your training unit has a much easier time meeting 1RKO thresholds and surviving for his training arc. I think Franz / Seth is the strongest support pair in the game. Not strong enough to put Franz into S-eth tier, but pretty dang strong.
Erika is also light affinity, but she can't keep pace with Seth till her late promotion, and also can't use ever use javs for that 1-2 range so it can be a awkward to put her around the same places that Seth wants to be.
This isn't about sacred stones specifically but I was a little surprised by a throwaway comment you made at the beginning of the video about hector being a pretty bad lord! Especially outside the context of efficiency, I always found him super easy to use and really tanky for a lot of the games maps... I think of a few Defend chapters in particular where even in higher difficulties, you could kind of just throw him and Oswin in different directions and let them handle flanks by themselves. he feels so strong and easy to use that I'm surprised he ranks poorly for you outside of that.
I talk more in depth about Hector in my fe7 tier list if you want to see why specifically I consider him a bad lord. Hes better than the other fe7 lords for sure, but still pretty bad.
Innes should be higher because he’s the only unit who can wield Nidhogg. This makes him really strong in the endgame obviously. I’d move him up to C.
Neimi, Garcia, Ross and Gerick can also weild Nidhogg. Not only that but Nidgoog itself just isn't that good.
@@DaniDoyle Yes, I was saying that mostly because none of those units will ever wield it. Neimi is really bad, Ross is best as a Berserker or Hero, Gerik is best as a hero, and Garcia I believe is also best as a hero. Thus he has realistically zero competition for it. You are right in saying it’s not great, but him being able to use it and do massive damage to strong enemies like Draco zombies is really nice.
Omg things have changed a bit huh? 😮
I remember when it used to be that Franz was considered Seth jr, but now it’s Kyle…
and Marisa/Neimi/Gilliam below Ewan and Amelia also took me by surprise.
I think the only ones who’ve remained in their place are Seth, Tethys, and Vanessa.
The more things change, the more Seth stays the same. Seth is eternal 💜
okay I found a save file n checked ; phantoms cannot drop their weapon, they can't even open their items menu
Interesting! Thanks for checking
I wasn’t aware POR Ike and Hector were bad lords. I haven’t played much of any of the non-localized games, but I always felt like both of them were solid. Axes are bad in some of the older games I guess, but I never felt like that really effected Hector from being a Chad. Ike, to me at least, felt like Hector with a sword - so naturally I was a big fan. Maybe I just got stat blessed in non-fixed growth modes? I didn’t really take note of that stuff when I played way back when. Planning on playing FE7 again for old times sake, I guess I’ll see if I feel differently
I should note, when I was younger I was super anti-jaegen, I would use them as little as possible (which would vary depending on the difficulty mode obviously). So that being said, I guess I probably used my Lords a lot more than someone “playing optimally”.
I think Ike and Hector aren't so much "bad," but they're hilariously overshadowed by Titania and Marcus, respectively.
I definitely wouldn't put them near as bad as Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika..
Me neither-I wonder if por is that much harder on maniac mode since Ike felt amazing on hard
I didn't enjoy sacred stones particularly because of the unit balancing, so I'm interested to see unit opinions from someone who obviously does like the game
Can't really say I disagree with anything on this list overall. I would like to see how an Epharim list shakes up, but I feel like I personally know this game well enough to know the major changes between the two routes. Duessell and Ephriam going up a lot, Saleh and Innes dropping a tier more than likely, Knoll not really moving, Cormag might move around a little for his earlier join time and how good he can be on phantom ship, but he loses those hard mode stats from Erika route. As far as other changes, you could probably put Rennac in tower squad and no one would know the difference. He can pick locks without a pick in the 3 chapters left with chests, and you're probably skipping the chests in at least 1 of them. I could see an arguement for Franz over Kyle, the only other gripe I have is Syrene and Dozla over Knoll. I'm not going to go into the summoner tangent, but even as a druid, Knoll can provide decent staff utility even as a secondary staffer, but just because another staffer might outclass him doesn't make him bad, that's why there's a tier for outclassed but fine. He's usable when you get him, just outclassed by probably all other mages that aren't Ewan. I'd put him above Orson, and leave him there. Orson is best for 1 chapter, Knoll is bare minimum serviceable for 3 at least. That's more than Syrene and I'd argue more useful than Dozla. You could even slot him in behind Ross and I'd feel better about that.
Edit: last change I would make is moving both Moulder and Natasha down 1 tier. Just because other people become better staff bots later on and can provide more utility than they can before they become staffers and still perform well after, where Moulder is probably never seeing combat unless it's monsters and Natasha should never see it at all. Moulder shouldn't move down very far, but down to top of the next tier since he's bottom of his current tier. And Natasha just above Joshua
Sadly I don't have time to watch the entire video so I skipped to the final tier list, and seeing Forde, Natasha and Tana on the same tier as Cormag, Saleh and Gerik is... interesting, looking forward to having the time to watch the entire vid to understand this blasphemy
Are you saying the first group should be lower or higher?
@@DaniDoyle The second group should be higher imo
Well maybe except Cormag since it's Eirika route
@@Toxin-56 interesting. I go more in depth in the video but the TLDR if you still can't watch
I'll be real, I think a lot of the community under rates Forde (hes worse than Kyle but still fine just cuz cav with decent stats) and overrates Gerik (His stats are pretty good, but he suffers from heavy infantry problems, and doesn't have Great stats to justify it). I've never been super high in Saleh, he shows up a little bit lateish (even in eirka route where he gets 3 extra chapters) and kinda needs to staff grind to be one of your warpers, since ch17 is the first big skip. Cormag is just the availability thing (his Ephraim ranking is better don't worry). Tana i did a whole video on but her bases and growths are fine, she just has a awkward relationship with the Elysian whips. And Natasha is a truly tragic unit, i can see her being lower, but i think staffbot /10 with the potential to be a mounted staffer is good enough. She and lute are your only reasonable options for staffers on horses (sad l'arachel noises) which i think is a good place to be. I think lute is a better choice, but natasia will have better staff rank if you care about like physic and whatnot
@@DaniDoylewhile I understand your argument for how you can train Vanessa early game, I really think it's really hard to train her because in the first 3 maps there only 4 non axe unit enemies in the first 5 maps and 2 of those are archers that one shot her (one of which guards a thief in the Colm&Neimi map and unless you rescue Vanessa he will kill her), then there's monster map which if you want to train Lute further limits the exp Vanessa can get.
In chapter 5 while there are fewer axe units unless she's leveled up significantly she dies to about 2 hits from most enemies, not to mention that Joshua and the multiple archers on the map really limit her range of movements.
In chapters 6-8 there are timed objectives that require her movement to complete, and then in comes Tana who will probably have comparable stats to a Vanessa that you don't go out of your way to train
@@DaniDoyle Yeah fair points about Forde and Gerik, though I simply can't agree with you on Saleh, Artur gets C staves on promotion and he can only promote 1 chapter before Saleh joins (since the first guiding ring should ideally go to your healer), so he shouldn't have that much of a staff rank lead over him, meanwhile Saleh joins with the same staff rank and arguably better combat stats with no investment whatsoever, also slayer is mad overrated unless you're doing CC, and if you're rating units based on CC performance then everyone should be S tier because lolinfinitestatboosters
Yeah I agree with you on Cormag and Tana on second thought
Fair point on Natasha, she's not really bad I guess she's just overshadowed by Moulder
Also hopefully I'll be able to watch the entire in-depth video on Saturday, really love your content keep em going!
I loved this tierlist
And the first thing that I agreed a lot is that while Arthur is prob technically better than Lute, they are way way way closer than most people say they are (I've seen people putting her on mid bottom C while Arthur on bottom A), and I like to compare those earlier fe8 chapters to mini lyn mode, so training chapters, which means that I weigh availability more than you do for those chapters, enough that I would put kyle much lower, like top of B or very bottom of A
Also one less reason to argue that Amalia better than neimi and gilliam is the speedwing, which is def more worth than them, I know that using their otems as reason to rate them higher is polemic but like, it is not like you are gonna use o her anyway lol and it is as if she gave enough filler combat to feed 2 levels of speed to a character
I would put Gerrik over Natasha at least personally, because she can contribute at all only if you want to invest a lot, otherwise she will be pretty irrelevant, which is kinda true for most staffers, but moulder obv requires much less and even saleh or lute can do that job somewhat, while gerrik offers somewhat uniquely good combat and solo a single front of a decent amount of chapters and with or without investment, he will contribute much more than natasha on average.
A dancer dancing an unit to reach a point so they can attack the first time in their turn is a situation of "1 attack is infinitely bigger than 0", can ai describe how useful is that?
I will say that you saying Duessel being ranked at C was very weird, made my mind have a revelation: I always found so weird how most lists ranked duessel so high, which is to me kinda crazy, only now I shamefully noticed they ranked ephraim mode while I only played eirika mode
artur!
Current first play through, on Difficult, and Gilliam has had nothing but insane level-ups for me lol. He's one of my best units at Chapter 16. Garcia is also really good for me. Just weird luck overall I suppose
i havent used Natasha so i cant say how much of a difference it makes, but it should be noted that Valkyrie and unpromoted Thief have a thing where they get exp faster?
also relevant for L'Arachel i guess, but she, uh, she, errr... yeahhhh...
The real point in larachels favor is shes bisexual that that puts her in S tier actually
great vid as always, I'd rly love to hear your opinions on Ephraim's route as well
Sorry Franz, but my expectation of you is to be at least Narron
My expectation to Forde and Kyle is becoming Kreiss, so I use them XD
Thats a great way to put it
The age-old question... Dozla or Garrett? 😂
What's the song playing at 2:48:05 ?
Octopath Traveler 2--Agena's theme
actually gilliam is better than seth cuz I like him and its pride month so my opinion is fact #armorknightpride
how is Orson not at the bottom when he literally betrays you?
Contributes more in 5x than some scrubs do their whole life
@@DaniDoyle I personally think betraying you is worth -10000000000000000 points
train vanessa? shes insta bench after rescuing ross i have tana
Vanessa is consistently ranked top 5 in tier lists.
Mmm that AoM music
Give colm +4:speed
Unemployment and Fire Emblem tier list. 😆
eef-raim 🤔
Saying POR Ike and Hector are some of the worst lords is crazy. I'm not gonna pretend they're top tier or anything, but they're easily better than Roy and Lyn. They're definitely better than Eirika as well. The only reason Eliwood would be better is because he gets a horse. You could argue them being better than Micaiah as well. That's like half the pre Awakening Lords!
Ike and Hector are way worse than Micciah. She's genuinely one of the better Dawn Brigade units, both as a glass cannon and as a Utility Staffer. They're also worse than Fe1 Marth, Fe4 sigurd/Seliph, Roy, Leif, FE2 alm and arguably even fe3 Marth. Lyn and Eliwood are definitely worse than them, and Eirika is debatable, but thats only 3 lords at most, which definitely puts them on the lower end of the series's lords.
@@DaniDoyle I severely disagree with Roy being better than them. I did mention Micaiah was arguable, so that one I do relent on, but Roy actively is more of a hindrance than even Lyn till he gets the Binding Blade. You can at least bench Lyn through a lot of the game.
@@jordandaigle6227 nah, Roy is solid chip early game with the rapier and a support bot both early and late game, giving the best affinity to some of the best units in the yame. Those are actual use cases. Lyn doesn't offer you anything of value. A lot of people call Roy bad but i think it mostly comes from parroting TH-camrs
@@DaniDoyle I shall agree to disagree.
Caveat: I'm talking about "good" / "bad" in a context of "how much easier do they make beating the game"
- Regarding Roy & Ike, I feel like this is mostly a matter of context. On paper, Roy'd seem a bit worse than Ike: both are sword-locked foot units with a belated promotion and a very late-game 1-2 range Prf, though Ike has slightly more valuable growths and an earlier promotion.
However, when taking into account the context of the game, Roy having access to a sword in FE6 is a lot more valuable than Ike in FE9 because FE6 is a game where you want swords for accuracy unlike FE9 where you want (forged) 1-2 range axes / lances to sweep entire enemy phases, his rapier comes online at a point where you need it more than the regal sword, and so are his supports.
- Regarding Hector, I think a lot of cool factor comes into play when people say he's good. However when it comes down to it, he feels a bit like Dorcas+:
- high HP for Dorcas vs high defense for Hector
- slightly-better accuracy for Dorcas vs slightly better strength for Hector
- the possibility to promote relatively early for Dorcas vs a good Prf for Hector.
And Dorcas+ is ok filler at first, but very quickly becomes outclassed by units left and right in a game like FE7.
Sorry, youre wrong :(
Lol ok
@@DaniDoyle Gilliam served me well and his sacrifice will not be tarnished by F tier D:
Damn I've been beaten by facts and logic