Woops, no Charlotte. Granted she joins a bit late but she prolly should've been there. Oh well, similarly to Arthur I have no real experience with her other than a good pair up bot, so it wouldn't have been a very deep analysis anyway. Her personal skill seems...situational? I remember there are some female enemies in Fates so it might activate sometimes but I couldn't tell you how often you fight female enemies in that game. But yeah Xander backpack/10.
I mean, if you put some work into her, she can crit on almost every attack. Problem with Charlotte is how long it takes her to become viable, even in Conquest
Charlotte can be good with her high attack, good crit, and decent hit(competitively), but by the time you get her you already have Camilla so you need to plan her use.
@Beauty Oliver Who ISN'T better than Roy? Lilina and Wolt deserve way better than that Gary Stu dork. Like, say, Gonzales and Guinevere respectively. Or the other way around, I'm not particular. So long as Roy dies alone.
My thesis is that they were never clear whether the fighter is meant to represent a axe using soldier or a lumberjack they just conscripted. Both methods contribute differently to the game
Agreed, it's a very ambiguous class. Garcia is very clearly a soldier, Dorcas is more of a modestly trained mercenary, and Bartre is just... dumb. Really.
I think that's why they're just "fighters." They're strong dudes who can fight with axes, so the vagueness of the term just fits any range of combat experience.
It was a class theme reused from Dungeons and Dragons, a class of the same name. Bet. From what I know it's a bit of a straightforward beginner's first character class. Hp and strength bonus in FE seem to be in line with the philosophy.
On awakening and Vaike: (Analysis based on lunatic mode) Vaike definitely feels like more of a low A/ high B tier unit. He joins super early and is really easy to train due to his high base attack which means he can be fed kills easier. He also has a huge pool of hit points so he can survive a hit from pretty much anything that you want, whether it be the early hammer fighters, or just really jacked barbarians, he can take the hit so others don't have to. If trained well, you can tank the mid choke point in chapter 6 pretty much indefinitely, although he may need a specific pair up depending on how his stats have grown. One thing that a lot of people tend not to notice is his axe rank which is D. It doesn't seem all that impressive but it's actually really good when you take into consideration everyone elses weapon ranks at this point. Barring your 4 really good units (Robin,Fred,Chrom,Lissa) everyone else has pretty crappy weapons that really hurt their damage output. (Stahl and Sully have E swords/lances for 3 might weapons, Miriel uses 2 might fire, Virion is just a dumpster fire anyway etc) He also gets access to the hammer from chapter 3 which can either act as a 10 might weapon for him, or just let him beat up some armours in later chapters. Combine his decent bulk and attacking power and he becomes one of your better units at base. He's obviously not even close to your main 4 at the beginning, but he's a lot stronger than the rest of the bunch. Perhaps his biggest weakness is his "low" speed which is a base of 6, same as Stahl. This will cause him to get doubled by a fair amount of enemies at base, although its actually extremely easy to fix. Speed pair ups are incredibly common in awakening and Vaike will pretty much always have someone on hand to give him some extra points of speed. (Just in the first 6 maps, Robin,Chrom,Sumia,Lonqu,Gaius, and Panne will all give a bunch of speed on pair up-- other units will give 1 or 2 points as well). This is especially true once chapter 5 rolls around and lonqu shows up, offering an incredible +5 to speed for Vaike, while Vaike offers lonqu the defense and Strength he needs to do more damage. They pair really well together. (Don't worry about not being able to reach S support as the difference between S and A support is insanely miniscule). Towards lategame, I try to pair Vaike with one of my falcoknights (usually Lissa as they have a fast building support) to help him get around a bit more and for some extra speed and resistance, both of which he really appreciates. Vaike also sports a 50% speed growth, meaning that within 1 or 2 levels, he can get to the point where enemies aren't doubling him for free anymore (unpaired). The absolute biggest selling point of Vaike would be his early promotion. At the end of chapter 8, you will be given a master seal from one of the villages. Vaike is an incredible candidate for this. His promotion (to hero) gains will grant him (among other things) an insane +6 to skill, +5 to speed and +4 to defense. He also gains access to E swords, allowing him the mighty 3 might bronze sword. This is usually useless, but it can be brought out if he needs weapon triangle on a powerful axe user, or is facing an enemy axe breaker hero. Suddenly, he changes from a unit that does one big hit to a unit that does 2 big hits and kills something. Hand axes are also buyable at this point in the game, so he can run around juggernauting his way through the next few chapters with his massively improved offense and defense. After a few chapters, he will gain his second huge powerspike when he gets sol at level 5 hero. Once Vaike gets Sol, he is practically invincible as long as only a few mages are involved. Even then, he can make use of the ward staff or res pair ups to help avoid damage. He can easily carry your combat throughout the entire game from this point, with a few exceptions in magic/ axebreaker heavy chapters like 17 or 23 where it may be wise to have someone capable of dealing with those things. Lategame, he performs pretty OK as a bosskiller. A lot of people hype up needing galeforce for lategame, but its a skill that's really late coming in a mediocre class. I could do an entire rant on how Sumia and galeforce are super overrated, but this isn't really the time or place. It's entirely possible just to 1- turn rescue skip most of lategame anyway and you just need someone to kill the boss. Against most bosses, Vaike will be fine to ORKO, but some of them (such as Yenfay), he may have to rely on a crit to kill in 1 turn, due to the boss having really high speed. On kids, fathering and the like: It's completely irrelevant for the main game. Apotheosis is a different beast, but if all you care about is beating the game, kids are worthless 99% of the time and a tiny tiny increase to their stat caps is basically worthless. For what it's worth, he's supposedly the best dad for strength. Overall, I wouldn't say he's quite Orsin tier as Orsin has a better early game (I think? I haven't played thracia a huge amount, and it could just seem that way due to thracias pretty weak enemies) but he's certainly one of the top dogs when it comes to the fighter class and deserving of a higher spot in the tier list. I think part of what seperates him from other juggernauts in awakening is how early he starts dominating the game. Other people either join later or require specific weapons/skill/second seals whereas Vaike can just have a master seal slapped on him and he starts tearing everything to pieces. TLDR: Vaike is a pretty classic fighter for 2 chapters, then he gets an insane speed pair up and becomes good, then he gets an insane promotion and becomes busted, then he gets an insane skill and the game snaps in half. Enemy axebreaker heroes are pretty lame though. Top of B tier at the absolute least, probably belongs in A tier.
@@zecke58 oof, that res bane must have hurt. If I recall, -res gives more penalties to other stats than -def. I remember when I first played Fates, my Corrin sucked because I chose -hp and that gives a decent amount of stat drops. I might need to brush up on what other stats the flaws drop, as I'm planning on doing an Apotheosis run of Awakening once I finish Dragon Quest 8
The funny thing about Hand Axes in FE3 is that they actually weigh *less* than javelins (9 vs. a massive 20), while also having 3 less might than them. Barst in that game also has 9 base speed with a 50% growth, and assuming you really invest into him, he can be one of the few physical units to be able to double with a 1~2 range weapon, especially considering the slow enemies and the fact that in Mystery of the Emblem you only need 3 extra speed to double, as opposed to 4 in later games. While that _sounds_ good, it’ll still take a while, and 1~2 range on enemies is so infrequent in a game that also has low enemy density that I never find it to be genuinely useful, more like a funny novelty. Hey, wanna hear something funny? Barst, who joins in chapter 2 in FE11, has a personal base defense of 3, which not only is the same as Maria, but the only characters who have a personal base in that stat higher than that are the very late game units Ymir, Nagi and Gotoh.
War Master would easily be amazing, however Hilda is generally speedy and is extremely Player Phase orientated compared to Raphael/other Axe users who are good with Quick Riposte because of the lack of speed. War Cleric is hands down amazing with Hilda as you can run up a lot of damage and eventually get Brawling Avoid +20 which can combine to other skills to make her extremely deadly of a unit. She has access to all of the blows, Seal Speed if that is your thing, and easy to get into great classes. Overall, she does not need War Master but it would have been cool. I just wish Warrior and War Cleric had at least +20 Crit like War Master but they do not necessarily need it.
Berserkers can get strong enemy phase in Conquest Lunatic, but you have to work for it. I said in my CQ 17 video that you probably can't hit the 1-shot threshold for Master Ninjas with physical 1-2, but it's just barely feasible for Berserker x Berserker pairs with tonic, Strength meal, and a forged Hand Axe. Arthur does that pretty well because his stats are hilariously minmaxed, and you can buff his Def a little so that even a crit or two won't kill him. Late-game Berserkers with a bunch of +damage skills can do this to some other types of enemies, too.
The problem is there really isn't any need for the Berserker's overkill offense at any point in the game, and they don't offer much utility besides being excellent pair-up bots, which you don't need to train much if that's all you're going to be doing with them. Arthur getting an S-rank with Camilla or Beruka not only pushes their own offense to become excellent, but they also pass him the Wyvern rider line, which makes him far more useful in more situations than as a Berserker. They're fun to use, but if you're gonna be an axe wielder, you might as well try to reclass into the best axe wielding class. Wyvern Lords have comparable offense, easily hitting one-shot threshold for master ninjas just as well as berserkers, along with having far better bulk, flight, and adaptability that the 'zerkers can't match. This is also the case for Charlotte if you actually choose to take the time to train her as a unit. You can either make her a ridiculous glass cannon that's footlocked, has little utility and generally cannot extend beyond player phase as a Berserker, or she can basically become a second Camilla with ridiculous Str and Speed, along with gaining an actual semblance of a defense stat to pair with her massive HP pool and growth with a Wyvern reclass.
@@GIR177 To be clear, I'm talking about the 48 Attack threshold to kill MNs after Steel Shuriken debuff; hitting that lets you kill 4-5 ninjas per turn. 20/1 Berserker Arthur averages 25 Str and likely B Axes, tying in Attack with Wyverns like -/7 MK Camilla, 20/4 WL Selena (who's underrated), and 20/6 WL Effie!Percy. He also has easier access to a +8 Str pair-up at that point, with S Effie after a Partner Seal. 25 + 8 (Berserker Effie) + 7 (Hand Axe) + 2 (+1 Forge) + 2 (Tonic) + 2 (Meal) + 1 (B WTA) + 1 (Laslow) = 48. Camilla can get +7 from Arthur himself, but her only +8 is S Berserker Keaton, who costs an extra Heart Seal and whose S rank isn't available yet without multiple paralogues after his join chapter. Hilariously, he will almost always make her *too* strong: base Camilla has 18 Def, and he adds 2, while enemy MNs lose 4 Atk from weapon ranks when facing axes. The Steel Shuriken MNs only have 26 Atk, so they'll refuse to attack her if she has hit B Axes and gained even a single point of Defense. Same problem if you ever make her a Wyvern Lord. If we ignore that and just look at attack power, Camilla is more likely than Arthur to need a +2 forge, which costs a cool 3600 G. Alternatively, you can bring a separate Berserker for Rally Strength, or someone with Inspiration (but that brings up the too-much-Def issue again).
@@GreatBigHill In 17, they definitely don't attack if the target can counterattack, and I'm fairly sure that rule holds in 25 as well. Spy's Shuriken ninjas in 25 (and the Spy's Yumi automata) will attack anyone because it's impossible to counterattack them.
@@Zoran501 In my experience the Ch.25 Master Ninjas really don't care about higher defense because they're continually stacking debuffs anyway, so eventually they start to hurt like hell. Stat stacking to one-shot them also isn't too hard because the Silver shurikens they wield do not debuff strength, so the 58 attack threshold after WT needed to kill them is consistent and the real goal is just not taking on too many of them at once. Even still, that's basically only two chapters where ninjas make up the vast majority of enemy forces, one of which doesn't have to be bothered with. Den of Betrayal is an important chapter for a unit to shine in, but it's also one that can be trivialized by choking points with your shiny new tank Xander, so outside of optimized LTC, not one-shotting the shinobi isn't too big of deal in case none of your characters can quite reach it. You do demonstrate a better case than me though, I haven't combed through all the math as much.
I'm a bit surprise how there were nobody at E tier, anyways, i could move up Garcia to B tier, Axes in FE8 are very good, and his stat line is very good in earlier chapters, after that he can still be competent if he promotes to Hero for the extra Speed, while it maybe worst than Gerik, he will have higher Axe rank than him from quite a while and Garm is just and insane Weapon that also gives him a speed for Garcia. So he is good imo.
I agree with Garica being in B. Hero promotion and Garm solve his main issue of speed. His early game is actually pretty strong as well. Him being in the same tier as Ross and Fe7 Bartre sits poorly with me.
@@l.n.3372 He did indeed, the gap between Ross and Garica is pretty noticable. Main thing Ross has over Garica is option to go Pirate to Berserker which allows him to water walk on the map with Selena and end her bolting ways though Dolza can water walk just by existing but hey.
@@boredomkiller99 Yeah he has that pirate advantage. But the start might not be worth investment for an easy Garcia worth less investment. Not to mention the ocean seal makes for a good amount of money if you'd rather not waste the item. Hero crest is more obtainable to my memory.
I mean he isn't really bad late game even without the Garm thanks to the hero promotion. He hits all the benchmarks needed to ORK, 1-2 range and can survive a beating Also I wouldn't say anyone is good with legendary weapon like Innes is still a mediocre unit due to being a sniper and let's not talk about how not good Knoll with the legendary dark tome is or how excalibur is too freaking heavy for anyone to use so yeah just going disagree with you there. The real issue with the Garm is that Dussel kind of wants that Axe as well as it patches up his only problem stat so there is competition. A couple other points in Garica's favor is that there is little competition for a hero crest. Ross is flat out worse as a hero or warrior and rather go pirate to berserker. Garica is generally overall better then Joshua due to durability and 1-2 range handaxe or hatchet useage making him a much better enemy phase unit. Joshua is a better boss killer but you don't lack boss killers in fe8 and you don't need that many. Gerik is the only character more worthy of a crest but guy literally brings his own so no competition. Garica isn't amazing late game but he is still good enough which is all you need in a game pack with tons of good late game units and also ignoring most people warp skip the last few levels. Meanwhile he brings one of the stronger low investament early games, arguable one of the best since vanessa needs to be treated with kid's gloves early on and needs help getting kills due to bad damage and Franz needs a few levels before he can snowball. Only units with better combat at that point is Seth and Joshua when it cones to player phase but Joshua doesn't deal with enemy phase well. Don't get me wrong Garica isn't an amazing or even needed unit but he is far better then the rest of C tier in this list.
I would throw Hilda in A tier. There are very few situations where she struggles and she is one of the few GD units with good enemy phase on Maddening. Very similar to SD Barst: an all around solid combat unit and very easy to use
Agreed. Her only problems are her inability to pick up War Master, her late recruitment in SS, and kind of a special vulnerability to being stat screwed, as both her speed and durability are only good, and if either one falls behind, she kind of falls apart. She's one of the best units for taking the first Death Knight, and just as often as ending up screwed, she can end up blessed, and Hilda runs with a snowball really well.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Hilda's biggest weakness IMO is actually her bane in authority, since her Gambit will be mediocre for a while. Her speed can be hit or miss if you don't stay in Pegasus for a bit.
And while she personally doesn't learn a good combat art, she has Apocalyptic Flame to one-shot enemies for a long time up until the enemies get super stat inflated at the end of Part 2. Amazing early game utility and good combat from mid-game to late-game earns her a spot in A tier.
I do not believe that is correct to say she is one of the few units who are good in enemy phase. I found much higher and greater success out of player phase compared to enemy phase due to her set up. Easily, she has access to all of the physical blow skills (it would be a bit hard to get her Duelist Blow unless you was already going War Cleric) and those offer +6 in STR/DEF/AS. This makes it extremely easy for Hilda to take on scary foes without much worry and would make her great for brawling (War Cleric is AMAZING for her). You could set up easily the blow skills above (maybe take out Armored if you want to, she has high HP and great defense already then replace it with Alert Stance+ or Seal Speed for the early game) and have Hit+20 then Weapon Proficiency. She could be good for enemy phase if you make her a really decent dodge tank but too many hits will get her killed (Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Fliers are scary for Hilda as she will die during enemy phase). You can also have a rather nice "Wraith of Vantage" build but that can be too risky or requires Retribution to do successfully (or Chalice of Beginnings). Point is, Hilda is extremely solid for player phase rather than enemy phase. But she should definitely be up higher.
@@GreyWandererXD I think it might be safer to say she has good enemy phase for the early game. 8spd and 6def is up there on the defensive spread, and with Rally Spd from Ignatz she might not even get doubled by the Chapter 2 thieves with a speed level up. Slower enemies won't give her too much trouble either and with good growths in both stats she won't be hit that hard for the earlier, hardest chapters of the game.
Bord has some benefits if he reclasses to pirate, the whole difference between Bord and Cord aside from weapon rank is that Bord has high skill and bad speed growth and reverse for Cord. However, reclassing Bord to pirate increases his speed base, evens out his growth, and keeps his C rank axes.
Vaike and Lon’qu complement each other pretty well when paired up. Swordmaster Lon’qu gives Vaike some speed, and Warrior/Berserker Vaike gives Lon’qu some strength. Neither are particularly great on their own, Awakening pair up is just busted.
Honestly, anyone in Awakening can solo an entire army if they have an A or S support partner paired up with them. In this case, Lon’qu is also pretty dodgy.
@@sammich6257 I don't know about that. Units like Sumia are always goint to be made of paper no matter which way you slice it, and units like Lonqu will be locked to 1 range as well. Vaike is better at combat in this regard as he is insanely bulky and has access to 1-2 range with the strength to use it well.
Hiiyapow It’s not super reliable, but the majority of Awakening’s cast can dodge tank. It’s not viable and if RNG isn’t on your side, you’re screwed. I’m going to assume you aren’t too familiar with Awakening, because Lon’qu has easy access to the Levin Sword (it deals magic damage, I know), and later on, if he became a Swordmaster, he can use Amatsu. Lon’qu does have better res, but it’s nothing to write home about. In Awakening, I think that very few characters have more than two bad growths (ik that growths aren’t everything). Lon’qu’s bad growths are Defense and Resistance, Vaike’s only bad growth is Resistance. Lon’qu’s Avo +10 skill is worth noting, as the difference between 52 and 42 percent hit could be life or death. Vaike has easier 1-2 range, and can get Sol. Lon’qu can get Lethality (unreliable) and/or Astra, not to mention Swordfaire to help with his inconsistent Strength. It boils down to what you want. Vaike is more reliable and you can expect him to recover HP and take small damage (from physical enemies), and you can expect Lon’qu to melt through enemies by dodging and activating criticals and Astra.
@@sammich6257 Gonna go point by point on this one mate. "Majority of awakenings cast can dodge tank". Not really. At least, not on lunatic. You are correct that most of the cast has reasonably good avoid, however a lot of these units will be facing 50/50 hit rates early which aren't fantastic. Even the dodgier ones like lonq risk death for 25-30% ish hit rates. It's not really that viable for a lot of people. "I’m going to assume you aren’t too familiar with Awakening". Don't do that. Both because it isn't true and because you will make yourself look like an idiot. " Lon’qu has easy access to the Levin Sword". Ah, you mean the sword that shows up after chapter 11 is over? What are you using before then for 1-2 range then? And what about when it breaks? And what about the fact that is magic based and lonq has 1 base magic so will do basically no damage with it. "If he became a Swordmaster, he can use Amatsu". What are you doing in between the chapters where you get amatsu and the Levin sword breaking? Vaike can just casually buy 30,000 hand axes but lonqu has no consistent, reliable 1-2 range option late game. And what happens when amatsu breaks? I honestly have no idea wtf you are trying to say in your section about growths so i'll clear my own statement up. Lonqu has bad base strength and defense. Vaike has so-so base speed. Lonqu provides vaike with more speed. Vaike provides lonqu with strength and defence. That is all. Vaikes res sucks but his hp is so high it doesn't matter. "It boils down to what you want.". I agree. If you want to win the game, use Vaike. If you don't, use lonqu. "You can expect Lon’qu to melt through enemies by dodging and activating criticals and Astra" . From 1 Range. With shoddy strength. And Vaike probably does more damage anyway. Funny that you mention crits given how Vaike actually can end up critting better than lonqu anyway if Vaike decides to go berserker.
You have a fair point about Lunatic. I’ve heard that it’s brutal. Sorry about that. I think that your statement is ultimately fine. While he does have two range, both options are flawed. The Levin Sword does magic damage, something Lon’qu has none of. Of course, you can give him stat boosters, but they’d be better off on pretty much anybody. Amatsu’s dropped in chapter 18, so you have 8 chapters, plus paralogues to use it, so it’s not around for a very long time. Yeah, I kinda went off on a tangent there. But, I think that saying Vaike’s HP makes up for his res is dangerous. It’s like Charlotte, yeah, they have ridiculous HP, but 30 damage is a huge chunk of HP. In Awakening, having low res isn’t as much of a penalty as it is in Fates, but it’s still a problem due to so many Dark Fliers. But you’re right, they make a great pair up for each other. I think that using Energy Drops on Lon’qu isn’t a lost cause. He has a 55% strength growth, he’ll level it more often than not. I’m aware that he can get screwed and that, ultimately, he has garbage base strength, that’s that. Late game Awakening likes to throw a lot of enemies at you, so unless you’re counting Lunatic mode, Lon’qu’s dodgy enough to be able to survive an enemy phase with a pair up. You bring up a really good point about how Lon’qu and Vaike compliment each other. I can’t remember if Berserkers have a crit bonus in Awakening. Lon’qu does have better Skill, but Vaike’s isn’t anything to laugh at, like most axe fighters. And if Berserkers have a high crit bonus, then yes, I stand corrected.
I think Nolan's good, I just don't think he's the best thing since sliced bread. I feel like a lot of people rate him based off of his earlygame performance only.
@@Mekkkah Not really, it's more that many players come in with the perspective of training both him and Jill, not realising that just training Jill alone is at least as viable in NM, and outright better in HM. He matches or surpasses Jill in basically every category except mobility, and while a skilled player would know that Jill is still clearly the better pick, less experienced players who value movement less will consider them to be more closely matched. Thus, people train him, and when trained he is genuinely quite exceptional, usually reaching the top 5 units with ease, especially as training him makes Jill weak enough that clearing maps with her is no longer that possible, and then those people sing Nolan's praises, not realising that they could have just used Jill and their playthrough overall wouldn't have changed much.
Obligatory TRS Comment Bartz: pretty good in his join map, has accuracy issues and kinda outclassed otherwise. His weapon level is kinda shaky and is one away from using Killer Axe. He does get flurry at level 15 but getting levels in TRS w/o Paragon takes a while. Falls behind mounts in Runan and has some competition for deployment on Holmes route and has stiff competition for Hero Crests as well. Not too hot C Tier Samson: Pretty solid throughout Holmes Route. Has the weapon level to use Killer Axe, is 4 levels away from promo and is has dibs to one of the many hero crests u get with only Vega Shigen and Lionel giving him a run for his money, 13 speed is pretty good at base. Has solid growths and Brave Axe access. Still solid outdoors, just pretty good for anyone who didn't miss him by accident. B tier Ezekiel: worst than Bartz and Samson easily. Picking him means missing out on two of Narron, Lee and Lionel. His bases are not too great and only reason people pick him is for Leteena event. Also 4 move is just awful at base and 7 base speed is pretty fucking bad too. If you want to use him, you probably want to pick him for 1st Wellt pick, not worth the trouble. Probably D Tier quite frankly for early. Definitely, E Tier if u pick him as 2nd wellt choice on Holmes route. Edit: Lionel uses knight crest not hero crest oops
Lionel actually needs a Knight’s crest, not a hero’s crest. Samson has good bases and good growths, and joins in a route that favors infantry. He’s one of the tankier infantry units which is very useful against the annoying Mogalls. Bartz is pretty good up until the first split. If he doesn’t go with Holmes, he’ll probably sit nicely on the bench for the rest of the game. If he goes with Holmes, he’s essentially a slightly worse Samson. Not awful, but not as good as Samson. Ezekiel fucking hurts man. A steel axe with a base speed of 7. He has negative AS. He has a good promo, but why pick him over Lionel later, who is basically Ezekiel with a better starting weapon, better bases, more mov, and better growths. Ezekiel will lag behind the Wellt arc and just kinda slow down the Holmes route. It’s just really sad. (He’s better than Luca though...)
One thing to note about the Archanean fighters is that in FE1, the shops stop selling axes after a certain point (in FE3 they keep selling them all the way until chapter 16). This makes the axe users harder to use in that game.
Mekkkah: how's this for a tier list idea -- Backstabbers, that is, characters who serve on your side before being fought later as an enemy **in the same game**. Not red units that you recruit or green units that become red, but blue units that become red units after you had a chance to control them. Obviously this will have to exclude 3H and certain FE10 units. This would include characters like FE12 (but not FE3) Sheena, Black Knight, Jill, Orson, Scarlet, Shinon, and our Lord and Saviour Marty. And Siegfried. Actually, I think Marty was literally the first Blue Unit that you could fight as a red unit.
Rinkah should be lower than Vaike for sure. Vaike is pretty fast and a big damage dealer. He has good early 1-2 range. Rinkah doesn't do much full stop. She's kind of tanky but a Spear Fighter or Knight does the job better. Her promotions aren't great either. You have free weapons class and axe and magic??? Vaike gets Hero and Warrior. Hero is better for him imo but Warrior gets Counter
Not to mention when Rinkah joins (after the route split) she’s super disappointing, she can’t use Hand Axes at base, and her strength is kinda low for an axe user. Though, she can be a good mother for every physically oriented child. Of course, once she gets going, she’s really good, and along with Oboro, she’s one of the best tanks in Birthright/Revelation.
I've played Fates on an emulator a decent amount and Rinkah is one of the worst units in my experience. She always ends up being really fucking squishy, and seems to stuggle to do even the most basic tasks. And she always gets doubled too. I have to pump every single stat buff into her if I want to use her. Arthur is also pretty bad, but at least he can do some stuff and usually avoids getting doubled.
@@sammich6257 Rinkah suffers strongly from the eliwood-syndrom as somebody once aptly put it. She can turn out to be an absolute beast (although her str will prob always be on the shifty side) or she'll be absolute garbage. I did the pain to play through brithright a few times (wanted a run without using the royals.. it was a royal pain) and usually took her with me. She usually took alot more levels to get going than her companions andwhile she luckily was fats enough not to get hit a second time in the face like many other axe-users, she was still plenty frail and usually failed to do enough damage to take the enemy out due to her low str. There was that one run, where she was relaly blessed but that was more the exception. I usually put her with a Str-pairup for her of had her backseat Ryoma to give him some really needed str and def. She's usually a pair-up-bot for me.
One thing you didn't mention about Johalva is that having bows on promotion is really nice since there are so many strong wyverns in gen 2 so having as many bow users as possible is helpful. Also you can deploy everyone in genealogy so there's no reason not to use him. I feel he should be bumped up a few spots since he is definitely better than the fe 7 fighters imo.
An extra thing about Ross, once I iron manned fe8 but restricted myself from not being able to use tower of valni. I decided to use Ross and discovered (Probably already commonly known, but just a thing to note) that you can promote him to pirate on the chapter after you get him WITHOUT having to get a single kill + I got a ton of free axe proficiency. If you don't care about turn count, once you kill everything on chapter and get to the boss, make him use his steel axe by having Seth stand in close range (Make sure he doesn't kill), on the next turn, get Seth out his attack range then just have Ross 2 range with his hatchet, and rescue drop him with two other units and repeat, Ross gets around 30xp if he hits (roughly 45% hit chance). You can get him to level 10 in about 5-10 minutes, depends on hit rate rng. You can also build supports in the meantime. BTW, not asking for Ross to go up on tier list, I say the fact you even have to do this makes him a bad character, but Berserker Ross is really fun to use.
Ross can fortunately get to Pirate by Ch7 or at least Ch8 without preventing Franz/Vanessa/Artur from promoting, fortunately. Though they could get more EXP before promoting if Ross didn't need to kills. But overall yeah FE8 earlygame is flexible enough to use Ross, especially in a casual playthrough.
@@Mekkkah Absolutely, Ross is still usable without this cheese. The min-maxer in me (PITFALL ALERT) still doesn't want to waste all the xp that could go to others. It was my first iron man ever so I wanted as many advantages as possible.
TFW comparing the Shadow Dragon weapon weight system to 3H instead of Tellius, the games immediately preceding Shadow Dragon with the exact same system that clearly was the reason for its implementation in Shadow Dragon... *sad Ike noises*
Vaike is one of the only early game units in Awakening who can take 3 hits instead of almost everyone else, who dies in 2, making him a decent tank early on, if Frederick cannot completely choke a point, he also 2 rounds generic archers and soldiers in chapter 3, which can help you give kills to units you'd want to use, like Chrom, Robin, one of the pegasus knights, or maybe even someone like Donnel or Gaius, so in conclusion, I believe Vaike deserves at least B tier
Vaike is pretty great for at least a few chapters with Lon'Qu or Chrom. Simialr to what you said with Rinkah, his pair-up stats are really nice for an already fast character.
I think Fighters as a whole are much better in Ironman or similar scenarios. They seem almost specifically designed to be "flash in the pan" short term units, that float you through the early game until "real" units get off their feet, or hold a line in a precarious situation where their survival isn't a priority. They perform relatively well when underlevelled. Most people don't play Fire Emblem this way, they want to get and save everyone, tend to emphasize late game performance, and focus their efforts on a constant, nuclear party, and so they get a reputation for being bad. Also, Garcia should be higher. At least B, possibly even A. In the context of Sacred Stones, where Seth, Vanessa, and Franz exist, Garcia has a hard time standing out, but he still performs admirably and if you were to drop him into FE 6 or 7, he'd be one of the strongest units in the game. He has fantastic bases and serviceable growths, even if you take him into Warrior, he's great, let alone Hero Garcia. Garcia is more reminiscent of the "Good Mercenary" to me, he just happens to be a Fighter.
I concd challenged myself to play 2 FE8 routes simultaneously, splitting up my party so that whoever went to Eirika route couldn't be used in my simultaneous Ephraim route and vice versa. Since Gerik joins Eirika earlier, I gave Garcia to Ephraim route. He's no Gerik but Garcia is pretty good, and not being Gerik is hardly a flaw.
As for Gonzales: Scoundrels type tier list, that is, characters who will hinder your map objectives beyond just combat unless you talk to/take care of them? That is, characters like Cath, Legault, Rennac, Rickard, Dorcas, etc.? You could even combine it with the Backstabbers tier list if neither list has enough characters.
Thank you Mekkah, your videos always help me feel good, and i can already see people complaining about the lack of Charlotte, even though you CLEARLY said that these are the characters that are early game. Anyways thanks for the content in these trying times!!
I feel Rinkah is more of a “set up” unit in Birthright, Seal Resistance only works with Magic attacks (obv), but this lets Orochi and Hayato do more damage. She gets better when promoted to Oni Chieftain, but still pretty subpar unit. Oboro just does her job better.
Honestly, it always kind of confused me why Kaga didn't really like axe users that much until FE5 (outside of like thematics like that one guy mentioned in a Shadows of Valentia episode)
I'll talk about some of the 3 houses axe/grappler characters for a bit in this comment here, but mostly about GD path viability for Raphael and Hilda. First I'll talk about Raphael, who is tied for highest, 30 hp base stat. Raphael, he who also has the highest hp growth in the game at 65. He scales to a peak of 105 hp growth by the time you reach his level 20 classes. He snatches Death Blow easier than the majority of units, base E+ Axes with affinity. Raphael spots a D in starting Heavy Armor stat _and_ an affinity for it. He can very quickly grab the -3 weight skill and use heavier shields as a free equip for as long as you need, which also synergizes well with his huge health pool and large strength stat. He can easily flex into a non-mounted Armor Knight unit if the map needs him as one, which is always good. The GD route-class is primarily composed of definitely squishy yet highly effective ranged units. They have an inherent paralogue for both the 4-range magic staff and 3-range(3-range one is universal iirc) magic staff for both Lysethia and Lorenz (the 4-range staff is crest-locked to these 2) blasting, while also having the(perhaps marginally) 2 best _bow-users_ in the game, Ignatz and Claude. Raphael makes for a great hp sponge to intercept some of the nastiest threats in the game for the GD snipers. Raphael having the worst speed growth in the game at 15 makes him the _most minmaxed_ unit for Warmaster's Quick Reposte, especially with his max hp-cap of 119, after the +5 statue boost. Raphael is not positioned to be the GD's main front-line with 25 charm and 10 res growth but, he's paired with the second best Fortress Knight in the game, innate speed/charm growth 50 and 25 res growth, Hilda.(best is Edelgard with higher res/cha). While Raphael is a great unit to enemy phase chip, player-phase oneround many times, and clump a lot of melee enemies for Claude's super gambit. He's definitely a good c-tier as he's not better than half of the 3h cast. Hilda on the other hand earns her B tier status and takes the lead over Raphael. Her functionality as a well-rounded defenses (protection, res, gambit evade) armor knight, allows for GD's insanely potent ranged options to stack the enemy and player phase into your favor. Hilda can high-accuracy gambit the pesky maddening "pass" units which almost puts her to A-tier for that difficulty, as she will have the bulk to walk up and lock units down with her gambits for a round of deadly, allied artillery. Hilda is funnily-good with some, honestly out of place, aoe-mage gambits just to immobilize large swathes of units while the 4 of your mixed-damage, beastly snipers beat down even the 3-range archers outside of retaliation range. I haven't tested if both Ward and Pure Water stacks, but a hex shield on weight-5 Hilda with Manuela's Ward, one of Lysethia's two Warps and a pure water could clump a massive number of enemies for some Gambit and sniping cheese if the terrain permits it. Now I'll talk about Caspar, the friendly blue ghost. Caspar, is probably the worst student in the game for his normal path progression but since it's 3h, he's still viable in doing so as the game is balanced pretty well when it comes to base kits and customization. He's got a low 25 charm growth, bows-down, reason-down, authority-down, giving him no great ranged, nor offensive gambit options, as well as no gambit evade, while also having only 30/20 defense/res for a melee-based unit. Caspar's main saving grace is that he has axes affinity and neutral flying so if you panic wyvernrider him very fast after brigand, he has decent generalist growths to make do as a filler flyer unit with no strain. Caspar is the "worst" of the 3 houses students without going wyvern lord but, his path there is one of the easiest of the students which balances it out as all things should be. I'd put him right there in C tier as you do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you also lose out on another paragon band if you choose Johalvier? Maybe it's not a strike against him (or for Johan,) but it's still something to be mentioned.
@@seththeace6217 Actually I think it might be that if you lose the paragon band in gen 1 (which is what happened to me in my first playthrough,) then Johalvier would have one. But if you inherit it, then johalvier won't have it.
Mangs is on an extended hiatus after he was accused of and admitted to sexual assult against another fe tuber as well as an apparent history of highly questionable behavior. This is a decent summary: serenesforest.net/2020/07/18/regarding-the-allegations-against-fe-youtubers-mangs-and-chaz-aria-llc/#more-61069
Orsin also has really good speed and the Vouge has 80 hit vs 65 on an iron axe. So aside from mages and myrmidons he's one of the most accurate units in the game, which is also very useful in early (pre-warp) Thracia. Really his only downside is not being around for the 4 chapters that he would absolutely wreck if he was around for them, but even so I'd argue he's probably the most reliable non-magic unit in the game (even moreso than Finn/Fergus imo) I realize you put Orsin in S tier but I just wanted to add some further praise.
I love Dorcas. For whatever reason, he's always been one of my favorite units in that game. Once I found out that the Afas Drops decide who shows up on the ranking screen, I had to give them to him. He is still slow af!!!
My Hilda was ultra blessed when I first played I realised this in my second play-through when she wasn’t comedically strong massacring every unit that dared to look in her general direction
Warriors are one of my FE guilty pleasures. This list kinda made me sad because it reminded me how mediocre most axefighters in FE are, but I'm content I'd say with most of them. I use a lot of bad units because they're just fun or look cool, but I still try to play slightly fast. I wonder if this is counter-productive? Idk, I find it more fun to strategize around bad units than the same 5 units that everyone always uses; I always used Python and Forsyth in Echoes and Edward/Nolan in RD for example
I think people misconstrue efficiency and the necessary usage of it. It is a topic I pondered upon whether or not having broken units are enabling players not to strategize as much within this Tactical RPG series. Because why strategize whenever you can warp cheese or have that one really great unit that can mop the floor with every enemy that you can encounter within the game? I find it weird that broken units are considered high tier play whenever they are the easy route to beating the game. Another aspect is people thinking efficiency is LTC even though majority of the fan base does not play in that manner. It makes people think infantry units are inferior to mounted or flying units. Infantry units most of the time only 2 less movement but generally way better stats and stat growths compared to what would be considered viable in LTC. I been a fan of Axe Fighters with a few exceptions and I like my armored knights. Neither of these are efficient, but they are great for higher difficulty and utilizing strategies only they can accomplish.
I usually use them early game as meatwalls and as soon as i get promoted Units that can use axes as well, they get taken out. (Cavaliers most notably in gba-games) They usually fall behind (Except that one blessed Dorcas that turned into an absolute dodgy murder-machine in one run on Eli-hard), get doubled and due to not quite that high defenses and very low res, even their giant HP-pool doesn't save them anymore. Ross only gets decent because he has an additional of 10 levels to grow (If you promote him on lvl 10 base class, he'll be pretty subpar), Garcia has the same sisues as the usual gba-fighters sadly. For the DS/3ds-games, (Awakening) i use Freddie but always had an issue to get Vaike really up to speed. He was always lacking something (usually that one speed-point that eh needs to double or not getting doubled) while his companions did the same job with better results. I tried to get Arthur to work, but his abysmal luck would leave him as easy crit-fodder for enemies and Rinkah.. well.. promoted and at lvl 8-ish she finally caught up to the rest (maybe i had shitty ups with her) but if you perform badly in birthright, i have very bad news for you... Nevertheless i like to try to implement them in my strategies even though i ususally have to go out of my way just to save their hairy butts. :D
@@GreyWandererXD Infantry units have never had better stat growths overall, mounted units are always on par or better (more or less anyway). Almost any Calvary unit is just better than almost any fighter except in radiant dawn where they are about on par with each other. The calvary have been faster, had better weapon triangle control, and are as tanky if not tankier with their higher defense but lower to on par hp. It's also 2 movement every turn, that adds up a lot and fliers are the best class because if they have good stats (which many do) they become the best units in the game since they have unprecedented mobility and still hit really hard while being somewhat tanky (looking at a lot of wyverns throughout the series). Lot and Wade are just outclassed by Allen and Lance in every way, same Sain and Kent also outclass Dorcas and Barcas and Franz just outclasses Ross and Garcia as well. They are more flexible, more accurate, and can get to important locations quicker and fliers just move whenever they want since terrain doesn't hold them down giving them a massive advantage. Play FE however you want but mounted units always will be strictly better with how much more versatile they are. Overall if a mounted unit has good stats they are just better than alternatives, and it's not like most of them have bad stats compared to alternative foot units.
@@twigz3214 In terms of fighters I would say yes, however you do create a lot of generalized statements that is vital towards my points. Does objectively better units make you a better tactician because you go the most optimized route? Obviously a player would not shoot their right foot purposely, but given circumstances of not everything working out within the favor of the player you are going to have to use "bad units" eventually. Not just that, you cannot make an entire army out of cavalry units so you are going to have to rely on Infantry units either for healing or taking out enemies that are comparatively more closer. Infantry units are still great regardless, they have less movement for more specialization while mounted units are uniform. I would say Path of Radiance and Awakening had a nice balance between the three movement types all because of the pair up function. But there are also terrible Cavaliers such as Matthis, Rosea, Wolfguard, and Fiona. Not all Cavaliers are guaranteed to be good, they are just guaranteed good movement and maneuverability. A good Cavalier is good, such as the logic of a bad unit is bad. The point I am getting across you are going to have to use Infantry units because there are some Infantry units that accomplish a lot more compared to a balance unit such as Cavalry. Also sand maps...they suck for Cavalry. Especially with Awakening and having them happen so early. I just want to use Stahl.
@@GreyWandererXD In general, a mounted unit always have some form of utility and them being good makes them better more exceptionally than an infantry unit being good, Overall I'd agree that I usually only use 2-3 mounted units depending on the game and 2-3 fliers, infantry units have their uses and in games like fe6 enemy stats are very strong overall which gives units like Rutger a lot of value since he can always double while other units may struggle to do so to faster enemies but in games where enemy stats are weak like fe7, fe8 and fe9 you're better off using mostly mounted units and fliers since they can one round almost every enemy when trained with a hand axe or javelin. While you can make a challenge run out of purposely using bad units I'd say it's usually better to use the tools you have to your best extent rather than hurting yourself on purpose. Granted I'd say playing to your best is more important in a context like ironmanning since you're trying to get through with as few casualties as possible. With enough trial and error, you could beat almost any game with almost any party that you want to. Overall having a flier or 2 and a mounted unit or 2 just gives you a lot more options due to how flexible they are while you don't really need a myrmidon or fighter to give you more options usually. I personally find more fun in playing somewhat fast and not LTCing per say but I enjoy having at least 2 fliers and 2 mounted units on my teams to use their higher movement to at least help ferry around my less mobile ones when needed. Using all mounted units is in a bad idea since eventually, you'd be picking from the lesser ones and some infantry units can be really good. I'd just say you would be making the game a lot harder if you don't use any compared to using 2-3 since it provides you with another option that's great to have in case you need to be somewhere quickly or get rid off an enemy before they are in your range, etc.
Agreed. Lot always turned out good for me. Supporting him with dieck made both of them great frontline fighters that almost no one could touch. Also bow lot is best lot.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but have you ever made a class tier list? Ranking the units for each class is good, but on games where reclassing is a thing a broader view might be useful. Just trying to toss an idea out for another video (again, not sure if you've already done that before).
Class tier list is hard as class viability varies heavely from game to game. In FE6 swordmasters are arguably the best class in the game, but they're trash in FE7
@@vanjagalovic3621 Eh, Wyvern is still the best class in FE 6, but SM is better in Fe 6 than in most games. Really the only other game where Swordmaster is good is in FE 12 where the 30 speed cap actually matters 'cause of how high enemy stats get in the higher difficulties, and having C base swords allows for Wyrmslayer use at base.
That tier list would probably just be wyverns and pegasus knights at the top, and maybe healers and cavalry one tier below and everything else at the bottom thanks to how shaky every other class is across the series
@@airtempest8945 Isn't paladin the best class in GBA FE? Or at least where it can use all 3 weapons (for javelin plus hand axe) in addition to good con, high movement, and aid?
This is how I feel about Boyd vs Nolan. You have to use Nolan as a first time player so he stays relevant but during the greil mercenaries you have options for axe users. Titania is a very solid mounted axe user and haar is well....haar. Boyd has too compete with these two beasts. Boyd is a lot better than Nolan imo but you don't have to use him like Nolan.
Vaike can be very good in Lunatic, but nothing compared to Robin, Chrom, or even Donnel memes. He also makes a pretty solid Dad option for certain units, but usually Lon Qu is better
I love axefighters. I have a soft spot for them, glad to see they've got their own video now. I know there are some people out there that disagree with Vaike in the C tier, but his performance on higher difficulties is completely different from his normal/hard performance. I've replayed Awakening on Lunatic recently, and I really tried to keep Vaike relevant, but he just fell off hard during the Valm arc.
Vaike is really good on lunatic. His high base HP and damage early make him super easy to train and his hero promo gains are busted as well. I find it's easier to make him last longer into the valm arc if you go through hero and get sol as it will be extremely hard to kill him at that point. Lunatic + is a different kettle of fish, of course, because that game has counter which makes me very sad, but in regular old lunatic hes a really really good unit to have on your tea/
Admittedly, my experience is on normal mode, but Conquest Arthur does get fairly good once he can make level five Hero. The problem is there are about eight or nine units that are more important than him and a lot of chapters with significantly limited rosters, making it very hard to justify lugging him around to level 10-12. He was decent dumping ground for the Goddess Icons and Skill Books I didn't need though.
Does anyone else get easily distracted by the footage in the lower right? Like I'll be listening to Mekkah ranking a unit then I'll notice something happen in the footage and by the time I look back three more units have been rated.
i dont think you mentioned tarvos or earth affinity when talking about nolan which are pretty major points. once he promotes to tier 2, he's basically tied for 2nd with zihark best combat unit (outright better than zihark come part 3 for sure) behind jill among daein units that don't have silly availability quirks (tornado, burger king, nailah, tormod, etc). in terms of the context of part 3 daein maps, zihark's native adept and crit bonus are a genuine detriment due to the nature of those choke-holding-centric maps, meaning warrior nolan likely becomes your 2nd best overall unit barring horrendous level ups that leave him well behind his average stats. 20/1 nolan's bulk is 37.6hp/13.85def compared to base zihark's 30hp/13def indicate an obvious bulk differential, and he can equip tarvos for an extra +4 def---and nolan doesn't have enemy phase flow control issues because you don't have to unequip nolan to avoid potentially fighting multiple tigers and cats on enemy phase unlike rn proc god zihark who will pull an orsin and leave the floodgates open when its least convenient. jill is jill obviously, but jill soloing everything once she gets her initial levels is definitely not the path of least resistance in HM so nolan's presence as a more auxiliary all-purpose combat unit (with availability) is a nice luxury. i think the part 1 discussion of nolan was pretty accurate; part 1's tendency to sling random amazing units at you with spotty availability means nolan's never really in the spotlight, but his contributions are consistently meaningful nonetheless within the context of a faction that desperately wants all-around solid combat units. axes are also the best weapon type in RD by far, so there's that. i think top of B is fine but if nolan disappeared from RD it would be waaaaay more annoying (and HM ch2 would be an instant softlock lol)
Nolan was underrated here imo. Nolan has insanely good growths, basically perfect for capping all of his stats, and his solid defense of 9 lets him be one of the few Dawn Brigade units that can keep up and be used later on without falling behind. He's easily A tier. Look at his growths again, they're disgusting, even for RD's higher growths. 70% skill, 60% speed and luck, 40% resistance. His growths compliment his bases like a lock and key, the lower bases have higher growths so he caps basically everything. To top it off he has an excellent personal weapon. His only issue is the shittiness of RD Warrior/Reaver.
I love using Nolan, but his big problem is just that he's Jill without a wyvern in a game where you can very easily put everything into her and do just as well as training both her and Nolan. In NM I'd say it's closer to call due to a higher quantity of EXP meaning Jill can still be OP even if you invest in Nolan, but on HM investing in Jill alone is flat out the best option for dealing with most things. His endgame is absolutely insane, especially with innate Nihil, but he's not central to it, as you already have a huge amount of extremely powerful combat units by then who can do what he does almost as good with little to no investment. You could just throw his Nihil on Tibarn or Caineghis and have much the same effect. Also, his class only holds him back in that he's not a flier. Being on a horse makes a unit less mobile in many DB maps, and isn't great in most Part 4 maps, plus gives you bad caps, but fliers ignore this stuff and just have constant great movement and high caps. Warriors and Reavers are among the best classes in the game, with access to the best weapon type, great caps, and Colossus has a lower Capacity than other Mastery Skills, giving Nolan tied for the highest Skill Capacity of any beorc unit. They even have Crossbows, so Nolan can cheese Laguz with Beastfoe in 3-6, 3-13, and 4-5 if you want. If you rate units with the expectation that they will receive undivided attention regardless of alternatives, Nolan can very easily see an argument for high A Tier, or even low S Tier, as again he is just Jill without a wyvern. But that's a flawed way of looking at units that doesn't reflect a normal person's gameplay, and looking at him with the full context of RD means that investing in him in the long-run is at best a viable alternative and at worst a possible detriment.
51:18 Awakening isn't the game im most knowledgeable about, so maybe somebody can reply to this to either back up my statements or rebuttle them. I think Vaike should be higher. Atleast next to Garcia. I think that Vaike and Chrom is one of the best pair ups early on. Just like Arthur, Vaike can be a stat backpack and give lots of strength. But i think he has merits in actual combat. He is one of the more durable early game units on lunatic, and id argue hes the one of the most salvageable. IIRC he actually survives 2 hits from the soldiers in his joining map. Vaike can negate alot of damage from lance enemy's thanks the weapon triangle, and if you can patch up his speed so he doesn't get doubled, his high HP will start to shine. He can use the hammer early on to kill armors (he can easily deal with the ch 3 boss which lands him some good experience). There's also amors in the arena map with lucina that he can one round. Which means less enemies for Robin and Fredric. If Chrom gets up to 10 speed and a C support with Vaike thats a +5 boost upon pair up. And other than Frederic, you don't have any other axe user. Im not arguing you should use him for diversity, but negating extra damage from lances is good and anything Vaike can handle means Robin and Fred can do something else. I cant say much about Vaike past his earlygame bc im not knowledge enough but i think everything i mentioned is enough to consider ranking him higher.
Honestly most of what you've written here is correct. He's probably a B+/A tier unit in the grand scheme of things. I find that Vaike/Lonqu is a better pair up than Vaike/Chrom because Fred and Robin prefer Chrom as a pair up partner as they join around the same time so will have support built between them. At no support, Vaike/Lonq offers Vaike 5 speed and it offers 7 at A support, its really good. The point at which he massively improves is when he early promotes to hero. He gets 6 skill, 5 speed and 4 defence which is enough to make him really good. Then he gets sol at level 5 and becomes pretty much invincible. I recommend promoting him asap with the ch8 master seal but you could always use the ch10/11/12 ones if you want to promote someone else and he'll be still pretty good. Maps full of strong mages can be really annoying but if you give him a res pair up+ pure water/ward staff, he can usually do well enough as long as you don't overexpose him. Generally I'd say 3 magical enemies is probably the max you can safely take on late game- Obviously with a sol proc, you can take on more but it's best not to completely rely on it. The best things he can do in lategame are juggernauting through the rout maps and bosskilling in the kill boss maps, although he struggles to ORKO some faster bosses like yenfay without a crit.
@@Hiiyapow Thats all good to know. I pressume your talking about normal/hard when talking about tanking up to 3 mages? I see why lon que would be better but b4 he joins, i still think chrom and Vaike is a good pair. When Cordelia joined I put vaike with her. Not sure how good or bad that pairing is comparatively but it seemed good to me. Also never tired hero Vaike, how does that compare to berserker?
@@Starwars-Fanboy I'm talking about lunatic in regards to mages. Vaikes late game HP is high enough so that when you utilise ward staff and/or a good res pair up, he can take on 3 mages lategame. As I said, if sol procs it will let him take on more. In the midgame its a little more iffy and depends on how strong the mages are. For example, in a map like chapter 11, Vaike doesn't really want to take on all the mages at the bottom right. 1 sage + 1 mage is the max you can take with a res pair up, tonic and ward staff unless he procs sol. Chrom and Vaike is pretty good. I do think that Chrom is better as a more permanent partner for Robin or Fred, but in the early maps like 3, Chrom/Vaike can work. Vaike+ Cordelia is also a pretty solid pair. Vaike gets move, res and speed while cordy gets some Strength if you ever want to use her for combat. I just like lonqu more because he joins sooner so he will probably grant more stats due to his higher support. Hero Vaike is pretty good because you can jump into straight from level 10 unpromoted while berserker requires you to second seal at some point, meaning that its slower to get to. The meaningful differences are that Berserker has +8 HP, +5 Strength, -6 Skill, +1 Speed, -3 Defence and -2 Resistance. He also has sword access in hero meaning that he doesn't get shut down as hard by axebreaker. Generally I think that this means that berserker is a better final class for Vaike but its a bit of a toss up in some maps due to the lack of swords and lower defence/res and its way harder to get to than hero. For hero all you need it to get to level 10 and then use a master seal but for berserker you are going to have to second seal to barbarian or have already got to level 10 promoted. You might as well go through hero anyway to get sol. So I recommend early promoting to hero and then when he hits level 10 or 15, you can swap him to berserker if you want the power boost.
I’m not sure I agree with you saying Rinkah is B tier in Birthright. I think C is much fairer ranking for her. D-E is definitely fitting for Revelation. Rinkah does have some helpful attributes, such as her excellent pair-up bonuses, Fiery Blood, and exclusive natural access to Clubs and Axes until Scarlet joins. But she also has a lot of areas where she falls short. My main problem with Rinkah is her base stats + weapon rank and the problems that blossom from them. While Rinkah’s bases aren’t catastrophically bad, Rinkah definitely needs some help from pair-ups and level ups if she wants to keep up with the enemies in Birthright Lunatic. Rinkah has a decent 10 base defense and a 65% def growth. If leveled to 20/20 she’ll have ~20 def as an Oni Savage lv20 and ~36 def as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. This is solid on paper, though obviously 20/20 is unlikely if you’re not grinding. So, Rinkah will still be taking a fair bit of damage from enemies, particularly late game enemies with capped strength and silver weapons. Her base speed is 8 and her growth is 55%. In a 20/20 scenario she’ll have ~17 speed as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~30 as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. Again, in a realistic non grinding scenario Rinkah will have less speed for most of her availability, but it should still be enough to keep her from getting doubled by most enemies. Things start to get alarming when you look at Rinkah’s HP, Resistance, and Luck. Rinkah’s base HP is 20 and her growth rate is 40%. Among the Birthright characters 20 HP is on the low end of the scale, and even with a hypothetical 20/20 level situation Rinkah will only have ~26 HP as a lv20 Oni Savage. Oni Chieftain actually makes things worse since it only gives +1 HP as a promotion bonus and lowers Rikah’s HP growth to 30%. This means she’ll have ~33 HP as a 20/20 unit, which again isn’t likely unless you’re grinding. Rinkah’s poor HP will hinder her ability to make use of her defense stat. Even if she isn’t getting doubled super often, Rinkah will still take enough damage from enemies that she’ll likely die in about 3-4 hits from serious physical enemies. Since Rinkah really wants to have Fiery Blood active, you’ll need to manage her health carefully, enough that she can tank several enemies and not die, but never leaving her at full health since that nerfs her damage output. And all of that isn’t even taking magic based enemies into account, which present a major threat to Rinkah. Not only do Tomes have weapon triangle advantage over Rinkah’s clubs, but they also target her Res, which is one of Rinkah’s weakest stats. Starting at a base of 3 and a growth of 20%, in a best case 20/20 scenario she will have ~6 res as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~15 Res as lv20 Oni Chieftain. That is pitiful, and when you consider how common Tomes are for Nohrian classes (Mage, Sorcerer, Strategist, Dark Knight, Malig Knight) this becomes a persistent threat to Rinkah’s life. At best Rinkah will barely survive 1 encounter with a magical enemy. At worst they will one-shot her. While the Dual Club helps Rinkah to fight back and avoid Tomes more easily, it alone isn’t enough to make Rinkah safe from a magical onslaught. Then lastly we need to remember that Rinkah has a less than impressive 5 Luck. With only a 35% growth she’ll be at ~11 Luck as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~18 Luck as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. While this isn’t Arthur levels of bad, Rinkah’s luck is still low enough that she’s in danger of getting killed by a critical hit. Thus taking all this into account Rinkah needs to be incredibly selective with who she engages since she can only take a handful of physical attacks and one or two magical attacks. Since Birthright is enemy phase heavy due to the high numbers of reinforcements, this makes Rinkah a mediocre defensive unit without help from Tonics and Pair-Up to prop her up. Moving on, Rinkah’s problems continue into the damage department. 8 base strength and a 45% growth aren’t very impressive. This means that statistically if you rank Rinkah up to 20/20 using the Oni Chieftain she’ll gain ~19 total strength (including promo bonuses) for an end total of ~15 strength as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~27 strength as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. That isn’t spectacular, considering Kagero, Takumi and Oboro, and Silas, Hinata, and Saizo each start with equivalent or similar strength stats (15, 13, or 11 respectively) upon recruitment, which means Rinkah will likely be trailing behind other units in damage output. Birthright doesn’t feature a ton of classes with Pair-Up bonuses for attack, with that list comprising of Oni Savages, Spear Fighters, Nohr Prince/cess, Cavalier, Archer, Merchants, and their promoted forms. This means Rinkah will have limited pair up options to patch her strength deficiency. Additionally since these classes only offer 2-3 speed at most (without accounting for support bonuses), Rinkah may have issues with doubling if she’s in a strength pair-up. The best speed pair-up classes in Birthright don’t give any strength, so you’ll have to pick between bonus strength and a little speed or lots of speed and no strength. Clubs have pretty high base might so Rinkah’s mediocre strength can be mitigated somewhat by her equipment and forges, but due to Rinkah’s base E proficiency with Clubs/Axes she’ll have limited weapon options until her weapons rank is improved. So again, she faces an uphill battle just to keep up in damage. Zooming ahead to late game, Generals, Great Knights, and Wyvern Lords will all have defense in the 30’s in later chapters (in Lunatic, anyhow), meaning Rinkah will again be reliant on her weapons, personal skill, and effective damage modifiers for hurting foes. As I stated before in the defense section, this will limit the kinds of enemies Rinkah can engage since she isn’t that durable and she isn’t likely anyone but kill armored foes with the Hammer or normal enemies with a Killer Axe/Great Club crit. All other foes will just get chipped by Rinkah, and since Birthright is enemy phase focused this can lead to enemies piling up around Rinkah, locking you down on player phase as you clean up the mess Rinkah has left for you. After promotion Rinkah will have access to Scrolls. Consequently Rinkah does have alternate means of attack, but Rinkah’s pitiful base 2 magic and 25% magic growth mean she won’t be gaining much in this area. Oni Chieftan gives her +4 base magic and bumps her growth up to 30% but even taking this into account her 20/20 stats will be ~6 magic as an Oni Savage and ~16 magic as an Oni Chieftain. So Rinkah will struggle to deal significant damage with magic, especially considering she can only use the weak Rat Scroll upon promotion. This can sort of be used as a positive since you can throw Rinkah into the middle of a group of enemies that can’t kill her and use their weak attacks and Rinkah’s weak counterattacks as a way to quickly grind up her Scroll proficiency rank, but considering Rinkah still can’t deal much damage even with the stronger scrolls it isn’t really worth the effort. Even the Bolt Axe with its high magical might presents its own set of issues as lowers her avoid (meaning more damage) and prevents Rinkah from dealing critical hits, which is one of the main draws of Oni Chieftain. Because of these factors Rinkah will be leaning heavily upon her personal skill, crits, weapon might, and pair up to deal consistent damage. All in all Rinkah isn’t very impressive as she fails to excel as a tank and and she isn’t a reliable damage dealer either. To be clear; Rinkah is not unusable and can be fixed, especially if you take advantage of Birthright’s grinding features, skirmish rewards, and releasing shenanigans. But she needs a lot of love and help to shine, as she is mediocre on her own. Nevertheless her unique qualities still put her above units like Hana or Subaki, who both fail to perform and are ultimately redundant, which is why I’m comfortable with saying Rinkah is C tier in Birthright in spite of her shortcomings. Anyhow that’s just my 2 cents as someone who started their FE journey with Birthright and who’s played the game many times since then! If I’ve totally missed the mark feel free to let me know, I’m new to doing in depth unit analysis but I think this is more or less accurate. But if I’m wrong please educate me so I can learn more!
Barst is a beast in every game, he was my core unit, also if you reclass him to mercenary and then promoted to general, he is a unstoppable force takin 0 damage even from dragons
I add two people from Berwick Saga Dean and Axel Dean: Easily one of the best Axefighter in the entire series. He nuts, solid bases, amazing skillset. Is the only one that can one round shit in the early game beside Volo but...he cost a shit ton and even so. Deathmatch is super risky. Get a personal axe that pretty good, can use his skill Vengeance to cheese some bosses like Chaos in Chapter 3 and Thor alongside being super accurate in a game where hits rates mean everything. Overall, easily S tier Axel: He might look good with high speed and high strength but...he has no defence Has awful hit rate and overall. He just terrible as combat unit...but his utility is real good as he the only unit that has the skill swim which allows him to cross over water. Which is really helpful to get those bridges alongside having the search. Overall, he is more to be used for his unity not as a unit. B tier.
I honestly feel like FE9 Boyd belongs in A tier. I would list the reasons why, but you said them all yourself in the video. I simply don't think he has enough drawbacks to offset all those positives to push him down to B tier.
@@fangiscool1 these "better" units you are talking about would also be in A tier or higher. At the top of my head, I can only think of Oscar, Titania, Kieran, Jill, Marcia, and Reyson who are better than him when you factor in availability, utility, and investment. Those are all units who easily rank in A tier or higher. And then there are units who eventually get better like Astrid, but she wouldn't rank higher due to availability and the investment it takes to get her there. Even ready-made units like Geoffrey wouldn't rank higher because of how late he joins. By the time he joins, Boyd already had the time to make major contributions to your army that Geoffrey will never get. So yeah, if the only units that outshine Boyd are the insanely good ones, then A tier seems perfectly valid.
@@Sonicfan640 I think Makalov is better too. A tier does seem to make sense. It's just weird to me that there is such an enormous gap between the better units and Boyd, but overall Boyd is better than most of the cast. Anyone not mounted turns into dead weight in PoR because the game is so easy
TLDR: Vaike is a fair C unit. Has some utility albeit very limited in Lunatic On Lunatic, Vaike is usable as a pair up for the added strength. In terms of his own combat, he's your typical physical glass cannon who hits hard but also gets hit pretty hard, which is useful against bulky enemies. Tbh, I've struggled to find him useful throughout the game especially when you have Robin/Chrom and their kids being OP. Also, movement is super important to ensure that your units are in position to either clean up quickly or deal with ambush spawns asap
Vaike is super good on lunatic. He has good base bulk from his high HP and good base attack as well which makes feeding him kills super duper easy. He has really busted promo gains and the sol skill helps him stay relevant late game. Movement is almost a non-issue when you can rescue spam and pair up your way across most maps. It really isn't that big of a deal at all in the mid-lategame. C tier is waaaaay to low. Seriously. The man deserves a high B at least.
@@Hiiyapow I disagree with that assessment. In the early game, Vaike needs the exp to get the ball rolling, which is exp that can be used on others unit such as Chrom and Avatar to get a busted Lucina and Morgan. You could use Lon'qu to shore up his weaknesses, but Lon'qu is much better used as someone who can take on the axe units early game especially when Chrom can't do it alone. As for Sol, that's a good skill, but it doesn't address his bulk issues and mobility. Plus, that's a % skill, which is something I would not bank on when enemies hit really hard and fast. The reason why I like Cherche more is because of her mobility and capability to get in position against ambush fliers, although she will struggle against the Grima Act that is filled with magic attackers. Finally, if your logic is that Cherche sucks because she doesn't fight well in the chapter she joins (I'll admit that those paladins, Bow Knights, and Armor Knights do a number aginst her), then I'd argue that Vaike sucks as well because he goes against a lot of axe units and mercenaries in that chapter and most of Gangrel Act. The only chapter I can think of Vaike getting better would be Warriors Realm, which is one of the most brutal chapters ever that I ended using Frederick a lot! Also, you don't get Lon'qu during that chapter to complement Vaike's weaknesses Perhaps, I can give Vaike another look, as I initially tried to pair up with Cordelia, which didn't work out too well for me.
@@hansonlee5847 Theres more than enough exp to go around early game. It's not like Chrom or the avatar are really losing out if some of it goes to Vaike. He doesnt' really need a huge amount anyway. Lucina is overrated tbh. Like, what can she even do. Her bases are just so mediocre even with 2 really trained parents. Not worth the effort imo. Lonqu isn't the only one who can pair with Vaike. A lot of early game units offer speed, such as panne, gaius and sumia. However, I specifically chose lonqu as vaike helps lonqu as much as lonqu helps vaike. You also have to realise that using lonqu vs the axe fighters is a horrible idea as he can just get outright 1 shot if he gets hit and lon will fall of late game anyways due to his lack of 1-2 range and poor bulk. Vaike can also take on the axe units anyway with a speed pair up. I don't get why lonqu is needed for this. Sol does 100% address his "bulk issues". He doesn't have bulk issues anyway given the insane hp he has and his good defense promo, but sol massively increases his bulk. It literally turns his offense into free defense. The fact that it's a % skill doesn't really matter. If 4 or 5 enemies attack you, you can bank on it going off at least once. Also he has pretty high skill to help it go off more. Because you insist cherche is better, lets do some stat comparisons: Lets compare 15/5 Hero Vaike to 12/1 Wyvern Lord Cherche ( I actually think Griffon is better but WL has better stats so its a fairer comparison. 15/5 Vaike is really easy to get by this point. He could be higher, but i'll keep it at 15/5 for the sake of the argument.). Vaike has around 49Hp at this point. Cherche has around 38. Vaike has around 17 Def at this point. Cherche has around 20 Vaike has sol at this point. Cherche does not. So 15/5 Vaike is pretty much tied for defence and destroying her in HP. He's way bulkier at this point and he could also be a much higher level by this point as well. How about offensive stats? Vaike has around 21 Strength and 19 Speed at this point. Cherche will have around 22 Strength and 15 Speed at this point. Vaike is basically tying Cherches really high Strength but is also leading heavily in the speed department, meaning he can double a lot more. This also isn't taking into account the fact that Cherche is weak to arrows/wind/anti dragon and that she usually wants to go gryphon for deliverer, not wyvern. Even then, Vaike can always just pair up into a flier to move around. Most maps with either have you staying completely still or rocketing towards the end of the map in 1 turn. In the former, Vaike happily sits around and blasts people and in the latter, he can simply pair into one of your fliers to be rushed towards the boss using rescue/dances. My argument wasn't really based on joining chapters intrinsically. It's more that a unit that joins in chapter 12 is getting 2 shot by the armor knights in the chapter (unless she promotes) which is really really bad. Furthermore, Vaike does perfectly fine against axe units. I don't know why you think that he doesn't. He can duel them just fine, as long as he doesn't try to take on too many before promotion. Mercs are even less of an issue given how little they actually show up. You don't get lonq in warrior realm but that's OK because you don't really need him there. Vaike can do a lot of interesting stuff in that chapter like choking one of the hallways or baiting in the hammer fighter so fred doesn't have to. Lonq just helps him around chapter 5 and onwards. Vaikdelia can work fine, honestly. The issue might just be that you are throwing him into too many enemies early. He's bulky, but he isn't a supertank. Generally he can survive 1 hit earlygame and a couple of weaker ones around the early-mid chapter (around chapter 6). He's certainly worth another look. I just came off a no Robin run where he was basically the only good combat unit I had barring Chrom for the entire run. Generally I would say if you are willing to give kills to units like Sully, Stahl or Sumia, try giving those kills to Vaike instead because he can get them easier due to his big attack and also does more with them.
I'd say The Vaike is pretty decent due to his reclasses and his supports being pretty alright. While I wouldn't say he's fantastic, high B/low A is reasonable, because he can pass down a really good str bonus to kids that really want more, like Gerome or Kjelle, without lowering their defense, as well as boosting speed with 2 of his platonic supports, Chrom and Lon'qu. Otherwise, his speed is pretty middling, so he tends to not double, but he also doesn't get doubled by the primarily mage and fighter generic enemies, though his low res is a big bane. However, his high skill coupled sol and the Barbarian line can make him a crit machine that's hard to take down from melee range. In addition, he has over 100% HP growth, plus HP+5, so he tends to live for pretty prolonged periods of time. Overall, he's a great meatshield and crit machine when he gets the ball rolling, but his low res makes mages pretty dangerous. He's pretty standard, but it's a standard worth meeting.
You left out the fact that PoR Boyd can initiate the Bow Triangle Attack and put the whole of his high strength to use, letting him do awesome shit, like one shotting Naesala on that map where most people try to get the Knight's Ring(or whatever it's called). They nerf this in RD by making WARs use crossbows... :( Could you imagine Boyd with the Double Bow? Also though, because you are forced to use Boyd in the early game, it's fairly easy to force his promotion rather early too, meaning you can use Bow Boyd to eliminate problem enemies on player phase, and then tank/attract enemies for your lesser wimps to chip/level on. Like, in optimal play it's probably not much of a thing, but I do it all the time, using promoted Boyd as a mentor unit essentially. His high HP is his durability, so on hard mode it may not apply as much, depending on how fanatically you use Boyd(I basically use him so much that he's promoted by the Crow/Ship map where you get Jill, yes even on Hard, though I haven't done a Maniac playthrough). They nerfed him hard in RD in order to keep you from having two Ikes to retain some challenge for the Greil Mercs(and to make you work harder on Rolf for dat sweet ass triangle attack, one shot Dheginsea, anyone?). I will admit that in RD he is much harder to guarantee use, particularly in hard mode, but he's not that hard to finagle into being a top pick especially with carry over bonus. Since you can support him with anyone, you can enhance him how you'd like. I'm a sucker for him marrying Mist, so I generally don't factor other supports into my playstyle, as Mist goes where the healing is needed, though obviously I take advantage of it when I can/want to/after getting physic staves. Something I will say is that because some of the best units in RD use axes, it's quite neat to juggle axes between your units, particularly in the last map. There was a run I did where I took Boyd, Jill, and Haar into the tower. Against Ashera they juggled Urvan, a Brave Axe, and a Tomahawk between themselves, depending on who misses and where I have them. In both RD and PoR he has the Bond bonus from his brothers, which raises his crit by 10. If you carry over an A support from Titania, Brom, Ulki or Mist, that's another bond bonus in RD. With these, you can boost his crit by +30, allowing him to do crazy stuff like one shot the Black Knight at the River Crossing map(with a hammer). EDIT: I forgot mantle grants Fortune/whoops. With wyrmbane skill he may also one shot Red Dragons with a regular hit(mostly on normal, but also with tide/supports on hard mode as well). White Dragons guaranteed, but they are riskier to fight. Last thing to consider is that within both PoR and RD, there are maps where mounted units cannot move beyond a certain point or have their massive movement nerfed(and in doors they get that -2 move along with fliers, iirc). Boyd doesn't suffer as much on these maps, though admittedly, not every mounted unit has to suffer from them either, at least in RD, since some of those maps are cordoned off by the part 4 split up. All in all, I'd move PoR Boyd to high A tier, my personal bias would put him solidly in S. RD Boyd is a solid B or lower A. I don't think your past evaluations of him were wrong. I consistently see Nolan put over him due to Nolan's growths/Earth, but personally I see Nolan as the lesser of the two, since he starts out in the base class in RD, and requires a lot more work with ultimately less screen time. Work that could go into someone else, like Edward or Jill or Aran /shrug. On a funnier note, this has reminded me of carry over bonus Sothe(irrelevant to the discussion at hand). If you cap Sothe's luck in PoR, it caps at 40. When you carry over to RD it will be 40, but when Yune promotes him to Whisper, Whisper's luck cap is 35, so Carry Over Sothe gets -5 Luck when he promotes. Roblof.OOF
I feel like Raphael is worth a B spot (at least in my playthroughs). He is one of the best gauntlet users in the game, and it can carry him up to warmaster where he is excellent. I wouldn't argue to put him past B, but he feels a tier above those in C. It is quite possible however that I got lucky when using him compared to most though.
I love the guy, but he has serious problems for most of the game. His early game bulk is amazing, but he very rapidly falls off as his speed starts getting him doubled by strong enemies, and he'll never ever double, meaning he won't deal good damage. He also doesn't get any good combat arts until Fierce Iron Fist, with Helmsplitter having only niche use. He does get much better once he gets Quick Riposte, and once his HP starts hitting values beyond mortal comprehension, but that's a solid half the game in the middle where he's miserable, and probably spends part of that time as the worst unit in the game. The fact that he can't use relics without HP loss, can't use gauntlets if you make him a healer during the middle portion, and has a personal skill that may as well not exist just nails the coffin shut. Though, hilariously, he actually makes a pretty solid dancer, even if he's one of the few characters that might actually lose the White Heron Cup. If you get a speed-blessed Raphael, he's fantastic, I've had one once, but that's so rare that it counts as a lie.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I guess I have just got speed blessed every time I use him. He isn't super fast, but he for sure can double/quadruple slower enemies with gauntlets and his damage is so high he doesn't need the extra base damage of heavier weapons.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 there are ways to avoid getting doubled whit him. For example, you can instruct early in swords so be can make the certification for thief, wich would be a +4 spd over his level 10 base and keep it out of most early-mid doubling thresholds. You don't even need to get C, you have a fairly high chance on D+(or you can scum at D but i find this this to be too chesy to matter.) It should not delay anything important by much, because brigand-Grappler-War Master does not have any difficult requirement.
In my experience, Vaike is fairly good on Hard mode, not much better than anyone else before promo but a little better than average after thanks to Sol as you mentioned. +4 Str pairup at base is really good on Hard. On Lunatic his mileage is much more limited; his base Spd is a bit low, and although the Str pairup is hypothetically nice, it’s hard to find someone to use it. Vaike is solid in his own right for Hard, but not excellent. I’d probably put him below Ross, but he’s definitely better than Rinkah.
I think that Arthur and Caspar got some rough rankings. Arthur is definitely worse and is probably D-Tier in Conquest, as while in a vacuum he seems decent, his low Luck will get him crit pretty frequently and even with his high HP the enemies can still semi-reliably one-shot or two-shot him and his middling skill means he’ll miss a lot, opening him up to even more crits. He’s a good backpack, but that’s about it. Caspar actually makes for really good armored units with his good defensive growths and he makes for a pretty decent great knight. I think he’s probably still C-Tier but he definitely bridges to B-Tier as he can be great wall/bait unit.
Woops, no Charlotte. Granted she joins a bit late but she prolly should've been there. Oh well, similarly to Arthur I have no real experience with her other than a good pair up bot, so it wouldn't have been a very deep analysis anyway. Her personal skill seems...situational? I remember there are some female enemies in Fates so it might activate sometimes but I couldn't tell you how often you fight female enemies in that game. But yeah Xander backpack/10.
You fight mostly male enemies and the female enemies often have poor defence anyway. So yeah, she's pretty much just a stat backpack
Vanja Galović agreed the only place where her skill is useful is a crit build for the online battles where you fight a lot of female enemies
I mean, if you put some work into her, she can crit on almost every attack. Problem with Charlotte is how long it takes her to become viable, even in Conquest
Charlotte can be good with her high attack, good crit, and decent hit(competitively), but by the time you get her you already have Camilla so you need to plan her use.
Angry NoctSwift noises
"Kaga didn't like axe users."
Yeah, he hated them so much that he left them out of Gaiden entirely.
@Beauty Oliver Hector's alright
@Beauty Oliver kaga didnt make fe7
@Beauty Oliver Who ISN'T better than Roy? Lilina and Wolt deserve way better than that Gary Stu dork. Like, say, Gonzales and Guinevere respectively. Or the other way around, I'm not particular. So long as Roy dies alone.
@@Warmaster00 what about Thracia and Orsin's Pugi
@@Jadanbr PUGIPUGIPUGI
My thesis is that they were never clear whether the fighter is meant to represent a axe using soldier or a lumberjack they just conscripted. Both methods contribute differently to the game
Agreed, it's a very ambiguous class.
Garcia is very clearly a soldier, Dorcas is more of a modestly trained mercenary, and Bartre is just... dumb. Really.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 PUNCH ME
I think that's why they're just "fighters." They're strong dudes who can fight with axes, so the vagueness of the term just fits any range of combat experience.
@@Warmaster00 also Bord (or Cord) in their endings for FE3 book 1 says they became lumberjacks
It was a class theme reused from Dungeons and Dragons, a class of the same name. Bet. From what I know it's a bit of a straightforward beginner's first character class. Hp and strength bonus in FE seem to be in line with the philosophy.
At first I was like "hey wheres all the fe2/15 characters?"
And then I remembered.
On awakening and Vaike:
(Analysis based on lunatic mode)
Vaike definitely feels like more of a low A/ high B tier unit. He joins super early and is really easy to train due to his high base attack which means he can be fed kills easier. He also has a huge pool of hit points so he can survive a hit from pretty much anything that you want, whether it be the early hammer fighters, or just really jacked barbarians, he can take the hit so others don't have to. If trained well, you can tank the mid choke point in chapter 6 pretty much indefinitely, although he may need a specific pair up depending on how his stats have grown.
One thing that a lot of people tend not to notice is his axe rank which is D. It doesn't seem all that impressive but it's actually really good when you take into consideration everyone elses weapon ranks at this point. Barring your 4 really good units (Robin,Fred,Chrom,Lissa) everyone else has pretty crappy weapons that really hurt their damage output. (Stahl and Sully have E swords/lances for 3 might weapons, Miriel uses 2 might fire, Virion is just a dumpster fire anyway etc)
He also gets access to the hammer from chapter 3 which can either act as a 10 might weapon for him, or just let him beat up some armours in later chapters.
Combine his decent bulk and attacking power and he becomes one of your better units at base. He's obviously not even close to your main 4 at the beginning, but he's a lot stronger than the rest of the bunch.
Perhaps his biggest weakness is his "low" speed which is a base of 6, same as Stahl. This will cause him to get doubled by a fair amount of enemies at base, although its actually extremely easy to fix. Speed pair ups are incredibly common in awakening and Vaike will pretty much always have someone on hand to give him some extra points of speed. (Just in the first 6 maps, Robin,Chrom,Sumia,Lonqu,Gaius, and Panne will all give a bunch of speed on pair up-- other units will give 1 or 2 points as well).
This is especially true once chapter 5 rolls around and lonqu shows up, offering an incredible +5 to speed for Vaike, while Vaike offers lonqu the defense and Strength he needs to do more damage. They pair really well together. (Don't worry about not being able to reach S support as the difference between S and A support is insanely miniscule).
Towards lategame, I try to pair Vaike with one of my falcoknights (usually Lissa as they have a fast building support) to help him get around a bit more and for some extra speed and resistance, both of which he really appreciates.
Vaike also sports a 50% speed growth, meaning that within 1 or 2 levels, he can get to the point where enemies aren't doubling him for free anymore (unpaired).
The absolute biggest selling point of Vaike would be his early promotion. At the end of chapter 8, you will be given a master seal from one of the villages. Vaike is an incredible candidate for this. His promotion (to hero) gains will grant him (among other things) an insane +6 to skill, +5 to speed and +4 to defense.
He also gains access to E swords, allowing him the mighty 3 might bronze sword. This is usually useless, but it can be brought out if he needs weapon triangle on a powerful axe user, or is facing an enemy axe breaker hero.
Suddenly, he changes from a unit that does one big hit to a unit that does 2 big hits and kills something. Hand axes are also buyable at this point in the game, so he can run around juggernauting his way through the next few chapters with his massively improved offense and defense. After a few chapters, he will gain his second huge powerspike when he gets sol at level 5 hero.
Once Vaike gets Sol, he is practically invincible as long as only a few mages are involved. Even then, he can make use of the ward staff or res pair ups to help avoid damage. He can easily carry your combat throughout the entire game from this point, with a few exceptions in magic/ axebreaker heavy chapters like 17 or 23 where it may be wise to have someone capable of dealing with those things.
Lategame, he performs pretty OK as a bosskiller. A lot of people hype up needing galeforce for lategame, but its a skill that's really late coming in a mediocre class. I could do an entire rant on how Sumia and galeforce are super overrated, but this isn't really the time or place.
It's entirely possible just to 1- turn rescue skip most of lategame anyway and you just need someone to kill the boss. Against most bosses, Vaike will be fine to ORKO, but some of them (such as Yenfay), he may have to rely on a crit to kill in 1 turn, due to the boss having really high speed.
On kids, fathering and the like: It's completely irrelevant for the main game. Apotheosis is a different beast, but if all you care about is beating the game, kids are worthless 99% of the time and a tiny tiny increase to their stat caps is basically worthless. For what it's worth, he's supposedly the best dad for strength.
Overall, I wouldn't say he's quite Orsin tier as Orsin has a better early game (I think? I haven't played thracia a huge amount, and it could just seem that way due to thracias pretty weak enemies) but he's certainly one of the top dogs when it comes to the fighter class and deserving of a higher spot in the tier list. I think part of what seperates him from other juggernauts in awakening is how early he starts dominating the game. Other people either join later or require specific weapons/skill/second seals whereas Vaike can just have a master seal slapped on him and he starts tearing everything to pieces.
TLDR: Vaike is a pretty classic fighter for 2 chapters, then he gets an insane speed pair up and becomes good, then he gets an insane promotion and becomes busted, then he gets an insane skill and the game snaps in half. Enemy axebreaker heroes are pretty lame though. Top of B tier at the absolute least, probably belongs in A tier.
Yeah, I used him in my recent Awakening and he was my best unit (My Robin was actually really bad.)
Pretty interesting comment, never used Vaike a lot and it may be a good time to try him out. Thank you.
@@zecke58 now I'm curious. Were you just stat screwed, or were your asset/flaw combo not great?
Conor B. Definitely both. I hadn’t played Fire Emblem in years so I put Boon in Skill and bane in Res. Very bad idea
@@zecke58 oof, that res bane must have hurt. If I recall, -res gives more penalties to other stats than -def. I remember when I first played Fates, my Corrin sucked because I chose -hp and that gives a decent amount of stat drops. I might need to brush up on what other stats the flaws drop, as I'm planning on doing an Apotheosis run of Awakening once I finish Dragon Quest 8
You're really making me want a RD LP. Maybe you could invite Bismix to it after Echoes? Love that LP and both of your commentary!
THE PROPHET
This aged well
The funny thing about Hand Axes in FE3 is that they actually weigh *less* than javelins (9 vs. a massive 20), while also having 3 less might than them. Barst in that game also has 9 base speed with a 50% growth, and assuming you really invest into him, he can be one of the few physical units to be able to double with a 1~2 range weapon, especially considering the slow enemies and the fact that in Mystery of the Emblem you only need 3 extra speed to double, as opposed to 4 in later games. While that _sounds_ good, it’ll still take a while, and 1~2 range on enemies is so infrequent in a game that also has low enemy density that I never find it to be genuinely useful, more like a funny novelty.
Hey, wanna hear something funny? Barst, who joins in chapter 2 in FE11, has a personal base defense of 3, which not only is the same as Maria, but the only characters who have a personal base in that stat higher than that are the very late game units Ymir, Nagi and Gotoh.
Axe unite can’t even promote lmfao
"I like Gonzales as much as the next guy, but he's gonna have to be featured in another video".
*Sad brigand critical shriek*
The only bad thing about hilda is that she can’t become a war master and get quick ripose
Hilda in the war master outfit would be too much for me to handle
yeah to bad war master is a topless class XD
Kryptnyt i normally have the monastery designs on all time so it wouldnt be a problem with me
But they would obviously redesign it
Ray _z they would probably give it it’s unique design
War Master would easily be amazing, however Hilda is generally speedy and is extremely Player Phase orientated compared to Raphael/other Axe users who are good with Quick Riposte because of the lack of speed.
War Cleric is hands down amazing with Hilda as you can run up a lot of damage and eventually get Brawling Avoid +20 which can combine to other skills to make her extremely deadly of a unit. She has access to all of the blows, Seal Speed if that is your thing, and easy to get into great classes. Overall, she does not need War Master but it would have been cool. I just wish Warrior and War Cleric had at least +20 Crit like War Master but they do not necessarily need it.
Berserkers can get strong enemy phase in Conquest Lunatic, but you have to work for it. I said in my CQ 17 video that you probably can't hit the 1-shot threshold for Master Ninjas with physical 1-2, but it's just barely feasible for Berserker x Berserker pairs with tonic, Strength meal, and a forged Hand Axe. Arthur does that pretty well because his stats are hilariously minmaxed, and you can buff his Def a little so that even a crit or two won't kill him. Late-game Berserkers with a bunch of +damage skills can do this to some other types of enemies, too.
The problem is there really isn't any need for the Berserker's overkill offense at any point in the game, and they don't offer much utility besides being excellent pair-up bots, which you don't need to train much if that's all you're going to be doing with them. Arthur getting an S-rank with Camilla or Beruka not only pushes their own offense to become excellent, but they also pass him the Wyvern rider line, which makes him far more useful in more situations than as a Berserker. They're fun to use, but if you're gonna be an axe wielder, you might as well try to reclass into the best axe wielding class. Wyvern Lords have comparable offense, easily hitting one-shot threshold for master ninjas just as well as berserkers, along with having far better bulk, flight, and adaptability that the 'zerkers can't match.
This is also the case for Charlotte if you actually choose to take the time to train her as a unit. You can either make her a ridiculous glass cannon that's footlocked, has little utility and generally cannot extend beyond player phase as a Berserker, or she can basically become a second Camilla with ridiculous Str and Speed, along with gaining an actual semblance of a defense stat to pair with her massive HP pool and growth with a Wyvern reclass.
@@GIR177 To be clear, I'm talking about the 48 Attack threshold to kill MNs after Steel Shuriken debuff; hitting that lets you kill 4-5 ninjas per turn. 20/1 Berserker Arthur averages 25 Str and likely B Axes, tying in Attack with Wyverns like -/7 MK Camilla, 20/4 WL Selena (who's underrated), and 20/6 WL Effie!Percy. He also has easier access to a +8 Str pair-up at that point, with S Effie after a Partner Seal.
25 + 8 (Berserker Effie) + 7 (Hand Axe) + 2 (+1 Forge) + 2 (Tonic) + 2 (Meal) + 1 (B WTA) + 1 (Laslow) = 48.
Camilla can get +7 from Arthur himself, but her only +8 is S Berserker Keaton, who costs an extra Heart Seal and whose S rank isn't available yet without multiple paralogues after his join chapter. Hilariously, he will almost always make her *too* strong: base Camilla has 18 Def, and he adds 2, while enemy MNs lose 4 Atk from weapon ranks when facing axes. The Steel Shuriken MNs only have 26 Atk, so they'll refuse to attack her if she has hit B Axes and gained even a single point of Defense. Same problem if you ever make her a Wyvern Lord.
If we ignore that and just look at attack power, Camilla is more likely than Arthur to need a +2 forge, which costs a cool 3600 G. Alternatively, you can bring a separate Berserker for Rally Strength, or someone with Inspiration (but that brings up the too-much-Def issue again).
@@Zoran501 I've found that ninjas attack even if they do 0 damage (at least in chapter 25), so Camilla gaining defence shouldn't be an issue.
@@GreatBigHill In 17, they definitely don't attack if the target can counterattack, and I'm fairly sure that rule holds in 25 as well. Spy's Shuriken ninjas in 25 (and the Spy's Yumi automata) will attack anyone because it's impossible to counterattack them.
@@Zoran501 In my experience the Ch.25 Master Ninjas really don't care about higher defense because they're continually stacking debuffs anyway, so eventually they start to hurt like hell. Stat stacking to one-shot them also isn't too hard because the Silver shurikens they wield do not debuff strength, so the 58 attack threshold after WT needed to kill them is consistent and the real goal is just not taking on too many of them at once. Even still, that's basically only two chapters where ninjas make up the vast majority of enemy forces, one of which doesn't have to be bothered with. Den of Betrayal is an important chapter for a unit to shine in, but it's also one that can be trivialized by choking points with your shiny new tank Xander, so outside of optimized LTC, not one-shotting the shinobi isn't too big of deal in case none of your characters can quite reach it. You do demonstrate a better case than me though, I haven't combed through all the math as much.
I'm a bit surprise how there were nobody at E tier, anyways, i could move up Garcia to B tier, Axes in FE8 are very good, and his stat line is very good in earlier chapters, after that he can still be competent if he promotes to Hero for the extra Speed, while it maybe worst than Gerik, he will have higher Axe rank than him from quite a while and Garm is just and insane Weapon that also gives him a speed for Garcia. So he is good imo.
I agree with Garica being in B. Hero promotion and Garm solve his main issue of speed. His early game is actually pretty strong as well. Him being in the same tier as Ross and Fe7 Bartre sits poorly with me.
@@boredomkiller99
Garcia def should be higher than Ross by a bit. Didn't Mekkah himself make a WAIFU on that topic?
@@l.n.3372 He did indeed, the gap between Ross and Garica is pretty noticable. Main thing Ross has over Garica is option to go Pirate to Berserker which allows him to water walk on the map with Selena and end her bolting ways though Dolza can water walk just by existing but hey.
@@boredomkiller99
Yeah he has that pirate advantage. But the start might not be worth investment for an easy Garcia worth less investment. Not to mention the ocean seal makes for a good amount of money if you'd rather not waste the item. Hero crest is more obtainable to my memory.
I mean he isn't really bad late game even without the Garm thanks to the hero promotion. He hits all the benchmarks needed to ORK, 1-2 range and can survive a beating Also I wouldn't say anyone is good with legendary weapon like Innes is still a mediocre unit due to being a sniper and let's not talk about how not good Knoll with the legendary dark tome is or how excalibur is too freaking heavy for anyone to use so yeah just going disagree with you there. The real issue with the Garm is that Dussel kind of wants that Axe as well as it patches up his only problem stat so there is competition.
A couple other points in Garica's favor is that there is little competition for a hero crest. Ross is flat out worse as a hero or warrior and rather go pirate to berserker. Garica is generally overall better then Joshua due to durability and 1-2 range handaxe or hatchet useage making him a much better enemy phase unit. Joshua is a better boss killer but you don't lack boss killers in fe8 and you don't need that many. Gerik is the only character more worthy of a crest but guy literally brings his own so no competition.
Garica isn't amazing late game but he is still good enough which is all you need in a game pack with tons of good late game units and also ignoring most people warp skip the last few levels. Meanwhile he brings one of the stronger low investament early games, arguable one of the best since vanessa needs to be treated with kid's gloves early on and needs help getting kills due to bad damage and Franz needs a few levels before he can snowball. Only units with better combat at that point is Seth and Joshua when it cones to player phase but Joshua doesn't deal with enemy phase well. Don't get me wrong Garica isn't an amazing or even needed unit but he is far better then the rest of C tier in this list.
For anyone who cares, he actually starts the list at 4:15
Thank you
I would throw Hilda in A tier. There are very few situations where she struggles and she is one of the few GD units with good enemy phase on Maddening.
Very similar to SD Barst: an all around solid combat unit and very easy to use
Agreed.
Her only problems are her inability to pick up War Master, her late recruitment in SS, and kind of a special vulnerability to being stat screwed, as both her speed and durability are only good, and if either one falls behind, she kind of falls apart.
She's one of the best units for taking the first Death Knight, and just as often as ending up screwed, she can end up blessed, and Hilda runs with a snowball really well.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290
Hilda's biggest weakness IMO is actually her bane in authority, since her Gambit will be mediocre for a while. Her speed can be hit or miss if you don't stay in Pegasus for a bit.
And while she personally doesn't learn a good combat art, she has Apocalyptic Flame to one-shot enemies for a long time up until the enemies get super stat inflated at the end of Part 2. Amazing early game utility and good combat from mid-game to late-game earns her a spot in A tier.
I do not believe that is correct to say she is one of the few units who are good in enemy phase. I found much higher and greater success out of player phase compared to enemy phase due to her set up. Easily, she has access to all of the physical blow skills (it would be a bit hard to get her Duelist Blow unless you was already going War Cleric) and those offer +6 in STR/DEF/AS. This makes it extremely easy for Hilda to take on scary foes without much worry and would make her great for brawling (War Cleric is AMAZING for her). You could set up easily the blow skills above (maybe take out Armored if you want to, she has high HP and great defense already then replace it with Alert Stance+ or Seal Speed for the early game) and have Hit+20 then Weapon Proficiency. She could be good for enemy phase if you make her a really decent dodge tank but too many hits will get her killed (Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Fliers are scary for Hilda as she will die during enemy phase). You can also have a rather nice "Wraith of Vantage" build but that can be too risky or requires Retribution to do successfully (or Chalice of Beginnings). Point is, Hilda is extremely solid for player phase rather than enemy phase. But she should definitely be up higher.
@@GreyWandererXD I think it might be safer to say she has good enemy phase for the early game. 8spd and 6def is up there on the defensive spread, and with Rally Spd from Ignatz she might not even get doubled by the Chapter 2 thieves with a speed level up. Slower enemies won't give her too much trouble either and with good growths in both stats she won't be hit that hard for the earlier, hardest chapters of the game.
Bord has some benefits if he reclasses to pirate, the whole difference between Bord and Cord aside from weapon rank is that Bord has high skill and bad speed growth and reverse for Cord. However, reclassing Bord to pirate increases his speed base, evens out his growth, and keeps his C rank axes.
Eh,in fe11 pirate is actually slower than fighter........
Being this early there's only one thing I want to ask:
What happened to Dorcas?
@Tesseracthanos build an army. trust nobody.
Fire Emblem, Only for the Gameboy
@Tesseracthanos HAHAHAHAHAHA
I poisoned his axe
I put poison in his promotion gains
Vaike and Lon’qu complement each other pretty well when paired up. Swordmaster Lon’qu gives Vaike some speed, and Warrior/Berserker Vaike gives Lon’qu some strength. Neither are particularly great on their own, Awakening pair up is just busted.
Honestly, anyone in Awakening can solo an entire army if they have an A or S support partner paired up with them. In this case, Lon’qu is also pretty dodgy.
@@sammich6257 I don't know about that. Units like Sumia are always goint to be made of paper no matter which way you slice it, and units like Lonqu will be locked to 1 range as well. Vaike is better at combat in this regard as he is insanely bulky and has access to 1-2 range with the strength to use it well.
Hiiyapow It’s not super reliable, but the majority of Awakening’s cast can dodge tank. It’s not viable and if RNG isn’t on your side, you’re screwed. I’m going to assume you aren’t too familiar with Awakening, because Lon’qu has easy access to the Levin Sword (it deals magic damage, I know), and later on, if he became a Swordmaster, he can use Amatsu. Lon’qu does have better res, but it’s nothing to write home about. In Awakening, I think that very few characters have more than two bad growths (ik that growths aren’t everything). Lon’qu’s bad growths are Defense and Resistance, Vaike’s only bad growth is Resistance. Lon’qu’s Avo +10 skill is worth noting, as the difference between 52 and 42 percent hit could be life or death. Vaike has easier 1-2 range, and can get Sol. Lon’qu can get Lethality (unreliable) and/or Astra, not to mention Swordfaire to help with his inconsistent Strength. It boils down to what you want. Vaike is more reliable and you can expect him to recover HP and take small damage (from physical enemies), and you can expect Lon’qu to melt through enemies by dodging and activating criticals and Astra.
@@sammich6257 Gonna go point by point on this one mate.
"Majority of awakenings cast can dodge tank".
Not really. At least, not on lunatic. You are correct that most of the cast has reasonably good avoid, however a lot of these units will be facing 50/50 hit rates early which aren't fantastic. Even the dodgier ones like lonq risk death for 25-30% ish hit rates. It's not really that viable for a lot of people.
"I’m going to assume you aren’t too familiar with Awakening". Don't do that. Both because it isn't true and because you will make yourself look like an idiot.
" Lon’qu has easy access to the Levin Sword". Ah, you mean the sword that shows up after chapter 11 is over? What are you using before then for 1-2 range then? And what about when it breaks? And what about the fact that is magic based and lonq has 1 base magic so will do basically no damage with it.
"If he became a Swordmaster, he can use Amatsu". What are you doing in between the chapters where you get amatsu and the Levin sword breaking? Vaike can just casually buy 30,000 hand axes but lonqu has no consistent, reliable 1-2 range option late game. And what happens when amatsu breaks?
I honestly have no idea wtf you are trying to say in your section about growths so i'll clear my own statement up.
Lonqu has bad base strength and defense. Vaike has so-so base speed. Lonqu provides vaike with more speed. Vaike provides lonqu with strength and defence. That is all. Vaikes res sucks but his hp is so high it doesn't matter.
"It boils down to what you want.". I agree. If you want to win the game, use Vaike. If you don't, use lonqu.
"You can expect Lon’qu to melt through enemies by dodging and activating criticals and Astra" . From 1 Range. With shoddy strength. And Vaike probably does more damage anyway.
Funny that you mention crits given how Vaike actually can end up critting better than lonqu anyway if Vaike decides to go berserker.
You have a fair point about Lunatic. I’ve heard that it’s brutal.
Sorry about that. I think that your statement is ultimately fine. While he does have two range, both options are flawed.
The Levin Sword does magic damage, something Lon’qu has none of. Of course, you can give him stat boosters, but they’d be better off on pretty much anybody. Amatsu’s dropped in chapter 18, so you have 8 chapters, plus paralogues to use it, so it’s not around for a very long time.
Yeah, I kinda went off on a tangent there. But, I think that saying Vaike’s HP makes up for his res is dangerous. It’s like Charlotte, yeah, they have ridiculous HP, but 30 damage is a huge chunk of HP. In Awakening, having low res isn’t as much of a penalty as it is in Fates, but it’s still a problem due to so many Dark Fliers. But you’re right, they make a great pair up for each other.
I think that using Energy Drops on Lon’qu isn’t a lost cause. He has a 55% strength growth, he’ll level it more often than not. I’m aware that he can get screwed and that, ultimately, he has garbage base strength, that’s that. Late game Awakening likes to throw a lot of enemies at you, so unless you’re counting Lunatic mode, Lon’qu’s dodgy enough to be able to survive an enemy phase with a pair up. You bring up a really good point about how Lon’qu and Vaike compliment each other.
I can’t remember if Berserkers have a crit bonus in Awakening. Lon’qu does have better Skill, but Vaike’s isn’t anything to laugh at, like most axe fighters. And if Berserkers have a high crit bonus, then yes, I stand corrected.
Pleasantly surprised at how high you placed Nolan after some of your comments in the Radiant Dawn LP. Good to see my Brolan in B tier!
I think Nolan's good, I just don't think he's the best thing since sliced bread. I feel like a lot of people rate him based off of his earlygame performance only.
@@Mekkkah Not really, it's more that many players come in with the perspective of training both him and Jill, not realising that just training Jill alone is at least as viable in NM, and outright better in HM. He matches or surpasses Jill in basically every category except mobility, and while a skilled player would know that Jill is still clearly the better pick, less experienced players who value movement less will consider them to be more closely matched. Thus, people train him, and when trained he is genuinely quite exceptional, usually reaching the top 5 units with ease, especially as training him makes Jill weak enough that clearing maps with her is no longer that possible, and then those people sing Nolan's praises, not realising that they could have just used Jill and their playthrough overall wouldn't have changed much.
Obligatory TRS Comment
Bartz: pretty good in his join map, has accuracy issues and kinda outclassed otherwise. His weapon level is kinda shaky and is one away from using Killer Axe. He does get flurry at level 15 but getting levels in TRS w/o Paragon takes a while. Falls behind mounts in Runan and has some competition for deployment on Holmes route and has stiff competition for Hero Crests as well. Not too hot C Tier
Samson: Pretty solid throughout Holmes Route. Has the weapon level to use Killer Axe, is 4 levels away from promo and is has dibs to one of the many hero crests u get with only Vega Shigen and Lionel giving him a run for his money, 13 speed is pretty good at base. Has solid growths and Brave Axe access. Still solid outdoors, just pretty good for anyone who didn't miss him by accident. B tier
Ezekiel: worst than Bartz and Samson easily. Picking him means missing out on two of Narron, Lee and Lionel. His bases are not too great and only reason people pick him is for Leteena event. Also 4 move is just awful at base and 7 base speed is pretty fucking bad too. If you want to use him, you probably want to pick him for 1st Wellt pick, not worth the trouble. Probably D Tier quite frankly for early. Definitely, E Tier if u pick him as 2nd wellt choice on Holmes route.
Edit: Lionel uses knight crest not hero crest oops
Lionel actually needs a Knight’s crest, not a hero’s crest. Samson has good bases and good growths, and joins in a route that favors infantry. He’s one of the tankier infantry units which is very useful against the annoying Mogalls.
Bartz is pretty good up until the first split. If he doesn’t go with Holmes, he’ll probably sit nicely on the bench for the rest of the game. If he goes with Holmes, he’s essentially a slightly worse Samson. Not awful, but not as good as Samson.
Ezekiel fucking hurts man. A steel axe with a base speed of 7. He has negative AS. He has a good promo, but why pick him over Lionel later, who is basically Ezekiel with a better starting weapon, better bases, more mov, and better growths. Ezekiel will lag behind the Wellt arc and just kinda slow down the Holmes route. It’s just really sad. (He’s better than Luca though...)
You had my like as soon as you introduced him as THE Vaike. Well done.
S tier Orsin as it should be.
One thing to note about the Archanean fighters is that in FE1, the shops stop selling axes after a certain point (in FE3 they keep selling them all the way until chapter 16). This makes the axe users harder to use in that game.
Mekkkah: how's this for a tier list idea -- Backstabbers, that is, characters who serve on your side before being fought later as an enemy **in the same game**. Not red units that you recruit or green units that become red, but blue units that become red units after you had a chance to control them. Obviously this will have to exclude 3H and certain FE10 units. This would include characters like FE12 (but not FE3) Sheena, Black Knight, Jill, Orson, Scarlet, Shinon, and our Lord and Saviour Marty. And Siegfried. Actually, I think Marty was literally the first Blue Unit that you could fight as a red unit.
build an army TRUST NO ONE
@@Warmaster00 No. They don't "betray" you. Corrin betrayed them if anything.
Could put Zieg in there from TRS to help boost the roster.
I would love watching a Mekkah plays Radiant Dawn let's play. It's such a fun game.
*Mekkah plays title screen from Ocarina of Time*
Me: "You have my attention."
Spectacular video mekah
Did you just say "the Kein and Alva archetype?" Wow, Mekkah, you do play a lot of Thracia.
I know I'm posting this question late, but what do you use to generate the Tier list? I've tried doing a search but I can't find a customize-able one.
Rinkah should be lower than Vaike for sure. Vaike is pretty fast and a big damage dealer. He has good early 1-2 range. Rinkah doesn't do much full stop. She's kind of tanky but a Spear Fighter or Knight does the job better. Her promotions aren't great either. You have free weapons class and axe and magic??? Vaike gets Hero and Warrior. Hero is better for him imo but Warrior gets Counter
Not to mention when Rinkah joins (after the route split) she’s super disappointing, she can’t use Hand Axes at base, and her strength is kinda low for an axe user. Though, she can be a good mother for every physically oriented child. Of course, once she gets going, she’s really good, and along with Oboro, she’s one of the best tanks in Birthright/Revelation.
I've played Fates on an emulator a decent amount and Rinkah is one of the worst units in my experience. She always ends up being really fucking squishy, and seems to stuggle to do even the most basic tasks. And she always gets doubled too. I have to pump every single stat buff into her if I want to use her.
Arthur is also pretty bad, but at least he can do some stuff and usually avoids getting doubled.
Percher Arthur is super balanced (minus luck and res). Rinkah’s kinda slow and weak, so I can see her being at the bottom for Fates.
@@sammich6257 Rinkah suffers strongly from the eliwood-syndrom as somebody once aptly put it. She can turn out to be an absolute beast (although her str will prob always be on the shifty side) or she'll be absolute garbage. I did the pain to play through brithright a few times (wanted a run without using the royals.. it was a royal pain) and usually took her with me. She usually took alot more levels to get going than her companions andwhile she luckily was fats enough not to get hit a second time in the face like many other axe-users, she was still plenty frail and usually failed to do enough damage to take the enemy out due to her low str. There was that one run, where she was relaly blessed but that was more the exception. I usually put her with a Str-pairup for her of had her backseat Ryoma to give him some really needed str and def.
She's usually a pair-up-bot for me.
One thing you didn't mention about Johalva is that having bows on promotion is really nice since there are so many strong wyverns in gen 2 so having as many bow users as possible is helpful. Also you can deploy everyone in genealogy so there's no reason not to use him. I feel he should be bumped up a few spots since he is definitely better than the fe 7 fighters imo.
Can't wait for the gauntlets tier list
An extra thing about Ross, once I iron manned fe8 but restricted myself from not being able to use tower of valni. I decided to use Ross and discovered (Probably already commonly known, but just a thing to note) that you can promote him to pirate on the chapter after you get him WITHOUT having to get a single kill + I got a ton of free axe proficiency.
If you don't care about turn count, once you kill everything on chapter and get to the boss, make him use his steel axe by having Seth stand in close range (Make sure he doesn't kill), on the next turn, get Seth out his attack range then just have Ross 2 range with his hatchet, and rescue drop him with two other units and repeat, Ross gets around 30xp if he hits (roughly 45% hit chance). You can get him to level 10 in about 5-10 minutes, depends on hit rate rng. You can also build supports in the meantime.
BTW, not asking for Ross to go up on tier list, I say the fact you even have to do this makes him a bad character, but Berserker Ross is really fun to use.
Ross can fortunately get to Pirate by Ch7 or at least Ch8 without preventing Franz/Vanessa/Artur from promoting, fortunately. Though they could get more EXP before promoting if Ross didn't need to kills. But overall yeah FE8 earlygame is flexible enough to use Ross, especially in a casual playthrough.
@@Mekkkah Absolutely, Ross is still usable without this cheese. The min-maxer in me (PITFALL ALERT) still doesn't want to waste all the xp that could go to others. It was my first iron man ever so I wanted as many advantages as possible.
50:43 Little did Mekkah know that he would do an entire playthrough to also prove if the Vaike can carry Lunatic nearly 3 years later
I would love to see a lord tier list or a lone/third cavalier tier list (like Silas and lowen)
TFW comparing the Shadow Dragon weapon weight system to 3H instead of Tellius, the games immediately preceding Shadow Dragon with the exact same system that clearly was the reason for its implementation in Shadow Dragon... *sad Ike noises*
War master Caspar in maddening is actually pog
*war master in maddening is actually pog
In house caspar is probs the worst unit in the game lmao
War Master is the best
Warmaster is great, but fierce iron fist from grappler is just too good to pass up
Vaike is one of the only early game units in Awakening who can take 3 hits instead of almost everyone else, who dies in 2, making him a decent tank early on, if Frederick cannot completely choke a point, he also 2 rounds generic archers and soldiers in chapter 3, which can help you give kills to units you'd want to use, like Chrom, Robin, one of the pegasus knights, or maybe even someone like Donnel or Gaius, so in conclusion, I believe Vaike deserves at least B tier
To me, Osian is easily S Tier because Warth. I was awesome in my party
Frederico Ricardo Silveira To be fair, almost everyone before Manster misses those chapters.
the amount of head bands in this video is killing me
Vaike is pretty great for at least a few chapters with Lon'Qu or Chrom. Simialr to what you said with Rinkah, his pair-up stats are really nice for an already fast character.
The fe1 Let's Play was from Didja Redo. Looked it up and I love it.
I think Fighters as a whole are much better in Ironman or similar scenarios. They seem almost specifically designed to be "flash in the pan" short term units, that float you through the early game until "real" units get off their feet, or hold a line in a precarious situation where their survival isn't a priority. They perform relatively well when underlevelled.
Most people don't play Fire Emblem this way, they want to get and save everyone, tend to emphasize late game performance, and focus their efforts on a constant, nuclear party, and so they get a reputation for being bad.
Also, Garcia should be higher. At least B, possibly even A.
In the context of Sacred Stones, where Seth, Vanessa, and Franz exist, Garcia has a hard time standing out, but he still performs admirably and if you were to drop him into FE 6 or 7, he'd be one of the strongest units in the game. He has fantastic bases and serviceable growths, even if you take him into Warrior, he's great, let alone Hero Garcia.
Garcia is more reminiscent of the "Good Mercenary" to me, he just happens to be a Fighter.
I concd challenged myself to play 2 FE8 routes simultaneously, splitting up my party so that whoever went to Eirika route couldn't be used in my simultaneous Ephraim route and vice versa. Since Gerik joins Eirika earlier, I gave Garcia to Ephraim route. He's no Gerik but Garcia is pretty good, and not being Gerik is hardly a flaw.
Mekkah give vision quest a chance it is a great rom hack it is better than a lot of the of the main games in my opinion
The Gaucho Amigo feuniverse.us/t/fe8-complete-fire-emblem-vision-quest-v1-18-22-jul-20-full-hack-release/3815
What's the hack being played in the bottom right?
As for Gonzales: Scoundrels type tier list, that is, characters who will hinder your map objectives beyond just combat unless you talk to/take care of them? That is, characters like Cath, Legault, Rennac, Rickard, Dorcas, etc.? You could even combine it with the Backstabbers tier list if neither list has enough characters.
Thank you Mekkah, your videos always help me feel good, and i can already see people complaining about the lack of Charlotte, even though you CLEARLY said that these are the characters that are early game. Anyways thanks for the content in these trying times!!
Update now that Engage is out, I think Boucheron should probably go C and Panette S
I feel Rinkah is more of a “set up” unit in Birthright, Seal Resistance only works with Magic attacks (obv), but this lets Orochi and Hayato do more damage. She gets better when promoted to Oni Chieftain, but still pretty subpar unit. Oboro just does her job better.
Honestly, it always kind of confused me why Kaga didn't really like axe users that much until FE5 (outside of like thematics like that one guy mentioned in a Shadows of Valentia episode)
I'll talk about some of the 3 houses axe/grappler characters for a bit in this comment here, but mostly about GD path viability for Raphael and Hilda.
First I'll talk about Raphael, who is tied for highest, 30 hp base stat. Raphael, he who also has the highest hp growth in the game at 65. He scales to a peak of 105 hp growth by the time you reach his level 20 classes. He snatches Death Blow easier than the majority of units, base E+ Axes with affinity. Raphael spots a D in starting Heavy Armor stat _and_ an affinity for it. He can very quickly grab the -3 weight skill and use heavier shields as a free equip for as long as you need, which also synergizes well with his huge health pool and large strength stat. He can easily flex into a non-mounted Armor Knight unit if the map needs him as one, which is always good. The GD route-class is primarily composed of definitely squishy yet highly effective ranged units. They have an inherent paralogue for both the 4-range magic staff and 3-range(3-range one is universal iirc) magic staff for both Lysethia and Lorenz (the 4-range staff is crest-locked to these 2) blasting, while also having the(perhaps marginally) 2 best _bow-users_ in the game, Ignatz and Claude. Raphael makes for a great hp sponge to intercept some of the nastiest threats in the game for the GD snipers. Raphael having the worst speed growth in the game at 15 makes him the _most minmaxed_ unit for Warmaster's Quick Reposte, especially with his max hp-cap of 119, after the +5 statue boost.
Raphael is not positioned to be the GD's main front-line with 25 charm and 10 res growth but, he's paired with the second best Fortress Knight in the game, innate speed/charm growth 50 and 25 res growth, Hilda.(best is Edelgard with higher res/cha). While Raphael is a great unit to enemy phase chip, player-phase oneround many times, and clump a lot of melee enemies for Claude's super gambit. He's definitely a good c-tier as he's not better than half of the 3h cast. Hilda on the other hand earns her B tier status and takes the lead over Raphael. Her functionality as a well-rounded defenses (protection, res, gambit evade) armor knight, allows for GD's insanely potent ranged options to stack the enemy and player phase into your favor. Hilda can high-accuracy gambit the pesky maddening "pass" units which almost puts her to A-tier for that difficulty, as she will have the bulk to walk up and lock units down with her gambits for a round of deadly, allied artillery. Hilda is funnily-good with some, honestly out of place, aoe-mage gambits just to immobilize large swathes of units while the 4 of your mixed-damage, beastly snipers beat down even the 3-range archers outside of retaliation range. I haven't tested if both Ward and Pure Water stacks, but a hex shield on weight-5 Hilda with Manuela's Ward, one of Lysethia's two Warps and a pure water could clump a massive number of enemies for some Gambit and sniping cheese if the terrain permits it.
Now I'll talk about Caspar, the friendly blue ghost. Caspar, is probably the worst student in the game for his normal path progression but since it's 3h, he's still viable in doing so as the game is balanced pretty well when it comes to base kits and customization. He's got a low 25 charm growth, bows-down, reason-down, authority-down, giving him no great ranged, nor offensive gambit options, as well as no gambit evade, while also having only 30/20 defense/res for a melee-based unit. Caspar's main saving grace is that he has axes affinity and neutral flying so if you panic wyvernrider him very fast after brigand, he has decent generalist growths to make do as a filler flyer unit with no strain. Caspar is the "worst" of the 3 houses students without going wyvern lord but, his path there is one of the easiest of the students which balances it out as all things should be. I'd put him right there in C tier as you do.
How do I play 100% growth of Fe8? Sounds interesting I’d like to play it
If you use the nightmare tool, it's pretty easy to mod growth rates
gameboyn64 thanks dude.
I never found rinkah to be that good beyond a pair up bot. Base growths of 20 hp and 25 str, unimpressive base 20 hp and 8 str, and e axes
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you also lose out on another paragon band if you choose Johalvier? Maybe it's not a strike against him (or for Johan,) but it's still something to be mentioned.
I don't think so. But I only played fe4 once, and didn't get any substitutes, so maybe.
@@seththeace6217 Actually I think it might be that if you lose the paragon band in gen 1 (which is what happened to me in my first playthrough,) then Johalvier would have one. But if you inherit it, then johalvier won't have it.
Ahhh, that makes sense
Do you guys know what happens to the fe5 play through with mangs?
Mangs is on an extended hiatus after he was accused of and admitted to sexual assult against another fe tuber as well as an apparent history of highly questionable behavior.
This is a decent summary:
serenesforest.net/2020/07/18/regarding-the-allegations-against-fe-youtubers-mangs-and-chaz-aria-llc/#more-61069
@@gameboyn64 wow, that's crazy.
Pirates next, I want to hear if Dart's only real quality is his sturdiness
I'm curious what you are playing in the lower right-hand corner....that seems kinda sweet.
That's The Last Promise, a romhack.
Orsin also has really good speed and the Vouge has 80 hit vs 65 on an iron axe. So aside from mages and myrmidons he's one of the most accurate units in the game, which is also very useful in early (pre-warp) Thracia. Really his only downside is not being around for the 4 chapters that he would absolutely wreck if he was around for them, but even so I'd argue he's probably the most reliable non-magic unit in the game (even moreso than Finn/Fergus imo)
I realize you put Orsin in S tier but I just wanted to add some further praise.
I love Dorcas. For whatever reason, he's always been one of my favorite units in that game. Once I found out that the Afas Drops decide who shows up on the ranking screen, I had to give them to him. He is still slow af!!!
My Hilda was ultra blessed when I first played I realised this in my second play-through when she wasn’t comedically strong massacring every unit that dared to look in her general direction
Optional characters list (like Deen/Sonya) or Beowulf characters would be neat
Warriors are one of my FE guilty pleasures. This list kinda made me sad because it reminded me how mediocre most axefighters in FE are, but I'm content I'd say with most of them. I use a lot of bad units because they're just fun or look cool, but I still try to play slightly fast. I wonder if this is counter-productive? Idk, I find it more fun to strategize around bad units than the same 5 units that everyone always uses; I always used Python and Forsyth in Echoes and Edward/Nolan in RD for example
I think people misconstrue efficiency and the necessary usage of it. It is a topic I pondered upon whether or not having broken units are enabling players not to strategize as much within this Tactical RPG series. Because why strategize whenever you can warp cheese or have that one really great unit that can mop the floor with every enemy that you can encounter within the game? I find it weird that broken units are considered high tier play whenever they are the easy route to beating the game. Another aspect is people thinking efficiency is LTC even though majority of the fan base does not play in that manner. It makes people think infantry units are inferior to mounted or flying units. Infantry units most of the time only 2 less movement but generally way better stats and stat growths compared to what would be considered viable in LTC.
I been a fan of Axe Fighters with a few exceptions and I like my armored knights. Neither of these are efficient, but they are great for higher difficulty and utilizing strategies only they can accomplish.
I usually use them early game as meatwalls and as soon as i get promoted Units that can use axes as well, they get taken out. (Cavaliers most notably in gba-games)
They usually fall behind (Except that one blessed Dorcas that turned into an absolute dodgy murder-machine in one run on Eli-hard), get doubled and due to not quite that high defenses and very low res, even their giant HP-pool doesn't save them anymore. Ross only gets decent because he has an additional of 10 levels to grow (If you promote him on lvl 10 base class, he'll be pretty subpar), Garcia has the same sisues as the usual gba-fighters sadly.
For the DS/3ds-games, (Awakening) i use Freddie but always had an issue to get Vaike really up to speed. He was always lacking something (usually that one speed-point that eh needs to double or not getting doubled) while his companions did the same job with better results. I tried to get Arthur to work, but his abysmal luck would leave him as easy crit-fodder for enemies and Rinkah.. well.. promoted and at lvl 8-ish she finally caught up to the rest (maybe i had shitty ups with her) but if you perform badly in birthright, i have very bad news for you...
Nevertheless i like to try to implement them in my strategies even though i ususally have to go out of my way just to save their hairy butts. :D
@@GreyWandererXD Infantry units have never had better stat growths overall, mounted units are always on par or better (more or less anyway). Almost any Calvary unit is just better than almost any fighter except in radiant dawn where they are about on par with each other. The calvary have been faster, had better weapon triangle control, and are as tanky if not tankier with their higher defense but lower to on par hp. It's also 2 movement every turn, that adds up a lot and fliers are the best class because if they have good stats (which many do) they become the best units in the game since they have unprecedented mobility and still hit really hard while being somewhat tanky (looking at a lot of wyverns throughout the series). Lot and Wade are just outclassed by Allen and Lance in every way, same Sain and Kent also outclass Dorcas and Barcas and Franz just outclasses Ross and Garcia as well. They are more flexible, more accurate, and can get to important locations quicker and fliers just move whenever they want since terrain doesn't hold them down giving them a massive advantage. Play FE however you want but mounted units always will be strictly better with how much more versatile they are. Overall if a mounted unit has good stats they are just better than alternatives, and it's not like most of them have bad stats compared to alternative foot units.
@@twigz3214 In terms of fighters I would say yes, however you do create a lot of generalized statements that is vital towards my points. Does objectively better units make you a better tactician because you go the most optimized route? Obviously a player would not shoot their right foot purposely, but given circumstances of not everything working out within the favor of the player you are going to have to use "bad units" eventually. Not just that, you cannot make an entire army out of cavalry units so you are going to have to rely on Infantry units either for healing or taking out enemies that are comparatively more closer. Infantry units are still great regardless, they have less movement for more specialization while mounted units are uniform. I would say Path of Radiance and Awakening had a nice balance between the three movement types all because of the pair up function. But there are also terrible Cavaliers such as Matthis, Rosea, Wolfguard, and Fiona. Not all Cavaliers are guaranteed to be good, they are just guaranteed good movement and maneuverability. A good Cavalier is good, such as the logic of a bad unit is bad. The point I am getting across you are going to have to use Infantry units because there are some Infantry units that accomplish a lot more compared to a balance unit such as Cavalry.
Also sand maps...they suck for Cavalry. Especially with Awakening and having them happen so early. I just want to use Stahl.
@@GreyWandererXD In general, a mounted unit always have some form of utility and them being good makes them better more exceptionally than an infantry unit being good, Overall I'd agree that I usually only use 2-3 mounted units depending on the game and 2-3 fliers, infantry units have their uses and in games like fe6 enemy stats are very strong overall which gives units like Rutger a lot of value since he can always double while other units may struggle to do so to faster enemies but in games where enemy stats are weak like fe7, fe8 and fe9 you're better off using mostly mounted units and fliers since they can one round almost every enemy when trained with a hand axe or javelin. While you can make a challenge run out of purposely using bad units I'd say it's usually better to use the tools you have to your best extent rather than hurting yourself on purpose. Granted I'd say playing to your best is more important in a context like ironmanning since you're trying to get through with as few casualties as possible. With enough trial and error, you could beat almost any game with almost any party that you want to. Overall having a flier or 2 and a mounted unit or 2 just gives you a lot more options due to how flexible they are while you don't really need a myrmidon or fighter to give you more options usually. I personally find more fun in playing somewhat fast and not LTCing per say but I enjoy having at least 2 fliers and 2 mounted units on my teams to use their higher movement to at least help ferry around my less mobile ones when needed. Using all mounted units is in a bad idea since eventually, you'd be picking from the lesser ones and some infantry units can be really good. I'd just say you would be making the game a lot harder if you don't use any compared to using 2-3 since it provides you with another option that's great to have in case you need to be somewhere quickly or get rid off an enemy before they are in your range, etc.
I like how the music goes into a rather holy, almost religious tone when talking about the god-like being that is Orson, lol.
i personally like using Follow Up Critical Modifier because FUCM sounds more appropriate than just plain FUCC.
I like Lot because he has an actual hit rate with the Halberd. He can still miss but one-shotting the early game cavaliers feel really good.
Agreed. Lot always turned out good for me. Supporting him with dieck made both of them great frontline fighters that almost no one could touch. Also bow lot is best lot.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but have you ever made a class tier list? Ranking the units for each class is good, but on games where reclassing is a thing a broader view might be useful. Just trying to toss an idea out for another video (again, not sure if you've already done that before).
Class tier list is hard as class viability varies heavely from game to game. In FE6 swordmasters are arguably the best class in the game, but they're trash in FE7
@@vanjagalovic3621 Eh, Wyvern is still the best class in FE 6, but SM is better in Fe 6 than in most games. Really the only other game where Swordmaster is good is in FE 12 where the 30 speed cap actually matters 'cause of how high enemy stats get in the higher difficulties, and having C base swords allows for Wyrmslayer use at base.
That tier list would probably just be wyverns and pegasus knights at the top, and maybe healers and cavalry one tier below and everything else at the bottom thanks to how shaky every other class is across the series
Zastralord don’t forget the dancers in a/s
@@airtempest8945
Isn't paladin the best class in GBA FE? Or at least where it can use all 3 weapons (for javelin plus hand axe) in addition to good con, high movement, and aid?
52:53
That is a very interesting bit of info
This is how I feel about Boyd vs Nolan. You have to use Nolan as a first time player so he stays relevant but during the greil mercenaries you have options for axe users. Titania is a very solid mounted axe user and haar is well....haar. Boyd has too compete with these two beasts. Boyd is a lot better than Nolan imo but you don't have to use him like Nolan.
Vaike can be very good in Lunatic, but nothing compared to Robin, Chrom, or even Donnel memes.
He also makes a pretty solid Dad option for certain units, but usually Lon Qu is better
I love axefighters. I have a soft spot for them, glad to see they've got their own video now. I know there are some people out there that disagree with Vaike in the C tier, but his performance on higher difficulties is completely different from his normal/hard performance. I've replayed Awakening on Lunatic recently, and I really tried to keep Vaike relevant, but he just fell off hard during the Valm arc.
Vaike is really good on lunatic. His high base HP and damage early make him super easy to train and his hero promo gains are busted as well. I find it's easier to make him last longer into the valm arc if you go through hero and get sol as it will be extremely hard to kill him at that point.
Lunatic + is a different kettle of fish, of course, because that game has counter which makes me very sad, but in regular old lunatic hes a really really good unit to have on your tea/
Admittedly, my experience is on normal mode, but Conquest Arthur does get fairly good once he can make level five Hero. The problem is there are about eight or nine units that are more important than him and a lot of chapters with significantly limited rosters, making it very hard to justify lugging him around to level 10-12. He was decent dumping ground for the Goddess Icons and Skill Books I didn't need though.
Does anyone else get easily distracted by the footage in the lower right? Like I'll be listening to Mekkah ranking a unit then I'll notice something happen in the footage and by the time I look back three more units have been rated.
You should make a lord tierlist.
What's the game in the background?
i dont think you mentioned tarvos or earth affinity when talking about nolan which are pretty major points. once he promotes to tier 2, he's basically tied for 2nd with zihark best combat unit (outright better than zihark come part 3 for sure) behind jill among daein units that don't have silly availability quirks (tornado, burger king, nailah, tormod, etc).
in terms of the context of part 3 daein maps, zihark's native adept and crit bonus are a genuine detriment due to the nature of those choke-holding-centric maps, meaning warrior nolan likely becomes your 2nd best overall unit barring horrendous level ups that leave him well behind his average stats. 20/1 nolan's bulk is 37.6hp/13.85def compared to base zihark's 30hp/13def indicate an obvious bulk differential, and he can equip tarvos for an extra +4 def---and nolan doesn't have enemy phase flow control issues because you don't have to unequip nolan to avoid potentially fighting multiple tigers and cats on enemy phase unlike rn proc god zihark who will pull an orsin and leave the floodgates open when its least convenient. jill is jill obviously, but jill soloing everything once she gets her initial levels is definitely not the path of least resistance in HM so nolan's presence as a more auxiliary all-purpose combat unit (with availability) is a nice luxury.
i think the part 1 discussion of nolan was pretty accurate; part 1's tendency to sling random amazing units at you with spotty availability means nolan's never really in the spotlight, but his contributions are consistently meaningful nonetheless within the context of a faction that desperately wants all-around solid combat units.
axes are also the best weapon type in RD by far, so there's that. i think top of B is fine but if nolan disappeared from RD it would be waaaaay more annoying (and HM ch2 would be an instant softlock lol)
Nolan was underrated here imo. Nolan has insanely good growths, basically perfect for capping all of his stats, and his solid defense of 9 lets him be one of the few Dawn Brigade units that can keep up and be used later on without falling behind. He's easily A tier. Look at his growths again, they're disgusting, even for RD's higher growths. 70% skill, 60% speed and luck, 40% resistance. His growths compliment his bases like a lock and key, the lower bases have higher growths so he caps basically everything. To top it off he has an excellent personal weapon. His only issue is the shittiness of RD Warrior/Reaver.
I love using Nolan, but his big problem is just that he's Jill without a wyvern in a game where you can very easily put everything into her and do just as well as training both her and Nolan. In NM I'd say it's closer to call due to a higher quantity of EXP meaning Jill can still be OP even if you invest in Nolan, but on HM investing in Jill alone is flat out the best option for dealing with most things.
His endgame is absolutely insane, especially with innate Nihil, but he's not central to it, as you already have a huge amount of extremely powerful combat units by then who can do what he does almost as good with little to no investment. You could just throw his Nihil on Tibarn or Caineghis and have much the same effect.
Also, his class only holds him back in that he's not a flier. Being on a horse makes a unit less mobile in many DB maps, and isn't great in most Part 4 maps, plus gives you bad caps, but fliers ignore this stuff and just have constant great movement and high caps. Warriors and Reavers are among the best classes in the game, with access to the best weapon type, great caps, and Colossus has a lower Capacity than other Mastery Skills, giving Nolan tied for the highest Skill Capacity of any beorc unit. They even have Crossbows, so Nolan can cheese Laguz with Beastfoe in 3-6, 3-13, and 4-5 if you want.
If you rate units with the expectation that they will receive undivided attention regardless of alternatives, Nolan can very easily see an argument for high A Tier, or even low S Tier, as again he is just Jill without a wyvern. But that's a flawed way of looking at units that doesn't reflect a normal person's gameplay, and looking at him with the full context of RD means that investing in him in the long-run is at best a viable alternative and at worst a possible detriment.
51:18
Awakening isn't the game im most knowledgeable about, so maybe somebody can reply to this to either back up my statements or rebuttle them.
I think Vaike should be higher. Atleast next to Garcia. I think that Vaike and Chrom is one of the best pair ups early on. Just like Arthur, Vaike can be a stat backpack and give lots of strength. But i think he has merits in actual combat.
He is one of the more durable early game units on lunatic, and id argue hes the one of the most salvageable. IIRC he actually survives 2 hits from the soldiers in his joining map. Vaike can negate alot of damage from lance enemy's thanks the weapon triangle, and if you can patch up his speed so he doesn't get doubled, his high HP will start to shine. He can use the hammer early on to kill armors (he can easily deal with the ch 3 boss which lands him some good experience). There's also amors in the arena map with lucina that he can one round. Which means less enemies for Robin and Fredric.
If Chrom gets up to 10 speed and a C support with Vaike thats a +5 boost upon pair up. And other than Frederic, you don't have any other axe user. Im not arguing you should use him for diversity, but negating extra damage from lances is good and anything Vaike can handle means Robin and Fred can do something else. I cant say much about Vaike past his earlygame bc im not knowledge enough but i think everything i mentioned is enough to consider ranking him higher.
Honestly most of what you've written here is correct. He's probably a B+/A tier unit in the grand scheme of things. I find that Vaike/Lonqu is a better pair up than Vaike/Chrom because Fred and Robin prefer Chrom as a pair up partner as they join around the same time so will have support built between them. At no support, Vaike/Lonq offers Vaike 5 speed and it offers 7 at A support, its really good.
The point at which he massively improves is when he early promotes to hero. He gets 6 skill, 5 speed and 4 defence which is enough to make him really good. Then he gets sol at level 5 and becomes pretty much invincible. I recommend promoting him asap with the ch8 master seal but you could always use the ch10/11/12 ones if you want to promote someone else and he'll be still pretty good.
Maps full of strong mages can be really annoying but if you give him a res pair up+ pure water/ward staff, he can usually do well enough as long as you don't overexpose him. Generally I'd say 3 magical enemies is probably the max you can safely take on late game- Obviously with a sol proc, you can take on more but it's best not to completely rely on it.
The best things he can do in lategame are juggernauting through the rout maps and bosskilling in the kill boss maps, although he struggles to ORKO some faster bosses like yenfay without a crit.
@@Hiiyapow
Thats all good to know. I pressume your talking about normal/hard when talking about tanking up to 3 mages?
I see why lon que would be better but b4 he joins, i still think chrom and Vaike is a good pair. When Cordelia joined I put vaike with her. Not sure how good or bad that pairing is comparatively but it seemed good to me.
Also never tired hero Vaike, how does that compare to berserker?
@@Starwars-Fanboy I'm talking about lunatic in regards to mages. Vaikes late game HP is high enough so that when you utilise ward staff and/or a good res pair up, he can take on 3 mages lategame. As I said, if sol procs it will let him take on more.
In the midgame its a little more iffy and depends on how strong the mages are. For example, in a map like chapter 11, Vaike doesn't really want to take on all the mages at the bottom right. 1 sage + 1 mage is the max you can take with a res pair up, tonic and ward staff unless he procs sol.
Chrom and Vaike is pretty good. I do think that Chrom is better as a more permanent partner for Robin or Fred, but in the early maps like 3, Chrom/Vaike can work.
Vaike+ Cordelia is also a pretty solid pair. Vaike gets move, res and speed while cordy gets some Strength if you ever want to use her for combat. I just like lonqu more because he joins sooner so he will probably grant more stats due to his higher support.
Hero Vaike is pretty good because you can jump into straight from level 10 unpromoted while berserker requires you to second seal at some point, meaning that its slower to get to.
The meaningful differences are that Berserker has +8 HP, +5 Strength, -6 Skill, +1 Speed, -3 Defence and -2 Resistance.
He also has sword access in hero meaning that he doesn't get shut down as hard by axebreaker.
Generally I think that this means that berserker is a better final class for Vaike but its a bit of a toss up in some maps due to the lack of swords and lower defence/res and its way harder to get to than hero.
For hero all you need it to get to level 10 and then use a master seal but for berserker you are going to have to second seal to barbarian or have already got to level 10 promoted. You might as well go through hero anyway to get sol. So I recommend early promoting to hero and then when he hits level 10 or 15, you can swap him to berserker if you want the power boost.
I’m not sure I agree with you saying Rinkah is B tier in Birthright. I think C is much fairer ranking for her. D-E is definitely fitting for Revelation.
Rinkah does have some helpful attributes, such as her excellent pair-up bonuses, Fiery Blood, and exclusive natural access to Clubs and Axes until Scarlet joins. But she also has a lot of areas where she falls short.
My main problem with Rinkah is her base stats + weapon rank and the problems that blossom from them. While Rinkah’s bases aren’t catastrophically bad, Rinkah definitely needs some help from pair-ups and level ups if she wants to keep up with the enemies in Birthright Lunatic.
Rinkah has a decent 10 base defense and a 65% def growth. If leveled to 20/20 she’ll have ~20 def as an Oni Savage lv20 and ~36 def as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. This is solid on paper, though obviously 20/20 is unlikely if you’re not grinding. So, Rinkah will still be taking a fair bit of damage from enemies, particularly late game enemies with capped strength and silver weapons. Her base speed is 8 and her growth is 55%. In a 20/20 scenario she’ll have ~17 speed as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~30 as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. Again, in a realistic non grinding scenario Rinkah will have less speed for most of her availability, but it should still be enough to keep her from getting doubled by most enemies.
Things start to get alarming when you look at Rinkah’s HP, Resistance, and Luck. Rinkah’s base HP is 20 and her growth rate is 40%. Among the Birthright characters 20 HP is on the low end of the scale, and even with a hypothetical 20/20 level situation Rinkah will only have ~26 HP as a lv20 Oni Savage. Oni Chieftain actually makes things worse since it only gives +1 HP as a promotion bonus and lowers Rikah’s HP growth to 30%. This means she’ll have ~33 HP as a 20/20 unit, which again isn’t likely unless you’re grinding. Rinkah’s poor HP will hinder her ability to make use of her defense stat. Even if she isn’t getting doubled super often, Rinkah will still take enough damage from enemies that she’ll likely die in about 3-4 hits from serious physical enemies. Since Rinkah really wants to have Fiery Blood active, you’ll need to manage her health carefully, enough that she can tank several enemies and not die, but never leaving her at full health since that nerfs her damage output. And all of that isn’t even taking magic based enemies into account, which present a major threat to Rinkah. Not only do Tomes have weapon triangle advantage over Rinkah’s clubs, but they also target her Res, which is one of Rinkah’s weakest stats. Starting at a base of 3 and a growth of 20%, in a best case 20/20 scenario she will have ~6 res as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~15 Res as lv20 Oni Chieftain. That is pitiful, and when you consider how common Tomes are for Nohrian classes (Mage, Sorcerer, Strategist, Dark Knight, Malig Knight) this becomes a persistent threat to Rinkah’s life. At best Rinkah will barely survive 1 encounter with a magical enemy. At worst they will one-shot her. While the Dual Club helps Rinkah to fight back and avoid Tomes more easily, it alone isn’t enough to make Rinkah safe from a magical onslaught. Then lastly we need to remember that Rinkah has a less than impressive 5 Luck. With only a 35% growth she’ll be at ~11 Luck as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~18 Luck as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. While this isn’t Arthur levels of bad, Rinkah’s luck is still low enough that she’s in danger of getting killed by a critical hit. Thus taking all this into account Rinkah needs to be incredibly selective with who she engages since she can only take a handful of physical attacks and one or two magical attacks. Since Birthright is enemy phase heavy due to the high numbers of reinforcements, this makes Rinkah a mediocre defensive unit without help from Tonics and Pair-Up to prop her up.
Moving on, Rinkah’s problems continue into the damage department. 8 base strength and a 45% growth aren’t very impressive. This means that statistically if you rank Rinkah up to 20/20 using the Oni Chieftain she’ll gain ~19 total strength (including promo bonuses) for an end total of ~15 strength as a lv20 Oni Savage and ~27 strength as a lv20 Oni Chieftain. That isn’t spectacular, considering Kagero, Takumi and Oboro, and Silas, Hinata, and Saizo each start with equivalent or similar strength stats (15, 13, or 11 respectively) upon recruitment, which means Rinkah will likely be trailing behind other units in damage output. Birthright doesn’t feature a ton of classes with Pair-Up bonuses for attack, with that list comprising of Oni Savages, Spear Fighters, Nohr Prince/cess, Cavalier, Archer, Merchants, and their promoted forms. This means Rinkah will have limited pair up options to patch her strength deficiency. Additionally since these classes only offer 2-3 speed at most (without accounting for support bonuses), Rinkah may have issues with doubling if she’s in a strength pair-up. The best speed pair-up classes in Birthright don’t give any strength, so you’ll have to pick between bonus strength and a little speed or lots of speed and no strength. Clubs have pretty high base might so Rinkah’s mediocre strength can be mitigated somewhat by her equipment and forges, but due to Rinkah’s base E proficiency with Clubs/Axes she’ll have limited weapon options until her weapons rank is improved. So again, she faces an uphill battle just to keep up in damage. Zooming ahead to late game, Generals, Great Knights, and Wyvern Lords will all have defense in the 30’s in later chapters (in Lunatic, anyhow), meaning Rinkah will again be reliant on her weapons, personal skill, and effective damage modifiers for hurting foes. As I stated before in the defense section, this will limit the kinds of enemies Rinkah can engage since she isn’t that durable and she isn’t likely anyone but kill armored foes with the Hammer or normal enemies with a Killer Axe/Great Club crit. All other foes will just get chipped by Rinkah, and since Birthright is enemy phase focused this can lead to enemies piling up around Rinkah, locking you down on player phase as you clean up the mess Rinkah has left for you.
After promotion Rinkah will have access to Scrolls. Consequently Rinkah does have alternate means of attack, but Rinkah’s pitiful base 2 magic and 25% magic growth mean she won’t be gaining much in this area. Oni Chieftan gives her +4 base magic and bumps her growth up to 30% but even taking this into account her 20/20 stats will be ~6 magic as an Oni Savage and ~16 magic as an Oni Chieftain. So Rinkah will struggle to deal significant damage with magic, especially considering she can only use the weak Rat Scroll upon promotion. This can sort of be used as a positive since you can throw Rinkah into the middle of a group of enemies that can’t kill her and use their weak attacks and Rinkah’s weak counterattacks as a way to quickly grind up her Scroll proficiency rank, but considering Rinkah still can’t deal much damage even with the stronger scrolls it isn’t really worth the effort. Even the Bolt Axe with its high magical might presents its own set of issues as lowers her avoid (meaning more damage) and prevents Rinkah from dealing critical hits, which is one of the main draws of Oni Chieftain. Because of these factors Rinkah will be leaning heavily upon her personal skill, crits, weapon might, and pair up to deal consistent damage.
All in all Rinkah isn’t very impressive as she fails to excel as a tank and and she isn’t a reliable damage dealer either. To be clear; Rinkah is not unusable and can be fixed, especially if you take advantage of Birthright’s grinding features, skirmish rewards, and releasing shenanigans. But she needs a lot of love and help to shine, as she is mediocre on her own. Nevertheless her unique qualities still put her above units like Hana or Subaki, who both fail to perform and are ultimately redundant, which is why I’m comfortable with saying Rinkah is C tier in Birthright in spite of her shortcomings.
Anyhow that’s just my 2 cents as someone who started their FE journey with Birthright and who’s played the game many times since then! If I’ve totally missed the mark feel free to let me know, I’m new to doing in
depth unit analysis but I think this is more or less accurate. But if I’m wrong please educate me so I can learn more!
What game is that in the corner? Is it a rom hack or something of a gba game
Love the Zelda music.
6:09 really reminds me of the Clint Eastwood and Clint Westwood meme. Lmao
did anyone notice how the lp in the bottom right said "radiant dawns" at almost the same time he mentioned radiant dawn
In my current run of fe7 ehm, my dorcas managed to hit 15 spd, so he's godlike rn.
How to make Rinka maybe usable: give her an extra +4 hp +2 str and D rank axes instead of E rank at base
Barst is a beast in every game, he was my core unit, also if you reclass him to mercenary and then promoted to general, he is a unstoppable force takin 0 damage even from dragons
"1-4 you get meg super overpowered" I have never heard this sentence before
I add two people from Berwick Saga
Dean and Axel
Dean: Easily one of the best Axefighter in the entire series. He nuts, solid bases, amazing skillset. Is the only one that can one round shit in the early game beside Volo but...he cost a shit ton and even so. Deathmatch is super risky. Get a personal axe that pretty good, can use his skill Vengeance to cheese some bosses like Chaos in Chapter 3 and Thor alongside being super accurate in a game where hits rates mean everything. Overall, easily S tier
Axel: He might look good with high speed and high strength but...he has no defence Has awful hit rate and overall. He just terrible as combat unit...but his utility is real good as he the only unit that has the skill swim which allows him to cross over water. Which is really helpful to get those bridges alongside having the search. Overall, he is more to be used for his unity not as a unit. B tier.
No better FE9 early foot unit than Boyd? Cries in Soren.
Boyd is quite a bit better than Soren.
@@ZachurrateGaming It depends. In JP FE9, Soren can get max-crit thunder tomes, giving him the best combat in the game by a huge margin.
Fe9 Soren? Broken unit, support with Ike, dodge everything.
And can’t Boyd get speed screwed? He has a 45 percent growth, so it’s not bad but it’s not reliable.
@@YOSHIERIDER so does ilyana
And he's still a footie so lol
I honestly feel like FE9 Boyd belongs in A tier. I would list the reasons why, but you said them all yourself in the video. I simply don't think he has enough drawbacks to offset all those positives to push him down to B tier.
I think he just seems A tier because fe9 is ridiculously easy on hard mode. Units around him are still better than him
@@fangiscool1 these "better" units you are talking about would also be in A tier or higher. At the top of my head, I can only think of Oscar, Titania, Kieran, Jill, Marcia, and Reyson who are better than him when you factor in availability, utility, and investment. Those are all units who easily rank in A tier or higher. And then there are units who eventually get better like Astrid, but she wouldn't rank higher due to availability and the investment it takes to get her there. Even ready-made units like Geoffrey wouldn't rank higher because of how late he joins. By the time he joins, Boyd already had the time to make major contributions to your army that Geoffrey will never get. So yeah, if the only units that outshine Boyd are the insanely good ones, then A tier seems perfectly valid.
@@Sonicfan640 I think Makalov is better too. A tier does seem to make sense. It's just weird to me that there is such an enormous gap between the better units and Boyd, but overall Boyd is better than most of the cast. Anyone not mounted turns into dead weight in PoR because the game is so easy
At 53:34 the thwomp uses the boots and I'm feeling a little offended
TLDR: Vaike is a fair C unit. Has some utility albeit very limited in Lunatic
On Lunatic, Vaike is usable as a pair up for the added strength. In terms of his own combat, he's your typical physical glass cannon who hits hard but also gets hit pretty hard, which is useful against bulky enemies. Tbh, I've struggled to find him useful throughout the game especially when you have Robin/Chrom and their kids being OP. Also, movement is super important to ensure that your units are in position to either clean up quickly or deal with ambush spawns asap
Vaike is super good on lunatic. He has good base bulk from his high HP and good base attack as well which makes feeding him kills super duper easy. He has really busted promo gains and the sol skill helps him stay relevant late game.
Movement is almost a non-issue when you can rescue spam and pair up your way across most maps. It really isn't that big of a deal at all in the mid-lategame.
C tier is waaaaay to low. Seriously. The man deserves a high B at least.
@@Hiiyapow I disagree with that assessment. In the early game, Vaike needs the exp to get the ball rolling, which is exp that can be used on others unit such as Chrom and Avatar to get a busted Lucina and Morgan. You could use Lon'qu to shore up his weaknesses, but Lon'qu is much better used as someone who can take on the axe units early game especially when Chrom can't do it alone.
As for Sol, that's a good skill, but it doesn't address his bulk issues and mobility. Plus, that's a % skill, which is something I would not bank on when enemies hit really hard and fast. The reason why I like Cherche more is because of her mobility and capability to get in position against ambush fliers, although she will struggle against the Grima Act that is filled with magic attackers.
Finally, if your logic is that Cherche sucks because she doesn't fight well in the chapter she joins (I'll admit that those paladins, Bow Knights, and Armor Knights do a number aginst her), then I'd argue that Vaike sucks as well because he goes against a lot of axe units and mercenaries in that chapter and most of Gangrel Act. The only chapter I can think of Vaike getting better would be Warriors Realm, which is one of the most brutal chapters ever that I ended using Frederick a lot! Also, you don't get Lon'qu during that chapter to complement Vaike's weaknesses
Perhaps, I can give Vaike another look, as I initially tried to pair up with Cordelia, which didn't work out too well for me.
@@hansonlee5847 Theres more than enough exp to go around early game. It's not like Chrom or the avatar are really losing out if some of it goes to Vaike. He doesnt' really need a huge amount anyway.
Lucina is overrated tbh. Like, what can she even do. Her bases are just so mediocre even with 2 really trained parents. Not worth the effort imo.
Lonqu isn't the only one who can pair with Vaike. A lot of early game units offer speed, such as panne, gaius and sumia. However, I specifically chose lonqu as vaike helps lonqu as much as lonqu helps vaike. You also have to realise that using lonqu vs the axe fighters is a horrible idea as he can just get outright 1 shot if he gets hit and lon will fall of late game anyways due to his lack of 1-2 range and poor bulk.
Vaike can also take on the axe units anyway with a speed pair up. I don't get why lonqu is needed for this.
Sol does 100% address his "bulk issues". He doesn't have bulk issues anyway given the insane hp he has and his good defense promo, but sol massively increases his bulk. It literally turns his offense into free defense. The fact that it's a % skill doesn't really matter. If 4 or 5 enemies attack you, you can bank on it going off at least once. Also he has pretty high skill to help it go off more.
Because you insist cherche is better, lets do some stat comparisons:
Lets compare 15/5 Hero Vaike to 12/1 Wyvern Lord Cherche ( I actually think Griffon is better but WL has better stats so its a fairer comparison. 15/5 Vaike is really easy to get by this point. He could be higher, but i'll keep it at 15/5 for the sake of the argument.).
Vaike has around 49Hp at this point. Cherche has around 38.
Vaike has around 17 Def at this point. Cherche has around 20
Vaike has sol at this point. Cherche does not.
So 15/5 Vaike is pretty much tied for defence and destroying her in HP. He's way bulkier at this point and he could also be a much higher level by this point as well.
How about offensive stats?
Vaike has around 21 Strength and 19 Speed at this point.
Cherche will have around 22 Strength and 15 Speed at this point.
Vaike is basically tying Cherches really high Strength but is also leading heavily in the speed department, meaning he can double a lot more.
This also isn't taking into account the fact that Cherche is weak to arrows/wind/anti dragon and that she usually wants to go gryphon for deliverer, not wyvern.
Even then, Vaike can always just pair up into a flier to move around. Most maps with either have you staying completely still or rocketing towards the end of the map in 1 turn. In the former, Vaike happily sits around and blasts people and in the latter, he can simply pair into one of your fliers to be rushed towards the boss using rescue/dances.
My argument wasn't really based on joining chapters intrinsically. It's more that a unit that joins in chapter 12 is getting 2 shot by the armor knights in the chapter (unless she promotes) which is really really bad.
Furthermore, Vaike does perfectly fine against axe units. I don't know why you think that he doesn't. He can duel them just fine, as long as he doesn't try to take on too many before promotion. Mercs are even less of an issue given how little they actually show up.
You don't get lonq in warrior realm but that's OK because you don't really need him there. Vaike can do a lot of interesting stuff in that chapter like choking one of the hallways or baiting in the hammer fighter so fred doesn't have to. Lonq just helps him around chapter 5 and onwards.
Vaikdelia can work fine, honestly. The issue might just be that you are throwing him into too many enemies early. He's bulky, but he isn't a supertank. Generally he can survive 1 hit earlygame and a couple of weaker ones around the early-mid chapter (around chapter 6).
He's certainly worth another look. I just came off a no Robin run where he was basically the only good combat unit I had barring Chrom for the entire run. Generally I would say if you are willing to give kills to units like Sully, Stahl or Sumia, try giving those kills to Vaike instead because he can get them easier due to his big attack and also does more with them.
I'd say The Vaike is pretty decent due to his reclasses and his supports being pretty alright. While I wouldn't say he's fantastic, high B/low A is reasonable, because he can pass down a really good str bonus to kids that really want more, like Gerome or Kjelle, without lowering their defense, as well as boosting speed with 2 of his platonic supports, Chrom and Lon'qu. Otherwise, his speed is pretty middling, so he tends to not double, but he also doesn't get doubled by the primarily mage and fighter generic enemies, though his low res is a big bane. However, his high skill coupled sol and the Barbarian line can make him a crit machine that's hard to take down from melee range. In addition, he has over 100% HP growth, plus HP+5, so he tends to live for pretty prolonged periods of time. Overall, he's a great meatshield and crit machine when he gets the ball rolling, but his low res makes mages pretty dangerous. He's pretty standard, but it's a standard worth meeting.
You left out the fact that PoR Boyd can initiate the Bow Triangle Attack and put the whole of his high strength to use, letting him do awesome shit, like one shotting Naesala on that map where most people try to get the Knight's Ring(or whatever it's called). They nerf this in RD by making WARs use crossbows... :( Could you imagine Boyd with the Double Bow?
Also though, because you are forced to use Boyd in the early game, it's fairly easy to force his promotion rather early too, meaning you can use Bow Boyd to eliminate problem enemies on player phase, and then tank/attract enemies for your lesser wimps to chip/level on. Like, in optimal play it's probably not much of a thing, but I do it all the time, using promoted Boyd as a mentor unit essentially. His high HP is his durability, so on hard mode it may not apply as much, depending on how fanatically you use Boyd(I basically use him so much that he's promoted by the Crow/Ship map where you get Jill, yes even on Hard, though I haven't done a Maniac playthrough).
They nerfed him hard in RD in order to keep you from having two Ikes to retain some challenge for the Greil Mercs(and to make you work harder on Rolf for dat sweet ass triangle attack, one shot Dheginsea, anyone?). I will admit that in RD he is much harder to guarantee use, particularly in hard mode, but he's not that hard to finagle into being a top pick especially with carry over bonus. Since you can support him with anyone, you can enhance him how you'd like. I'm a sucker for him marrying Mist, so I generally don't factor other supports into my playstyle, as Mist goes where the healing is needed, though obviously I take advantage of it when I can/want to/after getting physic staves. Something I will say is that because some of the best units in RD use axes, it's quite neat to juggle axes between your units, particularly in the last map. There was a run I did where I took Boyd, Jill, and Haar into the tower. Against Ashera they juggled Urvan, a Brave Axe, and a Tomahawk between themselves, depending on who misses and where I have them.
In both RD and PoR he has the Bond bonus from his brothers, which raises his crit by 10. If you carry over an A support from Titania, Brom, Ulki or Mist, that's another bond bonus in RD. With these, you can boost his crit by +30, allowing him to do crazy stuff like one shot the Black Knight at the River Crossing map(with a hammer). EDIT: I forgot mantle grants Fortune/whoops. With wyrmbane skill he may also one shot Red Dragons with a regular hit(mostly on normal, but also with tide/supports on hard mode as well). White Dragons guaranteed, but they are riskier to fight.
Last thing to consider is that within both PoR and RD, there are maps where mounted units cannot move beyond a certain point or have their massive movement nerfed(and in doors they get that -2 move along with fliers, iirc). Boyd doesn't suffer as much on these maps, though admittedly, not every mounted unit has to suffer from them either, at least in RD, since some of those maps are cordoned off by the part 4 split up.
All in all, I'd move PoR Boyd to high A tier, my personal bias would put him solidly in S. RD Boyd is a solid B or lower A. I don't think your past evaluations of him were wrong. I consistently see Nolan put over him due to Nolan's growths/Earth, but personally I see Nolan as the lesser of the two, since he starts out in the base class in RD, and requires a lot more work with ultimately less screen time. Work that could go into someone else, like Edward or Jill or Aran /shrug.
On a funnier note, this has reminded me of carry over bonus Sothe(irrelevant to the discussion at hand). If you cap Sothe's luck in PoR, it caps at 40. When you carry over to RD it will be 40, but when Yune promotes him to Whisper, Whisper's luck cap is 35, so Carry Over Sothe gets -5 Luck when he promotes. Roblof.OOF
I feel like Raphael is worth a B spot (at least in my playthroughs). He is one of the best gauntlet users in the game, and it can carry him up to warmaster where he is excellent. I wouldn't argue to put him past B, but he feels a tier above those in C. It is quite possible however that I got lucky when using him compared to most though.
I love the guy, but he has serious problems for most of the game.
His early game bulk is amazing, but he very rapidly falls off as his speed starts getting him doubled by strong enemies, and he'll never ever double, meaning he won't deal good damage. He also doesn't get any good combat arts until Fierce Iron Fist, with Helmsplitter having only niche use.
He does get much better once he gets Quick Riposte, and once his HP starts hitting values beyond mortal comprehension, but that's a solid half the game in the middle where he's miserable, and probably spends part of that time as the worst unit in the game.
The fact that he can't use relics without HP loss, can't use gauntlets if you make him a healer during the middle portion, and has a personal skill that may as well not exist just nails the coffin shut.
Though, hilariously, he actually makes a pretty solid dancer, even if he's one of the few characters that might actually lose the White Heron Cup.
If you get a speed-blessed Raphael, he's fantastic, I've had one once, but that's so rare that it counts as a lie.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I guess I have just got speed blessed every time I use him. He isn't super fast, but he for sure can double/quadruple slower enemies with gauntlets and his damage is so high he doesn't need the extra base damage of heavier weapons.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 there are ways to avoid getting doubled whit him. For example, you can instruct early in swords so be can make the certification for thief, wich would be a +4 spd over his level 10 base and keep it out of most early-mid doubling thresholds. You don't even need to get C, you have a fairly high chance on D+(or you can scum at D but i find this this to be too chesy to matter.)
It should not delay anything important by much, because brigand-Grappler-War Master does not have any difficult requirement.
did he say anything abt forgetting edelgard?
she is in the armor knight tier list
Hilda is also very good because she has speed seal with hidden talent and defense seal with what wyvern rider mastering
1 S ranking is the true way to do a tier list.
I hadn't really thought about it before, but pre-fe13 axe fighter fashion is a bit... one note.
What is the music at 54 minutes
It sounds like a cover of Zelda's lullaby
In my experience, Vaike is fairly good on Hard mode, not much better than anyone else before promo but a little better than average after thanks to Sol as you mentioned. +4 Str pairup at base is really good on Hard. On Lunatic his mileage is much more limited; his base Spd is a bit low, and although the Str pairup is hypothetically nice, it’s hard to find someone to use it. Vaike is solid in his own right for Hard, but not excellent. I’d probably put him below Ross, but he’s definitely better than Rinkah.
I think that Arthur and Caspar got some rough rankings.
Arthur is definitely worse and is probably D-Tier in Conquest, as while in a vacuum he seems decent, his low Luck will get him crit pretty frequently and even with his high HP the enemies can still semi-reliably one-shot or two-shot him and his middling skill means he’ll miss a lot, opening him up to even more crits. He’s a good backpack, but that’s about it.
Caspar actually makes for really good armored units with his good defensive growths and he makes for a pretty decent great knight. I think he’s probably still C-Tier but he definitely bridges to B-Tier as he can be great wall/bait unit.
Let me axe you a question