I made a tier list based on normal mode

[Gotsa]

https://i.imgur.com/QgxlYnX.png

S ranked
Caius - best in game, top speed stat and the strength to boot. put him down the strider -> blade dancer line for unmatched dodge tank + 1rko capability

Alden - always available, passive of +4 minimum growth per levelup, you can not end up poorly, only better than average. take him through battlemage for bulk or Illusionist for pure speed for a better shot at doubling. his best end class is wizard for even more bonus stats based off his magic stat.

Maren - always available healer, here for utility, mine ended up insanely bulky for whatever reason. routed through the traditional priest line for +1 healing range and +1 healing range again. ranged healing + assisted phases can help you reach almost anywhere for spot heals.

Faust - great recruit, has insane speed at base, requires no investment, starts very close to a T3 unit. all around solid, hope you saved some tokens for him. take him through acolyte + phantom his cannon route.

--------------------------------

A Tier

Here for solid combat units or utility

Benji - unfortunately just outside of S tier, his unit passive is great for the extra crit, but he wont ever hit a double. His accuracy is also shaky. I took him through knight and then into dragon rider giving him both forms of defense and then movement at least. you may end up better through the champion for forced no doubles.

Bianca - was an amazing early game dodge tank, eventually fell off due to lower def+for bulk, however recovered with the item that drains mag for extra def+for, so she turned into melee only. her even split mag+str growth isnt great, but it does make her a solid choice + invest unit, you can really take her down whichever line you want and she'll turn out great. the melee units i found lacking, so I made her a reviere into astral seeker and gave her the -mag + def +for item for the bulk, then she took off again after her middling mid game performance.

Liberty - joins last at level 29, requires no investment, but with a speed stat of 13 she has no chance of doubling anything, best to stick her in the conj into sorc line for high mag and high defense at least to be viable against melee units and solid for counterattacking or baiting archers and potentially 1 shot nuking them.

Rose - massive 30 str on archer recruitment, give that girl a pony at tier 3 and watch her obliterate any pesky high avoidance "haha cant catch me" units. so glad to have her.

Vesta - I made an acolyte and into shadowlord same as faust, couldnt match his offense but she had higher bulk. thanks to her life drain and bulk I can send her off where I need to and know she wont die and can reliably 1v1 most things.

Sophia - Was average on recruit, made into a witch hunter at level 10 and took off very well. has eventually fallen off due to lower speed stat but still quite effective at baiting other enemy archers or enemy magic users, definitely useful for that.

Lincoln - +1 def on levelup. can heal. I just found him to be the best physical bait or the best at creating a wall off situation. loses to magic though so watch out.

----------------------------------------------------

B tier - Were all decent fighters on recruitment, however they never really excelled anywhere. they are favorable in their preferred matchups and take a lot of damage in unfavorable ones. should win a 1v1 regardless of matchup though.


Special Notes
Cia - was excellent in the early game, but has since fallen off for dealing absolutely no damage unless fighting against a magic user, and I have enough units for that.

Helena - 50% crit is nice.... if she had the str to back it. I had to invest a ton of tokens and give her the + all weapons into power item in order to save her str stat. the investment was not worth it in the end.

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C tier

Onto our liabilities. Elias, Garrick, Sloane, Brooke, Sara, Corvan. I recommend benching when you find a better replacement.

Garrick - Bulk is shaky, needs to double and doesnt always, and doesnt offer a 1rko potential. you have better mages who can at least 1-2 range. Garrick was solid in the early game but eventually just outperformed by other recruits. Hes "ook" if you keep him with the bulk of your army and feed him.

Sloane - 3 defense. does yours have more than 3 defense? I finally found a unit to slap stealth onto but it doesnt help if shes the only thing in range.... so you still keep her in the turtle or with the bulk of the army anyway. but shes not glass cannon enough to warrant this much protection. see alden for good mage.

Brooke and Corvan - I made both riders thinking they would pay out eventually with their 3% item returns. They did not. routinely only got str on levelup. decent, but bad for a 1 range locked unit. fun toys, hope they turn out better next time.

Elias - Unfortunately his speed stat isn't enough to warrant using a 1 range locked unit, i tried using him as a gale and found his bulk to be nonexistant in hp+for. so eventually had to be benched. heyyy at least I cot to see some double 0's.....

-------------------------------------

D tier - Dont use tier...

Alexa - basically 0 str and 0 mag. im sorry, but considering how late she joins at level 26 and being recruited as a dragoon with 13 str, i just laughed and said no thanks, to be honest I wanted to use her by the time she joined but I just cant salvage that, even if she had a +200% str growth on levelup, its still impossible to save. maybe take her down Barb pathway for any str fix.

Aurima - no bulk, he wants to come off as good and being a top tier challeneger, made him a surge, but 8def 8for is kinda oof. I trained him to level 25 thanks to chapter 16 and not getting 1rko and just taking a lot of turns. he doesnt possess the str or mag to warrant protecting either. probably the weakest unit in game. chapter 16 was the last one i used him in unfortunately was just too much of a liability.

[awanderingswordsman]

And here my Cia literally solod the rest of my team in the shadow trial.

My top tiers as of mission 17.

SS - Cia. I guess she was blessed by RNJesus but she has just hit 30 and has bulk (71 hp, 20 ish def and res, and then 30+ in dex, mastery, speed, and like 25 luck. She also has like 25 str which is solid given that she almost always crits. Making her a gladiator with the crit chance increases by 1 on each crit and a maxed crit weapon makes her one round all but the tankiest enemies (which she 2 rounds), she heals any chip damage with the crit healing from gladiator. You add the god tier passives from duelist and she's unkillable and one rounds virtually everything.

S - Monroe. Bulky enough to survive several hits and has high enough damage to heal back almost all the damage he takes. Made him a conjurer which allows sorc's sting to hit for massive damage. Even without critting he is sometimes pumping out 70 damage if sorc's sting procs with 100% hit rate and ok speed.

Meave - requires some investment but it pays off. Gave her dodge healing and upgraded power weapons to more or less gaurantee she gets 1 kill which makes her pretty much unhittable. She's not super bulky but she's got enough to not get 1 rounded most of the time.

Irving - he had a significant dip in power from like chapter 5 to 12 or so but now he is back and stronger than ever. Gave him the dodge increased by 30% of strength so now he takes almost no physical damage and has high dodge and has super high hp and hits like a truck with surprisingly good accuracy. Giving out extra xp is a nice little bonus.

Wren - Discount Cia.

Faust - Low bulk makes him at risk of getting oneshot if he is super unlucky but he hits like 2 trucks and is super fast.

The real thing is that duelist, strider and conjurer are busted OP compared to everything else. I ended up dropping caius due to low bulk and just not knowing who to focus on but I don't doubt that he is amazing as well. Brooke was completely wasted because I went stalker instead of duelist.

[peanuthardis]

Monroe, Sloane, Faust.....even against rogue-type characters, they will still either one shot and leech or outlast via their leech.

I'm routinely just running those 3 into everyone with a full army just sitting idle b/c it's not worth the effort to move them unless necessary.

[Gotsa]

my monroe did make the 14 cut, just barely, i made him into the carpet flyer and his accuracy isnt the best, but he can 1rko knights so its good enough and he can take a hit. but im just comparing him against both alden and liberty who are decidedly better.

i cant be worry free and just send him 9 in one direction and drop an orbital nuke.

issue is you have other casters who are just ahead of even monroe.

[awanderingswordsman]

They aren't though. Monroe hits so hard as a conjurer and gets so much hp. For me he easily solos groups by drain tanking. He is basically alden but with 30 more hp. Alden is good too but his ability is virtually worthless. Only like 10% of level ups give less than 4 stats anyway.

I had forgotten but Thal is also pretty dang good. While his defensive stats seem kinda trash, his passive ability is among the best in the game so as a reverie he can drain tank just about anything as long as you give him an aspect that increases his hit rate (I gave him the hit rate +15%). It means even IF he can't hit back, it takes minimum 4 enemy attacks to kill him. As long as he doesn't get pelted by too many ranged enemies, he's invincible. One of the units that could easily solo the dragon.

[peanuthardis]

Having just beat the game, the final count was Monroe, Sloan, and Liberty, Cai. I left the full group going just for the crystal kills, but i literally just surrounded ol' boy with those 4 and their hp didn't budge.

I

Originally posted by kyle1234513:

my monroe did make the 14 cut, just barely, i made him into the carpet flyer and his accuracy isnt the best, but he can 1rko knights so its good enough and he can take a hit. but im just comparing him against both alden and liberty who are decidedly better.

i cant be worry free and just send him 9 in one direction and drop an orbital nuke.

issue is you have other casters who are just ahead of even monroe.

I honestly have no clue what you did with Monroe, but, as I've said and others as well, you literally just take him to conj and w/e you wanted as your final class; I did pyro just to keep amping the added hp to dmg since he ended with 110hp. Sloan was conj then Arc for dmg; Liberty actually went the illusionist route (just b/c i had no idea what i was doing) and wound up nuking the world. I think her hp did drop a bit at times, but you also have 3 healers given to you.....so just assign one to her.

As said, the tier list is any class with a passive leech or extreme dodge....that's honestly it.

[Gotsa]

https://i.imgur.com/xxSQhu6.png alden

https://i.imgur.com/z0vIWit.png monroe

growths

alden wizard v monroe illusionist
HP 60 v 85
Str 10 v 10
Mag 95 v 70
Def 25 v 35
For 40 v 45
Dex 45 v 55
Mas 60 v 75
Spd 65 v 55
Lck 30 v 30

I priod speed/mag for monroe. even if he gets it he still comes out below alden. hes got 14 base speed at level 20. given another 20 levels and guaranteed +1 speed on levelup hes still gunna end up with 34 by level 40. doubling is a luxury for him.

*i could have made him a bulky sorc and drain unit* but in already having a dedicated 2 powerhouse mages i opted for range with him. ill admit mine is a bit mag screwed, however even with catchup hes STILL below both alden and liberty.

taking monroe through conj classline he gets 80mag and 20 speed. that seemed horrid in my book except for the drain.

[awanderingswordsman]

"Except the drain" is the key component. Drains tanks are busted in this. He gets so much HP that sorcs sting is basically a oneshot on anything if it procs and he still gets high magic without it. Give him the aspect he starts with where he gains 10% hp to all advanced stats and he is godlike. That'll end up being like 12 to all bonus stats which includes true speed.

Sorc gives him everything he wants, hp, mastery (for more hp) and magic.

[Gotsa]

Originally posted by awanderingswordsman:

"Except the drain" is the key component. Drains tanks are busted in this. He gets so much HP that sorcs sting is basically a oneshot on anything if it procs and he still gets high magic without it. Give him the aspect he starts with where he gains 10% hp to all advanced stats and he is godlike. That'll end up being like 12 to all bonus stats which includes true speed.

Sorc gives him everything he wants, hp, mastery (for more hp) and magic.

what youre missing is liberty joins with more mag+defense but less hp. even in the same conj/pyro role only good for hitting once. mag is the deciding factor in that role not max HP. and due to joining later shes less prone to RNG screwage. not to say monroe cant turn out good if not better, but mag is king.

liberty strictly outperforms monroe in any 1-1 base role. except when you factor in speed, hes got more of it potentially. and pyro is just the wrong role to see doubles.

liberty dwarfs monroe in defense, 1 def = 2hp give or take. so monroe needs a good 30 more hp to make up the difference. **and if he has it, then theyre now even**

except they have the similar hp growth at 85% vs 105% soooo idk how you can possibly see monroe as better without having been blessed.

[awanderingswordsman]

That hp makes a big difference. Don't forget he gets HP from mastery as well from his unique skill. With the HP to stats aspect his extra health is resulting in 3-4 more of each advanced stat from that than liberty with the same build.

My monroe and liberty are the same level (29) and with the same weapon, monroe has better stats all around except defense, fort and dex. Monroe has 3 more magic than she does. The extra 24 hp monroe has easily makes up for the 10 less defense, and 6 less fort and his significantly higher luck makes up for 5 less dex or at least close enough. That's just base stats, not counting the aspects which monroe can use more effectively.

Their starting class promotion affects their base stats btw so that could be where some confusion is coming from. Liberty gets IIRC 32 mag as a top row, but only 27 as conj.

And then of course sorcs sting also is impacted by higher hp giving him about 3 more damage from that source compared to liberty. He basically gains 2.5 hp per level cause of the mastery to hp passive.

[orma]

All you need is Cia and Brook as duelist. The duelist passive is so broken, once you tier them both up to Trickster, they can both solo the game with nothing able to hit them. I did a dark deity run and finished it in 4:46 with Cia and Brooke.

If you want to use other characters, It all boils down to correctly changing classes according to their Aptitudes and starting skills.

I do wander how linear stat growth will play out, have yet to try it. RNG stat growth giveth and taketh a bit to much.

[Gotsa]

Originally posted by awanderingswordsman:

That hp makes a big difference. Don't forget he gets HP from mastery as well from his unique skill. With the HP to stats aspect his extra health is resulting in 3-4 more of each advanced stat from that than liberty with the same build.

My monroe and liberty are the same level (29) and with the same weapon, monroe has better stats all around except defense, fort and dex. Monroe has 3 more magic than she does. The extra 24 hp monroe has easily makes up for the 10 less defense, and 6 less fort and his significantly higher luck makes up for 5 less dex or at least close enough. That's just base stats, not counting the aspects which monroe can use more effectively.

Their starting class promotion affects their base stats btw so that could be where some confusion is coming from. Liberty gets IIRC 32 mag as a top row, but only 27 as conj.

And then of course sorcs sting also is impacted by higher hp giving him about 3 more damage from that source compared to liberty. He basically gains 2.5 hp per level cause of the mastery to hp passive.

base monroe level 20 = 72hp(100%), 22 mag(80%), 15def(55%) x9 you end up with 81hp, 29mag, and 19 or 20def.
base liberty level 29 = 76hp (85%), 29 mag (80%) 29def (75%)

so in comparing 81hp, 29mag, 19.5def. you believe this is better than 76hp, 29mag, and 29def.

again factor in libertys skill which increases def based on magic stat. where every 1 point of def is worth 2 hp. your monroe isnt getting 2hp a levelup except at a 5% rate until hes a pyro.

only a blessed monroe can surpass liberty. #averages

[awanderingswordsman]

The game isn't super clear on it but you actually get 1 free hp every level up. 100% hp stat means you get 2 hp every level so by 29 he would have 90 before his passive skill which gives him an extra hp every 2 mastery (and he has really high mastery growth). If you get 8 mastery level ups out of 9 you end up with my stats, which is 94 hp.

Liberty does not have 76 base hp if you pick conj, she has 70, with 27 magic and 28 def. I haven't leveled her at all so she is still 29 and these are her stats.

Hp 70
str 7
mag 27
def 28
fdr 16
dex 18
mas 29
spd 13
luck 16

That means assuming your base monroe stats are correct, he should have two more mag than liberty at level 29 (0.8 x 9 = 7.2). My monroe did not get blessed, he is just a stronger unit. Especially once you get pyro and with it access to yet another high chance to deal damage based of your hp.

[Gotsa]

Originally posted by awanderingswordsman:

The game isn't super clear on it but you actually get 1 free hp every level up. 100% hp stat means you get 2 hp every level so by 29 he would have 90 before his passive skill which gives him an extra hp every 2 mastery (and he has really high mastery growth). If you get 8 mastery level ups out of 9 you end up with my stats, which is 94 hp.

Liberty does not have 76 base hp if you pick conj, she has 70, with 27 magic and 28 def. I haven't leveled her at all so she is still 29 and these are her stats.

Hp 70
str 7
mag 27
def 28
fdr 16
dex 18
mas 29
spd 13
luck 16

That means assuming your base monroe stats are correct, he should have two more mag than liberty at level 29 (0.8 x 9 = 7.2). My monroe did not get blessed, he is just a stronger unit. Especially once you get pyro and with it access to yet another high chance to deal damage based of your hp.

If your stats are accurate.... youre seriously considering bumping him all the way up to S tier above everyone else if not just calling them both even. youre just pushing a case to bump monroe up to A tier alongside liberty. youre not making a case why he should be higher rated than her.

youre depending on his join item of +10% advanced stats (assuming 100 hp). well guess what, liberty joins with a +20% power item. even better for conj role.

i still stand by both monroe and liberty arent good enough to send into a horde of enemies alone, thats S tier. conj role isnt accurate or reliable enough for that position.

the only 3 units i have that i can just send into that are faust, caius, and alden. thanks to their superb speed or bulk via items and build.

[Karf]

Hehe, oh this brings back memories from the old tier lists which used to be pretty crappy, at least looking at them today.
Please don't feel offended but its way too early to put something together which I would consider at least decent. We simply miss the data for that and most people seem to put them together either purely on personal experience in 1-2 runs or based on math out of context.

Its even more questionable since there are easy ways to brake the game without any crazy shannanigans like the wandering swordsman allready mentioned. It got to the point that I am right on the fence to give a final negative review since it's so immensely broken that it bothers me way too much.


A few notes to the actual list you made:

Faust - I don't now man, he can get oneshotted as an acolyte by the dragon the first chapter you get him even on normal (even through he joins LVL 28 where my other chars were from 22-25 and no one of them got this problem). And I mean one as in one, not the strange luck based thing there the dragon suddenly decides to attack one target with both of his actions. Pretty sure he will be OP as ♥♥♥♥ but thats more due to the mentioned flaw with the whole draintank stuff.

"Benji - unfortunately just outside of S tier, his unit passive is great for the extra crit, but he wont ever hit a double. "
--> see? Thats what I mean, it can't get more subjective than that. Made him a dragoon and he had no problem to double but he was just too crit dependant to be a viable option and not bulky enough to endure on the frontline.

Cia - Strange pick since she is kind of a better version of caius for me. Unhittable even without dodgeaspect and even when she take a 1% hit she has enough HP to endure. Dunno what went wrong with yours, getting statscrewed seems pretty hard in the game since the rates are very generous overall.

"Helena - 50% crit is nice.... if she had the str to back it. I had to invest a ton of tokens and give her the + all weapons into power item in order to save her str stat."
.... well duh... weapon upgrades are important for every unit and again... its strange to base this on one playthrough.

Garrick and Sloane a Liability? I guess when you don't upgrade their weapons and bench them early on, sure they can be...


----------------------


Salty verdict:

Since Stats highly vary with the different promotions and there is literally an aspect for every kind of weakness I find it very hard to objectively tierrank chars.... You can salvage pretty much every character and make him decent (Aurima is an exception for me so far but I only tried two times with different approaches, maybe even he can be cured), at least on normal.

While that on paper sounds like a good thing, the sheer difference in power between draintanks/dodgetanks and the rest of the classes renders any serious tierdiscussions kind of useless. It really saddens me to say but it's just not a well balanced system and thats kind of inexcusable in a game like that since this must have been noted during gameplaytests.

[Gotsa]

Originally posted by Karf:

Hehe, oh this brings back memories from the old tier lists which used to be pretty crappy, at least looking at them today.
Please don't feel offended but its way too early to put something together which I would consider at least decent. We simply miss the data for that and most people seem to put them together either purely on personal experience in 1-2 runs or based on math out of context.

Its even more questionable since there are easy ways to brake the game without any crazy shannanigans like the wandering swordsman allready mentioned. It got to the point that I am right on the fence to give a final negative review since it's so immensely broken that it bothers me way too much.


A few notes to the actual list you made:

Faust - I don't now man, he can get oneshotted as an acolyte by the dragon the first chapter you get him even on normal (even through he joins LVL 28 where my other chars were from 22-25 and no one of them got this problem). And I mean one as in one, not the strange luck based thing there the dragon suddenly decides to attack one target with both of his actions. Pretty sure he will be OP as ♥♥♥♥ but thats more due to the mentioned flaw with the whole draintank stuff.

"Benji - unfortunately just outside of S tier, his unit passive is great for the extra crit, but he wont ever hit a double. "
--> see? Thats what I mean, it can't get more subjective than that. Made him a dragoon and he had no problem to double but he was just too crit dependant to be a viable option and not bulky enough to endure on the frontline.

Cia - Strange pick since she is kind of a better version of caius for me. Unhittable even without dodgeaspect and even when she take a 1% hit she has enough HP to endure. Dunno what went wrong with yours, getting statscrewed seems pretty hard in the game since the rates are very generous overall.

"Helena - 50% crit is nice.... if she had the str to back it. I had to invest a ton of tokens and give her the + all weapons into power item in order to save her str stat."
.... well duh... weapon upgrades are important for every unit and again... its strange to base this on one playthrough.

Garrick and Sloane a Liability? I guess when you don't upgrade their weapons and bench them early on, sure they can be...


----------------------


Salty verdict:

Since Stats highly vary with the different promotions and there is literally an aspect for every kind of weakness I find it very hard to objectively tierrank chars.... You can salvage pretty much every character and make him decent (Aurima is an exception for me so far but I only tried two times with different approaches, maybe even he can be cured), at least on normal.

While that on paper sounds like a good thing, the sheer difference in power between draintanks/dodgetanks and the rest of the classes renders any serious tierdiscussions kind of useless. It really saddens me to say but it's just not a well balanced system and thats kind of inexcusable in a game like that since this must have been noted during gameplaytests.

ok, i take it you invested into garrick, now take that same investment and put it onto rose sophie or maeve and tell me what you have.... 3 better units.

benji, are you always doubling, or is it selective doubling against slow things....

sloane, she does pack a punch, but so does everyone else ive kept.

helena, the investment is required to perform, thats a characteristic, not a fault, shes on my team and made the cut..... the investment only hurts her rating slightly downwards.

Cia didnt go wrong, she turned out average. she wasnt str or speed blessed. with a 60% str+speed growth you can expect just over 20 str pending your coin tosses by level 30. with investment i do see her turning out well.

hence the initial description of the tier list as i gave them.

S you can send them in alone and watch them go brrrr

A is a great unit with minimal investment and performs a good role for the team

B is a useable fighting units

C is terms and conditions apply

D is the only hinderances in the game. even C tier units are useable pending how you build and invest into them