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Acolyte => Priest > Crusader
Acolyte, gets nice endurance boost and helps me get Phoebe a tower shield and really push her tankiness. Helps keep her on the frontline to get shared knowledge aura into the frontline. Vital points is the reason why Acolyte really shines though.
Priest is great too, but purely defense. A full heal and cleanse, careful with how it handles poison though. The mobility is great, especially if you are running limited healers and have a split party, part of the reason why I think Priest is close in power to the Acolyte, but really comes down to what you need in the moment. Are you 1 attack short of cleaning up the fight, or do you need the ambulance to keep you from eating dirt.
Crusader, as mentioned before I think defenders generally make better crusaders. If you remember you can seperate crusader from paladin you might be happier with Acolyte Paladin, determining if you need to grant a turn or drop a heal with a kill. Or enjoy the vast mobility of Priest Paladin, getting the bonus move from a wounded ally with ignoring the ZoC of paladin. When you look at the other options waiting for Paladin, maybe Crusader does feel a bit more behind. Smite requires damage, and healer strength is lacking. Divine right is good, sometimes it's all you need to sustain a split in the party, but again I think defenders are the better choice.
Enlightened > Saint > Paladin
Enlightened. Cartography is good, don't think it's stack it good, but it's nice. Martial insight is situationally useful if you let your shield tank take a beating.
Saint. Aegis. It's potent, but I never think of using it. For all the praise I give safeguard Aegis should be right up my alley, but I get into healer mentality of fill the health bars and not being proactive to prevent damage.
Group Prayer is good, Saint also makes one of the best Mithra's holders. (longbow sniper Wesley gets a nod here) The problem with Saint is the lack of options of what to do if you don't need to heal.
Paladin. Honestly Paladin for healer really comes down to Cedric or Hilda. I think synergies with crusader outside of paladin are lacking, so Hilda gets put here, and well Credrics Salvation passive means he can kill secure for a heal without needing the offensive stats that help make a paladin shine. Priest Paladin Cedric next run confirmed. Give him bear effigy and let him buff heal and kill secure while maintaining one of the best dodge tanks. Only mention here is maybe he needs Ethal's to help heal himself when things go wrong. Or a bandage.
Soldier.
I've been putting off soldier because over 3 runs, soldiers felt the least impactful, or the least consistent. In my last run Elias got some hot rolls and made lancer tanking feel viable, but the 2 runs before I felt lancer tanking was worthless.
Scout > Lancer=>Hero
We only get 2 soldiers to fully build, and stats are very flat, so its hard for me to draw from this. Less strengths, less weaknesses, all flat.
Scout gives enough buffs to help compensate for raw stats. If you are looking for offense this is your play
Lancer, a bit of hybrid. Skewer lets you poke at 2 tiles and setting up a bleed kill feels good, Exp for the poke, exp for the kill, and depending on turn order you may have prevented damage by a body holding the place just to die as soon as they start to act. Spear wall makes you feel like they should be able to evade tank, but if you plan on this invest in an agility ring. Slyker and Elias have very mid growth rates, but the ring puts them on track to turn spear wall into a steady tank, could even keep up with the polearm over spear and buckler.
Hero. Same as fighter, but you do get polearm over greatsword. So take your preference on proficiencies. Quincy premade hero worked well. charge in, fortify, then start stacking her defense from personal passive until she was a brick house. A shame that the only soldier with that kind of defensive power doesn't have the chance to play with lancer to see how it feels supporting low agi high defense opposed to avoidance stacking. Hero works, its just the most straight forward of the choices.
Commando > Marshal=>Lionheart.
Keeping it in order with first promotions, I don't see much twisting going on other than possibly lancer into lionheart over marshal.
Commando. Great synergy with scout, as mentioned in the archer section. You just find yourself more likely in range for the scouts marked passive. I have a habit of keeping my archer scouts with the bow and soldier scouts with the spears/polearms. Proficiencies are the same this time unlike hero's. You have great support with spreading debuffs and great offense with a turn refresh.
Marshal. Rarely use the stun. Would find it more useful if swapped with skewer with lancer. Stun would feel so much more impactful earlier in the game. Skewer at a higher level ability I guess I would just hope it would just be slightly stronger like allowing potential to double attack. Off balance I had vastly different feels about from multiple runs. If you keep your lancer marshal away from blades and spear attackers, then you feel very strong, but blades and spears are everywhere, or they are the only things that like to attack my marshals.
Lionheart. I need to use lionheat more. I would like to be able to find a unit with decent defense to stack with against the odds. Quincy comes to mind, would love to see her as a lancer lionheart. Bravery is potent, but sometimes its just overkill, I feel like most units at end game can kill with 2 hits, especially skirmishers and fighters. Archers can usually 2 tap someone as well. If bravery secured your 2nd hit against a blade and you double him then it's worth it. It means your lionheart needs to be the first in and you lose flexibility. I can see potential but at the same time it hasn't won over my heart.
Given how powerful DEF reducing skills are (because of how simple the damage calc is), this also makes Marked and Champ Taunts some of the better skills in the game. It can turn your lower damage support units into solid hitters, giving you better options while adjusting your front lines - mop up with weaker units while sending your stronger units forward. This strategy is what let me end most encounters 1 - 3 turns earlier than my Normal difficulty run, and with better reliability.
I do feel that the one thing missing in this review is overall class synergies. Rogue/Assassin isn't too great on its own, but with a Knight/Champ, can turn into an absolute beast (3x 42 damage hits is insane). Same with Scout/Commando - 2 units working in tandem (Archer w/bright feathers + someone else) can make it so you wipe an entire group of enemies with 2 units, or at the very least set them up to be easily killed on the enemy turn. Also for Enlightened, it's possible to have a "highway" with staggered Enlightened. Depending on how wide your front line is, you can easily move 8+ spaces in a single turn with 2 or more of them.
Generally speaking, I think this game tends to reward you the more you stick to a particular gimmick. So the more you rely on a certain strategy, the less it makes sense to have ANY units that don't benefit that strategy. I think this is why runs where you have 1 unit with a unique class setup tend to be so challenging - individually they don't work together as well as other mono-class combinations.
After 3 runs taunt feels like it's just there to make life easier. I can't decide if it's learning new strategies on the 3rd time through, or how a comp with more defenders and archers felt. I was able to set up kills without flanks. I had no assassins, but had paladins for backstabs. It was a different playstyle than my other runs. I plan on running at half party size next and that may really change what I value. I may even consider playing no classes with turn resets, forcing me to find more power and stability on enemy turns. Other challenges that come to mind would be no rings, just base stat growths and make the best of it.
Indeed! Your tier list assessment is almost a carbon copy of mine except in two areas, and this is one of them.
The Knight incontestably stands alone at the top for me here. Taunt is indeed a boring, monotone trick, but boy, is it one hell of a trick! I think it is indispensable for beginners - and, frankly, for lazy or clumsy veterans like me as well!
Here's the other. Cartography is too micromanagement-intensive to use, and I've never used Martial Insight.
Again, I suppose play style differences come prominently to the fore here. I like a simpler approach: I've got harder-hitting, beefier units, so let me charge frontally and not worry about it.
Yet again, call my style/perspective that of a beginner or a lazy veteran!
Otherwise, this was wonderful to read. As open-minded as I try to be, and thus willing to consider the opposing view, we all like to dwell in the comforts of echo chambers! ;)
Edit: You should still call this "class tier list" for those who are more readily attracted to this stuff! ;)
Yes, I wholly agree!
I will agree cartography sometimes is hard to play around or sometimes hard to notice when terrain effects cancel out the bonus movement. Really I notice it most turn 1 right out of deployment, my Enlightened starts front row in the center to get as much value as possible. After that you get the mercy of the map and all the situations if you can get back to the front of the pack to repeat the process. Not to mention how often the party splits and if you only run 1 like me then instant value loss. I still like it as it's a passive that works when a heal isn't needed. I also don't like limited use abilities, I just hold onto them and don't use them until I notice I've won anyways might as well. So that takes the appeal away from Saint. Healers really come down to base class and stat growths for me. Can I put them on the frontline safely? Then heal and hold a spot in the wall, beyond that the promotion classes offer more to me at 10 then they do at 20. 3rd person turn refresh or mobility increase? Solid choices. Cooldowns versus a passive that can be tricky to work around? Less appealing to me.
It's a problem, but not something that cannot be surmounted. Basically, you eliminate the axes first and then the Defenders can be home-free.
Also, depending on your RnG luck, you can reach such Defense levels that even 2H axes cannot really threaten you.
Back into current reality.
I feel like everything is pretty balanced. I think people see the 2h axe counter to armor being the most impacted, but I'm curious what level defenders are compared to the rest of the party? I know people point out healers falling behind, I know my tanks fell behind on my first playthrough also. If you don't feed them some kills and they fall behind, then you will feel the axes more as they continue to fall more behind. It's a possibility that your skirmishers and fighters feel so durable because they have so much more of the experience share and have several levels higher. If say the mythical upcoming brutal difficulty took away flat levels on enemy stage and scaled off the highest level of the party, would your fed Illy still feel like a goddess if she didn't outlevel the map?
Several of us have had the benefit of several playthoughs and have taken different approaches to extra playthroughs. Some want to optimize and see how powerful and "broken" they can become. Some impose challenges to increase the difficulty and see what comes from it, I haven't seen much talk on someone building around a tank and see what kind of monster they become. I had a Rho get ahead enough one playthrough that she was double attacking enemies, and was taking no damage from non axe wielders. Defenders are not sexy in kit, no resets, low damage stats assuming you count strength skill and agility all as offensive. Some defenders keep up on STR just fine.
I feel like I've just rambled on with jumbled thoughts and lost where my direction was with this. I'm tired and distracted lol.
That's actually a clever use of the Sentinel that I did not consider! Hmm, it will force me to test him yet again!
In my experience, one tank and one healer do not really fall behind. This is because one tank will benefit from tanking Rickard for two levels, and one healer will be able to benefit from the trinket that lets you take two actions per turn rather regularly.
I had Arland stay roughly at the same level as my top DPS characters. The reason was, in part, because he had to tank Rickard for two chapters. So Arland couldn't really be threatened even by 2H axes from mid-game onward. But the issue, I think, was more his insane RnG luck on Defense as much to his levels.
I feel like Reyson makes a good Hunter. Hunter is the squishiest promotion though so I get it if you don't agree. Blade is sooo much more resilient with first strike. I wouldn't do rogue because rogues tend to get within 2 tiles of your other dudes. Also, Reyson should probably run a sword and board for max AVD, but that's not sexy. Swapping is good.
Cassidy is an amazing blade and rarely suffers from his low SKL thanks to his passive.
OP did not cover Soldier promotions. Lancer > Scout > Hero. I think hero benefits from a Fighter's higher strength, so if there is a soldier with high strength I would give hero a consideration for hero. Marcus is a great hero. I made Slyker a Scout and it's fun.
Skirmishers and Soldiers turned bowman may not have +1 range but they tend to have higher Strength making their strikes impactful. Reyson and Slyker hit hard. They also have better defensive attributes. Abigail is running with 25 VIT and 5 DEF level 10. Slyker is running 30 VIT and 9 DEF level 11. Being a little closer is a decent trade off.