The funniest part about por -> radiant dawn sothe, is that transferring stats from a capped level sothe is on average just worse than his base stats in radiant dawn (even factoring in blossom). Max level PoR Sothe is -2.3 hp, -1.4 strength, +1.6 luck, -2.6 def, -2.6 res compared to his base stats in radiant dawn. There is the option of stat boosters. But it still says quite a lot.
This might be based on my post but this is certainly much more well thought out! Glad to see the idea more fleshed out instead of my list which I gave all of a few minutes of thought into.
I tried that, and thought I was real clever getting a little bit more exp by attacking the mage once but Heather thought that would be a great time for her like 4% crit to activate.
A few notes on FE9 Maniac Nephenee use, just because I like her. None of these will be optimal because pretty much anything you can do can be applied to Marcia for a unit with a flying mount and better res (albeit with no wrath) Maniac allows the forging of steel weapons instantly, and I'd argue Nephenee will benefit much more from a steel forge than an iron one. You can give her the early arms scroll to get her to D-rank lances. It seems silly, but there's not a lot of good competition for the arms scroll anyways. The higher MT makes it easier for her to clean up kills, and the weapon EXP gains will be twice as high. (It takes 30 uses of any E-rank weapon to get to D-rank, but only 20 Uses of a Steel weapon to reach C-rank! If you give her an iron forge, you'll also likely unintentionally make this even worse as she'll have at least 15 uses of it left when she reaches D-rank) The faster improved weapon rank will let her substantially earlier use the killer lance, which combined with wrath can make semi-reliable ways of slaying the bulky promoted enemies in ch16/17. I also recommend not using vantage/wrath on maniac as wrath crits on unforged javelins are unlikely to kill anyways. You'll likely find more consistent value out of adept, which when she's in wrath range, will give more crit rolls. Since usually the wrath scroll is reserved for Ike, Nephenee has a unique advantage here. As for vantage, I'd rather it on a unit that got the cancel scroll so it can noticeably improve their survivability.
Iliana in fe10 gets screwed by stat caps for thunder mage while not even having amazing growths to begin with. I had Iliana capped on the important stats (she had transferred stats, I think magic and res) pre promotion that I grinded against priests for on pt1 endgame, got her to like level 7 sage because I really wanted to use her. Ignoring dawn brigade outpacing her 2 chapters after you get her/ I had a transferred Soren (I believe he had +2 speed and magic and Res, literally the same as regular Soren by level 15) and he had higher magic and speed at base, not to mention he had a 2 chapters to level up before she joined so he's able to one round most enemies, while Iliana can't even double, and because she can't kill, she ends up falling even further behind Soren. There really isn't a way to get her on a level playing field with Soren, who is pretty much the only other sage you get any time to use, unless you somehow soloed the entirety of part 1 with her and then spent bxp to get her to 99 exp every chapter. The only reason to use her is Rexbolt because it's technically exclusive to her, and it isn't even that good on her when she has her offensive stats capped because her max speed is less than a marshal. Not to mention she's not even super likely to reach the caps that, to make even worse, are lower than fire and wind, and dark arch sages where it matters. On top of that being stuck with the worst magic type for her SS weapon, with the other 2 magics starting at E rank, with the only way to train those other tomes by the time you get to part 3 being priest grinding. Another run I used her because I was doing magic only, and she was barely better than Calill, (who I used a master crown on at level 10 so she could heal my unarmed Royal Knights and solo the chapter) and Oliver so she just barely reached the of top 10 characters who use magic to use for endgame. So they turned the 3rd best sage in fe9 (imo) to an impossible one to use in fe10. Also i did check averages on all these characters, I'm not just going by personal experience, just using it to show how bad it is
He does have lethality btw so he isn't as bad against generals as most people think especially if you give him something like adept and vantage which combined with his high speed and skill makes him kinda pesudo swordmaster(but better mastery).
The official pronunciation of Lethe doesn't pronounce the final "e", so feel free to keep saying it either way. Also, did you say Halberdier gets a crit boost? It doesn't in PoR, even in the localisation - only Berserker and Sniper get that (EDIT: whoops, Swordmasters too).
Reyson is around for 12 chapters in PoR out of 30 or 33 (depending on how you count Chapter 17). He's around for 7/37 or 38 pre-tower chapters in RD (depending on how you count 1-6). And of course even though he's available for all 5 tower maps, there's no reason to bring him over Rafiel. I think just based on that alone, I prefer Smol Nerf. Though I'd also say that transforming him in PoR tends to be more viable and he has less competition for Laguz Stones (even though they are rarer), so I think he puts in more work per map on average in PoR as well.
I think Volke is comfortably in Smol Nerf, and I'd sooner put him in Big Nerf than About the Same. Even if you don't place that much value on chest and desert items, that's got to be better than what he can offer in the tower. Volke's only competition for his FE9 utility is Sothe, who is worse any time an enemy is remotely nearby - and there are multiple chapters (particularly 13 and 15) where having multiple thieves is useful. Not to mention he can steal, and FE9's uniquely generous steal mechanics mean you can load up on staves that way, especially in Maniac Mode where there are Physic staves galore. Volke is also clearly better at this than Sothe, due to his better basis both enabling him to steal more things from more targets, and him not being made of paper. In RD, even in 0% he's arguably not worth a tower slot, and if you do bring him, he's going to struggle to make an impact for the very brief window in which he has the opportunity. There's so much more competition for that role, too.
I feel like there should be things mentioned for the Japanese version of RD that you really didn't mention as much, because you mentioned both Hard mode PoR and JP Maniac mode, but there are things to really consider with JP Maniac. With some of the main things relating to placements of characters. Mist, and Nasir. Mist: Mist should be considered a big improvement if you're also adding in JP RD, because people cannot promote to tier 3 with EXP in the JP version. They have to use a Master Crown to reach tier 3 (granted there are more Crowns in JP RD, but still, because some of them are hidden, you might not get them in a standard game). Meanwhile, Mist only needs to get to the point where she can actually use the crown. Sure, it makes her "promote late," but in her case, it could be the difference between her being compared to healers that are tier 2 while she gets a free tier 3 (and a mount), which is pretty significant. She also has 7 movement as opposed to Rhy's 6 move. This means that she can also keep up with foot units easier here. Sure, she heals less, but let's counter that point by saying that she's one of the few healing units in the game that has enough speed to not be doubled and *just* enough durability to not get one shot or one rounded via being doubled like almost every other healer in RD. Plus, among healers, Water is easily the best affinity of the bunch, which makes her a pretty decently sought after unit to build support ranks with. There's also the fact that because of the fact that she joins up at the exact same time as Rhys, she's far less garbage. In the original PoR, Mist was level 1 when Rhys could easily be level 5 or 6, able to use Mend staves, and was well on his way to getting higher tiers of staff. Meanwhile, to get any real use out of Mist, you need to use Heal at least 10 times to get WEXP rank to be able to use Mend, and she's still not able to use it better than him. Her magic will never allow her to heal as much as he does, and her durability isn't much better than his because her base hp is so terrible. You could argue that you could just BEXP her to get around this problem, but I'd argue that you'd be better of just leveling Ilyana or Soren to level 15 and then early promoting them. Not only do you get a unit that would suddenly have (for a time) the same move as your non-mounted units, but you'd have a healer that's actually capable of attacking decently. Mist in RD is just a unit that isn't good enough to take into Endgame, but is far more useful than she was in PoR where it's "use her on her join chapter and then dump." Nasir should also be in "big improve" in my eyes. White Tide is a very powerful support skill. It raises magic by 5 and more importantly speed by 5. Nasir opens up so many doors for your units that would need brave weapons to double enemies to be able to double that would otherwise never be able to. Units like Gatrie, Titania, Oscar can safely go well beyond the 34 (or just flat out snag) the speed needed to double, and it opens up so many more attack strategies for people. Especially ones that have canto as you can slap Nasir in spots, and then do things like Canto spam to double and then re-move themselves into a spot for a Rafiel refresh and then do it *again* with that same 4 mounted units. You thought Haar lost steam by endgame? Well now he can still double because of Nasir. That's way more useful than what he ever did in PoR. Especially because Nasir can be deployed, has enough res to not get murdered like Gareth is if he's attacked, and actually has usefulness because he doesn't have the requirement of having a good Ike.
I know Ilyana is bad in Radiant Dawn, but i gave her parangon since she has the most availability and paired her with aran and they both became surprisingly good frontline tank lmao
Geoffrey and Marcia definitely got a big nerf. Haar did become insane. Mia and Zihark got much better. Nephenee felt better than what you rated her for improvements
IMO Marcia's problem in Maniac Mode isn't needing BEXP, it's her low STR cap and inability to use axes, which means that lategame she just can't deal enough damage.
“Is he (Stefan) the only prepromote you get after Titania?” *Literally every Beorc unit left in the game is prepromoted*. Did a double-take and laughed at that
I'm pretty sure he meant "the *first* prepromote you get after Titania" which is both true and not true. You get Shinon earlier, but he leaves, so assuming you somehow haven't promoted any Beorc before chapter 15, Stefan and Titania will indeed be your only promoted units
I would put Jill at about the same, because IMO being in the top 2 Part 1 characters is about as big of an honor as top 3 characters in the game in FE9 - especially because of the necessity of good part 1 characters. Pretty much agree with the rest.
I think if you were going to argue for someone else to join Haar in LMAO tier, it would be Ulki. Sothe has Thief utility in PoR, and Janaff at least gets to start transformed, but Ulki is *so* trash in PoR. He's digging out of a deeper hole for sure.
I think Muarim belongs in Smol Nerf, mostly b/c I think you overstated his case for RD. In a vacuum he is pretty good in Part 1, but in practice he has surprisingly little opportunity to contribute. You said you think he's better than Tormod in both games, but I think Tormod is better in RD. In his join chapter he can't do the most important job (opening up the gap on the right side), unlike Tormod. In 1-8, he's in an isolated part of the map and is slower to cross the swamp to the boss area than Tormod (ironically in part b/c Muarim can shove Tormod), who in any case can enemy phase more of the enemies there, not to mention Muarim needs to grass up to even get started. In 1-E, he's just outclassed by other units that fulfill similar roles. Nailah is doing most of the "big movement 1 range combat", Volug is better for simply having the big laguz movement but starting transformed (and being a better unit to take skills b/c they'll be available again in Part 3), Vika and Jill have canto where that's relevant, and of course Muarim doesn't have 1-2 range like BK or Tormod. Muarim can actually contribute some decently meaningful combat in 4-4, which is nice, and he's clearly better than Tormod in this chapter, but it's very much flunky-tier unless you give him Resolve, and unlikely to be very relevant outside of 0%. Obviously his lack of 1-2 range limits his contributions in PoR as well, but playing 0% gave me a real appreciation for how much he can still accomplish there in the mid-game. And he just has so much more time to do it. Plus he's a great candidate for the Smite scroll, so he can continue to provide utility very far into the game.
This is fair! Devil's advocate: I do think if we put a lot of value on Tormod's ability to clear the wyvern and the bottom right island in 1-8 then we oughta give Muarim a lot of credit for enabling it. And if you take a slower approach then Muarim is (iirc) better against the brigand reinforcements. In 1-7 iirc Tormod is the one to open up the gap but Muarim is best positioned to actually clear out the boss. In 1-E, yeah Muarim plays second fiddle to Nailah, and you don't need a whole lot of firepower at the top, I'll agree to that. In a vacuum he looks very strong because he murders everything but I suppose in practice there's not that much he can do since it's only from turn 3 onwards. But yeah I can defo see smol nerf.
Brom to me gets Smol Improve just b/c he's essential in 2-1 and completely ignorable in all other contexts in both games (although his ability to contribute in 2-2 and 2-E still surpasses anything he's doing in PoR just by virtue of being less of a drop-off from the alternatives).
I wonder what cause is to kill mages for RD I dont know if i would go so far as to say Zihark > Jill but its made me want to run rd again to test it out For haar dont even bother putting nullify on him cause thunder magic is complete trash and will never hit him
I think Ike being compared to Roy is a bit unfair, Roy starts out significantly inferior to most other units in the army and never really gets a chance to stand out. Ike's promotion comes at a much more reasonable time and for free, something not many in Tellius can say. The biggest problems for him are outside of Maniac mode everyone is a good training project, and if you play on fixed mode to avoid bad RNG you can even "fix" units like Mia and Rolf (their main weakness as units aren't removed, but they have big numbers and better numbers in areas they usually lack). Ike stands out most in Maniac mode, where resources like Bexp and even normal exp are so restricted that without the guaranteed crits exploit units need something strong to stand out, one of the strongest being his double Earth affinity with Oscar. Now, Ike will not dodge everything, but his HP growth is one of the highest in that game and he has reasonable bulk in both defenses (pretty much the whole cast has good enough res) so a 30% boost for A rank with Oscar (and I believe another 15% from B rank Soren) will both enable him and enable Oscar himself to pop off, and these supports get built and activated much earlier than anyone else's will (I think at Chapter 8 you can already have C with both Soren and Oscar). His promotion also comes in perfectly in that mode, as from Chapter 18 on pretty much every enemy will be their promoted variant. You can easily neglect Ike and just have him be a stat backpack for Oscar like how many do with Roy's fire affinity with the Christmas Cavs for the whole game, but I feel like when you're handed a unit who can have amazing stats and a great sustain tool (Aether) from Chapter 18 on when the rest of the skill% procs are either just damage increases worse than crits or so niche that it's not worth it. IDK, I just feel like the "Ike is bad" argument is really just a "I wish Ike had a non-magic 1-2 range option earlier than Chapter 27" which is entirely valid. It definitely diminishes his usefulness, I'd say even more than FE6 Roy or any Marth had to deal with because of how prominent 1-2 range weapons are in PoR. He could also do with doubling enemies sooner, but of the starting units not named Titania Ike has the best chance of getting there before Oscar Knight Ward or a Boyd with 2 strength and speed levels, as that's basically +4 speed for him. Each unit has their own weaknesses, Ike's is range. It's not a good weakness to have, but he has tools to contribute outside of that. He reminds me more of Leif; if you want to use either of them like Sigurd or even Hector, you're in for a bad time, but there are ways to make them contribute in a meaningful way. IDK, it's weird to me we rate Mordecai so high for shoving people 2 tiles instead of 1, but we give Ike so much crap.
I was playing Maniac and made Oscar A support Ike and Soren B support Ike. Gave Ike Provoke and gave Soren Shade and those 3 walked through every map as am unkillable 3 man wall, sometimes supported by Marcia and Kieran (Kieran with Oscar and Marcia supports) with Tanith and Reyson close and doubling. Earth affinity is so dumb but so fun
- Also rather than relying on Aether like on PoR to beat the black knight , you can just give him a hammer lmao - Ike promotion at the end of Part 3 and his 3rd tier promotion is like head and shoulders above most characters lol
@@LorPil0 you get the resolve scroll too late so aether's pretty much your best option. Also, you probably have a few occult scrolls to spare on aether since most other promoted class skills are so bad.
@@judeloveless9427 it's still by far the best strategy giving Ike wrath and resolve, if you want to beat the black knight at least, or well you could use Mist, but assuming you didn't train her, aether is just no reliable enough
@@LorPil0 You get the resolve scroll in chapter 27, the one where you fight the Black Knight. There is no base in between the end of chapter 27 and the 1-on-1 duel. It is impossible to have resolve on Ike for the Black Knight fight. Just wrath is maybe slightly more reliable than Aether, but either way, the fight is very luck based.
My bias for Elincia always prevents me from not using her. That scene when she lands between the armies and lays down her sword was ballsy as fuck and I love the strong but kind archtype especially when they get to have that "I will fight if I must" then destroy people sorta thing. And a flying healer is just always good.
Same, she's awesome and fills a unique niche in both games so I don't even feel too bad about using her in both, even if she's not all that great in a vacuum.
Concoctions heal 40 in RD, not 30, so Rhys is even less useful in that regard. Haar definitely deserves his own tier. It's not just his combat that got better, but his availability is infinitely better on top of that. I'd say Brom got smol improve. There's no reason to deploy him in PoR, while Disarm is so much fun to use.
When playing Radiant Dawn, I decided to see if I could get cheat codes working, since I had never done that before. And somehow got Canto deleted off Oscar. Canto-less Oscar, and he got unlucky level ups for me.
I would say that the changes showed who worked hard to improve themselves over the past three years and who slacked off, but let's be real here, Haar definitely didn't put in any effort to become better, he just is.
You forgot that one of the early Part 3 bosses (can't remember if it's 3-P or 3-1) drops a crossbow for Shinon & Rolf meaning that they do still have a 1 range option, sure they might not be the best but they still have it
I would sooner put Lethe and Mordecai in Big Nerf than in About the Same, since they're clearly worse in FE10. But I think only Lethe actually belongs in Big Nerf, since she goes from a pretty effective combat unit who just can't do 2 range and isn't a training priority, to basically useless. Whereas Mordecai isn't very useful outside of Smite in FE9 anyway (Demi Band is better used on Muarim unless you specifically need a transformed Mordecai Smite), though at least he has a lot more availability to Smite with. This is actually the first I've disagreed with any of your ratings, and it's just the one tier, so that's pretty impressive.
The thing about Mist is that you don’t have to use bonus exp, if you just give her paragon and constantly use staffs to heal (physic giving you 50exp each) especially on that volcano chapter where you can have your unit constantly take damage, you can promote her like that
Ilyana was one of my MVPs in my first run of Path of Radiance. I think she got blessed or something, but she slammed through plenty of high priority foes, and she was one of the strongest units I had towards the end. Then I went into Radiant Dawn and she got her legs cut out from under her. It felt awful.
Yeah, even with transfers her bases are just meh. Growths are kinda meh too. Thunder magic is also iffy at best if you dont have forges to fix the hit rate. Part 1 is also weird and then she leaves to join ike's group and she's surrounded by so many other units
I'd put Ranulf in Smol Improve. The combination of increased availability (when most characters have less availability) and being force deployed means you're probably going to find things for him to do, where in PoR you're likely to either bench him or deploy him occasionally for shoving. dondon's critique of his gauge is completely accurate, of course, but I'd still expect to see Ranulf put in some work in his clears.
I'd actually put Danved in Smol Improve. Sure, he's not around much in RD, and sure, he's not that good when he is. But for a unit as unimpressive as he is, being in the Crimean Royal Knights is actually an advantage, since there's so much less competition. You inevitably end up using him in 2-3 and 3-9, which is more than can be said for him in PoR, where you probably recruit him right around the end of his join chapter, maybe use him to open a chest, and then immediately bench him. Even in 0% he doesn't really do anything in PoR.
Justice for Tauroneo! Big Improve! Dude can basically solo 3-12 and 3-13 for you (not to mention 1-6, of course). Sure, it's not a lot of chapters, but he has huge impact when he's around.
Disagree with the assertion that FE9 Ike promotes too late. I actually think he's got the best-timed promotion of any story-promoting Lord; I'm regularly still trying to find a way to feed him kills while he's stuck lugging Leanne around because he's not quite level 20 yet. 12 chapters of promoted Ike is more than FE10 Ike gets (and he only has to gain *9* levels to hit Level 20 before promotion, with 11 chapters to do it), it's more than the Sacred Stones lords get, hell, it's more than *any* of your Lords in FE7 get, not just your primary one. If you promote Eliwood or Lyn as soon as you get the first Heaven Seal in Hector Mode and go to every gaiden chapter, you'll have them for 12 total maps...counting the two halves of Light as separate maps...and also including Battle Preparations. FE9 Ike gets 12 _proper_ maps, and arguably 13 if you want to include the duel with the Black Knight as a separate map.
Tbh Titania is honestly about the same in RD as she was in PoR. Even with the cav nerfs considered, Titania isn't affected by this as much because she still has the combination of incredible bases, growths, and availability. Not only does RD have a significantly larger cast but majority of RD's cast lacks the combination of all three of those things, which actually helps Titania's case regarding relative perfomance. Even her cav movement is also still really helpful in most maps and only held back by specific ones with ledges or swamps. Her caps are pretty mediocre, but unless you're Ike or a Laguz Royal, most characters aren't doing much in the lategame. All things considered the only units imo that are any better than her in RD are Haar and Ike, and even then she still has her own advantages that the latter two may lack. For example, Haar flies and is stronger and bulkier, but Titania has better speed and can heal with Sol. Ike is better in terms of overall stats and combat, but there are some Part 3 maps where Titania sometimes performs better thanks to her cav movement and early T3 promotion (albeit Ike surpasses her once he gets Ragnell and promotes for Part 4). Titania even has a sizeable strength buff from the transition from PoR to RD. Her base strength is 25, which is absolutely bonkers because that's one point away from capping strength in her base class. Her strength growth is higher too, now being 60% instead of 45%, meaning she caps her strength far more reliably than in PoR, where she may fall short in lategame if she's not BEXP abused or fed Energy Drops. Forged Hand Axes are also even better in RD than in PoR, due to higher might and better accuracy even compared to Javelins and Wind Edges. Hard mode removes WTA too so that only makes axes even more consistent. Basically the main reason Titania isn't the best unit like she was in PoR is the combination of cav nerfs (movement wise and caps wise) AND Ike and Haar being buffed to the point where they literally break the game, only for her to be slightly worse than those two specific units and still better than pretty much everyone else because she still has some of the highest highs.
Hi, you just said IKE promotes to late. Seems you are still not doing good bro from Covid . I hope you get better, your content is really good. Now Roy on promoting late is the king and Ike in Path of radiance its just perfect.
Your placement of Geoffrey is the most confusing one so far for me. Sure, his availability is poor, but he's the best unit you have for two different chapters (2-3 and 3-9) (unless you're rigging to beat 3-9). IMO, especially given the structure of RD, that's more impactful than anything he can do in PoR, where even in 0% he's just okay. I'd move him all the way up to Smol Improve.
"If Kieran got hit by a big nerf then so did Geoffrey" But Kieran is *way* better than Geoffrey in PoR, and is worse than Geoffrey in RD, better availability be damned.
GIffca is actually worse pick than Tibarn in PoR for fighting Ashnard. Tibarn has Pavise in PoR still, and it can still activate against Ashnard. Giffca does not. Also, the royal pick for PoR against Ashnard are set to all do 10 damage to him, regardless of their actual MT. If the game used their actual MT, Giffca would do the most damage but still potentially take more than Tibarn. So, all in all, Giffca gets a slight nerf going into RD. He loses access to permanent transform that he had with Laguz Band in PoR, though he does come with Laguz Gems, this means he always has to waste his first turn transforming in RD, something he did not have to do in PoR. I agree Tibarn and Naesala both got big buff. Addition of canto to fliers and addition of good mastery kill skills = big deal for them. Not too mention the increased might on their weapons from Strike Rank.
Oooh ooh ooh, I love the premise of this. It's time to leave several comments of boundless length that you'll never have time to read all the way through! Ike - Ike is slightly buffed in Radiant Dawn. His PoR self suffers from being weak early game, but his growths are so good that he, on average, steam rolls. Promotion comes a little late, but not nearly as late as someone like Roy. He has the best mastery skill in PoR, and there's no downside to giving it to him. Adept/Wrath hoarding for BK is not worth the tiny % chance of being better, that also relies on making sure he is kneecapped stat wise. Often actually see him cap out 3 or so maps prior to Chapter 17, so you wind up not using him because you want to give EXP to other units. But he's forced deployed, so it makes him feel bad for those interim chapters, even though he's not. Sure he's sword locked, but he's sword locked in a game where constitution doesn't matter for AS, and there are big blades for sale/interspersed throughout the game. And then he gets his unbreakable 1-2 range sword at the end of 27, which turns him into a near god. His Radiant Dawn self is sword locked in a game where they gave purchasable 1-2 range swords. Although, he's promo locked, so his bases don't really get to shine as much in standard play because he runs into that same issue of capping EXP well before he gets his promotion. His RD self also faces crit from enemies from the second map he's available onwards unless you fix his luck deficiency. His mastery is noticeably weaker in RD, because they pulled every other mastery forward to basically be OHKOs or deal crit level damage. His 1-2 awesome sword is a little less awesome in RD, because there are swords that actually out MT it, and the defense bonus it provides is negated by half of the endgame enemies/any mages. All in all, easiest to say that RD Ike contributes more immediately to actual objective progression over PoR Ike, but I find that to be blunted personally, because PoR Ike's early maps are generally different objectives compared to RD Ike. RD Ike is usually dealing with rout maps early on / maps where combat and moving quickly are super important. Whereas PoR Ike deals with Defense maps where his stats do matter but not as heavily. So yeah, I stick by slightly buffed in RD. Don't view it as a massive buff because it levels off/he gets out done. RD Ike also gets axes which are my favorite weapon type, so that's points towards buff imo. Boyd - Boyd got massively nerfed. He starts out with the same problem in both games. Low AS. But in PoR, enemies start out with low AS anyway, so it's not that big of a deal until about Chapter 11. That gives PoR Boyd basically 8 maps to earn enough AS to be useable for the rest of the playthrough. That's a lot of leeway for him to grow and overcome his poor start. Also in PoR he has access to regular bows, meaning he can realistically use Steel and forged Steel Bows quite quickly after promo. This lets him obliterate flyers, and makes him the best brother to initiate the Brother's Triangle attack with, which is a reliable way to down very powerful enemies with little risk / no skills. Even Red Dragons get cooked by Brother's Triangle, though setting it up isn't always the best use of their turns. He has some issue with DEF/RES growths, so relies on HP for bulk, which can be really be bad, but he doesn't need to rely on Vantage and Crit Forge Glitches like Mages do, in order to excel. RD Boyd has the same start issue, but enemies in RD are faster than PoR by a country mile, and other Greil Mercs start with higher speed, including their Armor Knight, Gatrie. This is ludicrous. This makes RD Boyd a character who lives and dies by transfers. He's also been stripped of standard bows and is only allowed use of the new crossbows. Crossbows are not to be underestimated when used against feathery fliers or when paired with a "Killer" skill, but pound for pound, they don't play off his massive STR. They did bump his DEF growth to 50% but his base DEF is pretty low and his DEF cap is also fairly low. He does still sport really nice stat caps in both of his class tiers, the trick is getting him to them in a game where he faces stiff deployment competition right away from nearly all of your units, and has to be fed or rely on chip gains. In PoR he is a unit you should use. In RD he is a unit you have to want to use. One fun fact about RD Boyd is he is the only unit capable of beating BK in 3-7 without being tier 3, but it's something of a meme no one cares about. Gonna watch the video now :O I could do this for every unit though!
Astrid for me is about the same. In no way an objective take... kinda, but I never found training her to be worthwhile in PoR. I already had Oscar, Titania, and Kieran. She's basically there to give you the Knight Ward, and then you could replace one of those 3 PLDs if they died. I just always find myself rather training almost anyone else. About the same cause I never find reason to use her.
Mist - Mist got a slight buff in RD. In PoR she joins 1/3rd of the way through the game at level 1. Her perks are that she takes less BEXP than other units, even not having Paragon, and she has a much better Speed growth than Rhys, meaning if you leave a gap in your defense, Mist is less likely to get doubled and die. However, she is your second staff wielder, barring early promo Soren/Ilyana with BEXP. In RD, she joins along with Rhys at the same time, and she starts faster than him right off the bat. She also starts with a 1-2 range sword that is only 4 MT under Ike's Ragnell, it's only downside being it is Mist locked. But this makes her RD incarnation not need to rush promo, she can fight as is. Of course, I think rushing her promo in PoR is bad anyway, because you want to get her as many stat increases for helping Ike beat BK anyway. Yeah, yeah, Canto is awesome and all that, but it doesn't actually really add to her utility. It just makes her a little easier to position. RD Mist isn't as important as PoR Mist but she is easier to use, so firmly a slight buff.
Here are a couple points i would argue for: Rolf: In RD there is only ever 1 Bow user for the Double Bow that you want which is shinon. Rolf comes as a training project that you NEVER want to use because Shinon is already there and they perform evenly in the tower if both are at the same level. In POR there is only 1 (Main) Bowunit that you want which is Astrid (but you also want to give bows to oscar/kieran for the lategame dragon riders). The Double Bow and Long bow which are locked to archers/Snipers are also a lot worse than in RD as in they are not even worth it to run an Archer in your army. IF you decide to use Rolf in POR he has a surprisingly high HP and Defense Growth (he usually ends up with 30-32hp and 12-15 armor for me) which means he is not as frail as some other units in your army (Zihark/Marcia come to mind). He joins in a Chapter where you can train him as much as you want because Ike/Oscar are already a very high level at this point and dont need training, boyd is just a worse endgame unit than rolf imo (doesnt get enough speed and gets doubled by most enemys) and illyana/Soren have other chapters (like the prison chapter) where they can be the training focus. The only other EXP contention for the chapter is marcia herself. RD Rolf doesnt need to be babysit as much but his main problems are, like i said, that he needs to contest with shinon being in the same Army but also the lack of deployment slots (which POR Rolf does not have tbh). There are just so many better longterm and short term units in the greil Mercenarys in RD so that using Rolf is only ever optimal if he is your favorite unit. Thats why i say they Perform just the same: a completly forgetable unit that both can be trained into the lategame if you so desire they have different strenghs in both games but end up as the second or 3. best option in their role/niche in their respective games Makalov in POR: Some things that have not been said is that Makalov is the best performing endgame Paladin in terms of Stats (not in actual use tho). Obviously performs worse than Kieran and Oscar giving his prefered weapon being the Sword BUT he will Cap STR, SPD and Def without the Knight ward and get to a whopping 50hp which is the highest for all the Paladins. He does have the drawback of having the desert chapter after his join time and probably wants a couple bonus exp levels but if you get him going he is one of the most overlooked lategame prospects/investments. Makalov in RD: Has the issue of not being able to chose his second weapon type (altho you dont need bows in this game so its in his favor actually), cavs are weak as hell and his appearane is limited as such i propose a strong nerf to this boy. Tanith (i will be short on this one): Even if she loses her premier ability she has now the option of supporting anyone in the army which should be stated is a STRONG boon for her in RD. She is also better than Sigrun and her stats can be evened out with BEXP (she wil be a better unit than tanith in POR in the lategame). She has availability issues as she comes even later than in POR BUT she also saves Micaiahs Army in the dessert chapter in my opinion. thats why i would put them about the same, The Royal guards have so much hidden potential and many uses that they cant be overlooked but she is a lot more versatile in RD than she ever was and she isnt just reliant on her skill to be relevant and can now function as a good flying combat unit (Needs bexp tho)
My most recent fe10 playthrough I gave Titania imbue and an angelic robe and any slight issue she had with bulk completely disappeared. +4 Mag on promotion turned out to be pretty useful
I think the devs saw how bad Rolf was in FE9 and how much better all the mounted units and Boyd were with Bow access, so they just dumped utility on Snipers & Marksmen in RD to make up for it. But they didn't need to do Astrid so dirty on top of that.
JP PoR has a bug where you can underflow crit forging on a weapon to get 100% crit rate. Only works with weapons that already have a little crit, i.e. Slim weapons and Thunder.
I agree with almost everything, except for Boyd. Boyd and Jill are controversial units so it’s whatever. I’m on the higher end for him, and I think he’s 1 space below Mia on the tier list. That’s just my opinion but I agree with everything else pretty much. I would probably put the Royal Laguz in the same tier as Haar only bc they go from the worst units in the game to incredible combat units that destroy the tower (Tibarn + Gifca here). Titania’s placement here just depends on your FE9 and FE10 opinions. Let’s assume that you think she’s top 1 in FE9 then she goes from #1 to #2 in my personal opinion. I think she’s the 2nd best unit in the game but it’s doesn’t really matter. I think Mekkah thinks she’s #3 iirc. So for the most part this is fine. Geoffrey is also pretty relative imo. I know a lot of people don’t like that army but he’s still high mid tier. They pretty much have comparable availability. FE9 Geoffrey is also a bit overrated. It’s not so much his combat prowess it’s just bc he joins late. Like you are gonna be using Oscar and Titania the whole time. So his contributions are just not as good as people like to say. But he’s still a fine unit in FE9 just shows up late is all. So imo he’s pretty much in relatively the same place in both tier lists. Lethe and Mordecai get pretty big nerfs imo. I’d put them a tier lower. Stefan and Volke are pretty much right next to each other in FE10. Volke is better bc of thief utility in FE9. Stefan is fine it’s just that he’s a sword locked unit in FE9 which isn’t good. This is like bottom 2 classic FE games to want to be a SM in. So I would either put them both in where Stefan is. Or just put them both in about the same. RD Stefan is fine in a vacuum but Volke is considered slightly better but they are both literally in the same place on the tier list. You aren’t going to use either of them bc of Caineghis, Giffca, and Tibarn. Oscar is whatever it’s definitely a noticeable nerf but he’s still a good unit in RD so yeah that’s fine. Tauroneo is a meta defining unit for the reason that he 2 Turns 3-13 reliably and that’s a big deal. He’s also just good immediately in part 1. And he’s nice to have in 3-12 for extra kills. I’d put him in big buff personally. Everything else looks good.
@@willberto6969 The wolves and fliers are like, half of the laguz, but even then, Muraim is very good in part 1, and Mordecai transformed at base has similar defenses to what many units will look like entering endgame. Plus, he can actually stay transformed because of Olivi grass. He's a terrible long term project, but then again, so was every laguz in PoR.
