6 hours ago, samthedigital said:
I rank units based off of what unit provides more utility when playing the game efficiently. I don't need to spend 60 turns to clear a map reliably, and there is no need to grind that much to beat the game consistently. If you're just grinding to get the same results what makes the units better? Why does it matter that one unit is killing an enemy a little quicker? You lose that sort of thing if you don't take turns into consideration. Hard mode really is as simple as mounted units move forwards as much as possible and win the game from there; there's not a lot to PoR if I'm being honest.
What do you mean by optimal exactly? By my definition of the term we're using Titania almost exclusively until we get bonus experience and we can start snowballing more units. That's by far the fastest and most consistent way to play through the early game. Titania is the best unit on the team until we start snowballing Marcia or Jill if we do this, and even if she falls off later no unit has provided what she has early on or more than the other two have later on in the game; they're filler units in a way compared to the carries.
Admittedly although I didn't exactly base this list off Maniac Mode, I do take it into consideration. In that mode, you don't just throw mounted units forward, you need a team that is stronger, not faster. I guess that's where my definition of optimal comes in. To me optimal is the team with the highest rate of clearing maps with the lowest rate of death. Even if Hard Mode is so easy that you can rely on Titania to speedrun it for bonus exp to dump on other mounted units for an auto-pilot victory, I don't consider that making her a better unit, I just consider the difficulty too easy. To me it doesn't reflect so much on their effectiveness as it does on the difficulty itself. Having said that, I do think there is a difference in consistency between using units that have excellent endgame stats vs ones that have mediocre/serviceable endgame stats.
5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
I am not going to say that you're wrong for using such a standard. However, I think most people here, who are taking issue with the list, are interpreting it on an "efficiency" metric. So, a strategy that takes 60 turns to clear a map is generally viewed as worse than one that only takes 10 turns. While consistency is a valuable consideration, strategies that are consistent and fast (so not LTCs that rely on specific RNG) tend to be viewed as the ideal for most of us filthy elitists.
I am curious - when do Titania's "bad bases" catch up to her, exactly? Like, let's look at a level 6 Titania, with stats rounded down:
Reveal hidden contents
HP: 37
Str: 14
Mag: 5
Skl: 16
Spd: 16
Lck: 13
Def: 13
See AlsoPath of Radiance Item DescriptionsIntroduction - Serenes ForestPath of Radiance - Plot Analysisbest Supports for every oneRes: 9
That's... essentially on par with a level 20 Ike, as shown above. But Titania has the horse, and the better weapon type. She was definitely a more significant contributor than Ike in the earlygame, and is at least better than him until he promotes.
But if we want more direct comparisons, how about 20/1 Oscar (rounded down):
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HP: 38
Str: 15
Mag: 6
Skl: 16
Spd: 16
Lck: 10
Def: 15
Res: 8
...Or a 20/1 Kieran:
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HP: 37
Str: 17
Mag: 4
Skl: 16
Spd: 17
Lck: 10
Def: 15
Res: 6
So the boys meet or beat her in most stats... but only barely. And Titania retains a lead in Luck and Res (both of which persist to Endgame) , along with high ranks in both Lances and Axes. So even by the time Oscar and/or Kieran are promoting, Titania is at least contributing on-par with them. Considered atop her undeniably bigger contribution in the earlygame, I'd say this positions her as deserving at least the same tier as those two. Sure, Kieran and Oscar will eclipse her in the lategame, but they take time and investment to get there. And even then, Titania will be at least your solidly "third best cavalry unit" in a game where cavalry is great, meaning even a little-invested Titania may still well be worth deploying. I'd argue that, viewed over the course of a playthrough, she's doing more for you than either Oscar or Kieran (although all three are clear A/S tier units).
I mean I guess if I was just thinking of Hard Mode with the list, I could concede that consistency beyond a certain point is irrelevant because the game is easy to the point where everyone above a certain tier is 100% consistent. Maybe I should make a separate list for Hard Mode and Maniac Mode.
I mean to me, Titania's bases catch up to her right around the point you described. While she is still good and among your top units for probably 2/3rds of the game if you still choose to use her, she's ultimately syphoning experience from other units that I'd rather train for the part of the game that I need my strongest units the most. To me, Titania has already done her job by helping shepherd Ike, Oscar, and Kieran to promoted status. You don't really need her anymore because your other promoted units will pick up the slack as you train your under leveled growth units to be promoted as well.
That's why I can't place her in S tier. Oscar and Kieran are among your best units pretty much the entire time they are on your team, while Titania is among your best for the first half of the game, and while still good, gradually diminishes beyond that point.
5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
Interesting approach. Seems kinda grindy, when neither Gatrie nor Brom starts with Swords, and Tauroneo joins late. As for "better use of the crits", I don't imagine many units surviving a crit from Stefan - doing 60 damage is just as good as doing 75 damage, when it comes to killing a target with 55 HP. Even if you don't have him use it, merely having the option to is something exclusive to Stefan (or an early-promo Mia or Zihark) at his jointime.
Once again I am probably biased a little bit based on Maniac Mode stats, where most units do survive a crit from a swordmaster.
4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:
Most of my thoughts have been expressed by others, including the fact that I haven't played Maniac.
- I really think Titania should be in the highest tier. Actually I feel relatively strongly she should just be #1, but I can see arguments for others I suppose. But Titania is just your best unit by far for a third of the game, and never becomes bad. As mentioned it's unthinkable that any sort of efficient playthrough doesn't make use of her.
- Re Soren and Tormod, I think they're definitely too high for Hard Mode, but I've heard they're more useful on Maniac relatively. Can't attest for sure. Them being two tiers above Rhys/Mist seems weird to me though, given that staff use is the only reason to put them above Calill.I do agree with you that they're quite a bit better than Ilyana, who has all of their faults and then adds "has serious issues doubling mid-speed enemies" to the list.
- The Generals definitely seem way too high, you call their combat stats "stellar" and I can't see it. Like, compare base Brom to base Kieran, who conveniently joins at the same time... Kieran has +1 str, +5speed, +3 move, canter, some minor wins in other stats (notably, 4 luck, pretty sure Brom faces dangerous crit rates from mages) all in exchange for just -3 defence. With better supports. Yes, Brom is 4 levels lower, but this barely matters: it takes 17 kills for the gap to close by even one level thanks to PoR's barely-curved exp formula.And yes, I know Kieran is a great unit,but still, you can't lose a comparison like that and claim to have stellar stats.
- Stefan has great base stats and is obviously better than Zihark.
- Later-joining laguz jump out as too high, Muarim and Ranulf in particular. They either have weak offence, no 1-2 range, and can only be used half the time... or they have terrible offence, no 1-2 range, and can be used all the time. Lethe and Mordecai are fine because they're around early. I might be underestimating Muarim a little (my kneejerk is the last time I'd use him is Chapter 17, but that's at least two decent maps of use before Tanith/Reyson come along)but Ranulf I think is just bad.
I can't say I disagree with most of what you said on your first point. I guess I just define S-tier differently than everyone else. I reserve it for the units that you use for pretty much their entire time on your team.
I do find sages in general to be stronger on Maniac Mode due to the higher volume of Physic staves, Siege tomes, and high-defense enemies. Maybe if this was just a hard mode list I would knock Soren and Tormod down a tier.
Brom is pretty unimpressive at base but when he caps he is a monster. You can throw him at entire armies and he can handle them pretty much on his own. Same with Gatrie. Gatrie also behaves like a pre-promote at the start of the game even though he is only level 9 at base. To me that's a testament to how strong armored knights are as a class in path of radiance. What other class can fight 10 paladins on enemy phase, double half of them, and still have more than half hp after it's all over? (Admittedly Oscar and Kieran together with Sol can do that, which is why they are S-tier)
I can't call Stefan better than Zihark due to his terrible luck, but I have been convinced that he is not as bad as I thought initially.
Muarim is very good for a beast laguz. He comes at pretty much the same level as Stefan, he's fast enough to double most enemies, his claws are highly accurate, he is very strong, highly tanky, and the demi-band doesn't really hurt his transformed stats that much. Eventually you can give him Smite and replace Mordecai with him for the utility. He has a Thunder-Earth support with Zihark that I think is pretty good. Most beast laguz are not very good but I think Muarim is quite solid.
Ranulf isn't great but I wouldn't call him bad. His bases are even better than Muarim despite joining at the same starting level, and he has an earth-wind support with Ike. I wouldn't plan to use him on my main team due to his late join time and limitations as a laguz, but if I lost a good unit and need someone to fill the hole, Ranulf is actually pretty decent.
4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:
They can realistically double what? Armors? Because that's about the only thing I can see them doubling without absurd levels of favoritism, which Brom having the KW the whole time is, ESPECIALLY since you don't get it until chapter 13, and he joins in chapter 11. Are you implying he goes from base level to promotion in two chapters, one of which is timed? Because that's as insane as insane gets. It's already bad enough that Brom loses hard to Kieran base stats wise, you're just digging him - and yourself - a deeper hole.
Unless it's a mage doing the critting, in which case, they're gonna go down, HARD.
Unless, again, a mage comes knocking, in which case their HP will disappear in a hurry. Also, you'd have to dig Gatrie and Brom out of E swords for that. Just how realistic is it for them to get to S swords???
Well remember I said Chapter 15-16, so that could be up to 3 chapters he gets to train. 2 of those chapters have a lot of laguz which give an unusual amount of exp. It does require some favoritism but the question was when can they double, and that's around when they can double, and I think it's worth the investment. Having said that I don't like using knights on the dessert map because as you said it's very cumbersome. Could be better to wait until Serenes Forest to promote your knight, but either way they will start doubling around that point in the game if they have KW level ups.
Mages really aren't that scary because there aren't that many of them, and you get pure waters which pretty much deal with that. KW + Pure water is +9 res which is enough to make an otherwise threatening mage pretty tame. As for sword rank, maybe it's just Maniac Mode for me, but I have no issue finding enemies to suicide into my generals for easy weapon xp. I don't even use an arm scroll and I can get them to S-rank before Clash.
3 hours ago, lenticular said:
I'm not going to quibble with most of the list, since it's made with Maniac mode in mind and -- like many -- my copy of the game doesn't have that. I do want to ask a question though. Why do you have Bastian and Lucia so low? By which I mean, what about them makes them so unusably terrible that you think they deserve a tier of their own below other bad units? For Hard mode, I'd put them roughly on a level with the units you have in E tier. I think of them as late-joining low-investment units who are mediocre but just about competent and can potentially replace another unit who gets stat screwed or lost in an ironman. Does Maniac have something that makes them uniquely worse than the likes of Rolf or Ulki?
The problem is that Bastian and Lucia join so late and both have atrocious bases. Lucia has 15 strength and 10 defense...practically a feather in a fight. She doesn't even cap speed on average despite being a swordmaster. She also has really bad supports. Same deal with Bastian, who has 16 speed at 20/13...and only 19 magic. These two are just terrible and contribute pretty much nothing to the team. Bastian does have high strength so I guess you can use siege tomes without getting doubled, but there are several other sages who can do that and not be totally useless in combat and can use staves. I can't even call these low-investment units because they come in so bad that despite being high-level, they almost behave like unpromoted units.
Maniac Mode makes them even more irrelevant because it jacks up the enemy count and the tankiness of your enemies. So low might units like Lucia hardly put a dent in them and are a huge liability on enemy phase due to awful durability. Bastian similarly due to his low magic/speed and lack of staves compares worse in Maniac Mode. You can dump 2 speedwings onto Bastian and he still hardly doubles anything...so bad.
3 hours ago, ping said:
Counterpoint: You have Reyson as you #1 character and he's literally worthless for the first 17 out of 29 maps.
I think Titania's track record of being your best character by a lot for the first 9 maps (if not more, depending on how you use your BEXP), and still one of your best for another third of the game cannot be understated, especially because she's still perfectly fine as a filler for the rest of the game, too. Her "usefulness graph" is inverted compared to Oscar, sure, but I think she does a lot more things than the other potential Paladins, in particular a lot of things that nobody else can do. Yes, Titania isn't technically required to beat the earlygame, at least not on hard, but boy does she make the experience a lot less aggravating. Meanwhile, if Oscar dies in chapter 8, you still have Kieran (who I actually think is the better unit on Hard), Astrid, and Makalov to fill that hole.
I think Titania's track record of being your best character by a lot for the first 9 maps (if not more, depending on how you use your BEXP), and still one of your best for another third of the game cannot be understated, especially because she's still perfectly fine as a filler for the rest of the game, too. Her "usefulness graph" is inverted compared to Oscar, sure, but I think she does a lot more things than the other potential Paladins, in particular a lot of things that nobody else can do. Yes, Titania isn't technically required to beat the earlygame, at least not on hard, but boy does she make the experience a lot less aggravating. Meanwhile, if Oscar dies in chapter 8, you still have Kieran (who I actually think is the better unit on Hard), Astrid, and Makalov to fill that hole.Reyson is #1 because once he does join, he's a total no-brainer to put on your team. He requires no investment, he heals up to 4 units every turn, and he give up to FOUR units an extra turn on player phase once he transforms, and he flies. He just automatically makes your team 30-40% more effective, which is unbelievable for any single unit. I honestly feel like Reyson is overpowered and should have had his abilities adjusted before being introduced into the game because he is downright gamebreaking, trivializing maps that otherwise would have been difficult.
Titania to me is A rank for all the reasons you listed. As great as she is in the early game, to me she does not contribute as much overall to a successful playthrough as anyone in S-tier.
