Marth

If thieves are given credit for opening chests, shouldn't Marth also receive credit for not only opening chests, but also getting all the items available from villages? After all, he is the only one who can visit a village.

Marth is also the game's biggest support battery. He supports: Abel, Cain, Draug, Darros, Merric, Hardin, Horace, Beck, Athena, Minerva, Chainey, and to round it out an uber fast Shiida support (4th best unit iirc). All Mid, Upper Mid or High, and over half of those are High. On your typical team, he is supporting what, half the team? At least?

Combined with the fact that he doesn't even compete for a unit slot, all this makes it seem difficult to put him any lower than upper mid even if he had no combat, but then he does have combat too.

I've yet to see anyone give Marth credit for opening chests, because it "wastes turns".

If anything, Marth will just drop more if we factor in entering houses or even recruiting some characters (Minerva) because these tasks use so many turns.

Also, Marth supports don't work.

I've yet to see anyone give Marth credit for opening chests, because it "wastes turns".

I'd give him less credit than Julian/Rickard for it, yeah, but he's still able to do it if you need him to. There's a hell of a lot of chests in this game, many of them very much worth opening, and many maps where the chests are spread out across the map. Given that you generally only have one thief in your party, Marth can be essential to getting two important chests in a minimum number of turns.

There's also situations where Marth can open chests without actually costing you turns. lol, ch 12

Also, if Marth never opens chests, Julian and Rickard should go up. IIRC one of the arguments used against them was that Marth could simply get some of their chests. If Marth never opens chests, that changes the argument for Julian/Rickard from "saves a few turns cause they can get the chests instead of Marth" to "gets you tons of extra items that you wouldn't get at all if they weren't there." And that should give them a pretty nice case. Just look at Ch 19 alone.

If anything, Marth will just drop more if we factor in entering houses.

So there's no villages ever worth visiting in this game? This may change the tier list quite a bit. For example, the Hammerne staff comes from a village. There goes Lena's position (or some of it).

Also, Marth supports don't work.

That's quite false. I clearly remember the bonuses coming into play on my game. I could be wrong here, and I'll double check, but I'm 90% sure Marth has working supports.

The support bonus page says this:

Correction: As well as the bonuses listed below, every character (besides those who receive a bonus from 5 characters) has a support bonus from Marth, but it turns out this bonus doesn't actually do anything.

However, you'll notice that this is says "As well as the bonuses listed below," which includes Marth already for many units. Marth is not listed as a support option for every character besides 5-support units, thus when Marth is listed on the support page, it's not referring to whatever faulty mechanic this is. Rather, the units with Marth actually listed by them are the ones who actually get bonuses from him.

So there's no villages ever worth visiting in this game?

Turn count wise, a lot of them aren't, but I keep it a non-factor as to not auto-fail some units on the tier list.

Also, if Marth never opens chests, Julian and Rickard should go up. IIRC one of the arguments used against them was that Marth could simply get some of their chests.

Julian and Ricardo already went up as a result of sandbagging Marth's chest opening utility.

Each went up by a whopping one slot IIRC. I'm talking about moving them up an entire tier atleast, particularly Rickard, whom I still believe has no business being that low either way.

If Marth is never opening chests, then there's a ridiculous amount of crap that you're missing out on without thieves. I've said this on SF and I'll say it again: Bullions, Master Seals, stat boosters, Killer and Silver weapons, Warp staves, you name it, you get it from chests in this game. And if you remove Marth from the equation, your ability to open chests without thieves is quite limited.

Not that I necessarily disagree with largely discarding Marth's chest opening because he needs to go for the throne. It's just that, if this is the case, then it needs to be applied consistently, and the implications for the value of thieves need to be realized. Under this line of thinking, Rickard's current position is absurd.

Also, 20,000G comes from villages in early chapters. That's approximately enough to forge +8 Mt onto the Rapier, giving it more Mt than a Silver Sword and hilarious Mt vs effective targets, or you could use that money to forge two +5 Mt Rapiers for longevity. And Marth is the only unit able to acquire that cash at all.

IIRC villages with money don't stack on large amounts of turns like, say, getting Bantu or Jeorge.

Either way, I probably won't drop Marth below any characters for this because it gets into a ridiculous equation as to whether the turn counts from getting Bantu or Jeorge is better or worse than <x> character.

Yeah, I believe that's the case. And I'm not saying Marth should be given credit for getting Jeorge or Bantu, I'm saying he should get credit for that 20,000G that no one else can get.

EDIT: Dropping Marth? What? How could anything I've mentioned possibly cause him to drop? No, rather, I think it's not hard to see why he should rise, unless you just totally discount this stuff for whatever reason.

I really find it hard to justify "getting credit" for stuff as better than characters doing stuff, which is why I am stubborn about rising characters just for these things.

Any particular reasons why? Colm, Matthew and Chad are all as high are they are on their respective lists for similar reasons. I don't know why FE11 should get to be an exception. If anything it's more valuable in this game considering chest keys are never buyable, and villages are basically chests that only Marth can open.

Any particular reasons why?

Yes. Because then people will say uninspired things such as, "This character kind of sucks. This person getting particular resources is better than that." and there would be no solid way to counter that, and this logic applies to same towards any unit, good or bad.

I can probably put Rickard in Mid tier, but should stay in Mid tier and never rise, ever, if his only reason for tiering is for Thief Utility, pretty much exempting his flaws as everyone wishes so badly.

As for what other tier lists do, I haven't made any effort to copy how thief utility is treated in other games.

I don't follow your logic. Are you implying that thief utility is an "unfair" argument or something similar, because it's difficult to counter, and should thus be disregarded or trivialized?

Rickard in Mid sounds appropriate, considering he does indeed have something to bring to the table, which most sub-mid units generally don't.

I do agree that you shouldn't change something just because other tier lists do it differently, but in this particular case, I believe the other tier lists have more solid logic behind their way of viewing things.

I don't follow your logic. Are you implying that thief utility is an "unfair" argument or something similar, because it's difficult to counter, and should thus be disregarded or trivialized?

Pretty much, yes. Regulating it at Mid Tier minimum will probably solve this issue and then other utility rises a character from there.

Colm, Matthew and Chad are all as high are they are on their respective lists

Colm, Matthew, and Chad all have items only THEY can get. Any of your three chest openers, or even master keys can open chests in this game.

Oh, regarding thief utility, if Rickard really has to jump up make it so, but for shit's sake keep a notable gap between him and Julian. Julian can fight worth two shits, Rickard cannot.

Wait, why the hell are we rising Rickard? Are you forgetting he is ORKOed by a breeze? Sorry buddy but putting RICKARD in MID TIER is pretty much "lol".

Actually, Rickard just leapfrogged up to Mid without any sort of discussion on the issue. Unless it was on IRC [But I've been in the room for a few days straight and I see nothing about thief utility being discussed]

I thought this change would actually make people happy.

Rickard did seem to jump quite a bit. He's pretty much Julian with less HP/Def, plus he comes at a lower starting level. Down the road a bit:

15 Julian: 27 HP, 22 Atk (+3) (Silver Sword), 18 AS, 8 Def
14 Rickard: 22 HP, 22 Atk (+3) (Silver Sword), 15 AS, 4 Def

There's a pretty significant difference, considering I'm probably exaggerating Rickard's level. I'd almost say there should be a two tier gap, thanks to coming at a point where its even harder to level him, having doubling problems, and being ORKO'd much easier (A lot of enemies have 26 Atk). Unless we're just judging these two based on thief utility anyways. It probably becomes Volke vs. Sothe again.

Rickard has Thief utility though. This pretty much invalidates any combat arguments.

Shouldn't Julian rise then, if he contributes more from a combat perspective AND has thief utility? Also, Rickard's durability is a bit of a pain, not that you're ever going to put him in a position to be attacked.

Julian did rise. He went from Low Mid from like, being below Catria to Mid, thanks to Thief utility making him never a negative.

I don't know if we can just say that "Thief utility" immediately makes Rickard Mid. I do agree that he should get some credit for it (like before he was in Bottom or something ridiculous), but he'll be a "negative" on maps that don't have chests for him to open.

I don't know if we can just say that "Thief utility" immediately makes Rickard Mid.

It does.

[quote=\"FE3_Player\"]I\'ve yet to see anyone give Marth
Also, Marth supports don\'t work.[/quote]

His DO work, just not for HIM.

You\'re thinking of that \"leadership\" rumor. He does give bonuses to the people CATS listed.

If anything, I would consider the convoy more than anything. It means that Marth is always armed with any weapon you have in there (generally anything), can always pull it out whatever he wants whenever he wants (the cards, vulneries, spheres, keys so he basically IS a thief), and it makes him the guy you go to if you just wanna whip a weapon out of his ass in case one of your allies broke their important weapons.

It\'s too helpful not to consider, IMO

People use thieves to fight?

Interceptor wrote:People use thieves to fight?

Not Rickard. Julian can at least evolve into something that has combat skillz.

Thief utility doesn't make a character automatic mid-tier in other games though. Take FE6 Cath for example. She's currently in Low. I'm not too concerned by the change, I just think that there should be at least some difference that separates Julian and Rickard. Julian is pretty much comparable to Athena combat-wise.

I'm gonna put Marth above Julian since Grandjackal's right about the Convoy thing.

Julian has thief utility and some form of combat.

Rickard has thief utility.

They shouldn't be in the same tier.

Also, its true that thief utility technically doesn't make a character a negative. But then by that logic, healing would mean that a character isn't a negative. Well, you would have to keep them out of harm's way, but you have to keep thieves out of harm's way for the most part too. The only difference is that you have to shell out money for staves in the healer's case. Where does this leave all characters that can potentially heal then?

EDIT: I remembered that there are a limited number of curate spots, so you would be taking up a healer slot that another character could potentially use to greater potential (Merric for example). I suppose thieves not needing any resources to be positive is a point in their favor. Guess I answered my own question.

Wait, why the hell are we rising Rickard? Are you forgetting he is ORKOed by a breeze? Sorry buddy but putting RICKARD in MID TIER is pretty much "lol"

Did you read the topic?

If Marth never opens chests, that changes the argument for Julian/Rickard from "saves a few turns cause they can get the chests instead of Marth" to "gets you tons of extra items that you wouldn't get at all if they weren't there." And that should give them a pretty nice case. Just look at Ch 19 alone.

Colm, Matthew, and Chad all have items only THEY can get. Any of your three chest openers, or even master keys can open chests in this game.

Master Keys can only account for a little under 1/5 of the game's chests.

"Three" chest openers? See, this was my original point. When someone tries to raise the thieves, people use Marth as an argument against their usefulness. Whereas when I tried to raise Marth here, it was said that Marth's chest opening is largely disregarded due to wasting turns instead of going for the throne.

There needs to be consistency. If Marth is being used to open chests, give him his due for it. If not, give the thieves their due. One or the other.

Also, I don't see that you'll have "three" chest openers. It's unlikely that both Julian and Rickard would be kept alive. Rather, you'll likely kill one of them off in Ch 6. Unless it's helpful to have two thieves to clear some chapters ASAP while still getting all the chests, in which case Rickard is even more valuable.

Speaking of items that only a single unit can get, Marth + 20,000G.

I don't know if we can just say that "Thief utility" immediately makes Rickard Mid. I do agree that he should get some credit for it (like before he was in Bottom or something ridiculous), but he'll be a "negative" on maps that don't have chests for him to open.

Thus, you don't bring him for those chaps. However, you do in fact have chapters where it would be useful to bring a thief along, which is better than most lower mid and below units can say; units that low will generally just be used as bait or killed for Exp on 95% of playthroughs.

I agree Julian should be higher than Rickard, dunno by how much, though. It just depends on whether training Julian as a combat unit is worthwhile in the first place. If not, then it's an insignificant advantage. If so, then maybe there could be a tier gap, or atleast a decent number of slots between them.

CAT5 wrote:
I agree Julian should be higher than Rickard, dunno by how much, though. It just depends on whether training Julian as a combat unit is worthwhile in the first place. If not, then it's an insignificant advantage. If so, then maybe there could be a tier gap, or atleast a decent number of slots between them.

He's basically Navarre/Athena without the sword rank, but with thief utility and not needing a seal.

CATS, you're not following me. In their respective games, Matthew, Colm, and Chad all have items THEY and ONLY THEY can get you. In FEDS, any of Julian, Rickard, Marth, or even master keys can open the very first chests you have access to, so you cannot assume any one of them gets 100% credit for it.

Speaking of items that only a single unit can get, Marth + 20,000G.

Huh?

The very first chests, perhaps. Then you have to account for the fact that this game has something like 52 chests total and that they're arguably more valuable than the chests in any other game (most of your money supply comes from Bullions, which all come from chests, for starters).

Again, stop saying Marth. I'll repeat this since you seem to have missed it:

Master Keys can only account for a little under 1/5 of the game's chests.

"Three" chest openers? See, this was my original point. When someone tries to raise the thieves, people use Marth as an argument against their usefulness. Whereas when I tried to raise Marth here, it was said that Marth's chest opening is largely disregarded due to wasting turns instead of going for the throne.

There needs to be consistency. If Marth is being used to open chests, give him his due for it. If not, give the thieves their due. One or the other.

FE3 Player stated earlier in the topic that Marth's chest opening is generally disregarded. If you want to argue otherwise, go ahead, but for the moment I'm going to operate under that assumption.

Now, with that in mind, you can subtract 10 chests for Master Keys and divide the remainder between Julian and Rickard and still have each one with tons of valuable crap to his name. Again, ~50 chests total.

Also notice that no one is arguing Julian or Rickard into Top like Matthew and Colm are.

Huh?

Did you read the topic?

Also, 20,000G comes from villages in early chapters. That's approximately enough to forge +8 Mt onto the Rapier, giving it more Mt than a Silver Sword and hilarious Mt vs effective targets, or you could use that money to forge two +5 Mt Rapiers for longevity. And Marth is the only unit able to acquire that cash at all.

CATS, just for your general information I am not blind. However, I do not see how a thief that can actually be a detriment getting said chests suddenly justifies "Mid Tier". Maybe "Low Mid" somewere under useful utility units, but throwing Rickard into Mid seems to completely ignore.

I can set aside disregarding him entering combat; however, he needs total protection.

No, he doesn't need to be walled in. He needs to stay out of enemy range until your main group kills whatever's near the treasure room, then move in to loot while they advance to the next area, which is very easy and not even close to being a detriment to your progress. Also keep in mind that plenty of chests don't even have enemies near them (treasure rooms in 17x and 19 for example).

CATS, just for your general information I am not blind. However, I do not see how a thief that can actually be a detriment getting said chests suddenly justifies "Mid Tier".

Because it's neutral utility, therefore Mid Tier.

Maybe "Low Mid" somewere under useful utility units,

Rickard not a useful utility unit? The dude saves turncounts and makes you rich. Stop denying this.

If Rickard should drop, then Marth must drop with him, NOW.

...Fine. I fucking hate Thief utility arguments anyhow. Just put them... wherever in Mid.

For reference, what did you mean by "useful utility units"? Guys like Gordin or Wrys- oh wait they need to shielded, too

ChaosNinji wrote:For reference, what did you mean by "useful utility units"? Guys like Gordin or Wrys- oh wait they need to shielded, too

Gordon can get Parthia by level 10, and Wrys can just sit with Physic.

FE3_Player wrote:Gordon can get Parthia by level 10

And he's still killed by everything before Chapter 10, and likely later in midgame.

and Wrys can just sit with Physic.

We only get one early on.

Oh, and they need to run into areas with enemies to actually be useful. Ricakrd? Nah.

FE3_Player wrote:Because it's neutral utility, therefore Mid Tier.

This is a perfect time to revive the normal utility argument.

And he's still killed by everything before Chapter 10, and likely later in midgame.

1-2 range, he's never gonna get hit, and has awesome chip damage with Parthia.

We only get one early on.

Not a problem. Rickard still gets credit for getting it, therefore he is at least two tiers above Wrys.

Oh, and they need to run into areas with enemies to actually be useful. Ricakrd? Nah.

Rickard doesn't need to fight enemies. His chest opening provides more utility than fighting.

This is a perfect time to revive the normal utility argument.

People have been wanting Rickard this high for a long time now. It's about time I stopped being stubborn and stopped sandbagging his Thief utility.

Oh, and they need to run into areas with enemies to actually be useful. Ricakrd? Nah

Again:

No, he doesn't need to be walled in. He needs to stay out of enemy range until your main group kills whatever's near the treasure room, then move in to loot while they advance to the next area, which is very easy and not even close to being a detriment to your progress. Also keep in mind that plenty of chests don't even have enemies near them (treasure rooms in 17x and 19 for example).

I don't care where Rickard is, just keep at least a tier between him and Julian.

I think Ninji was supporting Rickard. Saying some other units need to go into areas with enemies and Rickard doesn't.

Oh, and they need to run into areas with enemies to actually be useful.

Wrys: master of brawling.

FE3_Player wrote:1-2 range, he's never gonna get hit, and has awesome chip damage with Parthia.

Not a problem. Rickard still gets credit for getting it, therefore he is at least two tiers above Wrys.

And? Wrys and Gordin still need to be shielded just like Rickard. That was all I was saying.

Rickard doesn't need to fight enemies. His chest opening provides more utility than fighting.

Never said anything to the contrary.

People have been wanting Rickard this high for a long time now. It's about time I stopped being stubborn and stopped sandbagging his Thief utility.

A tear shed for the hours lost arguing about it.

I think Ninji was supporting Rickard. Saying some other units need to go into areas with enemies and Rickard doesn't.

That's the gist of it, yeah.

Wrys: master of brawling.

Highest priority out of anyone!
Also, Psychic has 10 use. After that, he needs to actually, you know, get up close to heal.

There are 2 physic staves in the entire game. One in Chapter 6, and one in chapter 10. Thats 20 physic uses that have to last an entire game, and every other healer wants to heal from a far as well. Other then that, Wrys is going to have to get up close to heal, so I wouldn't say its a very significant point in his favor.

guys I think Rody might be trolling!?

FE3_Player wrote:1-2 range, he's never gonna get hit, and has awesome chip damage with Parthia.

Must of been taking some lessons from 4-E Shinon.