The Joshua Redemption! FE8 Tier List Review

We set the C-tiers and below for the FE8 Big Tier List. Is Joshua actually worth something in Javelins/Hand Axe Spam: The Game? Does Forde end up higher than F-Tier? And why is L'Arachel of all people moved up several spots?
I made an FE8 tier list quite a while ago for the Biggest Tier List, based on my knowledge of Sacred Stones. Ever since the community has learned a lot about FE8, so I'm going to update it along with a skilled Sacred Stones player, jumpy23!
jumpy23: / @jumpy23
jumpy23's Ephraim Route 0% LTC:
• Fire Emblem: The Sacre...

[@armourslayer8942]

Character analysis timestamps: ~ C Tier ~ 0:57 Artur 8:09 Forde (what a jump, from F to C!? Such an improvement! Guys, be like Forde) 11:03 Screw Forde 11:07 Duessel 21:50 Gerik 30:04 Joshua 35:56 Ephraim ~ D Tier ~ 41:49 Dozla 47:45 Natasha 51:10 Myhrr 55:20 Garcia 58:11 Syrene 1:01:05 Knoll 1:04:20 Innes 1:06:50 Colm 1:09:25 Orson ~ E Tier ~ 1:11:15 Lute 1:13:50 Eirika 1:18:30 Ross 1:20:52 Rennac 1:22:20 Gilliam 1:23:50 L'Arachel ~ F Tier ~ 1:26:10 Neimi 1:27:13 Marisa 1:29:53 Ewan 1:30:57 Amelia

[@pokemonnnerd]

F's out for Amelia

[@jumpy23]

There was a lot of feedback on the last video. Unfortunately we recorded the entire series before Mekkah posted a single video so I wasn't able to incorporate that into this video but I hope you enjoy part II and I'll try to address part I's feedback in the comments. The biggest piece of feedback which I saw a lot was that the list cared too much about turns. This I guess is the result of my living in a bubble. I think there are two mindsets of mine being criticized here: 1) Assuming that growth units don't have much time to catch up. The definition of "efficiency" for as long as I can remember has been "going reasonably fast without grinding," but the community that I mostly discuss Fire Emblem in seems to have interpreted that pretty differently than a lot of the YT comments here. I think the paradigm shift for me was when ussgordoncaptain showed that it is generally faster to literally grind (f.ex, in the Tower of Valni) rather than to lose a turn here or there in maps to get a bit of extra XP. So I see holding Seth back in the earlygame to help out Franz or Vanessa as literally grinding--because it's slower than using Valni--while a lot of people definitely don't. While I don't think slowing down considerably boosts Franz, I do think there are some other units who would benefit a fair bit. 2) Caring about every turn. The main example that comes to mind here is the warpskip in Chapter 16 Ephraim that saves a million turns but basically doesn't make the map any easier, maybe even makes it harder, because it skips like zero enemies. I definitely assumed that people would be going for this and was shown to be wrong. It seems like, circling back to that definition of "efficiency," a lot of people want to avoid grinding not because they want a low turn count, but because they don't like grinding, and any strategy that avoids grinding is pretty much equally valid -- or in fact, the easier ones to execute are probably more valid. If I had come at it with this different perspective, the list definitely would have shifted a bit, mostly around the staffers I think (Moulder would be a bit lower, Natasha a bit higher). I think it probably would have shifted less than some are expecting though, I still hate Franz. Another common piece of feedback was that I was too focused on one optimal strategy and gave very little thought to variations. The truth is that while I and the other guys who brainstormed for this video did consider other variations, they don't affect the end result much. I could have talked for even longer than I did but I was already spending ten minutes per unit and felt pressured to speed it along haha. For example, let's consider the case of Seth. If you want a unit to replace Seth as your main combat unit after chapter 9, here are your big options: * Despite Vanessa's shaky Strength, she can do something that Seth can't, which is fly. She is probably the best pick in the game for Seth replacement and she is the 2nd highest unit on the tier list. However she, like literally everyone else, cannot replicate Seth from chapters p-8 so she's still a tier below. * Cormag is another unit who can easily get pretty good combat stats on Ephraim route and can fly. However, he is only good on one route and he will never have good Skl / Lck / Res. He's A tier on Eph route but when you consider Eirika route as well it does not seem right to have him above B tier. * Paladin Franz requires like 15 levels pre-split to be able to double Mercenaries in c9, an important benchmark in both routes. That's a lot. Even after that, he will never be able to do a lot of things Seth does, like kill Vigarde and Valter (his Lck is shit, so he's always crit-prone) or kill Lyon (his Str is too bad). Also he will constantly have hitrates about 15-20 below Seth all game and worse weapon ranks for most of it. Since he has no actual upside over Seth I really can't see him above B tier with all this downside. * Gerik (Eirika) and Duessel (Ephraim) have really good combat but are locked to 6 mov and 15 Con. This makes it much harder to move them around the map than Seth -- for example in Eirika's desert map, Gerik can't reasonably take on Valter because he can't cross the sand. While they are B tier in their respective route because of their great combat, the route split again punishes each of them like it punished Cormag. * Nobody else has comparable combat. In hindsight, glossing over this with lines like "Franz will never replace Seth" and then proceeding to talk at length about one mage in chapter 13b probably gave the wrong idea, but this is something that was seriously considered in the making of the list. Lastly of course I want to say thank you to everyone who gave me supportive comments. I appreciated them a lot.

[@DJFracus]

I feel like to most people, Fire Emblem tier lists are basically Ironman tier lists, except they don't want to say that out loud. Or perhaps I should say it this way: I believe Ironman runs are the runs that best match tier lists. Definitely fits better than things like speedruns, LTCs, draft races, ranked runs, etc. (ranked runs were a popular definition for tier lists back in the day, but this has more or less been dropped). I'm going to use FE6 as an example. Rutger is not seen at all in any run that cares about speed. Wendy saves a turn in the LTC (with her death, but still). But absolutely nobody ranks Rutger lower. Do you see the problem here? Rutger is definitely the far superior unit in the vast majority of "normal" situations, but because he takes time to recruit, he is worse than useless for fast runs. Incidentally, I would highly recommend anyone attempting an Ironman to use Rutger. My perception on where people draw the line for grinding is whether they feel it's worth bothering with. You don't have to go to extreme lengths to grind Vanessa along the way, you just do it as you beat the chapters at a fair pace, and that will be enough to get her to be strong. Sure, it'll be a bit slower than going as fast as possible, but it still feels like you're progressing the entire time through the chapters, and the unit you will get seems worth it. It's not really like grinding Nino where gameplay will slow to a crawl, just for a mage with slightly above average stats. And something like Tower of Valni is sort of an exception to this, because it's definitely relatively fast and worth it, but it's also seen as something that trivializes the game, and so people generally refuse to use it in "challenge runs".

[@Noahs_Chair]

I think the main problem is that LTC and Casual play aren't compatible at all. If you do a Ironman list That's something most people can take and use in their casual playthrough and understand. LTC happens in a scenario that most people not only dont know, but needs a lot of preparation and learn the meta, specific bench marks, most of the time ignore growths for reliability if posible and toons of factors that you cant learn from just playing the game. The disconect in Fe casual and optimal play is one of the biggest I ever seen in any Game.

[@ussgordoncaptain]

To explain the Tower of Valni point, it takes 7 minutes and 4 turns to send a unit through the tower of valni twice and have them kill every enemy. If you really want to waifu bias a unit it's far better to just TOV them than to bother with trying to find ways to grind them on maps. Just brainlessly rush seth to the boss and then Grind in TOV rather than bothering with the mental effort of deciding how to get this unit some extra kills/move slower and farm. ToV enemies have low offenses and ToV enemies are very easy to kill. They also give quite a bit of EXP due to Fe8's exp formula and there is even an extra boss for that Juicy boss EXP. Tower of Valni is the most underrated thing and going slower is the most overrated thing. Go fast and grind is better than go slow and not grind.

[@DollyBowman]

@@Noahs_Chair I think this is the right take, with the caveat of avoiding grinding. Some ironmans definitely have extensive grinding to maximize chances of victory (look at some of Excelblem's challenge runs). With all that said I do think a ranking for LTCs is interesting to watch. Every player has their own perspective and interests, and that's going to flavor their perspective even if they're evaluating them on a different level. I think the resistance to maximum efficiency in FE8 is that people don't want to play "one man counterattacks everything" instead of "my army fights the enemy army." And people want to know who's good and useful for "my army fights the enemies"

[@fayestra2486]

@@DJFracus This tier list seems to assume full recruitment as the "default" with incomplete recruitment being weighed less when it's discussed (like how Cormag's recruitment gives Saleh a lot more turns to build warp when factoring in his rating) but even if that wasn't assumed, it's still not a pure LTC list either, it's efficiency / expected turn count (etc) instead. Like in the last video Jumpy mentioned something along the lines of "Saleh barely saves turns in any sort of LTC, but he saves turns in ETC because his extra warp range lets Myrrh be the lategame boss killer instead of someone with weaker or less reliable combat", while if it was more LTC focused then Saleh would be more redundant on that front. In a similar vein, Colm and Ross being able to save a turn by water-walking and rescue dropping in Ch 7 isn't rated as high as plenty of characters who don't save turns, but can still make reliable contributions despite that. If you haven't heard of ETC, then Irysa has a good vid explaining it with Lyn mode as an example, but it can be summed up as "low turns without sacrificing reliability" with any chance of death being treated with a turn penalty based on the likelihood and how many turns would be lost from that reset. In that context, a lot of rigged, perfect level carries are treated a lot worse because of their lower probability of reaching their benchmarks and the low reliability of some power-leveling strats, along with a lot of LTC turn saves not actually being ETC turn saves when you take the penalty into account (like Vanessa fighting brigands on peaks in Ch 2). So while speed is a high priority, it's not the *only* priority and extra emphasis on reliability means a unit like Rutger wouldn't cost as many turns as they would in LTC, or they end up saving *more* turns than they cost. Also wrt to the disconnect between optimal and casual play, that applies to tier lists in a lot of games where your knowledge and ability will change what strategies are effective or what obstacles are challenging, and often have too many nuances to really get the full picture from the list alone. Tier lists are *meant* to reflect the meta, and if someone doesn't know *why* something is meta then that tiering will likely be irrelevant to them and they'll find some other strategy that works well enough for them. And if you don't like the meta, then there is plenty of leniency in the game to go for something different, it's simply that it's outside the focus of this tier list.

[@mauzilus]

Joshua, yes! Great counter to ghost ship gargoyles, makes the second half of that map a lot easier. Love that guy, highly recommended.

[@illialidur8244]

Mauzilus in the wild

[@mauzilus]

Yes.

[@SilentDragonite149]

And he doesn't steal EXP.

[@dualwieldroxas358]

Man, i would love to see Mekkah do a limited slot run, but only characters in the D, E, and F tier

[@DaBrowser]

weird how this and the SoV tier list became LTC tier lists on their reviews, contrary to previous tier list reviews

[@JoshuaHardy]

This is perfect timing! I just finished playing sacred stones today. And I watched lots of your other content while I was playing. So this is the perfect cherry on top.

[@OGRadion]

Honestly, the old version of this tierlist will be much more useful to you, if you're new to fe8. This one, sadly, went way too far into optimal, low turn count play, leaving all other attitudes behind

[@jumpy23]

@@OGRadion This is a take that I have seen a few times in the comment section and do not understand one bit. The old list had 2 luck having ass, terrible combat except against Monsters Artur as a top 5 unit. It had Joshua, Dozla, Gilliam, and Eirika in the same tier. What's the logic behind thinking the old list is better?

[@michaela2634]

@@jumpy23 This tier list is, for all intents, an LTC tier list which isnt how a beginner is gonna play

[@OGRadion]

@@jumpy23 Better for a casual player, who doesn't give a damn, if a unit can save 2 turns in chapter 69x. I wouldn't consider it perfect by any means, but it went for a more simplistic attitude of "Yeah, if you level Arthur all monster fights will be free." A casual player's playthrough will be 80% "Letting enemies run into your 1-2 range units and die", because of how saturated fe8 maps are. I don't dislike your list by any means, it's always great to hear a different point of view and learn about LTC (currently watching your fe8 0%, great job btw), but Mekkah's tierlist is better for a causal player, just trying to avoid most trap units. This tierlist is purely yours, for LTC purposes. Still, for a beginner player, best vid to watch would prob be Mekkah's beginner guide, but tbh i forgot about its existence when writing that comment.

[@sigmaklim2532]

Wild to me, some of these placements. This list looks especially weird compared to other redone lists, because the FE8 version looks like a strict maximum-sweat LTC list, which is fine on its own, but it looks really weird compared to other games, like FE7’s and FE10’s, where units who are reliable and very very good casually but don’t really save turns in LTCs still get to be in A or even S tier.

[@mysmallnoman]

This run is literally LTC, which is why you're confused I mean the guy who's collaborating with Mekkah has an LTC playthrough of FE8

[@DarkSol13]

You are absolutely right, these tier lists are all over the place. The worst part is that all of them fall into the same tired pattern of "Part 1, when I talk mostly out of my ass and by vague memory, applying hazy standards that I myself am not even sure of." and "Part 2 when I immediately discard those standards and just invite someone more knowledgable to basically impose their own (usually very tryhard) standards and with blatant personal biases to boot." (real talk, I seriously hate the "ugh why are you, %unit_name so shit for refusing to do this incredibly specific thing once in a blue moon? Fuck you." mentality speedrunners have and not just in FE but in other games towards other things as well) and Mekkah doesn't really try to argue against anything to keep the tier list away from the "max sweat LTC" mentality. It feels like Part 2 might as well be a video on the guest's channel rather than on his own. The truth is that Mekkah, as much as he tries to seem neutral, definitely gravitates towards the LTC crowd rather than a casual "IMA TRAIN AMELIA TO 20/20 DON'T @ ME" one, and no amount of disclaimers before or after is going to make it better. But he himself isn't an LTCer so he lacks some knowledge which is a convenient way to pad out the content (which at this point is my main problem with these tier lists tbh) that is ultimately meaningless because it's not his tier list anymore even if his standards weren't particularly well defined to begin with. Anyway, in my mind general reliability, self sustainability and ease of use are a hundred times more important than turncount or a specific niche use case. That's why I can't bear to see people like Duessel, Gerik, Cormag and maybe Eph any lower than A or B.

[@mysmallnoman]

@@DarkSol13 MASSIVELY AGREE

[@jumpy23]

The struggle is that the "reliable and good casually" guys all join in the midgame (Duessel, Gerik, Saleh, Cormag) and get penalized for being much worse in one route. If we disregard their weaker route each of these guys moves up a tier and I think a lot of people would have preferred that list so oops

[@itzgladgatorgonegladitzmad9701]

@@DarkSol13 Sacred Stones is like Awakening in terms of most if not all units can be viable in the game in more casual playthroughs. If a new player is asking what units are good telling them Seth carries hard is solid advice as well as fliers being good for utility. Sacred Stones is only hard on hard mode, and what I mean is that you will not have to reset all the time on normal or easy mode. Most players can tell which units are bad with Lute just dying all the time and certain units just having bad stats when they join. Sacred Stones doesn’t need a tier list for general play because there isn’t a unit so bad it makes the game harder by using that unit outside of the Est type units but even then you have the Arena to grind them up if you really want to use them.

[@illialidur8244]

I clicked on this so fast, I’ve been dying for the next part to come out

[@Livingtrope]

amelia is my fav unit bc she has the cutest sprite. thats all i care about

[@covershopkid]

I’d like to see a list for a sethless iron man. Would be much more interesting imo

[@davidcole2913]

Vanessa becomes god as long as she gets the Sereph robe and Dracoshield, and Franz is the clear cut #2 as he will become Seth-lite by Chapter 8. Ross is able to become a great boss killer. Everyone else is basically the same except Kyle and/or Forde gain some value being the back-up cavalier. I guess every other unit before the route split will gain a little value as well.

[@covershopkid]

@@davidcole2913 I’ve been trying the passes two days and kee getting lit up on the ephraim route. Vanessa is one of 3 characters who has been reliable. The others being Natasha and Gilliam that I had to use because all my cavs died hahahaha. My current run she is level 11 going into route split with 5 strength…… my growths have been pretty bad besides and Erika who has 14 strength and max speed by level 15 but then I lost on ephraim route.

[@florianschulz3027]

l'arachel is the other side of the serra coin: top tier waifu, amazing stats at base for starting level, incredible growths, still useless because D rank staves and joining way too late for pure staff.

[@armond436]

Love the Trails in the Sky music here. Really turns it into a great video to have in the background to listen and learn from.

[@ussgordoncaptain]

1:08 So Arthur's with 6-7 warp range turns out to be super clutch in EPH, so I suspect Jumpy would be rating Arthur in B tier. His luck isn't that bad because you can promote him by just poking enemies, and if you aren't Biasing Vanessa (since this is an EPH playthrough) you can promote him before chapter 9 . 11:35 So one thing to note is that Eirika!Vanessa is also a combat unit. The other thing to note about this is that these 6 move midgame combat units are only really great in the 3 midgame rout maps and are ok in helping clear the way. The key job that these units actually do is killing Callech, you should give him Audhulma so he can Kill Callech (or you could have Joshua do with a late promo in Eirika) One thing I would say is that it's more like these units are B tier on the Route they are good on and D on the route they are bad on. If you're feeding all the boss Kills to seth (because he's seth) then you're going to need somebody to help in the rout maps that put a lot of strain on your combat units. Eirka/EPH 11 Eirika 12, Ephraim 13 and Ch15 all require multiple strong combat units. Gerik/duessel do this for free 44:33 You may be underestimating Dozla's ability to fight in chapter 15, he doesn't have the best hit , but he can screen for your other units pretty well. 55:55 yeah it's surprsiing how big the gap between garcia and Joshua is, but the big thing is that underleveled Joshua can contribute while underleveled Garcia is sad. Joshua can even get Audhulma in eirika route and use it to kill Callech which normally Gerik does but Audhulma Joshua is quite good at it. (the argument for Gerik is that you can give the EXP to unpromoted franz and use axreaver franz to support the Callech kill instead) 1:15:00 this is where the pitfall training your lord is actually a pitfall. Training Eirika is actually better than not training her because going from active liability to minor help is a massive deal. Getting her to level 7 pre route-split helped me a lot She's actually pretty good in Eirika 9 and is a minor help in eirika 12, but the big boon was that I didn't have to put her in Kyle's saddlebags, so the Marginal improvement was massive. 1:22:50 Poor Gilliam :( I like him as an earlygame flunky that stops existing after chapter 5. He actually ahs pretty ok chip damage with the iron lance, and the fact that he doesn't double is really good for setting up kills for your other units. I think this list shows how Heliocentric fire emblem tends to work, if you have 1 clear star you put that star in the god tier, then every other unit must be looked at through the lens of how you support the star rather than their own star power. If a unit's main role is combat they better do it for cheap/free (Joshua/Gerik) or it's not going to be a good time. This is why Moulder is so high, he's just good at his job for "free", when seth is killing everything.Though I think that if you had done MAX(EPH/Eirika) instead of AVERAGE(EPH, EIrika) you would have a better list. Such a list would be Cormag B>A Saleh B>A Duessel/Gerik C > high B Arthur C > B Myrrh D > C

[@msterforks]

25:37 Audhulma Gerik was considered for Caellach. Joshua is also mentioned for this job in his section.

[@ussgordoncaptain]

@@msterforks thanks missed that

[@mysmallnoman]

It's and LTC baised list and you're looking at it from Non-LTC perceptive

[@ThatGuyThai]

Training your lord definitely matters if they're the main lord for the route. The opposite should be adhered when you plan on taking Ephraim route. Don't train Eirika at all and she comes back after the split with free levels.

[@graemetang4173]

I always considered Marisa's inclusion in the game as the "canon" assassin because she doesn't need strength if you're having fun gambling on lethalities and she has better avoid (on average once trained) than Joshua. Essentially she feels like the myrmidon that's there if a player is trying to use a fully rng-based unit which is obviously pretty bad, but can be very fun in a casual setting.

[@covershopkid]

I really enjoy her but like a lot of characters in this game, they simply come too late with waaaaay to low base stats. Specifically Larchel. Being the only recruitable base 7 move healer is insane. But getting her so late level 4 after everyone is way better. Not good.

[@davidcole2913]

@@covershopkid L’arachel has 6 move. 7 after promotion. FE7 Priscilla has 7 move with 8 after promotion. They lowered a lot of horse riding classes movement in FE8 so only paladins have 8 move.

[@covershopkid]

@@davidcole2913 whoops. My statements remains the same though. She is still a terrible level for such a late recruitment.

[@wrys903]

As someone who's only played FE8 casually, I honestly think a lot of the poor evaluation of some traditionally loved units makes sense. While some explanations here kind of sound like "Seth stomps so they don't get trained," training them isn't free either. The midgame part where you really want your growth units to come into their own creeps up on you quickly, it's hard to get those early levels as quickly as you want to, and if you get too greedy for EXP it's easy to get people killed and need to restart. Of course you can push through and get godly units like 17/1 Vanessa for Chapter 9, and it's very gratifying to do so, but the training costs probably need to be taken into account to be fair to later joiners. In particular, Kyle being very close to (but still below) Franz rings very true to my experience. I wonder if part of the reason why this list feels bad to a lot of people has to do with how bottom-heavy it is generally? It is a little weird at least visually to see so many people in D and E tiers.

[@msterforks]

The list is bottom-heavy by game design. Previous GBA games were notorious for giving players bonkers units late into the game (Miledy, Percival, Niime, Pent, Harken, Athos, Hawkeye, Vaida, etc). FE8 gives maybe one or two units that are roughly Isadora-tier: self-sustainable units who can accomplish specific tasks, but are not juggernauts. The fact that many units both suck AND join late pushes them down to the bottom of the tier list. People voiced their complaints in the previous video about how the criteria is based strictly on LTC, and value is only perceived by the number of turns that a unit can save. eg There's a 3 tier gap between Moulder and Natasha despite Natasha being able to do exactly what Moulder does with a few extra turns. I personally dislike Cormag's placement because LTC rigs favorable RNG. I think he should be closer to C tier based on the resets caused by his misses and the crits he faces.

[@wrys903]

@@msterforks That's fair. I think what I said about low-level early-joining units being clunky to heavily invest in even under casual conditions still stands. If I sounded like I was saying late-joiners were ranked too low, I didn't intend to, but your comparison to FE6 and FE7 late-joiners makes it clearer to me why many units are placed where they are.

[@msterforks]

@@wrys903 Yeah I only addressed half the argument. The other half (early joiners) are usually lower leveled (in comparison to units like Gerik/Duessel) and require significant investment. The problem is... Seth. He enables clears that are really fast, AND he's one of the best growth units in the game so he gets high priority on boss kills. There's little time or reason to train anyone else. In a casual playthrough, there's less reason to train anyone other than Seth. LTC/efficient playthroughs build teams around Seth's shortcomings (can't fly/water walk, can't warp, can't rout 2 different areas at once). Casual playthroughs can ignore these for the most part and take a few extra turns to charge Seth. FE8 tier lists are stuck in a weird limbo. In order to rank other units fairly (and to relate more with people who don't adhere to the Seth-centric playstyle), we kinda need to ignore Seth. But at the same time, making a tier list while ignoring literally the best unit in the entire FE franchise also feels disingenuous.

[@mysmallnoman]

@@msterforks LITERALLY THIS Moulder and Natasha are practically the same unit but in LTC they're not I mean it's fine here because this list is LTC, but if we're talking about who's good in general efficiently, it doesn't matter who you use between moulder and Natasha

[@wrys903]

@@msterforks I don't think my original comment disagrees with that point. I got the impression that some (not all) casual players expected a tier list to take into account more varied styles of play (which it arguably did going by jumpy23's comments, but wasn't necessarily perceived that way), and that this would cause early-joiners who turn out well when trained to be rated higher. My original point was that I think some casual players might overestimate how well these units turn out without significant favoritism, as well as underestimate the effort/turns/reliability cost involved in that favoritism. Therefore, even from a more casual perspective, placements such as Franz and Ross make sense. (I would like to cite more, but Artur's placement here probably isn't a good example, I haven't tried to train Lute in a long time or Garcia ever, and afaik Vanessa conventionally goes 1 tier below Seth anyway.) In practice this might be a similar argument to ones involving Seth (if Seth didn't exist we would have to play the earlygame in a much grindier way), but I hoped that framing the argument in a way that doesn't invoke Seth would be helpful to some people. I don't think doing so is dishonest, because from experience playing Chapters 1-8 where I didn't explicitly intend to sandbag Seth (still gave him boss kills), and was in my mind just slowing down enough to train Franz, Vanessa, and Artur, they still had problems (in terms of reaching carry-level stats; I'm sure promoting them at level 10 to be flunkies would have gone more smoothly) even when they met their averages.

[@Corncake1337]

Love this list

[@videogameenjoyer9651]

by sheer coincidence i happened to pause this video around 1:24:01 on the exact frame where mekkah switches from saleh to tana, and on that frame, tana's hair color is changed to saleh's. you can juuuust barely tell you pay super duper close attention to the gameplay while he's saying "i can't really claim i'm correct on her anyway" about l'arachel

[@Corncake1337]

One of my favorite videos you made in a while.

[@snowballglobe5176]

love this series sm ty mekkah and jumpy

[@florianschulz3027]

i wonder what people would see as a non-ltc tier list. because almost every unit can solo the game in fe8 thanks to the tower of valni, so the 2 criteria which i see for ranking units are a) do they help youbeat maps faster? and b) do they perform well postgame?, which nobody plays so a is really the only choice.

[@RubyChiang]

Finally, Justice for Joshua!!

[@Pokelife93]

Cool stuff

[@Fungi127]

Man, I love FE8 a lot. It's a great little game. But I despise Seth. Any discussion about this game boils down to how well Seth can do this, or how much it helps Seth to do that. It almost feels like he's those self-insertion characters in later games. He's got no weaknesses to speak of, and he's never in danger of anything doing anything to him unless you really cocked something up. He's just boring. And that is a small rant about Seth.

[@michaela2634]

Yeah he trivializes the game.

[@domesticdingo1417]

My solution as a kid was to just bench Seth, and try beating the game not relying on him at all. It still wasn't a very challenging game, because I wasn't really going for speed or anything back then, but he was kind of un-fun with how broken he is lol

[@fireheart8878]

This reeks of anti-jager sentiments. As a bad player. Having a guardian angel to protect my Tana or Moulder from a foolish movement is a godsend. I also just vibe with him.

[@cartooncritic7045]

@@fireheart8878 I've cooled off considerably from my anti-Jagen days but there needs to be a point where we realize that units like Seth trivialize the game in such a way that it sucks the fun out of it and any discussion of said game.

[@MagikarpPower]

Seth is kinda overrated. yeah he's good thru the whole game but he's not a god and he definitely doesn't trivialize the game. its plenty difficult as long as u don't grind.

[@lemonutz]

Really enjoyed this list. I feel like FE8 doesn't really get analyzed as deeply as the other games because of Seth and the game itself being easier.

[@SharurFoF]

I move for Mekkah to do separate tier lists for Eirika and Ephraim routes.

[@AllBeganwithBBS]

Whenever my man says "Caellach" I keep hearing "Kelik" and having TLP flashbacks. Thanks for nothing I hated that. Great analysis though, I never really thought about the game that way and I changed my mind on so many units.

[@14bj337]

Wow, I thought they were referring to one of the minor bosses whom I'd forgotten! Yeah, I pronounce him like "CAY-lack", which is probably wrong, but at least it's roughly phonetic.

[@jumpy23]

@@14bj337 I think everyone pronounced it somewhat like that but he came out in FEH and apparently it's just like Kelik

[@gratedshtick]

40:54 depending on how Fom rolls with speed, 15 speed could avoid being doubled, funnily enough.

[@michaela2634]

The criteria for this tier list is really unclear. You guys say it's a "playing fast" tier list but you're determining placement based on the exact number of turns units save which sounds an awful lot like LTC.

[@RushStudios101]

Mekkah, have you ever considered playing Japanese Sacred Stones for this channel? It's much more challenging than English Sacred Stones due to a large amount of changes such as enemy placement, inventories, shops, etc.

[@Juan-zs6jt]

Not really. It is pretty much the same thing, except you hoard money to buy a stash of Energy Ring.

[@Vyn_HK]

@@Juan-zs6jt those Eirika mode inflated Cormag bases tho 👀

[@professorannefaire7233]

So with the Context that I tend to give Eirika levels and also have never LTC, I think Eirika's position on Ephraim mode Scorched Sand is so good. You basically get rid of her items and have her on the throne and the Pegasus knights have so much trouble getting her. And they have to go one at a time. This iisntt eefficcient. But inteeresttinng. Thinng since she is very naturally dodgy. I imagine the bias of her having 20speed on almost every playthrough I've done certainly contributes to that

[@JM-tj5qm]

I think Joshua is much better than most people give him credit for. Just because he is a Myrmidon, his combat is so good. He only lacks 1-2. I think C is fine for him, because the units above him are so good. But he is probably the best of the rest

[@FLITTLEFANATIC]

Wow, I think this list shoes the disconnect between LTC and Casual play. An example would be Colm being higher than Lute for one, though I do think Lutes bases are subpar. Her stats are basically 6 magic and 6 speed (with her bad con factored in), that's basically Neimi bases but if you gave her 2 strength and hit off resistance instead. I also gotta say its been a while since I've played vanilla FE8, I enjoy it a lot better when you up enemy growths by 30% since the game isn't a Seth solo, he needs more back up, making the other cast actually matter, compared to vanilla where Seth's bases alone can carry him throughout most of game on top of good growths. Edit: okay actually now thinking about it Colm might be better than lute lmao.

[@MinunRobotnik4]

Whoever designed Gerik as either a unit or a character deserves an instant promotion. There's so much depth to him both in gameplay and in personality. Also were Artur and Forde meant to be included in the "useful for only five or six chapters" group or were they rated before that. Because if they're above the only useful for five or six chapters benchmark, then they probably deserve to be in B-Tier along with the other more generally useful units. (Something I would not bring up if it were only Forde there, but Bishops that promote from Monks are my favorite units so I have to)

[@jumpy23]

> Also were Artur and Forde meant to be included in the "useful for only five or six chapters" group or were they rated before that. Forde absolutely. Artur... probably not? Eph Artur is only really worth the investment in the lategame but Eirika Artur does stuff in both mid- and late-game. Honestly Artur should probably be B tier, but he is imo the single hardest unit to make good use of in all of FE8 so I gave him a slight ease-of-use penalty.

[@MinunRobotnik4]

@@jumpy23 Thanks for the reply. That's a fair reason. I'm biased in the opposite direction, but honestly I'm happy my favorite units placed as well as they did. Switch Forde and Lute, and you'd have most of them in C-Tier. I'll try to learn the Artur strats, even if I to eat crit after crit.

[@markalexander6036]

8:45 "He's supposed to be the reliability calv..." Mekka: "LOL!!!"

[@SilentDragonite149]

I lost it at "Oops, I'm accidentally Level 14!"

[@ThatGuyThai]

GREAT KNIGHT KYLE!! SOMEONE KNOWS THE TERROR OF GK FRANZ, BUT THEY HAVE YET TO DISCOVER GK KYLE!!!

[@gameasasin]

Kinda sad Gillian is so low honestly because I love his bulk and I love having anna and gillian just being either a literal wall in gillians case or a dodge wall in Anna's or at least a mini wall if she does get hit, in the Raustin chapter with Rev until I'm ready to kill him off because I like to save the knights for the light brand. But I play fe 8 purely casually so I take full advantage of the tower.

[@SonicTheHedgedawg]

I just made my Marisa an assassin so she had some utility because, correct, she's never gonna beat Josh as a swordmaster

[@PowerliftingAndPhysics]

The other guy is totally right, Amelia should promote to Wyvern / Pegasus Knight.

[@redwizard9463]

More like Ford redemption arc 😂😂😂

[@anawfullotofcups]

Lold @ “trundle your garm”

[@christianclark9494]

doing a draft run with 2 friends and my Kyle is str capped at level 6 paladin, it's wild

[@ThatGuyThai]

Kyle is goated, his strength and con are reasons why I promote him into GK. Gives him some more STR levels since he caps so early. Weapon triangle advantage is really underrated.

[@armandocalleta3710]

Trails music? siccccck

[@wombastic2614]

I just finished fe8 once again and trained Ford, Kyle and Franz equally and they really were on par. So I really don't get the Ford bashing at all

[@ikefromsmashbros9237]

I like getting other creators involved to voice their opinions, but it feels like it's basically "tryhard LTCer remakes Mekkah's tierlist with no pushback" at this point. I'd prefer more in-depth mathematical analysis as opposed to another person coming in, usually just as raw as Mekkah was when creating the list, to impose their specific standards on it.

[@michaela2634]

Completely agree. This just feels like an LTC tier list. Which is fine but call it an LTC tier list in that case.

[@durma6924]

garcia is so funny of a unit to me because of how idifferent his performance is if he gets speed blessed

[@catman9222]

Making Amelia a paladin because 8 move < Making Amelia a great knight because of her lore

[@Tsakan2]

Marisa is F tier because she doesn't have a unique female assassin sprite. oh and also she's worthless. I guess that's reasonable

[@raywilliamjohnson47]

Feel like Ross is underrated. Give him some time and get him to a berserker and he’s unstoppable. Erwin as a Summoner is great too

[@mattbalfe2983]

Honestly I think Amelia, Ross, and Ewan more important if your seriously doing creature campaign.

[@jaimereupert4247]

For a non LTC game, like on someone's first playthrough, what would be the optimal/best team for both routes? (A team for each route)

[@jumpy23]

Sacred Stones doesn't really reward you for picking a "team" and sticking with them the entire game. Most of the combat can be done with just one or two core focus units (usually called "Carries") and low-investment utility units picking up the slack, getting cycled out as you get new better ones throughout the game. That being said, I understand that picking a core team for every map is a popular way to play, usually one with at least one of every weapon type. I would say that for this kind of playstyle, you really can't go wrong with anyone in the S through C tiers of the list. Other units which I think are new player friendly and fun are Dozla, Knoll, Myrrh, and Eirika Innes, who each represent a class that isn't in the high tiers at all. Most of the rest I think stay away from unless you want a challenge / investment project (which can also be fun.)

[@ussgordoncaptain]

My recommendation would be (one of the following) Seth Combat Flyer (Cormag EPH/Vanessa EIR) Support Cav (Franz/Kyle) Prepromote (Duessel EPH/Gerik EIR) Foot other combat (Joshua/Arthur/ect) Rescue drop support Warper 1 (MOULDER) Warper 2 (Saleh/Natasha/Arthur) But realistically you can also just solo the game with Seth + 1 combat flyer+Prepromote and maybe 1 warper and it'll be faster in real time.

[@ThatGuyThai]

You can't go wrong in this game. Use who you enjoy everyone is viable in a non ltc run. When in doubt lean on Seth

[@athath2010]

Mekkah made a unit recommendation guide (distinct from a tier list, even though they use a very similar format) video for Sacred Stones that you should check out. It ranks units by how good/bad of an idea it is to use/invest in them in a casual run, IIRC.

[@davidcole2913]

Seth on either route. Even if you want to train the “growth units” have Seth carry someone to cut his speed in half and the he won’t double which will leave the enemies weak for the other units to finish off. Franz is good for both routes. Vanessa is good on both routes if she gains Str and Def. If she doesn’t you can switch to using Tana. Tana will typically be good on both routes regardless. She should be used even if Vanessa has good stat growths. Ross is an absolute beast if you make him a pirate and then Berzerker. Artur and Lute are both good after they gain some levels. Saleh will be as good as them if not better on Eirika route. On Ephraim route he’s much less effective. Neimi as a ranger is good not great, but you need to really favor her with kills to get her there. Gerik is amazing on Eirika route and decent on Ephraim route. Hero!Gerik with S rank axes for Garm is a thing, but I personally prefer him as a Ranger for my LTC and draft playthoughs. Duessel is basically a god on Ephraim route. Joins a bit too late on Eirika. Kyle and Forde are decent. Just don’t try to use both of them. Amelia is not worth the effort to use her. Her only advantage over her similar units is that she will have more Speed than Gilliam as a General. However her Str and Def will be lower. Tethys should always be used. Cormag is amazing on Ephraim route and decent on Eirika route. Colm and Rennac can open chests. You should use at least one of them. Ewan joins too late to be unique. Nothing special about him. The healers are good for healing. On a casual play they are pretty equal. The girls can rides horses so they might be slightly better. If you decide to grind with the tower of Valni and skirmishes you can really just use whoever you like the most though.

[@youngsimba6737]

feel like Artur and Gerik should be B tier. Would argue Lute too but her con sucks so I get her being C

[@arumea5418]

Ouch, never saw the previous lists but getting the Marisa part was pain since she's my literal favorite FE character in the entire franchise, sacred stones was my first game and Marisa lead the charge for me alongside ephraim, cormag and gerik

[@durma6924]

Saying ross steals exp when he gets 30 from chip and does such bad damage is a lil weird to me

[@Mekkkah]

If you want Ross to promote quickly in an efficient setting where you're not taking forever in one of the early chapters, then he needs to get kills, not just chip. It'd take Ross 30 chips to promote assuming he got 30 exp every time (which he doesn't).

[@mmartinisgreat]

Nerds

[@Goosaphone]

Forde started out about where I expected. Surprised he made it to C.

[@Mekkkah]

veto

[@cojopi]

Colm is pronounced “colum” as in a column and a row. 2 syllables

[@Hanesboi]

Sou- oh it's your name, huh. Neat.

[@christianlangdon3766]

Feel like I may be in a bubble here but my colm always has pretty high strength over other swords people's, so I never had a hard time getting him to compete with the other kids. But he also has a very good movement profile overall for a foot unit. Though his hp and defense are always going to be a bit behind but that's the norm with sword characters. Also feel Orson being in the list at all is pretty bad faith he is there for one chapter? Even Marisa has better availability for a worse unit. But isn't what makes a good unit is between combat, availability, and utilities and move (yea it's that big of a star). So it seems really dumb to me that a unit that is good for combat and nothing else since move is only super strong when you need it, which that chapter really doesn't if you go Ephraim route. (Colm also gets more things to do there) Axe boys Garcia and dozla also don't get enough love I know they are bets c+ but many people sleep on them.

[@athath2010]

Yeah, but he's *useful* in that one chapter, and you don't have to drop anyone else to at least deploy him. Heck, even if you're unequipping him and just using him as a meatshield/trade bot/rescue bot to avoid "wasting exp" in a casual run, you can STILL get quite a bit of mileage out of his ability to tank/bait enemies in that chapter.

[@christianlangdon3766]

@@athath2010 Im not saying he isn't good In that chapter whatsoever I'm just saying a strong unit unit that can solo the late game rarley gets above a c ranking so why does Orson who is worse than that in every way as he is around for an early chapter that you can easily do without him. Yet the guy gets a pass because he is a good combat unit. Like he is equivalent to dozla Garcia and a bunch of guys who do combat well enough and are around for both halfvs of the game. Where they are good like idk at worst he gets low e, if not high f for me.

[@athath2010]

​@@christianlangdon3766 Orson got a *low* D ranking (below the higher Ds of Dozla and Garcia) because he makes 5x considerably less painful (remember, your normal carries aren't around for that map). He meaningfully contributes in one chapter, which is more than can be said for the units in E and F tier. Think of him like an Athos who's present for an early game chapter instead of a late game one.

[@christianlangdon3766]

@@athath2010 my counterpoint is at athos is around for a map that is considerably much more difficult he makes it possible even if your team normally wouldn't be able to versus making some what okay map at worse by Cakewalk

[@splinter360]

I feel like this list should have the caviat of "without training". Because a lot of the units you put lower can be better than the u it's above them with training. For example at max level Tana will also better than max level Vanessa. It's just whether you want to grind. Personally I don't mind grinding 3-4 units.

[@wouterW24]

This list does seem efficient enough. I’d like to imagine what would happen if each unit had the option to get a little biased in a single valni floor 1 run just once, and the current layout might not shift all that much at all, only fliers could hope to match Seth.

[@bobbob-lb9om]

Never really understood peoples need for the scared weapons. I beat fe8 ephrin hard mode with mostly irons weapons. Take for granted its not an lowest turn count, but I am chewing through the game. I basically use 1 or two weapons. Warp demon kind, and if i don't kill dance warp

[@DarkSol13]

I knew this was going to be pretty LTC-centric (which is sad and stupid and sucks but w/e just imo) but I won't stand for this Gerik slander! In my heart he'll always be A tier =)

[@Hanesboi]

I'm so tired of the "It's an LTC tierlist" argument. My dudes it's ranked the same way as the other FE tierlists. Efficiency. FE8 is just such a centralized game and has the route split wildly changing viability. Getting an LTCer on board is good, actually. They know the game better than you do and is how they can deeply analyze everything a unit CAN do. Including stuff done outside of an LTC context, numerous times during the video jumpy23 talks about specific instances of things you can do and apply to a casual run. Ephraim's Reginleif one-shotting so late in the game, Joshua killing Gargoyles, Audhulma Gerik with 2 speed levels defeating Caellach, Syrene helping break eggs, Knoll using phantoms to cover 12 tiles of movement (and even stuff I didn't know like being able to use the Take command to cushion a hit strategy!), the list could go on. The only actual problems with this list is having split route units be averaged instead of just ranked at the best route, nobody cares about Duessel in Eirika so it shouldn't weigh him down to C, only mentioned as a contrast. The other issue with many commentors is not understanding what efficiency in Fire Emblem is. I can't give you a dictionary definition, but I can tell you that it is not wasting 15+ turns on Ch5x, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, definitely not 19 the defend map, and Chapter 20 Darkling Woods. FE8 lategame goes by fast, I'm sorry to break it to you but efficiency here in lategame is just warping. Yes jumpy23 will have to talk about warping and boots, they are a campaign resource to be expended, not hoarded forever. Even I, a massive casual with 252 turns on my latest run, used the warp staff to skip Ch17 and 19, if that makes me an unfun LTC neckbeard, then I dread to think what "fun" is.

[@coldeed]

Efficiency has nothing to do with pace. Unless you accept that the purpose of a fire emblem game is to finish it as quickly as possible, turn count is literally an arbitrary metric. I'd also say a game with trainees, a number of post-game exclusive maps that rival the actual main story, incentive and rewards for completing those post-game objectives, and an overall open world free form focus, obsessing overturn count is a really silly way to judge how good things are in the game outside of talking about the LTC strategies. Realistically it is completely free and in fact more rewarding to get into a skirmish in this game, or actually tried to complete everything involving the story maps. Efficiency is defined by the maximum benefit for the minimum cost, so going through the map very quickly does save you costs on using equipment, but it comes at the consequence of losing experience potentially more loot we're overall recruiting less characters. These are all expenses of rushing the game, that consequently do not matter at all unless you're trying to go into the competitive thing of LTC runs, which is entirely a self-imposed challenge that doesn't benefit you in any way besides mixing up the gameplay goals.

[@cartooncritic7045]

"Efficiency" being turned into a euphemism for "LTC pace +1 or 2 extra turns" is actually a garbage metric to measure unit viability within the context of what the term was actually meant to be used for, which is "smart use of resources for the best return on investment," not necessarily in regards to "tUrNs SaVeD."

[@rehazardgaming3765]

I really don’t understand Seth in S, whenever I try to use him he just does nothing in late game and gets out paced really easily by Franz or Kyle. Also probably unpopular opinion but Great Knight > Paladin.

[@Indie4evar]

Not a big fan how this guy ranks characters tbh, he sounds like "If you play only on mondays under red moon light while wearing colored socks, then X unit is bad, but if you play solo male no exp only-shinylock? Then he is kinda good".

[@ThatGuyThai]

What? lol

[@Indie4evar]

@@ThatGuyThai tons of arbitrary items for him, like ltc and other shit to rank characters on a very strict manner that doesn't really have much sense on a rank like that. How is Gerik, an almost unbeatable unit who comes ready to promote even if you want to on the chapter he joins, C tier because "You have already Seth as a combat unit"? We all know Seth is broken and this is why he has his own tier, but that's not the point of any of these Mekkah tier list.

[@naxxramas1683]

Should just rename these LTC tier lists. When the words "warp" & "boots" come up in every character analysis it makes for a boring video. I enjoy listening to why people rank units where they do, but I seriously can't watch more than 10 minutes of these. If you're doing LTC already I imagine you don't need a tier list to help you...

[@jumpy23]

I can tell you couldn't watch more than 10 minutes because after Artur I don't mention Warp or Boots for nearly 45 minutes

[@naxxramas1683]

Perhaps this comment is more applicable to Part 1 since that part included the higher tiers where you put more characters actually involved in warp strategies. That doesn't change my disappointment that this ended up being more of the same at the start, killing my desire to watch any further. I'm sure you didn't mention warp and boots for a lot of the low tiers. It's not like I expected to reach Nemi and hear your analysis about warping an archer/sniper/ranger for your LTC playthrough after all. I just didn't feel like sitting through the rest of it after starting off with the same thing again. This feedback isn't even really for you. You clearly have a lot of passion about playing the game in a certain way - and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just lending my voice to this not being the content that I'm interested in (admittedly in a frustrated tone). Teir lists will always be subjective, but the analysis presented in Part 1 (and at least the part of Part 2 that I watched), felt to me like it narrowed the scope too much into your LTC mindset, with little other consideration.

[@melovepeas]

lmao this entire comments section is just casuals wondering why non-casual content is not geared towards casuals

[@neil5458]

First ?

[@jerry3115]

Arthur in C and Garcia in D is such a joke

[@lugero7579]

smh

[@mysmallnoman]

It's an LTC tier list