Summary of changes
Placements
- New Year Dagr: New Year Jötnar <TIER 2 (Defense)>
- New Year Fáfnir: Fresh Ambition <TIER 1>
- New Year Kyza: Tiger of Fortune <TIER 3>
- New Year Lyre: Lap Cat of Luxury <TIER 3>
- New Year Reginn: Bearing Dawn <TIER 2>
- Colm: Capable Thief <TIER 3>
- Joshua: Resolute Tempest <TIER 2>
- Neimi: Tearful Archer <TIER 2>
- Rennac: Rich "Merchant" <TIER 3>
- Riev: Blood Beryl <TIER 2>
- Lucina: Glorious Archer <TIER 2>
- Eirika: Graceful Resolve <TIER 2>
- Canas: Wisdom Seeker <TIER 2>
- Silas: Loyal Knight <TIER 5>
- Corrin: Dream Princess <TIER 2>
- Corrin: Dream Prince <TIER 2>
- Myrrh: Spooky Monster <TIER 1>
Adjustments
- Eitri: Youthful Sage <TIER 1>
- Brave Claude: Almyra's King <TIER 4>
- Kaden: Refreshed Kitsune <TIER 3>
- Winter Bernadetta - Frosty Shut-In <TIER 1> (Defense icon removed)
- Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor <TIER 2> (Defense icon removed)
- Sonya: Vengeful Mage <TIER 2> (Defense icon removed)
- Altina: Cross-Time Duo <TIER 2>
- Ike: Brave Mercenary <TIER 2>
- Scion Larcei: Scion of Astra <TIER 2>
- Brave Ephraim: Sacred Twin Lord <TIER 2>
- Python: Apathetic Archer <TIER 3>
- Sedgar: Coyote's Dutiful <TIER 3>
- Halloween Rolf: Tricky Archer <TIER 3>
- Eleonora: Shooting Starlet <TIER 3>
- Leonie: Relentless Rays <TIER 3>
- Selena: Fluorspar <TIER 2>
- Merric: Changing Winds <TIER 2>
- Byleth (F): The Fódlan Light <TIER 2>
- Ishtar: Thunder Goddess <TIER 2>
Introduction
Another new year, another new update. In the previous update, we received your feedback regarding the general stance of summoner duels, and the team is planning to do something regarding the mode sometime in the near future. We also have more drastic tier list changes lined up in the next couple of updates, but this one is largely here to address all the concerns that were brought up in the previous update. As per usual, the team is all ears with any constructive feedback regarding the tier list, so keep them coming.
Other changes
In the current state of the game, it is abundantly clear that the age of single tanks is pretty much over, as they are superseded by Saves. We adjusted all the remaining prominent pure tanks downwards in light of this observation. While Scion Larcei and Brave Ike technically could be used as melee specialists, we do not think they bring enough to the table in that role for them to be considered for Tier 1. Lastly, while Brave Ephraim is not a single tank, his performance in recent times is more hit-or-miss due to an increased abundance of Null Follow-Up melee nukes such as Brave Eirika and Brave Alm.
- Altina: Cross-Time Duo <TIER 2>
- Brave Ike: Brave Mercenary <TIER 2>
- Legendary Ryoma: Supreme Samurai <TIER 2>
- Scion Larcei: Scion of Astra <TIER 2>
- Brave Ephraim: Sacred Twin Lord <TIER 2>
Many concerns were brought up by Astrid’s placement in light of the other generic bow unit placements, such as Sedgar and Python. We felt that it is about time to adjust them downwards; their main method of disruption, Firesweep, is no longer a reliable option due to the rather extreme presence of Ascendant Fjorm in the state of the offensive metagame. This effect is similar to how armor effectiveness faded due to Brave Hector. We also felt that other generic bows such as Leonie and Rolf should be adjusted downwards for the same reasons. Lastly, while Eleonora is not a generic, she also suffers from the same problems stated above.
- Python: Apathetic Archer <TIER 3>
- Sedgar: Coyote's Dutiful <TIER 3>
- Halloween Rolf: Tricky Archer <TIER 3>
- Eleonora: Shooting Starlet <TIER 3>
- Leonie: Relentless Rays <TIER 3>
The same could be said for Windsweep; the existence of Ascendant Fjorm also created a sweeping (heh) effect in the utility of said Skill for ranged units. As such, it is important to re-evaluate units that were relying on Windsweep as their main gimmick, the main ones being those who have Null Follow-Up in their weapon. Most of the Null Follow-Up mages in Tier 1 were adjusted down, with the only exception being Legendary Byleth (M) due to Sublime Heaven.
- Selena: Fluorspar <TIER 2>
- Merric: Changing Winds <TIER 2>
- Byleth (F): The Fódlan Light <TIER 2>
- Ishtar: Thunder Goddess <TIER 2>
We also removed some Defense icons and made defensive adjustments. Winter Bernadetta is mainly used for HP manipulation for HP threshold Skills such as Desperation, Brash Assault, and Wings of Mercy, and Sonya is a capable Area-of-Effect user that could be used in conjunction with Safety Fence. We also felt that Brave Edelgard is no longer performing as well on Defense due to recent units being able to take her out with relative ease (Ninja Corrin and Winter Lysithea being the 2 biggest culprits). As such, we adjusted her tier accordingly while removing her Defense icon in the process. Lastly, New Year Kaden simply is not doing enough compared to modern cavalry nukes, as most of them either have a guaranteed follow-up or Null Follow-Up.
- Winter Bernadetta - Frosty Shut-In <TIER 1> (Defense icon removed)
- Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor <TIER 2> (Defense icon removed)
- Sonya: Vengeful Mage <TIER 2> (Defense icon removed)
- Kaden: Refreshed Kitsune <TIER 3>
Admittedly, we were a little too harsh on Eitri with the Yuri comparison. The team had the majority consensus that Yuri is simply not on the same plane as most of the units in the game. We decided to promote Eitri, as she still hits hard while having some defensive properties in her Divine Recreation. We also decided to give Yuri the red-eye treatment over Legendary Sigurd to reflect this consensus.
- Eitri: Youthful Sage <TIER 1>
While the big elephant in the room is, of course, Fatal Smoke, it is not his only issue. In the past, Brave Claude likes to be able to snipe his problematic foes from afar and take on the opponents using Wind Parthia's healing. In the modern era, however, his circumstances make it difficult to do any of the above. As Far Save is becoming ever-increasingly common on the defense teams, it is much harder for the likes of Brave Claude to be able to convincingly take down any of the common Far Save options outside of relying on external factors such as the Bolt Tower. The amount of units he is able to take out in the enemy phase is also increasingly less and less due to either a firepower increase such as the likes of Triangle Attack compositions involving Bridal Catria, or just pure brute force from the likes of Valentine's Lif and Winter Lysithea.
While all these justify a demotion, the question might be, why Tier 4 specifically? This is unfortunately where the ranged flier problems seep in; weaknesses to bows mean either an opportunity cost to the seal slot or just falling flat to the matchup, and the dead horse that we had constantly beat over and over again with their lack of competitive skill access. Unless it can be proven that being a ranged flier is not a problem in the modern meta, we believe that the demotion to Tier 4 is justified.
- Brave Claude: Almyra's King <TIER 4>
Generics
Generics are defined as units that do not have access to a unique weapon. As such, they will be tiered based on similar units from the current tier list placements. An explanation will be provided if required.
- Colm: Capable Thief <TIER 3>
- Rennac: Rich "Merchant" <TIER 3>
Weapon Refinery
Legendary Lucina: Glorious Archer <TIER 2>
After her refine and remix, Lucina’s game plan further revolves around her personal Assist, Future Vision II, which now has Atk/Def Snag in addition to granting her and the Assist target a guaranteed follow-up. She also gains stats based on the enemy’s visible debuffs from Thögn, which synergizes well with Future Vision II. Unfortunately, Lucina’s Future Vision is a spruced-up Swap, which is not as useful as Reposition and Smite. Legendary Lucina’s place is probably in a Galeforce or hit-and-run team in Aether Raids Offense where she could allow her Assist target to get closer while having a guaranteed follow-up attack; Lucina could also do swapping shenanigans again when required. However, the team does not think this is significantly better than just running Smite on your units, as firepower is usually not a primary concern for such teams; even if it is, the Bolt Tower exists. As such, we felt that Tier 2 is appropriate.
Legendary Eirika: Graceful Resolve <TIER 2>
Legendary Eirika not only received a refine for Storm Sieglinde, but also a remix in Lunar Brace, which allows Eirika to be a decent Galeforce unit. This is due to the additional Special charge on her weapon’s refine, along with Lunar Brace’s Null Follow Up and Canto. Eirika’s biggest concern is that she can be shut down by any form of Guard, meaning she might not be as reliable as her brother. She also lacks the accelerated Special cooldown of her Brave counterpart, and while true damage from Lunar Brace II is nice, she might face the problem of suffering from success if she OHKOs the enemy. Lastly, Eirika’s utility on Defense is questionable, as she might lack the defensive bulk to take a hit even after damage reduction.
Canas: Wisdom Seeker <TIER 2>
After all these years, Canas finally sees the light of day with his refine, as it provides him the offensive boost he sorely needed. With his Ancient Codex’s base effect of dealing true damage, it is very likely for him to be able to take the enemy out in a single strike. Coupled with his refine effect of charging Special Skills on the first 3 turns, he can charge up a higher charge Special all by himself. His main use is probably as an AoE user similar to Ophelia and Sonya, with the added benefit of not requiring any support as long as he can get the charges needed for the AoE on Turn 3. However, he will still need support if a player wants to use Safety Fence, which could be a problem due to Canas’s rather unoptimized stat spread; too many stat points allocated to HP can make it difficult to benefit from allies’ Infantry Pulses.
Silas: Loyal Knight <TIER 5>
Follow-up prevention is unfortunately not very helpful for a unit like Silas; his base SPD is mediocre, and his Sworn Lance does little to remedy that. Any remotely fast unit with a guaranteed follow-up can ignore this effect, which heavily diminishes Silas’s Enemy Phase capabilities. Coupled with the lack of competitive Skill access (particularly in his B Slot), we are unable to promote Silas.
Corrin: Dream Princess <TIER 2>
Corrin: Dream Prince <TIER 2>
Accelerated Special cooldown and reducing the enemy’s damage on their first attack by 40% is an effect that we are rather familiar with in the form of Brave Ike, with the Corrins trading the Deflect effect for more stats, additional Special charge, and Dragon perks. The cooldown effect on Draconic Rage means that Corrin could either opt for a 2-cooldown Special such as Moonbow or Glimmer for enhanced reliability or 3-cooldown Specials such as Bonfire for a higher damage ceiling, which is a point of consideration due to the presence of Flow Guard. As for Dragon perks, Corrin can take either Dragon Wall for more damage reduction or Dragon’s Wrath for higher OHKO consistency.
Corrin’s role is likely to be a melee specialist, which unfortunately competes with Near Save units such as Valentine’s Gustav and Pirate Surtr, both of which have even more damage reduction on top of phenomenal physical bulk. Corrin lacks both of these, making them arguably unremarkable in comparison.
Myrrh: Spooky Monster <TIER 1>
Being an Armored unit with high physical bulk makes Myrrh a prime Near Save unit; with the added benefit of being a Dragon, she is immune to Windsweep (Watersweep is uncommon, so it is okay to somewhat ignore that). Myrrh does struggle against Brave Eirika, Ruptured Sky, and especially Brave Eirika with Ruptured Sky, but that can be somewhat mitigated by using a damage reduction B skill, which she is free to use because of the guaranteed follow-up on Spirit Breath. Lastly, should she fail to OHKO, she has 70% damage reduction on follow-up attacks similar to Brave Edelgard’s Black Eagle Rule. What makes Myrrh significantly better than her competition is access to powerful B Slots in addition to the usual Savior shenanigans.
Like Clockwork
New Year Dagr: New Year Jötnar <TIER 2 (Defense)>
The main use of Pathfinder is usually on the defensive side of the game, and New Year Dagr naturally is also evaluated in that regard. However, compared relatively to Nott, Dagr does not provide as much value as she takes up a normal unit slot. This meant that specifically for Dagr, she would need to be a competent combat unit in her own right, capable of covering for at the very least the common blue matchups.
The big elephant in the room is Brave Hector, which unfortunately is a coin-toss due to Dagr's sub-par bulk and hitting for physical damage, which meant that Dagr either is potentially taken out in a single hit or struggles to deal enough damage on him despite the Null Follow-Up effect on her B skill. This is highly dependent on the amount of support that the Brave Hector user is using. While in a pure 1 on 1 fight Dagr might come out on top, if an offensive player goes out of the way and provides a sufficient quantity of combat buffs such as the likes of Distant Guard, or bring a support unit such as the likes of Flayn and Hinoka (WF), things heavily swing to Brave Hector's favor. It is difficult to make a blanket assumption for all of these cases.
Furthermore, the full effect on her weapon relies on her to get buffed, which can be hard to pull off in the defensive context. While Panic is increasingly uncommon in the offensive metagame, it is still something that can be concerning on some occasions. Panic Manor although uncommon could also be problematic on the bonus weeks.
That is not to say Dagr is a weak unit by any means; the team believes that the practical applications of Dagr are fairly obvious due to the potential additional overlap that she could enable. However we hope that the above elucidates on our general stance for the unit; Pathfinder is a utility effect that probably is better on a Mythic which has lesser combat burdens, and New Year Dagr meant that we have to be more strict in terms of combat requirements. However, not all hope is lost for New Year Dagr. Should there be a way to further boost her matchup against Brave Hector such as the likes of Guard seal or B Feud in Passive C, we will re-evaluate her in the near future.
New Year Fáfnir: Fresh Ambition <TIER 1>
The similarities between Fáfnir and Yuri are uncanny, with the 2 big differences being color and movement type. The former means that Yuri has significantly more consistent matchups (outside of Nagi), while the latter means that Yuri can either run Lethality or AoE Specials with much more ease. However, as eluded before by Eitri above, just because a unit is worse than Yuri does not mean they cannot be eligible for Tier 1. He can still run Lethality albeit, with more difficulties (not to mention the lack of cooldown reduction), he comes with Disarm Trap to initiate safely on traps, and he has the same 3 movements with Canto 2. He also hits fairly hard with decent protection in the form of what is essentially Flow Guard embedded in his weapon. Unless the enemy is Brave Hector, New Year Fáfnir is a great unit in his own right.
New Year Reginn: Bearing Dawn <TIER 2>
Similar to Fáfnir, Reginn is a Cavalier with Canto 2. However, Reginn hits significantly softer compared to Fafnir, as she lacks any form of guaranteed or Null Follow-Up. While she does get an instantly-charged Special on Turn 1 (Seiðr Shell) and potentially Turn 4 from Niðavellir Lots, having adaptive damage on a magic unit is not as helpful due to a large number of units having RES that is already lower than their DEF. Outside of the instant charge, Seiðr Shell’s damage is not spectacular, especially when considering that she is hitting the Far Save unit rather than the Near Save one for base Reginn.
New Year Kyza: Tiger of Fortune <TIER 3>
Kyza’s main draw is that he received the enhanced Infantry beast effect, which grants Null Guard when transformed. This synergizes with Polished Fang’s effects rather well, as he gains Special charge from the enemy’s attacks (similar to Huge Fan) along with 5 true damage if he has higher DEF than the enemy. As he is also Infantry, he has access to Skills such as Time’s Pulse and Infantry Pulse, which can enable Kyza to OHKO with Bonfire or Ignis. At least until Special charge nullification becomes commonplace on melee units and the said unit has significant movement, Kyza performs the role as a melee specialist admirably.
New Year Lyre: Lap Cat of Luxury <TIER 3>
Lyre’s weapon is similar to Kyza, but rather than DEF, she relies on SPD, and the Special charge is on Lyre’s attacks instead of the enemy’s. Unfortunately, there are no buffs to the Cavalry Beast weapons, which means that all Lyre gets is the follow-up negation, an effect nowhere near as good in the modern era. While she is still a serviceable Galeforce unit due to the in-built Special charge, Lyre will fold the moment she faces follow-up negation or even gets outright OHKO’d.
New Heroes & Ascended Joshua
Neimi: Tearful Archer <TIER 2 (Defense)>
Neimi’s Rapid-Crier Bow is a more relaxed albeit weaker form of Order’s Sentence from Ashera, as she gains Attack during combat based on the visible Atk/Spd buffs of the ally within 3 spaces with the highest Atk/Spd buffs. Neimi makes up for it by having an ATK/SPD Gap on her weapon so long as she is within 3 spaces of an ally, making her self-sufficient as she does not need other units to provide the buffs for her. The extra damage boost can also be used to pass Heavy Blade checks, which can be extremely useful to charge up Deadeye should it be required. The elephant in the room however is that unlike Ashera with her personal C Skill, Neimi has no way of helping her allies via access to the Null Panic effect, which is a small concern even though Panic is not as common.
Riev: Blood Beryl <TIER 2>
Outside of being a Legendary Sigurd counter (goodbye to his red-eyes, they will be missed), Riev himself is actually not a terrible combat unit simply due to the cooldown reduction on his weapon. Thanks to this, Riev can be used as an AoE user in a semi-competent manner while countering Legendary Sigurd and Brave Alm. Additionally, the -5 to all stats debuffs he inflicts also adds to his damage output. In essence, while Riev’s tome keeps the theme of Grand Hero Battle tome units being rather gimmicky, said unit isn’t half bad.
Ascendant Joshua: Resolute Tempest <TIER 2 (Defense)>
On paper, Joshua can choose between a Firesweep effect from cardinal directions and true damage otherwise. However, in reality, it is possible to ensure that Joshua can only attack in cardinal directions by baiting from his maximum range. As mentioned in the previous section, blocking counterattacks is no longer as helpful as before due to Ascendant Fjorm, and unfortunately for Joshua, this somewhat tampers with his capabilities. It also does not help that even if Joshua could get the true damage off, the damage would simply be absorbed by Ice Mirror anyway. He suffers from the same problem as Volke: to do significant damage, he probably needs the help of Bridal Catria, but at that point, Bridal Catria is the one doing the heavy lifting instead.
Legendary Units
Legendary Byleth (F): The Fódlan Light <TIER 2 (Defense)>
Mechanically, Legendary Byleth plays very similarly to many of the aforementioned Windsweep mages due to the Null Follow-Up buff she receives from Goddess Bearer. This means that her usability is also assessed in the defensive context. Like the aforementioned mages, she is exceedingly weak to Ascendant Fjorm; being Blue also does Byleth no favors, as she is unlikely to KO Fjorm even with the help of Bridal Catria. Lastly, unlike her Male counterpart, she lacks access to Sublime Heaven, so her damage ceiling is significantly lower than her male counterpart’s. If released 6 months before, Byleth would have made it into Tier 1 with relative ease. Unfortunately, times have changed.
