Ayo, Lesk here, with overly editted message on tier-listing multiple characthers on this game.
Now, in my opinion, this has balance issues, where it comes out clear what choices are the absolute best and which ones don’t offer anything good - so get ready for a tier-list/explanation:
With LeskTech disabled for 1v1, current rankings are only for 1v1 combats, thus no outside skills to boost up the characthers’ growths, abilities or similar to enhance their performance.
Cath - S Tier
Cath is broken. Why, you say? She’s a speedster unit with the ability to rack up enormous amount of avoid and, with the ability to get Lancebreaker at lv5, she rarely will get hit by anything that isn’t a Bernadetta. Although frail, Shade makes it so all enemies will prioritize goons (if able), which lets her get enough attacks by herself with her prf brave dagger to go to town.
It’s quite advised to buy an Energy Ring turn 1 as, although high def enemies like Oswin might be a slight block, she’ll be able to tear through enemies rapidly.
She’s also a thief. Thieves are both a great grind tool and a counter tool for many other users - stealing their statbooster items for 500/1500 gold allows you to get abnormally large amounts of gold for either resources in-match or out-match.
Pass is a great cap skill as it lets you dash thru enemies and finish a map when needed.
Toxic Strike and Steal+ are skills there that will slightly aid her but aren’t too groundbreaking.
Sue - D Tier
Considering Cath as the other starter unit, Sue really doesn’t feel like a unit that is truly worth of using - her personal weapon, while nice in concept, a 1-2 range bow, doesn’t get much mileage when knife users and tomes are quite a major thing.
Then, her kit feels… weird with the feeling you’re given to a bow of this kind - I’d imagine a 1-2 bow would allow me to enemy phase better since she has the ability to counter back, but her bulk doesn’t aid for it - and she doesn’t have the early weight to pull damage on player phase on the first turns.
Insight and Sure Shot together feel strange, to the point you realize that Sure Shot works off skill to not miss, when skill as a stat does that by default - then also crit, which gives you the ability to do more damage than Sure Shot ever will.
Opportunist feels like a good skill on her thanks to her initial 1-2 and later 1-3, and +15 crit is a good present, but she doesn’t have the numbers to back it up.
Serra & Erk - C/B Tier
Serra is… a strange unit. She has a type of archetype that doesn’t seem to bode well into the game, which combined with the AI of the game, makes it so that her full potential isn’t really shown.
Serra feels like a mobber, that is, a characther capable of being able to swarm opponents with greenbies thanks to her being able to keep them alive - if it weren’t by the fact that after some turns, any hero will simply erase any mobs from the map.
She has probably one of the slowest leveling speeds ever, making her a very slow characther to play, but has both access to healing and summoning to patch up for that, and her levels quickly put her on a respectable statline capable of holding on the frontlines if an attack goes her way.
Erk is a mage that can be summoned with a skill that currently doesn’t seem relevant, but could be a brutal counterpick for fliers.
He can get Filbumvtr which can be huge at some points, and can even be suicide-bombed if it lived last turn for a double attack, which is a huge sell.
In general, Serra feels like the kind of characther that requires more skill to play, both for the player and for the unit in general.
Dorcas - D Tier
What I thought at first was a possible niche turned out to be a drawback, and a large one at that.
He has a poison prf, which while it has the ability to delay enemy hero spawn by one turn if it dies by poison, it also has the common issue of being unable to kill early, hurting his xp scale.
But then, the point reaches where Poison stealing kills becomes poison being unnecessary, as reaching level 5 gives him a potential extra +10 damage through Fiery Blood, Puissance and Elbow Room - to what he becomes a standard cleaver.
It’s one of those units where you debate whether buying an iron axe for extra hit or a steel axe for damage to replace the fact that poison will steal kills and on late, it’ll just hold you back.
Corrossion is a skill that won’t work here, since not only most goons die rather quickly, but heroes have each a --/-- weapon, making it rather complicated for Corrosion to work.
Capstone Berserk is… well. Has the same issues as poison, except Berserk can cuck you out of killing Tact with the poison prf.
On general, Dorcas is just your basic fire emblem fighter but heavily extrapolated, and considering other units, that’s not a good place to stay at.
Canas - B Tier
Canas comes up with a +2 Spd tome that hinders equipment slot usage, as you might as well grab a Spd boosting item to ignore Light Weight, but has a very solid skill kit.
Vanity, which later complements with Hex to have a permanent +10 hit with an extra effect dependant on range is an asset that works well, and Anathema as a capstone is a great skill, but the selling point is the combination between Steady Stance and Frenzy.
Canas can, if injured (commonly forced on player phase), lash out tremenduous amounts of damage at 0 retaliation, where his skillset and some good rolls can guarantee survival before unleashing a devastating blow.
Lucius - C Tier
Lucius is just a lesser mage with a chance to crit and a good speed stat. Skills and abilities are nothing out of this world - Voice of Peace will work for goon trading early, and Odd Rythm is an added bonus that works with Seal Skill’s -12 to hit.
His capstone is a simple one, a generic boost to all combat attributes.
Oswin - C Tier
Oswin is just your traditional armor unit that suddenly grows into being a magekiller, but takes too much time to do so, and even then, its not effective enough against mages. He has a 1-range prf, requiring the purchase of javelins to work as a magekiller on enemy phase.
Since you’ll be mostly playing defensively with him (-3 damage on terrain, crit halved, and so on), the only selling point he can have is being a physical counterpick to low-atk heroes that start slow
Batta - A Tier
Batta is a Devil Axe user - it’s a strong threat early game, but it’s sort of a scary gamble - to the point of even risking an early death, but he has actual acuraccy and great skills to back that up.
Daunt and Intimidate together work nicely, making people less capable of standing against Batta, but then comes level 5.
Despoil. That skill alone, even on a 0 luck unit 0% growth is huge. Considering luck statboosters are around, giving Luck to Batta is both an investment for more gold and for his weapon to work, as more luck will greatly aid both, and one single Despoil proc will be a large advantage.
Desperation is a great skill for his great attack and offense, cleaving through bosses at ease, and Heavy Strikes is a nice +10 crit on his main weapon, and or a small extra on others.
Echidna - B Tier
Echidna is kind of unremarkable as a unit, as she’s mostly a counterpick hero (that will not work against characthers like Mozu that just work by raw stats, or like Cath, that live on by weapon), as Nihil and later Boon become simple skills that impact the enemy hero highly - as per example, Echidna will outright disable Dorcas’ combined +10 damage.
Patience is simply a +10 avoid, and then Sol is a great tool for self-sustain. Defiant Spd might be the iffiest of the kit, as she doesn’t have a high enough HP for 25% to be a safe threshold, and also due to Sol itself conflicting on that.
Bernadetta - B Tier
By default, Bernadetta comes up with a Res targetting bow, which combined with a normal bow, allows her to target both def and res from the get go, being able to get on the opponent’s weak side fast. Her skills quite much go in one single direction - dealing as much damage as possible from far away, thus Bowfaire, Savage Blow and other skills on her kit are made to reflect that.
Vantage is a skill you’d imagine on a 1-2 range unit, but regardless, it lets her strike down enemies that attack her as archers and mages, as well as there’s a distance or cover (attacking behind walls).
Then Deadeye’s just hurtful. Deadeye is a skill that just melts any dodgetank away, as the doubled hit rate combined with high Skl will make it rare for Bernie to not have a hit rate nearing the 100%.
General issues may be the fact that her early game is lacking as, despite being able to fiddle with defenses, her base speed won’t let her finish goons quickly, putting her on a bad position.
Mozu - S Tier
Obelisk is just that good.
Although she has a slightly problematic early game, a 1-2 prf and the absurd growths she gets further on makes her an absolute beast on the field.
Her skills, Forager and Infiltrator give her a slight edge at all times, and Lancefaire is a nice add-up. Re-move is just nasty, on a characther that’ll usually have a one-shot comp, extra kills will just eliminate threats further.
Fir - C Tier
Fir’s a tough unit to place on a specific rank spot, mainly because she has the potential to be a very dangerous unit (crit build) but also suffers from various issues.
On first, she has 2 Con. That’s a huge pain on early game, as it slows her down by 3 AS when using her prf, making her susceptible to not doubling against enemy heroes and rapidly dying, but then there’s her early skillset.
For the reasons mentioned previously (Con and low bulk), Wrath as a starter skill is not a safe sight, as she’s on the verge of dying early, as on low levels she’ll have issues trying to hit dodge based heroes and heroes who she has weapon disadvantage against, and then comes Gamble.
Gamble’s bad. Her hit rates are kind of turned to 0 against enemy heroes at early game and her crit rates become overkill on late game. The rest of the kit, +15 Crit and Critical Force are simple skills that help to her kit, and Astra is, most of the times, either a safekill or an overkill.
Titania - A Tier
Titania, as the second secret boss, is a unit that doesn’t fall short of powerful. Having growths that will almost guarantee that all levels give a boost to everything makes her scaling great, and her skill set further on plays on that.
By default, Titania comes with Trample. Currently, at the lack of other mounted units, this means that Titania has an ensured extra 5 damage against almost the whole rooster, and, what possible sword combats you could suffer early game can be solved thanks to the ability to also wield lances.
Her skills on level up, Charge and Counter, help up on dealing even more damage, and making every little combat ensure your opponent doesn’t come unscathed.
Then comes Swordbreaker. Swordbreaker and the ability to wield both lances and axes ensures that there will be no combat where she’s at disadvantage, thanks to her general large defenses, additionally, Canto lets her visit villages, enter in shops and gain items without losing her whole turn, which is handy.
Generally a good simple unit capable of impacting the game early and late.
Eliwood - B Tier
Eliwood’s start is somewhat weak, due to his vanilla statlines and an unimpressing base skill, but his lance and bow access make him get through that.
Additionally, his lv3 skill, Axebreaker, puts him on a similar ground as Titania, being able to fight most enemies with the advantage on his side, but he doesn’t get enough mileage out from it.
The rest of the kit, being Death Blow, Lancefaire and Impale is focused over dealing as much damage as possible when attacking, giving him a slight usage as a cleaver, along with his anti-cavalry/armor prf.
Lyn - B Tier
Lyn is a (very) fragile speedster, generally basic on player phase - Duelist Blow, Swordfaire, and Ready Stance for some speed on the enemy phase, but then you see that she has access to axes.
While those slow her down horribly (a Hand Axe kills off 7 spd away from her), this also gives Lyn an easy access to 1-2 accurate range thanks to Axefaith, and with Axefaire, she also is capable of dealing an interesting amount of damage with axes to compensate for her low Str base.
Hector - B Tier
Hector, another part of the Lord package, comes with an armorslayer/cavalry slayer prf, and with another stance, Sturdy.
But his most interesting and defining skill is Resolve, at level 3. Considering that defeat restores you a low amount of health, this allows Hector to charge brashly into battle with multiplied Str, Spd and Skl, which retroactively boosts the effectiveness of booster items.
The rest of his crit is balanced around getting some defense and damage around, as where Counter will heavily damage opponents, Tower Shield reduces damage taken from archers and mages, and Aegis might turn that same magic damage null.
His only weakness is how easily he is put down by use of Armorslayers and similar weapons, rendering him unable to stand a chance.
Roy - C Tier
You just don’t make Roy viable.
Low Str/Mag while using the weakest weapons, Light tomes and Swords. His kit begins on Mirror Stance, which then adds Darting Blow up. Then, he caps at Flare, a slightly unimpressive skill, considering Luna exists.
He also gets the basic sword user kit, being Lancebreaker and Swordfaire, but he still hits as a wet noodle, faithful to the original game.
Cloud - A Tier
Cloud, third secret boss, has some nice growths and base stats, and an interesting base skill - a bonus to Hit/Crit based on Magic when intiating, to be added up by Thunderstorm, which, with a 14 wt prf, it’ll be hard to be outweighed by other enemies.
Swordfaire and Strong Riposte help rack up damage which with his 160% Str growth, it’ll easily deal devastating damage to enemies, even with a crit.
Then Foresight, his capstone, disables some of the proc-based characthers and crit-based characthers like Fir.
Nino - B Tier
Nino begins with Adept and a 1-3 range tome, which is quite strong, as it lets her counter every other hero and lets her attack almost every hero without a counter (only exception, lv10 Sue and lv10 Lysithea), and gets both Focus and Relief. Due to the current state game being 1v1s, this means that Nino has a permanent +10% Crit and +20% HP restore each turn.
Her other two skills, Glacies, and an additional +2 damage to magical attacks to all enemies two spaces around her work, but don’t alter much her way to play.
Overall, a good hero to play with, capable of getting good xp early.
Moulder - B Tier
Moulder, for now, is quite much a semi-upgraded version of Serra - his summon, Sif, applies a strong amount of pressure with their raw strength, and their base kit, Canto+ and Provoke, make them an easy and tactical summon to use.
Meanwhile, Moulder’s kind of your basic staff user except for a monster slayer prf, as he might come under the same issues as Serra, where the lack of early output might slow his game - which is solved by Sif reliably taking most opponents to barely dead most of the time, letting Moulder gain some easy xp.
Live to Serve and Defiant Avoid further entice this, as the Moulder experience will be grabbing the safest terrain, sending Sif away and healing him to heal yourself.
Seal Res is there, though he doesn’t get to capitalize on it. His capstone, Slayer, is deemed useless since his prf has the same effect and no other offensive staves exist.
Lysithea - B Tier
Lysithea gets early access (at lv3) to Light Magic as a Shaman, and while wielding her iconic tome Dark Spikes (everyone knows it from her Brave alt), she is mostly the slow hitting variant compared to Canas, also attaining +1 range to her tomes when reaching lv10. Overall versatile thanks to Lumina, but not very remarkable.
Jaffar - A Tier
I have conflicts with Jaffar, as he’s kind of a double-mix in of two archetypes (damage dealing and self-sustain) that somewhat contradict each other, yet work together regardless.
Jaffar’s prf is simply a Nosferatu dagger, and with his base skill Assassinate, one can guarantee that foe he initiates at, foe that dies, and hp that is gained back. But against that selfsustain hits Life and Death at level 3. While yeah, those 10 extra damage are quickly healed back on your next attack’s 10 extra damage, it also makes you ridiculously squishy.
But then comes lv5 and lv7, granting you two great effects after initiating and killing in combat: Restoring half your health and Galeforce.
While the capstone, Lethality, isn’t that much of a thing since your damage output is heavy, Jaffar can easily remove opponents from the field and run somewhere safer or keep dealing huge strikes to the opponent’s forces, as long as he’s capable of living one strike back.
So, generally, he just jumps back and forth between one and other, and feels like it barely works, but when it does, you better not be against him.
Sonia - S Tier
Sonia, fourth secret boss, comes as a Baal with a Tactician slayer prf and access to dark magic.
Her great bulk on early game, combined with her generally great growths (only faltering on luck) make her statwise a threat that lasts the long game. Any hope for being doubled is gone with Pursuit amidst her base kit, giving her a frightening early game.
Bowbreaker and Tomebreaker make it so only the “weakest” magic users, staff units, have a fair shot at fighting her, which is further diminished by Countermagic.
But, the true terror awaits at lv10, Double Lion. I think you’ll all agree with me if I say that Double Lion is worth all the wait.
Merlinus - S Tier
Merlinus begins with Canto and Bargain as his base skills, as well as having access to bows, staves and swords.
Now, Bargain here is a incredibly huge skill, as it allows for incredibly fast stat transitions when purchasing statboosters - what would cost 1000 gold for one +2 on one stat not only costs 500 now, but also features no loss of gold when selling.
This means that usually, you’ll see a Merlinus rocking a 3000g worth item quickly, as the initial 1000g funds only require him to defeat 5 enemies to gain the gold necessary to rock a huge boost. This feature alone already makes him fearsome in the field, alongside his weapon variety, and a worthy unit of the S Tier.
He gains the skills Outrider and Point Blank, showing his focus on using bows, although not shying out of the utility that can be achieved through swords and its varied effects, and his capstone skill is Powerstaff - the ability to pop a staff and move again is sure to be a scary thought, not only now via status staves, but on a future with allies.
The tierlist is complete as currently outdated as of 1.04
