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Guess who my new invest project is. (And why I think tiers are stupid)

If you haven't read my past question, I'll let you in on what's been going on in my Heroes life...
(Know that this does get a bit 'ranty' so you can skip past it if you want)
So recently, I 5 stared my fully built Navarre, and it got me thinking why tier lists even need to be a thing. Navarre is considered one of the worst sword users in the game, but he can be built into something amazing. Yet he's tier 5? Be a bit more generous to the lower units, people. Just because they're outclassed and need investment doesn't mean they're bad.
So this led to the idea to make a high investment team of units that are considered 'trash'. I mean anyone at 5th or 6th tier. I'm doing this to show that tier lists are pointless. And yes, everyone knows that we shouldn't look at tiers as the holy grail when it comes to looking at units. I know that. I just want to show some proof on the subject. (Just watch one of Oofjay's 'Infernal GHB with trash tier units' videos. That man knows what he's doing)
Ive already got Navarre and Oliver as staples to the team, the recent unit of interest I want to build next is Gunter. Someone who is seen as a 'worst Frederick'. I'll be building him for the time being and searching for the final unit for the team, most likely a healer or dagger. When this team is done, we'll see who's 'low tier' then.

TL;DR it's Gunter I'm investing in next for my 5 and 6 tier unit team I'm building to prove how I think tiers are stupid.

Asked by ShieldOfWind6 months 1 week ago

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Tiers are not that stupid imho and the ranks are sort of adequate. The reason why Navarre is so low is the fact that there are so many better sword units that do the same thing better with less investment. That means that nobody is saying that Navarre is useless or that he can't be amazing, but he's comparatively weaker and less worth it than the more mainstream units.

If someone asked you: "could you please recommend me a generally strong sword user?" Would you tell him that you recommend him Navarre who's really weak with his base build, but you can spend 20k+ feathers to build him into a slighlty weaker Soleil? The tiers are here for people who want general advice and guidelines towards the strongest power level heroes who are the least dependent on team support and heavy inheritance.

I've only looked at a tier list once, and that was because I was curious on how it actually looked (was quite disappointed, but maybe my hopes were a bit high?).

Some people do take tier lists to heart, for whatever reason, to justify some units being trash, and it doesn't help that Arena scores are based on BST. Odin is in Tier 6 (from the Heroes page) even though he can be a really good unit *in the hands of an experienced individual* (aka a person and not the AI) but because his BST is utter crap 'compared to practically everyone else in the game' he's counted as a trash unit without a second thought.

Jaffar is one of the best chip damage units in the game, yet many people classify him as 'trash' for whatever reason.

It just goes to show that not everyone has the capacity, or just doesn't want to, enjoy the game for what it is, which is, essentially, a game for people to summon their favorite units (if you get lucky >_>) and make them the best that they can. Instead, people want to crap on units, saying that they're 'nothing but feathers' or 'skill fodder' which I can somewhat understand, but my only gripe is that many people don't even make the attempt to TRY to make the unit good. Prime example being Canas.

I, of course, am not saying ALL people, but the ones I am referring to know who they are. :P

Oops, may have gone on a rant myself. xD

So who's gonna be the last? Lissa seems the obvious choice, she's the only easily available Tier 6 healer.

Alternatively you could go for Wrys. He's in Tier 5 and I've only ever seen one really good Wrys while passing by. (Sakura is mine, no discussion!)

Or will you rather go for Lucius directly? He's also only Tier 3 of the healers.

Edit: Although Matthew and Jakob are a severe challenge worth noting, too...

So you are trying to prove how you think tiers are stupid? I don't think that needs proving, you either think it, or you don't.

Saying tier lists are stupid seems kind of naive though. It's quite simple; no matter what you do with Navarre, high investment, kill off Hector/Ike/Mia/anyone, he still won't be able to achieve the results an Ayra would. And that is what tier lists say. There is a matter of subjectiveness involved here, obviously, but still.

That being said, of course you should build units that excite you! If that's Gunnther, then hey, whatever floats your boat.

I've made builds in the past that turn units like Ogma and Soren into absolute monsters (not even that much investment needed, too), and had some fun with that. They even serve me quite well in Arena Assault, so it's not a waste either. Easy to merge (4+10, mind you), and easy to fish for good IV's. What's not to like?

The only thing I don't particularly like about tier lists is that none of them really fator in how hard it is to get merges as an F2P. That's why I have my own tier list, I guess you could say for F2P users like me.

A bit off-topic, what's your Ogma build? The recommended ones on his page seem pretty high investment, so I've been looking for alternatives lol...
Edit: nevermind, just saw it on your page.

Tier lists are anything but stupid. What's stupid is that people think the tier list is the be-all-end-all of which units are good and which are not. The fact is that high-tier units are generally easier to work with and will probably outperform lower tier units for equal feather and fodder investment. I believe I'm doing you a favour by encouraging you to reconsider your investment. For the same feathers and fodder, you could have stronger units. If you really get such a kick out of being contrary to someone else's opinion, I'm not convinced you have a solid ownership of your own opinions and my wish would be for you not to need to prove anything to the rest of the community. The important part is whether you enjoy how the character plays and perhaps the voice or graphics. When you have poured months and months of feathers and orbs into them, how pleased will you be to know that you gave up a stronger unit, not because you had some attachment to that unit, but just because somebody else said that he/she is inferior?

Take myself, for instance. I find the adaptive damage on Felicia's plate very attractive, and I've merged her to +2 and promoted a Subaki to give her QR3. I sometimes have issues finding targets because armours and slow QR dragons are all the rage, and even against guys like BK I struggle to find enough atk to break through because my support units aren't fully ready to go. I'm considering switching my focus to some fliers, because I also like the way they play and I might have more success with them against what the arena is throwing at me. I don't need people to tell me that Felicia is not top-tier or that she's a perfectly serviceable unit on the right team - I've seen people do great things with her, and I know what I enjoy about her. I still want to finish what I started with her unless I'm never going to have mages or low-res armours to use her against (not even in PvE), in which case she is in practice a truly poor unit. Either way, I will look to invest in units which I believe have golden potential, whether or not they are all the rage, and who flow with my play style, units that I will enjoy. I will have to deal with the annoyance, yes, of the perpetual obsession with distant counter, BST-and SP-spamming, and worship of tier lists, but I do not expect to lose any of the satisfaction I await in making plays on the battlefield against teams that do this, not even because I beat them, necessarily, but because I was true to my style. I expect to have this satisfaction even if I will lose more matches than the BST/SP-spammers, despite some frustration in the first few moments after a loss. My play style represents values that I stand for - mutual support and being team-oriented, mobility/fluidity, aesthetics, a bit of flashiness, creativity, not necessarily hitting super hard but hitting where it counts when it counts, exploring territory others ignore because it's not trendy or conventional and requires more forethought. Tier lists will continue to be the opinions of others, and I'm aware that they are not without reason, but I also know what I want and a thing or two about how to posture my own team and make small adjustments in order to maintain what I can within a very problematic scoring system.

Tier list is all about efficiency, not 'good or bad'

In this case, Reinhardt would be the only SS Tier unit.

Except for reinhardt being almost completely irrelevant to the high level arena meta due to BST and ample counters.

Yeah, sure. But in efficiency he still is an amazing hero: he needs to be 5*s and Death Blow. Job done, that's all. No other unit can carry that much with such low investment and high availability. That's why he's SS Tier in that case: his strength has a laughable pay.

I do know, that many heroes are more powerful than Reinhardt by now. Just take Ishtar. And many heroes are already great with their base kit. But most of them are nat 5, so Reinhardt may be outdated for high tier arena matches (where he still is annoying) but still one of the best choices for a first unit to build because he's good for no effort and easy to get -> SS Tier.

Do whatever you want and good for you for playing with some unloved units. However, the description of Gunter as a worse Frederick is completely fair and accurate.

Well, I don't know man, I don't spend money on this game (except for that BK promo bcs it's BK) and I think that's where the tier lists come in handy? Because I do not have the resources to make lower tiered units better. I'm just saying, I'd rather use heroes that require minimal investment like Ayra over someone like Navarre. Exceptions only to my faves, they can be tier 6 for all I care and I'd still use them.

Good luck man, looking forward to seeing how Gunter works out!

Just curious, do you plan to build him for cavalry team or general use?