I didn’t see fit to tier for anything but near the end of the game because it takes a LONG time before you’re able to form your own parties. There’s also the matter that you mentioned of some characters not getting all of their moves until late, so I didn’t see a reason to tier the characters when they’re not at their best. For what its worth, the tiers before the end of the game are
Top
Mid
Low
Not sure if it’s been done already, if so I apologize, but what about Chrono Cross tiers? Or Final Fantasy Tactics job class tiers?
I actually have starteed a tier list on Chrono Cross a long time ago in another forum but no one seemed to care. http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49564. Some time ago I tried to make another and tiered everyone but, again, I did not beat the game with every character so most placements are just guesses.
S
Serge, Glenn, Lynx
No contest here I think
A
Karsh, Marcy, Leah, Grobyc, Fargo
B
Kid, Norris, Razzly, Harle, Starky
Norris up, he is very good. Harle down, she is only avaible for like 10 seconds but at least does her job very, very well.
C
Guile, Orlha, Radius, Zappa, Viper, Zoah, Steena
Orlha down, third tech is a sidequest and she isn’t that strong to begin with. Viper is possibly higher because of the third tech glitch.
D
Luccia, Leena, Greco, NeoFio, Turnip, Sprigg, Nikki, Miki, Draggy
Ah Leena if only you could actually deal damage 
Many people seem to like Sprigg but I think she is very limited.
E
Doc, Irenes, Orcha, Macha, Funguy, Poshul, Sneff, Pierre, Riddel
F
Skelly, Korcha, Janice, Van, Mel, Pip, Mojo
^ Ahh I was hoping Miki would be higher than that, I always put her in my party cuz she’s cute haha
Pip’s usefulness depends on it’s evolutionary state. Base Pip is pretty terrible, the middle evolutions are below-average, but the final three are all extremely strong- Holy Beast Pip the best non-Serge white character you get in the game, and Archdevil Pip is basically Grobyc with a lv 5 Utility instead of an attack- just about tied with him for the best Black character. (Archangel Pip’s ok too- it’s one of the better white casters- a little weaker then Riddel but a ton more survivable.)
Sprigg is pretty much a lesser Gau- she can be abusively powerful but she takes a ton of work to get there. Having a terrible grid in normal form is doing her no favors. She doesn’t deserve S or A but I’d move her up out of D.
You seem to have bumped a ton of characters down due to being generic instead of anything based on ability- Greco, for example, has the highest strength of anyone in the Red line AND is among the highest in the game in Defense and HP and you’ve got him lurking under characters like Razzly (who’s skills and stats outside Magic and Evade are terrible and is completely reliant on her lv 3 tech to be worth anything) Zappa (literally inferior in every way) Guile (a caster with a grid so terrible he can’t really do his job for most of the game) and Kid, who outside being a passable thief brings little to the table you can’t find elsewhere- heck, Miki has better stats (as a Red character leaning towards magical offense) AND better techs and you’ve got her two tiers lower. You mention Ohrla as nothing special statistically when she’s part of a 3-way tie for 2nd-highest strength (Behind Leah, with Archdevil Pip and Grobyc) and is rather well-rounded otherwise, with a good grid and the ability to just murder one opponent straight-up with her techs.
Shuffling slightly…
S: Glenn, Serge, Lynx, Harle
Easy enough. Glenn’s a game-breaker, especially with two of those swords of his. Serge and Lynx just get some really good grids, awesome stats, and some of the strongest personal techs in the game. Harle is abusively powerful to almost overshadowing Serge/Lynx, but suffers from only being in the party at a time when 1) You’re forced to be Lynx, and 2) The game actively punishes Black-element characters, meaning you usually don’t want to stack her with Lynx at the same time.
A: Grobyc, Holy Beast Pip, Archdevil Pip, Karsh, Marcy
High stats and good grids make these guys generally pretty awesome- head and shoulders above anyone under them, not quite as abusive as those over them. Grobyc and Archdevil Pip are basically the only two decent Black-element characters that you keep for the whole game, Karsh and Marcy have some standout techs combined with abusive stats, and Holy Beast Pip is just a brutally-powerful white FighterCaster who can work well with Serge to make a White Grid smackdown.
B: Ohrla, Fargo, Greco, Leah, Norris, Sprigg, Archangel Pip, Nikki
Pretty ok characters here. Ohrla, Greco, and Leah are the strongest beaters in their elements, while Fargo is an above-average character with Steal. Norris mostly gets by by grid and techs, and Archangel Pip’s one of the few caster characters not to fall down in a stiff breeze. Sprigg takes a ton of work but can outshine nearly anyone once you get a good list in that Pot. Nikki is a marginally-worse Marcy- an effective blue FighterCaster with an extremely good lv 7.
C: Miki, Viper (glitch), Zoah, Draggy, Kid, Poshul, Orcha
Miki’s the strongest red-type caster with Kid in a close second (weaker grid and techs, but can steal) ZOAH IS STRONG AND MIGHTY BUT SHOWN UP BY LITTLE GIRL IN THE TIER ABOVE HIM. Draggy sacrifices some of Greco’s power and survivability for one of the better all-enemy techs, and Viper is absolutely abusive if you can stack his Tier 7 (albut, it still requires reaching the point where you’ve used that Tier 7 three times). Orcha is either probably the weakest character on this level or the strongest one on the next. Poshul is a surprisingly-effective yellow beater that’s better then she has any right to be.
D: Zappa, Guile, Razzly, Leena, Janice, Starky, Doc, Steena, Riddel
Not much to talk about here. Zappa and Janice are the low parts of the red beaters totem pole, but they’re not BAD- just not as good as Greco, Draggy, or Orcha. Guile and Razzly are virtually identical in that they’re caster-types mostly reliant on abusing their lv 3 tech- Razzly is more useful early, Guile more useful later, but neither terribly likely to impress. Doc is pretty mediocre but he gets the best heal in the game as his lv 7 tech, and likewise Riddel is more useful for her techs then her fragile-bleeder body- she’s the strongest caster in the game and get some of the more interesting support techniques, but can have a very hard time trying to stay alive to show it. Starky and Steena are decent white midcarders that just don’t have anywhere better to sit, grossly outclassed by Serge and Pip. Leena is a less-extreme version of Riddel in the Blue element.
E: Anyone else who isn’t mentioned tends to go here. A lack of stand-out traits any which way tends to get a lot of characters thrown in this area. I don’t feel like stating ten-fifteen times “This character is pretty much average”- the exceptions are Mel, who is pretty terrible statistically but gets some awesome techs, and Van, who has some interesting potential with his paint tech but unless you’ve got an extremely well-rounded party and tech grid, is likely going to break your heart due to it’s random picking of an element. Also, both get Boomerangs, which can hit all enemies, but both also suffer from some anemic attack strength making it hard to leverage a lot of the time.
F: Skelly, Mojo/y, Turnip, Pierre, Sneff
The bottom-scrapers. Everyone here is deficient in multiple ways. Bad grids, bad techs, bad stats. Pierre deserves special mention for how over-inflated he tends to get placed because he’s a better character with ‘special equipment’. Equipment that locks him out of using the genuinely good gear everyone else gets in the end game. And it still doesn’t fix his terrible techs.
FFT classes get very, very subjective. Generally, they get rated by a) Chassis and b) Skillset separately, since it starts to get muddled when talking about stuff like Calculators (who have the game’s absolute best skill set but also the absolute worst chassis to carry it) or Draw Out Wizards (are they good because by being Wizards they got the MA to use Draw Out effectively, or because they’re using a set from another job that works significantly better then their built-in skills?) Generally…
Skills
I can expand in another post if wanted- I’m running out of words for this one, heh.
Chassis:
Top are Geomancer (good balance of PA/MA, move, jump, and HP. Can use Shields, Hats, Clothes), Wizard (abusive broken MA, can use Hats and Robes), Ninja (Built-in Duel Wield, high speed, can use clothes and hats), Oracle (can use Rods and wears Robes and Hats, good MA), Chemist (can wield guns, can wear clothes and hats, Item built-in) and Knight (can wield Knight Swords and wear shields and robes)
Good things to have:
High Speed, MA, Move
Ability to use Shields, Robes, Clothes, Hats
Ability to wield Guns, Rods, Knight Swords, Bows, or Lances
Bad things to have:
Access only to heavy armor
Bad speed
Range 1 weapons only (besides Knight swords), especially if doesn’t come with a skill set that can get around that.
A RPG tier list has to factor in usefulness in general and not simply battle power, in my opinion. To quote myself in the link I gave
Harle is about as strong as Serge and Glenn but she is avaible for very little time. Therefore, she cannot be ranked as high as them because her usefulness throughout the game is inferior.
Skelly goes a long way before actually joining your party and is very disappointing in battle. Likewise, Pip requires a long time to fully evolve, a time which could be used to advance in the game with other already powerful characters. Janice is actually an ok character in battle but she is the hardest and most annoying to recruit. Draggy is good too but is only recruited near the end of the game.
What I mean is the time demanded for a character to be good weighs a lot on his usefulness. You don’t have to invest time in Serge/Lynx, he is already there and he is awesome. Pierre, on the other hand, is not even remotably usable until you gather his equipment near the end of the journey (he is still bad but this is beyond the point). Also, to pick up Pierre you have to give up Guile, a clearly superior character, which drags Pierre down even more (according to your list, Nikki is superior to Guile but this is again beyond my point). Using the same logic, Korcha, Razzly and insert character I am forgetting are lower because saving Kid makes you miss Glenn.
As a final example. take Breath of Fire 2. Level 50 is well enough to beat the game. At that point the two best characters are Ryu and Bleu, respectively. If you want, you can level up everyone to 99, when Bleu is light-years better than everyone else combined. But doing so takes a very, very big time investment, which is unecessary and just overkill. Just like Ayla with Bronze Fist.
Super Mario Crossover tiers.
S
Bill Rizer: Spread shot destroys everything in his path.
A
Samus Aran: Her cannon makes short work of enemies. Bombs are useless as a weapon, but bomb jumps are possible.
B
Mega Man: Sliding is good for a burst of speed. Mega Buster should be stronger; fully charged blasts should one-shot most enemies.
Link: Hard to use at first since he has short range, but the ability to stun enemies with the boomerang offsets most setbacks. Lack of range becomes a nonissue once Link is fully powered up. I think they should’ve used Zelda 2’s Link, though, since he was designed specifically as a sidescrolling character.
C
Mario: Being the only character to run means you don’t have to worry about running out of time. Unlike the other characters, Mario has no weapons to start with, meaning there isn’t much reason to use Mario over the others (except for Simon).
D
Simon: The biggest problem is his jump. Although he can double jump, the major problem is that he can’t change directions. Once you jump, you have to commit to it, which makes things very tricky in a game where jumping is crucial. His arsenal isn’t too good, either. His only ranged attack is the axe, but it doesn’t go full screen.
Pip doesn’t take long to get to Arch/Beast forms if you actually use him. He won’t improve just sitting on your bench, but he builds up quickly when using him, especially if you aren’t gun-shy about Tech usage. Also, my bad- I quoted him as a Black/White character, which he was when I used him, but looking over the mechanics for actually transforming him, he apparently changes into whatever element you want him to (based on what elements you used the most with him) so you can literally make an any-element Pip to fill any holes on your team. The one major drawback about Pip is that he resets form on a NG+ and, genuinely, base Pip is a E-tier at best, as are his Angel and Devil forms.
You make some points that completely contradict your own list. You can’t seriously be stating that recruitment time when you got characters like Grobyc and Leah so high up yet bash characters like Draggy (who comes well before either of them) for showing up late. Leah is practically the last character you can get! Only Steena, Orlha, Turnip, and Kidd are recruited later. Ditto branching pathes, when you’ve got Razzly in C despite being an completely mediocre character with a good lv 3 tech and requires you to dump Gamebreaker Glenn to get her. I’m also not clear where you’re going on the Pierre point- you mention how low Pierre needs to be because you give up your shot at Guile (ho-hum) or Nikki (pretty good) for him, but you’ve got him higher then me. What, do you think he’s a mid-tier character besides bad stats, useless techs, and a gear dependency that puts him behind the rest of the party and just shot him down because you missed Guile for him? Harle’s an amazing character who’s main drawback is that you can’t even keep her in NG+, like Lynx. Note the fact that Lynx has the EXACT SAME DRAWBACKS as Harle (namely, he’s a black-element character who’s stuck in the party at a time when being a black-elemental character is bad with another black elemental character who is as-good/better then him) you felt it fine to place him in S-tier while Harle gets knocked to B. Also, if this is the case, I cannot possibly fathom why you’d have Kid in B, since she’s ALSO not available for most of the game and isn’t nearly as good as a character.
(Also, the hell at the BoFII reference? What grinding is there in Chrono Cross? Since character advancement is handled almost entirely through Stars, which are given out at set points, there is no character in the game who needs to be ‘grinded’ to work better or worse. If you’re talking about how you have to go out of the way to get some characters/techs, then basically the god tier is Glenn, Serge, and Karsh and everyone else kinda fails because you have to work to get them, or their lv 7 tech, or they’re just not as good of characters, except maybe Marcy when doubling up on the Green element is bad)
It seems my memory on Chrono Cross is even foggier than I thought. I could swear you got Leah and the others you mentioned much earlier. Thus, the list I posted is probably non-sensical. My point on avaiability stands though. On Lynx specifically, he is basically the same person as Serge and is the protagonist for a while hence why I put him on S. When he replaces Serge, he is indispensable. Imagine Serge was wiped out and you were left with only Harle (well, probably without her too). Life would be much harder. Finally, I don’t think the Black innate hate after the body change really affects Lynx and Harle since they are so good. Garai and Miguel being white arguably make things easier.
My version:
S+: Samus. Best jump in the game, so good that you can stop at a dime. Her weapon freezes the enemies in place. And superior dodging ability (To gain perspective on this play the last level, and when you reach the underwater section try to dodge those fire sticks as the Contra Dude, then try to dodge them using Samus. There’s no comparison.
S: Contra Dude. Aside from his poor dodging ability, another weakness is his jumps. His jumps have great reach, but when your descending they become very sensitive and it’s easy to miss your mark.
The rest of your list I agree with.
I guess I’ll take the moment to expand on my FFT points…
Calculator: Math Skill is awesome. Instant, Free Magic of any non-Summon school that caster knows that can target enemies/friends anywhere on the map, albut requiring you to fiddle with formulas and calculations until you find a combo that works. Or just equip everyone with Chameleon Robes and spam CT 5 Holy, the game’s most famous broken setup. Even the biggest non-believer of FFT’s magical power can see the cheese in this. An additional nod goes to Damage Split, which is one of the better reaction commands out there too, ignoring range or resistance and straight-up dealing half the damage you just took to whatever dealt it to you and healing you for the same value.
Time Mage: Just a gigantic ball of good stuff. The spell list has Haste for your buffing needs, Slow/Stop/Don’t Move for your enemy crippling needs, Demi for boss killing, and Meteor for overkilling. Short Charge is one of the best supports in the game, MP Switch is one of the best reactions for a non-MP caster (since it turns your MP into a second life bar), and Teleport IS the best movement ability in the game, bar none.
Summoner: The ‘weak’ early elemental summons are enough to one-shot enemies for most of chapters 2 and 3 with some MA boosting, and the later spells are pretty much overkill. It’s got the best healing magic in Fairy, arguably the best protective spell in Golem, and one of the penultimate boss killers in Lich. It’s spells also are unavoidable (except for Lich) and are smart-target: bad spells won’t hit your party, good spells won’t hit the enemy, which is a good thing since summon magic has a larger area of effect then most other kinds. Half of MP is good early in the game when MP costs for many summons/Time Magic spells can be prohibitive, although usually by the end of Chapter 2 most mages will be ending combat with MP to spare.
Samurai: Draw Out is arguably the single best non-Math Skill set in the game, with only Summon really outclassing it. Lots of strong abilities with large areas of effect, one of the few skillsets able to target MP, and a couple of AoE utility powers. Main drawback is that the later skills require finding unique weapons which, with Draw Out’s chance to break 'em, can become a grind-tastic hobby to keep up with. Also worth note is Blade Grasp, which with some Brave investment can pretty much make any unit equipped with it immune to the Attack command. Two Hands makes Spears and Rods even better, albeit at the cost of a shield on units that can already use one.
Chemist: FFT’s underrated little miracle-worker, Items remain the most reliable form of healing and status removal in the game- immune to Faith, Shell, and Reflect and instant in effect. Move/Find Item is necessary to find a lot of the game’s best loot, and Auto-Potion is a game-breaker- very few enemies in the game possess the ability to deal more then 150 points of damage on a single attack and only in the Deep Dungeon and parts of the final area do more then one of them appear at a time. Maintenance is an underrated support mechanism that doesn’t really sink in how useful it can be until certain boss characters foil plans to steal/break their equipment and generally give a big eff you to any real crippling attempts. It does, however, work both ways and is useful in a few key fights.
Oracle: Yin/Yang magic is basically a gigantic list of Save or Die spells in a game that rewards them as much as Dungeons and Dragons does- at worst, a lot of Yin/Yang magic leaves the opponent crippled and useless for several turns. At best, it removes them from being a factor in a fight outright. Of special note are Blind (your aimed attacks now useless, high success rate), Paralyze (you sit out the next 3/4 turns while we kill your guys), Spell Absorb (a rare way to damage MP in this game), Break (Game Over), and Life Drain (another of the famous boss smiters- this one with an obscenely-short charge time.) Move-MP Up has uses in a couple combos (especially with MP Switch)
Dancer: Like the Oracle, specializes in crippling enemies. Slow Dance and Nameless Dance are good for nerfing entire enemy hordes at once, Wiznaibus let you stack dancers to deal pain while continuing to run away, and Last Dance can be a good last-resort measure. Fly isn’t quite as good as Teleport or Move+3, but is a good replacement in a pinch.
Priest: Protect and Shell make for useful buff spells. Holy is the best attack spell in the game, bar none. Cure and Reraise can be handy, but the former is generally handled better by Chemists, Summoners, and Samurai.
Lancer: Jump lets you plant decent damage from up to 8 squares away, ignoring most terrain- considering this out-ranges everything but some of the biggest summons and guns from high terrain, this is pretty huge. Dragon Spirit can be handy if you don’t just get knocked straight to dead. Equip Spear is one of the few “Equip” supports worth using, since Range-2 stabbing tends to beat Range-1 almost anything. Ignore Terrain is a poor man’s Teleport, but it’s still one of the stronger move abilities.
Ninja: Throw is awesome if you got the move to give it reach, the speed to give it damage, and the item bag to give it something worth throwing. Two Swords is basically the only way to make Range-1 equips viable, mostly by turning any unit with decent PA into a one-shotting machine if it can get past evade/reactions (can become a big ‘if’ at times). Abandon can turn already elusive characters into attack-dodging monsters, assuming you can keep their back clear. Sunken State insures any unit will only have to worry about being directly targeted once for every turn they get.
Thief: A female thief with Steal Heart makes a lot of the generic enemies a trivial affair to deal with. One of the single most potent abilities in the game. Steal Weapon works doubly-well as a loot grabber and enemy crippler, although it’s shoddy accuracy, even with Concentration, can give one pause. Move+2 is cheap for how useful it can be, especially before Teleport/Fly/Ignore Height. Secret Hunt and Catch are both useful for loot-grabbing purposes in the late game.
Wizard: A line of potent blasty spells held back by allowing evasion and reflection, even the chart-topper Flare. Magic Attack Up is a great support for any job running MA-based skills.
Monk: A hodge-podge of abilities that does a lot of things, but most of them not very well, and even the good stuff requires Martial Arts to be of any use. which can restrict where the Punch Arts skillset can be used. The stand-out abilities are Wave Fist (a range-3 use of the attack command for anything with Martial Arts), Chakra (HP and MP healing to the Monk and anything next to him within certain height), and Earth Fist (an ok-damage Earth attack, at 8 range but with limited vertical tolerance) Hamedo is an interesting ability held back in that it only works on human enemies in your attack range using the Attack command. (it can be fun to place on a gunner, though- especially against other ranged attackers)
Mediator: Mimic Daravon is a poor man’s Steal Heart, with Sleep not being quite as useful as Charm. Recruit can remove an enemy from the field but has a poor success rate. Can be used to cripple an enemy’s Brave or Faith, most famous for the ability to raise an ally’s faith, a portion of which remains after the battle is over. Equip Gun is probably the best equip skill in the game, giving any unit a ranged, auto-Concentrated attack, albut at either Fixed or MA-based damage.
Bard: Somewhat slowish song speed tends to keep the Bard from being as useful as it could be. Cheer Song is the best of the stat boosters, and Nameless Song and Last Song can swing a bad fight in an emergency with a little luck. Move+3 is amazing, only a little behind Teleport in the Move ability arms race. Fly is fly.
Knight: Battle Skill is a decent skill set that’s wasted on the Knight class- give it to something with guns or an archer and start kneecapping people’s speed or breaking weapons, both of which can turn it’s target useless in a hurry. Weapon Guard is good in the few cases where a class is using a weapon that has a solid built-in evasion boost (mostly Knight Swords for Knights or Scarves for Dancers.) Equip Shields is one of the few equip powers that is worth anything.
Geomancer: Elemental is good for free, cheap damage and if you’re really lucky a chance at status hax. but the damage isn’t that impressive and the chance for status is usually low. Attack up is good for jobs that want a high PA rating- not as useful as Wizard’s MA up, but not terrible.
Squire: a lot of weak abilities and a terrible self-buff (an enduring one that stacks, though) make Basic Skills almost a complete write off. The shining gem here is Gained JP up, which can speed you on your way to any number of other paths. Move+1 is handy early, and Monster Skill, when used with certain monsters, can create a ton of pain.
Archer: Aim is a terrible, horrible skillset for melee and ranged units alike. Equip Bows only allows the crippled crossbow-type bows. The saving grace is Concentration, which gives a large bonus to accuracy to a number of skills.
Calculator is simply broken. Not sure what they were thinking with that one.
Calculator is crazy-broken, but it’s just the easiest way to break a game that has a million different ways to break it. There are setups that give unlimited turns (via Critical Quick), zero-risk Dancer/Mime runaway, Teleporting Draw-Out mages, Wall/Cliff-abusing Jumpers, Elemental Shield HealNuking, Ice Rod 108 Gems MA-boosted Shiva spam, GunBreakers, Auto Potion-equipped bait, a drat-ton of the Knight Swords in general…
It’s almost sad to think that most people who play the game tend to get hung up on stuff like how ‘awesome’ Monks are and how Two Swording melee Ninjas are ‘unbeatable’ (except when they are, since just about every boss enemy and monster class in Chapter 4 eats your face for trying to spend time in melee range)
Does a tactics RPG even exist that doesn’t let you break the game in less then 30 mins of playing it?
Both the FFTA games try their damnedest by tying abilities to items, so it’s a while in either of them before you can get crazy-broken setups.
Most Nippon Ichi games tend to only break through unholy levels of grind, as well, although that varies from game to game (Phantom Brave lets you set a land speed record of 0-Broken, and Disgaea 2 can be broken early but only with a big fat time sink.)
Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is almost entirely luck-based if you can break it early. Getting a Vampyre Kiss, Undead Staff, or Princess Crown in the first half-dozen maps can turn pretty much everything up to the end-game trivially easy, albut part of the game’s hook is that nobody likes a curb-stomping omnidick of a power-monger and abusing a single unit or two that get these goodies early can lock you out of most of the game’s ‘Good’ routes.
You know, you can always just play the game not using the broken-strategies…lol I never use Orlandu, Auto-Potion, or Math Skill in FFT because it takes all the fun away from the game, and really it takes away the whole point of it too.
To be fair, FFT basically makes itself ripe for being a curb-stomping ass to it thanks to the fact that it pretty much does the same to you. It’s basically a game of Brick Walls, each asking you to either do stupid amounts of grinding or finding new and subtle ways to break the game gently in half. Playing ‘fair’ with FFT usually ends with Rafa getting gently laid to rest by an assassin before you even get a turn.
Yeah, gotta agree with you there. I’ve just played that game more times than I can count so I know what battles are coming up, so I actually keep a certain setup ready just for those battles but don’t use them for the rest of em.
Not using Orlandu wouldn’t even do that much to make it fair for your enemies. You would need to swear off Ramza, Beowulf, and several other OP motherfuckers. I would never do it though cuz as Locke said FFT just throws nonsense at you constantly and after awhile you’re just like fuck it Orlandu with math skill and Ramza as Squire with Time Mage skill or Draw out let’s go motherfuckers.
Notice how you’ll never encounter a Calculator, Dancer or Bard as an enemy (at least as far as I know)?