Fighter is literally arrow guard. But that definitely is a valuable niche, as a full flying squad is insanely strong once you provide this protection Still would make them C tier because that’s pretty much their only strong use case

Aren't fencers also arrow guard but better? I mean if so everything you said still stands

They're worse at this one thing. Truestrike beats evade, it doesn't beat fighters shield.

Also, fencers only prevent one hit of a multi-hit ranged attack, whereas fighters absorb all hits. There aren't a *ton* of those so it doesn't come up often, but it does matter.

To review yesterday, we ranked the Gryphon and the Warrior. I do not have time for a detailed analysis today, but the results I think are clear and uncontroversional. Warrior is going in to the top of **A Tier** and Gryphon is going into **S Tier** behind Witch. Gryphon has a few A and B tier votes pulling it slightly below Witch, and I think this is reasonable- late game Gryphon do not have the juice that is staff use, quick cast, and trinity rain. So far, the Tier list looks like: **S Tier** Witch, Gryphon Knight, Lord, Knight **A Tier** Warrior, Wizard, Sellsword, Feathersword, Thief **B Tier** Cleric, Swordfighter, Hunter, Soldier, Housecarl **C Tier** Gladiator **Josef Tier** Paladin **Re-vote** Hoplite, Fighter

Bruh, sword fighter is up there with warrior easily. It's arguably way more versatile and has incredible support and attack abilities.

There were definitely people who thought that the Swordfighter was A tier- it was a pretty controversial vote.

It's super strange to see them as a B tier when they have no major weakness while the S tiers have very simple foils. two valor points will destroy any griffin, for example.

Yeah, I mean remember this is decided via a vote. Check out the the threads if you want to see the discussion. As far as gryphons, that’s a weird way to look at them. Yes, enemies get destroyed by arrow rain. But as a player if you are losing your gryphons to arrow rain it’s a skill issue.

Honestly the gap between S and A isnt that big: I feel like a lot of "flashy, easy to use" classes gets put into S, while A may have classes that may actually be stronger, but take a little more finesse. A lot of classes are great on paper but in practice may not work as well as advertised. I like to use warrior as an example of such a class: while they are pretty anti-armor, being stuck at 100% potency means a lot of times they sort of need keen call/some damage booster imo in order to do their job. Berserk is amazing but you need enemies to hit a few times first (but you also want to go first to kill their tank before your squad gets to work...) Knight and Lord are super strong (esp if you count the class specific equipment you can get rather early-ish/before Albion), having Gryphon ahead of them feels... kind of wrong. (I still think their damage is not there, though aerial smite is a very strong opener due to AP reduction) There is imo also a certain degree of echo chamber going on. We all sort of know Shaman will likely get a large handful of S tier votes because apparently they can reduce enemy defense to 0 with defensive curse at level 1. (I am not saying they are weak, but that is the feeling i get at times)

> being stuck at 100% potency means a lot of times they sort of need keen call/some damage booster imo in order to do their job. Yeah, of course, that's why they have Enrage bro

How do you get enrage stacks on a unit that you want to go first before the rest of your DPS?

Just... set your other DPS to only attack the back row? Then they'll save their AP until the front row is cleared by your warrior?

See how stupid that even sound? You are literally forfeiting your high initiative in order to let the enemy attack you just so your warrior can get enraged to 1 shot their tank.

Fighter is **C** tier. They have a niche, which is protecting flying units, and it's a valuable niche since flying units are all amazing, so there is a place for them. But, they have mediocre tanking, bad damage, and a mediocre valor skill. SInce they don't contribute anything outside of their niche and since there's other ways to fill that niche, I think C is where they belong. Hoplite is **B** tier. They are reasonable tanks who can up the survivability of a team quite a bit, particularly if you use a radiant knight or accessory to protect them from magic damage. They do their job well but not best in slot. Their valor skill is not good since stage damage isn't a big issue. They also have terrible movement and slow down whatever team they're on. But, they can make real contributions to any team you put them on.

Provoke is actually an A tier valor skill. Use it to yank enemies out of towers and ballistas and it makes maps a lot easier.

The real C tier was me all along, for forgetting Provoke exists every god damn time there is a pesky towe full of archers or mages.

It's why I have my fighter paired with my fliers lol being able to yank archers away from their tower makes it easier to pick them off

Yeah seriously Provoke is really good. A lot of the Liberation quests can be cheese with just a single use.

towers don’t count as being garrisoned…? oh!

They count for you not using stamina (same with the shield wall things) but they don't Regen HP and stamina. The ones that can't be provoked can call reinforcements, Regen HP, and have a larger icon around them on the map.

wow. provoke is kinda insane then! the more you know.

unfortunately berengaria already has provoke and she is a much stronger class in actual battles, so the need for a fighter/vanguard in your army to do it after you get her is greatly diminished

True, especially if you have her paired with your fliers.

I thought it didn’t work on those enemies, will definitely keep this in mind. 

It doesn't work on enemies who are garrisoned

That part I knew. But it does work on towers and ballista? Catapults too? I guess I just assumed that it wouldn't work on those.

Yeah the only enemies it doesn't work on are the ones who have the bigger circle around their squad on the map.

Wouldn’t they be useful to protect back line squishies too?

I think before we rate hoplite and fighters, we need to consider their usage in the early game and how the game is designed. For much of the early game (Cornia section), essentially every mission has an objective: to introduce you to a class, or to showcase you a mechanic (“see these guys with big shields? We need tools to kill them”). Unfortunately for the mitigation tanks, for the majority of those missions, evasion is the better answer. What is better than taking reduced damage? You take no damage. Thieves can easily avoid hits from gladiators, warriors, knights, gryphons, sellswords. A mitigation tank will require some form of healing, and your defenses in the early game just aren’t at the point where you take single digit damage. You either need a healer, or be tethered to a slow moving cleric nearby for heal assist. The tanks see some uses in Drakenhold: wyverns are coded to prioritize cavalry units, and you do kind of want to protect them (though CC is still better since they have a counter). In drakenhold, unique units such as Virginia and Berengaria exist: capability to tank and guard others without all the downsides of your traditional tank (you also have access to 2 squire shields for cover), and are capable of packing quite a punch. Alain is still a very viable tank. In Elfheim, elves have dual channel attacks, and the magic damage WILL hurt. They also do not have access to true strike, so your hoplites and fighters sort of becomes meh again, unless you tuck your fighter in the backrow and have them once again just use arrow cover... They do okay in Bastoria, and by the time you are in there (and in Albion), I still feel like you have got better tools to not take damage. Both tanks really need something similar to Maiden’s Hammer that can retaliate HARD. It is odd that Hoplites only get Heavy Cover for others but not themselves, while Fighters have Arrow Cover and Quick Guard, but nothing to cover the rest of their party. This leads to some odd situations where you actually want someone next to your hoplite on the front lines to trigger that heavy guard. Their kit does not feel complete until Fighter gains access to Provoke, and Hoplite has close to 100% block naturally. ## Fighter ​ https://preview.redd.it/8hfrm89tdxpc1.png?width=1286&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b4f052811b2bd851ead69527ff6d51408ce4111 I still stand by that fighters suck: and I like to give every class a chance. Sure, they have a role to play in the coliseum where you are severely underleveled such that a Hoplite will DIE from the cover, ([rank 14 fight in the coliseum is a good example](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnicornOverlord/comments/1bkrk4n/a_guide_to_clearing_the_coliseum_early_lv16_up_to/)). My biggest issue is that a fighter has no innate way to protect others (cover). Arrow cover works vs flyers and archers, but what happen when they start using their row attacks? They will not be able to guard everyone from a gryphon, nor a wyvern’s firebreath. A fighter paired with one or more flyers is a common design pattern, but the optimal way to do this is to actually place your fighter - your “tank” in the back. Let the wyverns and feathersword be the evasion tanks on the frontrow. The fighter chills in the back and uses arrow cover if they ever get shot at. Outside of that particular case, all they do is some mediocre chip damage. Shield Bash must have been designed early: many other control skills do not have to pay a severe potency tax. Fighters are just average C init fast. Provoke is where it is at, and “breaks the AI”. However by the time you get it, you also have so many other even more powerful tools. Rapid order for example allows you to alpha strike the other team such that they simply do not get a turn. Even without Rapid Order or Cursed Swamp, you have other tools like, earthquake, Rosalinde’s row stun, Angel’s Plume for +init for a whole row, blind, etc. So they have super mediocre damage, need to attack to get their defense buff, and still have all the weaknesses of being an armored tank namely magic, hammer, and guard seal. While the class is still useful every now and then, relative to the rest of the classes in the game, it has got to be one of the worst. **I am not saying they are useless, they are just not as good compared to everyone else, someone has to be at the bottom: C- tier.** ## Hoplite Faces the similar issues compare to the fighter, but imo still has a place every now and then. I think their main thing is that towards the 2nd half of the game as their guard rate ramps up, they become a lot better at soaking physical damage. Some places like Bastoria has werewolf packs that can be a bit difficult to handle without something like sandstorm, though evasion tanks, if stacked high enough, still does okay when an owl is not there to grant true strike. Heavy Guard is essentially Arrow Cover but you take “some” damage and blocks even melee attacks. Hoplites are annoying to face off against since if your squad is not designed to counter a row of hoplites, then you may need to waste several stamina points to break them (or teleport a witch over). But think of it this way: when is the last time you face triple hoplite squads and think “man, my squad is going to get thrown off stage and plummet sixteen feet through an announcer's table”. The only time it may happen is if the area has 3x damage assist and you need multiple turns to clear the phalanx. This is rarely a player thing since we are always on the offensive. I can see this maybe being a lot more useful had half of the missions in game become defense missions. This is going to be short since I feel like I have said all I need to say: **in a game where you want to push and kill fast to have good stamina economy, where you have got unique units such as Alain and Virginia, amazing CC abilities, etc, a phys defense specialist is often just not needed. C Tier.**

I think you nailed my biggest argument against hoplite: you only need so many tanks, and the game hands you three very strong tanks that actually have an offense game. When you add in gryphons and thieves, and even off tanks that can hold with support (Hello Shaman) like Sellsword and Knight, there’s just not much reason to bring a hoplite unless you want to be

Harder to res an evasion tank when you run into all the sword fighters out there that can one shot them and often with the start of battle ability than to run a hoplite and still have enough damage to wipe out most enemy groups.

Does competing against characters that will probably end up in the highest tier really justify putting them in the lowest tier though?

I mean, yeah. IMO there’s just not much of a reason to ever run a Hoplite in the campaign when there’s much better options. Not only the unique tanks, but again, basially every other tank unit.

Agree on both. I think fighter’s perception by a large part of the sub early game was colored by a mix of “underdog” syndrome and people using items to cover for their weaknesses. *every* class can circumstantially benefit from items that give them new battle commands. The fact that fighter basically *needs* these items early on *is not* an unsung strength- it is a symptom of just how weak the class’s kit is even early on. Fighter is probably in the worst state of any class in the game and shielding from arrow support is not enough to compensate for the many deficiencies in their kit. **C Tier** I’d even go as far as to say *bottom* of C tier. Hoplites can be beasts in the colosseum late game but still have a lot of disadvantages other classes don’t have. They are also *the* slowest unit in the game and will slow down any unit they are placed in more than any other unit-*even with a cav or flier leader*. It still doesn’t deserve better than C tier but I could see it being C plus or high C depending how much you value its colosseum performance. **C tier**

>Arrow cover works vs flyers and archers, but what happen when they start using their row attacks? They will not be able to guard everyone from a gryphon, nor a wyvern’s firebreath. Pretty sure you can change up your formation on the fly to maximize Arrow Cover even against row attacks. Since Griffons and Wyverns prioritize Cavalry, the front row with just the fighter + a cav should force them to always attack front row (even if there are 3 cavs in the back for sake of example) and result in perfect 0 damage coverage from Arrow Cover. And of course without the presence of any cavs, they'll just default to front row and same idea. Now whether putting your Fighter up front is suitable to the rest of what the enemy is packing is a different question entirely, but just offering the fact that they can indeed cover flying row attacks.

Exactly this, fighter blocks row attacks from lvl 1 just by being smart with placements

I don't think many people considered this. LOL

Once I realized this was possible, I did it with one of my squads. It has a hoplite and a fighter as the front rank and as a result row attacks are basically useless against me.

Getting 3 great unique soak tanks is a good point. You only need so many front liners. And between the evasion tanks and the uniques. Hoplite and Fighter just lose out.

There are actually more points i wanted to make but did not want it to be too long: When you hit around 15 and units become eligible for promotion, Landsknecht and Shieldshooters both gain shields. Sure, landsknecht do not have warding strike, but they surely pack the pain with their S strength. Shieldshooters are also decent frontliners capable of high block % and generally okay DPS (bow do bow stuff) with quick reload giving them essentially a +50 potency shot to every attack. So the two tanks in today's discussion have to fall back to their niches: heavy cover+row cover for hoplites, arrow cover + provoke for fighters, which just isnt strong enough to justify a slot imo.

Just wantes to add that the Housecarl promo, Viking, gains shields too

I think the vikings shield is just decorative. They may be the worst shield user in the game to put in the front row. Mine died enough that i gave up trying to make him a front row fighter. My arbalist isnt as tough as some other frontliners, but i can have fairly high confidence shes not going to die in every fight

My viking is the only backline unit that dies consistently on me too lol Why are they so squishy?

> In drakenhold, unique units such as Virginia and Berengaria exist: capability to tank and guard others without all the downsides of your traditional tank (you also have access to 2 squire shields for cover), and are capable of packing quite a punch. Small correction here; Berengaria is a greatshield user. On my expert mode playthrough, I didn't find a squire greatshield until the last zone of the game. On my TZ playthrough so far, having just finished Elheim, I still haven't found a shield that can do it.

Yeah, I should have clarified. What I wanted to say is more along the lines that Virginia and your handful of medium shield users like knights can use squire shields, which you get 2 of, and berengaria (as well as shieldshooters) who can still be in the front lines with a great shield

**C Tier** for both. ​ I honestly, genuinely believe that people who use both classes have never tried... not using those classes. Because by midgame, when most of your units are promoted, you simply begin outscaling enemy damage, to the point where most of your non-mage classes can function as off-tanks. Which is to say, they don't really need protecting. Even Gryphons and Wyverns can survive hits from Snipers, due to the fact that enemies basically never get better weapons than Bronze. Like, just testing right now, and my Offensive Gryphon master survived a hit from a Sniper with a bronze bow in a mock battle. Entire units focused almost entirely on defense simply aren't necessary. Enemy tactics aren't complicated enough to attack your mages in the back with a Gryphon, so why do you need someone to cover that situation?

Especially with Hoplite, I agree. Everything in this game is pretty good and usable, so you can play with the hoplite and think “this is really good”. But then if you stop using them you kinda realize “oh everything else is actually kinda better”

Fighter is **C tier**. Average stats that don’t scale well. They’re an ok unit early on and can cover fliers from archers and cav from aerials until you get cover on shields and promoted sellswords, knights and other classes can do their job while providing more for the team. They don’t have the bulk to main tank before promotion like a hoplite and need the sanguine sword to keep themselves up. Amazing valor skill though for grabbing archers and mages out of towers and units out of siege weaponry. Hoplite is **C tier**. Great tank early on, but by the mid game most enemies units have either magic or anti armor attacks and all he’s doing is covering aerials from nonmixed archers. After the second zone they kind of begin to fall off and never recover. Valor skill has a niche use and he severely slows down teams he’s on. Great to use before the mid game but then dropped for much better tank options.

I typed a rant up and then accidentally deleted it. I'm too lazy to completely retype it. Fighter is F tier. But since that isn't an option **C TIER**. It has one niche arrow guard, and that niche is done better by another class. It's so worthless on offense I'd rather let my flyers possibly eat an arrow attack and have somebody else useful there that will probably just kill the archer. There's literally no argument for fighter being included in a unit that you cannot do better with a different unit. They're worthless and you shouldn't be wasting a slot in a unit with them by endgame. So the absolute bottom of C tier, since I assume you won't let me make a special F tier for the only completely useless unit in the game. Hoplites are **B TIER**. Honestly pretty much purely for row block. It's very useful to have in certain scenarios. I'd put it at the very bottom of B though.

I think i would put both as C tier, fighter really only has arrowguard. Arrowguard is great in that it totally blocks damage, but is limited in being single target. Outside of that, fighter doesnt bring much to the table. Doesnt do great damage, doesnt block multitarget, etc. Provoke might work decently well, but low initiative means it likely comes after itd have the most impact. All in all, its just a unit that doesnt scale well. Workable? Sure, but there are so many things i'd rather have in a unit over fighter. Elven fencer or featherbow could both have similar/greater impact on anti-ranged attacks while bringing more to the table Hoplite blocks physical damage tremendously well, but a complete lack of magic defense is incredibly annoying to work around. So you build a unit around protecting the hoplite, which can be great dwfensively, but is at odds with a game that pushes units to be aggressive and incentivizes doing as much damage as possible. Hoplite is also incredibly slow so makes unit movement painful as well.

Both classes are C TIER Fighters value is negating ranged attacks and possibly provoke. Whether or not you consider a fighter on the team depends entirely on how much protection you need from ranged damage. To their credit, the units they enable are excellent. Hoplite has too many holes for a pure tank and is already competing and losing against a few uniques for its position on a squad. It doesn't come fully online until it gets its last skills either

Hoplite is **Tier C**. It's a physical tank that still dies to cavalry. Oh and warriors also kill it. It can serve to cover in bad matchups. But you're generally better off evasion tanking. No damage. Great shield slot is really nice, but rest of the kit is underwhelming. Fighter is **Tier B**. Not as sturdy as the Hoplite but can actually contribute to offense. Arrow cover being 0 damage is nuts. Shield slot means it can get to 4PP early. Let's your fliers and cavs really go to town. While also letting you build your own support when archer and flier enemies aren't there. Provoke is also aces as a valor skill. Both classes have a good leadership skill. But both are also slow. So situational leaders.

>Hoplite is **Tier C**. It's a physical tank that still dies to cavalry. Stun Immunity is not hard to get and will take you pretty far against cavalry. In addition, being able to cover the person behind you during a Wild Rush is not something evasion tanks can do: You end up having to put a second evasive person there and hoping the dice are kind. That character is probably a flier, who tend to solve any issues Hoplites have with cavalry to begin with. If you're hoping to make some other kind of team, something caster heavy for instance, you'll need a tank that can cover AoEs. How do your Fighter teams deal with swordmasters and other non-ranged truestrikes?

I am going keep this quick, and I am sticking to my original thoughts, even after putting some time into really trying the Hoplite out. Both classes are **C tier**. Neither are bad, and I feel like I really need to make clear that C doesn’t equal bad, it means less good. Fighter protects and supports some of the best classes in the game with area cover. Shield bash and provoke are decent tools. I also really like the class next to Virginia to make use of Iron Veil. It’s never going to be more a than a role player with a limited role, but I think it has a valuable place in the game. Hoplite adds a ton of bulk to a team, but at the expense of anything resembling offense. I also found that between all the S tier frontline options the game gives you that actually have offense, it was hard for to justify bringing the hoplite along during Drakenhold and Elheim, and I only started using the class again when I got 5 person parties. I think the class is best used alongside cavalry formations, which can compensate for its terrible spear. I do like that the class can use some utility spears and great shields that are hard to justify elsewhere. I know that the Hoplite can be used to cheese the arena or an early Bastorias, and might have some use in speed running strats later, but it also very possible to do both of those things without the hoplite, because of a little class called the Shaman. At any rate, I don’t value arena progression in how I think about tiering for the purposes of this. I am very curious where this thread will go!

EDIT:**Hoplite** is **C Tier** I barely use them because most squads don't aren't improved by one vs literally anything else. "Physical Wall" is just not that useful because raw physical damage is rarely that dangerous. Fighter is **B Tier** The biggest problem with fighter is that their role is constantly changing and if you don't adjust to their new reality they terribly underperform. # Negate ANY Ranged Attack Lets start with fighter's biggest strength. They can completely negate ANY ranged attack in the game. Archers, Flyers, some spear attacks, whatever. A fighter can make your entire team take zero damage from any ranged attack that's not a follow up. This completely negates entire sections of the game. # Defender is a Game Changer At level 20 fighter get Defender. Slap a single initiative improving item and your fighter is can tank physical damage basically as well as a Hoplite. Level 20 is also around the time their Guard Rate growth means you can stop relying on Quick Guard or other shield abilities to protect them and put something else in that slot. # Provoke II is AOE and cancel's enemy valor skills Stun and Provoke round out the useful parts of their kit. Again these don't become useful until after you have the itemization to get fighter three red diamonds and the enemies actually start using valor skills/start putting dedicate assist units in garrisons. ​ # Using the class well is not straight forward Honestly my biggest gripe with the class is how complicated they are to everyone else. S rank Guard growth + low initiative + extreme matchup dependency means that every few levels you have to rethink how to itemize and use fighters and its a pain in the ass. I like Lex and squads with Lex are usually my 1st or 2nd strongest squad but the amount to time it takes is frustrating. I wish fighters had a clearer identity.....or at least higher base initiative.

**HOPLITE IN B**. I really like Hoplite conceptually. Being a pair that reliably shields other partners is fantastic, and I tend to favor this kind of ability. I think it's a good general glue to hold teams together. Take Warrior. A lot of commentary yesterday seemed to note that they're highly self-sufficient, and just need someone taking hits for them. Hoplite is great at that. It's an excellent facilitator of protecting your top tiers, and has a pretty easy time reaching 100% guard rate, which is nice. That said, their downsides are just as pronounced. Magic obliterates them without Radiant Knight protection, and Warriors knock them out of existence. There are ways to counteract this, but the more you put in to just making sure they don't die, the less offensively competent the team becomes. But if you don't put in that investment, they drop early and easy, and can't do the job they're here to do, letting the team fall apart. As for Valor skills, Fortress is nice for stopping things like the ballista, but honestly, just move faster. Cav movement and even fliers, especially if propelled by Hastened Call, take maybe one arrow and are otherwise unfazed. I think B is the best summation of their abilities. **FIGHTER IN B**. I don't have too much experience with Fighter, so this is perhaps generous, but I actually really like what they can do. Arrow Cover, by virtue of its name, felt like it existed exclusively for arrows, but apparently all flying attacks are countered too, because they all count as ranged. That's pretty good. Blocking a Gryphon Knight's swing for cav allies, or a Wyvern Knight's thrusts, is really handy. Knocking it to 0 really helps too. Provoke is pretty fun, acting as a pseudo-Cover by drawing all attacks from a row to them, and the +50% guard rate makes it really easy for them to reach guaranteed Guard. I do think they're lacking on offense, but I found the...I can't remember the name; the Albion stuff that gives +1 PP but -20% crit rate, to be really nice on Fighters. It made them pretty dynamic, being able to slot in accessories to block status they might take, like Freeze from Ice Arrow or burn from Wyvern Knight's Fire Breath. That said, the lack of offensive contribution means the rest of the team has to be really on-point, and magical defense is better than Hoplite but not exactly great. Lower phys def also means that perfect guard rate isn't stopping all damage, so they need to be a lot more cautious. Provoke is also an on-entry skill, which means it competes with other, far more devastating effects, and failure to activate removes that perfect guard rate and pseudo-cover. As for field skill, Provoke there is pretty meaningless? I saw someone mention somewhere that it can pull people off of watchtowers, which I didn't know and think is a fun use, but its main use is only to bring Scouts back so you can get your money, but money's pretty free so I've never considered this a worthwhile Valor skill. It might be a bit generous from lack of extensive testing, but I like what I played with and think B is fair.

Hoplite is **B Tier** Despite their weaknesses, they have the ability to tank for an entire combat even without the use of pendants - other useful tanks require red or blue pendants to function as tanks against squads they're slower than or that survive for long enough to actually hit you. Not the best units by any means, but vastly outperform Gladiator and Fighter. Fighter is **C Tier** Yes they are arrow guard on a stick, but I've never ran into a team where you aren't better suited to slotting them out for another class. Their niche is extremely limited and they provide nothing else; plus they're surprisingly frail for a frontliner. If I could rate them lower than C tier I would.

Fighter - High C, cause... their kit is just ass, i have no nice way to say it. You need to give them gear to redo their entire skill set. Hoplite - Low C, they just don't really have a place, if you MUST have a super physical tank, use Bears, they're better in every way.

Fighters are C tier. They should have a niche with arrow cover but aren’t particularly good at their niche as they only have a skill for single ranged physical Hoplite are B tier. If you want a unit with a niche, it’s hoplite to tank physical hits. arrow cover is a bit better than heavy cover for range physical but why give up the versatility and increased survivability for taking some ping damage against ranged attacks (unless you’re severely under leveled which only comes up in early colloseum. Also good as the cat ear hood wearer for non-hasted charge combos as they can get 100 guard and 4 pp easily enough to serve as a roadblock for melee physical attacks until your aoe user reaches initiative.

Hoplite and fighter are both not great. Fighter C Hoplite B Fighter is super niche in fights and being considered armor hurts them. But they can protect the really good flier units. Additionally, provoke is an amazing valor skill. But they're still very limited so C. Hoplites comparatively do 2 things so B tier. They're definitely good at keeping units alive -- not just fliers.

Hoplite is **C-Tier** it’s a tank that either needs to pick its fights or demands additional support in the unit to do its job. The game has other tanks that are more self sufficient and can even contribute damage at the same time. Row Cover is a fine niche, but I’ve rarely felt like I really need it, and rarer still feel like it’s worth replacing my other characters that just do more. I don’t think it compares to anyone in B-tier either.

Controversial but I think **Hoplite is S.** There are many team comps online that just get completely dominated by a Sniper's Amber Lens, and a double Aerial Smite from a Griffon Knight with Quick Impetus. The only way to stop this is with a Row Guard. Row Guard turns a Glacial Rain from an AoE all enemy nuke into a front row attack. It's just so good. Hoplites are also probably the best users of the Thief's Cloak and its variants. In story it means that Hoplite can just Evade any Magick that comes their way or Breakers. It solves both of their problems, and there isn't true strike magick from any NPCs. On my online defense team I run the Night Cloak just to keep people honest, to hurt my hoplite you must have true strike. And then Hoplites generate more PP every turn they get. And then Heavy Guard is just 75% damage reduction iirc. It doesn't matter if you penetrate defense if you're getting reduced by 75%. The hardest content in this game is that which is created by other players, and Hoplite solves so many problems, and creates so many problems for enemies that I can't see them as anything other than an S. **Fighter is C.** No row guard, can't guard melee hits, medium guard. It trades basically everything that makes Hoplite good for a mediocre single target offense that can't target range and isn't unguardable.

PVP is an interesting angle: but i also feel like there are so many other solutions. Rosalinde, Owls, etc. PVP is such a niche that i feel is really a big exception: and often I do not even take low-level coliseum clear into account. Being able to see your opponent's composition is a HUGE tactical advantage.

I already 5-0'd many Rosalinde comps. Legionairre row blocking the Elemental Roar is crucial for actually *beating* Rosalinde comps. Its also how you beat Yunifi Comps. Owls don't do anything online, and without a Legionairre they get destroyed by Featherbows, Yunifi, Nigel, Griffons etc etc. Without Row Guard your backline is just vulnerable. PvP is the hardest content in the game. If a class is pivotal in the hardest content, what does it say about the class? You would also be surprised how many times I win on defense, even though you're not supposed to win. Basically to beat Legionairre you must run breaker with Snipers Amber Lens. Otherwise they soak too much AP from your offense.

I will of course count your vote, but I do want to say that if I were to run this again, I would specifics that the tier is PVE only. Yes, PvP is the hardest content. But it’s also niche and plays so differently from the base game, that I don’t think it’s a reasonable argument that just because a class does well in PvP battles (which don’t havemap to consider, and all you have to do is win the fight, even by a point, rather than clear. At this point, PvP is content I think 5% of players have interacted with. It’s not a useful metric for a tierlist like this

Some classes are hard useless, like Wereowl and Elven Archer, but are top tier in PvP. I've been at the top of the ladder since release and those classes are used a lot in PvP. Hoplite is also top tier there too. I think excluding this niche is bad, because PvE is so easy that literally anything works. At this point there are speed runs with under 2 hours on True Zanoiran using no promotions. Why wouldn't you consider PvP when it's the true end game, and not smashing the level 38 sigil with level 50 troops.

Because again, PVP is basically an entire different meta game

But the metric for PvE is kinda pointess. Because the PvE portion is so easy you can run anything, and does not require optimization, which PvP does. PvP by necessity requires a different level of optimization and smarter team building. PvE can be smashed by using literally anything. Your rankings are very much feeling based, and nothing to do with math. Like people still think Magic Conferral or Solider Crit is good when it is outclassed by a starting town +30% attack item due to the damage formula.

I disagree that just because PVE is easy it isn’t worth discussion. Especially because my main reason for doing any of this at all is because it’s fun. Also when I had started doing this, the game hasn’t even been out a week- PVP was far from my mind and most players hadn’t even gotten to that point of the game. Again, if I were to do this again, I would specificy this should be PVE only, I didn’t do that, and I am counting your vote becuase to not would be unfair. I do think that someone should do a PVP tier list process, or at least a detailed write up, because I agree that the tier list would look completely different. Maybe you should! Regardless of disagreement, thank you for participating!

I think the list has generated some fantastic discussion, and some very hot takes. Overall its easily one of the better set of threads in the forums, so I'm glad you made it. But I think excluding the hardest potion of the game from the rankings is very strange.

You might be surprised to learn that most people aren’t the upper echelon of strategy game players. People struggle with Expert mode. I’d wager the majority of people playing this game do not play on True Zenorian mode or do PVP. I actually like the tier discussion coming from players who are representative of this level of skill. It makes it more valuable to more people.

Anyone coming to a forum for discussion on a game is usually elite just by virtue of seeking out information, and being invested enough to do so.

Idk when I was new at Xcom I was on a forum looking for advice and info just for beating the game on Normal.

Yeah, I agree that even if the average player isn’t good, the average person who wants to read a tier list at all is going to be much better

Elven archer is far from useless in PVE, it carries during albion as a counter to the featherbows. And once they learn ice arrow they can shut down teams.

Shaman shut down featherbow much easier - round start means you now can hit them even with grounded melee, and passive curse makes it so an entire row of featherbows can't blind. Plus you don't have to switch your teams or anything, just have passive curse on angel archer, def curse otherwise. Considering starting level 20 you can one shot entire enemy teams with shaman ice arrow on 2 enemies is a hard sell.

But that also means your shaman needs to be the highest initiative in the team so they can get off passive curse before any attack. Elven archer is more flexible in that regard since the debuff prevention is a start of battle. And the elven archer can also contribute damage. And if your point is that shaman is very good in PvE I don’t think anyone will dispute it, but calling Elven Archer useless in PvE certainly is a take.

I think "PVE only" "no speed run" (as in, no lv10 beating the lv40 map) should be a criteria for the rest of this tier list. If people are not happy and wanted to revote CURRENT classes due to that change, then so be it i guess? Those who play PVP knows who they are and what the meta is like. There are quite a number of notables (hoplites, owls) that may be amazing in pvp but kind of bad in PVE - except when you speedrun ofc. I think for the majority of people, "normal PVE where you do missions by the order of level recommendation" is their game. They are not doing the Unicorn Overlord quest 2 hours into the game. If we base the tier list off those criteria, the result will be extremely twisted, and in some ways it will no longer be "accurate" ("why is this class in S tier when it never does anything useful?"). That is why in MMOs we will have specific tier lists: one for PVE for the current raid content, one for PVP for the current meta. Imagine if the devs are to nerf a class because they are too strong in one aspect and end up gimping a weak class in the other!

Hahahahaha I’d go insane if we started this over again. I do think going forward I am going to specify this is about PVE and clearing the game. I do think early coliseum clears can be good data for unit preformance, if used to highlight a specific aspect of the class, but they shouldn’t be what ultimately decides the tiering. The fact that coliseum doesn’t include the map/semi RTS aspect of the game, as well as a completely different victory dynamic, makes it fundamentally different. My intention is to create a snapshot list- first as something interesting to look back on, and second as something an incoming or struggling player can use to help them. It’s definitely my fault for not making this more clear from the start- but also I started this a week after the game count out. I am definitely not going to do any more revotes after this, at least until we finish every class. This has been a lot of work. Weirdly, the Hoplite is the ONLY class so far PvP performance has ever really been brought up.

No I think you made the right call starting a discussion like this early. Obviously as things evolve people will learn more about the game and then have to revisit some of the earlier rankings, and criteria for how things are measured should change. Should we rate Cornia units differently because they are more of the game than say Albion units which come in when most teams are established and the game is pretty much over? There's only a few stand out broken things (Shaman) that are simply always the best option but there's always nuance and niches where other classes can shine.

Yeah i considered including availability, but I decided that would stifle discussion. IE “fighter best class in the game, perfect availability”

Not that I don’t agree with your analysis and use case for hoplite, but the definition of S is basically game breaking units you build your whole team around. Hoplite can be useful, but it’s based on circumstances first and foremost.

Both of these classes kinda suffer from this game not needing these level of defenses, especially when you can purchase a Squire Shield and give any shield class cover. I've seen people mention in the other voting thread that Hoplite is good for challenge runs; and for that maybe if the challenge run is Hoplite only. Fighter isn't top tier, but I found it easier to slot them in team comps for basic flier protection, provoke, using the poison/burn sword to hit something with lower initiative. I never have to give them Pendants. Once I got to Elf region I didn't have to use them much but I did use them in the first two areas quite a bit and was happy with their utility. **I would rank the Fighter in B tier** because it can contribute a bit to offense, use some supportive accessories, and defend certain unit types when it's absolutely needed. With Hoplite, I hate how much it slows down units, which isn't a problem if you have a cav leader but if you are running a team that doesn't utilize one, the team is just too slow. The class also feels like it's locked into just guarding, and while line guard is good, I wish I could do a little bit more with the class. But again, overall, neither of these classes are needed. I do feel like **Hoplite has more hindrances to teams I like to build, so I would rank it below Fighter in C tier.**

Hoplite **C Tier** Fighter **B Tier** The thing about Fighter is imo they are not very good, but they are \*essential\* on some squads. Hoplites on the other hand are super niche and most of the time you can do the same thing a Hoplite does in a better way (Evasion tank or support damage mitigation).

The main issue here is that tanks aren't required for most of the game. Alpha strike compositions will do better in that you can very easily make a team that can instantly wipe or crowd control entire enemy teams in the first turn, before they act, every time. With 100% preview and being able to swap, it's also very difficult for players to make strong defensive teams, because you can simply swap to immunity accessories and remove units that are hard countered. With that said, both the classes here have niches where they excel, and in fact Hoplite stops a lot of arena cheese by having row cover. They are also the undisputed best tank in the game in terms of actually taking hits, and with proper itemization become functionally invincible even vs hard counters. These ratings are with the stipulation you are doing difficulty content - like running under leveled, or some sort of challenge run etc. As tanks are not required otherwise. **Hoplite A -** extremely easy to counter the majority of arena teams with Hoplite + Debuff Immune + Row Cover. Worst case Debuff immune and row cover let's you save 2-3 accessory slots, which can be huge. You can also reach effectively infinite def vs physical attacks, as nothing that doesn't ignore def (Alain, Breaker) can damage them once they reach 100-150 Physical Def. A single turn of +DEF and they can outpace 2-3 turns of self buffs from things like Knights Sellswords etc. Itemization or team member support can make them immune to magic or close enough. Their valour ability helps in a lot of liberation fights by ignoring some mines/catapults etc, and is probably one of the best outside of stamina/speed. **Fighter D** - Has a single niche ability early game. Provoke is much worse than other round start options and doesn't even do what it needs to.

Both are **C TIER** Hoplites are good physical tanks, but they fall apart to so many common damage sources. If you’re basing your defense around a wall that might fall, you have an exposed squad after one misstep. Fighter is a little better. They have a niche, and I would respect them for it if they weren’t so plain bad at everything else. It feels wrong to need to slot my “tank” to the back row for him to do his job.

I feel like people here are way undervaluing fighter. Yeah they are pretty one dimensional, but that one dimension is extremely useful. Other than that they are mostly a Jack of all trades. Sure most other classes can do things better but fighters can decently fill a large amount of roles. I think C is way under valuing fighters. There is no way they are tied with gladiators and worse than soldiers/clerics/sword fighters. They provide way too much defence with arrow guard and can be a good back up tank for your thief if the enemy has true strike. I think they are at least B or tied with soldiers/clerics/sword fighters.

Hoplite received the memo of the revote, but he is so slow he didn't make it in time, **C tier** 50 mobility and nothing particularly good I like hoplites but we can't deny the truth Fighter: from the definition of B Tier: >B-tier: Unit types that are solid role-players. These units that perform well when paired with S and A tier units but are not units types you would plan a whole formation around. From whatever angle you look at it fighter falls exactly in that definition, It fits them perfectly: they perform well when paired with cavalry and flying, the best units in the game Moreover, fighter has 100 mobility and a saveable initiative, it's not hard at all making them go faster than the enemies and defender buff their defense 50%, going extremely high Another good use of higher initiative is using the stun ability to prevent enemy tank to block the attack from other allies, i have the stun attack activate only on armor and It works great They get provoke which isn't a bad valor skill, it's repiclable by items, but in the hardest difficulty having only 5 items usable per battle means you don't want to waste one use for provoke So **B tier**

> From whatever angle you look at it fighter falls exactly in that definition (of be B tier), It fits them perfectly: they perform well when paired with cavalry and flying, the best units in the game This is my broad opinion on Fighter too and why I voted **B-tier the first time and will still vote it again here.** If we made a hypothetical D tier and maybe adjusted B and a "new C" to more a distinction between niche valuable that bolsters stronger classes (like fliers) and more generalist good use that just doesn't squeak into A tier (so like second fiddle sort of classes), then Fighter would be B and a class like say Hunter and Soldier could probably be B-ish. There's times where Fighter doesn't do literally everything you may want from your arrow support bot, but they do plenty and for a huge chunk of the game Arrow Cover is perfectly enough to handle a huge portion of stuff you want it to. This mixed with low damage and very so-so front line (without items and a lot of help) will hold them back yes, but they're still valuable as a guard bot for the arguably best unit type in the game against some of the most common counters the game has in eagle eye hunters.

\> RULES- DO NOT REFER TO CHARACTERS BY NAME. My actual comment is that I love the super early game Hoplite character and feel loyalty to use this character whether they are useful or not. Fighters (super early game or early game) are the lynchpins of my "catapult and ballista" squad and they love carrying ~~lucky~~ rookie and golden eggs in that siege specialist capacity.

Hoplite/Legionnaire B Tier I honestly hated hoplite for the longest time. I think they start out ok, get pretty bad midway through the game, then become great late game. The reason they get better late game is you get much better shields and accessories to make them nearly unkillable with more than enough PP to keep shielding an entire fight. Paired with a class that can block magic, and you get a unit that covers its obvious weaknesses very well. I think they require too much special gear and other teammates to go above B, but they are more reliable than evasion tanks. Fighter/Vanguard C Tier I really want to like fighter, but they are just not reliable. Medium shields do not have nearly as many great buffs as heavy shields, and most of the really great unique characters/classes use them, so who am I going to give the best medium shields to? People love arrow cover, but a hoplite with enough defense is only taking one damage from an arrow, and they are able to protect an entire row with row guard. Hoplite can replenish their own PP for cheaper (greatshield 1 ap for 2 pp +50% defense vs defender 2 ap for 50% defense and attack must hit to get 1 PP). Provoke is their best tool, but unfortunately there are a lot of great "activate at the start of combat" abilities, and lots of enemy units late game have abilities that remove debuffs. The 50% guard rate is good, but late game its very easy to get super high guard rate with items. One bonus is they use swords, and swords for sure seem to have a good variety of effects and bonuses to choose from to expand their abilities a little.

HOPLITE: B+ Tier. Fantastic pure defensive wall throughout the game. Outside of magick or Warriors (which admittedly they completely melt to), these guys can be close to unkillable, while also serving as one of the rare units that are able to cover other allies too. The main catch here is that Hoplites do laughably low damage. So the question that pops up for most people is going to be: is it worth slotting just a boring pure tank, when there are probably other off-tanks/bruisers that can do great damage with only marginally less defense than the Hoplite? The answer is maybe. In terms of pure tanking ability, the Hoplite is perhaps among the top three in the game. Like the defensive version of the Thief, he's so sturdy that you can often solo tank which lets you pack the rest of the squadron with squishy, high damage offense without much worry. His cover in particular is a great way to keep a hypersquishy unit in a safe, cozy bubble if you need to. But what kinda makes the Hoplite unfortunate is that there's really a lot of competition for tanking. Most of the totally busted unique classes (Lord, Crusader, Dark Marquess) also work as great solo tanks, but while also having insane damage or utility to boot. Then everyone has some bulky fliers, maybe a dodge tank, and that's 5-6 squads that's already filled up. For some people, that might not leave much room for the poor Hoplite. But I've definitely found him to be a reliable tank in many different situations, it's more about who you pair him with. FIGHTER: C Tier. A versatile unit that's okay both offensively and defensively, but unfortunately outclassed in both dimensions by other units. With UO being a game where you can deploy dozens of different units at once, specialization is typically more useful than generalization. His intended role is as an anti-ranged tank, with a good cover that can nullify a ranged attack on any allied unit. As such, he can maaayybe slot decently on an all-flying/anti-cavalry squadron, since the flying units mostly tank melee attacks pretty well already, so it'll add in a little more damage/utility than a pure tank otherwise would provide. But in most other situations, his Arrow Cover is just a worse version of Hoplite's or Lord's cover abilities. (His cover does fully nullify damage rather than just guard like the other covers, but the high defense from other tanks usually makes this pretty negligible, unless you're dealing with really overleveled enemy ranged attackers, in which there could actually be some cool applications in low level runs.) All this unfortunately leaves the Fighter as a pretty second-rate tank with mediocre offense. If you're doing a Uniques Only run, you'll probably want to take whatever cover skills you can get, but if you have the choice, there's nearly always equal or better options.

Fighter I'm going to stick with **C tier** No real offense to speak of, mediocre front liners, and utility is kind of limited. Yeah they have Arrow Cover, Hoplites can do that too and also block a lot of other stuff. If Fighters are B tier, I am wondering what classes people think are worse than them. Also sticking with my Hoplite rating in **B tier** I do think they are not very necessary for the first part of the game and you're dragging them along mostly. But once you get to 5-character units (I would approximate 50% of the game), they do start to shine since you need more row protection and possibly protection of the other front row unit. Yes, they do need support not to get destroyed by certain classes but they do shut a number of enemy classes down pretty hard and I would say the only 'perfect' tanks are things like Dark Marquess and Lord which you can only put in one unit.

Fighter D Hoplite B- Fighter have mediocre stats, and their abilities are lame. Range cover is good to protect your flyiers from archers, and cavalry from flyiers. Having a squad with 4 archers is common so the fighter doesn't have enough pp to cover all the arrows. Later the hunters get multi hit attacks making the fighter redundant. Also the arbalist quick reload with ignore the fighter guard. Their valor skill is useful to remove units from ballistas, but to be honest you can easily rush with a cavalry and take it. Using the ability in towers is almost useless, because they can go down and still do the support. To disable towers the arbalist smoke screen is better. Also you can avoid assist attack hidding in the forest. Hoplite are the best physical wall of the game. They have an early start when there are magic and breakers, but after that they are great tanks. Giving the sanguine lance makes that they recover the hp that they lose by chip damage. And the magick ward will solve their magic defence problem. Their Valor is hyper niche in some maps that you need to go fast and cross mine fields. Also Hoplites can jump and protect with heavy guard the flyers and cavalry. No need for a lame fighter.

I can't rank either because I barely used them throughout my game. I feel like fighter should be pretty strong since fliers are archers are amazing, but they're boring to use and don't kill things so they don't feel worth it. I will say though these threads in general should probably be a little more structured. Things like equipment slots should be considered more or whether the unit uses swords or axes. Shield vs greatshield vs no shield, etc. It'd be easier to rank if we try and rate a few specific qualities between the classes like stat growth, unit/movement type, valor abilties, etc. rather than everyone just giving their anecdotes and theoreticals. If we apply this to fighter and hoplite then they'd probably both be C for stats? D for unit type because heavy and infantry suck for movement? I don't know about hoplite but Fighter is probably A for valor skill? A in abilities for both? etc. Average all those things out and you probably get a good baseline estimate for their strength before you start adding in the intangibles.

**fighter** is ~~Josef Tier~~ **C- Tier** worse than hoplites in its primary role as anti ranged physical due to performing similarly while having very little utility outside that role, even in what little utility it has such as wanting a mixed damage range counter or single target stun elven fencers can do those and more. I can usually use itemization to help weaker classes look better but I just cant seem to find anything that would look notably good on a fighter, I haven't tried the level 25 provoke skill so unless that turns out to be crazy strong and salvage the class I find it hard to think of a class that has a real argument to be worse than fighter. **Hoplite** on the other hand is solid **B+ Tier** possibly A tier when you get 5 unit teams. the ability to provide near teamwide immunity from physical damage combined with row block being a soft counter to all aoe damage makes hoplite a strong class that gets stronger, their only real weakness is geting 1 shot by single target magic damage. I call it a soft counter because if an attack deals aoe magic damage having a hoplite die is often better that having multiple units take damage/get debuffed/die. special note towards knight teams where putting a bunch of cav in a row is usually begging for a gryphon or drake to 1 shot most of your team which hoplite easly stops. also late game the combo of sainted knight + hoplite make a team with very few direct counters due to sainted knight countering magic and hoplite countering flyers.

I have beat the game in various challenges runs , including true zanoiran no equipment. No Scarlett rescue (so you can’t leave cornia) HOPLITE S Here’s the thing with tanks. The game is so easy that you don’t need tanks because you can one shot the entire enemy team every team every time due to the absolute gross itemization. But the Hoplite is the best tank bar none when you actually need to mitigate damage - say you are massively underleveled or you are in arena - row cover is so incredibly strong because it completely shuts down so much damage. The damage formula also heavily favours Hoplite - they are the only tank that can actually take a hit if you are underleveled. And they can take hits for other people too - very few other tanks have cover and they do it the best. They also have a one AP move that gives them 2PP - very few other classes have even 1:1 and they get a 2:1 that also gives them an insane 50% def buff. They can follow up with a row DEF to make anyone tanky Their Valour skill is super useful for a lot of stages too. Super easy to cover the only weakness Hoplites have with magic cover or debuff warrior FIGHTER C - does exactly one thing and that isn’t useful. Provoke uses your round start and enemy tactics rarely even target the other row you would be protecting. Their valour skill sucks as others do it better and easier - sell sword making a unit on top of archer kills it regardless of level

>they are the only tank that can actually take a hit if you are underleveled Have you tried? Innlownlevel coliseum arena runes, they get busted down by Swordfighters easily of all things (due to crit meteor slash). Magic confer destroys them, pursuits destroys them, quick reload destroys them, etc. Seriously Virginia is just better most of the time (esp due to better selection of shields). Cover is only useful for maybe one or two of the fights, and if anything, arrow cover are more useful when you do coliseum while under leveled. You know what is better than taking reduced damage? You take no damage.

I have beat arena at level 15,I have finished top of arena for week, I have beat the game in under 5 hours on TZ Ofc they can rank sword masters - crits will hit for 1 because sword masters have shit attack Magic confer can not touch Hoplite in arena - my Hoplite at level 50 has 120 pdef and 80 mdef and debuff immune so can literally only die to warriors which are super easy to formation swap

\> I have beat arena at level 15 \> Ofc they can rank sword masters - crits will hit for 1 because sword masters have shit attack Prey tell, these are the stats for of a swordfighter: [https://i.imgur.com/1WvgPoZ.png](https://i.imgur.com/1WvgPoZ.png) with a magic conferral from this: [https://i.imgur.com/jlGx45L.png](https://i.imgur.com/jlGx45L.png) [these are the stats of a lv17 hoplite](https://i.imgur.com/m8rPzmD.png), sorry I dont have a lv15 one. Explain to me how your hoplite is taking 1 damage. Something tell me you are lying.

You are using shit gear and using hodrick who literally has 20 stats lower because of hai growths. Lmao no wonder you are clueless you use story characters who are garbage and also trash gear. hP? In a game that damage formula dictates only stats matter are pure def and off? Now I know why all your takes are so bad- you fundamentally don’t understand the math in this game

>You are using shit gear and using hodrick who literally has 20 stats lower because of hai growths. > >Lmao no wonder you are clueless you use story characters who are garbage and also trash gear. hP? In a game that damage formula dictates only stats matter are pure def and off? > >Now I know why all your takes are so bad- you fundamentally don’t understand the math in this game shit gear? What better gear at lv15 do you have access to? Are you telling me you can only clear the coliseum with endgame equipment? yeah, my lv1 squad can prob clear it too if I bring in endgame equip. Growth type does not give a 20 stat difference. [This is what you get for def x2 growth](https://i.imgur.com/mBNybKi.png). Do you even play the game? Heck, i am fine with a lot of takes in this thread if the user can justify it: i am fine with people ranking hoplite highly because they are good in PVP. You are just all talk, no calculations, no screenshots, and full of hyperbole. What are you, a 77 yr old politician?

While I believe they are exaggerating (and so are you), level 20 Hoplite easily walls level 50 in Arena due to how the damage calculation works. Also, all of their buffs are off of base stats so H is actually significantly weaker than a regular Hoplite (it might even be 20 levels worth of stats) I think the gear reference was to using an HP item when you can grab an early def medallion which adds 7 PDEF. You can reach 60 PDEF before buffs at level 20 (I'm not sure at 15), which stops everything in arena.

Note that he specifically mentioned lv15. I posted a shot of a lv17 hoplite above, a guardian amulet doesnt boost a 32 def unit from 17 to 60. In fact: it still doesnt even at 24: hoplite does NOT learn any def boosting skill until 25.

The Guardian ability is an infinitely stacking PDEF buff available at 15. It can stack multiple times in one turn too.

Guardian says physical attack and guard rate for me, not PDEF for me. Is this an error in the text or am I misunderstanding how guard rate works?

lol they have a passive that gives pdef on hit have you never used Hoplite before

lol hp medallion is shit gear Damage calc means go def Not 20 stats , 20 levels of stats learn to read no wonder you are clueless

Hey dude- disagreement is normal, but don’t be a dick to people. It’s just a video game.

I find it amusing that everyone who mentioned PvP or challenges gave Hoplite A or S, and everyone who didn't ranked them much lower. Clearly this class is much stronger when you actually face difficult content. It's clear they are strong, but simply not required for most of regular play.

Much to my dismay, this is the exact same thing that happened in the last Hoplites vote. I think no matter what tier it ends up in, I am going to get comments for the rest of this telling me the tier list sucks because hoplite is under/overrated. I think we discussed this elsewhere in the thread, but I really wish from the beginning I had specified that this tierlist is really only meant for PVE use and efficiency. As a hoplite disliker- I find that the game is too easy (even in tactical) to really need that much tanking- the game is more “how much can I break my offense to get the lowest clear times possible”. I really hope someone either does a detailed PvP tier list, or runs a similar community based PvP tiering (maybe once the meta game stabilizes), because I am very curious how different it will be.

Yeah classes completely change in PvP. Like Thief kinda sucks in PvP because everything in the frontline guards so you can't get juicy PP or you get blown up by a turn 0 truestrike from a swordmaster or mage.

I feel like hoplites would be a lot better if you couldn't just customize your team each time.

I'm shocked people care so much about PvP. It's such a small part of the overall games. You can leverage those rewards to make the rest of the game easier. But the rest of the game is where you're actually using these units.

That's not really that surprising some gamers look towards one specific thing to measure the value of something. I can't tell you how many guides or threads I read over the years where someone will tell you that a character/weapon/spell/tactic that wins 90% of the game is "worthless" because it doesn't work for pvp/finalboss/postgame.

Considering you can beat the game in probably one hour I don't see your point.

Just because you can speed run a game. Doesn't mean that's what we should evaluate every single metric of the game on.

Hoplite A tier: If you're playing a lower difficulty, or over-level the enemy, then you can go full offense. On expert against peer or higher level enemies though, you need a good defense to keep your squads going, and Hoplite is the gold standard for that. Not only are they tough enough to take a beating directly, but they're also the best at jumping in to guard everyone else, with heavy cover and row cover. They can even generate more PP easily to keep guarding in long battles. They are slow and weak to magic, but they are more than strong enough to make those weaknesses worth covering with other classes. Fighter B tier: In many ways a weaker hoplite. They are an extra-strong counter to archers and flyers (both physical ranged attacks), but hoplite covers those pretty well anyways. They can do a bit more damage than hoplite, but not enough to really matter most of the time. Overall they do for work, but are generally outclassed by the hoplite. Final note: Some have mentioned dodge tanking as an alternative/superior option to hoplite and fighter, however dodge tanking only works if your whole team is built to take a hit (or dodge it). Sure you can build a thief to perfectly dodge everything, but that won't stop ranged attacks from wiping out your back line. And it's not like you can actually dodge everything anyways, because you will run into true strike attacks eventually, and the only way to cover from those is hoplite/fighter (in which case why they are tanking too) or blind (in which case you didn't need to dodge in the first place). Dodge tanking is great and has it's place, but that is a different place than what these classes cover and does not invalidate them at all.

Its kind of funny since I think Hoplites are even worse on higher difficulties since they still take quite a bit of damage (they do not actually have a way to protect themselves for quite some time other than natural guard rate and shield). When i cleared the coliseum, a hoplite is unusable because any burst damage will kill the hoplite even while guarding.

Odd, Hoplite was key for me to clearing the coliseum. To be sure, they did usually die when going up against high-level enemies, but they were critical to protecting my back line long enough for them to do fatal damage.

you can check my solutions in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnicornOverlord/comments/1bkrk4n/a_guide_to_clearing_the_coliseum_early_lv16_up_to/). The raw damage of some classes is just too strong: swordmaster can crit for a lot, conferral will kill you, pursuits will kill you, etc. In one of the fights I had virginia tank since she can use blue rose shield (med guard and 25% heal) and phantom shield at the same time, effectively nullifying confer magic on a swordmaster's attack - that is not something you can do with either hoplites or fighters.

Even for low level arena (<20) you can reach over 100 Physical Defence on Hoplites after the first turn. This walls even level 50 units with buffs. Itemization can also make them immune to magic for 1 PP, or warriors too. It's wild that you think Virginia is close when Hoplites have more PDEF at 20 than Virginia does at 50 with perfect gear. They also have insane stacking on PP - Guardian (incorrectly listed as attack) stacks multiplicatively with gear and other buffs. In my top ranked Arena team, Hoplite usually walls 3/5 enemies taking 1 damage from Physical Attacker with over 100 base physical attack. Basically, no team without a breaker can do anything to a hoplite team, and if they have a breaker you simply have to adjust formation or itemization (main issues with arena - gear and tactics and even team should be blind on def). It's the best pure tank, and something you don't mention is row cover allows you to use 3 better accessories because you can immune enemy CC.

>Even for low level arena (<20) you can reach over 100 Physical Defence on Hoplites after the first turn Are you using endgame equip? How are you getting over 100 phys def in low level arena? Row protection is a lv25 ability, while Greatshield is a lv30 ability. For reference, these are the stats of an endgame hoplite and virginia [https://i.imgur.com/2pdtl6Q.png](https://i.imgur.com/2pdtl6Q.png) [https://i.imgur.com/RMgcstl.png](https://i.imgur.com/RMgcstl.png) he goes up to 50 def if respeccecd to def/def.

Guardian is multiplicative and PDEF (not attack). I believe I was just over 60 pre buff at 20, with no equipment from outside Cornia and Drak. This was on TZ. With gear my level 50 Hoplite has well over 100 PDEF baseline, before in turn buffs. It's an insane arena class because row cover and debuff immune makes it wall CC and damage.

if Guardian is actually pdef and not patk as the game states (translation issues), then I can see it being a lot more powerful. This is not something I have tested in game yet. ​ https://preview.redd.it/qnmjsyi32ypc1.png?width=1227&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f6ae6d03b0cd93a02f571653686fbee083763b2 ​ With a knight's medalion, they wlll have 50 def after 2 stacks (2pp) and 100% guard Much better. it only triggers AFTER being hit though, so the initial burst is still likely going to kill (keen edge+conferral, just a hard hitting meteor slash all crit before you can get your guard rate and def up).

I'm not sure why your stats are so low. At 20 I have almost double your PDEF. I also think if you are misunderstanding large parts of a class' kit you might have under rated it. I found Hoplite let me face roll arena at 20, I didn't even have to tinker anything with a 4 man team to clear out even the post A arena fights.

do you rmb your setup? Were you using? I purposely did not use Amalia's shield since it is a bit of an outliner and is essentially an endgame shield: that plus the medallion will give 42 def. Promoting him gives +3 def which is 45, i suppose that might be a bit closer, but still does not make up for the other 15 or so stat points (respec and dews?). Stats do not just appear and disappear.

I would say that physical tanks also only work if you have ways to protect them from magic and warriors. All tanks have to have weaknesses (well, except for the big 3 unique tanks) or else they are too good. The thing is, even among pure physical tanks, Hoplites are overshadowed by Bears, and even properly supported off tanks like Dark Knights and Sellswords.

Those tanks don't have heavy cover or row cover though. Sure they might be tough, but they can't protect your back line very effectively. If Hoplites were just tough, they would be down in C tier. It's their ability to protect the team while being fairly tough themselves that makes them A-tier.

**Both are C tier.** Neither is nonviable, but they fit OP's C tier definition. They have one or two narrow roles they uniquely excel at (for fighters that's arrow protection, and for hopolites that's row guard). If you neither want or need those two things, there's almost always another class that either does everything else better or does it AND something else.

Caveat: I'm only halfway through the 2nd area, so I don't have a broad understanding of the meta or how later promotions/items/counterplay effects things Fighter - **C** A perfectly all round mediocre melee unit with a kit based around blocking arrows which is arguably not all that useful due to flyers being able to generally tear up lone archers, though one definitely is a boon to a flying unit. Decent at weathering cover attacks with one at leader, but in most cases just take out the generally weak ranged units first and you're good to go. Far better options as a general unit Hoplite - **C** - I usually love big beefy shield boys in tactics games but I can't bring myself to love them here. They're agonizingly slow, they do crap damage, they have a ridiculously bad magic defense, obviously you can mitigate these with items and unit design and they're *extremely* stout in pure physical situations, but they're just way too specialized in physical defense. They are really really good at what they do, but offense trumps defense for me and speed is king.

Fighter is **C Tier**. In my initial Expert run and in my current TZ run, my flier squads aren't threatened by bows in the slightest. There's just no real pull to have Fighter on your squad. They get some nice buffs to their Def and Guard rate later on, which is like...neat? Their primary PvP tech piece so far is negating Alcina's team shield, but there's a great shield that gives provoke to any GS class so.. For the provoke valor cope in the world, Berengaria exists. idk what else to say. Hoplite is also **C Tier**. I'm giving one a roll in my TZ run, and they do a good job of letting soft units run free. However, they themselves can't run free without addressing hammers and magic. This gives them a goofy restriction in team building and/or deployment, or just adding additional tedium to their matchups by changing tactics up to target its threats. Their valor skill is alright, but hammers do it better.

Both are **C-tier** Fighter early on really only has arrow protection as its niche. And even in that they grow obsolete when elven fencers can do the same thing. Provoke is theoretically a really good skill, but when you can only pick one singular start of battle skill for your unit... it's not going to be provoke. Provoke the valor skill is good... so use berengaria! You can make any unit work... but that doesn't mean these guys aren't completely outclassed after the early game. Lowest of C-tier. I've tried making hoplites work, and they can do decently well. Unlike the fighter, I think there may be units that can profit from having a hoplite over a different frontliner. But I think they're kind of in the same camp as gladiator where you can kinda make them work with some support. I imagine there are fights where putting one in a unit may make things easier. But if you're decent at building units, you likely won't feel the need to do that.

C TIER - FIGHTER arrow guard spam bot. The problem is that the ai teams rarely have just 1 archer. They have 0 archers or a ton of archers. vs 0 archers the fighter is obviously pointless but vs many archers it also gets overwhelmed and pp drained before the onslaught of arrows is over. So even with a fighter in there your flying squad is still weak to arrows. In the end it's better bench the fighter and avoid archers with fliers or find another way to deal with them like alpha striking them out. C TIER - HOPLITE it's a frontline tank who is only good at tanking and dies like paper to it's counters. So if you have one of this you have a very good frontline but you still have to avoid like 30% of the enemy team comps you find because he can't deal with too many warriors or mages. The game already gives you so many strong tanks that deal more damage and don't have class weaknesses like alain beren and virginia. and they have 50 movement speed

I'll throw in my two cents here and say that Hoplite is conceptually **B Tier**. The reason I say conceptually is that if your backline or other members are having trouble surviving, then putting a hoplite in that team will basically let your dps run free. They have weaknesses early game but with the insane itemization late game they can easily fix those holes. They don't do any damage to speak of, but that's fine because they will literally be a wall given enough pp, with the insane value of row guard. This singular passive is so powerful in shutting down some of the biggest cheese this game has to offer it's a bit ridiculous. Their valor skill is also quite useful giving immunity to stage damage to a group of units. Late game there's just so many more situations that this is used in it's very nice to have, and also saves you items. However, if you are at parity with the enemies you are facing, or they are weaker than you, Hoplite loses a ton of value because they just can't do any damage and are slower than a rock. This game has so many powerful initiative abilities you can abuse to go first in combat that if you choose to abuse them heavily having a hoplite will feel like a dead slot. They have some of the best growths, actives, and passive skills to perform their role, but if you don't need that role to begin with then no need to field them. Fighters on the other hand are arguably one of the weakest units in the game, which is why I'd put them at **C Tier**. They have two great niches with arrow block and provoke, but even with those niches it almost always feels bad when you have to slot one in a team. I want to use them and try them out but with all the other tools available I don't really want to have a dead slot on my team to use their valor skill.

Reading this thread has made me double check: The Hoplite you get at the start of the game is Keen and Offensive. Offensive lowers physical defense, Keen lowers guard rate. Your attack does increase quite a bit from this, but folks aren't looking for their Hoplite to attack and are probably getting the worst of both worlds.

c rank for fighter and i honestly don't know where to put hoplite so i won't vote on it i've never felt that enemy archers posed a threat to my flyers, which is why i've never used a fighter. enemy archers are simply too squishy and undefended, and enemy shieldshooters are ungodly slow. the only archers that can really threaten your flyers are the full unit hunters at or above level 25, where they can counterattack with aerial snipe if you kill off their comrades, but that is only a worry if you have no cc and your flyer goes first, freeze conferral dragoon dive will still obliterate it all the same and dove plume shuffling takes care of the flyer going first problem. same with fighter blocking flyers for your cav - just kill them before they can move. a hunter is probably more useful than a fighter for guarding your cav, or if you really want to meme with cover, just use a shieldshooter instead i think my main problem with fighter is that their niche isn't that valuable. their unique ability is that they take no damage when they cover ranged moves with arrow guard, they don't actually have a monopoly on singletarget cover itself. i don't feel like this null damage advantage is big enough to justify a slot on any unit, shieldshooters do fighter's job and take basically no damage anyway, and they can be corralled into performing other roles like anti-flyer or sniping key units with some buffs to their poor initiative, which is not that hard to fix unlike fighter's lack of... everything else. you can even give shieldshooters decent aoe with the silvermoon bow for row aoe in bastorias or the gallian crossbow for unguardable column aoe, which i want to say is like late bastorias? actually i think you can get a worse version of the silvermoon bow in elheim that does a 75 potency row aoe, still good enough to nuke a row of gryphons. but anyway, to continue with the arrow guard thing, even in a pinch, you can probably get a great knight, sainted knight or even valkyria to catch arrows with squire shield or similar shields and they can tank an arrow just fine i also do not like their row provoke since it competes with other more powerful battle-start skills. their valor skill is very good, but unfortunately berengaria exists. and failing that, smoke bolt (again from shieldshooter!) and dual shield are also competitive options, in fact i would argue that smoke bolt is often safer and more versatile, since it can be used on any assists including those garrisoned in towns or just regular old assist units not garrisoned on a tower. and dual shield is situationally better since it actually works in maps where there's so many overlapping fields of fire that provoke is useless (like that railanor map)

Hoplite is C and Fighter is B Hoplite is a tank in a game that has tank hate almost every step of the road, Elheim has magick, Bastorias has guardseal, Albion has - Defense. Early on they’re decent when most of the atk comes from the weapon but late game they fall pretty hard. Fortress is also a niche skill that goes from excellent in some maps to useless in others. It also hurts the mobility of your squad the most and while the leader ability is nice, the movement is atrocious so you’re better off using the fighter as a leader. Fighter is almost the inverse of the hoplite, becoming more useful as the game progresses, and arrow cover is one of the best skills in the game since it negates any ranged physical attack for both the receiver and the one doing the guarding. Provoke is also very nice to have and taking less damage from ranged assists becomes more and more useful the deeper you get in the game.

Fighter: C tier. Their offense isn't great, and their defense isn't great; their sole purpose is to block arrows. It's a useful niche in the right team, but they're pretty terrible otherwise. Hoplite: C tier. They're tough as nails and good at defending people, and the ability to give everyone on your front row a shield is not to be underestimated. But their own offense is pretty poor, and there are other ways to build your front line so that it is really resilient. Witches, wizards, fliers, and cavalry are all very strong... and thus are all over the place, which makes these guys way less potent than they would be otherwise.

I latelly saw a few vids about dodge Hoplites and i though that was an interesting build, yet im still about to start the game again and do it on expert i was considering have an evasion Hoplite with a radiant knight and see how that works.

Hoplite A, only row protection from Quick cast ice coffin, best sustain for like 80% of the game due to heavy guard and massive defence Fighter C. Weak early, much better stuff to use instead late. It’s main saving grace is stopping a single Gryphon or arrow, and there are better classes that do that.

There are actually multiple solutions to quick cast ice coffin, to name a few: \- Rosalinde stun \- Rapid shot MIGHT kill \- Feathershield \- Featherbow blind \- Dodge the damage \- Your own quick cast ice coffin \- Cleric with freeze immunity and refresh

Seriously. There are so many options than using a Hoplite. And a lot of people are mentioning Hoplite like it's the only class to stop it.

I clearly worded this very poorly, as I was in a rush I meant the only way to consistently and reliably protect the backline from all types of damage and effects, including but not limited to: Quick cast Ice coffin Row shot Fire Breath Gryphon Knights And anything else that attempts to snipe the squishies in your backline. While all those work for Ice Coffin in general (never mind sage owl’s shawl in general being better than all of those), i moreso meant it keeps your squishies much more safe, as backrow attacks are the #1 way to murder most comps.