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Our way of tiering units is meant to be as close to objective as possible. While maintaining true objectivity is impossible, dicussed below here is our criteria for how we judge units for their placement. Of course, you are free to disagree or view things differently than us. However, the point of this little article is to explain our viewpoint and why we place units when they do in a more concrete manner. Just a few things to note below...
ALL UNITS ARE ASSUMED 25 LUCK W/ MAX REIN BUFFS AND STANDARD BUFFS
NUMBERS WISE: Magic number for LWs when translated between our calc and in-game stuff tends to be at around 2.2mil to "pass." Though having such a low cap is obviously far from ideal, which can end up docking points.
Killer ranges: Generally to "pass" a character would like to hit at least 1/3-1/2 of the same, so around 180ish characters. 180 flat is not good, it still docks points, but it would be "passing" in the sense of a D on a report card.
1. Unit cost is ignored, as is the capability for one unit to replace another.
Take for instance Mima and A6& Rumia. Objectively, A6& Rumia is simply Mima but worse in almost every way (except acc) despite being the same cost, but this is not held particularly against Rumia. Our viewpoint is that this list simply shows each units' capabilities without assuming the existence of units that completely outclass them, whether or not in their own element. As another point, F1 Reimu is infamously outclassed by the modern yin/sun options such as Gengetsu, L80 Kasen and Cf1# Reimu, but she remains in High A despite their existence as what she provides is enough to get her there. Trying to make a tierlist that factors in both cost and replacement, which is essentially a SYP (should you pull) list muddies waters and complicates things a lot. Our mindset is it would be better to have a (close to) objective resource that outlines each unit for what they provide, and then having players discuss and make decisions based then. (Just in case this didn't get the point across, imagine being new and having A6& Rumia, but not Mima. In the system outlined above, Rumia would be placed in C and you would be made to think she is unusable garbage when she still has A-worthy capabilities.) Where being replaced/outclassed does become a problem is when story cards can replace units, as at that point the unit becomes more of a waste of a slot and resources.
2. The primary source of judgement on this list is capability in Divergent Sprits.
Characters that can Duo or Solo farm DS stages in 3 turns, or provide a lot in DS120 stages, are the most favourably looked upon by us as that is the content we have to go on that is the most consistent and commonly made to evaluate units with. If a character needs is very trio-reliant, that is held against them as it means they do not have the damage, support, breaks, and/or utility to go solo/duo and thus need more to get them working. We are aware that most people do not try to make 10sp duo farms and most people use trios. The point of the tierlist isn't to be for those who do, because those people generally don't need a tierlist. Instead, it is to have a semi-consistent baseline to hold units against and judge them accordingly. Now, as for Eternal Battle, it is also ranked to an extent, but with far less 'points' scored than DS. This is because it is wildly different, being much more prone to having specific units be shilled, and is very inconsistent and uncommon. It also needs very different requirements, thus trying to account it too much proves unuseful. As for gamemode like Arena, Tower, and Moriya Unmapped: these gamemode are simply too easy and have different requirements, thus they are not accounted for (also giving usually worse rewards.)
Extra Note on how Pros/Cons are Listed, Going down the Unit List
Generally, we tend to judge the units in EX-S on a harsher scale compared to units below them. This is due to a combination of factors, being that lower tier units generally have less to talk about and overall are less capable of accomplishing any designated task, while at the same time units in higher tiers are supposed to be more universal. Anything that hurts said universability will be judged in a harsher lens as it tends to go further in limiting their potential than units below them. For example, C3 Tenshi not having Attack Anomalies is docked as a con against her while it isn't mentioned for anyone below B. This is because, as an S tier unit (as of writing) she has the POTENTIAL to be great, but has a major thorn in her side in that she is extremely weak to buff cleansing situations. Attack anomalies would have greatly helped her in retaining her buffs (like C3 Yuyuko) but as she can't she ends up being considerably more reliant on party members to function as a result. Meanwhile, for your average B tier unit, they generally don't even have half of Tenshi's damage potential, so missing Attack Anomalies isn't a big deal in the end. This can apply to anything, like being susceptible to paralyze or having inoptimal skill layouts.
With that out of the way, how we judge units is as follows:
Explaining how tiering is done:
Tiering tldr: Tiering is done by using sort of a checklist to combine objective factors and to see how well they are in addition to what is missing
Step 1: What does the unit do?
In this step look at the unit's kit and observe what they actually do. High damage? High breaks? Support? Debuffing? Etc High damage, somewhere in the 4mil+ on realistic with 1000 base defense. 6+ breaks on decent cooldowns. Etc.
Examples:
Unit has poor last word damage, good debuffing, solid buffing and breaking. That is what they are designed to do.
Unit has great aoe damage, aoe breaking on all spells, damage, support, and solid debuffing.
Step 2: Take said strengths and compare them to objective in practice elements.
Take those strengths, and then see their "realistics" and how good said strengths actually are. This step is the longest.
Assumptions: As is safe to assume and easy to tier for. We assume a player has the needed number of bis cards and the highly recommended cards that were stated would be amazing and should be farmed/pulled for. Its hard to tier for anything but this, as say we ignored it but you were a lucky few who kept grinding and found themselves with a lucky card or two that can really carry a unit. Suddenly for you a unit would be much better. So in that instance who do we tier for? The common player who will be attempting to catch up with you or you who the common player will eventually reach (hopefully). As ds is valued by far the most, we will judge based on given factors like buff remove every gauge and such.
Examples:
Lastword damage is especially bad 1.6mil cap. Realistics (non fb def down included buffs included) unit hits a resounding 10% of the usual 1.3mil for modern level 100. Further more unit shows unreliability in killer. Due to the lack of damage, their ability to duo is extremely low.
Debuffing is the highest in the game, -10 given proper card, skill use, and last word use. Additionally, it is extremely reliable.
Killer is also very low, 30% of ds and 33% of the game in the current state. Unreliable.
Buffs are solid for one gauge. Post buff removal and due to the lack of buffs from ability and pre effect their support falls of a cliff. Card usage is quite reliable due to quick + breaking utility being good. Making them worth running in that role.
in trios, which is the only place this unit can function, such things are not of concern, so unit will fall into around B tier at this stage.
Unit has 100% storedpower for 3t, perfectly reliable assuming their Rank I buff throughout gauges is at least competent.
Unit needs x amount of buffs to make it to the expected damage requirements.
Step 3: Not at first glance/advanced checks (at this point, this takes me the most time)
This step is usually almost exclusively a check of utility and is a thing ever since mvmu was invented. Youre basically checking "does everything agree" or finer details. If unit is shaping up to be a B tier aoe spell nuker with a st lw. Can they actually do that in practice before in practice tests happen. Is what they give on paper worth it compared to what you could be doing / will be fighting. Are their pros valuable for the current tier given?
Example: Unit has 100% stored power, tied to barrier which is unfortunate. However, the remainder of their kit's buffs dont let this be a true positive When used as a buffer with their damage skill they lack the other tier one buffs for the role so youd need to bring a tier 1 buffer shafting them leading to them being replaced in practice by a truly relevant t1 buffer.
Example: Unit has an amazing aoe spell which can somewhat supplement the loss of an aoe last word. However, their raw speed makes it near impossible to get off in pratice. They just can't abuse the thing that would save them. In niche situations it can work out, however it is something to hold against them. So their pro of strong aoe spell doesnt pass the "is it valuable" question leading to another point of inconsistency. Resulting in a lower tier.
Example: Unit is pretty good in standard 3t situations. But beyond that scope. Unit also has incredible solo abilities thanks to their amazing yet thus far undervalued utility. Stuns, barriers, defense down to counter the spam of enemy defense up. Spells that reach their requirements. It is all there, as they have these abilities in addition to their already determined to be valuable abilities they should be given extra props for them.
Example: Imma be real, this unit is entirely damage, they have little to nothing that isn't obvious and the majority of the kit agrees with itself for their role. Damage is high enough for resisted nuking though. Giving them surprising out of element preformance.
Step 4: Tier specific questions.
You see those silly tier descriptions, do another check to see if the unit fits said definition to avoid small issues that can be hard to weed out.
Example: They have perfect preformance inside of their element. Geniuely amazing. However, based on their kit with the buffs and such in addition to 60% damage to resist they actually have the ability to nuke outside of element. Combined their killers theyre actually really really good at this.
Step 5: In practice
By this point, the unit is on the tierlist, however we still may not know if our assumptions and calculators included everything. So they are tested thoroughly and if nothing disagrees with our assumptions they remain where they are. If something changes, such the unit's kit does actually agree with itself and we just didn't think about it well enough. Then the tiering will change. As you can imagine this can be caused by anything. F1 mors can actually work in practice and was assumed not to because her t1 buffs suck? Well turns out they dont suck as badly, or rather, her scaling with the realistc t1 buffs she can obtain in most comps does actually get her by when calcs say they wouldnt.
Example: This unit can actually be used as the sole damage dealer when it looked like they couldn't. Their lack of t1 buffs is less of an issue than as calced and their ability to pull their damage off is better than calcs would assume.
Step 6: Congratulate yourself on tiering with as little bias as you can possibly think of.
Please ask any questions, this is heavily abridged. More accurately, the first two steps are a massive list of yes or no questions for the most part. This is just a simple way to think how we do.
