List topic 2019: Middle 1 is the attack of the Guy.

[superaielman]

Guy (FE7)
Guy (Lufia 2)
Guy (TotA)
Teddie (Pers4)
Squall (FF8)
Mario (SMRPG)
Ramza (FFT)
Crono (CT)
Alexia (XF)
Gryz (PS4)
Eiko (FF9)
Rose (LoD)
Nicholai (SH2)
Ursula (TAY)
Lightning (FF13)
Lux (7th Saga)

[Tide]

1. Guy (FE7) - Fast, Evasive, Damaging. Pretty good package overall! Only problem is of course, his actual defense sucks and is completely 1-d. But then again, several other people here are like that and they don't have FE7Guy's just solid statistical package.
2. Alexia (XF) - So couple of options here. Go first, go for 2HKO on average or cast Status Lock to shut down status whores. Has a modicum of evade to help out but is vulnerable to a couple of elements. I waffled a bit between Alexia or Crono being second, but I suspect Alexia's First Turn initiative is just more powerful in a vacuum.
3. Crono (CT) - So Crono doesn't even need first turn for status immunity (or a lot of it) thanks to Vigil Hats. He's also fast, has magic so he isn't completely shut down by 1 type of defense. The bad news is, he has lesser damage.
4. Lightning (FF13) - Medic is nice to keep afloat, but isn't a super strong healer. Otherwise well balanced for the division.
5. Teddie (Pers4) - Lightning turn lock is obviously bad and Teddie's damage being relegated to pure Ice hurts too. But the full, cheap healing and P4 buffs though...those are really good.
6. Mario (SMRPG) - So either halve damage with Ghost Medal if you allow it at the cost of dying to status or getting the blocker but losing the damage halving. His own actual damage is okay - just unspecial.
7. Eiko (FF9) - FF9 equip nonsense mainly. Damage is kind of costly and can be walled. Durability and overall stat mix needs work but she does have decent enough healing.
8. Squall (FF8) - Speaking of unspecial. Squall's easy to oversell or undersell due to FF8 scaling. However, ITE is good. Killer limit also good. Having solid damage due to auto-critting keeps him afloat. More toward the lower middle side now.
9. Guy (TotA) - Pretty crummy healing, meh durability but damage is passable. I guess he's basically a worse Squall since his OL can be walled and the damage output is worse and consumes resources.
10. Ramza (FFT) - Ramza's skillset really only works if he's facing stallers that don't have great damage. FFT equip options are solid, but he's almost bereft of a skillset here and he just really nothing but trying to outfox his opponents by monkeying with equips.
11. Gryz (PS4) - Has ID. But the rest of the package is just not good. Slow too.
12. Nicholai (SH2) - Has basically around the same HP as Saki but no limit. 3HKO damage maybe but nothing else, is elemental and no real other tricks I'm aware of. Basically VP2 Odin without the Soul Crush. Ooh boy.

Pretty close field I think? Had to think out a lot of them and there's no distinctive clear winner.

[superaielman]

1. Guy (FE)- Smash.
2. Ursula- Claw users have a lot of options, they can exploit elemental weaknesses and tend to be very durable. They win more than you'd expect.
3. Lightning- Not going to champ the division on average but very competent overall.
5. Crono- Speed is nice, as is the option to have physical or magic damage. But man he has problems against healers or thunder defense.
4. Lux- Durable, damaging with physicals and magic and can't be walled by elemental defense. It's a nice package.
5.Teddie- Competent but really hates thunder attacks or faster fighters. Buffing's not helpful as much as you'd expect due to the durability/speed combo. 
6. Mario- Saved by the Ghost Medal.
7. Alexia- As nice as first strike with a 2HKO is, her speed means that she has problems if she doesn't win a fight in two turns. Status lock saves her from getting smacked by third rate status slingers, but she's still vunerable to a damage blitz from Nash level sluggers to the speed/losing the first turn.
8. Gryz- ID is enough to get this high.
9. Guy (Lufia)- Doesn't like status but has a somewhat competent limit game.
10. Squall- Faster than Guy but Guy's got better limits.
11. Eiko- Hideously vunerable to faster fighters and her buffing is absolute trash. At least isn't 2HKOed by average.
12. Guy (TotA)- Center is... probably better than the stat topic says? Yeah. Slightly above average damage isn't great, even though I do respect the speed.
13. Nicholai- SH dumpster fire alert. I remember his last form basically doing nothing of note and getting smashed.
14. Ramza- Strictly a spoiler.
15. Rose- No starting SP. Auto loses to anyone faster with average damage and can't deal with evasion, ID protection or counters. Her durability is just appallingly bad and the 3HKO damage isn't helping matters either. Not sure if her or Ramza has the more offensive DL translation.

[Random Consonant]

May as well try to do this even though this sort of thing is a bit too fuzzy for my liking.

1. Rose (LoD) - I allow starting SP so this one is a duh.
2. Ursula (TAY) - Fast as hell/reasonably damaging/decent variety thanks to claws.
3. Guy (FE7) - One dimensional but he's very good at it.  Concrete durability is below average but it's not as bad as you'd expect.
4. Alexia (XF) - I kind of waffle here but initative and 2HKO damage is hard to ignore here, so pretty much agreeing with Tide here.  Has problems when she can't win quickly but so do most of these people.
5. Crono (CT)
6. Lux (7th Saga) - Pretty durable and the other areas don't offend.  Being statusable isn't great though.
7. Teddie (Pers4) - Nasty weakness to a common element and is neither fast nor durable, but certainly has the options to sneak up this far, I feel.
8. Gryz (PS4) - Accurate ID.  Has some rather notable problems otherwise, such as basically having NOTHING ELSE, but.
9. Mario (SMRPG) - Wholly unremarkable apart from the Ghost Medal.
10. Squall (FF8) - I have no clue how I feel about FF8 but this feels right for now.  ITE is at least something.
11. Eiko (FF9) - Wishes she had better resource depth or her status rates weren't terrible.  FF9 equip nonsense is something, at least.
12. Guy (Lufia 2) - I dunno, even with starting 50% IP I feel like I have trouble justifying him above anyone other than Ramza/Nicholai, the limit game is nasty in theory and certainly destroys anyone dumb/unversatile enough to run into it but Guy just leaves people with too many holes to exploit for it to amount to much in practice.  Is probably going to hate the day I unlazy enough to figure out what allowing scaled up spells/factoring what starting IP would theorhetically do to the damage average to boot.
13. Ramza (FFT) - Spoiler options but largley not good.
14. Nicholai (SH2) - Is pretty much a Light by my interps.

[Dhyerwolf]

1. Rose- I let her start with 2 SP, so she has turn 1 ID off slightly above average speed. Against ID immune, Fear is a neat back up trick if it works.
2. Ursula- 110% HP, 143% Speed, 39% Holy Physical or 37% Ice/Thunder/Fire Phys or 37% NE + 33% <Adj> Confuse (good for healer busting). Resistances: Thunder 70%, Paralysis Null (Also Toad/Blind/Mini/Petrify). Not the highest damage, but speed is so good plus plus Confuse could cause an effective 4-1 turn split
3. Crono 3.6. 140% Speed with 3hKO Magic or Physicals + Anti Status. Definitely underrated his physical when I ranked him. Could still have MP woes v healers
4. Gryz- 81% ID. Not generally winning on damage, although he 3HKOs and has decent Pdur + Fire Halving (or can have some mental status resistance). I think the general ability to kill on turn 1 is still enough to him up pretty high up. Not saying he's a Heavy, but there are Heavy with nothing else but super accurate ID
5. Guy- 92% Pdur, 83% MDur, 56%! Evade, which means 2HKO goes to 4HKO and 3HKO goes to like a 7HKO and it gets worse if the initial attack isn't 100% accurate. Damage averages near on 40%. Weak to status though (which would hurt against someone like Eiko, this hurts him more compared to when I initially ranked based on new status views) and I guess there might be more piercing ITE around that I would expect (although I don't think I'd see either Squall's or Alexia's getting best his evade, so maybe now)
6. Mario (SMRPG)- 51.6% Magic Damage, 40% Physical, Effectively 2 PC Dur, Slow Turn 1 but converges to average. Kind of similar durability often in practice to Guy
7. Nicholai (SH2)- 56% Phys and 51% Magic and I am bad at rings, so his HP is actually pretty decent to me.
8. Alexia (XF)- 87% HP, 60% effectively ITE Physical, Initiative but 60% Speed (which improves +3.5% a turn), 3 Turn Status/Stat Down Lock...Now, this does depend on taking Tony at face value but not including any generics, but she at least 2HKOs regardless. If might matter a fair amount regarding speed since it will factor into who will double her after turn 1. Assuming this package works better than Squall/Guy in terms of weigh killing quickly versus healer busting.
9. Squall (FF8)- 55% ITE Physical and Beats Tie Break Speeds. Murder damage below 33% HP. Think the ITE aspect edges him out over Guy
10. Guy (Lufia 2)- 120% HP, 85% Speed, 46% Phys  (once Selan is using the equips that she would be in the default damage average). Starts with 26% of IP bar, so needs 39% for Deadly Smash with is a loss of 62% HP (or leaving Guy 46% of average HP remaining)
11. Ramza- Scrapes a 3HKO at default (or 4HKO magic), ~115% Speed, and shields are cool. A few extra equips round him out well enough plus a method to deal with low damage healers. 38% MEvade or 27% Evade, Can halve Ice/Thunder/Fire, Null Holy + Lots of Status Blocking
12. Eiko (FF9)- 41% Silence and Mini <adj>, 50.1% Holy Damage (But falls to 25% Damage if Holy is halved/nulled), Dead Average Speed, 80% HP
13. Lightning (FF13)- 40% Healing gives some endless stall, but other than that she's kind of average with both magic and physical damage. As far as defensive tricks, it's no 56% Evade or Halving Damage). Granted, better blockers!
14. Guy (TotA)- I seem to remember that I let about 3 Centers be chained a turn, he's fast on attacking (or running at least), average damage
15. Teddie (Pers4)- 88% HP (but more like 80% Durability), Murdered by Thunder (at trade for nulling Ice/halving Dark/Wind), slow turn 1 but converges to average, 2HKOs I guess (but taking everything into account, only 2hKOs for 3 turns), Healing. So most in this field for options for shutting things down in 2 turns, but most of them are not elemental (and mono-elemental at that) and that Thunder weakness is notable. Contrast to Eiko who has two ways to shut down on turn 2 (Damage and Status) and has better elemental resists, no weakness and I allow some status blockers.

[superaielman]

Nudge for votes!

[Cmdr_King]

1. Mario (SMRPG)- Scarf so uh... yeah.
2. Rose (LoD)- I'm not entirely sure about starting SP, but a hard kill on turn 2 is actually pretty potent in Middle and despite the overall PDur (2HKOed by average damage and all) a lot of middle struggles to prevent it.
3. Guy (FE7)- It's a pretty good one dimension.
4. Crono (CT)
5. Ursula (TAY)- Crono and Ursula are similar.  Overall Crono's better at it because CT status blocking trumps her superior resources and stalling power.
6. Squall (FF8)- Sure?  Sure.
7. Lightning (FF13)- Ursula with dead average speed basically.
8. Nicholai (SH2)- I... think?  I'm way less harsh on SH2 boss HP than most.
9. Alexia (XF)- Alexia is a very strange mix of traits that's hard to rate so uh sure.
10. Guy (Lufia 2)
11. Guy (TotA)
12. Eiko (FF9)- Really wishes she wasn't stuck with FFIX's buffs.
13. Teddie (Pers4)
14. Ramza (FFT)
15. Gryz (PS4)

[DragonKnight Zero]

Had more thoughts to jot down.  Only 6 characters I can vote on but eh.  Rated on usefulness in a variety of situations.

1. Crono
2. Eiko
3. Gryz
4. Guy (Lufia 2)
5. Ramza
6. Squall

This was quite close to rate.  Crono felt like the clear winner overall but the rest felt really close.  Crono can go speed with Swallow or power with Rainbow.  His status immunity and strong damage in both physical and magical flavors pulls him ahead of the pack here.  Life for team fights gives him extra utility.  Kind of prone to quickly running out of MP if a fight drags out but still decent with Rainbow physicals.

Eiko seems to do better as a support unit in a group than a 1 on 1 duel.  She has immediate access to all her options and a varied skillset though (even if a number of her skills suck) which is more than the other one-trick ponies I'm rating here.  FF9 equip options are useful.  OK durability so she actually get to do stuff unlike Marle who tends to get gangbeat in group combat.

Could very easily flip-flop on the rest of the field here who felt like one-trick ponies.  Gryz may have the most useful trick.  Live a turn, use accurate instant death.  Sweeping helps tip him a bit above the rest for group fights though his lack of speed is a drag.

Guy relies on IP to do more than plain physicals but he has enough options and durability to get a chance to use them.  He has IP for groups too, offense and support.

Poor Ramza really wants a fight to draw out to get good mileage from his skillset.  Without a means of healing himself, it's not happening as much as he'd like.  Still has FFT equip options going for him and magical damage to get around physical defense and counters.

GF-less Squall feels like the weakest overall.  All he can do is hit stuff at above-average power and perfect accuracy.  So many ways to spoil or counter him.  He can't avoid physical counters and high physical defense blunts his only offense.  Limits net him a kill of course but really isn't much and he's terrible in groups due to hitting only one target at a time as well as more likely to get beaten down without a chance to use a limit.