If COMPILER2 is defined, it will be possible to enable TieredCompilation even if TIERED is undefined. But such VM will raise error at compilationPolicy_init:

# Internal Error (/opt/jprt/T/P1/103140.bdelsart/s/src/share/vm/runtime/compilationPolicy.cpp:80), pid=27962, tid=4136668016
# Error: Unimplemented()
V [libjvm.so+0xb2bf4a] VMError::report_and_die()+0x1ba
V [libjvm.so+0x480439] report_unimplemented(char const*, int)+0x69
V [libjvm.so+0x3fb488] compilationPolicy_init()+0x88
V [libjvm.so+0x607353] init_globals()+0x103
V [libjvm.so+0xac630e] Threads::create_vm(JavaVMInitArgs*, bool*)+0x27e
V [libjvm.so+0x66ea0c] JNI_CreateJavaVM+0x8c
C [libjli.so+0x6c78] JavaMain+0x98

suggested fix:
diff --git a/src/share/vm/runtime/arguments.cpp b/src/share/vm/runtime/arguments.cpp
--- a/src/share/vm/runtime/arguments.cpp
+++ b/src/share/vm/runtime/arguments.cpp
@@ -3123,14 +3123,17 @@
     FLAG_SET_DEFAULT(UseLargePages, false);
   }
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
- // Tiered compilation is undefined with C1.
- TieredCompilation = false;
 #else
   if (!FLAG_IS_DEFAULT(OptoLoopAlignment) && FLAG_IS_DEFAULT(MaxLoopPad)) {
     FLAG_SET_DEFAULT(MaxLoopPad, OptoLoopAlignment-1);
   }
 #endif
-
+#ifndef TIERED
+ // Tiered compilation is undefined.
+ if (TieredCompilation) {
+ FLAG_SET_DEFAULT(TieredCompilation, false);
+ }
+#endif
   // If we are running in a headless jre, force java.awt.headless property
   // to be true unless the property has already been set.
   // Also allow the OS environment variable JAVA_AWT_HEADLESS to set headless state.