Radiant Dragon

She certainly is a villain, regardless of what her motivations are and/or the reasoning behind them. Heck, I'd say she's far less sympathetic than many others on this list, like Zephiel, Lyon, Sephiran, etc. I voted for Nergal, because the protagonists' struggle against him is much more personal than any other hero/villain relationship in the series (Eirika/Ephraim vs. Lyon is a pretty close second, though). The game is very much about beating Nergal specifically (although the Black Fang does steal some of his spotlight in the midgame, to be fair), while many other games focus more so on beating the 'evil country/empire', with their leaders (Arvis, Zephiel, Ashnard, etc.) interacting very little with the heroes themselves.

No, this is a Conquest-exclusive feature (at least on Hard mode - I haven't had the time to try out Lunatic yet). Although, as Ninjamonkey correctly stated, Ninjas are an exception and will attack an unit they can't damage to inflict debuffs/Poison Strike.

I'll take the higher defense, and just use other characters to tank mages. It's not like Haar was considered an awful tank in RD because he was 2HKO'd by thunder sages. Also, having the defense to shrug off attacks is much better than having to rely on dodging them. Context is important, though. As Levant said, enemies in Conquest won't attack units they can't damage, and Ryoma is a character who can stack enough skills to feasibly rely on dodge-tanking.

I certainly do not regret my decision to buy all three routes (although I was able to get a Special Edition, to be fair). While yes, even the best of Fate's stories is still worse than any other game's story, the solid gameplay more than makes up for it. Fates did make some important changes to Awakening's engine, but most of them were definitely for the better in my opinion. Pair up was nerfed but it's not random anymore which is huge, and the new seal system makes it much easier (although also more expensive) to grind skills later on. The removal of weapon durability is mostly positive, although I'm split on how effective the way they balanced weapon passives were. I'd definitely recommend trying out Conquest at least, unless not being able to grind doesn't sound fun to you. Not sure I'd recommend trying out Revelation without playing the other routes first, though. Before buying another path though, why not try playing through Birthright a second time first now that you're more familiar with it? You can use different units and/or strategies, and complete the paralogues before they get out of hand later on, and see how you feel about buying another route then. That seems like the safest option, instead of buying Conquest and/or Revelation and ending up disappointed with those also.

The new formula for the high end seems to be a good happy medium between '1 RN' and the '2 RN' systems. It increases the consistency of strategies that rely on high-but-not-perfect hit rates (compared to '1 RN'), without making everything above 80% or so nigh-guaranteed to hit.

Titania is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, so she gets my vote for sure. Her competence as a unit only makes it easier for me to justify using her every playthrough. The lack of love for Astrid is saddening to me, since she was so good in Path of Radiance. Her stats in RD are awful in comparison (and just in general).

...I can't believe I never noticed that until now (It's 'After the Battle' in Shadow Dragon). The two songs are definitely different, but there's an unmistakable similarity between the two. It's also used in Path of Radiance, for what it's worth (which also draws many similarities to Shadow Dragon, incidentally), as 'Vow'.

It's a fun way to break a tie when you can't decide between two pairings, though.

I believe Capture does negate the passive support bonuses as well, since I remember one time where I was considering capturing an enemy and noticed that Niles had a lower hit rate when using Capture vs. Attack. I could be misremembering, though.

His strength is definitely amazing, but that HP is also kinda ridiculous. Unless you're playing on Hector Hard Mode or gave him an Angelic Robe, he's gained a point of HP every level.

From what I understand, dondon is playing Paragon Mode for this run solely because of the increased reliability, not because it's not possible otherwise. Everything works without the increased EXP, but you'd have to reset more due to misses and such. Since his units obviously aren't gaining any stats when they level up anyway, the only benefit to the increased EXP gain (that I'm aware of) is to get units to promotion sooner.

Hey, I'm not saying that Karla is good or anything (not being able to ORKO base Bartre of all people is pretty awful), I was just using her to as a comparison to show that Isadora is actually fairly solid aside from her -3 Con modifier. If Karla joined in Chapter 22 she actually would be pretty good, honestly.

To be fair, base Bartre + promotion bonuses has a 100% chance to survive a round of combat against Karla as long as he has the Iron Rune and a Swordreaver. I'm sure that Karla's stats are as bad as they are so that you can't get screwed out of being able to recruit her no matter how bad your Bartre turned out. You do have to get him to 10/5 first though, unfortunately, and Bartre is pretty awful in FE7.

Hey, Isadora's basically a slightly worse Kent that I didn't have to put any EXP into. Plus she's able to use that shiny Silver Sword she joins with right away for lots of damage against basically everything when she joins, and enough speed to double with it and most other Swords for a long time. Karla's bases are only slightly better than Isadora's, yet she joins 12 chapters later (less if you skip some gaidens). She's also not mounted and doesn't have the ability to use Lances or Axes for WTA (not that Isadora can use most Lances and Axes very well due to her low con, but still, it's an option she has that Karla does not).

Here are my opinions, skipping the games I haven't finished (and FE11 because I only played it once and don't know it well enough): FE4 - Hannibal, with Ardan as a close second. FE6 - Wendy. At least Sophia can chip from range. FE7 - Wallace, although I could also see Karla taking this spot. Nino is at least fairly useful for the EXP rank in ranked runs. FE8 - Amelia. Marisa is pretty bad also, but she has better stats and Amelia can't even use Javelins at base. FE9 - Sothe, but he's definitely the best 'worst unit' on my list thanks to thief utility. Everyone in FE9 is pretty solid honestly, thanks to the ridiculous amount of BEXP you get. FE10 - Kurthnaga. While there are many units in FE10 with awful bases, at least the rest of them have the decency to have some semblance of availability. FE13 - Donnel. Virion and Ricken can at least do heavy damage to all of the Wyvern Riders in FE13's earlygame. Conquest - Benny. While Charlotte is also pretty bad, at least she isn't a Knight. Birthright - Mozu. Birthright's the one path where Mozu brings nothing unique and/or useful to the table. Revelation - Nyx. At least Owain can help do things in his joining chapter, Nyx can't even do that due to her starting position.

Nohr Noble, solely for Draconic Hex. I like basically everything else about Hoshido Noble more (staves, stats, outfit), but Draconic Hex is just that amazing.

Your unpromoted units can make excellent use of BEXP. However, since Titania is promoted it costs her more to level with it, so giving her boss kills lets her get her share of EXP. You get so much BEXP in Path of Radiance that you can have Titania basically solo the early game maps, and still end up using a complete, fully leveled team. Plus, Titania's growths are very good, so you shouldn't be forced to drop her later on due to bad levels.

Not particularly, unfortunately. Yeah, she'll have more strength than Micaiah or Soren, but all staves have a might of only 1, and enemies will almost always have more defense than she does strength (especially considering her strength caps at 15 until she reaches third-tier).

Now that I think about, if we include FE9!Elincia as a pegasus knight, aren't the Jugdral games the only ones that don't have at least three recuitable ones? The 'Jeorge' archetype is actually quite common in the series. I'll admit I'd never heard of it before today, but just from the games I've played, there's Lewyn (I think? Been a while since I've played FE4), Elphin, Lyndis (if we're including Azura), Joshua, L'Arachel, Soren, Micaiah and Robin (not sure if those last three count, to be fair), and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. And that's just royalty (+Lyndis). That's not including the various characters from noble families that either hide/don't mention their heritage, such as Priscilla, Raven, Astrid, Virion, etc.

You mean Jeorge the Sniper? What archtype does Azura share with him?

Statwise, I can definitely see the comparison between the two, although Orochi has more magic than Ilyana in exchange for slightly less bulk (Owain reminds me a lot of RD!Ilyana, now that I think about it). Fates is actually surprisingly good about straying away from archtypical characters for the most part, though.

Yes, it does. Paragon is pretty amazing in this game (note that it does not double BEXP in Radiant Dawn, though, if you're playing that one as well).

Whoops, yeah I forgot to mention to add the class growths to that final value, thanks for catching that.

To answer your question about children's growth rates, their growths are equal to the average of their personal growth rates and their variable parent's growth rates (so Subaki's growths don't affect Caeldori at all). The main site has them listed here. So, Caeldori's magic growth with Sakura as her mother would be: (15 + 50) / 2 = 32.5%. EDIT: Forgot to mention that this is only her personal magic growth. Each class has their own growth rates (found here), that are added to the character's personal growths. Dark Falcon has a base 15% magic growth, so Dark Falcon!Caeldori would have a actual magic growth of 47.5%, which isn't bad.

You'll have other options, so the Armorslayer, while very helpful, isn't necessarily vital. There's a Hammer from an enemy drop (I think it's in Ch.12 but don't quote me on that). In addition, the Armory will have two Sting Shurikens and two Flame Shurikens later on for purchase, and any tome deals significant damage to them (Calamity Gate is great on the lance-wielding ones). You also have Corrin's Dragonstone(+), as well as Takumi's Fujin Yumi or other strong/forged Yumis to take large chunks of their HP even if they won't necessarily ORKO.