Best characters

[I don't play for turns]

Hello. I'm a little bit bored right now, so I've been looking at the FE13 section, and I've just been wondering: who are the best characters? I know that all characters can be great with a little bit of work, and I've heard Krom and the children if you train their parents are great, but what about the others? What characters are good from the getgo and stay that way? (Let me guess-Freddy)

[arvilino]

Yeah Frederick definitely. In addition Anna, Sairi and Libera are a couple of the best as well, since they start promoted with great stats and good weapon ranks for promoted characters and their growths are just as good as the other characters.

I don't know about the children, from the formula you can see as long as the parents don't have lower personal stats than the childs bases they'll roughly have 2/3 of average of the two parents personal stats. Without training/grinding the children are best for the skills they can obtain opposed to stats(except Lucina who's recruited soonest).

[BBM]

Freddy actually falls behind very quickly due to how many times you can level-up in this game, because his stats while high for his join time, are very low for his level, and he receives very low EXP gain. He's still extremely useful for the first 10 chapters or so, especially on the harder modes, but he's no Seth who is your best character for the first 15 chapters and then the second/third best for the last 5.

[Ein]

Sariya is triple SSS tier.

[Darros]

Freddy actually falls behind very quickly due to how many times you can level-up in this game, because his stats while high for his join time, are very low for his level, and he receives very low EXP gain.

Can't you just change him to Cavalier or something so he can benefit more?

Edited August 3, 2012 by Knuckles

[Lord Raven]

I did that on NM and his EXP growth is still pretty slow.

[Westbrick]

MU is without question the best unit in the game. Sariya is probably around the top of High tier, but Top is reserved for Freddy and MU, I'd say.

[Othin]

De-promoted Frederick would still retain 10+ internal levels, and his stats would suffer anyway. There's really no point.

[BBM]

MU is without question the best unit in the game. Sariya is probably around the top of High tier, but Top is reserved for Freddy and MU, I'd say.

If Sariya has SKL/Hit issues in Normal, how will she fare in harder modes? Won't even a single miss (while Nosferatanking, which I assume is what earns her High tier) mean instant death?

[Westbrick]

If Sariya has SKL/Hit issues in Normal, how will she fare in harder modes? Won't even a single miss (while Nosferatanking, which I assume is what earns her High tier) mean instant death?

Single miss -> death is true for the overwhelming majority of units in Lunatic anyway, and Sariya has the potential to become exceptionally broken with a little pampering and Nosferatu stock-ups. On Hard mode, the enemies are only nominally improved from Normal, meaning she can trivialize the game with little effort from the get-go.

[nocturnal YL]

who are the best characters?

From a pure statistical perspective, Mark without a doubt.

In terms of stat bonus total, My Unit gets +3, most parents get +1 and +2 (and some don't help by giving, say, magical units bonuses in physical Str) but the non-humans get +5 in exchange to getting vulnerable to certain weapons regardless of class. Children get the sum of both parents plus 7 (which would be +14 if you marry a non-human to a male parent with +2 bonus), but if one of the parents is a child unit, the additional +7 won't be obtained. Marrying a +14 child with My Unit would get you +17, which makes Mark the unit with the highest potential stat bonus. You can focus on, say, speed and give Mark a Spd+11 bonus if you like (Female MU and Chambray, with Ronku as Chambray's father; and thus a stat cap of 57 as a Swordmaster or an Assassin), which would be broken.

I know that all characters can be great with a little bit of work, and I've heard Krom and the children if you train their parents are great, but what about the others? What characters are good from the getgo and stay that way? (Let me guess-Freddy)

Krom fails hard at resistance. The only merit I can say about him is that he's a Lord (and thus Aether and +10% of skill activation rate) and he has an unbreakable Falchion, but even those aren't unique to him.

Frederick is actually quite useful early on. If you aren't that great at playing FE or just don't want to bother, he's useful in the beginning even on Hard.

Sumia and Tiamo are quite usable before you get the children, due to them being promotable to Dark Pegasus before you get Change Seals.

Edited August 3, 2012 by nocturnal YL

[Lord Raven]

If Sariya has SKL/Hit issues in Normal, how will she fare in harder modes? Won't even a single miss (while Nosferatanking, which I assume is what earns her High tier) mean instant death?

I don't know how hard enemies hit in Lunatic (well I know the first two chapters of enemies), but I'd like to note that Sariya is actually really durable.

[Irony]

If anyone bothers to baby him, then Donny could be really good, because of the "Good Growths" Skill. Even if you don't want to use him, RECRUIT him, and make him marry someone so that (hopefully) he passes "Good Growths" to his offspring.

[arvilino]

If Sariya has SKL/Hit issues in Normal, how will she fare in harder modes? Won't even a single miss (while Nosferatanking, which I assume is what earns her High tier) mean instant death?

Her skill and luck for that matter aren't high. But she has Crimson Curse and Curse in addition to atleast +10 hit from being adjacent to atleast 1 unit and/or doubled with any character.

I'd be more concerned for her base 3 luck and 40% growth since a crit from an enemy on Lunatic is definitely instant death for her until she builds a support with a doubled unit high enough for the 10 critical evade bonus.

[Othin]

From a pure statistical perspective, Mark without a doubt.

In terms of stat bonus total, My Unit gets +3, most parents get +1 and +2 (and some don't help by giving, say, magical units bonuses in physical Str) but the non-humans get +5 in exchange to getting vulnerable to certain weapons regardless of class. Children get the sum of both parents plus 7 (which would be +14 if you marry a non-human to a male parent with +2 bonus), but if one of the parents is a child unit, the additional +7 won't be obtained. Marrying a +14 child with My Unit would get you +17, which makes Mark the unit with the highest potential stat bonus. You can focus on, say, speed and give Mark a Spd+11 bonus if you like (Female MU and Chambray, with Ronku as Chambray's father; and thus a stat cap of 57 as a Swordmaster or an Assassin), which would be broken.

Caps you'll never reach ingame are not by any stretch of the imagination a "pure statistical perspective".

[arvilino]

^Yeah Mark has potential to be the best character in the game, the same way Amelia has the potential to be a good unit. Actually Statistically speaking Mark comes at most roughly 2/3 as good as MU(assuming his/her partner is just as strong).

Mark becomes better at base if MU has higher stats. But as MU's stats gets higher Mark actually needs more levels to make up the gap, increasing how much better MU is compared to Mark.

So if MU and their partner average ~18 personal(excluding class bases) Magic, Mark has ~12 and can reach MU in atleast 6 levels. If they average ~36 personal magic, Mark has ~24 and reaches MU's in atleast 12 levels.

[Lord Raven]

If anyone bothers to baby him, then Donny could be really good, because of the "Good Growths" Skill. Even if you don't want to use him, RECRUIT him, and make him marry someone so that (hopefully) he passes "Good Growths" to his offspring.

Make sure he marries someone with a female child too, because he passes on Mercenary/Hero, Pegasus Knight, and Troubadour to his offspring; as opposed to fighter and villager to male units lol

Edited August 3, 2012 by Lord Raven

[nocturnal YL]

Caps you'll never reach ingame are not by any stretch of the imagination a "pure statistical perspective".

That depends on what you're training your units for. If your aim is to build a powerful StreetPass team, caps are more important than the starting stats. If your aim is to finish the main game without going out of the way to take part in other fights, of course those stats aren't going to be easily reached.

If you think it's okay to go out of your way to train your units, the caps aren't all that difficult to reach, at least in Hard.

[Othin]

That depends on what you're training your units for. If your aim is to build a powerful StreetPass team, caps are more important than the starting stats. If your aim is to finish the main game without going out of the way to take part in other fights, of course those stats aren't going to be easily reached.

If you think it's okay to go out of your way to train your units, the caps aren't all that difficult to reach, at least in Hard.

And if your focus is on building a powerful StreetPass team, the phrase is "pure StreetPass perspective", not "pure statistical perspective".

[Onestep]

Really, the manakete's seem to give some absurd stat growth bonuses to their children, particularly if paired with MU.

And the Wyrmslayer vulnerability can be effectively negated with the Swordslayer skill, if you feel the need to do so and can bear the thought of Dragons riding around on Wyveryns for 25 levels. Well, unless you're on Lunatic+.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Onestep