Who is the worst unit in FE:A ?

[Marston]

But Donnel is love Donnel is life.

Someone likes JoJo, I guess.

[Vorena]

Here you go: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=40300

He thinks Donnel's not worth the investment, by the way.

So here's a method I came up with that might be useful for trying to quantify how "good" a unit is: on Hard/Cla, from their recruitment, the goal is to deploy only them and Chrom, with Chrom unequipped and at no support ranks (I don't care what his stats/class are) and have them use the auto-battle AI to clear the game. From there, total up the number of turns when you control the unit themself (excluding moving Chrom behind them), the turn counts for all chapters in which units other than the trainee and Chrom are deployed (including the recruitment chapter, unless Chrom soloed it up to recruitment) repeat several times for consistency and that's the unit's score. Lower is obviously better.

Basically it's a way of measuring how much effort it takes to get a real juggernaut going. Obviously there are several big flaws (no weight is given to utility/parentage/supports, for one), but it might be an interesting baseline. Thoughts?

Hmm... That is the L+ LTC run though. I thought interceptor did a run with trying to train Donnel in a LTC environment.

[~Silver]

Why. So. Much. Hate. For Tin Boy. ,_,

(It's funny so many people are thinking Brady's bad, too. Donnel's usually the Father of Brady, so it kinds balances out lol)

For some reason, Vaike's always a jinx for me. I try to use him, and the game screws me over in any possible way.

Even when there's like, no possible way I could go wrong with Vaike, it goes wrong.

"+4 Strength Modifier, hurrdurr" yeah that's great. He still screws me over, no matter the situation.

Looks like Class isn't in session, Vaike.

[fengaridotdll]

Unlike most trainee/Ests

Except all 3 of the trainees in Sacred Stones end out amazing. Especially Ross. He is pretty much God as a Berserker.

And Ewan is both a trainee AND an Est

[Shadow Mir]

Except all 3 of the trainees in Sacred Stones end out amazing. Especially Ross. He is pretty much God as a Berserker.

And Ewan is both a trainee AND an Est

To call Ewan an Est is pushing it considering his growths aren't all that great...

Why. So. Much. Hate. For Tin Boy. ,_,

(It's funny so many people are thinking Brady's bad, too. Donnel's usually the Father of Brady, so it kinds balances out lol)

For some reason, Vaike's always a jinx for me. I try to use him, and the game screws me over in any possible way.

Even when there's like, no possible way I could go wrong with Vaike, it goes wrong.

"+4 Strength Modifier, hurrdurr" yeah that's great. He still screws me over, no matter the situation.

Looks like Class isn't in session, Vaike.

I suppose I could repeat the gist of what everyone else who mentioned him (yours truly included) said:

-Awful bases

-Needs a lot of investment, and a Second Seal, that could've gone to other units to improve them

-Has to work his way out of bronze lock twice

-Aptitude doesn't really help him until AFTER he's out of Villager

I have that same problem with Gaius.

[Cat1803]

I have that same problem with Gaius.

Lon'qu makes the better dodgetank IMO. And Anna makes the better lockpicker despite lack of supports because staff utility.

Anyway, agreed on Gaius. I've *NEVER* gotten his level-up quote for getting more than 3 stats.

By the way, with all the Donnel talk, I should mention I was grinding in a hard mode file (OMG grinding in HM kill me now) and he only got HP and Luck... twice in a row. "Y'all act like I'm s'posed to get good level-ups or somethin'!" At least, that's what I imagined him saying to keep myself from screaming.

[XeKr]

So here's a method I came up with that might be useful for trying to quantify how "good" a unit is: on Hard/Cla, from their recruitment, the goal is to deploy only them and Chrom, with Chrom unequipped and at no support ranks (I don't care what his stats/class are) and have them use the auto-battle AI to clear the game. From there, total up the number of turns when you control the unit themself (excluding moving Chrom behind them), the turn counts for all chapters in which units other than the trainee and Chrom are deployed (including the recruitment chapter, unless Chrom soloed it up to recruitment) repeat several times for consistency and that's the unit's score. Lower is obviously better.

Basically it's a way of measuring how much effort it takes to get a real juggernaut going. Obviously there are several big flaws (no weight is given to utility/parentage/supports, for one), but it might be an interesting baseline. Thoughts?

The obvious criticism is AI does not play FE well (for the enemy quite obviously and probably less so for the player). It does tell you something interesting about the character, as all such experiments will, but I don't see how significantly more than the obvious (not necessarily contextual) conclusions made at a glance from base stats, growths, and availability.

Except all 3 of the trainees in Sacred Stones end out amazing. Especially Ross. He is pretty much God as a Berserker.

And Ewan is both a trainee AND an Est

Exactly my point. Ross, by far the best trainee, is statistically comparable or worse to Garcia at equal levels/investment, for the simplest comparison. Not to mention how far he still is from Seth, and such. Amelia/Ewan are far worse off than him. Yet they are claimed to be impressive statwise by many, including yourself. But many others will disagree with that claim.

Donnel, in a similar situation, is actually impressive statwise (and has the availability) and there are parts to the stats/level/exp curve in which he is in by far the lead, or probably comparable to the lofty standards of Veteran/Children/Manaketes. The trouble is, he is not really worth it as the game doesn’t require his overkill stats at that (or any) point and, in a stricter sense, he cannot repay the turncount/reliability investment necessary to train him (while very few can, they also have other potential contributions). and no mount anyway.

Edited January 13, 2015 by XeKr

[Alastor15243]

Nah has a niche that she fits into very well (female hard support). She has strong options as a Valkyrie from Henry and a Hero from Vaike and to a lesser extent Gregor, and can support pretty much any Galeboy very well. Noire can either go GF/proc and wind up with her mods outshadowed by every single other female lead thanks to Tharja's mods not matching up with her class set, or try to do the same as Nah and be a support- though if she does the latter she winds up getting outclassed due to the lack of innate Tomefaire. She still has workable sets- Gregor is probably her best bet- but she doesn't fit the role as fluidly as Nah.

Nah also has ingame utility due to a very fast Nowi x Gregor support and cheesable Paralogue granting early Second Seals should Severa/Inigo either not be in use or prove too difficult to recruit immediately after Cht.13

Sure, Noire lacks an innate tomefaire, but she comes with both primary procs built in while Nah has neither, a superior attack mod if going magic, and far superior speed. Nah's more versatile I suppose, but unless there's some innate advantage to being a female hard support over being a galegirl, it kinda sounds like your argument is that Noire isn't as good as Nah because Nah is better at handling the fact that she always sucks.

[Ownagepuffs]

Ross only wins because availability.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Why. So. Much. Hate. For Tin Boy. ,_,

(It's funny so many people are thinking Brady's bad, too. Donnel's usually the Father of Brady, so it kinds balances out lol)

For some reason, Vaike's always a jinx for me. I try to use him, and the game screws me over in any possible way.

Even when there's like, no possible way I could go wrong with Vaike, it goes wrong.

"+4 Strength Modifier, hurrdurr" yeah that's great. He still screws me over, no matter the situation.

Looks like Class isn't in session, Vaike.

Donnel!Brady? Where do you get that? I've never seen him recommended before.

Vaike only has +3 Str, by the way.

The obvious criticism is AI does not play FE well (for the enemy quite obviously and probably less so for the player). It does tell you something interesting about the character, as all such experiments will, but I don't see how significantly more than the obvious (not necessarily contextual) conclusions made at a glance from base stats, growths, and availability.

AI doesn't play FE well? Even more of a test of the unit's invincibility threshold. It would equalize quite a lot of units were the player just able to kite everything while getting them going, but that would just be more effort over the "easiest" route of zerg rushing/standing still that you then wouldn't be keeping track of.

The only thing this method really has over looking through bases and whatnot is that it produces a hard number that you can use for comparisons rather than a pile of merits/flaws that everyone weighs differently.

Sure, Noire lacks an innate tomefaire, but she comes with both primary procs built in while Nah has neither, a superior attack mod if going magic, and far superior speed. Nah's more versatile I suppose, but unless there's some innate advantage to being a female hard support over being a galegirl, it kinda sounds like your argument is that Noire isn't as good as Nah because Nah is better at handling the fact that she always sucks.

There's no innate advantage of being a female support, it just works differently enough from being a female lead that it counts as a separate category, and so Noire both is the worst lead and the worst support.

Noire comes with procs while Nah comes with TF- but neither actually matter unless they can be used to complete a set. In Nah's case, her TF can get a proc and +Spd magical class to use it. In Noire's case, her proc and high Mag can't get both a TF and a +Spd magical class to go with them. Physically, they're tied in Skl and can both get procs on good support classes, but Nah beats Noire in Str every time.

Again, I'm counting female leads and female supports as separate categories. But even if they weren't separate, I'd still rather have a good support than a lackluster lead- Apo has limited deployment that tends to get in the way when running a full team, and I want to get the most out of the units I choose to deploy. I'll take someone who's good at their job over someone who's bad at their job any day, even if the good one's job is arguably less useful than the bad one's (which I could debate too. I've dropped GF from units who already have it in favor of more important skills more than once before).

[~Silver]

Donnel!Brady? Where do you get that? I've never seen him recommended before.

Vaike only has +3 Str, by the way.

Only +3 Strength? Phooey. My bad, Yoshi.

And I do Donnel!Brady because it seems fitting.

It explains why Brady speaks the way he does, and... I dunno. The purple hair just matched his robes.

I tend to have Brady as a RallyBot of sorts.

I don't like to use Galeforce.

Don't judge me! >:(

[Ownagepuffs]

Your game, your play style.

[fengaridotdll]

Spotpass Wolt, obviously

Terrible in FE6 and also terrible in FE13

[Czar_Yoshi]

What exactly does he alone haveout of all the Spotpass units making him that much worse than them?

He's certainly the cheapest unit in the game, but that's a good thing. Renown grinding would take quite a bit longer if you had to step up to Mist thanks to the extra cash requirements.

[eclipse]

Gaius, at least, can be used as a back-row unit, and gives decent bonuses. Hell, I'm using him on my Lunatic run; I'm on Chapter 17, he doesn't have enough levels to promote, and he's STILL useful as Nowi's speed buffer (Lon'qu was worse, and you'll have to trust me on this).

[Volke29]

Donny can't be worst as he can pass Aptitude, Armshift and Galefore. That gives him A LOT of value, IMO.

edit* seeing Brady around here ... He is one of the best and coolest characters, IMO. I'd even go as far as saying he is a powerhouse.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Volke29

[Cat1803]

Gaius, at least, can be used as a back-row unit, and gives decent bonuses. Hell, I'm using him on my Lunatic run; I'm on Chapter 17, he doesn't have enough levels to promote, and he's STILL useful as Nowi's speed buffer (Lon'qu was worse, and you'll have to trust me on this).

I suppose I should correct myself and say Lon'qu makes the better front unit while Gaius makes the better support. Gaius also has the advantage of being able to hide behind Chrom (I like pairing people that can support, okay?) on a chapter where a locktouch user is needed.

Donny can't be worst as he can pass Aptitude, Armshift and Galefore. That gives him A LOT of value, IMO.

edit* seeing Brady around here ... He is one of the best and coolest characters, IMO. I'd even go as far as saying he is a powerhouse.

I'm sure someone can form a better argument than I can about Donnel and inheritance (low caps for postgame, low bases for ingame can overshadow aptitude). His value for me is a parent for Kjelle - all she needs is Galeforce and he gives it to her. I wouldn't subject any other child to inheriting his low caps, but Kjelle has high enough Skl/Spd on her own that she can manage just fine.

Brady can be a powerhouse (I personally like using him over many of the other children as well), but showing up 2/3 through the game (in the average playthrough) after grinding Maribelle to get Galeforce... with D Staves. He didn't even have the decency to come with C Rank like the other kids (I'm not counting shapeshifter children, that's another argument). This wouldn't be a problem for most kids, but he can't physic spam his way to level 20 for promotion without an Arms Scroll. Or you could second seal him to Mage with E Tomes I guess - it's a better option than, say, Yarne has. He's not worth the trouble in the average playthrough - you feed/grind Maribelle for however many levels for GF (because that's what most people care about, let's be honest)... and he can't even activate it without an insta-class change.

(Assuming you don't grind Maribelle for Galeforce, you already have enough healers in your party especially once you start promoting mages, and Brady doesn't stand out as a healer alone IMO)

Postgame? Brady is a powerhouse. He has great Mag and inherent Luna, as well as 2 more Skl than Owain (before fathers). I'd say he's one of the best magic-oriented frontliners, and he's my favorite magic Galeboy (other than Ricken!Inigo). He just doesn't shine ingame due to being a late-arrival priest. I... wouldn't give him nearly as hard of a time ingame if he showed up as a Mage or with C Staves. And yes I realize I'm nitpicking.

[Alastor15243]

In terms of who's the worst father, I'd argue it's Libra, with Kellam a close second.

Libra provides meh stats, no luna (vengeance is superfluous when using brave weapons and useless when not using them), and absolutely no useful classes or skills to any child capable of functioning with him as a father (Brady and Laurent, who respectively already have and don't need luna). The only exception is Yarne (he provides him with Anathema/Hex), and even then Yarne has several better options.

Kellam at least provides luna and can be used for a physical OR magical child, but that hefty speed penalty (without having a niche benefit like Frederick has with Inigo) makes him generally a horrible option for any child.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

Gaius, at least, can be used as a back-row unit, and gives decent bonuses. Hell, I'm using him on my Lunatic run; I'm on Chapter 17, he doesn't have enough levels to promote, and he's STILL useful as Nowi's speed buffer (Lon'qu was worse, and you'll have to trust me on this).

I suppose I should correct myself and say Lon'qu makes the better front unit while Gaius makes the better support. Gaius also has the advantage of being able to hide behind Chrom (I like pairing people that can support, okay?) on a chapter where a locktouch user is needed.

I'm sure someone can form a better argument than I can about Donnel and inheritance (low caps for postgame, low bases for ingame can overshadow aptitude). His value for me is a parent for Kjelle - all she needs is Galeforce and he gives it to her. I wouldn't subject any other child to inheriting his low caps, but Kjelle has high enough Skl/Spd on her own that she can manage just fine.

Brady can be a powerhouse (I personally like using him over many of the other children as well), but showing up 2/3 through the game (in the average playthrough) after grinding Maribelle to get Galeforce... with D Staves. He didn't even have the decency to come with C Rank like the other kids (I'm not counting shapeshifter children, that's another argument). This wouldn't be a problem for most kids, but he can't physic spam his way to level 20 for promotion without an Arms Scroll. Or you could second seal him to Mage with E Tomes I guess - it's a better option than, say, Yarne has. He's not worth the trouble in the average playthrough - you feed/grind Maribelle for however many levels for GF (because that's what most people care about, let's be honest)... and he can't even activate it without an insta-class change.

(Assuming you don't grind Maribelle for Galeforce, you already have enough healers in your party especially once you start promoting mages, and Brady doesn't stand out as a healer alone IMO)

Postgame? Brady is a powerhouse. He has great Mag and inherent Luna, as well as 2 more Skl than Owain (before fathers). I'd say he's one of the best magic-oriented frontliners, and he's my favorite magic Galeboy (other than Ricken!Inigo). He just doesn't shine ingame due to being a late-arrival priest. I... wouldn't give him nearly as hard of a time ingame if he showed up as a Mage or with C Staves. And yes I realize I'm nitpicking.

Ehhh, I'm not the type who drags someone along with the intention of having them sit around in the back... Also, clipsey, I'm sure you're referencing the move bonus, because otherwise, Gaius's pair up bonuses would reek of boring tuna.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[fengaridotdll]

What exactly does he alone haveout of all the Spotpass units making him that much worse than them?

He's certainly the cheapest unit in the game, but that's a good thing. Renown grinding would take quite a bit longer if you had to step up to Mist thanks to the extra cash requirements.

Yeah, having a lot of the first on the list "weaklings" is sure helful

[astrophys]

Libra does provide Sorcerer and Sage's Tomefaire to units like Inigo, who can then do a Vantage+Vengance+Tomefaire setup if he wants to.

[Alastor15243]

Libra does provide Sorcerer and Sage's Tomefaire to units like Inigo, who can then do a Vantage+Vengance+Tomefaire setup if he wants to.

VV is cool in concept but ultimately redundant and useless, and impossible to pull off without brave weapons.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Yeah, having a lot of the first on the list "weaklings" is sure helful

What?

Libra does provide Sorcerer and Sage's Tomefaire to units like Inigo, who can then do a Vantage+Vengance+Tomefaire setup if he wants to.

Libra!Inigo has far better things to be doing with his time than VV.

[Cat1803]

Libra's good for units that pretty much have what they need - I'm thinking Brady. For post game, he already has Galeforce and Luna. All he needs is a dad who doesn't hurt his magic. Other dads like Ricken are usually needed elsewhere because Luna.

I'd argue Kellam is a worse father. I don't like the negative Spd modifier, and on a child where it wouldn't matter (like Yarne due to being in the back), Frederick provides better Str/Skl. Kellam has Tomefaire over Frederick, but I can't imagine a situation where either father would be used and Tomefaire would make a lick of difference.

I never use Kellam as a father anymore for the above reasons.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Frederick provides better Str/Skl. Kellam has Tomefaire over Frederick, but I can't imagine a situation where either father would be used and Tomefaire would make a lick of difference.

Dread Fighter Inigo?