Best first gen. characters in Genealogy of the Holy War?

[General Geoffrey]

Just completed the prolouge of Fire emblem Genealogy of the Holy War, and I was wondering which characters would be useful out of the the first generation. I have trained Sigurd and Lex the most, and a few others a little bit. Any tips would be helpful. Thank you!

[Master Thunderblade]

Just completed the prolouge of Fire emblem Genealogy of the Holy War, and I was wondering which characters would be useful out of the the first generation. I have trained Sigurd and Lex the most, and a few others a little bit. Any tips would be helpful. Thank you!

I recommend using Finn, Ayra and Lewyn as well. And Jamke is a pretty good archer if you want one...

Finn's pursuit skill is very nice (Pryer is useful as well) and while he is just decent at the very beginning of the game he becomes a lot better after promotion, I personally really like him.

Ayra is somwhat difficult to recruit, but well worth it. Swords are really good in this game compared to lances and axes. Add to that the superb Astra skill, together with pursuit (and nihil) and you get a killing machine. Just make sure she doesn't get overrun by enemies.

Lewyn is a very powerful wind mage with decent growths and nice skills and an awesome amount of speed. Very useful indeed!

Jamke is a very powerfull archer, and while he lacks skill. His very accurate killer bow makes up for it.

If you would like more info, you could check this guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/564404-fire-emblem-seisen-no-keifu/faqs/32222

Edited August 29, 2016 by Masterthunderblade

[Flee Fleet!]

Along with Finn, Lewyn, Jamke and Ayra, I recommend using Ethlyn.

She's the only one who can use staves on horseback. Once you promote her she also becomes almost unbeatable.

Tiltyu is also pretty good, though you'll have to train her for some time, since she comes at level 3. However one of her skills allow her to do crits more often, so she can finish off weakened enemies more easily

Dew is, well, really weak, but he becomes a pretty good fighter after promoting, though it will take a long time to train him before he gets to level 20. He can steal money from enemies at the first encounter though, which you can trade to your healers so they can fix their staves, and having the Bargain skill allows him to buy weapons at half the price.

[Yojinbo]

All of them are useful except Ardan. But the game is easy enough for the most part that you don't have to worry all that much.

[Etrurian emperor]

Before you have access to holy weapons Lex is a beast once he gets the hero axe. He also gets more experience than the other units so you should have him promoted by Augustria already.

Levin is a very reliable mage who gets the best gen 1 legendary weapon. His only flaw is that he doesn't get a pony.

[The Draco Knight]

Before you have access to holy weapons Lex is a beast once he gets the hero axe. He also gets more experience than the other units so you should have him promoted by Augustria already.

Levin is a very reliable mage who gets the best gen 1 legendary weapon. His only flaw is that he doesn't get a pony.

And that he doesn't have pursuit, which means he needs 20000 gold to get the pursuit ring from Arden.

Anyway, I recommend using Beowulf as well: not only he is the perfect husband for Raquesis(in gameplay), but he is also a very good unit, having a mount, the best type of physical weapon in the game(sword), decent stats and useful skills.

[Rend Keaven]

I only beaten the 1st Gen so from the top of my head:

Lewyn, Jamke, Laquesis, Fury and Ayra.

Honorable mentions would be Holyn, Dew (Despite his weak strength he makes a very good father to the right children), Beowulf, Midayle, Lex (With the Brave Axe) and Finn.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Rend Keaven

[Yojinbo]

Levin has Continue, Critical and access to staves upon promotion. He can play around not having access to Pursuit pretty solidly.

Lex is pretty good in early game - especially in Ch.2 which is considered difficult by a lot of players - but he falls off incredibly fast. Cuan and Fin also become unavailable around the same time so you want to make sure that you have some units promoted by Ch.4. Azel, Lachesis and Noish are very good from that chapter onward as is Fury. Promoted Beowulf, Midir and Alec are also good to have.

[Rinehart]

More or less in order of recruitment time:

Sigurd destroys everything.

Lex is great with the Brave Axe. If you don't know how to get it, look up a guide for Chapter 1.

Ayra is good (as most Navarre archytypes are).

Jamke is good.

Holyn is good (similar to Ayra).

Levin is very good. When he gets his Holy Weapon in Chapter 4, he becomes unstoppable.

Beowulf is good, but by this time you have better mounted units already.

Briggid is very good, but you already have Jamke. She becomes much better when she gets the Ichaival.

There are many other characters ranging from "good but requires a ton of training" (Lachesis) to "terrible" (Ardan), but since FE4 is more focused on quantity of enemies rather than quality, it doesn't matter too much who you decide to train. Also, you should always bring a healer (Ethlin) and dancer (Sylvia) since there is no cap on deployable units; the list above is for combat purposes.

[tirnanog]

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Edited September 30, 2018 by tirnanog

[Yojinbo]

Sigurd is by far the strongest unit in gen 1 and it's generally agreed that he's the strongest lord in the series as well.

[Enaluxeme]

Give Jamka's bow to Midir: two good units are better than a good unit and a bad one.

[Flee Fleet!]

Claude is also a good healer. He comes late but he comes with a staff that heals everyone on the map as well as the Valkyrie staff to revive a dead person(although the Valkyrie staff would be pretty useless if you plan on resetting the game once a character dies.

Holyn is another swordfighter like Ayra and while he's not as good as her, he can make up for it with Pursuit and Luna(a skill that boosts the attack power of Holyn once activated) and he has better HP and Defense than her.

[Ownagepuffs]

tfw almost no on mentions Midir.

He has good combat with Jamke's bow.

[_Erai]

Midayle is a better user of the Killer Bow than Jamke because of his horse and because Jamke's offense is overkill, he can kill just fine with the Steel Bow in chapter 2.

Everyone in gen 1 is decent, excluding Arden and Noish.

Edited August 31, 2016 by _Erai

[OliKad]

Midayle is a better user of the Killer Bow than Jamke because of his horse and because Jamke's offense is overkill, he can kill just fine with the Steel Bow in chapter 2.

Everyone in gen 1 is at least decent, excluding Arden and Noish.

That's very accurate, actually. Both of those mentionned suck because of their lack of Pursuit and/or of a reliable multi-attack skill. Especially Arden, who has WORSE Str and Def growths than Lex, while NOT being mounted in FE4, NOT gaining a unique weapon and NOT having the awesome Paragon Skill, while not forgetting his terrible promotion gains and overall growths.

Noish is automatically slightly less abysmal, because he's mounted and at least has Charge and Critical. He may have fulfilled a little niche... if he had a LOT more Skill and Speed, which are crucial for these skills to be semi-reliable. But it's not the case, and thus Noish sucks, but not as badly as Arden.

However, I think everyone else - yes, including Midir, Beowulf and, most importantly, Alec - is good and worth using.

[_Erai]

That's very accurate, actually. Both of those mentionned suck because of their lack of Pursuit and/or of a reliable multi-attack skill. Especially Arden, who has WORSE Str and Def growths than Lex, while NOT being mounted in FE4, NOT gaining a unique weapon and NOT having the awesome Paragon Skill, while not forgetting his terrible promotion gains and overall growths.

Noish is automatically slightly less abysmal, because he's mounted and at least has Charge and Critical. He may have fulfilled a little niche... if he had a LOT more Skill and Speed, which are crucial for these skills to be semi-reliable. But it's not the case, and thus Noish sucks, but not as badly as Arden.

However, I think everyone else - yes, including Midir, Beowulf and, most importantly, Alec - is good and worth using.

Beowulf has that sweet Pursuit/Continue/Charge combo with decent growths all around, and his promotion gains make him the best candidate for the Silver Blade, he also happens to be the best user of said weapon because it helps to offset his low Strength cap while having the Skill to actually land hits when using it. He's actually a good unit.

Midayle is the best Bow uset after Briggid because of his horse.

Alec... well he can be a decent meat wall thanks to Nilhil and he can be a decent fighter if you get lucky with his growths, at least he has Pursuit unlike Noish.

[Yojinbo]

Noish is absolutely not a bad unit.

[Flee Fleet!]

^Better than Alec, at least, for me. Even if he has Pursuit his attack always turns out lower than Noish's in every playthrough of mine.

[Katie]

I think all of the scrub squad (Noish, Alec, and Arden) are pretty sucky. They're all certainly usable though.

[Lantairu]

From my experience, the best units are, in no particular order,

1) Levin/Lewyn, especially after Chapter 4 where he gets the best weapon in the game, but even before that he's a freaking powerhouse.

2) Sigurd: Hopefully you got that silver sword at the end of the prologue, because otherwise you just turned a disc one nuke into a slightly less impressive pre-promote. Overall, I would definitely use Sigurd, and he is, for the majority of Gen 1, the best character in the game by far, but I wouldn't give all the experience to him. Use him when you have to, but don't completely hold him back from fights, as then he would be severely underleveled.

3) Fin: The main reason to train Fin up is because you can use him in both generations, and it is very much to your advantage to promote him, or at least get him to level 18 or so, before the second generation. I think Fin is already a good unit to begin with, but what really makes him super powerful is the Brave Lance you get from his conversation with Quan in chapter 2. Also, make sure not to marry Fin to anybody in Gen 1, as he won't get to keep his lances for Gen 2. I would recommend that for any enemy Fin can't kill in one round, have Quan land a hit and give Fin the kill, as Quan leaves your party at the beginning of Chapter 4, along with Fin and Ethlin. Also, he's a pre-promote, and he isn't that great either.

4) Ayra: Ayra is a character that starts out as a glass cannon, and stays that way for about 5 turns or so. Once you get her to a castle to train off the arena, if you gave her the skill ring dropped from Gandolf, she will proc Astra enough to get her through the entire arena, usually meaning her level is doubled by it. So already, she's a beast, but she gets even better. Once she promotes to a Swordmaster, she becomes basically unstoppable, and if you get the Brave Sword from her conversation with either Holyn or Lex, most anything that crosses her path will meet certain death. One thing I personally like to do, especially with a very high skill, speed, and luck Ayra, is slap a leg ring on her and send her into an army of units, all of which have 0 hit on her most of the time, go get a snack, and then come back to find the entire enemy army dead. Her kids are awesome too if you pair her up right, which there are four different ways to do that.

5) Lex: Lex starts off as a mediocre unit, only being able to hit once, but there are two main things that make Lex one of my favorite units in the first Generation. The first is the secret Brave Axe you can get him in Chapter 1. The second is his Elite skill. This doubles experience gain, leading to him being most likely the first unit you promote, into a Great Knight. As a result, he serves as not only an incredible tank, but also an extremely hard hitter.

6)Jamke: Of the two archers you get in Gen 1, Jamke is by far the one I prefer. The other one, Briggid, while useful, comes in a bit later and only gets to use her ultimate weapon for the last two chapters. Jamke is awesome. First of all, his skill is incredibly high, making his Killer Bow you get from the moment you recruit him all the more deadly. Second, he has extremely high speed, meaning he is great at dodging. Third, he has a skill (forget the name at the moment) that allows him to attack up to four times.

These are my personal favorites and the ones I find the most useful. Honorable mentions to Holyn, Briggid, Beowolf, and Fury.

[Lord Tullus]

I'm all for using the good units for gen 1. In fact, I'd recommend optimal pairings for your first playthrough (unless you have played almost every other FE game). But At the end of the day, It all comes down to who you like, and who you want to use. There are good and bad Units in all Fire Emblem Games, but that doesn't make them completely useless (even in this game).

As for a good unit, in addition to who was mentioned above, Raquesis/Lachesis is a slow unit starting off, but after her talk with beowolf in chapter 2, and her promotion (Master Knight is amazing) she will be one of the most versatile units on your team, hands down. It just takes a little effort to train her outside of healing.

And about Arden, I've been using him extensively, and just take a look at his stats. Tell me what you think is wrong:

https://gyazo.com/4b49375152690c08f60991da3b9b0ef1

Edited September 13, 2016 by Lord Tullus

[Pretty Cool Guy]

Midir might be the most underrated unit in gen 1. His offence is pretty good after nabbing Jamke's Killer Bow (he really doesn't need it to kill things), and Charge which greatly helps his offence. His HP should almost always be full for it to work since he doesn't really take counters. His high movement + canto lets him take potshots and retreat to safety, or just get even farther ahead. He's the ideal dad for Lester since he gives Pursuit and can let him inherit bows, while pairing him with Aideen is super quick and easy.

Holyn might be a foot unit, but he's a very good fighter who is pretty much Ayra but better. She has maybe half a chapter more availability, but Holyn has better base stats, better or equal growths in literally every stat, and is closer to promotion. The only thing she has on him is a slightly better promotion, and Astra which is super overkill anyway. I honestly don't see how people can see Ayra as better.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Pretty Cool Guy

[TheAstraWolf]

My choices would be:

-Sigurd (Sliver Sword and promoted unit)

-Lex (Bulky as all hell that he could pass out on being a knight)

-Quan (Crusader Weapon in chapter 3)

-Ayra (Astra and conversation in chapter 3 with Lex or Holyn that gives her a Brave Sword)

-Jamke (doesn't need Holy Blood to be a badass and has a Killer Bow)

-Holyn (Luna skill)

-Aideen (maybe, she is a healer so you will need that)

-Levin (Forsety in chapter 4 and the ability to dodge forever with that sick speed of his)

-Tallite (Wrath allows this character to take damage and dish it back with even more power)

-Briggid (Yewfelle crusader Weapon, major Ulir and some great starting bases)

[Lantairu]

Midir might be the most underrated unit in gen 1. His offence is pretty good after nabbing Jamke's Killer Bow (he really doesn't need it to kill things), and Charge which greatly helps his offence. His HP should almost always be full for it to work since he doesn't really take counters. His high movement + canto lets him take potshots and retreat to safety, or just get even farther ahead. He's the ideal dad for Lester since he gives Pursuit and can let him inherit bows, while pairing him with Aideen is super quick and easy.

Holyn might be a foot unit, but he's a very good fighter who is pretty much Ayra but better. She has maybe half a chapter more availability, but Holyn has better base stats, better or equal growths in literally every stat, and is closer to promotion. The only thing she has on him is a slightly better promotion, and Astra which is super overkill anyway. I honestly don't see how people can see Ayra as better.

It's exactly what you said, the promotion and Astra. Especially in this game, Astra is a freaking beast and upon promotion her skill is raised even more, leading to Astra activating almost all the time. Also, she gets a brave sword in Chapter 3 that makes her basically unstoppable.