Best class in the series?

[CyberController]

Which has the best stats and skills? Which has the most versatile powers? Which is the most fun to play?

 

For me, it's Wyvern riders. They have great strength and defense, and one of the highest movement in the game. The Wyvern Lord is also pretty cool.

[Yazuki]

Hmm good choice I do like Wyvern riders I prefer the bulk of defence compared to the Peg knight's res.

But my personal favourite is Myrmidon class with their high Critical rates, for some reason 30%-45% occurs like 80% for me or maybe I'm just lucky 0u0 

[X-Naut]

Clerics are the most consistent answer due to their availability and the sheer map-breaking power and versatility of certain staffs.

[Ertrick36]

I like the trainee classes simply because they can open up to a lot more and enable some level of customization without leaving things too open.

Aside from those, I most prefer the more balanced classes.  The mercenaries throughout the series (though if you've played Shadow Dragon or Binding Blade, they'll seem anything but "balanced"), the spear fighter of Fates (I mean, would you expect any different from me?), and the cavaliers.  I also like classes that allow you to use both ranged and melee weapons with physical attributes, such as the bow knight or warrior.  And while they're supremely OP, using dark mages in Awakening is just fun.  In fact, dark mages in general are just cooler to me.

Honorable mentions go to the great knight and master of arms classes for taking on all melee weapon types, as well as Mozu's villager class just because the animations are kind of adorable.

40 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Clerics are the most consistent answer due to their availability and the sheer map-breaking power and versatility of certain staffs.

Goddamn warp and fortify/reserve staves...

And there's no reason practically every cleric in Mystery of the Emblem should be able to use either as soon as they obtain it.

[Avarice Shadow]

I'm with you on the Wyvern Class Tree. They're very good at a lot of things such as, having high stats, high move, flight, and weapon triangle control. 

Edited April 16, 2018 by Black Zero

[TheZakkAttack]

Personally,  the Hero class is one of the best classes, because they hit hard, can tank pretty well, and are fast. They also have access to 1-2 range since they get access to axes, making them utterly fantastic.  
Also, Dark Flier gets a particular mention here for allowing access to arguably the most broken skill in the series, Galeforce (even though their stats are inferior to any other promoted magic or melee class).

EDIT: Also,  Druid class is just so cool, especially because Canas.

Edited April 16, 2018 by TheZakkAttack

[Slumber]

Depends on the game.

Absolutely it's been the Wyvern classline as of late, but they weren't super exceptional until FE10 in my eyes.

[indigoasis]

8 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Depends on the game.

He's got a point there.

Despite only two characters in the series having access to it and it only being in one game, my answer would be the Master Knight class. They have access to every weapon type in the game (besides dark magic), and they're mounted, which means high movement. It's fun to have a unit that can counter pretty much everything.

[Slumber]

2 hours ago, AlmondJuice said:

He's got a point there.

Despite only two characters in the series having access to it and it only being in one game, my answer would be the Master Knight class. They have access to every weapon type in the game (besides dark magic), and they're mounted, which means high movement. It's fun to have a unit that can counter pretty much everything.

If we went game-by-game, then Master Knights would run away with this thread for FE4. It's a mounted unit with fantastic promotion gains, class caps, it has Pursuit and can wield 9 weapons.

[Hawkwing]

Cavaliers, as they're versatile, balanced stat-wise, and make every use of their high movement.

Dread fighters, as they have high movement, high attack and speed, and are one of the few classes/characters in SoV that has a good resistance stat outside of mages.

It depends on the game (as well as how RNG blessed they are) but I tend to find the Lord units to range from "viable and useful" to "one-man army."

[MyBoyHector]

Pegasus Knights, because enemy mages can go bloody die! High Res, High Speed, Average Str most of the time, good for killing the squishies!

[Emperor Hardin]

As a whole

* Cavalry

* Pegasus and Wyvern riders.

On 4/16/2018 at 1:31 PM, Slumber said:

Depends on the game.

Absolutely it's been the Wyvern classline as of late, but they weren't super exceptional until FE10 in my eyes.

FE1, FE3, and FE5 Wyvern riders were extremely good. 

[Slumber]

25 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

As a whole

* Cavalry

* Pegasus and Wyvern riders.

FE1, FE3, and FE5 Wyvern riders were extremely good. 

In 1 and 3... Yeah, flying helps a lot.

FE5 I wouldn't say "extremely". They're about on part with the peggies, which are solid in FE5. Well, Dean is. Eda's a bit underleveled and not the easiest to train. She joins on a chapter designed to kill her, and depending on which route you go, will practically never see use until very late in the game, at which point she'll be waaaay too underleveled to even consider using. 

Even Dean's not perfect. Flying units don't fill their typical niche in FE5 where your best mode of quick transportation is WARP. Having him and a trained up Karin can help cut down on your reliance of Warp, but they're not going to be crazy clutch like Wyverns in FE10 and Fates. And class-wise, Sage(And anything with a decent Staff rank) steals the show in FE5. Every single Sage is insanely good, ridiculously versatile, and their crazy promotion gains make them pretty easy to train. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[ping]

21 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

FE1, FE3, and FE5 Wyvern riders were extremely good. 

FE6 as well, both on player side (well, Zeiss is only decent, but Milady is good enough for three units) and the enemy's.

I'm tempted to give Cavalier/Paladin as my answer, though, since I don't think there is a single game without at least one great cav unit - from FE6 on out:

• Marcus, Allen, Lance, Perceval
• Marcus, Sain (Kent and Lowen are good too, but idk if I should file them under *great*)
• Seth, Franz
• Titania, Oscar, Kieran (and no cav is really bad in PoR)
• Titania, although I suppose cavaliers are at their weakest in RD
• Jagen, Abel, Hardin
• Luke, Rody, Cecille (pretty much all of the prologue units that don't leave before ch.1 are great)

Wyverns are a close follow-up, since I can't think of a truly bad playable wyvern either (even Zeiss is still alright despite join time and level).

[Slumber]

13 minutes ago, ping said:

FE6 as well, both on player side (well, Zeiss is only decent, but Milady is good enough for three units) and the enemy's.

I'm tempted to give Cavalier/Paladin as my answer, though, since I don't think there is a single game without at least one great cav unit - from FE6 on out:

• Marcus, Allen, Lance, Perceval
• Marcus, Sain (Kent and Lowen are good too, but idk if I should file them under *great*)
• Seth, Franz
• Titania, Oscar, Kieran (and no cav is really bad in PoR)
• Titania, although I suppose cavaliers are at their weakest in RD
• Jagen, Abel, Hardin
• Luke, Rody, Cecille (pretty much all of the prologue units that don't leave before ch.1 are great)

Wyverns are a close follow-up, since I can't think of a truly bad playable wyvern either (even Zeiss is still alright despite join time and level).

Altenna is a bad unit. Vaida's mediocre at best. Eda, FE9 Jill and Heath are all underleveled enough to bench and not sweat it. Zeiss is an Est and really isn't worth it at all on normal mode. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[ping]

Can't comment on Altenna, not having played the Jugdrals, but Vaida is pretty good when she turns up (high Def, high weapon ranks and 13-14 Spd isn't too bad in FE7), and it's not like Jill were an endgame unit in PoR. She isn't as amazing as some of the other wyverns in the series, since she doesn't really elevate herself from Marcia, but it's not like two flyer were too many, so Jill is still very much worth giving a BEXP boost. Being underleveled in PoR really isn't as big a deal as it is in other games. Heath and Zeiss are underleveled, too, of course (and I don't consider Zeiss an Est, given that his growth rates aren't any better than average), but both of them have the stats necessary to hold their own and collect that sweet XP without too much problems. Heath in particular joins right before the chapter where a flying unit that earns more XP per kill is really useful.

Again, no idea how viable Altenna is, but do you really consider any of the other ones *bad*? They might not be Seth-tier broken, but I consider all of them to be at least above-average (and yes, that does include Zeiss, at least on HM).

Edited April 18, 2018 by ping

[Slumber]

34 minutes ago, ping said:

Can't comment on Altenna, not having played the Jugdrals, but Vaida is pretty good when she turns up (high Def, high weapon ranks and 13-14 Spd isn't too bad in FE7), and it's not like Jill were an endgame unit in PoR. She isn't as amazing as some of the other wyverns in the series, since she doesn't really elevate herself from Marcia, but it's not like two flyer were too many, so Jill is still very much worth giving a BEXP boost. Being underleveled in PoR really isn't as big a deal as it is in other games. Heath and Zeiss are underleveled, too, of course (and I don't consider Zeiss an Est, given that his growth rates aren't any better than average), but both of them have the stats necessary to hold their own and collect that sweet XP without too much problems. Heath in particular joins right before the chapter where a flying unit that earns more XP per kill is really useful.

Again, no idea how viable Altenna is, but do you really consider any of the other ones *bad*? They might not be Seth-tier broken, but I consider all of them to be at least above-average (and yes, that does include Zeiss, at least on HM).

Ests rarely have insanely high growths. Compare Zeiss to his contemporaries(Miledy in this case), and you'll see he has slightly better growth rates, barring speed. Beyond that, he's a late game unit that is underleveled and unpromoted. Hugh by comparison, who joins the same chapter, is 8 levels higher than Zeiss. He's definitely an odd Est, but he's an Est. 

And no, I don't consider the other ones *bad*, but I also don't consider them very good and are completely negligible, which more or less covers every Wyvern barring Dean, Miledy, Cormag and Haar up until FE10, which is where I agree that Wyverns start pulling away as clearly one of, if not the best classes. And of those 4, only Miledy is the one where I'd consider her a front runner for best unit of her game. 

8 games(Cuz FE2 not having them) where there are 4 standouts does not the best class make. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[ping]

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

8 games(Cuz FE2 not having them) where there are 4 standouts does not the best class make. 

Which class, other than cav/pala (who I did name as stronger overall) had a better quota, then? The standout characters of the pre-RD games I've played are Milady, Marcus, Seth, and Titania. If I remember correctly, you consider Orsin to be the standout in T776, but I've seen others say otherwise, while Sigurd (i.e. a lord modeled after a paladin) is pretty universially named as the strongest unit in Genealogy.

And on the other end of the spectrum, is there any class that does not have a representive that's worse than at least Zeiss? Mercs have Ogier in FE6 (and I don't think that Samto was particularly good in FE3), even cavs got Treck or Matthis, pegasi have Syrene and Yuno...

Sorry, but I'm still convinced that wyven riders are easily the 2nd best class in the series, even before the second coming of Haar, and that they aren't terribly far behind cavaliers. I haven't even taken into account that wyvern rider is just an amazing class in itself, which is to say that pretty much every unit in the game would be better off if you changed their class into wyvern rider. And that doesn't take into consideration that the class bases of wyvern riders/lords are generally amazing - Allen in FE6 would be a better unit if he changed into WK even if he kept his cav stats, but if you look at the classes' bases, he would additionally receive +2 Str, +1 Skl, +2 Def, and +1 Con.

[Slumber]

4 hours ago, ping said:

Which class, other than cav/pala (who I did name as stronger overall) had a better quota, then? The standout characters of the pre-RD games I've played are Milady, Marcus, Seth, and Titania. If I remember correctly, you consider Orsin to be the standout in T776, but I've seen others say otherwise, while Sigurd (i.e. a lord modeled after a paladin) is pretty universially named as the strongest unit in Genealogy.

And on the other end of the spectrum, is there any class that does not have a representive that's worse than at least Zeiss? Mercs have Ogier in FE6 (and I don't think that Samto was particularly good in FE3), even cavs got Treck or Matthis, pegasi have Syrene and Yuno...

Sorry, but I'm still convinced that wyven riders are easily the 2nd best class in the series, even before the second coming of Haar, and that they aren't terribly far behind cavaliers. I haven't even taken into account that wyvern rider is just an amazing class in itself, which is to say that pretty much every unit in the game would be better off if you changed their class into wyvern rider. And that doesn't take into consideration that the class bases of wyvern riders/lords are generally amazing - Allen in FE6 would be a better unit if he changed into WK even if he kept his cav stats, but if you look at the classes' bases, he would additionally receive +2 Str, +1 Skl, +2 Def, and +1 Con.

The big one that I'd consider better than Wyvern Knights is Pegasus Knights.

Pegasus Knights, namely Catia and Palla, absolutely run away with FE1/3, and blow Minerva, the Wyvern Knight(And yes, even though they're the same class line in this game, I'm separating them because I don't think a single person would consider the peggies "Wyverns" from this game) out of the water. Pegasus Knights are one of the best classes from Gaiden, just behind probably Dread Fighters(The remake gave Archers a buff and they're arguably the #2 now), with Claire and the peggie sisters love being great offensive units with Slayer. Fury and Fee aren't the most exceptional units and the way FE4 handles areas of movement more or less just means they're Cavalry that can hang out on mountains and water, but again, they blow Altena, the Wyvern Knight, out of the water, and a trained up Fee will fit in during the end game a lot more neatly than Altenna. A trained up Karin will be on part with Dean when he shows up, and has about 10 extra chapters of use leading up to him, making her a much more valuable unit overall. Thanny is a similar situation, except Miledy will take the reins from her and become the better unit, that said, FE6 is the first FE in a long while where a flyer's movement is always welcomed, so there's really not reason to not use both and Thanny is another very good unit from this game, even if she lives in Miledy's shadow. Florina is full stop just better than Heath. Cormag is heads and shoulders above the peggies here. Hollow praise, however, as a lot of the times you want flying will come before his recruitment and the game he's from is a cake walk where you get the best unit in the game in the first chapter. Marcia is another case of "Just as good, but joins much earlier", whereas Jill is midgame and Haar is a late game unit.

Which is something peggies have always had over Wyvern Knights that often wins them many, many points by comparison. Your best peggies are often very early game units, which elevates them above their often statistically better, but lower leveled counterparts. And it's why FE10 and Fates are two standouts where Wyverns are the best. Haar and Camilla are basically Jeigans(Or Oifeys, since they have good stats and growths), being high leveled, promoted units who join early. And they end up dominating the whole game relatively uninhibited. 

I'm not going to math out "Oh, this class has 4 good units and 10 bad ones" and decide that therefore that makes them bad. I WILL say that this class has 4 good ones total, and therefore isn't the best class. Yes, peggies and Cavs both have their bulk of bad units. But the good units in both classes are almost universally better than Wyverns, and they're far more common. 

PS: Orsin is a standout in Thracia, but he's largely an exceptional unit where pretty much everyone has potential to be good(Eda the Wyvern Knight and Xavier are the closest to not being good, but even Eda has potential. She's just the hardest unit in the game to train, with very little payoff). As a whole, Sages are far and away the best class in the game. You get a whopping 5 of them, and all of them probably wouldn't seem out of place in a top 10 list for that game. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[MyBoyHector]

Quote

Pegasus Knights, namely Catia and Palla, absolutely run away with FE1/3, and blow Minerva, the Wyvern Knight(And yes, even though they're the same class line in this game, I'm separating them because I don't think a single person would consider the peggies "Wyverns" from this game) out of the water. Pegasus Knights are one of the best classes from Gaiden, just behind probably Dread Fighters(The remake gave Archers a buff and they're arguably the #2 now), with Claire and the peggie sisters love being great offensive units with Slayer. Fury and Fee aren't the most exceptional units and the way FE4 handles areas of movement more or less just means they're Cavalry that can hang out on mountains and water, but again, they blow Altena, the Wyvern Knight, out of the water, and a trained up Fee will fit in during the end game a lot more neatly than Altenna. A trained up Karin will be on part with Dean when he shows up, and has about 10 extra chapters of use leading up to him, making her a much more valuable unit overall. Thanny is a similar situation, except Miledy will take the reins from her and become the better unit, that said, FE6 is the first FE in a long while where a flyer's movement is always welcomed, so there's really not reason to not use both and Thanny is another very good unit from this game, even if she lives in Miledy's shadow. Florina is full stop just better than Heath. Cormag is heads and shoulders above the peggies here. Hollow praise, however, as a lot of the times you want flying will come before his recruitment and the game he's from is a cake walk where you get the best unit in the game in the first chapter. Marcia is another case of "Just as good, but joins much earlier", whereas Jill is midgame and Haar is a late game unit.

Not to mention Shiida and her Wingspear are stupidly OP and you get it really early. Elincia can also be quite good since she has Amati, though you could make the argument that she isn't a Pegasus knight, even though she rides one.  Marcia is just well.... you give her any forged weapon and she outshines Ike, even with his Regal sword.

The other thing Peggy Knights tend to have which makes them the best class is access to the Triangle attack (Except in one case where the Green hair'd boys of the Greil Mercs get it in PoR) where it tends to nuke anything you don't want alive.

[ping]

On 18.4.2018 at 7:58 PM, Slumber said:

(And yes, even though they're the same class line in this game, I'm separating them because I don't think a single person would consider the peggies "Wyverns" from this game)

Why not? Sure, from a Fluff perspective, the Whitewings are, well, Whitewings, but in terms of pure Crunch, they spend a considerable portion of their existances as wyvern riders. NMotE!Palla in particular hardly spends any time whatsoever as a peg knight if you want to get the most value out of her. And while I'm aware that I'm merely extrapolating, I can't imagine that this is any different in a game with a hard cap of 20 for every stat.

Also, if you consider joining time to be a major point against Jill in comparison to Marcia - how do Palla and Catria "run away" with FE1? They join in chapter 14 (out of 25 in total), which is noticable later than Jill (12/29, not counting the prologue). They probably dominate Book 2, if FE12 is any indication, but again - I suspect that they do so as wyvern riders for at least half the game. In FE12, I usually promote Catria with the Elysian Whip from chapter 11 and I definitely remember that I always have to delay her promotion in order to do so. So if the XP curve of the original is remotely similar to the remake, I would probably promote both of them ASAP, which would be in or after chapters 7 and 9.

On 19.4.2018 at 1:44 AM, MyBoyHector said:

Not to mention Shiida and her Wingspear are stupidly OP and you get it really early.

True, but not a factor for pre-RD games. ;) As far as I know, Shiida's best option in FE1 is Jagen's Silver Lance, since her base weapon level is just high enough and Kain's, Abel's, and Doga's is not quite.

[NinjaMonkey]

Awakening's Sorcerers - You can just Nosferatu tank entire maps.

[Slumber]

5 hours ago, ping said:

Why not? Sure, from a Fluff perspective, the Whitewings are, well, Whitewings, but in terms of pure Crunch, they spend a considerable portion of their existances as wyvern riders. NMotE!Palla in particular hardly spends any time whatsoever as a peg knight if you want to get the most value out of her. And while I'm aware that I'm merely extrapolating, I can't imagine that this is any different in a game with a hard cap of 20 for every stat.

Also, if you consider joining time to be a major point against Jill in comparison to Marcia - how do Palla and Catria "run away" with FE1? They join in chapter 14 (out of 25 in total), which is noticable later than Jill (12/29, not counting the prologue). They probably dominate Book 2, if FE12 is any indication, but again - I suspect that they do so as wyvern riders for at least half the game. In FE12, I usually promote Catria with the Elysian Whip from chapter 11 and I definitely remember that I always have to delay her promotion in order to do so. So if the XP curve of the original is remotely similar to the remake, I would probably promote both of them ASAP, which would be in or after chapters 7 and 9.

True, but not a factor for pre-RD games. ;) As far as I know, Shiida's best option in FE1 is Jagen's Silver Lance, since her base weapon level is just high enough and Kain's, Abel's, and Doga's is not quite.

I don't consider them Wyverns for the same reason I don't consider Navarre a Mercenary/Hero. They're characters who filled an archetype of a class that didn't properly exist until FE4. The stat distribution you'd expect(Sort of. Catria and Palla really just have amazing stats all around, but there's more emphasis on speed and skill), but visually limited by the fact that wyverns and peggies were stuck in the same class line until FE4. 

And they run away with it purely because of how good they are. They show up mid-game and low level like Jill, Eda or Heath, but where Jill, Eda and Heath struggle is that they don't have bases to immediately have a spot in your army and their growths aren't good enough to really justify the extra work. Catria and Palla won't be that much worse off than Minerva(Palla more so, since she starts with better bases) is by the time you get them and they have incredible upward momentum. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Slumber

[MyBoyHector]

11 hours ago, ping said:

True, but not a factor for pre-RD games. ;) As far as I know, Shiida's best option in FE1 is Jagen's Silver Lance, since her base weapon level is just high enough and Kain's, Abel's, and Doga's is not quite.

Yes and no, Yes in that killing randoms is nice with the Silver Lance, But the super effectiveness of the Wingspear is better for nuking those pesky Cav and Armor Knights, while letting the rest of your group kill the randoms instead.

 

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

I don't consider them Wyverns for the same reason I don't consider Navarre a Mercenary/Hero. They're characters who filled an archetype of a class that didn't properly exist until FE4. The stat distribution you'd expect(Sort of. Catria and Palla really just have amazing stats all around, but there's more emphasis on speed and skill), but visually limited by the fact that wyverns and peggies were stuck in the same class line until FE4. 

Same, Peggies are Peggies, and Wyverns are Wyverns, while I love them all, Peggies > Wyverns. Plus in awakening and fates (though it got nerfed), Galeforce was 7 levels of hell broken. Cynthia is as much a God as Lucina, and as a sister duo can solo anything.

[ping]

On 20.4.2018 at 7:39 PM, Slumber said:

And they run away with it purely because of how good they are. They show up mid-game and low level like Jill, Eda or Heath, but where Jill, Eda and Heath struggle is that they don't have bases to immediately have a spot in your army and their growths aren't good enough to really justify the extra work. Catria and Palla won't be that much worse off than Minerva(Palla more so, since she starts with better bases) is by the time you get them and they have incredible upward momentum. 

Minor nitpick, I suppose, but I still don't see why Palla and Catria in FE1 would be any more remarkable than Jill. They really aren't all that special in FE11, although I suppose they have much less competition in the flyer department in FE1 since you can't reclass units like Abel or Hardin into a WK after promotion. But do they really perform that much better than PoR!Jill, who really just needs a little BEXP infusion to get rolling?

Again, while it's technically true that both Palla&Catria and Jill join in the midgame, Jill is around for almost 60% of the game, while the Peg sisters only got slightly less than half of their game, and that counts their joining chapter despite them appearing too late to contribute much in it. And unlike Jill, they don't have BEXP to immediately catch up to the rest of the party. I'll admit that their average stats are pretty rad, but given that stats cap at 20 anyway, I doubt that their combat is that much better than that of a trained early-game unit such as Kain, Abel, Ogma, or Barst. Not to say that I would consider them bad units, but in my opinion, Jill is the 3rd-best unit in PoR (beaten by Marcia and Titania, with Oscar and Kieran following behind), and I can't imagine that Palla or Catria stand better than that in FE1. They certainly don't in the remake, fwiw.

But on a bigger picture, we just don't agree with how to weigh in games in which certain class distinctions haven't been made. I wouldn't count FE1 either way when considering Merc vs. Myrm and I would probably rather count Nabarl as a Merc than a Myrm when comparing either class to a third one, but at this point, I'd rather agree to disagree. ;)

On 21.4.2018 at 2:11 AM, MyBoyHector said:

Yes and no, Yes in that killing randoms is nice with the Silver Lance, But the super effectiveness of the Wingspear is better for nuking those pesky Cav and Armor Knights, while letting the rest of your group kill the randoms instead.

Dude, the Wing Spear wasn't a thing in FE1. I'm well aware how ridiculously broken it is in the remake (although it's less imba in FE12 since its enemies are more diverse), but I was trying to make a point about the NES games.

Edited April 29, 2018 by ping