Who is the worst "Est" type unit in the series

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Oh I didn't mean to imply Niime was a bad attacker, after all, i t's that Magic stat that helps her be such a good staff bot for the staves that let magic determine range. It's just that due to her near exclusive access to a high stave rank, she's a much more effective staff bot than offensive unit.

Angel Robe exists and it + Body Ring that most things don't want to use auto fix Niime's stats

She's considered the most neccesary unit in FE6 late game for a reason

[Tetragrammaton]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Genealogy is like the best game to train Healers though. You just need to have them use Return or Warp a bunch. It does cost money, but well worth it if you want to go for the EXP rank. Although Corple still probably isn't all that useful unless Levin's his father.

This is the best part of this Est, once he is promoted with Holsety, and boom!

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Genealogy is like the best game to train Healers though. You just need to have them use Return or Warp a bunch. It does cost money, but well worth it if you want to go for the EXP rank. Although Corple still probably isn't all that useful unless Levin's his father.

Except, as @Sage of the Mist stated earlier, he’s obsolete, and making things worse for him, he’s in Horse Emblem, and thus cannot keep up. Not helping is the fact that he has to deal with Genealogy’s awkward money system.

[Jotari]

43 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Except, as @Sage of the Mist stated earlier, he’s obsolete, and making things worse for him, he’s in Horse Emblem, and thus cannot keep up. Not helping is the fact that he has to deal with Genealogy’s awkward money system.

you don't even have to bring sage of must into it, I confessed myself that there's little use to him once he's promoted. He's just easy to promote, if you happen to care enough.

[Flee Fleet!]

Isn't Charlot also an Est since Coirpre is one?

Anyways, while Coirpre isn't exactly worth the effort to use (he's just an extra staffbot but there's already like two in the player's army), he's at least easy to train and promote. Just staff abuse with Warp or Rescue, which provides a large amount of EXP.

He will also always have a high staff rank, so he's not exactly too bad a healer to have as long as you can keep him alive.

 

In comparison, Sophia is much worse. Very Low base stats make it extremely difficult to keep her alive, especially since you're halfway through the game by now. Not to mention that her only way to gain experience is by fighting, which she is terrible at.

Even after promotion her stats remain medicore, with only her Res and maybe Mag being noteworthy. Her growths aren't exactly exceptional either.

 

So yeah I'd say Sophia's the worst Est.

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Flee Fleet!

[Wuzzy]

Sophia, Coirpre, and Nino are probably the worst Ests in the franchise.

• Nino is completely outclassed by Pent and Erk (moreso Pent considering he joins much earlier and is such a fantastic unit), and Nino also needs a ton of babying as well as Body Rings to offset her low con. Not worth using imo
• Sophia just needs a ton of babying due to her low base stats and low join level (especially since it's a desert map full of units that can attack from any direction + fog of war) and isn't really that great (considering either Raigh or Niime are much better alternatives).
• Coirpre joins late at a low level, in a game where horse emblem thrives due to how large the maps are. Base stats aren't too bad, it's just that he's a low level priest that joins way too late without a horse much less, and you get 2 better staff users (Nanna and Julia) that join earlier and are just better overall

Dishonorable Mentions

• Miranda's promotion is a choice (while most promotions strengthen units, Miranda's promotion doesn't change her at all), considering her nonexistent strength and con makes it nearly impossible for her to benefit from swords, which is half of the reason to even use a mage knight imo. Though she does have really great growths as a mage and she has a horse, which is okay I guess. Overall kinda underwhelming when I randomly decided to use her, though I personally wouldn't call her the worst.
• Est (FE11-12) just not worth using honestly, in FE11 Est (and her sisters) do come quite late but, Palla and Catria are both salvageable due to their ok join time and growths. Est just joins way too late to be of any use. Same thing goes with FE12 but, there is literally 0 reason to use her considering Palla/Catria (and potentially female Kris) join so much earlier and are easily the strongest units in the game. Though the fact she joins with Ridersbane in FE11 lets her pick off weakened Cavs easily and, she also has the perk of triangle attack as well. Her growths in FE12 are honestly jacked af despite her base stats not being any great soo, she is still usable in a way because of that.

Zeiss, Sara, and Delthea are probably the best Ests in the franchise

• Zeiss has great growths, decent base stats in NM (amazing stats in HM), and also Wyverns are just a really strong class overall due to ferry ability + bulk and better offensive capabilities. Not too difficult to train despite being underleveled ish, very worth using.
• Sara is strong because of her Kia Staff (which is very useful for curing Stone), and also her growths are really good for an offensive unit (80% in both magic and speed). Joins a bit late but, she has Elite (aka Paragon of FE5) which makes training her easy and she has B staves which lets her use Rescue which can also speed up the process quite a bit.
• Delthea starts off slow but, she can catch up quickly due to her growths. Mage Ring patches up her lack of Thunder (or just any long range spells), so if you aren't going Mage!Kliff then Delthea is a good investment for the Mage Ring. Rewarp and Ragnarok are also kinda cool too I guess.

Honorable Mentions

• Elincia comes with high staff ranks and also an unbreakable Brave Sword (though swords users kinda suck in this game considering how common Wyvern, Knights, and Paladin units are which commonly wield lances, she's also weighed down by it and has a poor Str growth and stat). She is a great staff bot considering she can use Physic and Rescue from the get-go which is really nice and she's also mobile due to Canto. High magic growth helps her get more healing range (despite her Mag stat being kinda mediocre), so she's a pretty good investment in horse emblem 3.0.
• Est (FE15), not on the list but, while she does take effort to train... She easily surpasses Palla if you decide to invest in her (in both my playthroughs) and she helps a ton on those swamp maps due to the fact that they are fliers while the rest aren't.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Lunarly

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Lunarly said:

Sophia, Coirpre, and Nino are probably the worst Ests in the franchise.

• Nino is completely outclassed by Pent and Erk (moreso Pent considering he joins much earlier and is such a fantastic unit), and Nino also needs a ton of babying as well as Body Rings to offset her low con. Not worth using imo
• Sophia just needs a ton of babying due to her low base stats and low join level (especially since it's a desert map full of units that can attack from any direction + fog of war) and isn't really that great (considering either Raigh or Niime are much better alternatives).
• Coirpre joins late at a low level, in a game where horse emblem thrives due to how large the maps are. Base stats aren't too bad, it's just that he's a low level priest that joins way too late without a horse much less, and you get 2 better staff users (Nanna and Julia) that join earlier and are just better overall

Dishonorable Mentions

• Miranda's promotion is a choice (while most promotions strengthen units, Miranda's promotion doesn't change her at all), considering her nonexistent strength and con makes it nearly impossible for her to benefit from swords, which is half of the reason to even use a mage knight imo. Though she does have really great growths as a mage and she has a horse, which is okay I guess. Overall kinda underwhelming when I randomly decided to use her, though I personally wouldn't call her the worst.
• Est (FE11-12) just not worth using honestly, in FE11 Est (and her sisters) do come quite late but, Palla and Catria are both salvageable due to their ok join time and growths. Est just joins way too late to be of any use. Same thing goes with FE12 but, there is literally 0 reason to use her considering Palla/Catria (and potentially female Kris) join so much earlier and are easily the strongest units in the game. Though the fact she joins with Ridersbane in FE11 lets her pick off weakened Cavs easily and, she also has the perk of triangle attack as well. Her growths in FE12 are honestly jacked af despite her base stats not being any great soo, she is still usable in a way because of that.

Zeiss, Sara, and Delthea are probably the best Ests in the franchise

• Zeiss has great growths, decent base stats in NM (amazing stats in HM), and also Wyverns are just a really strong class overall due to ferry ability + bulk and better offensive capabilities. Not too difficult to train despite being underleveled ish, very worth using.
• Sara is strong because of her Kia Staff (which is very useful for curing Stone), and also her growths are really good for an offensive unit (80% in both magic and speed). Joins a bit late but, she has Elite (aka Paragon of FE5) which makes training her easy and she has B staves which lets her use Rescue which can also speed up the process quite a bit.
• Delthea starts off slow but, she can catch up quickly due to her growths. Mage Ring patches up her lack of Thunder (or just any long range spells), so if you aren't going Mage!Kliff then Delthea is a good investment for the Mage Ring. Rewarp and Ragnarok are also kinda cool too I guess.

Honorable Mentions

• Elincia comes with high staff ranks and also an unbreakable Brave Sword (though swords users kinda suck in this game considering how common Wyvern, Knights, and Paladin units are which commonly wield lances, she's also weighed down by it and has a poor Str growth and stat). She is a great staff bot considering she can use Physic and Rescue from the get-go which is really nice and she's also mobile due to Canto. High magic growth helps her get more healing range (despite her Mag stat being kinda mediocre), so she's a pretty good investment in horse emblem 3.0.
• Est (FE15), not on the list but, while she does take effort to train... She easily surpasses Palla if you decide to invest in her (in both my playthroughs) and she helps a ton on those swamp maps due to the fact that they are fliers while the rest aren't.

In a devils advocate defense of Corple, you lose access to Julia near permanently not long after obtaining him.

[Aut]

6 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I would say you’re being very, very, VERY generous to Zeiss - he is nigh unusable unless you gimp a better unit...

What are you even talking about here? Because his base offenses and defenses are pretty decent on hard mode no matter how you look at it - 19 strength and a 37/15 defensive split are decent no matter how you look at it, and 11 speed, while not fast, is usually enough to avoid getting doubled. And of course, this translates to a guarenteed 21 strength 42 HP 17 defense and 13 speed on promotion, and all of those are fairly decent, even if the speed definitely isn’t amazing. If we’re talking Elysian whip availability, then may I remind you that he joins immediately before you have access to the secret shop that sells them (literally can be accessed the same turn as recruitment). And it costs the same amount as other promotion items sell for. And of course if you don’t promote every single previous flyer (I’ve done both on my HM runs), then a whip is available for promotion. He is the worst non-Juno flyer, I will say that, but he is not nigh unusable. I mean come on, he’s used fairly extensively in the 0% growths run of FE6, he can’t be that bad. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

I've never played FE4, but how bad in practice can Coirpre (spelling his new name is never easy for me) be?

A staffbot doesn't need stats other than Magic to a degree. I wouldn't imagine it hard for anyone to keep him alive, and if that isn't an issue, while he would be inferior to other staffbots, like say Nanna or Claud!Fee, it wouldn't be as bad as if he were an inferior combat unit. If you're an inferior combat unit, you are siphoning EXP from better ones, who need it since fighting needs stats. Dedicated healers not really needing much in the way of stats means taking EXP from another does not inflict much if any harm. And I use Laura at tier 1 all the time in RD Part 4 Dawn Army for healing, and keeping her alive is not a challenge, can't see Coirpre being worse in this regard.

Sure Lana can do better, being able to be promoted by Coirpre's joining time and thus gaining more durability and a slight offense. But the offense is likely only that, slight, since she sans Azelle or Lewyn are stuck with C tomes, and her Mov is still the same. Furthermore Physic range is locked to 1-10 in FE4, so higher Magic won't make her able to sling heals any further than him. 

 

If you try using Coirpre, at worst he falls behind and doesn't contribute much, but contribute he still can without getting in the way of things.

Sophia and every other Est on the other hand has to make their living on fighting, which is a much taller order. You have to either give them good weapons others might not then have access to, and or stat boosters. Or you may need to set up kills for them as opposed to letting your war gods just ORKO the map. And you may, more actively than you would with a total rearguard unit like Coirpre, have to set up your unit positions for their protection come the enemy phase.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Aut said:

What are you even talking about here? Because his base offenses and defenses are pretty decent on hard mode no matter how you look at it - 19 strength and a 37/15 defensive split are decent no matter how you look at it, and 11 speed, while not fast, is usually enough to avoid getting doubled. And of course, this translates to a guarenteed 21 strength 42 HP 17 defense and 13 speed on promotion, and all of those are fairly decent, even if the speed definitely isn’t amazing. If we’re talking Elysian whip availability, then may I remind you that he joins immediately before you have access to the secret shop that sells them (literally can be accessed the same turn as recruitment). And it costs the same amount as other promotion items sell for. And of course if you don’t promote every single previous flyer (I’ve done both on my HM runs), then a whip is available for promotion. He is the worst non-Juno flyer, I will say that, but he is not nigh unusable. I mean come on, he’s used fairly extensively in the 0% growths run of FE6, he can’t be that bad. 

Low resistance when long range magic and status staves are becoming more common is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the bow weakness that bites him in the ass no matter the route (ballistae in Ilia ruin his day, and he has as much chance against Sacae nomads as a knight does against a Griffon Rider in Yggdra Union, aka no hope whatsoever) unless he has the Delphi Shield, making Miledy worse in the process. And the fact that his initial stage pits him against both of the aforementioned crap and a very annoying gimmick. Far as I’m concerned, if I have to make one of my best units worse in order to feasibly train someone else, that’s a MASSIVE red flag. 

TL;DR Zeiss has no compelling case for use imho.

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I've never played FE4, but how bad in practice can Coirpre (spelling his new name is never easy for me) be?

A staffbot doesn't need stats other than Magic to a degree. I wouldn't imagine it hard for anyone to keep him alive, and if that isn't an issue, while he would be inferior to other staffbots, like say Nanna or Claud!Fee, it wouldn't be as bad as if he were an inferior combat unit. If you're an inferior combat unit, you are siphoning EXP from better ones, who need it since fighting needs stats. Dedicated healers not really needing much in the way of stats means taking EXP from another does not inflict much if any harm. And I use Laura at tier 1 all the time in RD Part 4 Dawn Army for healing, and keeping her alive is not a challenge, can't see Coirpre being worse in this regard.

Sure Lana can do better, being able to be promoted by Coirpre's joining time and thus gaining more durability and a slight offense. But the offense is likely only that, slight, since she sans Azelle or Lewyn are stuck with C tomes, and her Mov is still the same. Furthermore Physic range is locked to 1-10 in FE4, so higher Magic won't make her able to sling heals any further than him. 

 

If you try using Coirpre, at worst he falls behind and doesn't contribute much, but contribute he still can without getting in the way of things.

Sophia and every other Est on the other hand has to make their living on fighting, which is a much taller order. You have to either give them good weapons others might not then have access to, and or stat boosters. Or you may need to set up kills for them as opposed to letting your war gods just ORKO the map. And you may, more actively than you would with a total rearguard unit like Coirpre, have to set up your unit positions for their protection come the enemy phase.

It's less anything to do with his stats, and more the fact that he doesn't have a horse. Lana isn't his major competition for him, Leif and Nana are as they can keep up with the army. Corple can be good in theory, as you could give him any father for any combination of stats and getting him exp is no issue (he can even wield Holsety, although he's the worst choice for it, but Holsety is so amazing that it can't help but make Corple an amazing combat unit). It's just that when all's said and done, he's probably going to be lagging behind, especially if he's healing other units. Lana is marginally better because she's around for a longer period of time when you have less mounted units, most critically Seliph being infantry to start, which effects the entire progress of your army. But Corple joins for the last two and a half chapters when things are much more progression focused. I personally wouldn't rank him as among the worst Ests, or even the worst character in his game, but he definitely suffers from not having a pony which makes him not really worth it to promote, unless you're going for an EXP rank. If you're just going to have him around to pop physic and the occasional warp, then yes, he's handy to have around as he can wield any staff from base, especially since, as I mentioned earlier, you loose access to Julia not long after obtaining him. Another factor is that he's annoying to recruit, though that's probably only an LTC issue as I'm guessing most casual players recruit all possible characters for a sense of completion.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Jotari

[MacLovin]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Low resistance when long range magic and status staves are becoming more common is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the bow weakness that bites him in the ass no matter the route (ballistae in Ilia ruin his day, and he has as much chance against Sacae nomads as a knight does against a Griffon Rider in Yggdra Union, aka no hope whatsoever) unless he has the Delphi Shield, making Miledy worse in the process. And the fact that his initial stage pits him against both of the aforementioned crap and a very annoying gimmick. Far as I’m concerned, if I have to make one of my best units worse in order to feasibly train someone else, that’s a MASSIVE red flag. 

TL;DR Zeiss has no compelling case for use imho.

to be totally fair, his hard mode bases are insane, so he's not totally all that bad.

He's kinda just an OK unit. Good if you do put work, but obviously not all that much of a waste.

Sophia on the other hand....shit bases and permanently low speed/con. Shaky dark magic hitrates. Fuck that.

 

[NinjaMonkey]

Surely Pelleas is the Est of Radiant Dawn, and not Kurthanaga?

[X-Naut]

4 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Low resistance when long range magic and status staves are becoming more common is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the bow weakness that bites him in the ass no matter the route (ballistae in Ilia ruin his day, and he has as much chance against Sacae nomads as a knight does against a Griffon Rider in Yggdra Union, aka no hope whatsoever) unless he has the Delphi Shield, making Miledy worse in the process. And the fact that his initial stage pits him against both of the aforementioned crap and a very annoying gimmick. Far as I’m concerned, if I have to make one of my best units worse in order to feasibly train someone else, that’s a MASSIVE red flag. 

TL;DR Zeiss has no compelling case for use imho.

Archers are on damn near every map in FE6, but that doesn't stop people from using a pegasus knight alongside Melady even through the route split. Zeiss's HP/Def are high enough to survive one shot nearly any ballista in the game, and with promotion gains he lives all of them unless it's a Killer and crits (these are rare). Nomads double him but with the Law of Sacae being "Short Bows only" he'll live anything (again, barring crits) and with the Delphi Shield he's as immune to them as his sister. And even without it you have 7-8 unimpeded movement you can use to kite bow or magic ranges, and his combat against other physical enemies is solid. He also has 15-14 Aid which lets him carry people around if you're too squeamish to have him fight.

Also everyone who think Coirpre is the worst Est needs to take a close look at Genealogy maps and resources: huge maps with heavy emphasis on mounts is true, but there's no deployment cap and you get a Warp staff that gives 60 EXP a pop and cannot be used by most mounts. The kid can sit in the home castle and play Warp-Warp-Goose just as effectively as Lana and Julia, and in his join chapter if you actually fight the wyvern rider flocks he can support a group with Physic. He's superfluous but easy to use and for a lot less opportunity cost than most of the other characters on this list.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

Surely Pelleas is the Est of Radiant Dawn, and not Kurthanaga?

Honestly I was going to say Fiona.



HM Zeiss is easy to use with his bases, a decent physical tank. As for his res, just don't place him in the range of mages, but this applies to almost each physical unit.

[NinjaMonkey]

1 hour ago, Hecatia Lapislazuli said:

Honestly I was going to say Fiona.

She doesn't fulfil any of the requirements needed to be an Est though.

[Aut]

8 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Low resistance when long range magic and status staves are becoming more common is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the bow weakness that bites him in the ass no matter the route (ballistae in Ilia ruin his day, and he has as much chance against Sacae nomads as a knight does against a Griffon Rider in Yggdra Union, aka no hope whatsoever) unless he has the Delphi Shield, making Miledy worse in the process. And the fact that his initial stage pits him against both of the aforementioned crap and a very annoying gimmick. Far as I’m concerned, if I have to make one of my best units worse in order to feasibly train someone else, that’s a MASSIVE red flag. 

TL;DR Zeiss has no compelling case for use imho.

Bullshit on most of this. Status staves is complete BS, practically no one on the cast has the res to reasonably avoid status staves, especially by the time Zeiss joins (From what I can tell the first generic bishop in the game has 16 magic, which I believe is guarenteed hit on anyone with 7 or less resistance, and very high on most other units, Druids have insane magic so even Yodel face hit rates against their staves, much less anyone else). Ballista in Ilia are simple to play against, and long range magic is still relatively uncommon (I think there are 6 enemies that have them until the routes meet up?, 3 of which are in Sacae, and 2 in the tower. Even if I’m misremembering its still not a lot). Defense is still more important than resistance, and Zeiss has a lot of it. Besides, In Ilia, flight is very valuable for Ch. 17-19 (water in 17, lots of terrain in 18 and 19). And against the nomads, a ton of them have the short bow, which is complete shit, which usually means that he survives like 2 rounds of combat when promoted no delphi shield. He’s not particulary good against the Nomads, but if I was only using units that were good against nomads I’d be using a very small group of people (and a couple of trash units that have high defense). And using the starting map as a reason not to use a unit is IMO very very very poor reasoning. Besides, he hits hard enough to siphon enough exp from kills to promote

No compelling case for use? Flyer with decent physical bulk that hits hard, especially after promotion. Enemies don’t shrug off a hit from a 22 strength unit, which is practically guarenteed with a 10/1 Zeiss. There are plenty of maps left that warrant flyers, such as the aforementioned maps, and Ch. 21. I think the fact that he’s used quite a bit in the 0% growths run of FE6 says that he at the very least has a somewhat compelling case for use.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Aut said:

Bullshit on most of this. Status staves is complete BS, practically no one on the cast has the res to reasonably avoid status staves, especially by the time Zeiss joins (From what I can tell the first generic bishop in the game has 16 magic, which I believe is guarenteed hit on anyone with 7 or less resistance, and very high on most other units, Druids have insane magic so even Yodel face hit rates against their staves, much less anyone else). Ballista in Ilia are simple to play against, and long range magic is still relatively uncommon (I think there are 6 enemies that have them until the routes meet up?, 3 of which are in Sacae, and 2 in the tower. Even if I’m misremembering its still not a lot). Defense is still more important than resistance, and Zeiss has a lot of it. Besides, In Ilia, flight is very valuable for Ch. 17-19 (water in 17, lots of terrain in 18 and 19). And against the nomads, a ton of them have the short bow, which is complete shit, which usually means that he survives like 2 rounds of combat when promoted no delphi shield. He’s not particulary good against the Nomads, but if I was only using units that were good against nomads I’d be using a very small group of people (and a couple of trash units that have high defense). And using the starting map as a reason not to use a unit is IMO very very very poor reasoning. Besides, he hits hard enough to siphon enough exp from kills to promote

No compelling case for use? Flyer with decent physical bulk that hits hard, especially after promotion. Enemies don’t shrug off a hit from a 22 strength unit, which is practically guarenteed with a 10/1 Zeiss. There are plenty of maps left that warrant flyers, such as the aforementioned maps, and Ch. 21. I think the fact that he’s used quite a bit in the 0% growths run of FE6 says that he at the very least has a somewhat compelling case for use.

Fair point on the resistance bit. Anyway, my point with regard to his join chapter is that while he technically joins in chapter 16, he probably won't be able to contribute because by the time you recruit him, everything (or at least almost everything) is dead except for Douglas and the boss. And I'm reaching the point where it probably isn't in my best interest to baby an underleveled unit, especially with this game being a frustration fest. Also, I would say that while he might be "fine" against nomads without the Delphi Shield if he's promoted... They have crit on him. Which I consider worrying when you're being doubled.

Well, to each his own - I'm just not convinced that Zeiss would pay off enough to justify the hassle.

[Mega Koopa]

Sophia is the worst, easily.

Est, even though she's bad compared to Caeda, Minerva, and her sisters, she's still a flier and is easy to train up.

Est in FE2 can promote into a Falconknight which is the second-best class in the game.

Jesse can become a Dread Fighter, enough said.

FE3 Est is easier to train up, but I'd say this is one of her worst incarnations.

Delthea, even though she's one of my least favorites can still be really good because of rings.

Coirpre is definitely one of the worst, but at least he's a free healer that joins with Physic, and if you pair Lewyn and Sylvia, I have no idea why you would, you can have Corpseti. 

I don't have much to say about Miranda because I never went B route.

Sara is probably the best Est in the series.

I don't even want to count Sophia as a unit.

Zeiss has good bases, so I wouldn't count him as an Est.

I don't have much to say about Nino.

I haven't played Tellius so I don't have much to say about the units from there.

FE11 Est is nice because she has C rank in lances which allows her to use Ridersbane at base in Ridersbane, Warp Staff, and Wing Spear Emblem.

FE12 Est is probably the worst because, by the time she joins, she's too weak to be able to survive any attack and does very little damage even with a triangle attack.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Archers are on damn near every map in FE6, but that doesn't stop people from using a pegasus knight alongside Melady even through the route split. Zeiss's HP/Def are high enough to survive one shot nearly any ballista in the game, and with promotion gains he lives all of them unless it's a Killer and crits (these are rare). Nomads double him but with the Law of Sacae being "Short Bows only" he'll live anything (again, barring crits) and with the Delphi Shield he's as immune to them as his sister. And even without it you have 7-8 unimpeded movement you can use to kite bow or magic ranges, and his combat against other physical enemies is solid. He also has 15-14 Aid which lets him carry people around if you're too squeamish to have him fight.

Also everyone who think Coirpre is the worst Est needs to take a close look at Genealogy maps and resources: huge maps with heavy emphasis on mounts is true, but there's no deployment cap and you get a Warp staff that gives 60 EXP a pop and cannot be used by most mounts. The kid can sit in the home castle and play Warp-Warp-Goose just as effectively as Lana and Julia, and in his join chapter if you actually fight the wyvern rider flocks he can support a group with Physic. He's superfluous but easy to use and for a lot less opportunity cost than most of the other characters on this list.

The difference here is that the pegasi have time to get up to speed before Miledy enters the picture, whereas Zeiss... does not. And that he doesn't have anything to offer that she doesn't. And that by the time Zeiss joins, I have better things to do than try to baby someone who likely is more trouble than they're worth. Especially in a highly frustrating game like Sword of Seals.

As for Corple, again, he's got to deal with the awkward money system that Genealogy has. And of course, his being rather superfluous. And add the fact that he's at level 1... **** this, I'm out.

[DisobeyedCargo]

Even though I haven't played Sword of Seals, Sophia easily because her absolute garbage bases would be a hindrance several maps earlier, let alone halfway through the game. Her growths aren't even that explosive to make up for it.

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by DisobeyedCargo

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I gotta throw my vote to Sophia here. Great character but AWFUL unit.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

She doesn't fulfil any of the requirements needed to be an Est though.

Honestly after seeing the units in the poll I don't even know what an "Est unit" is supposed to be.
I thought they are units who join late underleveled with high growths. 
Fiona fulfills all the requirements imo. She joins underleveled with almost unusable bases, but she was much value later on with her really good growths and earth affinity.
Seeing Sophia in this list confuses me since she's just a late joining unit underleveled with standard FE6 growthrates. I'd call her just a "bad unit".

[Slumber]

35 minutes ago, Hecatia Lapislazuli said:

Honestly after seeing the units in the poll I don't even know what an "Est unit" is supposed to be.
I thought they are units who join late underleveled with high growths. 
Fiona fulfills all the requirements imo. She joins underleveled with almost unusable bases, but she was much value later on with her really good growths and earth affinity.
Seeing Sophia in this list confuses me since she's just a late joining unit underleveled with standard FE6 growthrates. I'd call her just a "bad unit".

Fiona joins before part 1 ends. None of her peers are going to even be promoted yet. MAYBE Nolan, but none of the other DB units, and even the prepromotes you get aren't "fully fleshed out" units who also have plenty of growing to do.

Sophia may not have great growths, but neither does Fiona. You're arguing that a unit that is underleveled, but joins earlyish in the game and has normal growths is an Est, while an underleveled unit who joins late in the game but also has normal growths isn't.

Fiona's total growth rates equal out to 360%(And they're distributed awfully). Nolan, meanwhile, who is borderline a Jeigan for the first few chapters, has 390%. Leonardo and Edward both have 380%. Meg and Aran have 375% total. Laura, your squishy non-combat unit, has 380%. Fiona actually has worse growths than any of your core DB members. She joins early in the game, has bad growths, and she's relatively not too far behind the rest of your unpromoted DB members. She's not an Est, she's just a shitty unit.

Sophia actually does have the best growths of any of her relative peers. They're still not mind-blowingly fantastic, but it's better than Lugh, Raigh, Lilina and Hugh.

[UNLEASH IT]

I'm surprised that Sophia even counts as an Est. Her growths aren't even that good to begin with