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What makes a unit good in your opinion?


Roland
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Since we're only doing good and not godly, I'll go through a quick list of general factors.

-High movement

-Good bases

-Solid growths with not terrible bases

-Good availability, which for this sake is basically recruitment before the 5/8th point of the game

-Good weapon type, basically not bow users

-Good weapon ranks, not essential but nice

-Nice design. If a character looks ugly beyond belief, I don't care how good they are, I'm not using them. This has screwed me over many times, like not using Vanessa in Sacred Stones, so ignore this one

-Some of it depends on the game they're in. A unit that is basically a god in one game will be pretty meh in another. For instance, any of the Greil Mercenaries in Radiant Dawn, in that game, range from great to meh, take them into say, Thracia, and you have a team of Loptu killers.

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Does the unit fulfill a niche for a decent portion of the game without extensive babying and favoritism to fulfill that role?

If the answer is yes then they're a good unit.

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3 hours ago, Comet said:

pink hair. it instantly makes any unit s tier.

Even Makalov?

50 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Does the unit fulfill a niche for a decent portion of the game without extensive babying and favoritism to fulfill that role?

If the answer is yes then they're a good unit.

Pretty much this.

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Good bases, availability, weapon rank. Weapon types can be made up for having bases like PoR Shinon, who is definitely good early game, but suffers from availability issues later down the line

Edited by silveraura25
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What Xnaut says, but i dont think extensive favoritism is a bad thing, nor does making the game runs extremely slow so long as the unit is genuinely worth the effort. granted Wolf and Sedgar was the only unit in the series who gets extreme amount of improvement when given favoritism and babying. And when babying Wolf and Sedgar involves turning them into general and having them solo the map while your other best unit get free reign to get easy EXP, i dont think its a bad thing at all

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That when you're using the unit it makes the game easier and/or quicker to beat then when you would use another unit. This is why units like Seliph, Leif (fe4 & fe5), most early fliers & Robin are some of the best units because even though they don't start out the best, using them and giving them resources will make the game so much easier then when you would not use them even though they aren't the best units in the beginning.

The most important factors in making units good is high movement, flying, good bases, good growths even though it isn't always necessary to be good (fe11 Jagen, staff-users, dancers, Perceval and Niime), good 1-2 range (although this isn't as important if the game is to hard to enemy-phase reliably) or fulfilling an useful role that other units can't replicate reliably. 

 

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13 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Does the unit fulfill a niche for a decent portion of the game without extensive babying and favoritism to fulfill that role?
If the answer is yes then they're a good unit.

My point exactly. Fulfilling a niche is a decisive factor for me. Most likely because the game that I have more experience with is Conquest Hard, and I play it with ten units only, no pre-promotes and no backpacks. Thus, units have more or less definite roles.
I have read that in other FE games it is better to have multiple units playing the same role ('Horse Emblem'.)

That being said, I do use the units that I like, and not the 'best' ones. I simply build a party that accompanies my choices.
For example, Xander and Camilla are Tier 1 units in Conquest, but I have more fun playing with Mozu or Ophelia; or how Leo feels just redundant for me when Odin and Ophelia are already in the party. This is also why I had little issue not using pre-promotes.
I dislike and therefore never use Jakob I or Peri or Beruka... They may be 'better' options than the units in my party, but I have no fun playing with them.

Edited by starburst
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Going in order from most valuable traits onward:

  • Survivability (decent HP, defense, speed, and/or res; also, a moderate amount of luck is mandatory because of Murphy's Law)
  • Sufficient killing power (high strength and/or magic; a moderate amount of skill is needed because of course you need to actually hit enemies to damage them - this is tied with survivability, which essentially means I look for well-balanced units rather than ones that specialize exclusively in one or two stats)
  • Utility (ability to perform roles outside of combat with enemies such as refreshing, buffing, and healing, especially if either of the above conditions aren't fulfilled)
  • Availability (units like Est that come late and underleveled are worthless, but a unit like Mozu or Donnel has enough time between recruitment and endgame to be made worthwhile)
  • Mobility (movement stat of 5-6 is acceptable, 7-9 is ideal, 4 is atrocious, and anything lower than any of this isn't even worth considering unless they're capable of siege warfare across the entire map)
  • Equipment/weapon ranks (they shouldn't be at E-rank with their primary weapon type if you're going into chapter 15-or-so, and them coming with a weapon saves on money)
  • Skills (shouldn't be at the forefront of one's focus, but shouldn't be ignored either; knowing how best to work with skills will help you - obviously they don't exist in every game, so this doesn't even apply to all of them)

I'm not going into specifics like stat bases vs. growths, archetypes, which weapons are best, or anything like that.  Because honestly a lot of that can vary from game to game - dodgetanks are much more useful in the GBA games than they are in Fates, and Celica's stats in Gaiden (I do mean Gaiden, not the remake) would be a death sentence for any Awakening unit's long-term usefulness.

10 hours ago, Mega Koopa said:

They have to be a cute anime girl. 

This isn't an entirely inaccurate representation of how people play these games...

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20 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:
  • Availability (units like Est that come late and underleveled are worthless, but a unit like Mozu or Donnel has enough time between recruitment and endgame to be made worthwhile)

I would say Donnel's in an unenviable situation where his availability doesn't help him, but rather hurts him. You only have 6 unit slots in the first chapter you get to use him in after recruiting him, and I just cannot justify devoting one of those to him. Things only get worse for him from there... Unless you grind him, but I don't really consider that a solution since everyone benefits from grinding.

As for the thread... Standards can vary from game to game, but in general some of these are needed:

  • Good bases (obvious)
  • Good growths, particularly in the big 3 (Str/Mag, Speed, Defence)
  • Not being overspecialized, aka only having one or two good stats (e.g. Nyx in Fates); the opposite, being too balanced to the point where you don't excel in anything, is also bad (e.g. Odin in the same game)
  • Not needing too much babying or favoritism to be useful (favoritism cannot salvage everybody, after all)
  • Utility
  • Good survivability
  • Good skills (not a factor in every FE game, obviously)

@Roland I would fix your post if I were you - the wording bothers me.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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On 6/12/2018 at 1:23 AM, Roland said:

What in your opinion makes a unit in Fire Emblem good in your opinion?

there's a lot of reasons to choose, but in my opinion it's all reduced to few factors when it comes to tactical use.

mainly accuracy, and evasion after that.

accuracy because without it, there's no point in having a huge Strength/Magic stat if you can't hit your target anyway.

evasion because it's way better for me to avoid/negate damage entirely when it's possible, rather than absorbing/taking even a small part of it that could eventually backfire in the long run.

 

and that's for general talk. then of course every class/unit has always its own pros and cons, otherwise it wouldn't be FE.

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I think the difficulty of the games should also play a factor. Ryoma in Birthright may be top tier as a Swordie, but it means nothing in a game that is one of the easiest entries in the entire franchise. Rutger and Fir in Binding Blade are better examples, as their class has viable avoid tanking and super-boosted crits that greatly eases the difficulty perhaps only exceeded by (or even exceeds) Thracia 776 or Fates Conquest. Ditto with Seth in Sacred Stones vs Marcus in the first half of Binding Blade.

Edited by henrymidfields
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5 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

I think the difficulty of the games should also play a factor. Ryoma in Birthright may be top tier as a Swordie, but it means nothing in a game that is one of the easiest entries in the entire franchise. Rutger and Fir in Binding Blade are better examples, as their class has viable avoid tanking and super-boosted crits that greatly eases the difficulty perhaps only exceeded by (or even exceeds) Thracia 776 or Fates Conquest. Ditto with Seth in Sacred Stones vs Marcus in the first half of Binding Blade.

Erm, imo your point would actually get traction were it not for your using Binding Blade and Thracia - the two FE games whose difficulty stems more from god-effing-awful design choices - as examples.

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It is extremely hard (or even impossible) to come up with criteria that fit all Fire Emblem Games. X-nauts definition of "a unit needing a niche" is probably as close as it gets. Another good way to formulate it would be "a unit that is above replacement level is good". This basically sais that a good unit will contribute more than most other units if you were to replace the former with the latter. 

There is also the case of units that are only good because of their unique access to certain weapons. This mostly affects Staff users, the best example being Renee from Tearring Saga. She is the only character in the game who can use the Warp Staff, so some tier lists put her as the best unit in the game because what she does cannot be replicated by anyone else. The best combat units in the game cannot save as many turns as a late joining priestess with the warp staff.

The criteria also change depending on how you play the game. Some units get much better in efficiency runs. Vanessa from Sacred Stones is a great example. Her stats are not very good, but being the only flyer until chapter 9 makes her irreplacable if you are looking to minimize your turn count. If you would rather take your time and level up your other units, Vanessa gets much worse. 

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