Bad units that you still love using!

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, whase said:

 

I believe whether a pre-promote is good or not also depends on what mode you're playing, the amount of units you want to use, and various other playstyle options. It might sound counter-intuitive, but pre-promotes are worse on lower difficulties, since you get plenty of experience your other units are usually quick to level and usually have surpassed the pre-promote before you get them. The fact that I usually don't use more than 8 units in my teams makes pre-promotes even worse. Units like Saleh and Perceval usually have lower stats than the rest of my team by the time I get them. And every point of experience I give to Marcus, Seth or Titania in the early game seems like a waste, because my lvl 1 unit would have gained so much more.

So yeah, depends on playstyle. I will admit that for higher difficulty or ltc runs they probably have far more value than most lvl 1's.

Even if he some how has lower stats than your army, Percival is still going to be the best axe user in Binding Blade.

[whase]

13 hours ago, Whisky said:

I disagree for a few reasons. Not all pre-promotes are good obviously but I think almost every game has at least one pre-promote that can’t be considered anything but great, on any difficulty and any play style. Your play style might be that you don’t prefer to use them (which is fine), but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still be good if you did. I think the only play style that would result in pre-promotes not being good is if you grind all of your units to high level early on.

Okay maybe it's just my specific playstyle, wherein all experience goes to the lowest leveled unit I plan to use, and my stronger units are only there to make sure most experience goes to the lower leveled allies. That way I try to get maximum experience gains. This also means that Seth was my worst unit in my paladin only playthrough for FE8. Though granted Perceval was still okay in my FE6 paladin only run.

Maybe this fits better in a "good units that don't work for your playstyle"-type of thread though. =P

[Whisky]

14 hours ago, whase said:

Maybe this fits better in a "good units that don't work for your playstyle"-type of thread though. =P

Can’t disagree with that!

[Jotari]

On 8/19/2020 at 8:05 AM, Whisky said:

True, the game is easier to beat on lower difficulties without the help of pre-promotes, but it’s also easier to beat with pre-promotes. If pre-promotes are good on higher difficulties, they will only be more effective against weaker enemies and requiring no investment, instead joining for free with good stats, still makes them good. In fact, the argument could be made; why bother investing into and training low level growth units if you get pre-promotes for free with good enough base stats to dominate most enemies?

I’m not sure I agree with this point. All of the games from FE6-9 have some pre-promotes with very good base stats that will be hard for growth units to catch up to. Like Pent? What do you mean he’s less impactful? He joins for free with no investment and and amazing base stats and weapon ranks. A few extra levels won’t give Erk as high stats as Pent. If the argument is that you don’t need Pent because Erk is good enough, the same argument could be made in reverse, you don’t need to bother giving exp and a promotion item to Erk because Pent is good enough and joins for free without needing investment.

 

edit:

Not all pre-promotes in FE6-9 were good though. There are some I would consider bad. Maybe the difference is that all pre-promotes are good in Fates?

I can't think of a single bad prepromote in Path of Radiance. Maybe the sages who are stuck with knives? On the whole though Path of Radiance prepromotes are amazing and on my experience were even better than the units you train throughout the game stat for sfat. Particularly Stefan (who has great availablity too), Geoffrey and Tannith.

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I can't think of a single bad prepromote in Path of Radiance. Maybe the sages who are stuck with knives? On the whole though Path of Radiance prepromotes are amazing and on my experience were even better than the units you train throughout the game stat for sfat. Particularly Stefan (who has great availablity too), Geoffrey and Tannith.

Calill having Knives I'd consider an attempt to tone down Saleh, who in turn was an attempt at a more balanced Pent. (Although that neither her nor Bastian gets Staffs feels like a bad decision given Mist and Rhys the only ones with Staff access before promotion before Elincia shows up.) She might be a little slow too, but she isn't bad, just not ORKO-everything great. Bastian has better offensive growths than Calill, but his bases make him strictly inferior to her because those growths can't save his end results.

Largo I'd consider bad. Comes late, his 21/21/20 Str/Skl/Spd spread is a little low for coming so late and being the lone Berserker, but 10 Def and 3 Res sink it. Nevermind that Lucia is nearly as bad and worse on the HP front actually, with practically the same availability.

[Shadow Mir]

40 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I can't think of a single bad prepromote in Path of Radiance. Maybe the sages who are stuck with knives? On the whole though Path of Radiance prepromotes are amazing and on my experience were even better than the units you train throughout the game stat for sfat. Particularly Stefan (who has great availablity too), Geoffrey and Tannith.

Bastian and Lucia, for two. Both of them are probably outstripped by units who you were training at that point. Also of note, the latter is out-statted by base Stefan, who joined 10 chapters before, pretty much across the board, despite the higher starting level. 

On 8/18/2020 at 9:43 AM, whase said:

I believe whether a pre-promote is good or not also depends on what mode you're playing, the amount of units you want to use, and various other playstyle options. It might sound counter-intuitive, but pre-promotes are worse on lower difficulties, since you get plenty of experience your other units are usually quick to level and usually have surpassed the pre-promote before you get them. The fact that I usually don't use more than 8 units in my teams makes pre-promotes even worse. Units like Saleh and Perceval usually have lower stats than the rest of my team by the time I get them. And every point of experience I give to Marcus, Seth or Titania in the early game seems like a waste, because my lvl 1 unit would have gained so much more.

So yeah, depends on playstyle. I will admit that for higher difficulty or ltc runs they probably have far more value than most lvl 1's.

I can't agree with this for several reasons. Like for example, them needing less investment to be good. For example, I find it hard to justify using Rebecca when Louise starts good without the crapload of investment the former needs.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Calill having Knives I'd consider an attempt to tone down Saleh, who in turn was an attempt at a more balanced Pent. (Although that neither her nor Bastian gets Staffs feels like a bad decision given Mist and Rhys the only ones with Staff access before promotion before Elincia shows up.) She might be a little slow too, but she isn't bad, just not ORKO-everything great. Bastian has better offensive growths than Calill, but his bases make him strictly inferior to her because those growths can't save his end results.

Largo I'd consider bad. Comes late, his 21/21/20 Str/Skl/Spd spread is a little low for coming so late and being the lone Berserker, but 10 Def and 3 Res sink it. Nevermind that Lucia is nearly as bad and worse on the HP front actually, with practically the same availability.

 

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bastian and Lucia, for two. Both of them are probably outstripped by units who you were training at that point. Also of note, the latter is out-statted by base Stefan, who joined 10 chapters before, pretty much across the board, despite the higher starting level. 

I can't agree with this for several reasons. Like for example, them needing less investment to be good. For example, I find it hard to justify using Rebecca when Louise starts good without the crapload of investment the former needs.

I can see a case for those three not being amazing, and I guess we could include Elincia herself (though less her abilities as a unit and more due to such limited availability and low level you don't have a chance to train her outside of pouring all your bexp into her), but really across the board Path of Radiance has some amazing prepromotes

[Whisky]

I don’t know much about POR’s tier listing, but Lucia is the biggest one that comes to mind. She joins late with unimpressive base stats and in a mediocre class. Across FE6-9 I’d say most pre-promotes are pretty good. There are only a few I’d consider bad in each of the games. I don’t even know if I’d consider any pre-promotes “bad” in Sacred Stones, just “not great”. Are pre-promotes particularly good in Fates?

Edited August 20, 2020 by Whisky

[Interdimensional Observer]

20 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Are pre-promotes particularly good in Fates?

My analysis:

• Xander and Ryoma have a good personal no-drawbacks sword in Siegfried and Rajinto from the get-go, with infinite uses like every other weapon in Fates. Both elder royals bros are excellent, Xander is a little slow and weak to magic, and Ryoma's great dodgetanking- which is unusual in Fates- isn't flawless either. But still, excellent bases and good growths mean they both very recommendable, though not necessary, units. And while Hana can be faster and stronger at the price of all concepts of durability, Hinata is objectively outdone by Ryoma. Peri can be more Resistant and offensive than Xander, and Silas has balanced stats compared to the two.
• Camilla is for many practically mandatory for the first few chapters during and after she joins in CQ on Hard and Lunatic. Wyvern is an excellent class line, she has good bases and excellent growths, and her only initial Wyvern competition, her retainer Beruka, has no Spd and only decent Str.
• Leo is sexy and nothing else matters. More seriously, Leo is slow, but a mobile magic user with nice bases and decent growths. Barring Ophelia and maybe another good kid, no magic user in Fates has the offense trifecta of great Mag/Skl/Spd that you'd want in a mage, so Leo can suffice.
• Shura has higher bases and comes later on BR than CQ, on Rev he joins closer to his timing on CQ but with the better BR bases. He is a fairly usable Bow user with Staffs for some healing on all three routes, his growths are very lacking though.
• Reina is Jagen-ish on both BR and Rev. She has poor growths, but usable bases. She is very fragile, and a little inaccurate, but her Spd is great and her Str is just enough that combined with her mobility and Bow use that she can last to the very end of the game, if not an ideal units.
• Izana is slow, and his personal skill Peacebringer can be a detriment. But he can do good, accurate magic chips and heal with C Staffs at base.
• Flora is the functionally same as Izana, except no malus on the personal skill and her physical damage is bad but can debuff because it's from Shuriken/Knives.
• Yukimura is only available on one route- BR- and he has very balanced stats, with a nifty +5 Hit to all good guys personal skill that all covers the entire map and has no conditions involved. His stats are so balanced though that he's a eunuch who can't do anything well. With Bows and Shuriken, he'll be doing utility chipping for his short playable existence.
• Scarlet- Basically Camilla-lite for BR, with a worse personal but similar stats overall. Still good for BR, but nowhere near as glorious as Cammy on CQ, she comes later and I just guess those stats aren't needed.
• Gunter is the lone prepromote who actually sucks badly. On Revelation he is unusable even right when he joins, his growths are almost FE1 Jagen bad. On CQ, he might be useable if you exploit his skillset and his bases are higher, but thats niche and requires you know what you're doing. He's mostly a Defensive Stance partner for Corrin.
• Fuga- Exclusive to Revelation, and he comes with three incredible weapon ranks and wicked bases. His growths are almost as bad as Gunter, but he doesn't care, he has some nice reclass options too.

And lastly, the first two prepromotes- Jakob and Felicia. Whichever is the same sex as Corrin will come later and will be bad for whichever route you've chosen. But the first to join will be a "Jagen" in a sense. They start level 1 prepromoted, but have a level cap of 40 to compensate for their newbie base stats. Their growths aren't the best, and Butler/Maid isn't an ideal class, but they can exploit their unique circumstances. Although they're basically unpromoted and gain EXP that way, they can learn 2nd tier skills at levels 5 and 15, which can be very powerful. For fun I wedded Jakob to Kagero on Rev and swapped him into Mechanist and Master Ninja for early Replicate and Shurikenfaire, a strong combination.

P.S. All the children in Fates can be prepromotes if you want to them to be, just don't recruit them until later and they can start with special seal that'll promote them and give them EXP and WEXP that bring them if recruited before the final fight to level 20/16 and B rank in their initial weapon type. They use their averages for their new stats, so they won't be bad unless they already are.

[Magenta Fantasies]

I agree with everything Interdimensional Observer said.

Although Izana and Shura were both awesome units for me. Izana is one of my few genuinely great mages (I arm him almost exclusively with tomes), and Shura is one of my best overall units in Conquest (both their growths are slow, but their base stats are good enough for them to be excellent units.)

Goodness, I didn’t expect to change the topic so much with one short sentence! 😲 To elaborate on what I said before, I was surprised that most the pre-promotes in Fates are excellent units. I didn’t mean that pre-promotes are never good units in other FE games. 

I think it’s somewhat subjective and based on play style. For example, Frederick has been a consistently mediocre, borderline-Jagen unit from my experiences, and Say’ri has been a so-so unit for me (by the time I recruited her, I had several better sword-users) but other people swear by them.

[Faellin]

Katarina. While not "the worst" unit in new mystery. She typically will pale in comparison to a properly trained Linde or Merric at that point. But she is still one of my favorites from that game.

[defensedefumer]

I will list some units per game:

Nyx (Conquest)
I like her lore, and there's a mystery about her. Even though she joins late with inferior stats, I try to push her to join me in the final battles.

Charlotte (Conquest)
I am not too sure why many players rate her poorly, but I find that giving Charlotte a high accuracy weapon helps her crit a lot. She defeated Garon on my playthrough.

Sonya (Echoes)
While Deen is the better choice, I enjoyed Sonya's lore better. I also deployed her in the final battle.

Mia (POR)
Mia is one of my favourites units in POR. Despite having low HP and defences, I enjoyed watching her dodging killing blows and reply the enemy with a crit.

Ashe (Three Houses)
Ashe is does little damage, but he was vital for my team (as a lockpicker). I did not want to always buy chest keys.