Worst unit in each game?

[FailWood]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Maniac BEXP

I don't think BEXP on any difficulty should be used as an argument in Rolf's favor, because it's something everyone has access too.  Sure, it's cheapest to use on him or Mist because of their lower base level, but at the same time, it's more worthwhile to use it on units who are on par with the enemies or either slightly ahead or behind them (Boyd, Oscar, Soren, and Marcia).

[ping]

Wil can bait and counter two Javelin Pegasi on his joining map, so he technically has a non-zero amount of free utility.  Doesn't get him far, but it elevates him above Karla, and maybe Nino and Wallace, in my book.

[SnowFire]

Re Shanty Pete: I'm not really a Wallace expert, I'll admit.  My assumption is that if you somehow wanted to seriously use him, the stat hit from early-promoting at L10 (rather than L15 or say) would be significant enough that it'd really cut into "what's the point of even building this guy".  For the short term, yeah, if you're just using him as a hole-filler, the early promotion in Lyn mode would be fine.

2 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I don't think BEXP on any difficulty should be used as an argument in Rolf's favor, because it's something everyone has access too.  Sure, it's cheapest to use on him or Mist because of their lower base level, but at the same time, it's more worthwhile to use it on units who are on par with the enemies or either slightly ahead or behind them (Boyd, Oscar, Soren, and Marcia).

Hmm, that's not quite my point.  I certainly agree that BEXP generally tends to wash out over most of the cast (although, as you note, it's less significant for the Stefans of the world, so not entirely a pointless to thing to bring up.)  But we're attempting to shine a light on the gradations of the worst tier in the game to get a definitive True Worst.  You can certainly throw Rolf, Bastian, and Lucia all in the "never seriously used in a good playthrough, therefore all are equivalently bad" basket and be fine, but if we're trying to hypothesize some differences if they're used anyway, I think BEXP is a valid thing to bring up.  Maybe better via analogy: imagine FE7 had a BEXP system.  You COULD use it (foolishly) to get a 20/10 Sniper Wil "early" if you pour everything into him, and the result would be a genuinely good unit for the midgame comparatively thanks to the favoritism, as the midgame is not remotely balanced around handling a powerful promoted unit then.  Meanwhile, FE7 Karla gains less from this, because even if you save BExp for her, the final maps won't fold over to a 20/20 Karla in the same way that a midgame map might have trouble damaging 20/10 Wil.  Basically, BExp + favoritism being viable is inherently more useful on early-joining characters.  To be clear, this is a very weak endorsement, but it's the kind of thing that can matter at the bottom of the barrel.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

41 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The boss is a general with 14 def, which poses major problems for Rolf with his low Atk and lack of weakness-hitting weapons. And the difference between 5 and 6 move is largely moot; both need to be rescued to get anywhere if doing stealth, in my experience. I'd argue he's probably straight-up the worst unit to deploy on that map; at least Mia can do a little damage to him with the Armourslayer.

I was less referring to the damage Rolf (can't) do, than the fact that he gives Boyd or Oscar a crit boost. Considering that the boss is bulky enough that securing a crit makes a difference. It's a minor boost, sure, but you need very few combat units if you're playing for stealth.

Fair point about Mia with the Armorslayer. I tend to forget it exists, since it doesn't return for RD. Of course, Ike can use it (or the Regal Sword) too. I'd argue the worst bring, if you're playing stealth, is a healer. Units with 5-move are really hard to get anywhere, and more vulnerable to being "pinned down" where they can't move out of the patrol's range. Soren and Ilyana, at least, offer decent combat against the boss and Soldiers - but the Healers are worthless if you can beat those enemies quickly.

[DaveCozy]

21 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I definitely think Ashe is better, his boons allow him to easily become a Hunter's Volley bot which will be more useful in C14-16 than anything Gilbert can do. Or, heck, he could rather trivially be a Wyvern with Smite, too, if you value that more - B armour, C flying, D+ authority (lmao), B axes is all he needs to match Gilbert at this, and those are ranks he can achieve by Gilbert's join time with barely any tutoring at all. As a bonus, he'll naturally build up supports with his fellow Blions as you play through White Clouds (even if he spends time as an adjutant) and thus be much more able to offer (and benefit from) link support than Gilbert.

Honestly Hunter's Volley is such a good "fix this character" skill (and Sniper is just so much easier to reach with a boon, needing a B+ by Level 20) that I have a hard time seeing a character with a bow boon as truly in the running for worst. Anna manages because "no supports" is pretty awful.

Yeah absolutely, Hunter's Volley is a broken combat art. It is definitely a good thing for Ashe to have relevant boons that lean towards that, Axe also is nice for Death Blow.

The main thing for me comes down to Gilbert is at least ready to contribute (however minor). Getting Ashe to level 20 though to get him the things that fix him... that's the thing. It isn't impossible by any means, I've done it before. It's just that his damage while getting there is really underwhelming, and he's also real frail which is not a good combination. He doesn't really learn anything notably useful aside the standard bow arts everyone else already does, and Deadeye being his only somewhat unique and useful one. That also makes it tough to justify deploying him. Generally I find he needs to be fed kills to keep up beyond just chipping, till at he at least gets to level 10 and certifies Brigand.

Then again I'm also one of the players who fed Rolf a bunch of kills in PoR just to try and make him something relevant. I will say at least Ashe isn't close to needing the same amount of babying. Not even comparable. Cool thing about 3H in general is how everyone can be good and usable, even the worst units.

Edited May 7, 2022 by DaveCozy

[Soapbar]

Damn, I missed the Birthright discussion, it seems. My opinion is that Mozu is the probably the worst unit in Birthright, as she loses almost of the niches and advantages she has on the Conquest route

-In CQ, there is no grinding, which makes Apitude a better skill since it can actually be a skill to assure good growths rather than just save time. In BR, well, it really is just a timesaver and nothing more at that point.

-In CQ, her only competition for Bow users is Niles, Nina, and (potentially but unlikely) Corrin. Niles and Nina usually don't end up as the greatest of combat units, more focused on support, so she wins out in this regard. In BR, she has to compete with Takumi (Prf Bow), Reina (Pre-Promote with good personal skill), and Setsuna, in a class you'd want maybe 2 at most of on your team. You can argue Setsuna is bad and I'd agree with you, but I'd also bring up the point that Setsuna is still arguably easier to train and doesn't require a Heart Seal.

-In CQ, there are lots of high avoid enemies and fliers, which gives Mozu, with her high skill growth, class skills from Archer, and access to bows, a very useful niche throughout the entire campaign, especially once she starts gaining levels and truly comes online. In BR, most units have good hit-rates, most enemies are slower than you, and there's far less fliers.

-Conquest has much more player-phase focused design with strong enemies and differing objectives. Birthright is...Birthrout. Bows are less useful in general on BR due to their lack of enemy phase and the focus on rout maps.

-I've mostly skipped over talking about keeping her in the villager class because not only does keeping Mozu melee make her harder to train, but it also still fails to really fill in any purpose that an easier to train unit like Hana, Hinata, or Hisame couldn't fill in the Master of Arms class.

-Really, the biggest thing she brings in Birthright is natural access to the Merchant class, which nobody but Midori has otherwise. But Merchant is not really...the best class in general, and is hampered by Mozu's poor base luck.

I think Mozu is actually one of the better units in Conquest due to all of what I described above, but Birthright really works to take away pretty much all of her all of her advantages and make her just like Donnel, except without infinite leveling.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, Mega Koopa said:

FE1: Jake and Beck, for anyone who doesn't know, ballista in FE1 are two ranged locked like regular archers, and are stuck with 4 movement and worse terrain penalties than armor knights. 

To their credit, they have good defense, but... honestly, I don't know what's the point of that when they're 2-range locked.

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well then you are using him as a character and he's not a useless unit. He contributes something even if you're just using him in the first half.

To his credit, he is better off in Revelation, largely because Hinoka joins much later than she did in Birthright. That's one of the big things about Birthright that makes me wonder what kind of drugs they were on when they designed him... I mean, to use another non-royal unit as an example, Hana has her problems, but she doesn't have to deal with being upstaged by a new recruit pretty much immediately after her joining.

[FailWood]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's one of the big things about Birthright that makes me wonder what kind of drugs they were on when they designed him...

You forget that Fates wasn't originally going to have Hinoka.  It was going to be 3 Hoshidian royals, and 4 Nohrian royals, so they likely thought of Subaki before Hinoka.  ...But I digress.

[Shadow Mir]

6 minutes ago, FailWood said:

You forget that Fates wasn't originally going to have Hinoka.  It was going to be 3 Hoshidian royals, and 4 Nohrian royals, so they likely thought of Subaki before Hinoka.  ...But I digress.

I... never knew that, actually.

[SnowFire]

Even if we presume that Subaki Really Is Terrible (say his combat was Juno-level rather than merely meh, since Mir brought up that comparison before), it wouldn't shock me if him & Hinoka being close in join time was intentional rather than a mistake.  Why is Hawkeye a member of the Avengers?  So that the characters with all the special superpower abilities have something to compare it with.  Fates falls into the nobility-worshipping camp and wants the player to know that Corrin's family and the royal characters really are just special snowflake awesome people better than everyone else, and isn't that cool that your brothers and sisters are so awesome, and they all think You The Player are even awesomer than them?  While Fates's balance is pretty good for most characters, the royals are famously better than everyone else, and this was pretty clearly an intentional choice.  So you can argue that Subaki's purpose really is to get outshone by Hinoka, so you can be impressed at the power of the Dawn Dragon bloodline or whatever, just like Japan's royalty allegedly descending from Amaterasu.

[FailWood]

23 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I... never knew that, actually.

I wasn't surprised when I learned that was the case.  Rev completely forgets about Hinoka until Chapter 16, as she doesn't appear at all in the story between the decision of Chapter 6 and then.  My reaction to seeing her was literally "Where the hell have you been?".  Also adds to how Setsuna feels like a waste of space, both as a unit and as a character, and Azama having such a trollish character in nature.  The timing of Hinoka joining in Birthright felt random too, as the other 3 Hoshidian royals had a story reason for their join times.

...But I'm getting off topic.  To anyone who didn't bother reading this, know that Setsuna is still my pick for worst unit in Birthright.

[Jotari]

51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

To their credit, they have good defense, but... honestly, I don't know what's the point of that when they're 2-range locked.

To his credit, he is better off in Revelation, largely because Hinoka joins much later than she did in Birthright. That's one of the big things about Birthright that makes me wonder what kind of drugs they were on when they designed him... I mean, to use another non-royal unit as an example, Hana has her problems, but she doesn't have to deal with being upstaged by a new recruit pretty much immediately after her joining.

Course Hana has her own problems joining super late in Revalation without being balanced for it, if I remember correctly.

43 minutes ago, FailWood said:

You forget that Fates wasn't originally going to have Hinoka.  It was going to be 3 Hoshidian royals, and 4 Nohrian royals, so they likely thought of Subaki before Hinoka.  ...But I digress.

What really? Wow, that's surprising. Given the dual theming I would have thought an equal number of royals was something conceived before the individual characters were even thought up. Maybe Corrin was meant to be seen as the 4th Hoshidan royal (back when he was a legitimate Hoshidan prince and not some random baby that spent a summer vacation there).

2 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I wasn't surprised when I learned that was the case.  Rev completely forgets about Hinoka until Chapter 16, as she doesn't appear at all in the story between the decision of Chapter 6 and then.  My reaction to seeing her was literally "Where the hell have you been?".  Also adds to how Setsuna feels like a waste of space, both as a unit and as a character, and Azama having such a trollish character in nature.  The timing of Hinoka joining in Birthright felt random too, as the other 3 Hoshidian royals had a story reason for their join times.

...But I'm getting off topic.  To anyone who didn't bother reading this, know that Setsuna is still my pick for worst unit in Birthright.

I'd say that's just Fates being Fates rather than any evidence of original intentions. After all, Revelation was made well after the other two, probably not before they were completed but certainly after everything in them were finalized, so even if Hinoka didn't exist when making Birthright and Conquest, she definitely would have existed when making Revelation.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

39 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Course Hana has her own problems joining super late in Revalation without being balanced for it, if I remember correctly.

My statement was more in the context of Birthright, but anyway, Hana joins alongside Sakura and Subaki after chapter 8 in Revelation.

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

My statement was more in the context of Birthright, but anyway, Hana joins alongside Sakura and Subaki after chapter 8 in Revelation.

Might be confusing her with someone else.

[Florete]

2 hours ago, FailWood said:

You forget that Fates wasn't originally going to have Hinoka.  It was going to be 3 Hoshidian royals, and 4 Nohrian royals, so they likely thought of Subaki before Hinoka.  ...But I digress.

This is not entirely accurate. Kibayashi's original story draft was as you describe, but Kozaki actually drew Hinoka even before Camilla, so there was definitely no point in relevant development where Hinoka didn't exist.

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Why is Hawkeye a member of the Avengers?  So that the characters with all the special superpower abilities have something to compare it with.

Last time I checked Hawkeye was a member of the Avengers because Stan Lee wanted to get all the characters with their own feature off the team and have a less powerful team of raw recruits for Captain America to whip into shape in issue 16... with former Iron Man villain Hawkeye serving as the Falco Lombardi (or maybe Shinon if we're going for video game characters with a similar) style "cocky, arrogant member who thinks he should be leader" with a character arc of going from being the guy who constantly tried to undermine Cap's authority to having a respect for him, to leading the West Coast team himself with what he learned. Which is more character growth than some characters of that mentality ever get. Point is, he was put in to create conflict in the team to set them apart from books like the Justice League, who were virtually a mutual admiration society with zero ability to disagree, while giving him a character arc that took him from being a jerk to a leader in his own right.

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

To their credit, they have good defense, but... honestly, I don't know what's the point of that when they're 2-range locked.

I find it can be useful depending on the game to have a two range unit with good defense at a chokepoint because then you can get the AI to trick itself into having a weak unit attacking it... while you two range kill anything stronger stuck behind it. But this is FE1. The strategy I worked with Wolf reclassed to General in Fe11's H5 Lefcandith gauntlet to get rid of the reinforcements in a cheap manner isn't ever going to be needed because the enemies aren't a real threat. And playing optimally, that strategy isn't valid either. Point is, FE1 ballisticians are somehow both a nuisance to deal with due to high defense and 20 being the universal cap for strength and virtually useless to the player due to their movement.
 

2 hours ago, FailWood said:

You forget that Fates wasn't originally going to have Hinoka.  It was going to be 3 Hoshidian royals, and 4 Nohrian royals, so they likely thought of Subaki before Hinoka.  ...But I digress.

That'd explain way too much about Hinoka's storyline irrelevance.
 

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

As for Rebecca vs. Wil, I've already revealed my own misconception about her starting ranks, so I should probably play FE7 again before definitively finding either one to be less trash than the other.

Really depends what they're fighting, though as Ping said, there's two Javelin Pegasi that Wil can bait that Rebecca can't due to starting positions. Which does give him two kills in an optimal play. Rebecca can hit things twice but struggles to do damage against anyone who has defense. Wil can damage things Rebecca can't because of extra strength... but has trouble doubling. There's also some argument they're probably both better off in the Japanese version, because apparently (though I've never confirmed it by playing the japanese version), the 2x damage was a localization change.. and effective damage has a 3x multiplier in Japan. There'd be an argument Wil might benefit more... because every point of strength's value triples against fliers instead of doubling. Which kind of leads me to wonder if the worst Eliwood mode unit manages to be different in Japan compared to other regions.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Might be confusing her with someone else.

Probably Nyx, who joins 6 chapters later at the same level as she did in Conquest. For that matter, other than Hinoka, the rest of the unpromoted units that join after Nyx got screwed pretty badly.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Last time I checked Hawkeye was a member of the Avengers because Stan Lee wanted to get all the characters with their own feature off the team and have a less powerful team of raw recruits for Captain America to whip into shape in issue 16... with former Iron Man villain Hawkeye serving as the Falco Lombardi (or maybe Shinon if we're going for video game characters with a similar) style "cocky, arrogant member who thinks he should be leader" with a character arc of going from being the guy who constantly tried to undermine Cap's authority to having a respect for him, to leading the West Coast team himself with what he learned. Which is more character growth than some characters of that mentality ever get. Point is, he was put in to create conflict in the team to set them apart from books like the Justice League, who were virtually a mutual admiration society with zero ability to disagree, while giving him a character arc that took him from being a jerk to a leader in his own right.

 

I find it can be useful depending on the game to have a two range unit with good defense at a chokepoint because then you can get the AI to trick itself into having a weak unit attacking it... while you two range kill anything stronger stuck behind it. But this is FE1. The strategy I worked with Wolf reclassed to General in Fe11's H5 Lefcandith gauntlet to get rid of the reinforcements in a cheap manner isn't ever going to be needed because the enemies aren't a real threat. And playing optimally, that strategy isn't valid either. Point is, FE1 ballisticians are somehow both a nuisance to deal with due to high defense and 20 being the universal cap for strength and virtually useless to the player due to their movement.
 

That'd explain way too much about Hinoka's storyline irrelevance.
 

Really depends what they're fighting, though as Ping said, there's two Javelin Pegasi that Wil can bait that Rebecca can't due to starting positions. Which does give him two kills in an optimal play. Rebecca can hit things twice but struggles to do damage against anyone who has defense. Wil can damage things Rebecca can't because of extra strength... but has trouble doubling. There's also some argument they're probably both better off in the Japanese version, because apparently (though I've never confirmed it by playing the japanese version), the 2x damage was a localization change.. and effective damage has a 3x multiplier in Japan. There'd be an argument Wil might benefit more... because every point of strength's value triples against fliers instead of doubling. Which kind of leads me to wonder if the worst Eliwood mode unit manages to be different in Japan compared to other regions.

Isn't effective damage three times weapon might? So a point of strength would be worth 1 extra damage, not 3.

[drattakbowser]

I have play again Path of Radiance with my friend and looks like "Rolf" is a most Dreadful unit. My bad.

Ena > Rolf.

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Isn't effective damage three times weapon might? So a point of strength would be worth 1 extra damage, not 3.

And suddenly I know why I'm constantly messing up that equation lately.

[SnowFire]

On 5/8/2022 at 3:13 AM, The Roger The Paladin said:

Hawkeye was a member of the Avengers because Stan Lee wanted to get all the characters with their own feature off the team and have a less powerful team of raw recruits for Captain America to whip into shape in issue 16... with former Iron Man villain Hawkeye serving as the Falco Lombardi (or maybe Shinon if we're going for video game characters with a similar) style "cocky, arrogant member who thinks he should be leader" 

That's an interesting bit of history!  Nevertheless, I was making a more general point than just Hawkeye, and of course there are many reasons why any one character gets added and, more importantly, stays added.  A whole ton of Marvel characters have done brief stints in the Avengers in the comics, but Hawkeye has been with them for a long time to be semi-iconic (along with Captain America, sure), and it's especially notable because unlike Cap he's probably more famous for his team stuff than any comics focused on just him.  Anyway, if you want to make the Hulk impressive, throw in a Random Guy fighting too for scale.  Obviously Hawkeye has other stuff that worked for him in addition, but that's at least one of the reasons he stays around.  Shows up reasonably commonly (Sokka isn't a bender in Avatar The Last Airbender,  etc.)  It's a larger principle than just combat worth - Marge Simpson needs to be sane and normal to make the rest of the Simpson family zanier and crazier, Sherlock Holmes seems smarter by having him tower over a normal smart person (a doctor, even!)'s intellect in Watson, etc. 

(EDIT: I checked with a friend who is a big fan of Marvel, and he says that in terms of total time, Captain America, > Iron Man > Vision > Thor > Wasp > (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye) in some order.  Ah well, guess he was around a little less than I assumed.  But still around a whole lot!)

Anyway, I think Fates wanted to tell a story in gameplay about just how awesome and scary the royals were in the same way that you don't really want to fight the Hulk, so it could well be an intentional choice to have a lesser recruit join right before a better one.  In fact we even have a much more direct example of this in FE12: Samto/Samuel, the Navarre imposter, joins literally the chapter before Navarre, but is worse at him than everything.  That was clearly an attempt to hype up Navarre that people think he's so cool, that inferior swordmasters dress up as him.  (Unfortunate for gameplay though, poor Samto gets to become one of the many FE12 characters to ride the bench.)

Edited May 10, 2022 by SnowFire

[The Roger The Paladin]

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

EDIT: I checked with a friend who is a big fan of Marvel, and he says that in terms of total time, Captain America, > Iron Man > Vision > Thor > Wasp > (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye) in some order.  Ah well, guess he was around a little less than I assumed.  But still around a whole lot!)

I tallied them up myself a few years ago. By amount of appearances, going from Avengers one to the point I stopped collecting in 2012 (When the Marvel Now banner came in), I can tell you that Cap is in 576 Avengers comics (I'm counting spin-offs, not just the main series), Iron Man is in 554, Hawkeye 498, Vision 426, Wasp 409, Scarlet Witch 408, Hank Pym (In one identity or another) 393, then Thor In 358. While there were stretches of that where Hawkeye wasn't an active member... he was still around a lot. Whereas Thor kind of spent a good chunk of time dead after the Ragnorok story, and would often conveniently miss storylines while he was an active member for purposes of making the villain more of a threat. I can get specific issue numbers, because that's listed too.. but that might be a bit excessive. Plus I admittedly can't tell you post Marvel Now, because I called it a day when they re-numbered everything because I needed to start saving space. For the record, Hulk ranks 42nd... with a mere 45 appearances in the stuff up to that point. A lot of the time not as a member but an adversary or guest star.
But as I said. My data is missing the last ten years so that could be accurate.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/7/2022 at 9:31 AM, FailWood said:

You're talking to the same person who hates Conquest Niles.  What a back and forth that was.

We've been over this before - I don't have the patience for failure, and especially not for someone like him, who makes failure a habit. It isn't like he has much in the way of redeeming features either. . . i mean, he has high speed, Whoopedy-freaking-do. Too bad it means jackshit when he has nothing else to go with it.

[FailWood]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

We've been over this before - I don't have the patience for failure, and especially not for someone like him, who makes failure a habit. It isn't like he has much in the way of redeeming features either. . . i mean, he has high speed, Whoopedy-freaking-do. Too bad it means jackshit when he has nothing else to go with it.

We have, which is why I don't feel the need to explain again why I think you're severely underrating how useful he is.

My original pick for worst Conquest unit was Charlotte, but I can see a case for Mozu being it after she was mentioned.

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, FailWood said:

My original pick for worst Conquest unit was Charlotte, but I can see a case for Mozu being it after she was mentioned.

Zoran, who knows more about how to break Conquest in half at speed than anyone I've ever seen, seems to be of the opinion, judging by what he says about her in his "use everyone" playthrough, that the worst unit in Conquest is Nyx. About at 17:30 in this video, he talks about her:

 

https://youtu.be/7aCJDX719ds

Edited May 10, 2022 by Alastor15243