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Best unit in the series?


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Forget discussing individual games, who do you think is the single best unit in the series? Robin? Rutger? Seth? Thracia staff users? If one were to make a cross series tier list, who would be at the very top?

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The three names coming to mind for me immediately are Sigurd, Seth, and Titania. They have a lot in common:

  • They start very overlevelled, very clearly better than other people in your army, at or near the start of the game.
  • They have a great class: they're all highly mobile. Sigurd and Titania have Canto. Sigurd has Followup (not a class advantage, but still a class-like advantage not everyone in his team can enjoy).
  • They continue to be good as the game goes on, even if they fall off a bit relatively as people catch up. But of course, even as other units catch up, they can't easily match the class advantages.

Of the three, Sigurd is the least dominant from the getgo: his stats are merely better than everyone else's, not crazily better (Quan is even pretty similar outside the lack of Followup). But the flipside is that he's the best of the three at the end, due to getting Tyrfing, which lets him fight things other people can't even though they might nominally be now similar in stats.

I don't think anyone else can quite claim all those advantages in the same way: nobody else has both the combination of big initial stat advantages AND a big class advantage. Like Robin is obviously good, but Robin is also far inferior to Frederick at the start of the game (which is also the hardest part), so I don't think of them as being on the same level as the big three. Conversely, other jagen-type characters (including Frederick) just aren't as good throughout the game as Seth or Titania; in particular most of the rest are quite poor units in the last few maps.

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54 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The three names coming to mind for me immediately are Sigurd, Seth, and Titania. They have a lot in common:

  • They start very overlevelled, very clearly better than other people in your army, at or near the start of the game.
  • They have a great class: they're all highly mobile. Sigurd and Titania have Canto. Sigurd has Followup (not a class advantage, but still a class-like advantage not everyone in his team can enjoy).
  • They continue to be good as the game goes on, even if they fall off a bit relatively as people catch up. But of course, even as other units catch up, they can't easily match the class advantages.

Of the three, Sigurd is the least dominant from the getgo: his stats are merely better than everyone else's, not crazily better (Quan is even pretty similar outside the lack of Followup). But the flipside is that he's the best of the three at the end, due to getting Tyrfing, which lets him fight things other people can't even though they might nominally be now similar in stats.

I don't think anyone else can quite claim all those advantages in the same way: nobody else has both the combination of big initial stat advantages AND a big class advantage. Like Robin is obviously good, but Robin is also far inferior to Frederick at the start of the game (which is also the hardest part), so I don't think of them as being on the same level as the big three. Conversely, other jagen-type characters (including Frederick) just aren't as good throughout the game as Seth or Titania; in particular most of the rest are quite poor units in the last few maps.

Just to be sure, you're talking Path of Radiance Titania, right?

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Sigurd is a unit that immediately comes to mind. He's a mounted pre-promote available from the start in a game where mounted classes dominate, not to mention he gets one of the strongest weapons in the game, if not the series, in the last chapter he's available in. Until then, he gets the Silver Sword in the Prologue, which is powerful enough in it's own right and should carry him until he picks up Tyrfing.

He's also one of the few units in the series that can solo his campaign, if I recall correctly. I believe that Seth (The Sacred Stones) and Ike (Path of Radiance) are two other units that can solo their respective campaigns as well. If there are any others, I can't think of them at the moment.

The only real problems I can think of with Sigurd are that he gets Tyrfing so late and the fact that he's simultaneously the best and worst Jagen in the series. He starts off extremely strong, but falls off extremely hard about halfway through the game.

Anyway, I would also argue that Seliph, Sigurd's son, is just as strong, if not stronger, than Sigurd once he's trained up. The way I see it, he's a Sigurd that you get to build up. He doesn't start off pre-promoted like his father, BUT he does inherit anything that Sigurd had on his person at the end of Generation 1 (besides Tyrfing), so the Silver Sword and any rings that Sigurd picked up would be passed down to Seliph, which would give him a major advantage in getting him up to speed if you plan it right. Once Seliph is able to promote, he's easily the best unit in your army and essentially Sigurd 2.0. The only thing that makes Seliph not as good as Sigurd right out of the gate is that he starts out as an infantry unit.

Robin (and by extension, Morgan) is also a strong contender (as well as Corrin + Kana [and Byleth, to an extent]) since you can more or less build them however you want to, so even if they aren't necessarily the best, they're at least the most versatile units in the series.

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12 minutes ago, indigoasis said:

He's also one of the few units in the series that can solo his campaign, if I recall correctly. I believe that Seth (The Sacred Stones) and Ike (Path of Radiance) are two other units that can solo their respective campaigns as well. If there are any others, I can't think of them at the moment.

Many others can: a huge number of units can solo PoR (as evidenced by the fact that Ike can and he's nowhere near the strongest unit in PoR), as well as the GBA games. I've personally soloed Blazing with Lyn and SS with Colm, neither of whom is an exceptional unit.

In general I wouldn't conflate "can solo the game" with "good in general". Nobody can solo Radiant Dawn because its endgame bosses regen too much to be soloable, but that doesn't mean Haar isn't great. Dancers are often outstanding units, particularly ones who can refresh more than one unit at a time, but obviously can't solo much of anything.

15 minutes ago, indigoasis said:

Anyway, I would also argue that Seliph, Sigurd's son, is just as strong, if not stronger, than Sigurd once he's trained up.

I don't think Seliph is even the best unit in gen 2, let alone anywhere near as good as Sigurd. For starters, he's infantry until he promotes. For another, gen 2 (unlike gen 1) featuers a lot of holy weapons for him to compete with, and some, like Forseti (on Lewyn!Arthur), Balmung (on Shannan), and Mistletain (on Ares) are even available early. Sigurd is better than Seliph for the same reason that Seth is better than Franz; maybe they have comparable endgames, but only one starts out way stronger than his competition, and that's the one who's in the conversation for best unit in the series. (Although I'd argue Sigurd has a better endgame than Seliph anyway; Sigurd was the only unit I felt was able to tangle with the magic nonsense and Reptor at the end of gen 1, while there was nothing I felt that Seliph could handle that, say, Ares couldn't.)

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2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't think Seliph is even the best unit in gen 2, let alone anywhere near as good as Sigurd. For starters, he's infantry until he promotes. For another, gen 2 (unlike gen 1) featuers a lot of holy weapons for him to compete with, and some, like Forseti (on Lewyn!Arthur), Balmung (on Shannan), and Mistletain (on Ares) are even available early.

True. And a well-bred Gen 2 gives Seliph even more competition, even those without holy weapons -if not better than him- can come closer than some Gen 1 units ever could to Sigurd. Relative to everyone else in his generation, Seliph is less of a standout compared to Sigurd. Not to mention that while Genealogy doesn't have high AS benchmarks, Seliph's 35% Spd growth is a tad slow by well-bred Gen 2 standards.

Seliph on his own grows well, and gets Tyrfing eventually, but he is a relative wimp to begin. As with cousin Leif, he needs inheritance to get off the ground in reasonable time. The difference is that Seliph can double before promotion and has an extra, easy Genealogy chapter's worth of availability, making him easier to train. If with less payoff for Seliph b/c Master Knight > Knight Lord.

Now, is Seliph worth investing in? Absolutely yes! He deserves to inherit his daddy's Silver Sword, despite a few other kids being as capable of receiving it. And probably a magic sword, and the Knight Ring or Leg Ring which he will later sell, perhaps the Paragon Ring, and even another stat ring too. Because, Genealogy has hulking maps whose regions are locked by castle seizing, Warp does not function as normal, and Rescue's availability for almost all of Gen 2 is locked behind one specific Gen 1 pairing and requiring either giving the Leg to Lana or rush-promoting Leif to get the most out of it if you make that pairing. Getting Seliph to Knight Lord ASAP via heavy inheritance is convenient even for non-LTC players, since he is uniquely capable of shortening giant map times, being the only unit who can seize.

However, that doesn't change Sigurd > Seliph.

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I think there's no real right answer, given that what constitutes as best is different from game to game.

For example, I don't consider Seth to be that good, given that he doesn't need to be that good. There are several excellent cavs who join, and the earlygame isn't nearly taxing enough that you're making your life incredibly difficult by not using him. Same with Titania; excellent unit, but at an easy part where you could use other units instead without any issues. (Although perhaps PoR maniac requires her, I've never played it.)

For my personal tastes, I think my contenders for best units would include:

Marcus (FE6 HM)

Playing the earlygame without Marcus makes it a nightmare. He may normally fall off at about chapter nine or so, but the amount that he carries the earlygame makes him one of the most essential units in the series. Not even absolute champs like Milady, Rutger or Perceval are as good as him in my opinion, since even though they are more leagues ahead of the rest of the cast than my crush is ahead of me, you can still beat the game comfortably enough with a team of subpar units, but not so without Marcus.

Sedgar/Wolf (FE11 H5)

If I'm being honest, I never finished my H5 playthrough and used units like Roger and Vyland instead of these guys. It wasn't too taxing, but I did stop playing at about...Chapter 9 or 10, I think. Given the infamy of H5, I assume that the game gets much harder later on. If that is indeed the case, then these lads are up there for best unit in the franchise, no question. Statistically, they're so far ahead of pretty much everyone else, are around for most of the game and can solo major portions of it. They'd probably need help with Medeus, but aside from that, their stats are so astronomically high that not much else can faze 'em. To wit, no other unit in the game can say that at any point.

Byleth: (FE16 Maddening)

I don't want to imagine Maddening without Byleth. The earlygame is packed with ridiculously strong enemy units, and while in my experience, early Byleth isn't as dominant as earlygame Marcus, the rest of the cast is as strong as Earlygame Bors. While other units can catch up and become strong, Byleth does maintain their status as a strong unit the whole way through.

Haar: (FE10)

I'm not very good at FE, so Haar carried my sorry rear through 2-Endgame. I managed to get it on my first try with no deaths, and were it not for Haar... I think I'd be in a retirement home when I'd finish that map. He can fall off a little towards the end of the game, but he's incredible in part 2, fantastic in part 3 and is still a tanky flier with good strength even if his speed falls off in part 4.

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2 minutes ago, Benice said:

For example, I don't consider Seth to be that good, given that he doesn't need to be that good. There are several excellent cavs who join, and the earlygame isn't nearly taxing enough that you're making your life incredibly difficult by not using him. Same with Titania; excellent unit, but at an easy part where you could use other units instead without any issues. (Although perhaps PoR maniac requires her, I've never played it.)

I think this is fair, and definitely changes the definition of who is good. It basically means the best units are the ones who are most important in harder games. It's a reasonable definition, for all that it's not one I personally use, because it makes things a bit too hostage to what is considered difficult. For instance, I didn't personally find RD's 2-Endgame as difficult as you, and in particular Elincia's ability to absolutely delete anything in that map (including the boss if she procs Stun on one of her four swings) means it's only as hard as you make it. So toss Haar in the "great but unnecessary" pile for me. One of my friends actually missed Haar entirely when playing RD and he got through the game just fine, for what it's worth.

3 minutes ago, Benice said:

Byleth: (FE16 Maddening)

I don't want to imagine Maddening without Byleth. The earlygame is packed with ridiculously strong enemy units, and while in my experience, early Byleth isn't as dominant as earlygame Marcus, the rest of the cast is as strong as Earlygame Bors. While other units can catch up and become strong, Byleth does maintain their status as a strong unit the whole way through.

I dunno. Edelgard and Dimitri are both very comparable to Byleth out of the gate, and then improve faster because of how student skill training works (they gain 120 neutral skill exp just from passive instruction in Chapter 2 alone). They start with Smash/Tempest Lance, which are both better than Wrath Strike, and can get other useful combat arts more quickly too. For reference:

              HP    Str    Mag   Dex   Spd   Lck   Def   Res   Cha
Byleth       27     13     6     9     8     8     6     6     7
Edelgard     29     13     6     5     8     5     6     4     10
Dimitri      28     12     4     7     7     5     7     4     9

It's a bit more true with the Deer I suppose although even then Claude and Leonie both have really strong starts as well. They've got lower Str but compare well otherwise, and in particular Curved Shot is a great tool.

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5 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's a bit more true with the Deer I suppose

...I should have picked the Blue Loins or Black Eagles.

5 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I suppose although even then Claude and Leonie both have really strong starts as well. They've got lower Str but compare well otherwise, and in particular Curved Shot is a great tool.

At least for me, everyone was a bit too squishy to really be that competent, and I often found myself running low on heals. Do keep in mind that I am bad, but I recall the majority of people around those three really struggled, (Well, Lysithea did fine once her magic started growing) and Leonie took a bit of time to get rolling. Chapters 2 and 3 especially were the Byleth show for me, and it was more towards chapter 6 that Leonie and Claude did their things. That being said, my strategy for chapters 4 and 5 were so horrible that I don't know if I can blame the units for those ones.

10 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

For instance, I didn't personally find RD's 2-Endgame as difficult as you, and in particular Elincia's ability to absolutely delete anything in that map (including the boss if she procs Stun on one of her four swings) means it's only as hard as you make it. So toss Haar in the "great but unnecessary" pile for me. One of my friends actually missed Haar entirely when playing RD and he got through the game just fine, for what it's worth.

I agree that Haar is the most unecessary of the units I talked about because of Elincia in part 2 and...Well, a lot of the Greil mercs being really strong in 3, but he will always get my bias points.

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There is very little room for debate here, it's gotta be Robin. The shit you can do with them to trivialize even the frankly ridiculous higher difficulties of Awakening without any grinding at all, the sheer degree to which they're better than every other unit in their game, it's just overwhelming.

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1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't think Seliph is even the best unit in gen 2, let alone anywhere near as good as Sigurd. For starters, he's infantry until he promotes. For another, gen 2 (unlike gen 1) featuers a lot of holy weapons for him to compete with, and some, like Forseti (on Lewyn!Arthur), Balmung (on Shannan), and Mistletain (on Ares) are even available early. Sigurd is better than Seliph for the same reason that Seth is better than Franz; maybe they have comparable endgames, but only one starts out way stronger than his competition, and that's the one who's in the conversation for best unit in the series. (Although I'd argue Sigurd has a better endgame than Seliph anyway; Sigurd was the only unit I felt was able to tangle with the magic nonsense and Reptor at the end of gen 1, while there was nothing I felt that Seliph could handle that, say, Ares couldn't.)

Even though he has to compete with other units that get holy weapons far earlier than he does, Tyrfing is still one of the strongest holy weapons in the game after Naga, especially when it comes to fighting Julius, which is when Seliph would be at his strongest point as a unit.

I get that Seliph doesn't start off as strong as Sigurd does, but that doesn't mean he can't reach or surpass his father.

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My criteria would be:

  • Fantastic availability
  • Very strong throughout the whole game, from the start to the end
  • Equally as good for a new player on the easiest difficulty setting as for a veteran player on the hardest difficulty setting
  • Offers something that can't be replicated or replaced by any other unit
  • The game is notably harder if you decide not to use them.

And while I haven't played the entire series... yeah, that sounds like Robin to me. Honourable mention to Edelgard who starts out being probably the best unit in the game due to her great base stats and finishes off being probably the best unit in the game due to how ridiculous Raging Storm is.

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I would say Seth, with Sigurd and Titania not far behind. They start as the best units in  your armies, and stay good. They also get to enjoy the perks of an amazing class.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

There is very little room for debate here, it's gotta be Robin. The shit you can do with them to trivialize even the frankly ridiculous higher difficulties of Awakening without any grinding at all, the sheer degree to which they're better than every other unit in their game, it's just overwhelming.

Robin is crazy good, but unlike Seth, they do not start off as a badass.

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5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would say Seth, with Sigurd and Titania not far behind. They start as the best units in  your armies, and stay good. They also get to enjoy the perks of an amazing class.

Robin is crazy good, but unlike Seth, they do not start off as a badass.

They start off with a broken movement trait that lets them cheese the prologue, after which they snowball.

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30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

They start off with a broken movement trait that lets them cheese the prologue, after which they snowball.

What trait is that?

Robin is nowhere near the best unit in the first few chapters. Frederick is way better. Robin does get so much better later that I think s/he belongs in the conversation for best in the series, but the start definitely isn't as good as the other contenders.

1 hour ago, indigoasis said:

Even though he has to compete with other units that get holy weapons far earlier than he does, Tyrfing is still one of the strongest holy weapons in the game after Naga, especially when it comes to fighting Julius, which is when Seliph would be at his strongest point as a unit.

Tyrfing barely scratches Julius, since it doesn't ignore his damage reduction - you get single-digit damage per swing. I imagine you can use it to win slowly, but it's not notable even as far as non-Naga choices go (Yewfelle can do considerably more since it offers +10 str).

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37 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

They start off with a broken movement trait that lets them cheese the prologue, after which they snowball.

Doesn't change the fact that they still need to work their way up to godslayer status. Which, in my opinion, doesn't measure up to someone who starts as the best unit on your team and ends still being great (even if they don't quite end as the best unit on your team).  Which sums up the big three (the aforementioned Seth, Sigurd, and Titania, who also have a big class advantage to go with their statistical advantage).

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27 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

What trait is that?

Water walking. They can kill every enemy in the second half of the map, and only have to fight the mage and the boss. Gaining enough levels to start being a serious contender, especially with Frederick pair-up.

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3 hours ago, lenticular said:

Honourable mention to Edelgard who starts out being probably the best unit in the game due to her great base stats and finishes off being probably the best unit in the game due to how ridiculous Raging Storm is.

I disagree with this.  Sure, Raging Storm's effect is incredible, but most people forget that it's not an Art that people can just go ham with, plus you don't get the effect if Edelgard misses the attack.  Amyr has low durability, and the ore needed to repair it to continue using Raging Storm is the rarest kind, with the Titinus in CF Chapter 16 being the only realistic source of it without grinding side battles (via those Sand Worms).  Plus you only get 6 chapters with, so it's use is limited.

I can at least consider her a candidate for best unit in Three Houses (Dimitri and Byleth give her competition, and I lean slightly towards Dimitri due to finding him better at combat from personal experience), but candidate for best in the series?  I don't think she is.

Edited by FailWood
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Units like Seth, Sigurd, and Robin have gotten hyped up a lot in this thread so far. But how can they be called the "best in the series" when each of them is only able to trivialize one game? As such, my vote is for Palla. Her greatness in Mystery of the Emblem and its DS remake are recognized far and wide. But from what I hear, she's among the best units in Gaiden, and at least decent in FE1 as well. She's great in the respective remakes, too, with which I have personal experience. For being a good-to-excellent unit in nearly half the series, Palla is the one garnering my vote.

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

Units like Seth, Sigurd, and Robin have gotten hyped up a lot in this thread so far. But how can they be called the "best in the series" when each of them is only able to trivialize one game? As such, my vote is for Palla. Her greatness in Mystery of the Emblem and its DS remake are recognized far and wide. But from what I hear, she's among the best units in Gaiden, and at least decent in FE1 as well. She's great in the respective remakes, too, with which I have personal experience. For being a good-to-excellent unit in nearly half the series, Palla is the one garnering my vote.

You might as well add Catria while you're at it. Not sure on FEs 1 & 2 (though the Whitewings duo comes rather late in FE1/11), yet other than FE12 bickering on the higher difficulties where Palla tends to slip behind Catria ever so slightly b/c her Spd growth bites her, the two are more or less identical in practical performance and availability. 

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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54 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I disagree with this.  Sure, Raging Storm's effect is incredible, but most people forget that it's not an Art that people can just go ham with, plus you don't get the effect if Edelgard misses the attack.  Amyr has low durability, and the ore needed to repair it to continue using Raging Storm is the rarest kind, with the Titinus in CF Chapter 16 being the only realistic source of it without grinding side battles (via those Sand Worms).  Plus you only get 6 chapters with, so it's use is limited.

The bolded part is incorrect for what it's worth.

Edelgard is great from start to end, arguably the best unit at all points in the game (she's the best by far when she can use Raging Storm, but still the best at other points thanks to her ridiculous str/cha and great talent list). I'd argue she's the best unit in 3H and certainly on her own route... but 3H runs a tight curve. Unlike my own personal Big Three, Edelgard doesn't have huge initial level or class advantages on her competition; she starts at Level 1 like everyone else, and largely has the same class access as everyone else (though not everyone else gets Pegasus Knight). The bad 3H units aren't as bad as the bad units in other games, but the good units largely aren't as good, too.

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