Any pre-promotes that stick out with high growth rates?

[DoubleSpeedAttack]

I usually ignore pre-promotes in all my games because I prefer the feeling of starting with a pathetic weak army and training up all my units into Gods if i get lucky. But unfortunately you can get RNG screwed and then be forced to rely on pre-promotes. However since I have never really checked are they unusually good pre-promotes that have existed more because of their growth rates and less because of their base stats(which is usually the reason to use them)?

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Dunno about prepromotes with bad stats but good growths, but people sing praises to Sacred Stones Seth, I think Titania from the Ike games but haven´t played those so someone else chime in, for SD... Sedgar/Wolf I guess, Frederick from Awakening, certainly the prepromoted Fates Royals and Catherine from TH.

Isadora? I think she gets used because of her weapon ranks and not her stats?

[Eltosian Kadath]

That is what Shadow Dragon's Sedgar and Wolf are famous for, stats that are simply embarrassing for a prepromote at base, but absurd growths. Sedgar is famous for getting over 100 Defense growth if you use Shadow Dragon's class change system to make him a General (and Wolf isn't that far behind if you do the same), and grinding them up til they are basically invincible makes them real powerhouses in that game. This sorta came about thanks to the weird way classes were changed in the remake, the original FE1's Bow Knight class was not a promoted class, but it was made one in the remake, the issue is that Sedgar and Wolf joined very early as Bow Knights, so they gave them the bases appropriate to them being unpromoted, and basically gave them double the growths they should have to compensate for the levels they miss out on.

There are plenty of other prepromoted well known for both good growths, and excellent bases. That is one of the things Seth is famous for, bases good enough to help on endgame, but still having good growths anyway. Titania in Path of Radiance is in a similar situation to Seth, but it is a bit less extreme. Binding Blade's Karel is famous for his over 100% growths in almost every stat, but you get him at level 19 promoted at basically the end of the game, so he doesn't exactly have the levels left to take advantage of those brokenly good growths. New Mystery's Sirius would probably count as well, with solid bases and growths. SIgurd, the prepromoted Lord, and Oifey in second generation are the two that come to mind  for Genealogy of the Holy War. You can probably count Fates Prepromoted royals as well.

[ping]

Sheema in New Mystery has very good growths and low bases, but unfortunately, she never goes anywhere. Her Lv.20 stats are still worse than, say, 20/20 Draug in almost every way. But she does provide a few more *tink*s per level-up than other units!

Similarly, but in a less depressing fashion, Shinon, when he rejoins in Path of Radiance, has absolutely horrendous stats for that point of the game, but excellent growths. His stats end up more or less competitively with more regular characters, although he can't shed the terribleness of the Sniper class in PoR.

But honesly, I can't think of any prepromotes other than Sedgar and Wolf that are good characters thanks to their growth rates. There's a bunch that are good characters and have good growths, like Seth or Titania, but they're generally good because of their bases with their growths being the icing on the top. Seth with 0% growth rates would be really good; Seth with the growth rates that he has is really really good - that kind of thing. At best, there's a few prepromotes that join late with an adequate level for that jointime, and then have growths similar to your early-game joiners, too. Calill, Largo, and Haar (all in PoR) roughly fall into that category.

[Shadow Mir]

The only prepromos with bad base stats but good growths I can think of are Sedgar and Wolf in SD. Also, Shinon in Path of Radiance, but he ain't worth using when he rejoins because he's a sniper in one of the worst games for archers.

[Jotari]

I love the fact that Binding Blade Karel exists. He's like a hilarious meta commentary on the whole notion of bases vs growths. Sedgar and Wolf meanwhile are a bit like taking that satire and mistaking it for genuine design.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

In Fates, Camilla brings some of the best growths in the game, despite joining as a pre-promote. Of course, her bases aren't too shabby either. Jakob and Felicia don't excel quite as much in growths, but they level up far more quickly than other promoted units, helping them deal with their low bases.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I love the fact that Binding Blade Karel exists. He's like a hilarious meta commentary on the whole notion of bases vs growths. Sedgar and Wolf meanwhile are a bit like taking that satire and mistaking it for genuine design.

If nothing else, it's at least interesting design. They're not broken (because their starting bases and weapon ranks are low, and they level up slowly), but they're perfectly usable, eventually becoming solid, and infinitely satisfying to level up. They're almost like ersatz versions of Ross or Donnel. I'd like to see more games go for aggressively weird units like SD Wolf and Sedgar.

[Jotari]

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

In Fates, Camilla brings some of the best growths in the game, despite joining as a pre-promote. Of course, her bases aren't too shabby either. Jakob and Felicia don't excel quite as much in growths, but they level up far more quickly than other promoted units, helping them deal with their low bases.

If nothing else, it's at least interesting design. They're not broken (because their starting bases and weapon ranks are low, and they level up slowly), but they're perfectly usable, eventually becoming solid, and infinitely satisfying to level up. They're almost like ersatz versions of Ross or Donnel. I'd like to see more games go for aggressively weird units like SD Wolf and Sedgar.

Oh I'm not saying that as a criticism. It is very interesting design. It's just also super weird. So much so that it also feels like an unintentional mistake. Like if I were toncome up with such a unit spread (which I probably wouldn't as it takes some real esoteric thinking) I'd probably  give it to a more unique character like Minerva or Hardin rather than Sedgar and Wolf (leaving Roshea and the other guy as standard units). I know they had to adhere to precedent from Old Mystery, but making a first tier bow knight class seems like the really obvious choice (I also kind of wish there was a first tier wyvern class for Minerva but that's another discussion). I'm glad they went this route, but I'm not entirely convinced it was completely intentional and not just something that happened quasi accidentally because they didn't want to invent new classes.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh I'm not saying that as a criticism. It is very interesting design. It's just also super weird. So much so that it also feels like an unintentional mistake. Like if I were toncome up with such a unit spread (which I probably wouldn't as it takes some real esoteric thinking) I'd probably  give it to a more unique character like Minerva or Hardin rather than Sedgar and Wolf (leaving Roshea and the other guy as standard units). I know they had to adhere to precedent from Old Mystery, but making a first tier bow knight class seems like the really obvious choice (I also kind of wish there was a first tier wyvern class for Minerva but that's another discussion). I'm glad they went this route, but I'm not entirely convinced it was completely intentional and not just something that happened quasi accidentally because they didn't want to invent new classes.

Maybe, but having Archer, Hunter, and... Nomad? Could've felt kinda redundant. Raises the question of what class Hunter is supposed to promote into as well.

Plus, moves like "letting Fighters promote", as a means to regularize the class system, gave a promoted Barst ungodly high stats, especially in HP. So fixing the "weirdness" of the original game just introduces new "weirdness".

[Mega Koopa]

I mean, every prepromote in New Mystery barring Arran has high growths. If you want to use weak units, then on the highest difficulty modes, since player units don't get hard mode bonuses, every prepromote who joins past chapter 13 has extremely poor base stats to near unusability, but high growth rates.  

[Jotari]

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

Maybe, but having Archer, Hunter, and... Nomad? Could've felt kinda redundant. Raises the question of what class Hunter is supposed to promote into as well.

Plus, moves like "letting Fighters promote", as a means to regularize the class system, gave a promoted Barst ungodly high stats, especially in HP. So fixing the "weirdness" of the original game just introduces new "weirdness".

True, Hunter would feel a bit redundant, I mean, even more so than it already is. Course they could have axed Hunter and made Castor and archer. Or leaned into it more and invented a new promotion that's infantry sword-bows. There are three different classes that have lances at base so three bow classes wouldn't be beyond the pale so long as you go to efforts to distinguish them. And three unrelated bow classes was how the original game was first designed.

Early instalment weirdness lingering around in some form was pretty much unavoidable though. Another funny one is a civilian asking yountingive Hardin a silver sword, which he can't use at base because they naturally gave him a higher lance rank because that's what he uses in the sequel (this was not an issue in the previous system that just went by weapon level).

3 hours ago, Mega Koopa said:

I mean, every prepromote in New Mystery barring Arran has high growths. If you want to use weak units, then on the highest difficulty modes, since player units don't get hard mode bonuses, every prepromote who joins past chapter 13 has extremely poor base stats to near unusability, but high growth rates.  

There's so little time left when you get Sedgar and Wolf in New Mystery, I'm slightly disappointed they didn't retain their absurd growths and make them Karels.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Jotari

[Happighos]

Fred, Olwen, Pahn, Misha, Amalda and Eyrios from Thracia 776.