Are the "bad" units really that bad?

[Capt. Fargus]

Saw a list the other day of what somebody called the "10 worst units in the series". After some arena grinding yesterday I started to notice a couple things

Wolt landed on that list, but I got him wound up to level 20+6 and he looks about near Klein except with more speed

 

Then we got Sophia, who according to the article I read landed at the bottom of that barrel. I trained her up a bit, which was kind of a pain BTW, and she turned out lookin kinda like Lelina, low defense but hits like a truck

 

Now I'm curious as to what what Wendy could do with a little TLC

 

 

 

[Robert Stewart]

Any unit can be made into a usable unit if you give them a bunch of favoritism, feed them kills, arena grind them, etc. The difference between "good" and "bad" units are that good ones don't require much or any investment to be useful, while bad units require so much that it outweighs their usefulness.

Your grinded Wolt actually has lower strength and only a bit more speed than a base level Igrene. Not sure that Klein is your best benchmark for a good unit, I think he's generally considered underwhelming. If you compare Igrene's averages vs Wolt's, even at level 20/20 his stats aren't much better than hers. In fact his Res will be notably worse. This isn't even comparing to the nomads who usually have better stats and higher movement.

A grinded Sophia will still not be any better than a decent Raigh or Niime. Actually she probably can't be as useful as Niime since it's going to be hard for her to reach Niime's A staff rank.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Robert Stewart

[Jotari]

Sophia's hit like a truck tendencies are pretty useless if said truck can't crash into the broad side of a barn.

[Shadow Mir]

Who else was on that list? Anyway, many of the bad units require much more effort to get to a point where they can be decent, let alone good. This can be because of several factors - bad base stats, being underleveled, bad class, the whole nine yards. Wendy in particular has pretty much everything going against her - her bases are terrible, she's underleveled, she's an armored knight in the worst game to be an armored knight in that isn't Horse Emblem, AKA Genealogy of the Holy War, and to top it all off, her jointime is terrible (she comes right before the Western Isles, which have a lot of axes). Sophia doesn't have it much better.

[Capt. Fargus]

59 minutes ago, Robert Stewart said:

Any unit can be made into a usable unit if you give them a bunch of favoritism, feed them kills, arena grind them, etc. The difference between "good" and "bad" units are that good ones don't require much or any investment to be useful, while bad units require so much that it outweighs their usefulness.

Your grinded Wolt actually has lower strength and only a bit more speed than a base level Igrene. Not sure that Klein is your best benchmark for a good unit, I think he's generally considered underwhelming. If you compare Igrene's averages vs Wolt's, even at level 20/20 his stats aren't much better than hers. In fact his Res will be notably worse. This isn't even comparing to the nomads who usually have better stats and higher movement.

A grinded Sophia will still not be any better than a decent Raigh or Niime. Actually she probably can't be as useful as Niime since it's going to be hard for her to reach Niime's A staff rank.

Yeah no question Igrene is definitely the best of them three archers

The thing that got me curious was for example Marcus’s stats bein what they is and Zelot not bein a whole heluva lot better,  kinda smelled like a case of a WAY early promoted pre-promote,  so I figured I’d conduct a little experiment and see if a promotion at level 20 would make that much of a difference 

Also, had to bench my nomad troopers for a while so I could get the Ilia route. Otherwise yeah a bow shooter who can also swing a blade always helps

[indigoasis]

Generally speaking, there are a lot of factors that go into what makes a unit "good" or "bad," like weapon ranks, starting stats, growth rates, availability, etc. Like everyone else will say, you can make any unit "good" with enough investment. However, there's always the possibility of that unit being outclassed in one regard or another despite the investment you put in, or just straight up not worth your time in the end. What makes a unit like Mathilda worth using over someone like Clive in SoV is that she's pretty much way better out of the box compared to Clive (better bases, better growths, a pre-promote), despite joining later. Clive would have some investment in him by Mathilda's join time, but you might find that he probably wouldn't be very far ahead of Mathilda, if at all, and she can do his job, but better.

To put it another way, think of it like stocks; would you rather invest in something that has the chance to be good, or would you rather rely on something that is certain to provide a positive return on your investment?

Not entirely unrelated, there's a tier list for FE6 units that a guy on YouTube made, and I think it's pretty good. He's more so known for his Pokemon videos, but his FE videos are rather solid, too, and he can explain things in a comical way that I don't think I would be able to do justice. He explains what makes certain units great and not-so-great, so if you have a couple of hours to kill (or about an hour if you watch videos on double speed, which is a huge time-save), I'd give it a look.

[Florete]

Almost anyone will be good if you arena grind them.

[ping]

Small note: Klein is considered a decent filler unit on Hard difficulty, where he receives the following, give or take, thanks to spawing as an enemy:
[+6 HP | +3 Str | +3 Skl | +2 Spd | +3 Lck | +1 Def | +1 Res]

In that context, 20/1 Wolt's averages are roughly similar to base Klein - slightly less Str and accuracy, slightly more Spd and (physical) bulk. The reason why Wolt is usually considered to be much worse is that you've spent a lot of effort grinding up a unit that ends up decently useful, while Klein just turns up and instantly brings his OKishness to the table.

On normal difficulty, a trained Wolt does end up overtaking Klein, but there's still the small issue that every other bow user - Dorothy (not by a lot, but still), Sue, Shin, Igrene - outclass him. It's almost tragic - BinBla is one of the few FE games where being locked to bows isn't all that bad, but Wolt still manages to be kinda bad.

Another small note is that your Sophia has a base 96 accuracy with the Flux tome (2x11 + 8/2 + 70), which means that unless you also grinded a support for her, she never has perfect accuracy, even against enemy knights. Raigh, despite not being amazing himself, is quite a bit better than even an equal-Lv. Sophia.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Honestly that Sophia still looks bad to me, and that's with a lot of investment. Sure, she hits hard, but at 14 speed (lower with most tomes IIRC? FE6 tomes are lighter than those of most games but I recall Sophia still being affected) she doen't double quite a number of enemy types, so I hestiate to call her offence that good, and she can't do what Raigh does with far less investment, which is parlay Nosferatu into effective tanking (her def, speed, hit, and avoid are all inferior).

That said, I do agree, broadly, that "bad" units often aren't as bad as people make them out to be. Is Wolt one of the ten worst units in the series? That depends on the exact criteria used, but my inclination is to answer with "it's possible". And as you've found, he isn't that bad. You're not the first person I've seen to have gotten some okay results out of him. Could you get better results out of most other units? Yeah, sure. But he's still workable.

You see this even more readily with someone like Lyn. Lyn is commonly considered to be some shade of not great (I think some people overhate her, but I agree that she's a so-so unit with problems) and yet when I speak to "casual players" (i.e. most players) about the game, they generally have good experiences with using her (and almost everyone does use her). So clearly she can't be that bad. Another modern example of this is Ashe. I've seen some places who meme him as a terrible unit to the point of comedy (I assume it comes from some Youtuber?), which is comical because Ashe's biggest flaw is not doing anything particularly well to stand out. Again, I even agree that he's one of the least good units in Three Houses, but most players who use him find him just fine, because even "bad" units often aren't actually that bad.

Sophia is, to my mind, pretty much as bad as Fire Emblem units get. She has incredibly poor performance at base (one-rounded by everything on her joining map, has only ~50 hit so you need to have a backup plan for every attempt to get her exp), needs more investment than basically anyone else (Level 1 halfway through the game), and has very poor payoff for that investment (Raigh and Niime are always better). She's one of the very few who I think kinda lives up to the derision associated with her. Though, as you note, even in her case you can get her rolling if you insist on doing so.

[Jotari]

37 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You see this even more readily with someone like Lyn. Lyn is commonly considered to be some shade of not great (I think some people overhate her, but I agree that she's a so-so unit with problems) and yet when I speak to "casual players" (i.e. most players) about the game, they generally have good experiences with using her (and almost everyone does use her). So clearly she can't be that bad.

This is a very interesting point. Because its completely true. Lyn is pretty objectively not great, but because of her status as a lord, everyone has used her. And she almost always turns out, well, usable. Lyn can absolutely contribute in Blazing Blade. She is objectively not optimal to be fielding every map, but her net contribution is not zero. Sophia's...pretty much is. Arena abuse with save states is pretty much the only way to train her, well either that or just feeding her all of your stat boosters. I've heard people say they get some mileage out of Meg and Fiona, and I could believe that. Maybe if Meg were a lord character you are encouraged to deploy then her odd niche of being an armour knight who can't tank would be more appreciated, but the one Radiant Dawn character I can think of in a similar position to Sohpia is Lyre. She comes super weak and, because she's a Laguz, gets less exp on average and is useless half the time. And even if you do go to the effort of training her up (at least easier than Sophia because of bexp) then you get a unit who is still only average compared to her competition (or completely outclassed if you want to compare to Laguz royals).

Edited September 30, 2022 by Jotari

[Capt. Fargus]

22 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Who else was on that list? Anyway, many of the bad units require much more effort to get to a point where they can be decent, let alone good. This can be because of several factors - bad base stats, being underleveled, bad class, the whole nine yards. Wendy in particular has pretty much everything going against her - her bases are terrible, she's underleveled, she's an armored knight in the worst game to be an armored knight in that isn't Horse Emblem, AKA Genealogy of the Holy War, and to top it all off, her jointime is terrible (she comes right before the Western Isles, which have a lot of axes). Sophia doesn't have it much better.

Here's where I got that

• 10 Worst Units In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade

[ping]

8 hours ago, Capt. Fargus said:

Here's where I got that

• 10 Worst Units In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade

Hmmm...

• Fir is very underwhelming on normal difficulty, but she's quite good on Hard. +3 Str does that to a Myrmidon. "Second Rutger" isn't a bad thing.
• For most players, the difference between Elen and Saul is, honestly, not that big. If you don't play at super high speed, you can easily promote her at Lv.20 before (or at the same time, if you use the second Guiding Ring) you get the Warp staff, and at that point, she's actually caught up to a 20/1 Saul in Magic, pulling ahead as they level up further. There's nothing "hypothetical" about her being a solid support character.
• Bunching Wade and Lot together really doesn't work. Wade is really bad thanks to his awful Spd stat which gets him doubled very quickly on hard (although his ability to one-round Soldiers is actually kinda useful for two chapters), but Lot is the averagest average guy that ever averaged. It's also worth noting that they both get access to Bows, i.e. a very accurate weapon type, after promoting.
• Dorothy has better growth rates than Wolt, so if you want to raise a shitty archer, she's the more satisfying option. (She's still bad, I don't actually mind her being on the list, and I don't have any strong feelings about her better potential vs. Wolt's earlier joining time.

I think there's some notable absentees from that list - Barth, Yuno, Ogier, Hugh, Raigh, Douglas, maybe Geese (who I would definitely put below Lot) - who I think are worse than at least some of the characters on the list. I'd definitely remove Fir, Lot, Elen, and Roy (who I do think has some earlygame utility and who fares decently well during the Western Isles arc if you trained him) and add Barth, Yuno, and Raigh instead. I'd probably put Hugh and Douglas in, too, but at that point, it's really just a matter of opinion.

Edited October 1, 2022 by ping

[Whisky]

Like others have said, pretty much any unit can be strong if given a lot of investment, but what makes most bad units bad is that they start weaker and need more investment to become strong.

Klein is good. He’s a solid pre-promote who joins for free and can immediately contribute in useful ways with no investment. I consider it a huge strength for a unit to be useful without any investment. He starts with A rank Bows allowing him to shoot down Wyverns (one of the most dangerous enemy types) with a Silver Bow or Brave Bow.

Igrene mostly has better stats but Klein has a higher Bow rank and joins earlier, making him particularly useful on a few chapters before Igrene joins. He also needs less investment to reach S rank Bows. Overall I consider Klein better.

Wolt starts really weak and needs a ton of investment to become as strong as Klein. 20/6 is a lot of investment. And a trained up Wolt basically just becomes able to do what Klein can do for free without any investment. Between Klein and Igrene who both join for free and don’t need any investment there isn’t really any payoff to training up Wolt. Overall I agree with him being one of the worst units in this game.

16 hours ago, Capt. Fargus said:

Here's where I got that

• 10 Worst Units In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade

Yeah I agree with Ping that Fir, Elen, Lott, and Roy don’t deserve to be on the list. Especially Elen, how is she in anyway bad? I might add Cath as well. She’s an extra Thief which is useful if one or both of your Thieves die. She is a pure support unit so her low stats and poor combat don’t affect her usefulness, and there are a lot less units that can replicate her uses than a weak combat unit that is weaker in combat than most other units in the game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

9 hours ago, ping said:

I think there's some notable absentees from that list - Barth, Yuno, Ogier, Hugh, Raigh, Douglas, maybe Geese (who I would definitely put below Lot) - who I think are worse than at least some of the characters on the list. I'd definitely remove Fir, Lot, Elen, and Roy (who I do think has some earlygame utility and who fares decently well during the Western Isles arc if you trained him) and add Barth, Yuno, and Raigh instead. I'd probably put Hugh and Douglas in, too, but at that point, it's really just a matter of opinion.

Bors being on the list but not Barth was one of the big head-scratchers for me. There are uses for 11 defence in Chapter 1; 14 defence in Chapter 8 isn't as impressive relatively... and that's before considering that Barth needs to compete with actually good units for a deployment slot (for whatever that's worth) and the fact that he joins right before you go to Axe City.

Mostly agree with you otherwise (I'd also bring up Garret, who even on HM is basically just Bartre who joins six maps later with way worse weapon ranks in a terrible game to be a pure axe-user). The one name that surprises me is Raigh, who I always found reasonably competent, because Nosferatu is quite good in this game and he has a fast support with Lugh which grants both full hit and full avoid. Actually one of my biggest memories of the game is watching someone use the twins to just just carve right through lategame maps. Obviously Raigh's start isn't great so I don't value him that highly, but nor is it so putrid that I think he belongs in the bottom ten.

[ping]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The one name that surprises me is Raigh, who I always found reasonably competent, because Nosferatu is quite good in this game and he has a fast support with Lugh which grants both full hit and full avoid. Actually one of my biggest memories of the game is watching someone use the twins to just just carve right through lategame maps. Obviously Raigh's start isn't great so I don't value him that highly, but nor is it so putrid that I think he belongs in the bottom ten.

Hmm, probably fair. Him starting with effectively 8 Spd is pretty rotten at that point of the game (I have a current playthrough with Allen at 10 Spd before chapter 12, and he struggles very hard to double), but he does have a decent growth rate and +3 Spd (because +1 Con) at promotion. It's still not great (he roughly ties Treck and Lot for Spd at Lv.20/1), but managable. Maybe I'd look at Garret or Douglas to fill that spot, then - technically OK as filler characters for a few chapters, but at a point where you don't really struggle anymore to find characters to deploy.

[Whisky]

I actually don’t think Garret is that bad. He’s not great, but I don’t think he’s bad either. I think there are quite a few units I’d put below him. Other than Spd, his Hard Mode stats are actually pretty good he doesn’t double much, but fast enemies are hard to double by most units anyway, and I don’t think doubling is a necessity to being good in Binding Blade like it is in many other FE games. 1RKOs are harder for most units to achieve in general. With a 30% Crit bonus, Garret is always more likely to get a Crit in one hit than another unit would be with two attacks. I don’t think k it’s bad to have a roughly 50/50 chance of 1RKOing an enemy. There are a lot of Lance enemies in this game, and Garret does pretty decently well against them. I consider him a pretty decent filler unit. He has a tiny amount of utility with Cliff and Water Walking, and best of all, he requires basically no investment. It is a shame that he starts with a low weapon rank, but Killer Axes and maybe Swordreavers are probably the best weapons for him in most situations anyway (and Hand Axes sometimes).

Also I think I’d put Raigh above Lilina, and maybe even Hugh. If you immediately promote Hugh, he is kind of decent with minimal investment. Lilina starts at level 1 with low base stats.

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, Whisky said:

Also I think I’d put Raigh above Lilina, and maybe even Hugh. If you immediately promote Hugh, he is kind of decent with minimal investment. Lilina starts at level 1 with low base stats.

I have a hard time getting past the fact that Hugh demands a monetary cost on the same map I can buy Seraphic Robes. If you have the money to get his full stats you can give anyone else +14 HP instead. I don't think he compares very well with other mages as such. 12/1 Raigh is only one magic and speed down compared to full-cost 15/1 Hugh, and obviously wins durability with this considered. And Raigh has over five extra maps to gain exp, and/or be promoted earlier to start improving his staff rank if that's what you'd prefer.

Lilina's harder to compare directly because she does need more investment, but I'd personally consider her better than Hugh too. She's pretty easy to level thanks to doing decent damage at high accuracy, and she has the same tome rank eleven maps earlier.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[Capt. Fargus]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have a hard time getting past the fact that Hugh demands a monetary cost on the same map I can buy Seraphic Robes. If you have the money to get his full stats you can give anyone else +14 HP instead. I don't think he compares very well with other mages as such. 12/1 Raigh is only one magic and speed down compared to full-cost 15/1 Hugh, and obviously wins durability with this considered. And Raigh has over five extra maps to gain exp, and/or be promoted earlier to start improving his staff rank if that's what you'd prefer.

Lilina's harder to compare directly because she does need more investment, but I'd personally consider her better than Hugh too. She's pretty easy to level thanks to high doing decent damage at high accuracy, and she has the same tome rank eleven maps earlier.

Just had Lelina at level 8 take out Murdoch, so I reckon that’s something. Took about 3 shots

 

@WhiskyAs for my leveled up Wolt, it did just come pretty handy having a 3rd sniper for Ch 21, so that definitely counts for a bit IMHO

[Whisky]

On 10/1/2022 at 3:01 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have a hard time getting past the fact that Hugh demands a monetary cost on the same map I can buy Seraphic Robes. If you have the money to get his full stats you can give anyone else +14 HP instead. I don't think he compares very well with other mages as such. 12/1 Raigh is only one magic and speed down compared to full-cost 15/1 Hugh, and obviously wins durability with this considered. And Raigh has over five extra maps to gain exp, and/or be promoted earlier to start improving his staff rank if that's what you'd prefer.

Lilina's harder to compare directly because she does need more investment, but I'd personally consider her better than Hugh too. She's pretty easy to level thanks to doing decent damage at high accuracy, and she has the same tome rank eleven maps earlier.

That’s fair. It seems a bit difficult to me to compare cost versus performance. Like if we assume that Hugh is the better unit than Lilina if you get him but is arguably not worth the cost than who is better overall? Well depends on the player and the circumstances I guess. I feel like cost and performance are kind of different discussions. Like Geitz in FE7 is great if you get him, but is he worth training up all three Lords to pretty high level to get? Probably not. So is he a great unit or not? I don’t know, it’s complicated.

[Jotari]

One of the biggest arguments against Lilina is that she comes too under levelled, where Lugh will already be much better than her. I can't see that not also being an argument against Hugh. He comes super late. I mean, sure you can insta promote him, but (and I'm not checking now) I don't think his stats at max monetary investment and insta promote are good enough to be instantly better than Lugh or a trained Lillina.

[Whisky]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

One of the biggest arguments against Lilina is that she comes too under levelled, where Lugh will already be much better than her. I can't see that not also being an argument against Hugh. He comes super late. I mean, sure you can insta promote him, but (and I'm not checking now) I don't think his stats at max monetary investment and insta promote are good enough to be instantly better than Lugh or a trained Lillina.

Well I wouldn’t consider him as good as Lugh even if he was free. Compared to Lilina, I think they just fill in different roles. He doesn’t need any experience investment and doesn’t have a weak start like she does. He’s an okay filler unit if you’re willing to spend the money on him. I think Lilina needs more commitment to getting trained up to become good, and she does have a bit of a rough start early on. She’ll always be frailer than him too. Which one is better I think might depend on the player. Although I definitely understand not considering him worth his cost.