Inference

I'm beginning to express withdrawal symptoms as a consequence of not having played Conquest in months (gave my 3DS away to my Fire Emblem-loving cousin). Conquest is freaking unforgettable.

I really didn't think Arthur was worth it until Chapter 10, where he becomes a pretty obvious 10/10 unit for bulling through 1-2 hell in a way that provokes manly tears. The rest of the game, I never feel he is quite as compulsory or gamebreaking, due to the fact that he's a fucking 5-move footie for probably two chapters minimum. No, he does not contribute in either of those chapters. 8/10

Source required. Had massive problems recently with the Draco squad of Ch. 5 ignoring a perfectly positioned Lewyn, forcing a reset due to how long it took to actually kill them. I highly doubt your endgame scenario is the reason people are giving him high scores. People are still just looking at his stats and tome and thinking 'broken'. Given that's the case, you'd need a new moniker for Seliph and a host of units which are better off.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, Forseti doesn't exactly work in this game the way you want it to. For one, the enemy doesn't actually attack if they have no chance to hit. Parking Ced on evasive terrain with Forseti gives you nigh-guaranteed survival, but you don't kill any enemies in the enemy phase, which is where the bulk of your combat would usually come from in FE. On the flipside, if you are facing ~20% chances to be hit instead of zero, on top of not being a very bulky unit to begin with, you always risk a potential reset. Ced as a unit can never be as good in practice as he is in theory; the maps in this game are too damn big, and he is surrounded by units that can fight as well as he does with better availability, better movement, and guaranteed survival in dense combat areas. But there is one thing Ced is capable of that not all units can do: use high-ranking staves. Atop the ability to clear arenas with ease to repair his own equipment, Ced is actually a rather good utility unit that can fight extremely well, Forseti or otherwise, in the very few practical applications a non-mounted unit's combat has. Using Fortify, Physic, Silence, and Sleep every now and then does affect battle to a non-negligible degree. Claude-dad also opens up Valkyrie, but if anyone can think of a practical use for that thing, let me know! 6/10 for the potential to be useful as a staffbot, but falling short in almost every other area. Claude!Fee is goddess. In addition to the numerous blatantly Fee-only areas in the game that house very useful items, or at least ones she can sell for easy cash, having staff utility on promotion gives her an almost unrivaled level of versatility. Unfortunately, a good Magic stat is far from guaranteed, since her base is so low, but a simple Magic ring should allow you full use of her repertoire. I recommend the Shield and Renewal rings specifically for her, since the main frontline combatants are never really wanting for defense, and you really want Fee flying off to do Fee things from Turn 1 without ever having to worry about doubling back for healing. 9/10. This unit can do almost anything with the right resources, and much of what she does is irreplaceable.

No time for a wall of text reply, but you are vastly overstating the difficulty of this game, even on Lunatic mode. Raw stats aren't the reasoning Awakening is so easy to cheese; it's the vast application of Rescue and Galeforce into the boss that trivializes the latter half of the game, and I don't see how you are doing that without preparing early and tunneling your offense into your few good units over the non-Veteran flunkies that will inevitably be left behind. Early WTD against some enemies is not a serious disincentive for a unit with a 10+ level advantage who flies and gets their tomes right back upon promotion. Even when sandbagging, almost nothing in the early game really challenges Robin once she has momentum, and the same goes for both Lucina and Morgan just about right after Morgan's paralogue. For frame of reference, Severa's paralogue on Lunatic is perfectly beatable when followed up from Morgan's. What does this even mean? Morgan and Lucina support each other just fine. Have you ever even played a full Galeforce run?

No time for a wall of text reply, but you are vastly overstating the difficulty of this game, even on Lunatic mode. Raw stats aren't the reasoning Awakening is so easy to cheese; it's the vast application of Rescue and Galeforce into the boss that trivializes the latter half of the game, and I don't see how you are doing that without preparing early and tunneling your offense into your few good units over the non-Veteran flunkies that will inevitably be left behind. Early WTD against some enemies is not a serious disincentive for a unit with a 10+ level advantage who flies and gets their tomes right back upon promotion. Even when sandbagging, almost nothing in the early game really challenges Robin once she has momentum, and the same goes for both Lucina and Morgan just about right after Morgan's paralogue. For frame of reference, Severa's paralogue on Lunatic is perfectly beatable when followed up from Morgan's.

Yeah, I'd rather be 'working on my Lance rank' than having two of the best units in the game with Galeforce from Chapter 13.

Your formula does not respect actual gameplay scenarios. Lucina is recruited just before Morgan, so his debut chapter is part of her levelup regime. That chapter is swarming with enemies that Lucina can easily kill (Dracos), and she can start Galeforce chaining with Morgan immediately, resulting in more levelups for the both of them. At this point, the game basically ends, as there really isn't any obstacle in the game that surmounts triple Veteran + Galeforce spam, even on Lunatic mode. On the other hand, your scenario would result in Lucina and Morgan having E-Lances, less bulk, and bow weakness for a significant period of time just to get their own Galeforce. You shouldn't have to go through all of that mid-late game when Robin can do it herself early and pass it down to two of the best units in the game.

Nah, get out of here with all that crap. Robin is the most powerful unit in the entire series and has a skill that multiplies her experience by a considerable amount in a game that hands it out generously. It isn't rocket science to figure out what you need to do to give her kids Galeforce.

Bit late to the party, but I routinely pass Galeforce down to Lucina and Morgan consecutively by allowing Avatar to steal most of the kills in the first half of the game. The rest of the units don't actually need them because they're either not as good or are on other sides of the map putting in work of their own (like Draco Panne). Sending Lucina down Peg and Dark Flier takes way longer than it would just having the Avatar pass down Galeforce, then reclassing Lucina to Tactician immediately, where she would get Veteran right away, on top of having Galeforce to train with, rather than reach. This leads to three units with Galeforce by midgame, all with no DLC. Now you see why people call Awakening one of the easiest games in the series.

what is he doing with fee's shield ring your opinion is invalid

I'm going to assume the most advantageous pairing(s) to the unit from here on out, since it wouldn't make any sense to assume a pairing that would render them instantly useless/benched. I don't have a solid score in my mind for Lana or her substitute, so I'll abstain. Despite her movement, her staff utility isn't by any means negligible, and she's a big help in allowing Seliph to keep momentum during their debut chapter. The same argument could be made for Ced once he's on the table. Lester, however, is an easy 7/10 from me. Midir dad gives him Brave Bow, which wraps up just about every problem he'd have on player phase. Not even Armor Knights can survive him if the Strength levels are steady. I will abstain on his substitute, having never even seen him before, let alone used him.

No, actually, I make sure they both die/stay alone forever to get the items and characters I want. Good catch, though.

Character-wise, Ethlyn sort of wins by default because she actually has a non-negligible amount of story dialogue to her name and she's fiercely devoted to her family in a non-exaggerated way. No, this doesn't mean I condone taking her baby to the desert, but she is rather quick to take up arms when Sigurd or Quan are in trouble and doesn't make a big deal of it. Her ability to show concern is written better than any other female's personality trait in this game. Design-wise, fuck everyone who isn't Daisy. She is the cutest female character in the game by a considerable amount, and I always take great care in preventing Sylvia from being paired just to get her. I normally pair her with Shanan, but I recently discovered this awesome glitch where Seliph pairs with her instantly in her debut chapter, and I self-inserted the fuck out of that. Overall: 1) Ethlyn 2) Daisy 3) Raquesis 4) lol.

I don't really understand why people bother arguing that Seliph and Leif are just like other footies at this point, using meaningless semantics that mostly ignore the payoff that warrants their investment. No amount of training will allow other units to match their capabilities, which are class-locked, circumstantial, and inalienable. Sorry, friend. As mediocre as Dermott tends to be in combat, 8-move Canto from recruitment is a ridiculously large advantage to undersell.

^ Okay, yeah, what the fuck. I always err on the side of official translations, but I'm going to need a full game now. This is getting ridiculous.

I see what you're trying to say, but allow me to reiterate just how minor those contributions really are. I have yet another playthrough running and am currently on Ch. 2. I have three foot units deployed for non-combat reasons and almost every unit is using full move every turn. None of those units made it even close to the initial batch of enemies before all of the high-ranking units on the tier list wiped them out (which I believe was the following turn after they engaged, so it's as if they never stopped). Slowing down for the footies wasn't an option because Seliph needs that Knight Ring to boss-kill and seize in Gen 2. The next batch of enemies is a few paces away from Nordion, and I can't think of one foot unit that would have helped me wipe them out any faster than Lex or Quan; thus, that core group of about six units will continue to do all of the fighting while the footies in the back pair up to make living convoys for Gen 2 (shoutouts to whoever it was that mentioned Larcei's ability to hold swords for better units is the only reason Ayra gets paired). The one part of the chapter where non-mounts can see combat would indeed be the road intersection where the final two castles and ballistae are, since the foot units can just wait there, but the likes of Holyn and Ayra aren't any better for the job than Sigurd and crew, all of whom have better defensive parameters and the ability to get out of the way when they can't kill. In fact, I would actually rather Sigurd get even more kills to make sure Silver Sword reaches 50 before Ch. 3 so that he can focus on working Brave Sword to 50 before the end of Gen 1, where Seliph gets to carry that momentum through the entire rest of the game. Long story short, yeah, foot units can contribute in some capacity throughout the game, but unless they're performing specialized functions to support the mounted units in some capacity other than player phase combat, that Chapter 2 scenario is about the extent of their capabilities.

Larcei and Ulster are both equally irrelevant. I see no reason to distinguish their promotional bonuses and minor statistical discrepancies when they both lack the ability to reach combat and bring no other utility to the team. Even their combat is below par when you consider they have no good 2-range whatsoever and bulkier enemies are going to require them to activate their skills, whereas Seliph, Leif, Arthur, and Ares are always able to kill and take less damage in return. 2/10 for both Larcei and Ulster for having nothing but bells and whistles in their favor, and 1/10 for Roddlevan and Radney for not even having those.

No, the CLASS is BROKEN. Why do you think it never came back? This is like saying, "Oh, Dark Falcons were fine in Awakening. They should have come back to Fates as non-DLC without Galeforce nerfed." Master Knights are brainless, dude. They take work to get, but once you get one, it does everything and never dies. Actually, even better: let's remove all of the biases about which units Master Knight is attached to and suppose it were on Seliph or Sigurd instead. Do you think anyone would ever bother training full squads? Lol.

Nah, dude, your logic is just not good. Master Knights really are THAT good. Strong, durable, and reliable 1-2 is rare in FE4...then there's Leif running around clearing out Armor squads with a Magic Ring and Thoron. Rescue is usable by who else again? And it transports who to the throne? What about Recover? What about the ability to keep up with and kill alongside Seliph while also keeping him alive? Those are all inherent traits to the class. Nobody thinks Leif or Raquesis are lackluster after promotion. Their footie tenure is the entire reason they don't have more high scores than they do. You just want an excuse to be contrarian. "Oh, everyone rightfully thinks Master Knights are good because they can do anything they want... Let's find fault with that!" Get out of here with that, lol.

I like the idea of rating in groups just to move the list along. It takes a while to move off of the discussion of one unit, so I'd rather us not be stuck on someone irrelevent like Asaello for a week. Ideally, I would like a batch discussion of each pair of Gen 2 units alongside their substitutes, giving us a group of four units to discuss, each with their own individual rating.

The problem with letting other units carry the Brave Sword is that none of them are seeing as many engagements as Sigurd is, so the Brave Sword really isn't being used well at all by anyone other than him. You can clear out groups with Sigurd and not ever have to heal, while someone like Arya can take out maybe two enemies before needing backup in the form of healing or meatshields and Noish probably still can't one-round bulkier enemies with it unless Accost activates, so he may as well not have it either. Just because the best units don't strictly need it doesn't mean that other units suddenly use it better. Having that Brave Sword just puts them on an entirely different level of self-sufficiency, since they almost never have to worry about counterattacks, require far less healing, and don't need any support to kill a boss. I can't see who would object to that over giving it to a 6-move unit with terrible defensive parameters. In other words, yes, it really does make a difference if the Lords use a better weapon than Silver, since the added KO reliability eases pressure off of the entire team. This isn't about efficiency at all, it's just an objective fact that the best characters in the game are going to use one of the best weapons in the game better than units who struggle with combat to begin with. Brave Sword doesn't magically solve a mediocre unit's problems, but it does wonders for castle-seizing units!

Yeah, I knew someone was going to say that someone other than Sigurd was going to get a chance to use the Brave Sword, even though as a player, I would never, ever let that happen. Other units can technically 'benefit' from the Brave Sword because it brings their combat up to par, but none of those units can get it up to 50 kills by the end of Gen 1 as reliably as he can. That Brave Sword is huge for Seliph, as it allows him more reliable kill setups on bosses to seize the throne on the same turn. I know Ayra has a lot of fans because of her looks or something, but letting her hold onto a contested resource like that is meaningless pandering that negatively affects the outcome of the game. And Noish? Seriously?

The moment you recruit a character in Lunatic mode, their gains are predetermined for the rest of the save file. Beruka, for example, flies in on the third turn of Ch. 10 Conquest. That would be the point at which her rolls are set, and the predetermined order would change each time you reset the chapter, up until you finally complete it. Corrin's rolls start from the beginning of Ch. 1, so if they level up terribly any time after that, you'd have to start a new game in order to change that.

We don't have stop discussing the merits of high movement in this game, since it's extremely important and something everyone should understand by now. I would, however, like to see some units a little more interesting for rating/discussion like Fee or Ced. I have a pretty well-informed opinion on the both of them now.