Slumber

Yeah. If you want to introduce a character who eventually becomes an enemy that acts like this(Or an enemy that eventually becomes an ally. Or just a flat-out enemy.), cool. But for the main character, I don't think an actual sociopath is the best way to go. Every line of theirs would just be a line from "Numb" of "In The End" by Linkin Park. And Linkin Park lyrics stopped being cool before Linkin Park even became a thing.

Then that would by why I can't see Zealot as viable, since that'd be the one case where he is. Even if you're doing it for rankings, you're better off not using him, but if you are going as fast as possible, then there's a case for using him, even if it basically is for only two chapters.

Look. I've never actually used Lyre, because Laguz in FE10 are just a pain to work with and level. The argument aside, my point was that Fire Emblem has generally gotten better at not tossing you terrible units since FE7 or so(Even though I've done a poor job at defending one of the worst in FE10). Though in my defense, RD has like 70 units, not every one can be a winner. I'd also argue that Gareth is worse than Lyre, but now I'm actively bringing up counter-points to my argument, so I'll shut up. But I won't budge on Zealot. He joins with stats that are acceptable for the moment you get him, and he can use silver weapons, but even by that point, unpromoted units will be close to reaching his base promoted stats, he has some of the worst growths in the game, and relying on him for anymore than his recruitment chapter is dangerous due to how precious EXP is in FE6. Having a promoted unit with bases and growths that poor will actively be a detriment. Marcus exists to purely baby your early game units so they don't get stuck in bad situations. Zealot doesn't even get that, since you're just about out of that brutally difficult section where having a Jeigan or two would actually be nice.

I'm new here, so I'm not privy to this site's tier listings, so I'd love to see the reasoning behind this. Actually, Wendell I can see(Especially in FE1), but not Zealot.

Again, she CAN end up as a usable unit. That's what makes her not worthless. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Does it gimp other units? Yes. But it's not impossible. It's impractical to have her end up as a usable unit, but not impossible. So there is some worth in her. Certainly moreso than the other units I mentioned, who are only worth it if you just need a character to die to stall some enemy units.

Adding Fire Emblem to a SMT-esque setting didn't work, but maybe the other way around would work better.

Her growths are decent, and her stats are comparable to any of the myrmidons, but she's generally a lot tankier on top of having really good avoid. Stats and availability-wise, she's almost identical to Mia, but with better HP and res. Mia will cap strength and defense faster, but Lyre will cap skill and speed faster, while steadily outpacing Mia in HP and res all the way through, making he a better choice for BEXP, if you feel inclined to waste BEXP on a speedy unit. Again, not saying she's a good unit, but she's not completely worthless like... Wendell or Boah or Bantu or Hannibal or Juno or Zealot. She's at least a tier or two above those types of characters.

I'd like another Ike. Obviously different in personality, but somebody who isn't a noble. Just had a very important teacher that taught him how to fight in a different way compared to everyone else, justifying the Lord status. Maybe instead of just being a humble bumpkin like Ike, make them a bit of a slacker, and kind of a delinquent. As others have said, somebody brash and kind of selfish, but still a good person at heart. It'd make the interactions with high-class nobility later on entertaining. Kinda common character, but it could be fleshed out, and be entertaining if it's executed well.

I could get down with a axe/dark magic unit, but they'd have to be very glasscannon-y, and it'd have to be built for a specific character.

Well, Meg CAN have worth, but it will come at the cost of sacrificing pretty much every DB member. Lyre's bad, but I wouldn't call her truly worthless. Kyza, however, is, and I completely forget about him every opportunity I can.

Yo dawg, you forgot the best purple haired unit in the franchise. Where the hell is Homer?

Generally, those bad characters are meant to be very circumstantial. Like bad axers in older games that only have strength and HP. Usually they exist to take out super tanky boss Knights/Generals. There are just some worthless units, though, and I suppose they exist just for extra challenge, or to trick people into using them. These kinds of units have generally been phased out over the years. I can't think of any truly worthless units in the series(Skipping the remakes) since FE6, though.

I guess I don't necessarily disagree at that point, then. I still think 1/3 of the unit classes being hybrids is too much. That's way too many classes with access to staves, and it just starts getting redundant. I think there should be three at most. And half of the split physical/magical damage units, I think, are just poorly designed. Malig Knight makes no sense, since you're taking the flying classes that've always been averse to magic, and making them magical. The logic in replacing Dark Fliers with Malig Knights makes little sense to me. The Oni Chieftain just makes 0 sense, and a unit that could ever make proper use out of axes AND magic would have to split their growths so much that most of their other states would have to suffer, like how Oni Chieftain Rinkah ends up. For the most part, I don't think there should be any axe/magic hybrids unless they're enemy only units like Barons. The Basara I actually liked, and I think swords make the most sense to accompany magic, since they're light enough that low con/strength hybrid units can actually use them(Or use magic swords). If they could come up with hybrid units that make sense, then 3-4 classes that use magic and physical weapons would be fine with me.

You missed a big chunk of my argument. Yes, hybrid classes only make roughly 1/3 of the total class roster(Which is still way more than any prior game in the franchise), but only NINE characters in the entire game can't become hybrid units by default. There are 68 playable characters in Fates, and only Silas, Kaze, Mozu, Setsuna, Saizo, Arthur, Laslow, Benny and Keaton are incapable of being a hybrid class without any of the seals that allow them to cross into somebody else's class set. More than 85%(I'm including children here because of how there are only two female units in the whole game who don't get magic or a staff, you have to work to have kids who aren't hybrid units) of the characters in Fates are effectively hybrid characters. There are 0 units who are locked to magic only. If you want to take out the characters that only have a staff to their name as a hybrid unit, then the list expands, but even then, you have to realize that around half of your units are capable of healing in some capacity, and there's still a huuuuuuuge pool of units who can still use magic AND physical weapons.

Arthur's is fine. He's basically the Captain America of the Fire Emblem world, so him getting a really harsh comic book style works. Navarre looks like... I mean, the artwork is fine, but Navarre just looks off. Way too feminized. He's always been feminine, but this takes it past 11 and all the way to at least 15. Eliwood, I think, just has bad artwork. His eyes are in his forehead.

*oughcoughPolygoncoughcough*

The Jugdral games, but 4 beats out 5 for the sheer personal involvement and grand scale of the story.

I don't think hybrid units should completely go away. What I've mostly been saying is that they should be very rare, and only a few characters can become hybrid classes. Units that make sense to become hybrid classes. Units that CAN juggle magic and physical damage, without being overpowered or overabundant. I'm mostly hesitant to flat out say that "hybrid units should stay", because historically, IS has bungled the concept hardcore. They're either ridiculously powerful and make the game boring(Awakening), or bad almost completely across the board(Tellius, Fates). The Jugdral games came closest to getting them right, and only a handful of units across both games were even capable of becoming hybrid units. Plus, saying they should stay mostly just sounds like keeping them how they were in FE13 and 14. The Fates and Awakening style of "Fuck it, every axe/sword/lance/bow user should be able to use magic, and every magic user should be able to use axes/swords/lances/bows" has been absolutely a bad experiment, IMO. I'm a firm believer in the idea that "less is more" when it comes to this kind of thing. There should be enough variety to keep things interesting, but you shouldn't be adding variety at the detriment of balance and general gameplay cohesiveness. Make hybrid units that make sense. A mage promotion that can use swords? Sure, Mage Knights(Though Mage Knights in FE are something completely different, you get the idea) have always been a thing in these kinds of high-fantasy settings. I don't think it should be an option for every mage unit, and I've always liked the Jugdral system where unit promotions were character based rather than class based, even if units of certain classes almost always promoted to the same classes. If you can mix these two things, and make hybrid units a rare thing that only certain characters can obtain, I'm 100% okay with it. But I am not okay with how Awakening/Fates did it, where suddenly petite healers suddenly turn into beefy battle nuns with axes(I know I said I was fine with healers that could attack, but this has always bothered me). It's a fun concept and it became a meme in itself, but it looks goofy, makes no goddamn sense and didn't really work out well for anybody. Not every class needed to have a hybrid promotion.

Dammit, this is why I hate the writing in Awakening. Alright, then that confirms it from me. I forgot about that one tidbit. Thanks for clarifying.

I honestly forgot about Mage Fighters, since Tailtyu isn't getting any use out of that "Fighter" part, and Tine isn't getting any use out of it, either, unless her father is someone like Lex. Same deal with Azel and Arthur. While Olwen CAN be a usable hybrid unit that isn't Nanna, I'm hesitant to call her generally "usable", since it's questionable to use any unit in Thracia that struggles to cap a single stat, ESPECIALLY when using her as a melee unit will almost always get her killed, due to her awful HP and low Defense. Eyrios is actually pretty decent, but once again, using a combination of a good physical unit and a good magic unit will always be preferable. Miranda is the only other Mage Knight in Thracia, and she is a good Mage, but an awful hybrid unit. I'm discounting Sumia because everyone in Awakening is potentially phenomenal as everything. Same deal with Nohrrin. Sakura is one of the the few usable hybrids I mentioned in Fates, and she mostly gets away with it because she's isn't trying to split damage between magic and physical. She's essentially a melee unit that can heal, which I don't really have much of an issue with. We've had 6 games with hybrids(4, 5, 13, 14, also tossing in 9 and 10 because Sages CAN use physical weapons). And throughout all of those games, you can count the amount of properly balanced hybrid units on two hands, with at least two(Definitely Arthur and Tine, and some of the children in Fates) of them being highly conditional.

Support conversations. I think it's one of Panne's that mentions Laguz, and Olivia/Donnel's supports are about the song of Naesala/Leanne. Easter eggs typically have no bearing on the plot, and are just things the developers throw in as tiny, quick things that the players have to catch onto. They're not entire characters(Priam) and character development conversations. Plus, Awakening brought this on itself by trying to tie all of the games together in some way.

My main gripe with hybrid classes goes back to my earlier argument: It gives you too much to work with on a unit. It's fine if it's one character here or there, but making hybrid classes a regular thing really just removes a lot of specialty units can have. And making them viable to do both physical stuff and magic stuff? Why ever use anything other than hybrid units at that point? On the flip side, if you make hybrid units, but said units suck at either magic or physical, they ultimately just become redundant with non-hybrid units. One good magic unit+One good melee unit will be a lot more interesting to use than a bunch of mediocre hybrid classes or a bunch of disgustingly broken hybrid classes. It worked in FE4 and FE5 because those units were rare. It was really just Barons, Master Knights and Troubadors/Valkyries. Barons were an enemy only thing, and you had to strategize how to beat them, and Master Knights were purposefully OP. It didn't work in Fates and Awakening, because the only way to implement those types of units frequently were to either break them completely(Awakening), or try to make it balanced and ultimately make hybrid units redundant, since only one or two units had good enough strength/magic growth to make good use out of both(Fates). So either hybrid units should be incredibly rare so that the few units who could take advantage of it aren't the only units you'll ever use, or they should just be scrapped entirely. And I really don't like the idea of bringing back Kinshi and Griffon riders, simply because of the visual clutter those classes brought to Fates. Four different flying mounts, with two of them being pretty indistinguishable(I guess Griffon riders were supposed to be the all-around types, as opposed to the Wyvern's hard-hitting tankyness and the fast but weak Pegasus riders?), just made the screen a mess to look at. And the idea of a mount changing into an entirely different animal upon promotion has never sat well with me. If you want to keep Griffons, but just reuse Kinshi as a bow-using Pegasus promotion, that'd probably be fine. I agree with the rest, though. Though, I feel like putting Chameleons prominently in the story would be a bad idea. I can only imagine how many fake-outs we'd get after beating a boss, only to learn that *gasp*! It wasn't really the boss that we thought we killed, but a Chameleon pretending to be him!

That's entirely speculation. What we do know: 1.) Ike, at the end of RD, leaves the known lands in the world that Tellius exists in. Whether this is a new continent or somewhere beyond the borders of Daein/Begnion(I find this a bit unlikely, since people likely know of those lands, it's just never relevant to the story of PoR/RD), he goes somewhere that puts him so far away from the events of the Tellius games that nobody EVER hears from him again. 2.) People in Awakening know of Laguz(Or the legends of Laguz), and the song of Naesala and Leanne is so well known that it's the song that every bard/dancer aspires to perform. 3.) Priam exists, and has a very, very old Ragnell. What we can only speculate on: 1.) That Ike traveled through the Outrealm Gates. 2.) That other people from Tellius also traveled through the Outrealm Gates to make up for the things people know about that don't really make sense to attribute to Ike. I hate using Occam's Razor, but the simplest explanation with no speculation is that Tellius existed in the same world as the Akeneia games and Awakening.

Lachesis by default. All of the others are awful. Mozu is alright, but the rest suuuuuuck.

Tellius was the last continent in its world because Ashunera flooded the world, leaving only Tellius. However, that was (I think)50,000 years before the Tellius games, and by the time they beat Ashera, the world is presumably returned, and in Ike's ending, he leaves Tellius. In Awakening, Priam being the descendant of the Hero of Blue Flame is something that's recognized as being significant, Laguz are a known quantity(Though considered a legend), and there are songs about Leanne and Naesala. With Ragnell being cracked and falling apart(While the 1000 year old Falchion is in pristine condition), there's the impression, that it's the same world as Tellius, but was a long, long, loooooong time ago. You could argue that Ike or one of his descendants found an outrealm gate, but some stuff really doesn't sound like anything Ike would do. Would Ike really come up with a song about Leanne and Naesala? Even if somebody heard him talk about it, and made a song out of it, him just telling the story would be really out of character.