I find it strange that so few people rate performance under writing. For me the only thing relevant is how much easier a character makes a game. For example; I like Makalov in FE9 because mounts are op in that game, he joins with ok bases and good growths and it's easy to use mounts. However, I dislike him in FE10 because he's got bad bases, isn't very helpful in most of the CRK maps, has very low availability compared to say Titania or Oscar and is weaker than a lot of enemies.