Mekkah

To compensate for Kirby's idiocy, 21/10.

@KoT, just because I agree with your final rating/conclusion (when it comes to efficiency) does not mean I agree with your reasoning. Erk wasn't exactly getting "crushed" by Pent because in all of PFoD there was only one enemy that Pent had an advantage over. In addition, you also said Lucius was "crushing Erk offensively", which is false for much of the same reason. Yes, both Pent and Lucius are better, but not because they have significantly better combat.

I would argue Dagda remains useful later on in the game and Eyvel/Cuan are nothing like the others here. 5. Titania, from FE9 As a Paladin that joins this early, you would think that the designers have put some things in the game that discourages you from using them. I'm having trouble figuring out what exactly this would be for Titania, because there is none. Their usual way (bad growth) clearly doesn't apply: 45% Str, 50% Spd, 40% Def, and then not even any growth below 40% in the stats that don't matter? Her bases are bad "for her level", but we've hopefully learned not to care about that when this is her level at the start of the game. 33 HP/12 Str/14 Spd/11 Def turns Titania into an anythingkiller extraordinaire when some enemies are still trying to have a positive AS value. She can even take care of bosses on her own, and that's exactly what she should do to try and activate those beautiful growths. Since those poor Paladins were sooo bad in GBA, FE9 helped them out. First off, they get access to the Knight Ward, which most other classes get no equivalent of whatsover (the Armors get to use it as well, but they don't matter). +2 Def/Res and 30% Spd growth? Thanks, but what did they do to deserve this? Either way, it turns Titania's Spd growth into 80%, and combined with BEXP and the nature of Titania's leveling, it should be extremely easy to up her Spd to the stars and beyond with this. Does it end there? Not really, though it is easily the most ridiculous thing about FE9 Paladins. There's also the fact that she has access to Lances and Axes, the best two weapon types she could ask for. She's also got that whole move after doing anything going for her (I can't say Canto cause that's what Reyson's chanting xability is called in this game). This is also one of the only games where it's possible to build up supports in an efficient run, which puts her in the race for a support with Ike, Boyd or Mist, whichever she wants. Also Rhys but only Snowy thinks he matters. Titania dominates the whole game without effort. In order to make her suck you need her to rescue one of your own units and forge her Sandbag weapons (I don't think you can even make those in FE9). The only thing that docks points from her is that she's in a game where it's also way too easy to make OTHER people kick (almost) as much butt through BEXP and everything, but a #5 spot is nothing to be ashamed of.

15/0 Erk: 26.1 hp, 10.6 mag, 11.6 skl, 14 spd, 7.2 luk, 4.8 def, 9.6 res 5/0 Nino: 19 hp, 7 mag, 8 skl, 11 spd, 10 luk, 4 def, 7 res Underleveled Erk crushing base Nino. The mere fact that Nino has to play catch-up shows that Nino is not doing any crushing of any unit whatsoever. Pent, sure, but only when Pent is actually available, and even then they're quite close and it doesn't matter which of them you crush mooks with. 20/1 Erk: 33.35 hp, 13.6 str, 13.6 skl, 16.5 spd, 8.7 luk, 8.8 def, 14.6 res --/6 Pent: 33 hp, 18 str, 21 skl, 17 spd, 14 luk, 11 def, 16 res The 4.4 atk lead is great on paper, but Erk still reaches 21.6 atk with Thunder. This is enough for the wyverns in their joining chapter, for instance, or any unpromoted enemy. There's promoted enemies as well, but surprisingly, Pent doesn't ORKO those either. PFOD Sniper has 38 HP/9 Res for instance, which Pent's 26 Atk with Thunder isn't sufficient for. He could use Elfire for that, I guess. But the General with 45 HP/11 Res? Nope. Hero with 46 HP/7 Res and 17 Spd? Nope. Swordmaster with 39 HP/9 Res/19 Spd? Nope. Pent is better by A staves alone, but there's no crushing being done here stat-wise. Erk also has a level lead on Lucius. He has two Lyn Mode and four Hector Mode chapters versus Lucius's 2 level lead. They are pretty much tied in offensive combat parameters for most of their existence, simply because of how much Light tomes suck. As for that 6 Mag lead Lucius has, look how much that slight Atk lead does for Pent, and now imagine that Lucius has terrible options for upgrading his Atk through better tomes. I take it your version of the game only has enemy pegasi with Javelins that always attack at range.

If Nolan OHKOs with Beastfoe, getting doubled doesn't matter unless he misses.

The facepalm is strong in this one.

As far as I'm concerned every turbo earlygame Paladin is a Jeigan, but from what I get most people consider a unit an Oifaye if they have good growths. Marcus doesn't have those. I don't really care for these fan-invented archetypes though.

It's almost like there are no other good candidates for Pursuit Ring!

That's only without Pursuit Ring, obv. Narga is going under the assumption that Arthur is not getting the Pursuit Ring because some scrub like Tinny or Patty or Jamka!Lester is getting it, because casual play. 6. Marcus, from FE7 Finally! The first earlyjoining Paladin! Marcus is probably the most balanced of them all...and by that I mean FE6 Marcus. FE7 Marcus is seriously overpowered, but nobody knew that because hey, he hogs soooo much EXP! Anyway, he has the usual godly stuff. 2HKOs and doubles almost everything, can OHKO with Silver Lance, often even ORKO bosses with that. Defensively, he just refuses to die, with full weapon triangle control, including the ability to attack and counter ranged enemies. At least, early on. He slows down later, right? Well, yes and no. He does have a pitful 25% Spd growth, and "only" an 11 Spd base (this is as much as Matthew has at base, so not slow by any means). However, it just so happens that this base 11 Spd is capable of doubling most scrub enemies until mid/lategame, as sad as that is. There may be some short period of time where he doesn't double (when enemies have grown a little, but are still holding Iron weapons), but soon enough they make the switch to Steel and Marcus doubles just fine. Even though his EXP gain per normal battle is very low (around 5 EXP regarldess of kill or non-kill, iirc), he can expose himself so much that he gets quite a few chances at those low-ish growths to proc. And every Spd proc he gets is worth its weight in gold. Speedwings don't really exist in this game (or might as well not), except for the last few chapters, but as long as you keep dedicating kills, mostly bosskills, to Marcus, he'll stay afloat. He can also just equip Killer weapons to get a shot at OHKOing with a crit without doubling, or use the Brave Lance or Brave Axe even with his base weapon levels. Speaking of those, Marcus will easily hit S lances very quickly and gain 5% hit/crt from that. Marcus does "suck exp" in the sense that if you dominate map after map with him, you kind of need to keep that playstyle going all the way until you get more prepromotes. Thankfully, this isn't too difficult, and after Kinship's Bond they just keep on hitting you with decent to great prepromotes. Isadora, Hawkeye, probably not Geitz but he's good anyway, Farina kind of, Pent, Louise, Harken, Jaffar...so yes, even though Marcus is not "an Oifaye", he is a much better unit than Oifaye, despite the growth disadvantage. Even if you somehow find Marcus's combat insufficient, he can assist in rescue/drops very well thanks to his 8 mov, and of course he can move after doing those fancy things or trading just fine too.

1/10 can't fly or heal

But then with the Mag Ring he OHKOs things, and his base lasts all of ten seconds, with that Continue rate going up by 1% every level, and Critical by .85%...

Guys, guys, I appreciate it, but contrary to most people who start their post like that, Narga does realize Arthur is better. Read closely.

Gen 4 is terrible.

Mons hatch from L1 in Gen 5.

7. Arthur, from FE4 This might just be the unit I have been most passionate about through all my millions of words playing and debating Fire Emblem. There is probably no mounted unit as powerful as Arthur (raw stats wise). I'd also say the only units that have gotten shafted more by, well, people who don't know how to break a game properly, are those early Paladins that HOG ALL UR EXP AND ARE EVIL! Arthur, like a lot of the kids, is kind of like one of those freshly hatched Pokemon from the Day Care. You know, they inherit all the strong moves and genes, but their stats have yet to develop. It's kind of adorable in a way. Arthur is kind of different. What kind of L1 Pokemon has stats equivalent to a L50 Pokemon? Well, if Arthur was a Pokemon, that would be what he has. Of course, it would require you to breed a male Levin with a female Tiltyu. The result is that Arthur joins with 40 base Atk, 45 with Magic Ring, enough to one-shot several things already. And then there's those Critical and Continue rates, and the possibility of Pursuit Ring. For a more detailed analysis of what exactly Arthur can do, clicky. I'll be a little more brief here than usual since man, I've had to defend Arthur so often I grew tired of it. Summary: Arthur starts off kind of mediocre, actually, because 5 mov is so bad. But he has great opportunities to gain EXP fast enough to where it doesn't impact his insane potential much at all, and in no time, you have pretty much the ultimate unit: mounted, 1-2 range, OHKOing and/or ORKOing stuff left and right, even those ridiculous bosses that give almost your entire army trouble. It is kind of expensive to have Arthur do everything, but then again, if he does everything then he might as well get the right resources to do so (eg the Bargain Ring that Levin can pick up so easily). Proper use of inheritance, arena, and Patty should fuel your greed for Holsety KOs enough to the point where it starts gaining extra crit chances due to having 50+ kills. Arthur is so uber that enemies sometimes refuse to attack him due to them having 0% hit, but thankfully if you want him to slaughter those enemies anyway you can place him on a road tile. It's kind of like putting on one of those training capes in DBZ. Or like Goku throwing the enemy a senzu bean. It's just too unfair otherwise. For the silly few of you that still think Sety is better: by the time Sety arrives, Arthur is promoted and Sety has nothing on him. ;/ Oh yeah, you can pair Tiltyu with other people too, but why would you? (for the sake of efficiency, that is)

Youtubers are nothing short of retarded. Most of my gameplay achievement videos go unnoticed. The ones that get the most views/comments are the ones where Lilina does stuff, and the first one I put up, with Isadora killing Linus.

You can pretend they are .5 point higher if that makes you sleep at night. :) And by they I mean Reyson. The others have such poor availability.

Feena and Tethys are bland normal-movement refresh-one-unit dancers. I didn't feel they needed elaboration.

8. Dancers, from pretty much every game Dancers are so amazing but also so plentiful that they just had to be merged for this to be tolerable. For the record, when I say "dancers" I mean the following: Feena (FE3 B2) Sylvia, Leen, Laylea (FE4) Lara (FE5) Lalum, Elphin (FE6) Ninian, Nils (FE7) Tethys (FE8) Reyson (FE9) Rafiel, Leanne, Reyson (FE10) Feena (FE12) There's a ton of them, but thankfully they are very similar. One interesting thing about them is that they never seem to have amazing availability: they tend to join around halfway through the game, give or take a few. But for the half they are around, they are very often your MVPs, even though at first sight they don't have a direct impact on your efficiency. But that's because their approach to helping you is very subtle. Most of them have been classified before as "a copy of your best unit every turn", which isn't descriptive enough but it's getting there. It is one of the most simple and wonderful things they can do though: making your best unit move again, kill another enemy. This is most useful against the toughest of bosses, who usually can't threaten your dancer directly. Even if you have to dance in their attacking range, a simple rescue/drop from another two mook units can bring them to safety while still allowing them to dance again next turn if needed. But they can do so much more than this. They extend a unit's movement towards the chapter's goal, or a secondary objective. They allow fliers and horsies to both rescue and drop in one turn. They allow a unit to attack something from a rather dangerous position, only to be able to retreat from there without requiring Canto (or like double the movement they have). Using dancers to their full potential often requires you to base your strategy around them, rather than just having them tag along. If you don't do that, they'll have some useful targets for the first few turns, but inevitably fall behind, and before long they'll hardly be of use at all. It's worth letting a few units fall behind a little just to facilitate the dancer to move up in line. Most dancers are very simple. They have about as much movement as your foot units, about as much durability as wet cardboard, and they allow a single other unit to move again. But some of them have additional quirks that deserve a highlight. FE4's dancers are possibly the most amazing of them all, revitalizing the four units around them instead of just one. Setting up diamonds for them is easy for the first few turns, but after that they're going to need the help of the Rescue staff (Gen 2 mostly) and/or Leg + Knight Ring to keep up. If you CAN lend your short-skirted dancer these resources, you can speed up your respective lord by 300% or even 400%, but that requires quite a bit of trickery. If not, then you can also use them to let your foot units keep up a little better with mounts. The quadruple refresh works very well with this game's ridiculous incarnation of Canto. When fighting a group of units with a group of your own, you can set up the diamond so easily, and as a result take out four extra enemies every turn. FE5's Lara is unique before she turns into a dancer, as she's actually just a regular thief (with very, very crummy stats) before then. She retains the ability to lockpick and steal after "promoting" (and losing stats, lol) which is nice, but generally she's better off dancing. Lara faces the problem of very, very low HP in combination with the fatigue system, but hopefully you can work around that by using her dances sparingly, or using S Drinks. Also, all dancers so far can fight with low-level swords, and my God they suck at it. Don't do that. FE7's Ninils have an additional use: rings. The use of these is very occasional, but when can put them to use, it's often a very good use. Nini's Grace is probably the most useful one, giving its target +10 Def/Res for the turn. This allows even Lucius to take on a number of enemies on enemy phase (not too big of a number, but still), and makes semi-durable units complete tanks. The others aren't too great, though Fila's Might allows Athos to OHKO the Dragon with a Luna critical. The herons are obviously the biggest outliers. FE9 Reyson has a modest 5 movement, but he has wings, and therefore he can bypass terrain. Because of this, he makes a pretty good candidate for the Knight Ring and/or Boots. If you manage to get him to transform (laguz stone being pretty much the only way to do it in a reasonable time frame ), he not only gets +3 move, but he can also refresh four people at once!FE10 Herons are even more ridiculous. Rafiel is pretty much a modern version of the FE4 dancers, always able to refresh four people but unable to keep up with anything whatsoever. If you transform him, he loses his ability to move up ledges. Useful, huh? Leanne can always refresh two units on opposite sides of her, but she flies and can move after refreshing. Reyson is nearly the same as his FE9 counterpart, except now he always moves after refreshing and has a ton more movement. FE10 also has much better support for filling laguz gauges. Dancers are only as good as the moves you make. Not only do their refreshing abilities take some thinking to use, but they're also very frail and generally unable to counter effectively. One wrong move can cause a chapter reset. Great additions to any team. A little broken, but very rewarding to good players!

9. Shiida, from FE11 Poor Shiida was stuck as a Mage for the longest time, with her 6 mov unable to keep up, even with her beloved Marthipan. Her Wing Spear lied useless in the storage, and our assault on the thrones was lead by fellow movement champ Sedgar. But one day, it all changed. Turn counts took a nose dive, and it was all thanks to a practical lesson in opportunity cost, and what's to gain from paying it. I'd always had some kind of sneaking suspicion about it, since Shiida had helped me in nearly every gimmicky playthrough of FE11 I've always wanted to do by Wing Spearing random threats with her high movement and flexibility, but now, everyone is aware of how good Shiida is. The key to what makes Shiida so good is by abusing the 3x effective weapon multiplier in combination with the ability to forge those effective weapons. Every point of Mt you forge on it comes back tripled, and I think the armory guy knows, considering how much he charges for it. But it's okay, we get a TON of cash this game for stopping by random villages. And by forging +4 or even +5 mt on the Win Spear, we essentially double its number of uses because it suddenly starts OHKOing enemies it would otherwise have 2HKO'd. This has the pleasant side effect of allowing Shiida to avoid a counter from all these crazy strong enemies she will be massacring. A great example of where this utility comes into play is right after you first forged that Win Spear: Ch4. There's a horde of around 5 Cavaliers headed for you, one of them named Matthis. With Shiida, you can place her on the edge of their movement range on turn 2 with the Win Spear equipped, and she'll get rid of one. Now she can fly closer to your group, use a Vulnerary, and pick off a second one. Then on the next player phase, you can have her kill a THIRD one if needed without risk, and the rest of your group can take care of the stragglers. Of course, dealing with enemy swarms is almost a thing of the past now in FE11. Most chapters in the mid/late game actually get finished in one or two turns thanks to the insanely broken infinite range Warp. This negatively impacts pretty much every unit in FE11...but not Shiida! In fact, it's thanks to her and that Win Spear that we are able to do this. You see, it isn't just effective on generic Knights and Cavaliers, but also all those Knight and General bosses. Even when those are replaced by Manakete, Shiida can easily reclass to Swordmaster for C Swords, and use a (forged) Wyrmslayer to do the job just as easily. Even if you don't Warpskip, Shiida remains one of your MVPs for easily removing any mounted/armored enemy, including almost every boss, with so much ease that you'd wonder why H5 was ever considered difficult to begin with. She cap rams her Spd like crazy, and profits enormously from her promotion (hopefully with the first Master Seal), as it gives her +4HP, +4 Str, and +5 Def to work with, as well as the ability to use some lower rank axes for an even better position in the weapon triangle. Now go read that LP.

Celice has some issues on the way to the first castle in first gen, but from there he should usually be safe. Compare it to Miledy, who is completely unavailable for the first 12 chapters (plus gaidens), Celice looks mighty impressive, capable of carrying almost the entire Gen 2 on his own if needed.

nvm iono why I thought that Better fun fact: Balmung gives Skl and Spd Mistolteen gives Skl and Res Tyrfing gives Skl, Spd AND Res

10. Celice, from FE4 We are entering the top ten of best units of all time, and Celice sticks out as a bit of an oddball. Don't get me wrong, he's good. Sickening growths (140% HP, 55% Str, 60% Skl, 45% Def, though only 35% Spd but who cares he has enough of a base to double half this slugfest of a game), access to swords...all kinds of other great things, but all with an asterisk. He's mounted, but only after promotion. He gets a broken legendary weapon, but only for the tail end of the game. What's so great about Celice? Well, in a proper efficient playthrough, pretty much everything a unit could want falls in his lap. From the crib, the guy should be holding some strong kind of sword (Hero, Silver, or even Light), Elite Ring, Leg Ring, maybe Knight Ring and some sort of assortment of those insane +5 stat rings: Power, Speed, and Shield being the most important ones. The reason for this is because the limit to Celice's power and movement is the limit to your turn counts. By making Celice more powerful, and more significantly, able to move further, you are directly decreasing your turn count. And that's what we're all here for, right? If you have Celice run ahead with that Leg Ringed (Rung?) 9 mov of his, he'll eat up Ch6's EXP and convert it into a horse that allows you to seize faster in every subsequent map. The added combat parameters almost seem like an afterthought compared to how important it is to gain 3 mov and the ability to move after attacking, but they're obviously not. If Celice promotes in Ch7 he'll be strong enough to take on almost any flock of enemies on his own. I believe the fastest playthroughs of FE4 involve Celice and maybe a certain few other units helping out crushing everything in his way to get him where he wants to be. When Celice gets Tyrfing, shit gets real. While his Res was always acceptable for a melee unit, the Tyrfing makes him completely immune to almost any magic assault with its +20 Res. +10 Skl helps him get more accuracy on difficult bosses, and of course +10 Spd is always welcome for numerous reasons. Prayer on top of that +40 stat bonus is just icing on the ridiculouscake. Before Tyrfing, Celice actually needs some help from 50+ kill weapons to get ORKOs on numerous bosses. I wonder who could help him get some kills on those swords...

Miredy Christmas, everyone. 11. Miledy, from FE6 I think there's two ways to look at HM bonuses. One: a programming oversight, meant to boost only the things you fight, that just happens to help out units you recruit from the enemy side. Two: a way to reward you for being able to neutralize the harder enemies, including the very unit that just accepted the blue paint. Not only did you outmaneuver or survive that enemy recruitable, you did it when they were stronger than normally. Miledy makes me think the former approach is correct. While she appears as an enemy several times in cutscenes during the game, you never actually fight her (even though Merlinus pretty much suggests you shoot her on sight). She's red, she flies towards you in one smooth motion (I wish she kept that much movement during player phase), and then she's blue. But despite all that, she has Hard Mode bonuses on top of her already solid base stats. What we have here is, well, a flier that can destroy stuff. Out of the gate. Miledy joins at a perfect level of 10, with a ridiculous 38 HP, 16-17 Str, 13 Spd, and 15-16 Def. From here you have the option to either raise her a bit, taking advantage of her relatively large EXP gain with her 75% HP, 50% Str, 50% Skl, 45% Spd and, well, 20% Def growths...or you can promote her whenever you want to turn on beast mode and give her access to an extra point of movement. And E Swords. Because Iron Swords are very useful at this point of the game. Pretty much her only weaknesses are the usual flier ones, plus the bad resistance. The Delphi Shield comes a couple chapters later and is perfect for her, turning ballistae and Nomads into joke enemies. The FE6 AI is very flunky at detecting the Delphi Shield, usually not seeing it, and will therefore target her down a lot over your frailer units (eg dancers and healers). Unlike a lot of other fliers (the "chicks with wings" category), Miledy's speciality is flying somewhere and taking on a bunch of enemies on her own. She lasts almost forever, and a single Physic or Elixir can often recharge her just like that for another huge horde of enemies. Ferrying, however, is not her strongest suit. Thanks to the weird con/aid formula, she only has 11 aid before, and 10 aid after promotion. She can carry most people you'd like to ferry around, such as Roy, staffbots and dancers. However, someone like Dieck (13 con before promo) or Gonzales (15 con before promo) is too heavy for her, and she's obviously no good at trying to get your Generals (lol) to the front line. It is only a minor problem though, and the upside is that she can weild Silver and Killer Lances without AS loss while she's only a little slowed down by Javelins (compared to the Peg sisters). So there's Miledy in a nutshell: fast, durable, and powerful. Her only flaw is that she's only available for half of the game. In other words, her only problem is that there's not more of her.

Energy Ring does cost one or two turns to get to Kent. That's okay with me but SDS makes a big deal about it whenever you bring it up...