Mekkah

12. Sain / Kent, from FE7 I don't think Sain and Kent need an introduction, so here's the first few lines of their A support. Sain: Hey, Kent! We've learned quite a bit on this quest, haven't we? Kent: I suppose. Sain: You suppose? Why, when we get back to Caelin, we should gather all the lovely lasses we know and have one big, magnificent-- Kent: Don't start with that again, Sain. This is no time for gaiety. What are these two doing up this high, after the already controversial placing of Alance at #17? Aren't they worse, since they join quite a bit later in Hector Mode, have an overall worse support, and less of a chance to stand out due to the Marcus incarnation of this game being better? Well, yes, those are valid arguments. But the difference between these two and the FE6 Christmas Cavaliers (Calvary, if you will): Alance don't get 11 chapters of training and the option of promoting before the first chapter of the real quest! Some people (cough SDS cough) kind of acted like this was a big discovery all of a sudden and made it look like Paladin Sain (and not Kent) was suddenly the only way the game is to be played. I don't agree with this, but I think the potential is big enough to where these two deserve this spot. Maybe a little lower if you take alternatives into account, but if you do this "trick" then whichever Calv you promote will dominate the field no matter how you play. What is this "trick"? Well, you get either Kent or Sain to some satisfactory level above 10 in Lyn Mode, and before Lyn reclaims Caelin you just promote them with Wallace's Knight Crest. The more levels you can get them beyond 10 the better, since they will have a bit of trouble gaining EXP once they're promoted. This might mean you have to focus on one over the other, though I think it's very possible to get both to L10. Some fellows claim Sain is so infinitely superior to Kent that Kent should actually be penalized for doing this little promotion jig because it deprives you of SuperSain (see what I did there), but I think they're so close that you can't really separate them like that. So that's why they're both here. How dominant are they? Well, using Sain as an example, at L12 he will have 28 HP, 14-15 Str, 8 Skl, 10-11 Spd, 8 Def. Promotion will make that 30 HP, 15-16 Str, 9 Skl, 11-12 Spd, and 10 Def. From his joining chapter: L6 Archer w/ Steel Bow: 17 Atk, 25 HP, 4 Def, 4 AS. Even with an Iron Sword, Sain will ORKO, and in the meantime he gets 5HKO'd back. L5 Merc w/ Steel Sword: 16 Atk, 25 HP, 5 Def, 10 AS. Sain doesn't double, but with WTA he is getting 6HKO'd in return. L5 Mage w/ Thunder: 14 Atk, 21 HP, 4 Def, 7 AS. Sain nearly OHKOs this with an Iron Axe and does so with Steel...not that he needs to, since he doubles. He does get 3HKO'd back but w/e. Whew, I hate compiling this kind of data. Why did I ever like debating again? There's some more jokes, like enemies with Iron Swords and Slim Lances. These do joke damage, like 2-3 dmg to his 30 HP. Sain doesn't even notice them. Enemies get a bit stronger over time, but Sain does too, generally faster than them since his growths are better than enemy class growths, and he can expose himself so much. The same goes for Kent, really. The main differences between the two are that Kent has more AS and hit, so he can double ast swordies and sometimes hit stuff when Sain would miss, whereas Sain has an easier time 2HKOing tougher enemies, or can use a weaker (like, a ranged) weapon to do so. If you don't LynMode Knight Crest these two, then they're still good, but not as broken. They could still promote somewhat early with the Knight Crest from Ch17, which would only carry an opportunity cost if you're raising any other Knight Crest units, but in a more relaxed playthrough you're probably better off just letting them enjoy the double or triple EXP gain they get unpromoted while you can, and then promote them when you feel they've hit their soft cap. But with the Knight Crest, they essentially provide a second Marcus to your team, giving you good combat in multiple places, or allowing one of them to carry someone while the other kicks enemy butt. Oh btw, they're mounted and they have weapon triangle control and everything...just in case you didn't understand that from the last times I analyzed a Paladin.

13. Percival, from FE6 Did you come visit to hear about my Percival? Good! Then listen up! My favorite Percival... It's...strong...lovely...smart...plus...amazing...you think so?...oh yes...it...mounted...fast...love it! Use any sword, lance or axe...when...fighting...durable...RNG proof...HM bonuses... Oops, look at the time! I've kept you too long! Percival joins you and basically just asks "alright, where do you want me to start killing first?" He's good to go, pretty much! Bases in Str and Spd are both at 20 in HM (as long as he's recruited in Ch15), he has around 50 HP. Then there's the A's in both swords and lances, and then a very workable C in axes which give him Killer Axes, which may be the only 1-range axes he needs. You can adapt Percival to pretty much any situation just through weapon switching. Armorslayers, and to a lesser extent Hammers, can take care of Knights and Generals. Brave weapons can allow him to hit twice before an enemy counters, or sometimes allow him to quad. Hand Axes and Javelins allow him to counter at range. Horseslayer crushes mounted enemies. And when things get serious and you have to deal with Mamkutes in your face, Percival can reasonably weild either Durandal or Malte (most likely the latter) to beat those as well. The only problem with the huge weapon selection is that weapons have very poor hit in FE6, and anything above iron can easily be deemed unreliable. Percival also only has 5 inventory slots, so you'll need a bit of planning to make sure he always has what he needs. I'll admit I'm not much of a planner, and my Paladins are generally carrying three Iron weapons, a Javelin and a Hand Axe or something like that. But that's okay, they're very strong like that too. Percival is obviously of great help in any kind of efficiency run where growth units just can't flourish as much as they can in slower runs. But even in a growth run, Percival is about as good (if not better than) a raised Alance, just without supports. Oh, and a very healthy 13 Res that makes him just that much better against magic enemies. Also, Percival saves your ass back at the end of Ch8x, with the help of Cecilia, so without him you wouldn't even be able to play the rest of the game. Percival for top tier.

That would be Barcas.

S Swords makes Seth pretty sad cause it means he can't spam Javelins on everything :(

Well, guess who is #14? 14. Marcia, from FE9 Can I say "see Jill"? No, I guess not. Both Jill and Marcia were somewhat late additions to my list. I actually asked around about them to see which one should deserve to be higher. Jill has better stats once they're both ready to rumble, but Marcia has more availability and is faster (there must be something out there she can double that Jill can't). I haven't played FE9, so none of this is from personal experience...I'm sure both of these can be switched around quite a bit. Marcia will probably need a BEXP dump and a forge to start off, but once raised, she will obviously speed up traveling progress quite a bit. She's exceptionally fast (55% speed growth with 11 base at L5), so any boost to Atk she can get pretty much pays off double. Kind of a shame Saviour comes so late in the game, cause Marcia really can't afford to battle with Ike or someone else on her horse. Cause if you are playing turbo efficiency, that might just be all you care about. Marcia really has everything the "chicks with wings" group has going for them, except her combat is so easy to make good that it's laughable. Good combat, high move, availability, and flying are really the core things that make a unit good (not in any particular order), and Marcia pretty much has all of them. One of the only reasons she isn't all the way up there is that she does need help to get good (minimal cost, but again, competition is fierce), and then there's the fact that it's harder to stand out in FE9 (where everyone is a juggernaut) than in a more difficult game.

The Alance spot isn't ranked as Lance and Alan's combined utility. However, it does take into account the fact that getting the support bonus from the other makes you stronger, as well as the fact that giving the support bonus to the other makes the other a better unit. They're just in the same spot for similarity reasons. 15. Jill, from FE9 What is the most threatening enemy, on any given map? Is it the boss? Chances are, the boss is sitting on a throne and is gently waiting for you to come into his range, making him overall not all that dangerous. Usually, the threatening enemies are the enemy fliers, particularly the wyverns. Every game seems to have a country famous for having a wyvern fleet. Strong and with a wide range, they threaten to KO your dancer/healer/random weak unit if you accidentally put them in one of the many many squares they have access to. Usually, one of them isn't all bad and joins your team for whatever reason. This game, that wyvern is Jill. She is actually a NPC on the map she joins, but she is definitely with the enemy at first, storyline-wise, and only joins out of racism. If I had a quarter for every time Jill can change sides, I would never need a Silver Card again...anyway, her start isn't too hot. 24 HP and 9 Spd? Good thing this is probably the best game to have a bad start in. With a nice infusion of BEXP and maybe a forged lance, Jill has no problem sweeping every enemy aside in FE9, like pretty much your entire army. But unlike most of them, she does it with wings, and that's always gonna be better. You can expect a lot of wings and horses from here on out. Most FE games really didn't bother balancing mounts with foot units, and as a result the units that can get to the enemies first will always win out by a lot. Jill is a practically invincible flier, which gives her the ability to go about anywhere she pleases to shake things up. It's really hard to match that kind of utility, it pretty much gives you a joker that takes care of the hardest or most urgent map objective for you. also red hair

The thing is that you only seem to be talking about playthroughs where we are going as fast as possible with all units available. Consider things such as drafts, where it's likely you don't have Rutger/Thany/Warper to have these kind of skips available, and suddenly Alance's ability to plow through the 8x scrubs becomes much more valuable.

They're mostly combined so I can have a nice diverse bunch of things to write about. Othin and Fergus aren't very similar, but I combined them because Othin vs Fergus was kind of a #feto meme by itself for a while and it gave me an extra spot to work with.

You can't really fault Alance for a bad earlygame when their deployment is free and they are somewhere between 2nd and 4th best units you have regardless (Marcus being #1, Rutger and Dieck being better at some points but worse/not around in others). A lot of the early maps are all about ganging up on enemies, and they're pretty fine for that. I do agree they're in their prime in midgame though. 16. Aless, from FE4 When this guy joined my party the first time, I was basically like: "Really? I can have this? You know I will break your game with this, right? Well, thank you!" Aless joins with a "do you think that's enough" 43 base Atk thanks to the holy Mistolteen. At first sight the bonuses of this legendary weapon look rather awkward: +20 Skl and +10 Res? You'd think the only way it gets worse is if it gave +20 Luk instead. But they actually work out pretty well. First off, Aless has an outrageous skillset, just like Shannan. Pursuit, Continue, Ambush, and then the Mistolteen also gives Critical. So basically, Aless packs enough of a punch to kill pretty much everything, even some of the toughest enemies in the game. One of these would be Ishtar, who somehow doesn't die even if you kill her two times. She's got a ton of Avo, the accuracy of a missile, Ambush, and Continue to make sure she hits twice when you don't want her to. The +10 Res boost allows Aless to survive a hit (or two, depending on what encounter and what Aless is like at that point), and the +20 Skl gives him a reasonable chance of killing Ishtar in one round of combat while also pretty much ensuring that he will hit. The longer the game goes on, the more important Res becomes. Ch7 and Ch8 both have Mage sisters (who looooove attacking Aless up close) and Blume. Around Ch10 is when the true magic show begins, with the Lopt Sect's Dark Mages and all their silly long range bull and accurate Jormung, an Ishtar encounter, and a Meteor shower. The Final chapter is pretty much an Aless and Celice playground, with Edda's very interesting and well designed (no) horde of Sleep staves, Meteor and Bolting. Pretty much every castle is guarded by a Dark Bishop with Fenrir and Jormung, and there's some Dark Mages standing on random cliffs. And of course there's a large amount of Sages coming with Ishtar, and Manfroy and friends... The only "bad" thing about Aless is his lack of good 1-2 range (which is understandable when you look at how good Holsety is), and the fact that real efficient FE4 runs are like, Celice solos, or Celice/Arthur shows. But he's still very very strong, you just can't go wrong with mounted units in FE4, especially not if they're this good at OHKOing without dying.

I will _kind of_ defend the list for a little when it's complete, and maybe change things around "in hindsight" to see how accurate we can make it. But again, note the OP. This is not just tier list playthroughs. It takes into account drafts as well as casual runs. Of course Alance aren't worth much if you use Marcus all of earlygame and Warpskip lategame. Sorry but this is terrible logic. Since when does Rutger being a better bosskiller mean they aren't dominating that part of the game anymore? There's a long, long, long path to the throne in pretty much every map, and you are acting like it shouldn't even be taken into account. Your statement can be reversed so easily. "Marcus starts getting outclassed by them by midgame, Rutger's unmounted and can't match their utility until he gets to the boss, and Percival and Miledy aren't even around for half of the game." Also, Alance with supports will generally be more uber than Percival, especially in NM.

He wouldn't be able to promote either of them anytime soon anyway because he reserves the Knight Crest for BORIS

And here you guys get another so we're back on schedule. 17. Alance, from FE6 Who's Alance? Oh, right. I see what I did there. Alan and Lance are your Christmas cavaliers in FE6. One is faster, the other is stronger, but they're both good. They don't really look that broken early on, especially not in Hard Mode, but they're already off to a good start by being in the broken Cavalier class. I don't know why they gave most foot classes in FEGBA one weapon, 5 mov, and no canto and con-1 aid, while the cavaliers get two weapons, 7 mov, canto AND 20/25-con aid. I guess they like horses. Maybe Daniel Radcliffe works for IS? Anyway, the practical consequences involve partial weapon triangle control, and being able to move far, far ahead over the enormous maps full of nothing that FE6 gives you. I think only FE4 and both FEDS games can beat FE6 at that. Now getting far ahead wouldn't do them a whole lot of good if they were bad at fighting, but they aren't. With 40-50% growths in both Str and Spd, and your average bases, they'll get good pretty quickly. Plus, they have that very very sexy support triangle with each other and Roy, providing a total of +5 Atk and +25 Avo to each of them, thanks to the Fire and Anima affinities. This pretty much makes them both invincible killer machines. The above is great for first time HM playthroughs and other kinds of casual runs. For turbo efficiency runs, the two of them have a little more issues gaining EXP. I remember someone (Ballerzak or Gergeshwan (sp)) did a run involving them ending well but dondon doesn't think they're all that good...still, I think they belong up here. They are pretty much the perfect unpromoted growth units, with maximized availability and movement. That support may not happen in faster playthroughs, but it is one of the best things to fall back on in HM. Other random things to mention about them...they get axes on promotion, which mostly means even more WTA than they had. Having both Hand Axes and Javelins is nice, too bad the accuracy of those weapons suck. Then again, the enemies also have rather bad accuracy, which makes their Avoid support so insanely broken. Like, enemies with Javelins/Steel Lances have around 70 hit in Ch8. L10 Lance averages 30 avo from stats alone, and then he could have +20 or so from supports (talking slow playthroughs here), that would make for 20% disp (8.2% true). Ridonkulous.

Kinda late. 18. My Unit, from FE12 My Unit, or MU for short, is meant to be a representation of the player within the game, kind of like FE7's tactician. Unlike this silent strategist that gives orders from a helicopter, MU gets to actually be on the field during the fight, attacking and defending things. And since they did not want to insult any players, they made his stats really, really good. It's hard to get into exact numbers here because MU's stats can be configured to your preferences even more than normal units, due to the three questions at the start of the game in addition to all the reclass options. Suffice it to say you can either make him a nearly invincible Knight, an extremely powerful Fighter, or...a pretty damn good Cavalier. People tend to mix up MU's class as they go on, depending on what they just happen to need during a chapter. Sadly, being a male, My Unit can't fly no matter what before promoting, but he does have the opportunity to get good weapon ranks in either lances or axes pretty easily for promotion, so that's worth something. And in the hardest difficulty, it's not like you want or need every unit to fly. Sometimes what you need is someone who kills things without dying. And that's what MU is. A last minor but cool thing about My Unit is that he supports everyone in the game. Supports have never been that great in FEDS, but sometimes if you stack them while having WTA, you can get some pretty decent results that might just put you through an extra enemy phase. Also, he can be a pope with sunglasses.

His Oswin support doesn't give him anything he needs, just more durability. Swords don't give him anything either. 7/10 for reasons mentioned. He's great for casual players, and a lifesaver for draft teams that don't have enough earlygame power.

19. Palla, from FE12 I have never finished FE12 in Lunatic Mode. It's too much for my quickly distracted self to do. But Colonel M and dondon did, and Palla showed up quite a bit in their strategies...so, hello Palla! I did play it in lower difficulties, and there I found myself going: "so this is what FE10 Haar is like..." (spoilers: Haar is up even higher!). It's hard to go into detail here because for one, FE12 is a reclass game. People are no longer really judged by their unique traits as much as their abslute bases (in stats and weapon levels), their availability, and their class set, and that's about it. But Palla scores really well there. She joins at level 10, which means she can promote any time she wants, and her absolute bases are consistently higher than anyone else who joins earlygame, including even the prepromote Sirius. With 50% absolute base Str growth and being able to use Silver off the bat, even single hits from her are going to put major dents in enemies. The fact that she has the option of flying, even with male classes not merged, is absolutely great because FE12 throws quite a few curveballs at you when it comes to terrain. Palla does have a bit of a suspect Spd growth at 30% (as a Peg), which can start biting at some point later in the game. Thankfully FE12 growths are great in general and Palla is no exception, and having only one real flaw is usually not a problem as fixing that flaw through the extra levels gained or a stat booster (you actually get three sets of Speedwings at times where you can consider them relevant) often pays off in dividends. In Lunatic Mode, Palla is pretty much forced on you simply because of how ridiculous the enemies are compared to your own army. You kind of have to use Palla for a lot of things, and then might also have to promote her just to be able to accomplish some "secondary" goals like keeping random separated allies alive. In normal difficulties...she's a ridiculously strong flier that will just fly across the map and mop up enemies for you. There's no other way to put it. I put more of an emphasis on the harder difficulties for this top 30, so that means Palla does have to cop with a slightly less stellar game overall...but top 20 units of all time? That's damn good.

Entering the top twenty! We're done with gimmicks now. These folks are the real deal! Almost. 20. Linoan and Sarah August, Leaf, and Dorias having a strategic meeting before the events of chapter [almost any]. August: "How about we let Othin go west, and then Fin can cover the east, and we'll launch a surprise attack over the bridge to the north..." Dorias: "No, you dumbass, don't you know anything? We should put all of our army into one place and simply charge into their frontlines. They won't know what hit them!" August: "That is pretty much suicide. Their frontline is insanely powerful. We need to be more careful and subtle to win this one, even with the powerful individual forces we have." Dorias: "You are so full of shit. Lord Leaf, what is your opinion?" Leaf proceeds to point a few spots on the map where he wants people to be Warped to, including the seize point, and that's pretty much the end of the meeting. FE5 wants to try to be really difficult, but throughout the years, people have (inevitably) figured out how to trivialize almost the entire game with the infinite range Warp staves you've been given. There is pretty much no way to balance such a game, though I guess they tried by making it possible for Warp to miss... Even when you aren't Warping everyone around as if it's an Apparation 101, these two units are absolutely crutch in lategame. As I said in Asvel's entry, there are only two kinds of units in FE5 lategame: those that can use staves and have high magic, and those that can't. Lategame throws enemy status staves at you at high frequency, creating a high demand for Restore, and your party gets split up quite a bit in the last few maps. In addition, you can use their own weapons against them and use Sleep/Silence on those Dark Mages to cover yourself. There's also Rescue and Rewarp, which are kind of worse than Warp but they have some uses (like bailing people out of prison). I suppose this is also where I can sort of lump in Salem, Tina, and whatever other staffbot I forgot (there's a particular one I didn't forget but that's simply going to be...elsewhere). I think Sarah and Linoan are the best of them because they also have some semblance of combat, Linoan with Resire and enrmous PCC + Dean support, and Sarah with Elite and some other skills that may or may not require a death chance to work at all. And also because they have pretty good staff levels. They also fatigue a lot though and might need to rummage through your S drink supply to keep going. Oh, I guess I should mention Linoan promotes pretty damn late for no reason. Not a huge bother since for the most part her stats don't matter, but she'd rather have the option of a Knight Crest.

All of Wil's stats are average-ish. None of them are really BAD (other than Res, but that's okay). However, most characters have at least one or two stats they excel in, the good ones being Str/Mag and Spd. Wil excels in absolutely nothing, and will therefore always be outclassed. And because he can only attack once per turn, he grows slower than most people, and that's what makes him :gasp: bad. You'll have to play kind of slowly to really get him anywhere. He'll double and start ORKOing eventually, even in HHM. Just give him one of each kind of bow you can find other than Short Bows, to make him as flexible as possible, and he'll do his best. Stat boosters aren't really worth it, you get very little early on and the ones you do get don't help him (eg Dragonshield is useless for someone who fights on player phase and not on enemy phase).

These are good points, but I don't need to edit them in. You just posted them. This thread will go down in history as a resourceful thread where every detail that I missed is picked up by others.

21. Ike, from FE10 We like Ike. Thankfully, Intelligent Systems did too. Ike enters the scene by KOing several enemies with one strike while holding Lucia (who's jelly?). Not completely representative of his "real" combat powers, but it sets the tone. Ike's bases are completely monstrous. 44 HP, 24 Str, 23 Spd, and 21 Def? I don't know everything about what's good and what's not in FE10 because I've never played a game where everyone starts at Tier 2 before, but just from hearsay and enemy stats I can tell he's ridiculous. That 23 Spd is actually surprisingly borderline doubling 3-P enemies in HM but enemies get slightly slower after that, and from there his 30% Spd growth can get him far enough. He can also be aided through BEXPing...his Str is actually only 3 from capping, and his Skl only 2, so that can definitely have a positive effect on him. Whether or not you want to do that is up to you though, because you actually have to fight Ike in 3-13, and defeating him ends the map. I like how if you do get his HP to zero there, he's like "Alright, we're done playing around. Let's just take over this fort!" Any other (non FE4-cheating-teleport-boss) character would die or retreat, but Ike just puts in a little extra effort if you take him down by normal means. What a beast. Ike has a slight issue with a late promotion. He's never anything but great at combat, but movement-wise he lags behind Haar and to a lesser extent Titania and Oscar further down the road in part 3, and he also spends at least two chapters in Haar's saddlebags because the goal of the chapter is to take Ike and put him somewhere else and then use seize. I wish there was more to say about Ike's part 3 than "he's really good at fighting" but that really sums it up quite well. Around 3-11, he gets the Ragnell while he may or may not be level capped. Some people think this should make you stop using him, but hey, as long as you don't particularly need the CEXP, why care? Then soon after, part 4 hits and Ike is promoted through the power of the Gods (clearly no one else is good enough to improve Ike). He becomes even more of a badass than he already is, having access to axes but more importantly still that infinite use 1-2 range Ragnell thing. Which is good because he's locked to his own route, which is naturally the most difficult, or at least the one with the strongest enemies. Fuckin 4-4. 4-E, he still destroys faces left and right. He is obviously the one that fights the Black Knight, he can contribute to defeating Dheginsea, and during the last part he "takes all the power I have" and wins the game for us. Ike doesn't fly or ride a horse, but he does just about everything else you can ask of a unit. Well, he also doesn't heal others, but I guess every hit he takes is one that doesn't hurt poor Soren. Also you can support him with Mia or really anyone that wants Earth.

I blame the fact that Asvel wasn't in top 30 to begin with when I made the first list. Things always get messier when you add things later. I don't really care much though, I'll just blame it on the fact that Asvel has a shaky ish start speed wise. Or maybe the fact that Othin and Fergus are in a spot together, their combined power overwhelming Asvel. Or maybe just their pants.

Doesn't hold a candle to WHAT HAPPENED TO DORCAS

22. Othin and Fergus (from FE5) For the record, Fergus is clearly better. Othin is really 22.5. Which means we'll be talking about him first, since this is a count down after all. Othin joins along with a couple of other people, and he has Wrath. What does Wrath do in FE5? It lets you crit consistently on enemy phase. Everything that attacks you turns into fine red mist, as long as you don't miss and your Str isn't a joke. Neither of these problems apply to Othin. While a 6 base and a 30% Str growth would be outright terrible in other games, it's enough when you are backed by axes, as well as some scroll levels. Accuracy is notoriously low in FE5, but Othin has the Pugi all for himself, which just happens to be the most accurate axe in the game at 80 hit, as well as the most accurate ranged weapon (not including tomes). This also solves the issue of enemy archers and other ranged pests. Pugi's 10 mt allows the 60 uses to last a long, long time since he'll often just OHKO whatever he counters, not to mention slow (I mean casual) players can get a second Pugi from a Berserker in Ch16 (B route only). But then after Ch3, everyone gets busted, and Othin can't help you anymore. Oh no, what do we do! You'd think Leaf is screwed now, but who is here to bail him out? Well, Brighton, Sety and friends, but this also results in Fergus being free to rampage through the prison cells. The moment you trade a sword to him is the moment the guards have to start praying. Fergus's stats look as average as anyone (including Othin's), no real weak points you can fault him for. What Fergus is good at is critting. His PCC is an outrageous 5, which means that at base with no help whatsoever, he already has 35% crit on his second attack. Every time his 45% skl growth procs, that's 5% added. Every time Karin is in his range or he is using a mere 10% crit weapon such as Rapier, that's 50% added. Give him a little time, or a little push, and Fergus crits every single thing that comes his way. Once you've fought your way through the indoor chapters, Fergus hops on a horse that just randomly enters the scene and enjoys +1 Str/Def, +3 mov, Canto (the broken kind), and the ability to capture things for you. Along the way you may also have obtained several handy swords for him, such as Killing Edge, Rapier, Brave Sword, Fire Sword, all of which allow him to kill even (unthroned) bosses. Both of these units are kinda hurt if you go for ultra efficiency, LTC, SSS, or whatever you call it. They are both very very strong casual combat units, but if you go as low as possible, Othin gets kind of trivialized by Fin, Dagda, and Eyvel simply because they have more movement, while Fergus has to deal with having only 5 mov against Asvel/Leaf's 6. I personally think Fergus is getting the better end of the stick here. Fergus is better in outdoor maps, Othin in indoor maps. Othin can't crit reliably on player phase without a Killer Axe or something, but Fergus doesn't have a personal weapon with range and thus has to share the magic swords with some other candidates. The solution to this dilemma is to shut up and use both.

in before life, volke/ike solos dont hold much weight in tier lists

23. Shannan, from FE4 I remember a poll, a long time ago, asking who was better: Lakche or Shannan. Lakche won, "because Shannan is only good with Balmung" . Silly fanboys and girls, where is your Lakche now? At first Shannan looks like just a good old prepromote, though one with absolutely amazing parameters and skills. 18 Str, 22 Skl and 23 Spd at base in Ch7, with Pursuit, Continue AND Meteor Sword? And then he talks to Patty, apparently his biggest fan, and...he becomes even better. Apparently Patty was carrying a sword around that is basically a sharper version of Holsety. +10 Skl, +20 Spd, and 30 Mt. Now Shannan has 48 Atk, 40 AS, 32% Meteor Sword, and 60% Continue. Also 90 avoid. Too good. As long as he doesn't get goofed by the RNG, he will save the day in Yied, allowing Celice to pass through and seize in peace. From there, I'll admit Shannan isn't much of an efficiency turn count saving cannon simply because, just like Sety, there's no horse underneath him. Still, there is no way he doesn't deserve to be somewhere in a more casual top 30 of best units of all time, because his stats stick out so much. Personally, I've had a lot of use for Shannan in my 0% growths playthrough, since that nerfed the children very severely, including Sety. Some details of that playthrough can be found here (and by details I mean a general summary of it). You also need to read this. Shannan's growths other than HP and Skl aren't too fantastic. He actually ties Spd growth with Dorcas, and has a rather outstanding 40% Def growth. Still, the levels he'll rack up over time will make his parameters even more ridiculous than outlined before.

Having no pants never helped Marth much.