Why does everyone hate on Pre-promoted characters?

[Higgins Von Higgings]

I keep seeing people rag on characters in games because they begin as promoted characters...Why?

Yah, before someone says it, they may have worse chances to be useful endgame, but they can still be fairly useful.

Beating Sacred Stones on Medium, the Pally (Seth if I Remember correctly) was very useful still. In PoR (And RD, but they had a new class by then), Titiana was still useful. They may not END as the best character, but they can still kill units better than some other units.

[uguu]

Pre-Promotes are cool, they let me be lazy. Although shitty pre-promotes... you'll find plenty of them in the Japan-only Fire Emblems.

[Raven]

Dozla is probably one of my most hated pre-promotes... In personality and stats.

[Florete]

I just don't like using them because it means you didn't really raise them yourself. They came store-bought and not home-cooked.

[Celice]

I use 'em if I chose to. They're usually nothing special, but a few do look cool.

[CGV]

yeah same as FFoF. I don't mind them too much, it's just that there's not much strategy with them since they can rip through every enemy. I do use them to weaken enemies sometimes, but overall they are there if I'm feeling lazy and don't feel like raising units

[Fireman]

I really don't mind pre-promotes, especially the ones in PoR and RD, where most pre-promotes actually turned out really good.

[sunshineYON]

pre-promotes like Shinon and Seth are actually decent, because they have the growth to play catch up

like changedbyvasm said, the japanese released and FE7 prepromotes have mediocere bases and horrible growth, which just doesn't cut it.

I admit they are useful in hard modes but they practically have no uses wahtsoever in normal modes imo

[Neko Arc Chaos]

I use a few Pre-promotes but if they die I dont bother reseting over them.

[Meteor]

'Cause they suck.

[Knife]

The only good pre-promotes:

Titania (PoR)

Haar (PoR)

Pent (FE7)

Innes (FE8)

I'm not sure how to define pre-promotes in RD, since most units come as 2nd tier units. Would they be considered mid-motes?

[Celice]

Depends on the version. The JAP version, third-tier was exclusive only to those with the necessary items to promote. In the other versions, every one can get to third-tier. This drastically effects the definition.

Oifaye was good

[Florete]

'Cause they suck.

Expand, please? They suck isn't a good reason at all.

[nacho]

I'm pretty sure that what I'm going to say has already been mentioned within the previous 12 posts, but I'll just tell you anyways.

The main reason I don't like prepromoted characters is that they can easily take up valuable experience points of other weaker, yet ultimately more powerful characters. So, instead of relying on my strong prepromoted characters, I go ahead and train my weaker guys.

I don't really hate prepromoted characters, because they are usually essential to the game's plot, and they make good couples with other characters (like Seth and Eirika omg).

[Inactive Account]

If there was some sort of experience share item then people probably wouldn't hate prepromotes so much.

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Just to be clear, NOT ALL PRE-PROMOTES ARE BAD! There are noble pre-promotes that are consider to be excellent for their standard regards. These are the following:

Good Pre-promotes:

Oifey (one of my favorite archetypes)

Fin

Pent

Harken

Jaffar

Percival (being the only one in his game)

Seth

Titania

Really bad ones are the Jeigan archetypes such as the following:

Jeigan (himself)

Cuan

Eyvel

Marcus (FE6)

Zealot

Marcus (FE7)

Orson

[Florete]

But you only use Orson for one chapter....

[Rakath]

For the most part the math favors unpromotes. You have more level ups to give stat-ups, while not sure, have the possibility to beat out most pre-promotes. Excluding FE10 (where its obscenely easy to cap mid-tiers, between late level BEXP and Battle Saves before a level up) you'll generally not lose out on points capping stats before promotion.

Also you generally like unpromotes more as you have more time with them, Support Convos, and all around more attached. Early pre-promotes aren't generally useful and slow down leveling unless you're on Hard (where they are more a requirement).

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

But you only use Orson for one chapter....

Despite the fact, he plays a role of a Jeigan in one chapter.

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

Raising unpromoted characters is more fun than to use pre-promoted ones. In my playthroughs, I almost never use pre-promoted units, but in Radiant Dawn, I don't use those already on their third-tier classes.

Edited June 7, 2008 by BLS

[CGV]

Raising unpromoted characters is more fun than to use pre-promoted ones. In my playthroughs, I almost never use pre-promoted units, but in Radiant Dawn, I don't use those already on their third-tier classes.

^this... this is pretty much me right here

[killaGAW]

All the pre-promoted swordsman I've played are sweet. In general for me it depends on if I like the character's personality more than stats because then I'm more likely to use said character.