Top 25 Fire Emblem characters in 0% growths of ALL TIME (not really) countdown

[dondon151]

16. Marcus, from FE6

Wait a moment... Didn't I just write an entry about this guy?

Many fans consider FE6 to be kind of like a reboot of FE1 (and, by extension, FE11). The first parallel that they draw is between the two statistically pathetic main characters who specialize in glorified needle combat. The second parallel that they draw is between the two gallant paladins, each decked out in shocking purple armor and sporting a mane of white hair. (The lack of spikes on Marcus's pauldrons is disappointing.)

Indeed, Marcus possesses many similarities to Jagen, from FE11, beyond graphical appearance. For one, there's that Silver Lance that they both start out with. But they are also statistically more similar to each other than they are to chapter 1 paladins from other Fire Emblem games, such as Seth, Titania, or Marcus's younger self. Their rather weak base stats hold them back from being whole-game juggernauts, and it doesn't help matters that their respective games pit them against relatively more difficult enemies. With careful use, though, it becomes evident that these old-timers still have plenty of gas in the tank.

The way in which each veteran excels is different, and a lot of this is actually due to divergent game mechanics. FE11, in comparison to FE6, trades the rescue mechanic for reclass and forging. So while Jagen functions by flying around and assassinating enemies with pinpoint precision, Marcus functions by advancing Roy as far as possible and taking down enemies the hard way. I should note here that while Marcus's stats are underwhelming when taking the entirety of FE6 into perspective, he is just good enough to roll over a good chunk of FE6's earlygame enemies until chapter 12.

Marcus has access to the full weapon triangle and therefore has a tool appropriate for most situations. He can use an Iron Sword or a Steel Sword to inflict solid damage against enemy axe users and render them unlikely to successfully retaliate. He can whip out an Armorslayer or a Hammer to smite otherwise irksome armor knights. He can switch to a Hand Axe to nearly ORKO soldiers or a Javelin to neuter mages. And if none of those are particularly effective, he can just fall back on a Silver Lance for some good, raw damage.

Base 11 spd fails to double many enemy types, and base 9 str often leaves Marcus short of a clean 2HKO when he does double. Even if Marcus can't ORKO consistently, he doesn't always need to as long as there is some team support to back him up. Furthermore, there is no question that Marcus is really the only unit who can be counted on to take punishment until Zealot joins the army in chapter 7. Rutger and Deke's defensive parameters of 26 HP, 6 def, and 1 res are a distant second to Marcus's 32 HP, 9 def, and 8 res supported by full weapon triangle control.

Players will notice that there is a steep drop in Marcus's performance after chapter 11. Marcus essentially stops being able to double enemies after this point, and enemy durability rises so quickly in FE6 that he'll soon be 3RKOing enemies with a Silver Lance. He still commands a deployment slot for a short time span afterwards mostly by virtue of participation in rescue chains. Once chapter 14 rolls around, though, it's time for Marcus to retire for good and live out the rest of his life on a nice government pension.

You did good, old man. You did good.

EDIT: I almost forgot! Marcus has 14 base skl. 14 base skl allows him to hit things. FE6 has notoriously low hit rates. Old man does good. Fun fact: Marcus has only 6 less hit than Perceval.

Edited February 15, 2014 by dondon151

[Xator Nova]

Who the hell hates Jagen?

People with anti-Jeigan bias.

Not here, but in other forums people still think that the early prepromotes are Exp Hogs.

On-topic:

Marcus is a bro.

In a run with growths, he's not strictly necessary to beat the game. In fact, in casual play, beating FE6 without Marcus gaining a single point of EXP is quite easy with EXP farming (I have done that in my n00bish days).

In efficient play, though, he's a must, even with growths. I find his position in this list to be adequate for a no-growths standard.

Also, Marcus > Ike. I approve.

[arvilino]

Nice position for Sir "Appearing in this list twice" I'd imagine.

[dondon151]

15. Rutger, from FE6

How do you kill a boss on a throne or a gate? You pelt him with critical hits. How do you get critical hits? You use Rutger. Or you RNG abuse, but you don't have to [be up all night to] get lucky for a critical hit with Rutger.

Rutger is somewhat notorious for being that enemy that shows up out of nowhere at the tail end of a really difficult map and instantly erases all of the player's progress. Fortunately, it only takes a conversation with Clarine, from FE6, to put Rutger's destructive powers in the player's hands.

Let me digress for a moment to explain a couple of FE6's quirks. The first quirk is that all map objectives in FE6, with the exception of the final chapter, require Roy to seize a gate or throne. That necessitates first plucking a boss off that tile. FE6 has statistically formidable bosses to begin with, and it doesn't help matters that gates and thrones confer an additional 3 def and 20 or 30 avo, respectively. The second quirk is that all enemies loaded normally, including ones that can be recruited, get bonus autolevels based on their starting classes. This makes bosses even more difficult, but it also gives Rutger a significant statistical boost, as he is one example of an enemy-turned-ally.

You can probably figure out by now that Rutger's primary job is to kill bosses dead. He has some important traits for a boss killer, such as high speed (16-17 promoted depending on HM bonus), decent hit (1 point behind Marcus), and a huge base critical rate courtesy of FE6's generous critical hit bonus to swordmasters and berserkers. More importantly, no other unit shares those traits until chapter 13. There are a handful of bosses here and there who can be relatively easily dispatched by non-Rutger units, typically by way of their Armorslayer weakness. As for the rest, take a look at how Rutger compares to Zealot, the next best combat unit in the army, against select earlygame bosses:

Rutger (10/1): 20 atk, 16-17 AS, 112 hit, 67 crit (Killing Edge); 24 atk, 16-17 AS, 107 hit, 37 crit (Silver Sword)

Zealot: 19 atk, 13 AS, 106 hit, 36 crit (Killing Edge); 24 atk, 13 AS, 92 hit, 6 crit (Silver Lance)

Henning (8x boss): 38 HP, 14-16 AS, 13 +3 def, 65-69 avo, 7 cev

Scott (9 boss): 47 HP, 13 AS, 12 +3 def, 53 avo, 7 cev

Oro (11L boss): 38 HP, 12 AS, 9 +3 def, 57 avo, 13 cev

It wouldn't be a too much of a stretch to say that Rutger is a requisite for completion of FE6 0%. Good luck taking down Henning or Scott without him. Even disregarding his atk and hit leads, Rutger's expected damage output, assuming that he doubles, is more than 4 times Zealot's expected damage output. Which means that the player can kill a boss over 4 times faster with Rutger than he can with anyone else (keep in mind that gate or throne healing offsets progressively more damage as combat drags on).

Rutger doesn't have to reserve his suppressed angst for bosses. His combat against generic enemies is impressive, though inconsistent if the goal is to ORKO. He tends to have difficulty reaching the front line due to ordinary movement, but sometimes it's worth it to drop him near the front lines to raze a small portion of the map - a (rather high) chance to ORKO is much better than no chance to ORKO at all. One great irony is that Rutger, a swordlocked unit, has the best 1-2 range combat in the army for a short while because Javelins and Hand Axes have terrible accuracy and Light Brand does a consistent 10 HP damage per hit.

Aside from mobility, Rutger's greatest disadvantage is his lack of str. As the game progresses, Rutger soon loses his ability to ORKO enemies with a critical hit, and later on he loses his ability to double enemies altogether. His bosskilling prowess is short-lived, as bosses quickly progress beyond 13 AS and units with high str like Milady are much more efficient at the job despite lacking innate critical hit. Come chapter 13, Rutger is better off hanging up his sword and finding something else to do with his life.

Another great irony that attests to Rutger's excellence is that he's designed to be a growth unit. He joins unpromoted at L4 and his NM bases are nothing to write home about. Despite that, he still finds his place as a 0% mainstay, and thus earns himself the 15th position on this list.

Edited February 16, 2014 by dondon151

[Xator Nova]

rutogaspeed 10/10

He's still awesome with growths, and makes the cited boss strategies more reliable. I believe Rutoga Lv11/1 reaches 22 Atk, 20 VA, 70% Critical with Killing Edge, which is capable of doubling and ORKO'ing Hand Axe!Henning after two crits.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Xator Nova

[dondon151]

14. Endgame units, from most FEs

Say that you're playing one of the following games with 0% growths. You're in the home stretch. You've handled everything the game has thrown at you so far. Heck, the game has been easy. Now you just have to load up this next chapter and--

Oh, crap. You have to defeat that?

This position is reserved for all of the units that IS mercifully dumps on the player's team at the end of the game in order to make victory possible. As you will see, there are quite a lot of them, but not every game has them. Examples from FE6 and FE8 are noticeably missing, but even then there are units who can fill in for this role; they are elsewhere on this list. Endgame units also vary in usefulness between games, from units like Tiki, from FE11, who are useful against a single enemy, to the laguz royals, from FE10, who play decisive roles throughout the whole tail end of the game.

Ced, from FE5

Ced first shows up in chapter 4x of FE5, where he gives many a first-time player false hope by annihilating everything in sight but coyly refusing to wear the blue paint. No, instead of the sage with the 20 MT, +20 skl, and +20 spd unbreakable tome, you get his shota pupil instead, who is like a stick of dynamite compared to an atomic bomb. (As an aside, you can rescue-drop Ced around in chapter 4x and get enemies to suicide into him on enemy phase. It's pretty useful!)

By the time Leif's army loops their way back around to Manster, Ced is finally willing to commit to the team. His personal tome is mysteriously no longer unbreakable, but 50 uses of Forseti is enough to last for the rest of the game, anyway. He once more flaunts his destructive power by annihilating an entire division of cavalry as an NPC in chapter 23 before being recruited to the army.

As if Forseti wasn't enough, Ced also has a coveted base A rank in staves. In addition to being a sentient black hole, Ced can also Warp, Rescue, Rewarp, Sleep, Silence, and Berserk, which in FE5 translates to being able to do just about anything that's not combat-related.

FE5 endgame is still ultimately a team effort, but Ced is kind of like the glue that holds it all together. He has enough magic to incapacitate dark mages in chapter 24; he's one of two staff-using units who can plow through a dark mage onslaught in chapter 24x, and he's pretty much the only option for a quick kill on both Elf and Veld in final.

Athos, from FE7

Athos spends an awful lot of plot time getting Hector and Eliwood to do his bidding when he could have singlehandedly ended the game at around chapter 24 or so. I suppose it builds character, or something.

Instead, Athos waits until the final chapter to reveal his legendary power of a thousand years past. Thank goodness he's usable at all! FE7's final chapter is a rather unoriginal variant on a boss rush, except these bosses have ridiculous stats. Let's take a gander at how Harken, the next best combat unit on the team, fares against some final chapter bosses:

Harken: 42 HP, 16 def, 11 res, 32 atk, 17 AS (Brave Sword)

Brendan: 69 HP, 20 def, 52 atk, 18 AS (Basilikos)

Ursula: 50 HP, 17 def, 43 atk, 18 AS (Excalibur)

Lloyd: 55 HP, 19 def, 42 atk, 29 AS (Regal Blade)

Harken gets ORKO'd by Lloyd, gets 2HKO'd by anyone else, and only 2RKOs the defensively weaker bosses. Granted, his performance is admirable given the circumstances, but Athos can do better. Not only can Athos leave a huge dent in anyone with Luna, but he can also berserk threatening bosses like Lloyd and leave them to mutually destroy each other at a safe distance.

Once the player completes the boss rush, Nergal and the Dragon still stand in the way of game completion. Good luck defeating them without Athos.

Laguz royals, from FE10

Unlike their endgame counterparts from other FE games, the laguz royals spend more of their screentime actually kicking ass and taking names rather than taunting the player with their inaccessible magnificence. Which is a good thing, because FE10's part 4 chapters would be excruciatingly dull without them. By the time part 4 rolls around, the vast majority of beorc units that joined in part 3 are just barely usable, if at all, against the greatly improved part 4 enemies. It doesn't help matters that 5 of 6 part 4 pre-endgame maps have rout objectives with deluges of reinforcements appearing in the most obnoxious positions. (Plot-wise, they can just warp in wherever they want. Screw that.)

When the army splits into 3 groups at the beginning of part 4, each group gets assigned a laguz royal as a sort of failsafe to prevent players from finding themselves in unwinnable situations. So it's no surprise that these laguz royals - Naesala, Nailah, and Tibarn - are responsible for the bulk of the combat in their part 4 maps. With their ridiculous base stats and huge mobility, the only challenge left to the player is figuring out exactly where to place them every turn to maximize the carnage.

Caineghis and Giffca join in chapter 4-E to round out the procession of laguz royals. The kings of the jungle are a step above their royal compatriots by virtue of their even more massive atk stats - 66 and 64, respectively - which tower over Tibarn, whose 56 atk puts him at a distant third in terms of endgame offense.

The one shortcoming that checks the laguz royals' combat prowess is their lack of 2-range. Despite their spectacular offense and durability, laguz royals don't make part 4 a cakewalk because quick completion of each map is still contingent on efficient use of player phases to kill enemies with 2-range weaponry. Imagine if you didn't have to worry about that!

Tiki and Nagi, from FE11

After spending much of the game gimping bosses and warpskipping chapters, the player has to overcome one last obstacle: Medeus. Unfortunately, the tools that were previously available are of no use against the emperor of the earth dragon tribe, for he has no weaknesses... except for the Falchion and the Divinestone.

Well, the player isn't going to have much luck taking down Medeus with Marth. Marth would need both the real Falchion and a full complement of Energy Drops to OHKO Medeus with something like a 1% critical hit. Logically, the only other choices are Tiki or Nagi.

Unfortunately, neither manakete survives a round of combat against Medeus on H5 at base. That's actually okay, though, because the Aum staff can be used to give the player's Medeus slayer of choice a second go at the earth dragon. With the Divinestone's 54 effective MT, even Tiki only needs 2 successful hits to bring Medeus down to his knees.

That's about all they're good for... Tiki can maybe help kill Xemcel, the chapter 24 boss. Don't count on her doing much else.

Edited February 21, 2014 by dondon151

[RJWalker]

How good is Gotoh?

[Junkhead]

I am a personal fan of having a huge lion lolstomp through things and using a skill that is sort of useless when you're killing your enemy anyway.

[Baldrick]

I would assume Gotoh is le suck in SD. In the original he's probably Athos without the fancy toys.

[dondon151]

gotoh is a conveniently deployed free warp user. he's pretty useless aside from that.

[bottlegnomes]

I'm a little surprised Galzus wasn't included in FE5.

[Refa]

Sety looks a lot better than Galzus, although admittedly I haven't played FE5 0% growths (...or even gotten that far WITH growths) and I'm sure Galzus still has his contributions whenever he joins up.

[dondon151]

galzus is dead weight in chapter 24x and he's not terribly special otherwise.

[Nicolas]

Sety looks a lot better than Galzus, although admittedly I haven't played FE5 0% growths (...or even gotten that far WITH growths) and I'm sure Galzus still has his contributions whenever he joins up.

No warp.

FE5 should be called warp emblem. Just look at numbers of these warp/rewarp/rescue staffs!

[Junkhead]

I never understood how Warp Emblem is supposed to play out.

How does the Lord AND the boss killer get there? Doesn't that use out Warps really really fast?

[BBM]

repair staff!

[dondon151]

I never understood how Warp Emblem is supposed to play out.

How does the Lord AND the boss killer get there? Doesn't that use out Warps really really fast?

you warp the bosskiller, who is rescuing the lord.

in FE5, the rescuing mechanics are subtly different. you're allowed to take-give in the same action, whereas in later FEs you can only give-rescue or take-drop, but never take-give. so in FE5 you can do the following on turn 1:

1. rescue the lord (end unit action)

2. take lord, give to bosskiller (end unit action)

3. warp bosskiller, who is carrying lord

4. drop lord near throne/gate with bosskiller

and then you can kill boss and seize on turn 2. in FE6 and later, this strategy isn't possible without a dancer.

alternatively you could just double warp. in FE5, you should have enough warp uses to do that sometimes. in FE11, there are plenty of warp uses available after the hammerne staff is obtained; before then you usually double warp or halfskip by warping marth and having the bosskiller reach the boss by air.

Edited February 21, 2014 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

Can you warp Leif alone, have him bosskill and seize on the 2nd turn? Not in 0% growths obviously, but is something like that possible with a higher level of manipulation than normal? I'm sure the Warp staff uses could be applied to some side objectives besides shaving off absolute turns, too.

[dondon151]

so the whole scheme that i outlined earlier is actually not used too often. i think i only remember it being used in chapters 11, 11x, and 12 in FE5 (and 11 doesn't really count because you just need to attack kempf to get him to leave). technically you could use leif for all of them, but he needs some huge stats to kill some of the bosses and capture salem. you also may have skipped the hero sword in chapter 4x.

[edza90]

I'm so sure that kickasses Eyviros is going to be at least 3rd... I mean, he haz almost capped stats, good hp pool, prayer and sol (and giving him the ambush manual makes him such and oomph, I tested it)... he can almost solo all following chapters if properly trained with luck-speed boosting scrolls.

Nanna probably will be 5th or 4th... wrath+Resize Sword = ownage.

[Espinosa]

Are Nanna's bases not underwhelming for 0% growths when it comes to combat? You're assuming scrolls though, which dondon doesn't use in his challenge runs.

[edza90]

Are Nanna's bases not underwhelming for 0% growths when it comes to combat? You're assuming scrolls though, which dondon doesn't use in his challenge runs.

Yes with scrolls... still, without them, Eyviros could be ranked between 10th or 5th spot... I think he is that versatile and sturdy).

[bottlegnomes]

Doubtful. Dagda, who's around way longer, and has comparable stats, didn't even make the list.

[dondon151]

eyrios doesn't make much of an impact on the game at all. i'd venture to say that amalda might be slightly better. neither are on the list.

Edited February 28, 2014 by dondon151

[CT075]

above average combat or no above average combat eyrios is still "just another combat unit" in fe5