Who is the worst unit in FE:A ?

[Shadow Mir]

I'm only arguing that Donnel isn't the worst unit, not that he's one of the best. Donny gets Sol, Counter, and Armsthrift to hold his own in battle on top of consistently speedy stat boosts, and he can get his kid Galeforce. That's a lot more than some other units can offer, including Virion.

Virion may be "useful" as a father, but he's still outclassed by other fathers in most cases, and to say he's useful for every child is a bit of a stretch. Donny may not have many optimal kid options, but the options he does have end up making fantastic units. The same can't be said for Virion, who can make only a good unit at the very most.

Counter is shit. And unless you frequently use regalia, forges, or other hard-to acquire weapons, Armsthrift isn't that great either.

All the people saying "Donnel" make me sick. He basically solos the entire game the moment you get him to Hero in Hard Classic with a Bronze Sword, which is not very difficult to do if you get him early enough. Also makes a pretty great dad.

Virion is probably the worst unit and father, which is a sad shame since he is easily one of the best-written characters in the whole game.

He does make a pretty great dad... for all of two children. And he's even further limited as a father by the fact that his mods stink. Also, he takes a lot of investment, as well as a rare and valuable Second Seal, just to get out of Villager.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[Czar_Yoshi]

Donny gets Sol, Counter, and Armsthrift to hold his own in battle on top of consistently speedy stat boosts,

If his growth rates deliver, he shouldn't be taking any damage for Counter to activate on and even when it does it wouldn't aid him in getting any kills.

The only child fathered by Donnel I'd consider "fantastic" by any stretch is Kjelle, and that's because she's basically Sully with Galeforce.

It takes a bit more than that to make a unit "fantastic" in my book. Donnel!Kjelle has a relevant mod spread of 1/2/2 which is pretty close to the lowest in the game for a female lead who still has a full skillset- only topped by Donnel!Noire and her 2/-1/1. Donnel's mods stink, his class inheritance outside of Peg stinks and honestly I don't think even Peg is a compelling enough reason to use him as a father when your attack pairs really do have to be fantastic to compete for space with Staffbots. Being a child doesn't automatically guarantee you a spot in an Apo team. I usually don't use Donnel as a father.

[Alastor15243]

I usually don't use Donnel as a father.

So do you not use Noire, or do you make her a hard support? And if the former, which male unit do you drop? Gerome?

[Czar_Yoshi]

In my 100% DS team I used Fred!Noire as a non-GF Sniper lead. That's the only serious postgame team I've made for a while (technically I'm still working on it but whatever).

[Shadow Mir]

It takes a bit more than that to make a unit "fantastic" in my book. Donnel!Kjelle has a relevant mod spread of 1/2/2 which is pretty close to the lowest in the game for a female lead who still has a full skillset- only topped by Donnel!Noire and her 2/-1/1. Donnel's mods stink, his class inheritance outside of Peg stinks and honestly I don't think even Peg is a compelling enough reason to use him as a father when your attack pairs really do have to be fantastic to compete for space with Staffbots. Being a child doesn't automatically guarantee you a spot in an Apo team. I usually don't use Donnel as a father.

And here I was thinking I was the only one who didn't use Donnel as a father...

[Interceptor]

Is the optimization fathering really all that relevant to the discussion of best/worst? Ricken, for example, doesn't have any swaps as far as I remember. So couldn't you just hand him a sexy magazine with Chrom on the cover, leave him alone for five minutes, and his part is done? It seems similar to giving credit to someone for starting with a particular item in their inventory during their join chapter, i.e. ridiculous.

Inheritance feels like it should only be a consideration in cases where it has some actual impact. Like for instance, a no-grind situation where giving Aptitude or Armsthrift to a fresh kid gives them a head-start on being awesome.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Interceptor

[Alastor15243]

Is the optimization fathering really all that relevant to the discussion of best/worst? Ricken, for example, doesn't have any swaps as far as I remember. So couldn't you just hand him a sexy magazine with Chrom on the cover, leave him alone for five minutes, and his part is done? It seems similar to giving credit to someone for starting with a particular item in their inventory during their join chapter, i.e. ridiculous.

Inheritance feels like it should only be a consideration in cases where it has some actual impact. Like for instance, a no-grind situation where giving Aptitude or Armsthrift to a fresh kid gives them a head-start on being awesome.

There are multiple angles in which a unit can be good or bad. Factoring parenting into it matters for the categories of "parenting" and "overall". For example, I argued Libra and Kellam as the worst explicitly in the parenting category, but Libra's far from the worst unit in nogrind. In fact, he's obscenely useful as a staffbot along with Anna, and Kellam at least is really tanky and that can be useful in certain situations.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Ownagepuffs]

Is the optimization fathering really all that relevant to the discussion of best/worst? Ricken, for example, doesn't have any swaps as far as I remember. So couldn't you just hand him a sexy magazine with Chrom on the cover, leave him alone for five minutes, and his part is done? It seems similar to giving credit to someone for starting with a particular item in their inventory during their join chapter, i.e. ridiculous.Inheritance feels like it should only be a consideration in cases where it has some actual impact. Like for instance, a no-grind situation where giving Aptitude or Armsthrift to a fresh kid gives them a head-start on being awesome.

In this context it's sorta rated the same way FE4 males were rated.

Lex was awesome because paragon and hero Axe. Then his being a good father for gen 2 was more icing on the cake as opposed to what made him good. Of course since gen 2 was forced in FE4 the genetics of the gen 1 males mattered way more but whatever.

Dew's another case. He fucking sucked. But hey, he was damn necessary for handing out funds and he made a good dad. Genetics counts more as utility as opposed to "Astrid brings a Knight Ward and Harken brings a Brave sword."

The way I see it, it saves some characters from the bottomless pit of absolute mediocrity.

[shadowofchaos]

The thing is, when people compare skills and stats for fathers... it's always capped.

Like, Awakening brought a whole new spin on previous standards.

The assumption that rating a unit based on inheritance on the only map that can stand up to all the infinite exp grinding for the kids... Apotheosis preparation.

That's ONE single map. Which pretty much only has the comparison of "good and better" not "good and trash".

I really don't get why people's emphasis on it so much.

If you take that out of the equation, Donny's only merit is passing Aptitude... and that's assuming his crap base stats are offset by the babying you're going to do to the child inheriting the skill.

I wonder how much people would be liking Meg a lot more in Radiant Dawn if there was a children mechanic and she'd pass her growths or something.

[eclipse]

I swear I'm the only person who passes Underdog - unlike Aptitude, Underdog can stay good forever (thank you Dread Fighter/Bride).

[Alastor15243]

I swear I'm the only person who passes Underdog - unlike Aptitude, Underdog can stay good forever (thank you Dread Fighter/Bride).

I don't pass underdog mostly because I generally don't find it useful on any Donnel!Kjelle's builds I use. And therefore since the skill he passes down has no impact on Kjelle's ultimate moveset, I pass down Aptitude to make training less annoying.

[eclipse]

Then again, I'm also the one that prefers Noire as Donnel's kid. She makes a hilarious Bride.

[Ownagepuffs]

The thing is, when people compare skills and stats for fathers... it's always capped.

Like, Awakening brought a whole new spin on previous standards.

The assumption that rating a unit based on inheritance on the only map that can stand up to all the infinite exp grinding for the kids... Apotheosis preparation.

That's ONE single map. Which pretty much only has the comparison of "good and better" not "good and trash".

I really don't get why people's emphasis on it so much.

If you take that out of the equation, Donny's only merit is passing Aptitude... and that's assuming his crap base stats are offset by the babying you're going to do to the child inheriting the skill.

I wonder how much people would be liking Meg a lot more in Radiant Dawn if there was a children mechanic and she'd pass her growths or something.

Well, there are some good in game merits to certain fathers. Like Gregor being Larent's dad or Sumia/Robin being the mother of Chrom's children for Veteran/Galeforce or someone like Vaike who'll pass down good offensive growths.

But I do agree with you that if we are to rate genetics as a factor, we can't assume something like Apotheosis. That's practically a different ball park.

[Czar_Yoshi]

That's ONE single map. Which pretty much only has the comparison of "good and better" not "good and trash".

I really don't get why people's emphasis on it so much.

People place emphasis on it because it's got the highest stats of any map and is thus "the ultimate challenge". It's kind a shame that things are that way because I'd love to see a postgame with multiple maps that are both even enough that you can't trash them with brute force (which can even be done to Apo) and different enough that different teams will be better suited to some and worse suited to others. It would make teambuilding and preparation a lot more interesting. Oh well.

[XeKr]

"in-game" inheritance kinda matters more if you count spotpass paralogues, Challenge pack, and Future Past. All endgame+ difficulty that can't all be Rescue-skipped.

Edited January 19, 2015 by XeKr

[Vorena]

I am surprised this discussion is still going on.

Can anyone explain to me what Flavia will be doing in the few chapters you have her? You have the join chapter of her's with Ch23. The forest ridden world of ch24. The long vertical path of ch25. Then, finally endgame map. To me, Flavia seems to fit into the category of free silvers like in FE11. Seriously, you have every single other character in the game which has a better join time than she does. I cannot help, but feel that all the extra game time those characters have equates to a better contribution to the game overall compared to Flavia. I see no reason for her to be a knight or a thief through second class.

This leaves her with reduced stats compared to anyone who could have been trained to this point or afterwards. I say this since I see no merit into reclassing her into say a dark knight and getting certain kills to transport a unit really far. This pretty much means she can only kill things for a small amount of time.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Are you kidding? It's been like 30 hours since the last post. Dead as a doornail.

Flavia's utility for me has been pushing Basilio out of being doubled by the Lunatic Cht.23 Assassins, which is a fairly large boon if you want him to help out during enemy phase. More significantly, in Lunatic Cht.24 she both keeps him from being doubled by the Valkyries and allows him to double all GKs (including the boss) and Wyverns. Considering as he is effective against both with Hammers and Bows, this can lead to a lot of ORKOes.

But yeah, other than boosting Basilio's Spd she's not very useful. Then again, most of the limited support units in Awakening are relegated to special niches at best, so she's not exactly alone in that.

[XeKr]

Considering that they haven't built support rank yet, and iirc can't really by 24 (without extra help), it might be worth using a different speed pair (Say'ri) as filler and using Flavia to fight also.

The way I see it is: Flavia comes in when you have 2 really hard routs and her bases are passable. Her durability is probably better than Basilio, plus Sol and potentially Armsthrift Helswath.

The nature of Awakening on harder difficulties or at a fast pace is most characters are pretty scrubby when they join. You could invest and train them but Veteran is too ridiculous. The characters that can actually fight at base rise in importance.

[Vorena]

Are you kidding? It's been like 30 hours since the last post. Dead as a doornail.

Flavia's utility for me has been pushing Basilio out of being doubled by the Lunatic Cht.23 Assassins, which is a fairly large boon if you want him to help out during enemy phase. More significantly, in Lunatic Cht.24 she both keeps him from being doubled by the Valkyries and allows him to double all GKs (including the boss) and Wyverns. Considering as he is effective against both with Hammers and Bows, this can lead to a lot of ORKOes.

But yeah, other than boosting Basilio's Spd she's not very useful. Then again, most of the limited support units in Awakening are relegated to special niches at best, so she's not exactly alone in that.

Yes, many other units have niche uses, but the question I am still trying to tease here are if those units potentially have more chances to provide more niche uses than a unit that comes at chapter 23 could possibly do in the next 3 chapters after join time. However, other than chapter 23 I do not see Flavia pairing-up with Basilio to be a very unique role. Then again, if you can build up support between them over the next few chapters really no other character can support those two. Alright, it seems Flavia's only significant contribution is being Basilio's pair-up partner. At least the only significant thing that stands out. There is grinding potential, but for only 4 chapters I do not see that being very helpful. Tiki might contribute more to combat than either of them could simply for having there same four chapters to play in and anything else she kills between their join time and her own.

What other characters provide only niche uses and might be considered worst? I am thinking of this might be better to look at as a series of elimination rather than straight-up proposing random characters without looking at them all. Ricken and Donnel I think were also proposed. Ricken without any training could use the elwind he is equipped with to damage wyvern riders on chapter 5. Donnel's main element is combat for mid to late game after some amount of investment. The only niche he has is providing 20% bonus in growths to any child he might sire. Giving this along with veteran to Morgan makes him the most efficient growth unit in the main story.

The nature of Awakening on harder difficulties or at a fast pace is most characters are pretty scrubby when they join. You could invest and train them but Veteran is too ridiculous. The characters that can actually fight at base rise in importance.

When I look at the recruitment you get most characters (not kids) before chapter 14. There is only Say'ri, Tiki, and Basilio/Flavia who come after those points. All those prior units come at times which means they could get trained and be able to provide the same (maybe better combat) than Flavia/Basilio. Combat in the late game I do not really consider that great since anyone can do it given resources and time. Some more than others, but at least those characters in training contribute to helping clear rout maps despite getting feed kills or not. If you really care about combat it would be Donnel getting a several dozen kills over a dozen chapters compared to maybe the turn phase enemies Basilio/Flavia get. Who contributed more? Or who contributed? The only downside is if the time investment is too high. Which no one can really say at the moment without quoting some play log.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Vorena

[Ownagepuffs]

Basilio has free Rally Str IIRC

[Czar_Yoshi]

What other characters provide only niche uses and might be considered worst?

And equally importantly: how useful is that niche?

Seeing as Int revived his Lunatic+ topic, I've been going through myself looking for more unorthadox things that could potentially improve reliability, and was greatly surprised at how much of a difference Ricken's chip damage makes in the possibility to clear Cht.5 using primarily offensive strats (so as to work with lower Def on Avatar and allow for saving him and Maribelle without Par.1's Rescue staff, thereby saving it for later training of Maribelle). This is definitely a niche case but also a very useful one.

Anyway, I'll throw Tiki into consideration: while she does have the largest support pool of the limited support units, any potential contribution she brings to the table outside 0% growths is likely outweighed by the difficulty of her Paralogue. Unlike Donnel, who merely requires a lot of patience and tenacity at worst to train, P.17 is capable of flat-out no-selling certain teams on Lunatic(+) no matter what you try to do.

[XeKr]

Re: Basilio/Flavia. While everyone is good in the lategame with training/resources/time, not everyone is good without them, while Basilio/Flavia can always act as decent filler (on again, quite hard chapters). If you ask why not invest in earlier characters, it’s because giving that exp to Veteran characters completes the game much more easily, quickly, and reliably. Opportunity cost and such. Also, we use playlogs as evidence (to supplement theorycraft), but it should hopefully be apparent that training others requires (what can be termed) unnecessary sacrifices elsewhere such as speed, or reliability.

Availability arguments are and have always been tricky. There’s a reason I noted, somewhat sarcastically, “free contributions” for my initial post itt. In that vein however, how would you consider other canonical examples like FE10 Ilyana vs. Calill *shot* Caineghis? Bartre vs Athos? Raigh vs. Niime? That then depends on how damaging to a character’s viability the opportunity cost of investment is (for me, it’s a lot). And ofc how good the late-joiners are.

Another way to look at it is, I would actually care if Flavia/Basilio didn’t exist or weren’t deployed. This suggests they contribute something notable (if small-ish) to facilitating efficient play. I suppose, subjectively, I care the most about Lunatic tho. In Normal maybe Flavia/Basilio are indeed the worst.

fwiw I do think Flavia/Basilio are among the worst but Donnel is a special case.

Re: Tiki, if you really count how hard her paralogue is against her, then I could see it. But as a Manakete with nice bases, she can snowball rather quickly and can steamroll the lategame routs. Or just be filler there, as she does hefty chip and has Wyrmsbane. A lot of the children are in a similar place though, if not counting postgame.

Edited January 21, 2015 by XeKr

[Just call me AL]

Basilio has free Rally Str IIRC

How useful is it in practice, though? That would be the question.

[eclipse]

VERY useful in Lunatic! Not sure how useful it is on Hard and below, though.

EDIT: Only bothered with him on Chapter 23.

Edited January 22, 2015 by eclipse

[Thor Odinson]

Rally Str is also a free +4 str to your designated Grimaslayer on Final if you're lacking in str for whatever reason.