Best child?

[Leif]

Epionne is in to yaoi? Haha, does her father's bisexuality ever come into the conversation then?

[Water Mage]

Epionne is in to yaoi? Haha, does her father's bisexuality ever come into the conversation then?

She ships him with Leon.

Also her supports with Soleil are a Yaoi vs Yuri war, and it's pretty funny.

[Leif]

She ships him with Leon.

Also her supports with Soleil are a Yaoi vs Yuri war, and it's pretty funny.

Really?! Ahahah, I can't wait to see how this all gets translated.

[Dolphin]

The best child for me is Kinu because her gimmick is quite entertaining, so that makes her supports fun to read. It's better than Velour's gimmick imo since I find it quite boring. The only Kinu support I didn't like was the one with Kamui.

Honorable mentions go to:

Shinonome: To me, he's one of the few or only one of the children to not rely on a gimmick. He's a laid-back guy with some nice supports.

Foleo: He's very adorable. I'm glad a lot of people in the army are chill with what he enjoys.

Eponine: She's quite funny with her Yaoi fangirl gimmick. The few supports that don't rely on her "observing" people are pretty good.

Shara: Waaay better than Tharja. Even though she stalks Kamui, she can be a sweet girl.

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

Generally, I think I like every child so far, with a few exceptions I won't say because this is not the thread for it.

But the best child, for me, is definitely Shigure. He is, as I said in the character love thread, all I wanted to see from a male Pegasus Knight.

My "guilty pleasure" is Eponine though. At first I thought she'd be terrible, but she is actually rather funny. I still wanted to see more of her Robin Hood wannabe side though.

[Thor Odinson]

If you like Eponine, I think Eponine x Matoi is a pretty good support for her.

[NeptuniasBeard]

Nice to see so much love for Shino. He was always my favorite going off of looks, good to know he has a pretty cool personality too

(Matoi's mother/daughter support is slightly different with Luna).

Dang, only slightly? I had thought they were totally unique. Bummer.

Well I guess that can change in the localization

[riolumaster]

Sophie is also a good character, she's a lot like her father with a bit of clumsiness. Her only flaw is that she talks about her horse Abel in pretty much every one of her supports.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Ignis is The Son and quite literally one of the only kid characters i care about. Foleo is pretty cool imo.

[Tooru]

Velour is powerful as a unit.

And I want to lick her ears.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Tooru

[JasonMendez]

I'd probably chose Sophie or Ophelia. They are both just so darn cute!

[Xylaugheon Daily]

Sophie and Lutz are my personal favorites >.<

I'd also like to counter to your claim as Kanna as the best child mechanically. Due to personal skills, Midoriko is my best unit thus far. Sure, she might not be quite as customizable or varied, but that personal skill does wonders, specially Nhor Lunatic.

[Ebony]

Hmm... I really really like Ophelia, she's my favorite. She's just soooooooOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!

I like Soleil from a design standpoint, damn shame most of her supports are shit. I also kind of use her to represent me in comics... uwu...

Kisaragi is my small sunshine son, Shinonome is just overall great, Shigure is Disney Princess, Velour has a sick design too, Lutz is superhero child, and Kinu is a cutie.

[HeoandReo]

Shinonome is my favourite Hoshido kid and possibly one of my favourite of the kids period. I like his design, I like his supports, and I like him as a unit. He doesn't care for any gimmicks, and I doubt that he'd even care who his mother is in a no-fun setting.

Shigure is literally a Disney Princess and I love it. I also like that he's a guy who sings well and appreciates the fine arts.

Kinu and Velour are cool too - the fox/wolf girl designs are very nice. Kinu has a fun personality, while Velour is a bit more awkward, but I find most of her supports to be kind of sweet in that way.

Ophelia is my favourite female child, neck-and-neck with Velour. She may be a bit of a guilty pleasure, mostly because I like her design and looks. She has some good supports too though. Eponine is kind of in this same category, though as mentioned I do wish they did more with her character support-wise.

The Nohr boys are great. Siegbert is like a boy scout. Foleo is a man's man dressed in woman's clothes. Lutz is a tiny luchador superhero. Ignis is cool too.

Sophie is a fun character. I liked Cynthia in Awakening and don't mind seeing her revisited here. I like her design too.

Soleil has a great design held back by really bad supports. She may be a case of a character that I'd have to like if I completely disregard everything that is said about her by the writers.

I'm not the biggest fan of Kisaragi, but I like that he was born on July 4th and may use him as a unit based on that alone. (MURICA. Also his clothes are red, white and blue)

Edited August 23, 2015 by HeoandReo

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Oboro!Shinonome looks like a laid-back version of Chrom imo. All the more reason to consider him lol.

[Owner of the White Sedan]

xXBl0oD_PrInCeSs20Xx Ophelia because she's like her father xXDrEaD_FiGHTA420Xx Odin, and is pretty cute too.

I really warmed up to Soleil (to the point where she's tied with Ophelia and Velour for favorite child unit) despite her badly written supports. (Except for Ophelia's and Lazward's supports they're perfect.)

Shinonome is pretty cool despite being a weeaboo version of chrom.

Foleo is best Disney Princess.

Sophie's a cute clumsy girl.

Little Red Riding Nah Velour is one of my personal favorites.

But personally, I love all of the children units.

[spoiler=Bonus!]
and lissa and olivia are becoming great grandmothers whether they like it or not!

and chrom is now a great grandfather since he married olivia in my playthrough of awakening!

Edited September 4, 2015 by Solid Snakespeare

[astrophys]

Well, it depends on their personal skills, class sets, and stat mods.

So it gets really complex to consider, as some have substantially more useful personal skills than others, while others might have nice skills but may get held back by things like stat mods or class sets.

Consider:

Dragon Child When user is equipped with a Dragonstone, they recover 15% HP at the start of their Turn Kanna

Kanna's personal skill helps if you're trying to play Kanna as some sort of regenerative tank, but it does nothing to boost her damage output or other combat effectiveness in the middle of a battle.

Butler’s Feat When fighting in My Castle, Hit rate and Avoid +20, damage +2 and damage received -2 Deere

This is great when fighting other players in PvP and useless in main-story missions. I assume that the same also would apply to Paralogues and DLC (as those aren't at MyCastle, right?)

Tuning When used as a command, allies within a 2 tile radius who have lower HP than the user recover 10% HP Shigure

A rally effect, although it seems like fairly small healing with a kind of specific trigger condition.

Clumsy When user triggers the battle and their attack connects with the enemy, enemy’s Defence -3 and enemy is stripped Sophie

This does have some combat value (for helping the next units who attack after Sophie does), although depending on how many hidden weapon/seal users you have it might end up outclassed.

Lucky Charm Skills with an activation rate dependent on the Luck stat have their rate increased by 20% Midoriko Exclusive

This is great for exploitation of things like Easy Life for more money and fueling extravagance, as well as things like Stubborness. Although several of these things don't operate in combat itself.

Righteous Bravery When user is the lead unit, if their support unit doesn’t have full HP, damage +3 and damage received -1 Shinonome

Nice damage boost; might not be too hard to trigger.

Positive Thinking After choosing to Wait, Speed +4 and Luck +8 for one Turn Kisaragi

Largely defensive, although it may have offensive use for doubling on the enemy phase.

Sweet Tooth After choosing to Wait, user recovers 4 HP by eating hidden treats Gurei

This doesn't seem very impressive at all.

Play-time After the start of the user’s Turn, all enemies that are adjacent to the user have their HP reduced by 5 Kinu

It does combo with stuff like Four Fangs to give a lot of fixed or percent damage effects, although this skill depends on the enemy's movement during the enemy phase and might be hard to manipulate.

Calmness After choosing to Wait, Skill and Resistance +4 for one Turn Hisame

Basically a defensive skill. Could be useful, but except for slightly higher crit and skill activation isn't going to have a huge offensive role.

Haiku At the start of the Turn, when two allies are directly above and below Mitama, Mitama recovers 7 HP, while the the two allies recover 5 HP Mitama

Minor healing, although it doesn't help her in actual combat.

Prodigy At the start of the battle, if the enemy’s Strength or Magic (whichever is highest) is higher than Matoi’s corresponding stat, damage +4 Matoi

This is a bit of a weird skill, but many of Matoi's classes are of the fast but low power variety, so this should be triggering for her most of the time anyways (and almost always against mainly magic-focused enemies). Seems like it would be a reasonably good skill for her…. even if she gets something like Berserker (via marriage) she would be able to get the +4 against basically all primarily magic enemies, whereas even as a Sorcerer or a Witch she'd be able to get the +4 against basically all physical enemies.

Tenacity When user triggers the battle in a repeated map, damage +4 Syalla

This better than the other +4 if you've played the map before as then it will be always on henceforth, but useless if you haven't (such as during story battles)

Ladies First When user is the support unit, if the lead unit is female, the lead unit’s damage +2 Siegbert

This seems nice. Its easy to trigger if you put him with his wife or a "girlfriend" he's trying to build support ranks with. It helps her rather than Seigbert, that said.

Foul Play When a male enemy triggers the battle, damage +2 Foleo

It seems okay… I'd imagine more enemies are male than female, although the damage bonus is smaller.

Timid When user is the lead unit, damage received -2. If not in Attack Stance or Guard Stance, damage received +2 Ignis

This should normally be -2 damage received, but it has a very real drawback otherwise.

Scavenge At the start of the Turn, Luck% chance of recovering 10% HP Velour

This seems a rather weak personal skill.

Lucky Soul Allies within a 2 tile radius have their Critical Evade increased by 15, while the user’s Critical Evade is increased by 5 Lutz

This seems pretty amazing for a support unit aura-bot.

Blossoming Mind When user is carrying 3 or more Tomes, Critical rate +10 Ophelia

This should be very easy to trigger.

Girl Lover When user is the lead unit, if their support unit is female, damage +2 and damage received -2 Soleil

This seems to work against the preference to put someone with their S-rank partner, so that's a drawback. But it might work well with an A-rank girl.

Wicked Fantasy When user is in Guard Stance with or adjacent to a male ally, damage +2 and damage received -2 Eponine

Is this the correct description? I've heard a few different things about how this skill actually works, so I'm not sure.

Edited September 3, 2015 by astrophys

[CaitlynMellark]

In terms of gameplay it's obviously Kanna and his/her possible siblings....

However, when it comes to personality, who is the most enjoyable/likable out of the bunch? From what I heard, Kinu is a bit obnoxious. That doesn't surprise me, though, judging from her artwork...

The only child character I liked from Awakening was Noire because of her hilarious outbursts, especially in her A support with Laurent. Though she, like the rest of the second generation, were gimmicky with their personalties. Do the Fates children fall under the 'gimmicky personality syndrome' as well?

EDIT:

No major character spoilers please...

I like Kinu because, sure, she might be obnoxious & cute, but like you said, her artwork supports it. And I also like Velour because she is like Little Red Riding Nah. :3 They are both cute, & they seem kind of like opposites; Kinu being the playful one while Velour is the composed one. I bet their supports in the Invisible Kingdom shows this contrast.

[wvype]

I have to say, Hisame is probably my favorite of the children right about now. Before I read most of his translated stuff he seemed basically like Nah, who I wasn't that fond of. But he's actually really adorable and such a sweet kid. He's less gimmicky than most of the other children, and I really enjoy his relationship with Hinata, from their supports and his recruitment paralogue.

[Tooru]

Righteous Bravery When user is the lead unit, if their support unit doesn’t have full HP, damage +3 and damage received -1 Shinonome

Nice damage boost; might not be too hard to trigger.

Tenacity When user triggers the battle in a repeated map, damage +4 Syalla

This better than the other +4 if you've played the map before as then it will be always on henceforth, but useless if you haven't (such as during story battles)

Wicked Fantasy When user is in Guard Stance with or adjacent to a male ally, damage +2 and damage received -2 Eponine

Is this the correct description? I've heard a few different things about how this skill actually works, so I'm not sure.

Righteous Bravery: damage received +1

Tenacity: If there was any battle between user and the enemy in this map, when user tiggers the battle, damage +4.

Wicked Fantasy: when user is adjacent to a Guard Stance of two male allies.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Tooru

[astrophys]

Oh, so those official (edit: Serenes Forest) descriptions are wrong, then?

Let's see…. You're saying that Righteous Bravery makes you deal 3 extra damage AND take 1 extra damage then? As in its double edged?

Tenacity…. okay, that makes it actually able to function during story battles, although when you say "the enemy", do you mean the specific enemy being fought, not just the enemy army?

Wicked Fantasy then seems to need to be awfully specific… and then you'd probably want to men with their wives for S-support bonuses anyways, so it might be a bit more trouble than its worth to work with Wicked Fantasy.

Edited September 3, 2015 by astrophys

[The DanMan]

I can understand all the Shinonome love, though I haven't read many of his supports myself.

My favorite would actually have to be Hisame; I tend to sympathize with the smart but uber serious jerks who aren't that jerkish deep down (probably because I'm not too far from that IRL).

[Ryo]

Wicked Fantasy: when user is adjacent to a Guard Stance of two male allies.

Yup, she's a yaoi fangirl alright... :v

[astrophys]

So, unless I accidentally deleted one when going through the lists, these are the children's personal skills that have the effect of directly boosting the damage dealt by their own users.

Out of curiosity, how would people rank them, in terms of which of these's children's damage boosting personal skills was the best/most useful

Full descriptions (and possible corrections) are in earlier posts and responses to those posts on this page.

Butler’s Feat

Righteous Bravery

Prodigy

Tenacity

Foul Play

Girl Lover

Wicked Fantasy

[RedMage]

I like all the royals' kids, Shigure, Shara (better than Tharja, really like her support with Kanna), Ignis, Matoi, Hisame, Ophelia, Kinu and Gurei.

The only problem I have with the royals is Siegbert's name... Because srsly, it's obvious Marx named his own son after his favorite sword.

I loved Velour and Eponine's designs, but not their supports. Centers too much on their gimmicks. Flannel at least had depth outside of his "treasure collection" and there's little to no focus on Eponine's Robin Hood trait outside of Zero's support, but I thought her supports were funny, especially her mom's.