Characters often called terrible but worked really well with you and vice versa?

[Gradivus.]

Pent never is a bad unit.

[Nobody]

I actually really like Eliwood. Like, idk if i'd say he's good, but he's certainly better than most of the units that join before chapter 16 and i really enjoy giving kills to him (it's not like Marcus can be everywhere at the same time)

[Frosty]

Pent never is a bad unit.

Well, uh... Whoops...

[General Horace]

I'll list once per game.

FE4: Lex. Although I don't think he's actually particularly good, he's considered a strong unit, he likes getting HP/Luck for me.

FE5: Othin. He has strength issues when I use him, which really isn't a huge deal thanks to Pugi and Wrath, but I couldn't think of anyone else.

FE6: Rutger. I've never had one be particularly useful past the western isles.

FE7: Sain and Florina. They both have speed issues (don't ask how Florina has speed issues, I guess her speed base is pretty bad)

FE8: Actually all the units that are considered good are usually good for me. Unless Forde is supposed to be good, screw Forde.

FE11: Abel. Fuck Abel.

FE13: Cordelia, plz get speed.

and the bad...

FE4: Janne. Although I give her some favouritism.

FE5: Marty, the real MVP.

FE6: While he's not bad, i'm going to say Noah since he's not supposed to be very good statistically, but he turns out pretty nicely for me.

FE7: None of the chumps turn out well for me, and there aren't very many chumps in this game anyway.

FE8: Dozlaaaaaaaaa

FE11: Roshea turns out pretty well for me.

FE13: Are there any chumps in this game other than Donnel? If Lissa counts, I'll say her.

[Loki Laufeyson]

- I'm fond of FE9 Tormod, but I'm also insane.

Hey, im fond of him too. (when im arsed to train him)

THE BAD

Nothing i can do can make Frederick actually relevant post-chapter 13 in FE13. I know this guy's value and worth, and because hes such a champ early-game, he gets to have a lady and a kid. But like, i cant use him after that point because he just...ive never been able to fix Fred.

FE9 Mia is pretty meh anyway, but most of the time when i play, she cant even scratch things.

FE7 cavs. Ive actually given up on them tbh, because they just dont work for me anymore and are too much effort. Sain never can dodge things, Kent is just bland, and Lowen has trouble making dents in things. So ive been just using Marcus and Isadora.

Kyle in FE8. Hes just...blahhhhhh.

Lyn...oh Lyn....*shakes head*

THE GOOD

My Bartres usually kick ass. If he just gets that one proc in speed....theres just no stopping him then! Whoopcha ass!

Eliwood never sucks TOO bad for me. I take time to raise him and at least get a support with Hector, so he can manage.

I had a pretty decent Isadora, last run...

My Serras also usually turn out good.

GOD. SOREN. But that is usually due to favoritism, teehee.

Ive never ever had a bad Moulder.

Laura~

I tend to dump favoritism into Virion, so...but yeah, hes pretty gr9.

M A K A L O V

THE UGLY

GAIUS, YOU ARE A PAPER BAG! YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A PAPER BAG. STOP TRYING TO GET ON MY TEAM BECAUSE YOU ARE A PAPER FUCKING BAG.

Once, i tried to use Wil.

And another time, i tried to use Rebecca.

And then, there was EWAN.

Leonardo from FE10 has some sort of problem. A problem that makes him worse than a paper bag.

Once, Dart never gained speed.

And neither did Sain.

Thany is probably the worst pegknight (that comes early game) i ever seen.

FORDE, WHY

Edited December 18, 2015 by Loki Laufeyson

[Shadow Mir]

THE BAD:

- Magical My Unit in FE12 has the potential to NOT break the game. . .and usually doesn't fail to disappoint me.

Do your physical My Units wind up sucking too?

[Tamanoir]

In my first Awakening playthrough, Sully was awfull, while Stahl was godly (he was superior or equal in every single stats).

[xsoqja]

The "bad" that turned out good:

Marty - Some people call him as "one of the worst" but he turned out to be one of my best capture bot in 776 due to most bosses being General and Marty having the hammer and a ridiculous build stat. I gave him some scrolls and farm some exps on his brigand fellows. Marty hammer party.

Tina - She's not really a bad unit because of her utility, but she is a terrible healer compared to her sister. I actually gave her the Elite Manual and trained her as a healer and not just for stealing. She gained a lot of wexp through using the Thief Staff (I used 2 Repair Staff because I love stealing OP weapons/staves lel). Tina became a pretty good healer for me and since she has a capped luck, she always doubles the healing. (Training Tina risks you a lot of items/skill that could have been given to others though, but I just can't get enough how good she became when I trained her.)

Makalov - He was one of my best mounted unit in both PoR and RD.

The "good" that turned out bad:

Ewan - It's really hard to feed him kills and give him the exps due to being underleveled unless you farm on Tower of Valni (which I rarely use since I'm not a fan of grinding)

Erk - I heard he was pretty good, but Erk was magic-screwed so it's kind of disappointing.

Titania - She was so level-screwed that she only gained +4 HP, +1ATK and +2DEF in the whole playthrough. I get her up to level 7 until I benched her.

Edited December 18, 2015 by xsoqja

[Gradivus.]

Ewan - It's really hard to feed him kills and give him the exps due to being underleveled unless you farm on Tower of Valni (which I rarely use since I'm not a fan of grinding)

That's why he doesn't fit into the "good" category.

I only recall Alance in FE6 and Ryan in FE12 letting me down statwise, the rest of the screwages I faced so far were mostly just in single playthroughs.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Junkhead]

Biggest example for me is Eliwood in FE7. He normally gets very good spd and str for me, and I don't have trouble training him.

The one that comes to mind, 'aye. Not necessarily called terrible, just outright plain/mediocre. He's actually not all that bad and may have a chance to standout. Same goes for Lyndis, I suppose. On the other side, Hector's overrated, for some reason. He depends too much on his Spd to be good (not that double is hard in FE7, but even he has issues with that).

[xsoqja]

That's why he doesn't fit into the "good" category .

Some tend to say he's a good unit tho, even to the point where they're saying "he is the best Est" which I don't find true.

[Thor Odinson]

Ewan is "good" to people who really like babying scrubs and give the illusion of "good" after leveling up 50 or so levels when Saleh or Lute can do the same job with far less effort, anyway. Hell, Knoll's better if you're going the summon route, since summons are utility and don't really require much stats and knoll doesn't even need exp to do that job.

Contrast with Nino, who, despite being fairly impractical, DOES have good growths and good bases for her level (just level 5 is very low for join time, but her bases are pretty high for a level 5 unit) and thus good averages, Ewan's averages don't really stand out. He has 9 extra levels, but his growths are honestly pretty shitty, and the 9 extra levels don't make enough of a difference on average given his bad bases and bad growths (all it does it give more chances to roll level ups but he can get blessed just as roughly much as he can get screwed). His averages in the end (considering someone who uses Ewan are likely looking at high level stats since people who don't care as much about the 20/20 wouldn't use Ewan in the first place outside of challenge runs/favoritism) aren't even high enough to be competitive with people who do the same job. Ignoring that Saleh's bases are more than enough and that 20/20 averages aren't really relevant, comparing 20/20 on the growth mages shows that, between Ewan and Lute, Lute wins the important stats and Ewan wins, well, the less valued ones like skill and luck. So he can't even really Est right.

Ewan's honestly more of a novelty than anything actually good by basically any metric.

[I.M. Gei]

i once had a rutger who capped speed and had 12 defense and 14 str at level 20

whereas dieck was like level 16 and still at 10 speed somehow

[Junkhead]

Ewan is "good" to people who really like babying scrubs and give the illusion of "good" after leveling up 50 or so levels when Saleh or Lute can do the same job with far less effort, anyway. Hell, Knoll's better if you're going the summon route, since summons are utility and don't really require much stats and knoll doesn't even need exp to do that job.

Contrast with Nino, who, despite being fairly impractical, DOES have good growths and good bases for her level (just level 5 is very low for join time, but her bases are pretty high for a level 5 unit) and thus good averages, Ewan's averages don't really stand out. He has 9 extra levels, but his growths are honestly pretty shitty, and the 9 extra levels don't make enough of a difference on average given his bad bases and bad growths (all it does it give more chances to roll level ups but he can get blessed just as roughly much as he can get screwed). His averages in the end (considering someone who uses Ewan are likely looking at high level stats since people who don't care as much about the 20/20 wouldn't use Ewan in the first place outside of challenge runs/favoritism) aren't even high enough to be competitive with people who do the same job. Ignoring that Saleh's bases are more than enough and that 20/20 averages aren't really relevant, comparing 20/20 on the growth mages shows that, between Ewan and Lute, Lute wins the important stats and Ewan wins, well, the less valued ones like skill and luck. So he can't even really Est right.

Ewan's honestly more of a novelty than anything actually good by basically any metric.

So, how do you, like, counter people who say "I don't mind taking extra turns to baby X unit"? I suppose less cost under less time is just objective enough as it is?

[Tamanoir]

Tina - She's not really a bad unit because of her utility, but she is a terrible healer compared to her sister. I actually gave her the Elite Manual and trained her as a healer and not just for stealing. She gained a lot of wexp through using the Thief Staff (I used 2 Repair Staff because I love stealing OP weapons/staves lel). Tina became a pretty good healer for me and since she has a capped luck, she always doubles the healing. (Training Tina risks you a lot of items/skill that could have been given to others though, but I just can't get enough how good she became when I trained her.)

I gave Tina the Dain Scroll, and she was insane. 10 move with 25% chance to move again is just ridiculous.

[Thor Odinson]

So, how do you, like, counter people who say "I don't mind taking extra turns to baby X unit"? I suppose less cost under less time is just objective enough as it is?

If you actually bothered to read the entire paragraph, my point covered people who like babying units by using Nino as Ewan's counterpoint, where Nino's 20/20 averages are genuinely good, while Ewan loses to Lute even after fully trained in the 2 most important stats (I used Sage as a comparator)

That's why Ewan's not even good by Est metrics, because his averages are honestly not that great. Other than the high luck (lol luck) his stats are pretty fucking mediocre, which makes the effort put into training him to 10/20/20 only to not even have anything notable, just extremely not worth it.

Like if you're gonna baby units outside of character/personality-based favoritism at least baby the ones that actually end up good, geez

The whole point of Ests is to put in a lot of effort and get someone with a lot of shiny green numbers in the end. Ewan can barely get any.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[xsoqja]

I gave Tina the Dain Scroll, and she was insane. 10 move with 25% chance to move again is just ridiculous.

I agree, I always give as many scrolls as possible for Tina, and it was really worth it.

[Tamanoir]

If you actually bothered to read the entire paragraph, my point covered people who like babying units by using Nino as Ewan's counterpoint, where Nino's 20/20 averages are genuinely good, while Ewan loses to Lute even after fully trained in the 2 most important stats (I used Sage as a comparator)

That's why Ewan's not even good by Est metrics, because his averages are honestly not that great. Other than the high luck (lol luck) his stats are pretty fucking mediocre, which makes the effort put into training him to 10/20/20 only to not even have anything notable, just extremely not worth it.

Like if you're gonna baby units outside of character/personality-based favoritism at least baby the ones that actually end up good, geez

The whole point of Ests is to put in a lot of effort and get someone with a lot of shiny green numbers in the end. Ewan can barely get any.

As a fan of Ests in general, and Nino in particuliar, I actually agree with what you said.

Trainees are quite different than regular Ests.

Their growths are pretty atrocious, but they have more levels to somewhat compensate.

It's really a gamble, since, except luck, you're not even sure to have good units after all the training you gave them.

[solrocknroll]

Good:

Fiona and Micaiah have turned out for me, but considering how many levels they can get in RD, that's really not anything special.

I've had Sue actually gain a good amount of Strength.

From where I am in Thracia (not very far), Tanya has been doing pretty good. I know that once she rams her Speed cap it'll be hard for to stay relevant because of her lol Con. Hopefully I can toss some scrolls on her to make everything better.

I've had a blessed Eirika and it was wonderful.

Bad:

All the Cavs from the GBA games. They're so hideously middle of the road that it infuriates me.

Soren is blah in RD all the time. I would only use him for Ike support and because of Magic utility.

Pretty much a lot of characters in the GBA games. Maybe the "CAP EVERYTHING" games have spoiled me but idk.

I've had a screwed Ephraim and it was terrible.

[Tolvir]

Bastian from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn was one of the only mages I used besides Calil. They both worked great for me, but everyone else hated them. Everyone talks about how bad Donnel is in Awakening, but he was almost better than MU when he got up to the same level.

Units that sucked for me were Titania and Stahl. Titania would be good in the beginning, but towards the second half of both games her usefulness starts to dwindle. Stahl just all around was an OK unit. He would do just fine until some of the heavier units showed up. He eventually took a backseat as one of the only characters I used the pair up system with for another character.

[eclipse]

Nothing i can do can make Frederick actually relevant post-chapter 13 in FE13. I know this guy's value and worth, and because hes such a champ early-game, he gets to have a lady and a kid. But like, i cant use him after that point because he just...ive never been able to fix Fred.

HOW TO MAKE FREDERICK USEFUL ON HARD MODE AND BELOW:

1. Make sure he gets some Speed when he levels. You'll want close to a 50% proc rate, growth rate be damned.

2. Train his axe rank, the higher the better.

3. His ideal wife is one who wants bulk early, speed later, and mobility always. This almost always translates to Sumia for me. Sully works, but I really hate the class overlap.

4. Second Seal him to Griffon Rider at about level 15 (or once Lucina shows up).

5. If possible, get him to level 5 for Deliverer.

You'll end up with a Frederick that can ferry someone to the front lines in a hurry, and provide some hilarious pair-up bonuses in the process.

Do your physical My Units wind up sucking too?

Nope. Hell, I had one physical MU that did magic better than my magical ones! But that's just Levin Sword bias.

Ewan's honestly more of a novelty than anything actually good by basically any metric.

From a draft perspective, Ewan is a giant mixed bag. Because he has all the time in the world to grow, his stats will end up all over the place. I remember the following Ewans in my runs:

- One that could tank physical hits like nothing (I honestly don't know what happened)

- One that was ORKOing Knights by Chapter 14 (this isn't a gigantic accomplishment) while not being doubled by the mercs

- One that died to a stiff breeze

- One that thought he was Lilina

So there's no telling what will happen over >40 iterations of the RNG, which is why I think he's a giant gamble.

[madamebrasidas]

I had a golden age of godly mages in my early Fire Emblem days, and now I fear I've been deceived by the class as a whole, or maybe it's just I've been playing less magic friendly games in the series. I got the idea from Pent and a really speed blessed Lute and Ewan one time (he was doubling ppl with Gespenst) that mages were always awesome. But I am so mad at the lack of speed in FE6 mages right now. Lugh barely cuts it. I have no patience for Lilina or Sophia to gain speed. And I DIDN'T FUCKING PAIR LEWYN WITH FURY like the basic turd that I am so I lost Forseti in Gen II of Judgral.

Maybe this isn't unpopular, but I've started to appreciate Valkyrie / Troubadours as a class a heck of a lot more than I used to. I find their high luck, although technically a useless stat can make up for only modestly impressive speed.

[NoNameAtAll]

If you need to use scrolls to make a bad character good in FE5, that's not a good sign. Without scrolls, Marty is garbage. Same with Ronan.

That said, I've had runs where the RNG decided to be a dick and give Fergus some shit level ups. He still turned out great, but it was kinda bumpy along the way.

Same with Asvel. Oh god Asvel. Grafcalibur was a godsend for him on one of my runs because holy shit he was getting screwed.

Edited December 30, 2015 by NoNameAtAll

[TheAstraWolf]

Wolt (FE6). Most of the time he turns out to be my best Archer, as in good, leaving Klain in the dust. And he is usually considered to be the worst Archer in the game.

Anna (Awakening): Anna always and I mean ALWAYS turns out to be an average unit for me, she isn't by all means awful but she ends up being worse than what people usually hype her for.

Florina (FE7): Why do people find her better than Fiora again? Seriously, in all of my runs of FE7, she ended up being a pseudo-Sheeda for me while Fiora just acted better in pretty much every other area.

[TheAstraWolf]

Wolt (FE6). Most of the time he turns out to be my best Archer, as in good, leaving Klain in the dust. And he is usually considered to be the worst Archer in the game.

Anna (Awakening): Anna always and I mean ALWAYS turns out to be an average unit for me, she isn't by all means awful but she ends up being worse than what people usually hype her for.

Florina (FE7): Why do people find her better than Fiora again? Seriously, in all of my runs of FE7, she ended up being a pseudo-Sheeda for me while Fiora just acted better in pretty much every other area.