Who are the best upgrade-only 5* units?

[BANRYU]

What the thread title says, basically. 

Has anyone even managed to raise any units that come only as 4* or below into 5* yet? If not, who, theoretically, would the best ones be?

I don't have too many guesses, but Eliwood stands out as one possibility at the very least, given as he gets Durandal (16 mt/+4 Str on attack initiation). Are there any others who have potential to be higher-tier than they are now once elevated to their max? 

[Sire]

Out of my current roster, Felicia would be my top candidate. I would also say Sakura, but she has a 5* variant (I just have the 4* version of her).

Felicia has excellent debuffing skills due to her Silver Dagger+, can heal adjacent allies after combat, and has good synergy with her special ability and her high RES. I love using Felicia to handle magic units, but she is also good at lowering down the armor of troublesome Knights (which is my main flaw with my current team.)

Otherwise, the other three off the top of my head are F!Corrin (dragon with excellent debuffs), Saizo (area debuffs with his Smoke Dagger), and Adult!Tiki (offense dragon with ranged retaliation). I do not have F! Corrin, so I cannot say how good she is, and I have not unlocked Saizo's Smoke Dagger yet to how effective that is. Adult!Tiki is fun to use though, I plan making her a 5* unit at some point.

[BANRYU]

I had a f!Corrin before I restarted (Felicia too lol), she's one of the units I'm missing... but so be it. Dark Breath is pretty cool for AoE debuffing, though, and goes well with Seal Res, and Hone Attack is always useful ofc. It sounds like she's sort of a magic/close-range version of Saizo that way. 

[Anacybele]

Frederick might be great as one. I dunno for sure yet since I'm still working on getting him to five stars, but I love how tanky and strong he is! He also gets the hammer, so he's an armor killing machine as well when he has it. Just keep him away from a lot of mages.

[Brand_Of_The_Exalt]

Nino's quite good, I leveled her as a 3* and she turned great, much better than the others 3* I leveled with her, Eliwood and Odin, so she's very promising.

Felicia's very good too. Basically, she'll take care of the mages, and since she's fast and has high Res, she'll quickly get her "critical" that adds 50 or 80 % of her Res, and since it is huge, she'll get a completely ridiculous bonus, like +20 or more, so mine (4*) OHKOd the masked guy and can even destroy bulky units with this skill.

The units with weapon that deal effective damage are pretty good choices also ( Cherche, Frederick, etc).

Edited February 10, 2017 by Brand_Of_The_Exalt

[LordFrigid]

I'll second F!Corrin. I've got her sitting at ~Lv. 30 4* and my experience is that she has enough Atk to hit hard (and she's magical, which is nice in a lot of cases), enough Spd to not get doubled, most of the time, and enough defensive bulk to take a few hits. That's not even factoring in Hone Atk, Seal Res, and Dark Breath, which are all very useful. I haven't had the opportunity to try this out, since most of my other good units are physical...but I'm interested in seeing how effective it would be to bait an enemy into attacking her (for Seal Res) then having a magical ally adjacent to her (for Hone Atk). I think that'd be a pretty scary damage bump (up to 10? Unless I'm horribly mis-remembering the numbers). I'm saving feathers for a 5* Promotion and I'm almost certain it'll be her. Granted - it's not just her stats/skills, I also don't have any 5* Blues, which definitely factors into my decision.

Adult Tiki is nice for the two-range counter. I think Selena's good bulk and decent everything else, plus Armorslayer & Reposition would make her a good pick, but I won't deny that I have a bit of favoritism going her way too, so take that with a grain of salt. My experience has been that Green stuff in general just bounces right off of her. Sharena fills a pretty similar role to F!Corrin, though in slightly different ways. She's not as defensive though (or at least, mine isn't).

Those are the 4 that stood out to me as I went through the game. There are probably other notables that I either just don't have or didn't give enough of a chance to shine.

[Raven]

I went up against a lvl 40 5* Gwendolyn in the training tower.  She had copious amounts of health, strength, and armour. Even good speed and resistances for an armoured unit. I'll be raising her up to see how she fairs.

[Birdy]

27 minutes ago, Raven said:

I went up against a lvl 40 5* Gwendolyn in the training tower.  She had copious amounts of health, strength, and armour. Even good speed and resistances for an armoured unit. I'll be raising her up to see how she fairs.

Training tower units actually don't resemble units you can have from what I've seen. Apart from their skills, their stats also seem different most of the time (though following the 'trend' of the character mostly). I could be wrong though!

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

1 hour ago, LordFrigid said:

I'll second F!Corrin. I've got her sitting at ~Lv. 30 4* and my experience is that she has enough Atk to hit hard (and she's magical, which is nice in a lot of cases), enough Spd to not get doubled, most of the time, and enough defensive bulk to take a few hits. That's not even factoring in Hone Atk, Seal Res, and Dark Breath, which are all very useful. I haven't had the opportunity to try this out, since most of my other good units are physical...but I'm interested in seeing how effective it would be to bait an enemy into attacking her (for Seal Res) then having a magical ally adjacent to her (for Hone Atk). I think that'd be a pretty scary damage bump (up to 10? Unless I'm horribly mis-remembering the numbers). I'm saving feathers for a 5* Promotion and I'm almost certain it'll be her. Granted - it's not just her stats/skills, I also don't have any 5* Blues, which definitely factors into my decision.

I already have a 5* in M!Robin and 4* F!Corrin is still one of my big candidates for bumping up to 5* (granted, M!Corrin was somewhat competing until I got Marth). A lot of my early game strategy revolved around F!Corrin luring some poor schmuck in to debuff them, then blasting them with Robin and Merric. This tactic requires a lot more care in the upper levels (36+ Training Tower and Lunatic enemies get hefty enough to make even neutral match-ups dangerous), but is still somewhat feasible. Just factoring in skills, she'll get a 4 Mt bump and Seal Res to 3, which is -7 (versus the -5 from rank 2). Pretty good deal.

[LordFrigid]

44 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

I already have a 5* in M!Robin and 4* F!Corrin is still one of my big candidates for bumping up to 5* (granted, M!Corrin was somewhat competing until I got Marth). A lot of my early game strategy revolved around F!Corrin luring some poor schmuck in to debuff them, then blasting them with Robin and Merric. This tactic requires a lot more care in the upper levels (36+ Training Tower and Lunatic enemies get hefty enough to make even neutral match-ups dangerous), but is still somewhat feasible. Just factoring in skills, she'll get a 4 Mt bump and Seal Res to 3, which is -7 (versus the -5 from rank 2). Pretty good deal.

Good to know! I've read Seal Res before, but I completely forgot it was -7 at max instead of -6 (my brain's still geared for Fates). I'll have to go grab a magical unit and try that out now...

What's your opinion on M!Corrin, actually? I personally found him to be a little glassy...and it seems to me that there are plenty of other people to satisfy the "glassy red" role.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I haven't found him all that glassy. He's got comparable Def, Res and Spd to F!Corrin and M!Robin, anyway. I guess he might be lacking in durability compared to the cavalry or knights, but I found that having the Spd not to get doubled tends to make up for not having quite as good Def. It's enough for my to give up cavalry's 3 Move and knights don't have enough Def and Res to make me put up with the 1 Move (not that I have any good knights, anyway). I'm still using him in my high-level party, since Marth is still working on his levels. Gonna miss that proc for burst damage when I replace him with Marth, though Marth at least has regen and crazy mobiilty (for a foot unit).

If you want glassy, that's my Merric.

Oh, and I guess fighting alongside F!Corrin might help. Since they're often on the front lines together, he also benefits from the debuffs applied to enemy Atk and Spd.

[Ertrick36]

I'd assume Shanna and Oboro might be good 5* units since they're pretty much my best units, but I wouldn't know since I have absolutely no 5* units.

2 hours ago, Raven said:

I went up against a lvl 40 5* Gwendolyn in the training tower.  She had copious amounts of health, strength, and armour. Even good speed and resistances for an armoured unit. I'll be raising her up to see how she fairs.

I got her as a 3* unit, and she already started with 15 defense.  She also has almost as much resistance as my Nino and somewhat close to as much speed as a few of my 15-20 level units.  I say her one real crutch is only being able to move one space per turn.

[Chelone]

I don't know much about tiers or the current meta besides Takumi and Hector, but my 4* Effie has been wrecking almost all sword users. While my Abel (he's supposed to be the better one?) dies way too fast. (they're both only about level 32 though). But if feathers were easier to come by I'd definitely 5* her. Also have Lilina or Gordin to think about or maybe 3* > 4* Nino or Felicia too. I've heard they can be pretty good.

[Dual Dragons]

6 hours ago, Chelone said:

I don't know much about tiers or the current meta besides Takumi and Hector, but my 4* Effie has been wrecking almost all sword users. While my Abel (he's supposed to be the better one?) dies way too fast. (they're both only about level 32 though). But if feathers were easier to come by I'd definitely 5* her. Also have Lilina or Gordin to think about or maybe 3* > 4* Nino or Felicia too. I've heard they can be pretty good.

Oh don't you worry. I have Abel as well and he can be dead before he can do anything. He's surprisingly not that speedy or bulky. I think the main gimmick was that he attacks first and kills or tells Swords to take a hike.

I was thinking of 5* Olivia but the only real upgrade she gets is the ability to buy Silver Sword+ and she's been seeing less and less combat as the enemies get tougher or she's just not in range of killing people. I might vouch for Fae as she was a fantastic de/buffer with Light's Breath and Threaten Attack. While she's not the fastest or tankiest, she can still tank a little thanks to having access to the three tiers of Renewal. At 5*, she'll access Light's Breath+ and Threaten Attack 3. My only thing is that she doesn't have a battle skill but gets Draw Back--but it could be useful in certain situations, I suppose.

[BANRYU]

I've been running adult!Tiki and her ability to counter at range + her tanky defense has made her pretty effective as a secondary Takumi counter for me. She tends to die the most of my squad (her + Robin 4*/Marth 5*/Cherche 4*), but she becomes a weirdly good glass cannon if she gets into Defiant Strength range... I think she'll probably be the one I upgrade to 5* first. Might just be favoritism lol, but... shrug

Edited February 11, 2017 by BANRYU

[ZXApocrypha]

Tharja is actually amazing for being a non 5* exclusive character due to her tome giving atk per bonus stat. Set a team up properly for her, and she'll be doing double ~50 dmg against pretty much every non-blue hero (and beating non-ranged blue heroes anyways).

[Iris]

I made a list of pulls by the highest rank you can obtain them, by sorting out duplicates from Serenes data. I'm a 'Gotta Catch 'em All' kind of girl, so I favorite a character once I get their highest incarnation, and having the list is helpful since I highlight someone one I get them.

I haven't been using too many four stars, but I hear F!Corrin is decent. The ones I have been using are great---Olivia for obvious reasons, though she's totally outclassed by Azura tanks to the current meta. I've also found Shanna to be decent, and I've pulled the rest of the Akaenia Pegasus Sisters and I find her to be better than them, but at the same time I don't have 5 Star Catria, so who knows? Also Clarine is a great healer especially since I don't have Elise, and I only have her at 3 stars.

[eclipse]

I have a certain Red tome user in mind. . .and that's Henry.  He's super-effective against green tomes and colorless, pretty damn effective against everything that isn't blue and bulky, and gets his own proc, which is based off of his respectable Defense stat.