What units do you wish you could use but can't?

[NekoKnight]

While most units can be somewhat viable with enough investment, are there any characters you wish you could use but you can't because they underperform too much? This isn't a thread to tell others "You can make that character good if you just give them multiple 5* exclusive skills!" Not having or being willing to use expensive/rare SI is enough.

Also, since it is tangeantly related, are there any units whose art discourages you from using them?

For utility:

-Titania: I pulled her on the Cavalry banner and while she has niche usage against certain set maps (ie not Arena, TT or training tower) as a blue counter, her defense is so low that she can't even be a solid wall against lances, let alone anything she fights at neutral. She would be a good blue mage counter if I had DC fodder, but those don't grow on trees.

-Jaffar: I pulled him way back on his debut banner, back when Takumi was king of the meta. Jaffar was rather middling even back then and has only gotten worse in this orko meta. Doing 16 post battle damage is pretty cool though.

-Oboro: Gosh, I loved this character in Birthright but she's rather lackluster in Heroes. Sure, I could spend 40k feathers to give her a better weapon or your choice of rare skills (DB3, LaD3, QR3) but it's a big price tag when other lance units come with better starting kits and stats.

-Eldigan: 'Waaat!? Eldigan isn't bad!' And you are correct. A 16 atk Killer weapon is nothing to sneeze at but poor Eldy has some serious competition in Horse Emblem. Sigurd and Xander make better tanks and Brave Roy is a better player phase sword horse. And that's to say nothing of the other ranged horses you probably want to run, such as Reinhardt, Brave Lyn and Cecilia.

For art:

-Lloyd: The biggest offender by far. Jokes about being a Morph aside, he is completely devoid of the charm his FE7 art displayed. He just looks so sickly and feral.

-Eliwood: The bug eyed king, set to marry his bug eyed queen (Athena). He was the lord who really got me into Fire Emblem but his art really didn't do him justice. It doesn't help that like Titania, "Res focused melee without DC" isn't the best of stat spreads.

[Rezzy]

For Utility:

Florina: Her stat spread is just unsalvageable.

Healers: This game just isn't kind to healers.  A Falchion wielder with Reciprocal Aid and Renewal does their job better.

Lucius: They made him a healer

 

For Art:

Wendy: Her body just looks unnaturally stretched and off putting.

[saisymbolic]

For Utility

Hinata: Obviously. Like, I'm trying to make him work but he's not the greatest. Then, there's the plethora of units that need Fury. No real reason to use him over any other defensive unit, either. It hurts me soul so much that he isn't better, but he performs about the same as in his source game: lackluster in comparison to other sword units.

Odin: Do I even need to elaborate?

Seliph: Has my favorite art in the game but sucks as a unit. He works well enough with Brash Assault + Defiant Def for me, but . . . I wish he was better. Then, his dad appears and practically makes him obsolete. I mean, Seliph might have been obsolete ages ago, to be honest. I wouldn't really know. Again, another case of being trash in comparison to other sword users.

For Art

Odin: Again, do I even need to elaborate?

Wendy: I'm seconding her. Honestly gonna sack her off because her art is weird.

Clair: Not a fan of her art. Or as a unit. She's getting sacked as fodder.

[eclipse]

Actual Gameplay:

- Niles had an interesting niche as a mage-killer, until Innes showed up with better everything.
- You thought Eldigan was bad?  I happen to be fond of Stahl.  Not even a Ruby Sword can save him at this point.
- I'm sure there's a use for Lachesis out there.  Her stats say otherwise.
- I guess Beruka can fly and tank or something.  She's not going to do much damage sans Bonfire/TA.  Maybe.

Art:

- WHAT THE HELL DID THEY DO TO TAILTU?  Her eyes freak me out, almost as much as. . .
- Rebecca.  Her battle portraits are decent, at least.
- Every time I look at Effie, my spine hurts.

[Armagon]

As a unit

• Odin: I hear he's one of the worst units in the game and that's a shame, because i really like Odin.
• Lachesis and Maria: I'm putting both of these in the same point because i have them as 5-Stars and also because they're healers. Most of the time, healers just suck tbh. Unless they have Wrathful Staff but i have yet to even pull a Genny and my F2P status makes it so that i'd have to pull 2 Gennys to even think about inheriting Wrathful Staff. I use Lachesis and Maria occasionally, but only when it comes to Tempest Trials and the like.
• Titania: I pulled a 5-Star recently but Titania's just really lackluster imo. Doesn't help that i'm not really a fan of the Triangle Adept weapons. As Skills, i don't mind them, but as weapons, there's just so many better options.
• Merric: I actually used him for a while but stopped because he kinda just fails to kill anything. Of my 3 5-Star Greens, Merric is the worst one. My Hawkeye hits hard at least, and Michalis is great. Merric just falls flat compared to those two.
• Masked Marth: Ever wanted a unit that just has weapons and absolutely nothing else? No? Too bad. And Masked Marth is completely rendered pointless now that i have Alm as my main Falchion user.

As artwork:

• Lloyd: Lloyd, i like you, but what have they done to your art? You look like a lizardman.
• And that's it really. Lloyd's art is legitimately the only one i don't like. Well, i don't like Charlotte's too but i never pulled her.

[Rafiel's Aria]

8 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Lucius: They made him a healer

AKA My entire list.

But for reals....

For utility:
(I still believe that you can make any unit useful with enough hardwork, but these guys are on my list because they require a lot of investment...or they just don't seem to be worth the effort unless you really, really love them.)
-Henry: I know he's super tanky and whatnot, but he's such a pain to train, and he really wants Close Counter ...but so do other units who might actually have an attack stat.
-Odin: Poor guy is in the same boat as Henry. I do plan to build him because I love him, but I wish it wasn't so difficult.
-Caeda: Another character I plan to build. It just sucks that she really, REALLY needs +ATK...(and probably a Wo Dao+...)
-Navarre: He's not so much unusable as he is outclassed... I'd say he's a good unit overall, but he's competing with so many red melee sword users that he doesn't have much of a niche, especially without stat variation. (But he does have super pretty art.)
-Berkut: I guess they were worried about making him OP, so they did the exact opposite.
-LuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLuciusLucius

 

For art:
(There isn't really art in Heroes that I HATE. I feel like some characters have "unfortunate" artwork, but it's not bad enough that I'd kick them to the curb. And I likely wouldn't NOT use a character just because they have questionable art. I guess this is moreso a list of art I wish were better.)
-Henry: I know he's kind of squirrelly in game, but his art just looks goofy to me. And like...he's goofy as a character, but he looks more like an awkward 12 year old than a darkly comical harbinger of puns
-Oscar: It's not bad...it just looks stiff to me. I really like him, so I wish it were better.
-Raven: I don't MIND this style. It just really sticks out in game, and I don't mention the others in this style simply because Raven's my fave. And I'd kill to have him with some pretty BL-style artwork that makes him look tough and brooding but also secretly caring.
-Lloyd: RIP - I feel like the entire fandom has come together to mourn this artwork
-Virion: Once again, not bad, but it could be better. He was my Awakening husbando, so naturally I want him to shine in his full glory.
-Eliwood: Bug eyes. Why?
-Florina: She has such good potential for pretty artwork. She's a cute character. She's shy. But once again, she looks like an awkward derpy 12 year old... For some reason, I feel like she's the MyLittlePonysona of the actual Florina. It doesn't help that she's not a fun unit to use...

[Arcanite]

11 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Every time I look at Effie, my spine hurts.

Psh suit yourself! 

I'll take my base 40 attack and run!

WHO TO CRUSH

 

Only unit I want to use but can't is Azuraxe because I don't have her yet

That Uror seems nice and gimmicky and I want to play with it

[Ice Dragon]

Gameplay:

Florina
Middling in every stat except Res is pretty damned terrible in this game. It's like she's supposed to be reflecting her stat spread when actually equipped with a Heavy Spear.

Lyn
I really don't want to sacrifice a Nephenee for the Wrath build. Can we please have another character that I don't actually care about provide Wrath?

Catria
I honestly have no idea how to build for her stat distribution. I have like a million of her, but I can't do anything about it because I have no idea what build she should actually be using.

Fir
Has the unfortunate low-Atk-and-high-Res syndrome.

Sharena
Cannot merge.

Art:

Corrin (F)
Her hair is flat.

Tiltyu
Something is seriously off with her proportions in her attacking art. Her lower body is too small relative to her head an upper body.

Cordelia
Everything about her face is off.

I honestly have no problems with Eliwood's, Athena's, Gwendolyn's, Lloyd's, and Rebecca's artworks.

Not yet in this game:

Micaiah
Mia
Ilyana
Heather
Vika
Dheginhansea
Xane

 

21 minutes ago, eclipse said:

- Niles had an interesting niche as a mage-killer, until Innes showed up with better everything.

Niles still has better bulk than Innes unless you can consistently get Nidhogg stacks, and the new seals (Distant Def, Deflect Magic) actually make his job of counter-killing mages a bit more viable. That said, counter-killing mages is still a questionably viable role for a unit that cannot have weapon triangle advantage.

 

23 minutes ago, eclipse said:

- You thought Eldigan was bad?  I happen to be fond of Stahl.  Not even a Ruby Sword can save him at this point.

A build with Ruby Sword+, Life and Death 3 (he can afford to give up some bulk due to Ruby Sword), and Swordbreaker (Swordbreaker for general use or Axebreaker for Arena Assault) makes him rather decent. He's still going to be outclassed by Eldigan and Xander for general use, but he fills a different niche.

[bethany81707]

Caeda, Florina, Clair, what have they done to you? How do you manage to make me not use pegasi all that much?

...At least Tana's still wrecking the game.

Also, I can't use Elincia that well on account of not having her. Wrecks house in the VGs.

[Ae†her]

- Odin/Owain - I would like to use Owain/Odin, but he has Reinahrdt syndrome except swap the Atk proficiency for a Spd proficiency, and give a little bit of a HP boost. I like his spontaneous attitude, and dramatic personality, but he's not viable. (I also am wondering why he has a 5/5 Attacker rating on Gamepress, but that's a different topic for Gamepress). 

- Cecilia - All she seems good for is her +Atk version, but she's only outstanding on Horse Emblem, and the problem is I'm already running Sigurd, Camus, Brave Lyn, and (Dark) Azura. I don't know if I should sacrifice the viability of a dancer for a Blade Tome user, especially when I'm running glass canon Nino, and she's already +2. So I would have to sacrifice my only other NIno after her promoting both her and Cecilia to 5*, and then I would have to focus on merging my Cecilias because I still am looking to be apart of that higher competitive tier in the game, for both PvE and PvP.

- Reinhardt - Still am waiting for a +Atk/-Spd version, but I've had so few opportunities to snipe blue orbs with the past banners, and even now there's Ayra and Deirdre I still need. Also I would again have to replace (Dark) Azura (viability of a dancer) for another blue unit. That would mean having to boot my only DC unit as well.

[Tsak]

Unit wise

- Seth: He's pretty garbage, one of my all time favorites in FE8. But he's largely unusable in this game, i use him for fortress defense fodder for goofy builds on other units that have a use
- Palla: I had made my +atk -res Palla a 5* and gave her Brave sword+. Then Elincia was released and she's basically a better version of that build for Palla in every respect. Feels bad man
- Sheena: She still has a spot on my armor emblem team, but she's basically a meh Amelia. But as soon as i pull Amelia she's getting benched, even with +3 merges (ugh the pity breaks for me trying to get hector were brutal)

Art Wise

- Lloyd: I'm sure he still gets tons of hate everywhere but it's for good reason. Easily one of my favorite Camus archetypes in FE and he's downright unusable because some goofball drew him like he did heroin for 6 years. (seriously i could of illustrated him better)
- Navarre: Continuing the trend, for whatever reason he looks like some sort of Calvin Klein model. Idk he doesn't carry the same sort of stoic swordsmen for hire in his art.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Tsak

[Thinks Their Own Way]

Unit-wise:

Henry- I like Henry but my god he's useless, nothing resembling an attack stat.

Caeda- That low attack stat again.

Insert Healer Here not named Genny- Self Explanatory.

Art-wise:

Lloyd looks like Dolph Lundgren's meth head twin.

Not a fan of Chrom's, Male Robin's, Ogma's, Jagen's, Luke's, and Eliwood's art

[Rezzy]

I find that pretty much every Cav unit is salvageable due to Cav buffs, even Seth and especially Titania, since they've got decent enough stat spreads and gem weapons let them fill a niche on a Horse team.

Flyers aren't as lucky, since Hone Fliers is so hard to come by, and if you do have a Hinoka, she's going to be the Lance on your team, unless you're willing to SI her.  And you have units like Florina and Caeda whose stats spreads are kinda bad even with Flier buffs.

[Korath88]

I can usually salvage low tier characters and make them viable (though good IVs are probably required), such as with Alm. I've also made Lyn (sword version) somewhat usable in the arena recently, though she still won't see much use. Can't say the same for Berkut unfortunately. QR doesn't work nearly as well because his defence isn't enough to justify having such low speed, and the Res rarely comes into play.

Also changed my mind and didn't promote Lloyd after seeing his artwork. 

[NekoKnight]

Can't believe I forgot Lyn. I know she has the rare ability to run both Desperation and Brash Assault, but with her high speed (especially mine which is +Spd -Def) she can double most enemies anyway. Regardless she doesn't do enough damage even if she doubles, requiring Wrath which i don't have fodder for.

RIP all units who had their stats poured into Spd in a game where you can't dodge tank, and have no Atk. (Fir, Lon'qu, Lyn, Caeda, among others)

[Alexmender]

Unit wise:

Lukas: He's pretty good and among the best non-armor tanks in the game but the meta is too mage biased to find him a spot on my teams.

Lancina: It boils down to me not being that good at using spur buffs for combat so she always seems inferior to others. It doesn't help that I kind of prefer Tana as my main lance for Guidance shenanigans.

Berkut: Such an awesome art wasted by those stats, I can make him a Brave Lance cavalier with his high attack but it just doesn't seem worth it.

Raven: He's almost an axe Lucina stat wise but his color doesn't favor any axe not named Ike/Hector so he's pretty hard to use properly.

Fir: While she has her high res sword niche just like Lloyd her low attack makes her inferior to him (and I'm not using him either).

 

Art wise:

Lloyd: Such an awesome character with a unique niche in FEH rotting in the bench thanks to that freaking drug addict art. What a shame.

Cordelia: She's one of my favorite units in Awakening and the one who always marries Robin, but her Heroes art is so lifeless that it makes it hard for me to want to use her. It doesn't help that my only copy of her has a shitty nature (-Spd why!).

Navarre/Clarisse/Subaki: I guess you'll easily see where I'm going here. While they have above average art I really hate the same face syndrome these 3 have and that turns me off from them. I'd include Sonya too but I don't have her.

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by Alexmender

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I don't discriminate based on bad art because I'm not a monster like you people. They are Naga's creation.

[DarkLordIvy]

As a Unit:
In general I am very much a believer that you can make any unit work. The only units I find salvageable are the ones that I don't like as characters. The only one I can think of that I'd like to use more but sort of can't is Caeda with her horrible attack stat, but she still gets used because I don't have any other red flyers.

Art: 
Mae- In general I'm not a huge fan of that art style, but her art takes it up to 11 with just how little if fits both her personality and voice.
Lachesis- Same reason as Mae for the most part although I mind the style of the art less, it still just does not fit that voice.
Xander- There is something about his art that just doesn't look right to me, his face just seems oddly squished in. I was overjoyed when I finally pulled Leo and could replace him on my cav team.
fRobin and Oboro- I don't like how awkwardly flat their faces seem, and in general all their facial features seem just a little bit too far down their faces. Cordelia would be here too, but Galeforce fodder doesn't need to look pretty for me.
Tharja- Too shiny and her hair looks like its trying to devour her face.
Tailtiu- Her eyes are like staring into the abyss
Catria- The boob and butt pose needs to die. It looks stupid.
fCorrin- The art is just so flat which is especially bad in comparison to her male counterparts who honestly looks fantastic.
Peri- I don't really know what it is but there is only one other character who has art I hate more than Peri's. 
Gwendolyn- Poor thing, I don't think it would be physically possible to move in those monstrosities masquerading as boots. Never mind the fact that her torso looks waaaay to small. Gwen wins my prize for least favorite of all art in this game.

3 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I don't discriminate based on bad art because I'm not a monster like you people. They are Naga's creation.

What can I say? I am a picky picky artist who likes to be critical not only of my garbage but of everyone else's garbage as well.

[Astellius]

This seems like a fun topic. Hm, let's see...

Gameplay

- Fir: She's really hard to work with, but I built mine up anyway. I gave her a Wo Dao+ and LnD to get her attack into a reasonable area, but, even with a lot of TLC, she's still one of my least useful swordies. And, unlike some others, e.g. Seth, Caeda, she can't partake of movement class buffs, so that limits her usefulness further. There's never a situation where Fir is the best character for the job, someone else can almost invariably do it better.

- Clair: I just can't figure out anything to do with her. I'd really like to use her, she was awesome for me in Echoes, but there's just no real role that she fits into well. While she's a flier so can use the flier buffs, she's last in line for a blue slot on any flier team of mine. I have Est, Hinoka, Summer Corrin, and Catria, so she's just superfluous in my roster.

- Felicia: She lacks any semblance of an attack stat. She's hanging out in Odin & Henry territory. Most of the dagger types got pretty screwed in this game. Now, Felicia can debuff pretty well, but I never really field someone for that reason, and she can tank mages, but that pitiful Atk stat means she rarely does much damage on the counter. She needs her special to do any damage, and I don't find that particularly useful.

Art

- Eliwood. Those terrible eyes....

- Rebecca. More totally busted eyes....

- Lloyd. Nuf said.

- Navarre. Why are you a woman.

- Nowi. Why are you a bunny.

- F!Corrin. Why are you flat.

- Wendy. Just everything went wrong all over the place there.

- Peri. Why must your feet point towards each other. The rest of the pose it awkward too, with your chest and butt thrust backwards, while the stomach forwards. The head seems weird too.

Voice Acting

- Peri. Loved your VA in Fates. But alas, they got another VA for Heroes. One which is waaaaay too squeaky.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Corrin (F)

Her hair is flat.

So is her face. And body. And everything else.

41 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I find that pretty much every Cav unit is salvageable due to Cav buffs, even Seth and especially Titania, since they've got decent enough stat spreads and gem weapons let them fill a niche on a Horse team.

Flyers aren't as lucky, since Hone Fliers is so hard to come by, and if you do have a Hinoka, she's going to be the Lance on your team, unless you're willing to SI her.  And you have units like Florina and Caeda whose stats spreads are kinda bad even with Flier buffs.

Yeah, I agree with this.

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, NekoKnight said:

Can't believe I forgot Lyn. I know she has the rare ability to run both Desperation and Brash Assault, but with her high speed (especially mine which is +Spd -Def) she can double most enemies anyway. Regardless she doesn't do enough damage even if she doubles, requiring Wrath which i don't have fodder for.

RIP all units who had their stats poured into Spd in a game where you can't dodge tank, and have no Atk. (Fir, Lon'qu, Lyn, Caeda, among others)

I was lucky enough to be blessed with a -Spd Lyn.  She runs into some serious doubling issues.  I am thankful for Brash Assault!

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

I don't discriminate based on bad art because I'm not a monster like you people. They are Naga's creation.

Naga makes mistakes.

[SniperGYS]

Eirika!!!! But she is -Atk so... she doesn't does enought damage, and I already have better sword users

Reinhard! I even made a +Atk+1 but... People price him so much that I started to hate him :/ , I feel so hard to use him just because of that... So much hard...

Any healer, I think I don't need  to explain this one, right?

Lloyd because of his art... poor guy

Eliwood since I already have Xander

Innes because I don't have him x(

 

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, DarkLordIvy said:

Xander- There is something about his art that just doesn't look right to me, his face just seems oddly squished in. I was overjoyed when I finally pulled Leo and could replace him on my cav team.

His face is     s  o     w  i  d  e.

I use him anyways since it's mostly fine in his attacking art. But he usually ends up just being a buff bot and Reposition bot for Eliwood.

 

1 hour ago, Astellius said:

So is her face. And body. And everything else.

Her chest isn't. But that's like the only thing that isn't. Or maybe it's just the armor.

[MonkeyCheez3K]

Ooooh, this could be fun to think about.

Utility:

Laslow: My avatar pic, duh. Glad Inigo ain't crap, but I can't waste resources on Laslow, just to have a mediocre unit. It pains me to bench him indefinitely (or SI him away for Axebreaker).

Soren: Why should I use him? I have a merged Nino and she does everything better than him... sigh (I like a lot of Tellius characters).

Alm: He has no real strong point; he is perfectly decent in every regard, but as we all know, you need to be astounding somewhere to be useful. Serviceable, but too unremarkable to be used (he doesn't make the cut for my serious AA runs).

 

Kinda unwilling to use due to Art:

Eliwood: blabla, eyes of some bug dimension, blabla - Athena a bit less awkward, but still similar.

Laslow: oh, you again. Something is off about those eyes, can't quite put my finger on it. Inigo is from the same artist, but the eyes there don't bug me at all. Not sure if it's the size or the position or both. Don't like Odin's eyes either. And weirdly enough, they look fine from the side. This is really weird.

Gwendolyn: Wtf are those body proportions? Is that even human? Rip off her armor and I'm sure I would get nightmares from looking at it.

Ogma: First off, I like Akihiro's style, but those arm muscles are wild and look partially like tumors. Also I'm talking mostly about his damaged art that has some bumps that just look weird. I've looked up some really buff dudes and it comes really close otherwise, but those weird jumps between forearm and upper arm weird me out; maybe I'm wrong and it's totally anatomically correct.

Cordelia: Her head, it's off on her idle pic. What is it exactly?

 

 

[Magical Glace]

Every day I cry upon remembering what they did to Odin.

;~;

On a related note I'd like to run an Owl build on Swimsuit Leo.  But because he's red, you need to hope for a 5* only drop to do so.  Because that's fair to red mages.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, MonkeyCheez3K said:

Gwendolyn: Wtf are those body proportions? Is that even human? Rip off her armor and I'm sure I would get nightmares from looking at it.

She comes from the world of Code Geass.

Once the proportions deviate enough from the model, I stop caring that the proportions make sense and pay attention to the general aesthetics of the style. No one complains that chibis have weird proportions, and I don't see why deviation in the reverse extreme should be any different.

 

1 hour ago, MonkeyCheez3K said:

Ogma: First off, I like Akihiro's style, but those arm muscles are wild and look partially like tumors. Also I'm talking mostly about his damaged art that has some bumps that just look weird. I've looked up some really buff dudes and it comes really close otherwise, but those weird jumps between forearm and upper arm weird me out; maybe I'm wrong and it's totally anatomically correct.

Those are the actual positions of those muscles, but chiseled to an exaggerated degree.