Most broken class in the series

[AlteanGeneral]

What do you guys think has consistently been the best class in the series?

[ciphertul]

"PC" or Player Character: Most often not shown, however usually massively broken.

In all honestly probably Wyvern, in all mainline games I haven't seen a single instance where they weren't great.

[Whisky]

A lot of classes have had their ups and downs across the series so a lot of them aren’t consistently good.

I think probably Wyvern and Cavalier/Paladín are consistently among the best classes in each game.
 

Utility classes are always nice to have like Thieves and Staff users. Oh yeah, and Dancers. I think Dancers are another strong candidate for being consistently the best.

[LJ_Reflet]

1 hour ago, ciphertul said:

In all honestly probably Wyvern, in all mainline games I haven't seen a single instance where they weren't great.

Wyvern classes are usually really strong, but I found them to be underwhelming in Awakening because of their low speed and unimpressive skills.

For the best class in the game, I find it hard to say because the mechanics in each game are vastly different from one another, like how Archers are one of the most broken classes in Echoes, but are less than ideal in Awakening. Even Lord classes and Player classes can range from broken to mediocre (like I found Enlightened One to be kinda ehh).

That being said, I do agree with the above that Cavalier classes are usually good to great in each game, like I can't really think of a game where they're necessarily considered "bad." Can't say they've ever been broken, but they've definitely never been a bad class.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Wyvern.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dancer, Wyvern, and Cavalier are all virtually never bad (though I wasn't a fan of Dancer in Awakening, that's more due to it being stapled to a Level 1 unit in a game with same-turn reinforcements than a criticism of the class) and sometimes incredibly good.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

The title and the first post ask two different questions.

I would answer the title with Master Knight. This class can use nearly any non-legendary weapon, staff, or tome. Plus, it has the most useful combat skill in the game (Pursuit). And it has mounted move, in a game where cavalry is king.

Of course, the first post mentions "consistently", and Master Knight only exists in one game. Therefore, I think I will go with the Wyvern family. They're routinely among the best units in their respective games (i.e. Miledy, Haar, Wyvern Edelgard), and there are nearly none I would consider "bad" (Eda? Gerome?).

[AnonymousSpeed]

For another point in Wyvern's favor, let's look at Conquest. If you can be a wyvern, generally speaking, it's your best option to be a wyvern.

Edited July 24, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Staffbot.

All games would dramatically change if they had a Lena. Except the ones who already have one.

[Shadow Mir]

Okay, exactly what are you asking, OP? Because the title is asking an entirely different question from your first post.

Anyways, in general, the games being so different makes this hard to answer, because the mechanics are so different. That said, I'd consider Cavalier/Paladin along the best.

3 hours ago, ciphertul said:

In all honestly probably Wyvern, in all mainline games I haven't seen a single instance where they weren't great.

Wyverns are usually a strong class, but I'd say they are rather unimpressive in Genealogy, Awakening and Blazing Blade.

[PostZordem]

I'd have to say that Great Knight/Paladin are one of the best classes in the series since they tend to spawn some pretty strong units (ex. Seth, Titania, Marcus, Frederick, Xander) that can work around the weapon triangle pretty easily since they usually have two different weapons upon their introduction. Plus, they have the mobility of cavaliers and some of the strength + defense of a general. Sure, they may not be getting as much exp as everyone else, but it doesn't really matter when they can tank attacks and murderalize the enemy within 1-2 hits most of the time. 

[Jotari]

Cavaliers get extra movement and an extra weapon type over other tier 1 classes in pretty much every game, sometimes Canto too. That is just blatantly unfair. The attempt to balance then seems to be general balanced stat spread meaning less specialisation, and to some extent that works, but it's not like all purpose balance is a downside as it makes them more versatile too.

Once they promote other classes tend to have enough goodies to close the gap, be it an extra weapon type or extra movement of their own, or maybe skills/crit bonus,  but Paladins are still a really good class for units to be in.

 

Obviously Master Knights are the most broken class. (Pretend that text has strike through)

Edited July 25, 2022 by Jotari

[DaveCozy]

On 7/24/2022 at 12:24 PM, LJ_Reflet said:

Wyvern classes are usually really strong, but I found them to be underwhelming in Awakening because of their low speed and unimpressive skills.

That's one of the games where Wyverns were a tad underwhelming indeed, they really restricted their speed stat. Also they can't dismount and that games very open maps are filled with enemies wielding bows. Still it's not a bad class either if your goal is to clear the campaign, flight and 8 move is still good to have as long as you get the right skills with them. For DLC chapters though, you're better off as either Hero or Berserker if male.

I would also say Wyverns have the most consistent and best record in the series myself. Cavaliers/Paladins, Dancers/Refreshers, and Pegasus/Falcon Knights also up there.

Maybe even Priests and Clerics too, though not as good. But most games have strong utility staves or white spells, in particular Warp and Rescue, that make having a staff user valuable even if you don't like using healing staves/spells.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, DaveCozy said:

I would also say Wyverns have the most consistent and best record in the series myself.

I find it hard to agree considering the three games I mentioned have them being rather unimpressive. Compare to Cavaliers and Paladins, of which I can only think of two games where they were underwhelming (3H and Radiant Dawn, both of which took away one of their strengths).

Edited July 26, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I find it hard to agree considering the three games I mentioned have them being rather unimpressive. Compare to Cavaliers and Paladins, of which I can only think of two games where they were underwhelming (3H and Radiant Dawn, both of which took away one of their strengths).

Enemy Wyvern Riders, though, are pretty much perenially more threatening than enemy Cavaliers. Their ability to totally ignore terrain makes them much harder to blockade against. Plus, they tend to bring higher physical bulk against everything but Bows.

As for the games you mentioned, it's not as though Cavaliers are particularly good in Awakening. High-level play of that game is just "Nosfertank or bust". In FE7, Heath is legit good, while Vaida's main problem is her late jointime. Admittedly, though, that is a game of great Cavs. Finally, Genealogy only has Altenna, who... yeah, sure, she's worse than Gen II's Paladins, Ares and Nanna. Although, she's probably better than Jeanne, and almost certainly better than Hermina, if you're going on a subs run.

One more thing - there are a lot of playable Cavaliers who just aren't very good units. I'm talking Matthis, Clive, Carrion, and Treck, to name a few. If we include Lance and Sword Knights into the fold, then the likes of Kain, Alva, Fiona, and RD!Makalov rear their ugly heads, too. Contrast this with Wyverns - while you don't get as many of them, they're almost never bad, or even middling units.

[ping]

The Wyvern classes have never really been contained, really, as far as I'm familiar with the series. It's always good for a character to be a wyvern. If a wyvern rider is in the mid or even low tiers (well, I can't think of one that's actually bad. One of the T776 ones, maybe?), it's not because of the class, it's because of their joining time and maybe because they're underleveled. It's almost telling that Radiant Dawn took measures to stymie cavalry, while wyvern riders still reign supreme.

"Staffbot" would seem like a good answer, but they're actually not that great in either Tellius game. Rhys, Mist, and Laura are all varying degrees of OK, but never really game-defining. "Dancer" is the more consistent utility class, I'd say.

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 7/24/2022 at 11:46 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Wyverns are usually a strong class, but I'd say they are rather unimpressive in Genealogy, Awakening and Blazing Blade.

If Blazing Blade gets the unimpressive treatment for Wyverns (where they are good, but tend to get a bit overshadowed), I am going to have to point out that Paladin classes are unimpressive in Shadow Dragon, and New Mystery, add that to Radiant Dawn, and Three Houses, where ponies are kinda bad, and I think Wyverns beat them out. In Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, the only reason to have someone in the Paladin class line, is because they can't be class-changed to a Wyvern (usually because you have too many units class changed to Wyvern already), as the Wyvern class so thoroughly eclipses Paladin class.

 

1 hour ago, ping said:

well, I can't think of one that's actually bad. One of the T776 ones, maybe?

The one people might think of for that is Eda, and she probably is considered low tier, mainly because she is recruited at the same time as her brother Dean. Sure you can train Eda to become a good unit (I did on my Thracia ironman...), but you have the high-tier Dean is right there, who can do everything a trained Eda can (probably better if you can get his personal weapon, which is admittedly difficult to get), but immediately.

 

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Enemy Wyvern Riders, though, are pretty much perenially more threatening than enemy Cavaliers. Their ability to totally ignore terrain makes them much harder to blockade against. Plus, they tend to bring higher physical bulk against everything but Bows.

As for the games you mentioned, it's not as though Cavaliers are particularly good in Awakening. High-level play of that game is just "Nosfertank or bust". In FE7, Heath is legit good, while Vaida's main problem is her late jointime. Admittedly, though, that is a game of great Cavs. Finally, Genealogy only has Altenna, who... yeah, sure, she's worse than Gen II's Paladins, Ares and Nanna. Although, she's probably better than Jeanne, and almost certainly better than Hermina, if you're going on a subs run.

One more thing - there are a lot of playable Cavaliers who just aren't very good units. I'm talking Matthis, Clive, Carrion, and Treck, to name a few. If we include Lance and Sword Knights into the fold, then the likes of Kain, Alva, Fiona, and RD!Makalov rear their ugly heads, too. Contrast this with Wyverns - while you don't get as many of them, they're almost never bad, or even middling units.

I dunno about you, but I don't think most of us would consider the quality of enemy units when it comes to what's the most broken class in the series, because that, too, depends on the game. In Genealogy, cavalry squads are one of the most fearsome things you can see in the game because they get to move again after attacking; this does apply to other classes as well, but... I'd also consider Genealogy the worst game for fliers (relatively speaking) because they do not benefit from the movement boosting road tiles. RE: wyverns in general, I'd say Heath is a hard sell because he comes underleveled (being underleveled alone isn't a dealbreaker, but it makes it harder to justify fielding them over someone else). Zeiss in Binding Blade has it even worse because he comes both late and underleveled, which would pretty much kill any chance he has of being useful without favoring him to an obscene degree, especially when both ends of the route split are bad for him. I'd go so far as to call both bad outright. I do agree that there are bad cavs, but I also think that wyvern rider is not so amazing a class as to be a get out of jail free card. Case in point: the aforementioned Zeiss and Heath. The former in particular would have to bring a hell of a lot to the table for me to even begin to think of overlooking the fact that he comes late and underleveled... and he doesn't.

[AnonymousSpeed]

37 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno about you, but I don't think most of us would consider the quality of enemy units when it comes to what's the most broken class in the series, because that, too, depends on the game.

I don't know. Wyvern Rider could have better base stats than any other class in every category, but could still be weak in the player's hands if you could only recruit one unit, near the end of the game, with extreme negative personal base stats. Whether Heath and Zeiss are good in isolation isn't really the point, because units are comprised of many other factors than their class. Would they be any better as cavaliers? They'd almost certainly be worse.

Edited July 27, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[whase]

While I would agree on the wyverns are better than horses point, I'm spotting a lack of availability as a talking point. A lot of games have cavaliers joining in chapter 1, while wyverns join fairly late. While I would say Milady is certainly better than Lance, Lance would've seen a lot more us by the time Milady joins. It feels a bit like comparing apples and oranges to me.

I'd also like to throw mage/sage up, they usually have a high damage output without sacrificing too much hit chance, and they often get staff utility. (Throwing a pear into an apples and oranges discussion, guess I just prefer pears.)

Dancer seems to be the most unambiguous answer here though. Giving another turn to whatever that game's most broken class is, is good in every game.

[Jotari]

23 minutes ago, whase said:

While I would agree on the wyverns are better than horses point, I'm spotting a lack of availability as a talking point. A lot of games have cavaliers joining in chapter 1, while wyverns join fairly late. While I would say Milady is certainly better than Lance, Lance would've seen a lot more us by the time Milady joins. It feels a bit like comparing apples and oranges to me.

I'd also like to throw mage/sage up, they usually have a high damage output without sacrificing too much hit chance, and they often get staff utility. (Throwing a pear into an apples and oranges discussion, guess I just prefer pears.)

Dancer seems to be the most unambiguous answer here though. Giving another turn to whatever that game's most broken class is, is good in every game.

To add to the availability point...manaketes. you usually get one a game, but they're absolute beast of units designed to be better than everyone else (or they're Bantu, but even he's godly in NES Shadow Dragon). But you get them late and you usually only get one. So their availability is a balancing factor (as is weapon usage, usually).

[Whisky]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

To add to the availability point...manaketes. you usually get one a game, but they're absolute beast of units designed to be better than everyone else (or they're Bantu, but even he's godly in NES Shadow Dragon). But you get them late and you usually only get one. So their availability is a balancing factor (as is weapon usage, usually).

They’re not that great in a lot of games. I’m most familiar with the GBA games. Fa and Myrrh and both decent units but not great. They have their strengths but they also have their weaknesses. I think both units are generally considered roughly around mid tier on tier lists.

Fa hits pretty hard and is accurate but isn’t very fast or bulky so you have to be careful with her. She has high Res so she’s a good status staff baiter and she deals effective damage against enemy Manaketes, but there are other units that can deal with both of those problems. She has her uses but isn’t one of your best units.

Myrrh is pretty tanky for the most part but is weak to arrows because she flies. Flying is nice but she doesn’t have the utility of other fliers (sky taxis) and she has low Mov. She’s pretty strong especially against monsters but you have other strong units that can do most of what she can do. Again she has her uses but I don’t think she’s your best unit (in some ways probably but also has weaknesses).

17 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd go so far as to call both bad outright.

Mediocre maybe, but outright bad? That seems extreme. Stats don’t directly correlate from level in FE games so even if a unit is under leveled that doesn’t mean they aren’t strong.

Zeiss for example starts with nearly capped Str and high Def, and Heath has pretty decent stats too. They can level up quickly since they’re low level and can promote shortly after joining. Zeiss has some issues with Skl and Spd, but I definitely don’t think he’s bad. Just not as good as your better units. He’s still a lot stronger than a lot of weaker units in that game and he still has flying utility. I was quite impressed with him in one of my Ironman runs where I got my best units killed, he ended up as one my best units, and it didn’t require a particularly high amount of investment for him to get there.

Heath in particular I think most people consider pretty good. He joins roughly half way through the game which is still plenty of time to train him and make use of him. If you skip Lyn mode then Florina starts low level is arguably not worth training so Heath becomes a good candidate for an Elysian Whip.

I think Heath is generally considered pretty good and Zeiss somewhere around mid.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Whisky said:

They’re not that great in a lot of games. I’m most familiar with the GBA games. Fa and Myrrh and both decent units but not great. They have their strengths but they also have their weaknesses. I think both units are generally considered roughly around mid tier on tier lists.

Fa hits pretty hard and is accurate but isn’t very fast or bulky so you have to be careful with her. She has high Res so she’s a good status staff baiter and she deals effective damage against enemy Manaketes, but there are other units that can deal with both of those problems. She has her uses but isn’t one of your best units.

Myrrh is pretty tanky for the most part but is weak to arrows because she flies. Flying is nice but she doesn’t have the utility of other fliers (sky taxis) and she has low Mov. She’s pretty strong especially against monsters but you have other strong units that can do most of what she can do. Again she has her uses but I don’t think she’s your best unit (in some ways probably but also has weaknesses).

Mediocre maybe, but outright bad? That seems extreme. Stats don’t directly correlate from level in FE games so even if a unit is under leveled that doesn’t mean they aren’t strong.

Zeiss for example starts with nearly capped Str and high Def, and Heath has pretty decent stats too. They can level up quickly since they’re low level and can promote shortly after joining. Zeiss has some issues with Skl and Spd, but I definitely don’t think he’s bad. Just not as good as your better units. He’s still a lot stronger than a lot of weaker units in that game and he still has flying utility. I was quite impressed with him in one of my Ironman runs where I got my best units killed, he ended up as one my best units, and it didn’t require a particularly high amount of investment for him to get there.

Heath in particular I think most people consider pretty good. He joins roughly half way through the game which is still plenty of time to train him and make use of him. If you skip Lyn mode then Florina starts low level is arguably not worth training so Heath becomes a good candidate for an Elysian Whip.

I think Heath is generally considered pretty good and Zeiss somewhere around mid.

Tier lists rank units in terms of availability and effort to train. While sometimes manakete have low bases that require them to be coddled for a few levels (or I should say a few rounds of combat, since they level insanely fast), stat for stat they will be more powerful than virtually anything else you can get in the game. If weapon durability wasn't a thing, I'd rather have Myrrh join in the prologue than Seth.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Tier lists rank units in terms of availability and effort to train. While sometimes manakete have low bases that require them to be coddled for a few levels (or I should say a few rounds of combat, since they level insanely fast), stat for stat they will be more powerful than virtually anything else you can get in the game. If weapon durability wasn't a thing, I'd rather have Myrrh join in the prologue than Seth.

Replacing Seth with a unit who has 2 less movement, functionally no Rescue utility, literally no 2-range offense, and a Bow/Ballista weakness is... certainly a choice. The only decisive advantages an "Infinity Stone" Myrrh would have over Seth are flying utility and anti-monster effectiveness. And the latter barely counts, since it's not as though Seth struggles against any earlygame monsters. Perhaps there are isolated chapters where she'd do better than Seth, but I'm not seeing it in a writ large fashion.

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Replacing Seth with a unit who has 2 less movement, functionally no Rescue utility, literally no 2-range offense, and a Bow/Ballista weakness is... certainly a choice. The only decisive advantages an "Infinity Stone" Myrrh would have over Seth are flying utility and anti-monster effectiveness. And the latter barely counts, since it's not as though Seth struggles against any earlygame monsters. Perhaps there are isolated chapters where she'd do better than Seth, but I'm not seeing it in a writ large fashion.

Despite his massive utility, Seth does fall off eventually. Myrrh won't. She could storm maps with impunity with only the occasional bow to put in any thought.

If we talk about this much more I'm going to have to make a hack for it....though I think for the purpose of class discussion it would need to be Paladin Seth vs Manakete Seth.