History GameBreaker / FireEmblem

* In the postgame, you can farm statboosting items from the Lagdou Ruins, which makes capping out your characters hilariously easy. One particularly nasty exploit involves resetting the game to obtain infinite copies of the Swift Soles, which increase Movement. There is a ''very'' good reason most games give you only one copy of the Movement-increasing item; having units capable of zipping around the map twenty squares at a time turns theoretically tough maps into an utter joke.

** Wendell is an example in and of himself. Recruited at chapter 5, Wendell comes with insane base stats, including a ridiculously high base speed of 14, and access to every single non-exclusive tome and staff in the game. Defensively, he starts with fairly high HP and Defense stats, which is enough for him to take on a lot of punishment during the enemy phase all the way into the late game. Offensively, due to the mechanics of ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'', Wendell is capable of at worst 2-rounding every single standard enemy in the game, including a notable performance of being able to go toe to toe with Gharnef at base stats. For a Mage to be as good as Wendell, they basically need to promote, something that is only achieved very late into the game due to the availability of the item, and the promotion mechanic of the game. While there are better Bishops later on in the game (such as Boah, who is essentially Wendell, but with slightly better bases and worse growths and availability, and Gotoh), the combination of his early join time, combat, and utility of Wendell ended up defining the ridiculous standard of prepromote in the entire series, which ended up with him getting nerfed in every single one of his future appearances, with lower base speed, higher enemy stats, changes in the weapon rank mechanic, and the revamp towards promotion mechanic all being done just to make him less of a dominant unit. He's still really good in most of them.

** Caeda is the sole user of the Wing Spear, a multipurpose effective weapon. Her low str is circumvented by forging extra MT onto the Wing Spear [[note]]Because effective damage triples weapon MT, each point of MT forged onto an effective weapon such as a Ridersbane, Hammer, or the [[FanNickname Win Spear]] adds 3 damage when used on a vulnerable enemy[[/note]] and her high spd lets her reliably double attack boss enemies for [=ORKOs=]. Her default class, when promoted, is one of the few classes in the game that possesses flying and is also tied for the highest movement in the game.
** Lena is the earliest user of Warp and the only user of Hammerne (a staff which restores weapon durability), thereby facilitating the Warp skip strategies. In ''Shadow Dragon'', Warp has no range restrictions and a very favorable seven uses, and it is possible to warp Caeda to the boss, [=ORKO=] it, then warp Marth there and have him seize, clearing the map in a single turn. On top of this, it can be done very early, since Lena ''joins'' with the Warp Staff in her inventory.

* The Anew Staff/Again Staff in ''Mystery of the Emblem'' is probably the most powerful item in the entire franchise. What does it do? It lets the user give a dancer-style refresh to ''every unit on the map that already moved.'' It may have only three shots without repairing it, but it scarcely matters when you're effectively getting an entire second turn. Later games nerf heavily it by only letting it refresh one unit, but even then, being able to turn any decent-rank magic-user into a dancer is nothing to sneeze at.

* Etzel is surprisingly very tanky for a Sorcerer, and much like Wendell, he's a prepromote, which means he has access to great base stats as well, and in fact, most of his stats with the exception of speed, which doesn't matter anyway as his growths are surprisingly great compared to Wendell. While he was held back by his awkward class set, ''New Mystery'' allowed him to further increase his magical prowness as a Sage, essentially allowing him to hit harder, or to reclass to Bishop to make use of his staff rank. While he doesn't exactly replace Wendell due to Merric and Linde requiring some time to train, he can be used alongside him very well.

** Sigurd's bases are such that the vast majority of enemies in the first few chapters barely even threaten him. Quan is the only unit early on that even approaches Sigurd's bases, and he has a much more troublesome start due to being stuck with lances. One might expect Sigurd to have poor growths, but as he has Major Holy Blood, his growths are excellent, with his only somewhat low points being 30% Speed (which is barely a problem, because Sigurd uses the lightest weapon type and starts with high Speed anyway) and 5% Resistance (when most melee units have crap Resistance and Sigurd is so tanky that mages still don't kill him easily).
** Sigurd has two leadership stars, buffing everyone around him. With his innate Pursuit skill, he not only performs double attacks without needing to work for it, unlike most other units, but doubles if he leads in Speed ''at all'' (which makes his shaky Speed growth even less of a problem). Over the course of normal play, he receives a Silver Sword at the end of the prologue, which hits phenomenally hard and can carry him for the rest of the first generation, until he gets Tyrfing near the end, a SwordOfPlotAdvancement that boosts his stats by ''ridiculous'' amounts (+10 Speed and Skill, +'''20''' Resistance), meaning he now doubles everything in existence and even the remaining mage bosses struggle to damage him.

* Vanessa lies somewhat below Seth on the tier list, but she stands out for being the game's best flier for a long time, in a game where pretty much anything that can't be trivialized by Seth relies on terrain. Like a lot of Pegasus knights, she starts out as a FragileSpeedster that doubles a lot, but when promoted into a Wyvern Knight, she gains an added 3 Constitution (greatly increasing the power of the weapons she can wield and still double) along with the Pierce skill, which gives her a decent chance to ignore defense entirely. Put simply, if Vanessa gets in a hit with Pierce, the enemy is going to die, even if they're a boss. And all this is on top of her superb mobility and versatility as a rescuer.

*** On that note, this trope applies to Ced even further, whose stats get boosted so high they've been known to ''literally break the game'' and loop around back to the lowest scores on his character screen. Thankfully, this is only a visual glitch, and his stats work properly in gameplay proper. The downside to ''him'' is that he comes about two chapters later than Arthur, so it's the player's choice of as to whether they want a DiscOneNuke GameBreaker or an InfinityMinusOneSword GameBreaker.

* The Miracle skill in ''Genealogy'' is notoriously busted. It provides 10% extra evasion for every point of HP the unit has below 11--so 10 HP gives you 10%, 9 HP gives 20%, and so on. Set things up properly, and you can have ''every'' enemy hitting a 0% hit rate. Characters with the skill are admittedly rare (Finn, Sylvia, their kids, and wielders of Tyrfing), but whenever it comes into play, it can allow characters to practically solo armies. Miracle was nerfed into the ground in every game thereafter.
* The critical weapon formula, while preventing crits initially, can potentially give any weapon a 50% crit rate if the user throws enough work into it. Weapons like the Brave Sword, Light Brand, Elwind, or even legendary weapons can quickly become ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOoK_N0-CRI hilariously]]'' overpowered, especially since you can pass these weapons around as long as you have the gold.

* Having trouble with a boss? Here comes Asbel. Asbel's stats may not look like much initially, and he has a somewhat clumsy start, but once he's gained any amount of XP, he takes off like a rocket. His gigantic 75% Speed growth, coupled with showing up right when you pick up the Speed-boosting Ced Scroll, means that Asbel will start doubling almost instantly, even with unfavorable tome weights to deal with. More importantly, he also has an FCM of 3, a support with Leif, and the Grafcalibur, a personal tome with a naturally high crit rate, meaning if he doubles anything, it's probably going to die. Bosses on thrones gain boosts to Defense, but not Magic, which lets Asbel rip through them easily. And when he promotes to a Sage, he gains a huge statboost and the ability to use D-rank staves, letting him access some of ''Thracia'''s broken staff catalogue. Asbel's only significant weakness is being somewhat fragile, which means he may need a Life Ring or some time with the Hezul Scroll to ensure his survival, but other than that, he's a top candidate for the series's best mage.

** While most of the mid-to-late-game prepromotes are fairly strong, with Harken, Isadora, Hawkeye, Geitz, and Louise all performing well throughout their availability, Pent still stands out. His bases are positively ''bonkers'', with 18 Magic and 17 Speed meaning he already doubles nearly all enemy types and likely one-rounds as well. The mixture of A-rank tomes, an automatic support with Louise, and high Skill gives him near-Swordmaster-like crit rates. But most importantly, he starts with A-rank staves and enough Magic to put them to good use. Whether he's in combat or a SupportPartyMember, Pent excels almost as much as Marcus, if his somewhat later join time can be forgiven. His growths are poor, but when the game's MagikarpPower character only catches up to him upon promoting, that's a very forgivable sin.

* Summoners have only {{Summon|Magic}} as their skill, which allows them to summon phantoms in a available adjacent tile. While this makes them a one-trick pony compared to Druids, who wield both Dark and Anima tomes alongside staves, while Summoners wield only Dark tomes and staves, they perform ''great'' at it. Because of how the Summon skills work, they are incredibly versatile in whatever role they are at, such as having their phantoms acting as cannon fodder when the Summoner is at a low level, but later on, as their Summoner's level increases, the phantoms get access to more potent weaponry and better stats, allowing them to perform suicide attacks. Even better; Since the phantoms are considered ghosts, the phantoms have the ability to move across terrain without any penalties, and since phantoms are a OneHitPointWonder, the enemy AI will target them rather than the unit they would normally try to kill (i.e., your GlassCannon or SquishyWizard). The only disadvantages they have is they cannot allow trading with other units to prevent farmable axes, which has the unintentional result of having them get an item they got from an enemy with no way of getting them back, and being unable to rescue units unless if someone else is carrying another unit, which are (usually) minor disadvantages anyway. There's a good reason why you only have 2 potential summoners in the game (discounting Lyon), such as Knoll (whose poor statline means that he's usually at the backline summoning phantoms anyway and comes at a promotion-ready level as well) and Ewan (who usually requires a lot of LevelGrinding and the permanent loss of his Anima rank he built up as a Pupil).

** [[AnAxeToGrind Edelgard]] has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide LightningBruiser and she is one of two characters (the second is Lysithea mentioned below) who can learn the dark magic spell [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]] so her magic attacks have very high damage potential if you go down that route. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce ''[[UpToEleven on command]]''. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including [[spoiler:[[https://i.redd.it/drbp2mv4w4f31.png her route's final boss in one turn]]]]. You probably don't want to bother with her unique class, though, which is weirdly disappointing (Emperor isn't all bad as Flickering Flower is incredibly useful in Maddening difficulty as it is a melee Encloser art but it is also exclusive to Emperor and your movement range is very limited because it is a [[TierInducedScrappy Heavy Armor class]]). Now a ''Wyvern Lord'' Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.)

** [[AnAxeToGrind Edelgard]] has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide LightningBruiser and she is one of two characters (the second is Lysithea mentioned below) who can learn the dark magic spell [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]] so her magic attacks have very high damage potential if you go down that route. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce ''[[UpToEleven on command]]''. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including [[spoiler:[[https://i.redd.it/drbp2mv4w4f31.png her route's final boss in one turn]]]]. (You probably don't want to bother with her unique class, though, which is weirdly disappointing (Emperor class does have some perks, Flickering Flower is incredibly useful in Maddening difficulty as it is a melee Encloser art but it is also exclusive to Emperor and your movement range is very limited). Now a ''Wyvern Lord'' Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.)

** [[AnAxeToGrind Edelgard]] has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide LightningBruiser and she is one of two characters (the second is Lysithea mentioned below) who can learn the dark magic spell [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]] so her magic attacks have very high damage potential if you go down that route. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce ''[[UpToEleven on command]]''. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including [[spoiler:[[https://i.redd.it/drbp2mv4w4f31.png her route's final boss in one turn]]]]. (You probably don't want to bother with her unique class, though, which is weirdly disappointing. Now a ''Wyvern Lord'' Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.)

** [[AnAxeToGrind Edelgard]] has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide LightningBruiser and she is one of two characters (the second is Lysithea mentioned below) who can learn [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]] so her attacks have very high damage potential. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce ''[[UpToEleven on command]]''. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including [[spoiler:[[https://i.redd.it/drbp2mv4w4f31.png her route's final boss in one turn]]]]. (You probably don't want to bother with her unique class, though, which is weirdly disappointing. Now a ''Wyvern Lord'' Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.)

** Seteth has [[LightningBruiser great stats and growths]], but what truly earns him his spot in this category is the combination of him starting out as a Wyvern Rider, and is quite easy to make him a Wyvern Lord, learning Swift Strike at A rank with spears ''and'' being one of the two characters (the other being Flayn) that has access to ''two'' Relics, which means that he will be recovering ''21 HP per turn''.

** Swift Strikes is probably the best lance combat art, changing your Silver Lances / Killer Lances / Horseslayers / etc. into better Brave Lances that don't require rare ore to maintain. Sylvain, Ferdinand, and Seteth all learn this one, and all three have boons in axes that allow them to grab Death Blow for even more insane damage.

** [[AnAxeToGrind Edelgard]] has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide LightningBruiser. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce ''on command''. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including [[spoiler:[[https://i.redd.it/drbp2mv4w4f31.png her route's final boss in one turn]]]]. (You probably don't want to bother with her unique class, though, which is weirdly disappointing. Now a ''Wyvern Lord'' Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.)

* Artur, like Vanessa, has a lot of his power locked behind his promotion; before that point, he's still fairly effective as a magic attacker, but not superb. What pulls him up to here, though, is that upon becoming a Bishop (which he does so well before any of the other candidates), he gains the Slayer skill, meaning all his attacks now deal effective damage against monsters. As in, the monsters that make up about 90% of the game's later enemy roster. Bishop Artur will one-round, if not one-''shot'' any monster enemy he comes across, and with his Light magic, he gains weapon triangle against the dark magic-wielding monsters. And on top of all of the above, Bishop also grants him C-rank Staves, meaning he can use staves like Recover and Hammerne without any training, and he can spam Barrier to gain staff rank even faster. His ability to trivialize large chunks of the game makes him one of the most popular picks for both casual play and speedruns.

** Flyers are so OP that hardcore fans have taken to calling the game [[FanNickname "Wyvern(/Flyer) Emblem"]]. Flying units have the same Mov as mounted units, but have the benefit of ignoring terrain. The lack of weapon restrictions means that, once certified, any unit can use any non-gauntlet weapon, allowing for insane hit-and-run abilities with bows. The ability to dismount is just icing on the cake, allowing enemy archers to be baited safely without the Aurora Shield. As an added bonus, upgrading a unit's flying ability gives them Alert Stance (and later Alert Stance+), which in exchange for simply waiting on player phase, turns all but the slowest units into dodge tanks. The Wyvern Lord class in particular has the second highest Str class mod, highest Str growth, second highest Spd class mod and growth (and huge base of 20), second highest Def (losing only to [[MightyGlacier Great Knight]]), a random evade boost, and huge Mov. It's essentially the LightningBruiser class, considered to be the best Master class in the game by a wide margin, and the second-best class in the game after Claude's exclusive Barbarossa. Pegasus Knight / Falcon Knight are perfectly fine too for female characters who prefer lances and want somewhat better Resistance, if not quite at Wyvern Lord level.

* Ballisticians were pretty useless in the original NES game (pretty much a Bow Armor but worse). This meant the DS remake of ''Shadow Dragon'' saw little problem with reworking them to be more fitting with the later conception of ballistae--upping their range from the bow-sized 2 to an artillery-sized 3-10. It worked, and then some. Due to the mechanics of the ballista, they can reach out and snipe enemies from frightfully long distances. Some ballista types also include effective weapon varieties (which, as mentioned, is key in ''Shadow Dragon'', and one of them happens to counter ''other ballistas'') and come in both physical and magic varieties, so even on very high difficulties, they can manage some hefty damage--and since the users have little reason to move, they can simply park next to each other and pass their weapons back and forth before shooting, changing things up for the optimal strategy at will. They can be used to focus fire and delete an enemy off the map, soften up targets for your other units, or simply nuke them one by one with effective damage, all while never risking a counter. It's very common in high-level play to see Jake, Beck, and Xane sitting on the backlines, playing hot-potato with their forged weapons and clearing the way for their melee fellows. While the removal of the class in ''New Mystery'' probably had something to do with the original users also changing class in ''Mystery'', its sheer power probably didn't hurt the argument.
** Speaking of Xane, his ability to transform into another unit is game-breaking of itself. Aside from potentially transforming into a Ballistican user along with their stats, he can also transform into the aforementioned game-breakers, and can even wield their prf weapons while transformed as them. This can lead to shenanigans such as 3 Ballisticans blasting the enemy army from a long distance or even 2 Caedas blasting through armors and calvary. The drawbacks is that he can't seize thrones even when transformed as a Lord or unable to give an ExtraTurn to other units as a Dancer (Mystery only), but even with that, his ability alone places him very high in many tier lists. There's a reason why the Freelancer class is exclusive to the Archanea games.

* Forging in general becomes this once you realize that you can forge effective weapons. While the Wing Spear is the most infamous one, pretty much any SituationalSword turns into a one-hit-kill machine once forged... especially when you realize that ''Shadow Dragon'''s enemy variety is awful and a Ridersbane can usually kill about 70% of the units on a map. Plenty of lance-wielding characters have their viability mostly determined by how quickly they can pick up that all-important C-rank.

** [[DragonRider Claude]] combines ranged archery backed by solid strength with unmatched mobility. Claude is the maser of cheesy hit-and-run tactics with his unique, flying classes Wyvern Master and Barbarossa which pack Bowfaire, Canto, and high Movement. Fallen Star, unique to his bow, gives him a turn of perfect evasion on his next combat, if it hits, making it safe for him to still be in enemy range.

** Most importantly, Sigurd snowballs ''insanely'' easily. Due to ''Genealogy'''s mechanics, units hold onto items unless you specifically sell them at the pawn shop and buy them back or have them trade with their lover. Because Sigurd is so fast and strong, he will likely be the first person to reach villages and castles, kill the enemies there, and rescue or capture them to reap the rewards. This means that on top of all of the above good points, he's also accumulating whatever rings or weapons the bosses were carrying, which can patch his few weaknesses or make his strengths even more ridiculous, along with tons of gold to buy things he might want from your other characters. Oh, and weapons in ''Genealogy'' gain a unique 'Critical' skill if you kill at least 50 enemies with it, which has a very abusable formula, letting already strong weapons like the Silver Sword, Light Brand, or Brave Sword crit with every other attack. And with the Inheritance system in mind, you're even encouraged to let Sigurd snowball so Seliph can start out with tons of strong rings and swords. At that point, soloing the game with Sigurd goes from a SelfImposedChallenge to something you do by accident.

* Skills and Combat Arts:

** War Master is agreed to be one of the best foot-locked classes in the game, not because of Axefaire or Fistfaire, but because of its innate Crit+20 skill, which turns anyone into critical-hitting monsters. The War Master class also has growths on par with ''Wyvern Lords'', which means that you can expect some characters' Speed and Strength stat to be boosted up a lot. The cherry on the top, however, is that the War Master's mastered skill is Quick Riposte, which essentially allows a unit to perform follow-up attacks regardless of their attack speed, and never allows them to get doubled unless if it's by Brave weapons or Gauntlets, which essentially eliminates the weaknesses of both [[MightyGlacier Raphael and Dedue]]. The only downside to that skill is that it will most likely be obtained late, but given a Knowledge Gem, it will be worth it as an InfinityPlusOneSword.

* Skills & Combat Arts:

** Yuri keeps up the game's tradition of overpowered house leaders with flying colours - while he might not have the absurd combat potential of Edelgard, Claude or Dimitri, he makes up for it with sheer utility. He has the highest Speed growth in the game, which easily compensates for his relatively low Strength and defences by making him a ridiculous dodge tank, and he even has a solid spell list to boot. Given that his personal ability Honorable Spirit boosts his attack when fighting without any allies nearby, he can go off on his own and handle himself just fine. In his default Trickster class, he gets access to Foul Play, a combat art which allows him to swap positions with any ally within five spaces, making him invaluable for getting units to safety or pulling off tricky manoeuvres. Then there's his Hero's Relic, the Fetters of Dromi, which grants him +1 movement, Canto, Pavise ''and'' Aegis! Taken as a whole, the possibilities for cheesy hit-and-run strategies, especially working alongside a unit or two with Warp, are endless.

* Classes

* Expansion Pass

* The critical weapon formula, while preventing crits initially, potentially, give any weapon a 50% crit rate if the user throws enough work into it. Weapons like the Brave Sword, Light Brand, Elwind, or even legendary weapons can quickly become ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOoK_N0-CRI hilariously]]'' overpowered, especially since you can pass these weapons around as long as you have the gold.

** Out of the four Special classes, Dark Flier gets the lion's share out of them. Why? Because it's essentially a Falcon Knight class with magic. '''That's as broken as it sounds.''' The movement range for Dark Flier is high enough that it surpasses the Black/Dark Magic Range +1 of the Valkyrie class. And keep in mind, the Valkyrie class is ''supposed to be the more ranged option for mages''. Furthermore, its usage of Canto allows for various hit-and-run tactics against the enemy. Finally, even though it doesn't offer any growths in magic, most of the magically-orientated characters have a good magic stat and growth anyway, and the 20% HP growth and 10% Speed growth are nice bonuses. The only downsides is that it's exclusive to females, and only few magically-orientated females have a bit of trouble getting into the class [[note]]Manuela has proficiencies and growths suited for the Trickster class, Dorothea has a bane in flying, and Hilda (which deserves a special mention as she learns Bolting) is a MagicallyIneptFighter, Marianne, though she ''does'' have a proficiency for flying, is more suited towards the Holy Knight class, and Flayn and Mercedes have spell lists more suited for Gremories.[[/note]]

** War Master is agreed to be one of the best foot-locked class in the game, not because of Axefaire or Fistfaire, but because of its innate Crit+20 skill, which turns anyone into critical-hitting monsters. The War Master class also has growths on par with ''Wyvern Lords'', which means that you can expect some characters' Speed and Strength stat to be boosted up a lot. The cherry on the top, however, is that the War Master's mastered skill is Quick Riposte, which essentially allows a unit to perform follow-up attacks regardless of their attack speed, and never allows them to get doubled unless if it's by Brave weapons or Gauntlets, which essentially eliminates the weaknesses of both [[MightyGlacier Raphael and Dedue]]. The only downside to that skill is that it will most likely be obtained late, but given a Knowledge Gem, it will be worth it as an InfinityPlusOneSword.

* Summoners have only {{Summon|Magic}} as their skill, which allows them to summon phantoms in a available adjacent tile. While this makes them a one-trick pony compared to Druids, who wield both Dark and Anima tomes alongside staves, while Summoners wield only Dark tomes and staves, they perform ''great'' at it. Because of how the Summon skills work, they are incredibly versatile in whatever role they are at, such as having their phantoms acting as cannon fodder when the Summoner is at a low level, but later on, as their Summoner's level increases, the phantoms get access to more potent weaponry and better stats, allowing them to perform suicide attacks. Even better; Since the phantoms are considered ghosts, it has the ability to move across terrain without any penalties, and since phantoms are a OneHitPointWonder, the enemy AI will target then rather than the unit they would normally try to kill (i.e., your GlassCannon or SquishyWizard). The only disadvantages they have is they cannot allow trading with other units to prevent farmable axes, which has the unintentional result of having them get an item they got from an enemy with no way of getting them back, and being unable to rescue units unless if someone else is carrying another unit, which are (usually) minor disadvantages anyway. There's a good reason why you only have 2 potential summoners in the game (discounting Lyon), such as Knoll (whose poor statline means that he's usually at the backline summoning phantoms anyway) and Ewan (who usually requires a lot of LevelGrinding and the permanent loss of his Anima rank he built up as a Pupil).

* The Starsphere is often overlooked in this category, mostly because normally you need to trade it and the Lightsphere in order to create the Starlight tome, which, despite its underwhelming appearance, is the only thing that can damage Gharnef, carrier of the Falchion. However, if Tiki is in your team or if you're playing Shadow Dragon, you'll still have a Divinestone to deal effective damage to Medeus, so creating Starlight isn't exactly necessary- and that means you get to keep the Starsphere, which essentially negates durability usage. Weapons that were previously TooAwesomeToUse, such as the Regalia or a particularly damaged Wing Spear, become infinitely usable.

** Lena is the earliest user of Warp and the only user of Hammerne (a staff which restores weapon durability), thereby facilitating the Warp skip strategies. In ''Shadow Dragon'', Warp has no range restrictions, and it is possible to warp Caeda to the boss, [=ORKO=] it, then warp Marth there and have him seize, clearing the map in a single turn.

* Ballisticians were pretty useless in the original NES game (comparable to the later Bow Armor, if not a bit worse). This meant the DS remake of ''Shadow Dragon'' saw little problem with reworking them to be more fitting with the later conception of ballistae--upping their range from the bow-sized 2 to an artillery-sized 3-10. It worked, and then some. Due to the mechanics of the ballista, they can reach out and snipe enemies from frightfully long distances. Some ballista types also include effective weapon varieties (which, as mentioned, is key in ''Shadow Dragon'', and one of them happens to counter ''other ballistas'') and come in both physical and magic varieties, so even on very high difficulties, they can manage some hefty damage--and since the users have little reason to move, they can simply park next to each other and pass their weapons back and forth before shooting, changing things up for the optimal strategy at will. They can be used to focus fire and delete an enemy off the map, soften up targets for your other units, or simply nuke them one by one with effective damage, all while never risking a counter. It's very common in high-level play to see Jake, Beck, and Xane sitting on the backlines, playing hot-potato with their forged weapons and clearing the way for their melee fellows. While the removal of the class in ''New Mystery'' probably had something to do with the original users also changing class in ''Mystery'', its sheer power probably didn't hurt the argument.

** While most of the mid-to-late-game prepromotes are fairly strong, with Harken, Hawkeye, Geitz, and Louise all performing well throughout their availability, Pent still stands out. His bases are positively ''bonkers'', with 18 Magic and 17 Speed meaning he already doubles nearly all enemy types and likely one-rounds as well. The mixture of A-rank tomes, an automatic support with Louise, and high Skill gives him near-Swordmaster-like crit rates. But most importantly, he starts with A-rank staves and enough Magic to put them to good use. Whether he's in combat or a SupportPartyMember, Pent excels almost as much as Marcus, if his somewhat later join time can be forgiven. His growths are poor, but when the game's MagikarpPower character only catches up to him upon promoting, that's a very forgivable sin.

* Summoners have only {{Summon|Magic}} as their skill, which allows them to summon phantoms in a available adjacent tile. While this makes them a one-trick pony compared to Druids, who wield both Dark and Anima times alongside staves, while Summoners wield only Dark times and staves, they perform ''great'' at it. Because of how the Summon skills work, they are incredibly versatile in whatever role they are at, such as having their phantoms acting as cannon fodder when the Summoner is at a low level, but later on, as their Summoner's level increases, the phantoms get access to more potent weaponry and better stats, allowing them to perform suicide attacks. Even better; Since the phantoms are considered ghosts, it has the ability to move across terrain without any penalties, and since phantoms are a OneHitPointWonder, the enemy AI will target then rather than the unit they would normally try to kill (i.e., your GlassCannon or SquishyWizard). The only disadvantages they have is they cannot allow trading with other units to prevent farmable axes, which has the unintentional result of having them get an item they got from an enemy with no way of getting them back, and being unable to rescue units unless if someone else is carrying another unit, which are (usually) minor disadvantages anyway. There's a good reason why you only have 2 potential summoners in the game (discounting Lyon), such as Knoll (whose poor statline means that he's usually at the backline summoning phantoms anyway) and Ewan (who usually requires a lot of LevelGrinding and the permanent loss of his Anima rank he built up as a Pupil).

** Marcus is among the only things making the harder difficulties survivable. [[CrutchCharacter Though he falls off due to bad growths and XP gain]] (''Binding Blade'' being one of the very few games where a Jagen-type unit actually does struggle past a certain point), his ability to either one-shot most enemies or soften them up for your trainees guarantees him a high spot in the tier lists. Few players hold his habit of falling off against him, as by the time he's stopped one-rounding, you have powerhouses like Perceval and Melady in the party, or even Zelot, who is essentially Marcus with a couple extra points here and there.