Line #102 GameBreaker/FireEmblem


1	->''"So, if you've been around any discussion involving ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'', you've probably heard of Haar. In [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance the last game]], he was simply an average late-game prepromote; [[TookALevelInBadass in this game, he may as well be a god]]. Haar is an almost perfect combination of everything that can make a ''Fire Emblem'' character good. His bases are amazing, his growths are amazing, his availability is amazing [...] he uses the best weapon type in the game, his class is amazing, his movement is amazing as a consequence of that, he's only weak to a [[ShockAndAwe weapon type]] that [[{{Nerf}} sucks]], he gets [[OldSaveBonus transfer bonuses]]... really, the only thing that could make him more perfect is if he had Earth affinity."''
2	-->-- '''[=BigKlingy=]''', [[https://youtu.be/aDsRJ-jAZSM?t=2012 Haar bio]]
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4	{{Game Breaker}}s in the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series.
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7	Important note one: Depending on the difficulty level, certain characters may or may not be game-breaking for various reasons [[note]]Join time, stats [bases and growths], weapons, supports, and whether or not you already have a character that does the same job as them for starters[[/note]], especially those of the [[MagikarpPower Est archetype]][[note]]An "Est" character, named after the Pegasus Knight in the [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight first game]], has high growth potential but joins late in the game and at a low level[[/note]]. On hard, you'll need to ask yourself whether it's really worth it to spend time and experience on a new unit, especially if you've already formed a solid team.
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9	Important note two: Due to the nature of ''Fire Emblem'' game mechanics, it is possible for a player to turn almost any unit into a gamebreaker provided that the unit has good growth rates and has [[RandomNumberGod good fortune]]. The specific examples of ''Fire Emblem'' gamebreakers listed on this page will not include units that can only be considered gamebreakers under this assumption. There are numerous methods by which one can create such units in each ''Fire Emblem'' game, some of which will be covered below.
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11	These games have so many ways to break them, they needed their own pages.
12	[[index]]
13	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemAwakening''
14	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemFates''
15	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemHeroes''
16	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemWarriors''
17	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemThreeHouses''
18	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes''
19	* ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemEngage''
20	[[/index]]
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23	[[foldercontrol]]
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25	[[folder:Mechanics and Gameplay Examples]]
26
27	* Abusing various mechanics for EXP gain is the most common and accessible method of powering up playable units. The EXP may come from a variety of sources. This is mostly analogous to LevelGrinding in other [=RPGs=]. Some variants are described below:
28	** In what is commonly called "boss abuse," a unit will attack an enemy (generally a boss enemy, hence the name) that is on a healing tile, such as a throne or a gate. The unit must be weak enough such that the boss will be able to heal back the damage done, but strong enough to do more than zero damage[[note]]A unit which deals zero damage to the enemy usually gains either zero or one EXP[[/note]]. Upon attacking the boss, the player unit will gain EXP for a round of combat; by repeating this process over many turns, the player can level up a unit until the unit becomes too strong for this exploit to work[[note]]Or the unit's weapon breaks[[/note]].
29	** There is also "reinforcement abuse," a form of abuse in which a player will intentionally extend the length of a chapter so that playable units will be able to engage and defeat enemy reinforcements for large amounts of EXP. Although not all maps have this feature, there are some maps where reinforcements will appear indefinitely after a certain number of turns have passed.
30	** Another form of abuse for EXP gain is "arena abuse," a form of abuse where a player will repeatedly use a map arena for an infinite source of combat and EXP. Although limited in scope[[note]]Some games do not have arenas; the ones that do are only available in certain chapters or otherwise restricted in use[[/note]], each round of arena combat gives a substantial amount of EXP for the participant, and awards money to boot. Barring maps that have a set turn limit, a player can arena abuse ad infinitum.
31	** Yet another form of abuse is called "staff abuse". Since healers gain EXP through using magical staves, a common practice is to have healers deliberately spending their turn healing ScratchDamage when they would otherwise not need to do so, which allows them to mooch off other forms of abuse as listed above.
32	** The final form of abuse is "Dance abuse". Dance abuse is also synonymous with "Sing abuse". Much like how healers gain EXP through using staves, [[MagicDance Dancers]], [[MagicMusic Bards, and Songstresses]] can gain EXP and eventual level-ups. This is much easier to do on maps where the enemies do not attack the characters until they are in range. Most effective when the dancer/bard/singer in question can actually attack, and their level-ups increase their strength.
33	** One counterpoint, at least from ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' to ''The Blazing Blade'': Some ''Fire Emblem'' games feature a "Ranking" mechanic that scores the player's performance as tactician. Taking a ton of turns to grind up units and having a lot of battles that don't end in a kill will send these rankings into the gutter, so if you care about good rankings, the above XP-grind strategies can only be used in moderation.
34	* Rigging level-ups is another method of powering up playable units. This method does not require a large source of EXP, but it does require a time investment on the player's part in most cases. Due to ''Fire Emblem'' relying solely on a [[RandomNumberGod RNG]] to determine parameter gains from level ups, this method allows for characters whose parameters greatly exceed their expected values at a given level.
35	** One method of this form of abuse involves obtaining knowledge of the RNG sequence and using this knowledge to manipulate a good level up on a player unit.
36	*** In the GBA games, this is done by forcing the game to use random numbers ([=RNs=]) in retracing movement paths, which also indicates to the player whether the [=RNs=] used were "high" or "low." After suspending and resuming the game, the sequence of [=RNs=] is identical and thus predictable. The player will attempt to manipulate a good level up by matching a string of successive "low" [=RNs=] with the string used to determine level-up gains.
37	*** In the DS games, the RNG is seeded by the Nintendo DS clock, and starting the game at certain times on the clock will yield predictable results. This form of RNG abuse is commonly used in ''Shadow Dragon'' for players to create wi-fi teams with parameters that are significantly above average.
38	** Another method of this form of abuse involves brute-force [[SaveScumming resetting of the game]] until the player obtains favorable results.
39	*** In ''Path of Radiance'', this is facilitated by the BEXP (Bonus EXP) system, which allows the player to allocate EXP to player units in the pre-chapter base. The level-up gains using this method are not restricted in any particular way, and the player can simply apply BEXP to yield a level up, check the level-up gains, and reset if the gains weren't satisfactory.
40	*** In ''Radiant Dawn'', a character leveled up by BEXP always gets three parameters increased. This allows a unit with a spread of high and low growth stats to maximize both. [[labelnote:Explanation]]Characters in ''Fire Emblem'' are subject to stat {{cap}}s based on their class; unlike many other games, units can and will reach these caps, sometimes at a low level. A unit with high growths in one or more statistics can reach his/her cap at a low level, then apply BEXP for the later levels. Since that unit cannot gain in his/her high-growth stat, the game forces increases in lower-growth stats. Some units can reach the cap for all of their stats.[[/labelnote]] Additionally, the introduction of mid-chapter battle saves in ''Radiant Dawn'' Easy and Normal Modes allows for this sort of manipulation during the course of gameplay.
41	* The final common method of powering up playable units is by stacking stat-boosting resources on them. Typically, these resources are not freely available; but there are exceptions in some games.
42	** In ''Genealogy of the Holy War'', there exist numerous rings that confer +5 to a particular parameter, and a unit can hold as many of these as the inventory will allow.
43	** In certain games, there exist secret shops near the end of the game that have buyable stat-boosting items; in combination with the abusable arenas, the player can purchase a virtually unlimited quantity. The same applies for ''The Sacred Stones'' after the main game has ended. ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'' and ''The Binding Blade'' even let you buy Boots, the item which increases Movement; in such games, it's not unheard of for players to sell ''every item they own'', buy a few dozen boots, and then enjoy their units zipping across the battlefield like rockets.
44	** In the DS games, these secret shops near the end of the game only sell a maximum of 3 of each kind of stat-boosting item instead of an unlimited amount. In addition, in ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', the various shards of the Star Orb increase the holder's stats.
45	** In ''Awakening'', it is possible to abuse a trick with the Avatar Logbook to use these items infinitely on any bonus character until they hit their stat caps. [[note]]Save the same game in two save slots, use one to put every stat-up item in the inventory on one character, save the buffed-up character to the Logbook, then load the other save slot (which has the items still in inventory) and buy the character back.[[/note]] While this only works on bonus characters (who can't build supports and thus are inferior to the main cast in the long run), the boosted stats are more than enough to turn the game prior to the {{Brutal Bonus Level}}s into a complete joke.
46	** An extension to this includes items that greatly augment a unit's growth rates, which exist in ''Mystery of the Emblem'', ''Thracia 776'', and in ''Path of Radiance'' on the second and subsequent playthroughs, and a unit can hold as many of these items as the inventory will allow. Unlike stat-boosting items, these can also be traded around on a whim so that essentially every deployed player unit can make use of the augmented growth rates.
47	[[/folder]]
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49	[[folder:Character and Game-Specific Game Breakers]]
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51	* As a general rule, dancer and bard units (units that give other player units an extra action) are very powerful, and can break the game when used effectively. Their simple ability makes possible a diverse array of quick strategies. Some dancers can even do it to multiple characters at once--which, needless to say, breaks the game's action economy into tiny little pieces.
52	* Mounted and flier units tend to be similarly dominant, due to the sheer versatility that comes from both high mobility and often the ability to carry other units. On top of that, series traditions tend to mandate you get at least four cavaliers and three Pegasus knights, meaning you have a lot to choose from.
53	[[/folder]]
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55	[[folder:The Archanea Games (''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'', ''Gaiden'', ''Mystery of the Emblem'', ''Shadow Dragon'', ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', and ''Echoes: Shadows of Valentia'')]]
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57	* Marth is a ferocious GameBreaker in ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light''. High defensive stats, best weapon class in the game, three great weapons (Mercurius, Falchion, Rapier) that are exclusive to him, one of which is buyable everywhere, and on top of it all, he has the ability to draw in all enemies capable of attacking him. Have a healer you can't get out of danger? Just place Marth within range, and no one will attack the healer unless they can't get to Marth. At the end of the game, the Falchion negates all close combat attacks made by non-dragons.
58	* Cain and Abel started out a long trend of the Christmas Cavaliers being some of the best units in their respective games. Their growths are among the highest in the game, and their bases are just barely behind the local CrutchCharacter Jagen. Low stat caps and weak enemies mean their theoretical JackOfAllStats nature quickly turns into MasterOfAll, with them effortlessly one-rounding just about anything by the time they've promoted. With their high Movement, they can snowball fast, and even Marth, broken personal weapons and all, can be outclassed by their level lead. Hardin is the only other cavalier to even approach their overall competence, and he shows up at a point where they're at least on par with him. They suffer somewhat in the DS remake due to much stronger enemies and Cain having some weapon rank issues, but they are still considered very reliable units, and the only one to ever be regarded as anything less than very good is the Book 2/''New Mystery'' version of Abel, who suffers from LateCharacterSyndrome.
59	* ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'' is the debut of Warp Staff. While limited due to the awkward trading system of the game, it's still just as overpowered as it is in the later games in the series, with its ability to Warp a unit to any point of the map, and comes with a generous 7 uses each, more than making up for its inability to be fixed by the Hammerne staff that is introduced in ''Shadow Dragon''. By extension, this turns all potential staff users into GameBreaker, but three stand out due to their availability, and general potential of usage: Lena, Boah, and Wendell.
60	** 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 revamped promotion mechanic all making him less of a dominant unit. He's still really good in most of them.
61	* A glitch in ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'' gives CrutchCharacter, Bantu, 15 defense anytime he uses a promotion item. Keep in mind, Bantu's unbreakable firestone already gives him 15 defense. The promotion item doesn't even get used up when it's used by Bantu, and can be used until Bantu's defense reaches 99, breaking the stat cap. This means Bantu can be rendered invincible to physical attacks, even without his firestone, [[DiscOneNuke as early]] as chapter 10! Tiki can do much the same, as well.
62	* 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.
63	** On a related note, the Lightsphere negates enemy terrain bonuses. While this doesn't come up often, using it on a particularly tough boss, such as Camus, will make your life that much easier.
64	* Caeda and Lena are gamebreaking characters in ''Shadow Dragon'' due to their ability to exploit certain gamebreaking mechanics.
65	** Caeda is the sole user of the Wing Spear, a multipurpose effective weapon--of the game's 25 main bosses, more than half are weak to it. Her low Strength 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 Speed 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, while also providing hefty boosts to her durability and strength, turning her into a LightningBruiser.
66	** Lena is the earliest user of Warp, thereby facilitating 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. What's more, it can be done very early, since Lena ''joins'' with the Warp Staff in her inventory. In the lategame, Lena backs up her prowess with the Hammerne, which is locked to her, repairs any weapon or staff, and has a ridiculous ''twelve'' uses--at that point, you now have no reason to ever conserve Warp or weapon uses ever again.
67	* 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 WeaponOfXSlaying 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.
68	* Not doing a warpskip playthrough? Hello, Wolf and Sedgar. In most other games in the series, they're considered pretty forgettable, but the DS remake of ''Shadow Dragon'' retooled them heavily to fit with the changed mechanics of promoted units. As a result, while Wolf and Sedgar have always had stats and weapon ranks more in line with a level 1 unpromoted unit rather than a prepromote, their ''Shadow Dragon'' incarnations have ''monstrously'' high stat growths, with most of them being well over 60% and a few breaking 100%. On paper, this is meant to make them MagikarpPower--they get half as many levels, have a poor start due to Horseman's low base stats, and gain XP slowly, so it evens out. However, fans realized that if you reclass them into General, then they suddenly have the base stats to be competent fighters at base level, so much so that they can wade into a whole swarm of enemies and level off chipping them with javelins. This enables them to snowball rather quickly, and by the time they're level 6 or so, they'll be practically invincible in General and deadly combat units when reclassed into anything else. While faster playthroughs eschew them due to not having the time to raise them, any player struggling to just ''survive'' on the higher difficulties will consider them a lifesaver.
69	* 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. Sadly, this was the only time the class was ever done in this fashion; ''New Mystery'' rendered the class enemy only and reclassed Jake and Beck.
70	* Speaking of Xane, his ability to transform into another unit is game-breaking itself. Many appraisals of Dancer units describe them as "like having two of your best character", and Xane (though not quite as versatile as a Dancer) literally ''is'' that. Aside from potentially transforming into a Ballistician along with their stats, he can also transform into the aforementioned gamebreakers, and can even wield their personal weapons while transformed as them. This can lead to shenanigans such as three Ballisticians blasting the enemy army from a long distance or even two Caedas blasting through armors and cavalry. He can't copy Marth's throne-seizing or Phina's dance, but even then, his ability alone places him very high in any tier lists barring the absolute fastest low-turn runs (Xane's sole meaningful weakness is that he needs to waste his first turn on transforming, and there are strategies out there to beat chapters before he'd get a second). There's a reason why the Freelancer class is exclusive to the Archanea games.
71	* Book 2 of ''Mystery of the Emblem'' has several extremely powerful characters, but none stand out as much as Palla, a Pegasus Knight who joins in chapter 3, with amazing growth in every area except for speed, where she had 17 in a game where 20 is the speed cap, and insane base stats all around, including enough weapon rank to wield Silver weapons from the get go. With some fairly reasonable exp gains, Palla can one round almost every non-boss humanoid enemy in the game after her promotion. The closest thing to a check on her power is the dismount mechanic, forcing Palla to lose her superior mobility advantage in indoor maps, but her stats are high enough to make her fairly competent in that area as well, and doing so ironically improves her combat capability since it also gave her access to swords, which is the best weapon class in the game thanks to the sheer variety on the weapon class. Palla can promote as early as Chapter 7, and she can get access to the Delphi Shield, nullifying her only weakness to bows in her debut chapter. This incarnation of Palla is so overpowered, the game is jokingly called ''Mystery of Who Balanced Palla''. It's quite telling that even after getting some nerfs, her ''New Mystery'' incarnation is generally seen as the only unit in the game who comes close to standing up to Kris.
72	* 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 (with infinite range, at that) is nothing to sneeze at.
73	* A handful of great units exist in ''New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow'', but it's no surprise that the best unit in the game is, by a mile, the [[CharacterCustomization player-created]] My Unit (typically known as Kris). My Unit's base parameters, growth rates, and starting class can be customized to a degree, and some builds of My Unit are better than others, but he is in general vastly superior to the rest of the cast. My Unit only has average base parameters and growths, but the game's forced prologue ends up channeling a lot of EXP into My Unit, whether the player intended to or not, and the end result is an overleveled juggernaut. On the hardest difficulty, a My Unit created with the proper build has the potential to turn the enemy units into complete jokes.
74	* While you can't use him in the main storyline, Gharnef is playable in a DLC chapter of ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' are playable. He retains his inability to be damaged by anything other than Starlight, and since Starlight is player-exclusive, he's completely immortal while under your control (as long as you aren't dumb enough to unequip Imhullu).
75	* ''Gaiden'' features a few:
76	** Warp returns from ''Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light'', but given that magic is no longer limited by charges but is CastFromHitPoints, this means that a Warp/Physic user can cast the spell as many times as they have the HP needed for it. Getting Warp is also much easier given that the first cleric you get learns it at level 7, which may be as early as the first act of the game.
77	** Falcon Knights possess the Slayer/Banish ability, which triples their attack power versus Terrors. Given that you get three potential Falcon Knights on the route which features a lot of Terrors, this is a powerful ability indeed.
78	** The Angel Ring restores 5 HP per turn, automatically increases Luck to 40 (which increases accuracy, physical evasion, and magical evasion), and best of all, doubles stat growths on level ups (i.e. characters now gain 2 in a stat upon level, though their growth rates remain the same).
79	** The Villager loop. A unit in the Mercenary class line may promote to Myrmidon and then Dread Fighter, which can then promote back to Villager and then to Mercenary or any other class. It's worth noting that promoting back to Villager does not make the unit lose stats (except for the Resistance bonus inherent to Dread Fighter), so this pre-figures the Second Seal usage in ''Awakening''.
80	* ''Shadows of Valentia'' nerfs most of the above, but introduces a few Game Breakers in its place:
81	** Forging is introduced as a mechanic after having been present in games since ''Path of Radiance'', and given that BreakableWeapons is not in play, this leads to some creative scenarios, like a max-forged Ridersbane having +9 Attack and thus +27 Attack versus mounted units, which makes it a DiscOneNuke. The Ridersbane can then be upgraded to the Rhomphaia, which not only provides the [[AntiArmor Armorcrush]] and Knightkneeler weapon arts, but also teaches the Dragonhaze weapon art, which adds the user's Speed to their attack power. Given that Cavaliers tend to be JackOfAllStats at worst and {{Lightning Bruiser}}s at best, giving one this weapon will allow them to deal heavy damage.
82	** The Killer Bow TookALevelInBadass compared to its previous incarnations. Not only can it attack at close range, like bows in this game and unlike its counterparts in other games, it also teaches the Hunter's Volley weapon art, which attacks an enemy twice with increased accuracy and CriticalHit rate. Given that the Killer Bow still adds Critical Hit percentage, the chance of getting a crit with Hunter's Volley is very high.
83	** The Star Jacinth, though only available with [[BribingYourWayToVictory real cash]] and a fair bit of ItemFarming, increases the growth rates of the holder by 30% in every stat (except Resistance, which still gains 5%), and can be passed around from unit to unit throughout the game so that effectively every unit can make use of these buffed growth rates. Judicious use of this item can effectively create an army of MasterOfAll-type characters, and it's even possible to create multiple Star Jacinths due to the nature of the {{DLC}} level in which you get it. Said level also can provide access to almost literally every item in the game, making it a DiskOneNuke as well.
84	** Mila's Turnwheel. It's a magical pocket watch given to Alm and Celica that gives the player unfettered mastery over the fabric of space and time, allowing them to play god and send visions of the future into the past, effectively rewinding time, not just to any previous turn of the battle, but to any previous ''move'' of any previous turn of the battle. And you can even use this ''after you've already lost'' to salvage your run. It does have limited uses per battle - starting at 3, but upgrades to 12 over time - which don't recharge in dungeons unless you pray at a shrine, but this is barely a limitation at all for how much use you can get out of it.
85	[[/folder]]
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87	[[folder:The Jugdral Games ''(Genealogy of the Holy War'' and ''Thracia 776)'']]
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89	* Sigurd in the first generation of ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' is considered a top candidate for the strongest Lord in the franchise, if not the strongest unit, period. He blows every single unit in the first generation out of the water, and his strengths are all over the place, with the game being seemingly designed to hand him as many advantages as possible.
90	** Sigurd is the only Lord to start prepromoted, in the Knight Lord class. This is entirely beneficial to him, as he still has 25 levels to grow and does not have his XP gain reduced for being promoted. In exchange, he starts out wielding the best weapon type in swords, with lances for backup if he needs to toss a javelin sometime, capped by 9 Movement that makes him the speediest unit of the first generation, exacerbated further by the presence of road tiles that can jump it up to ''12''. Also, he has Re-Move/Canto, and due to ''Genealogy'''s completely broken take on it, it is possible for Sigurd to seize a castle on the same turn that he kills its boss, which also kills all nearby enemies.
91	** 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 and lacking Pursuit. 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).
92	** 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 hits like a truck, doubles everything in existence, and even the remaining mage bosses struggle to damage him.
93	** 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.
94	* All the children characters in ''Genealogy'' have the potential to be formidable if the player maximizes the benefits units get from their parents. The stats the parents have at the end of the first generation affect their offspring. Additionally, children characters inherit items and weapons from their parents, allowing the player to obtain good items and weapons relatively early compared to other ''Fire Emblem'' titles. Players can make use of stat-boosting rings, ability-granting rings, and powerful weapons such as a Hero Sword immediately from the beginning of the second generation.
95	** Seliph can inherit Sigurd's Silver Sword (or other weapons should the player desire) and some incredibly beneficial stat-boosting rings such as the Leg Ring, which grants +3 movement to the holder, and the Elite Ring, which doubles the holder's EXP gains. Seliph's relatively weak base stats are offset by this inheritance mechanic, and letting Seliph inherit many of these items is beneficial because it lets the player make use of them from the beginning of the second generation. The optimal inheritance setup will have Seliph reaching promotion quickly, effectively becoming a copy of Sigurd from the previous generation; however, Seliph still has to overcome the short period in which he is rather mediocre, even if the first chapter makes for an excellent training ground for him.
96	** Arthur can become this, if his father was Lewyn and he inherited the Forseti tome. Forseti is an exclusive weapon that possesses 30 MT [[note]]Many good weapons, such as the aforementioned Silver Sword, have only 18 or fewer[[/note]], 1-2 range, and grants +10 to the wielder's skill (increasing hit) and +20 speed (greatly increasing dodging ability) to its user, making it an excellent weapon both defensively and offensively. Although not the easiest pairing to achieve [[note]]Lewyn/Tiltyu is more difficult than Lewyn/Fury or Lewyn/Sylvia[[/note]], Arthur with Forseti can turn the first half of Second Generation into a complete joke.
97	*** 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 a relatively low score on his character screen. This bug is patched on some fan translations to simply give him capped Speed, but even if the loop does kick in, it's completely irrelevant because his rolled-over Speed is ''still'' really high, his Speed growth is ''over 100%'' and Forseti's +20 Speed is still intact. The downside to ''him'' is that he comes about two chapters later than Arthur and doesn't have a horse, so it's the player's choice of as to whether they want a DiscOneNuke GameBreaker or an InfinityMinusOneSword GameBreaker.
98	** However, one of the best examples of broken kids is simply handed to you regardless of pairing: namely, Ares. Eldigan's heir shows up in the second chapter of the generation. As a cavalier, he's one of the most mobile of the second-generation kids, and is easy to train and use, with no problems keeping up with the army. He has very serviceable bases, along with the excellent offensive mix of Pursuit, Adept, and Vantage. With his Hezul blood, he has the game's highest Strength growth at 90%, along with an impressive 40% Defense and a colossal 130% HP, making him into a very tanky unit with great mobility--even his Resistance isn't too shabby. But what defines him above all is his Mystletainn, which provides him with +20 Skill (meaning his 20% Skill growth is utterly irrelevant), +10 Resistance (making him basically immune to mages), and the Critical skill. That last one means that, at his ''base level'', Ares has a 32% crit rate, on a weapon with 30 Might, which he can attack multiple times with, and which will basically never miss. When promoted into a Paladin, Ares is one of the few characters who can [[LordBritishPostulate somewhat reliably defeat]] ''[[SNKBoss Julius]]'' [[FinalBossPreview when you fight him for the first time.]] And on top of it all, as a mounted unit, he is likely the most mobile holy weapon-wielder for three chapters, meaning unlike Faval, Ced, or Shannan, you don't have to slow down for him to put his blade to use.
99	** While growth units in the franchise have a lengthy history of not paying off, Leif (and to a lesser extent, Lachesis) is a very different story. Despite his initially mediocre start, Leif's Master Knight promotion is the best in the entire franchise, providing him with gigantic statboosts on top of his already good growths, the Pursuit skill, a mount, and most importantly, an A-rank in all weapon types, all types of anima magic, and staves. This translates to Leif being able to do just about anything. Even in low-turncount runs, a style of play otherwise anathema to growth units, Leif sees a lot of use for being by far the best user of the Rescue Staff, which synergizes with his great movement to let him pop allies around the battlefield.
100	* 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 or the Miracle Sword), but whenever it comes into play, it can allow characters to practically solo armies. Miracle was nerfed into the ground in every game thereafter.
101	* 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, on top of the fact that extra crit in ''Genealogy'' is 1% crit per point of skill rather than per two points. 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.
102	* Although many great weapons and items exist in ''Thracia 776'', the true gamebreakers in this game are the Warp, Rescue, and Repair staves. Staff range for ranged staves is unlimited in ''Thracia 776'', so for the Warp and Rescue staves, the player is able to move a unit to anywhere else on the map or retrieve a unit from anywhere else on the map, respectively. This allows for gamebreaking strategies that, for example, essentially allow the player to defeat a boss and seize a throne or gate to end a chapter in 1 turn. Warp is useful in maps with a seize objective; Rescue is useful in maps with an escape objective. Repair allows the player to repair any weapon to its original state, which means that the player can exhaust all 5 uses of Repair on a single Warp or Rescue staff to obtain 6 times as many uses out of that staff. By extension, since Safiya is the only unit capable of using the Repair staff, she is also a gamebreaker. The list of units who can reliably be assumed to be able to use Warp and Rescue is larger but still limited: Safiya, Salem, Tina, Linoan, Sleuf, Sara, Saias, and Ced.
103	* Aside from Safiya, the most infamous staff-user in the game is probably Sara. Starting with a B-rank in staves, which turns into an A-rank on promotion, is extremely good. Starting with rather good bases for your level is better. Having 80% growths in multiple stats is better still. Having Wrath, Paragon, and Miracle to ensure you gain EXP ridiculously fast, crit anything that looks in your direction, and have a free dodge chance is when you start getting into "silly" territory. And once you add five Movement Stars to give a free 25% shot to take a second turn, one starts wondering if Sara isn't the game's debug mode.
104	* ''Thracia'' has a unique critical formula, where the critical rate on the first hit is capped at 25%--but if the attacker gets in an additional hit, the critical formula is ''multiplied'' by their FCM, a value from 0-5 specific to the character. Characters like Fergus, Mareeta, Olwen, and Osian are infamous for being able to use this formula to achieve critical rates well above 100%, and utilizing it properly will pretty much let them one-round everything in the game. For added benefit, all support relationships provide a +10% boost to critical rates, making it rather easy to pull off.
105	* And speaking of criticals, Wrath. While most versions of Wrath merely provide enhanced critical ''chance'' and/or only activate if the character is at low health, ''Thracia'''s version of Wrath is on all the time, and has a 100% activation rate. Add in that criticals are remarkably powerful here, and facing a character with Wrath who can reasonably dodge or survive the hit and strike back will pretty much be a death sentence for any enemy that so much as looks at them. While not every character with the skill is a GameBreaker, those who can abuse it absolutely ''will,'' especially if they have access to LifeDrain abilities. There is a ''very'' good reason [[MutuallyExclusivePowerups it can't be combined with Vantage in this game]].
106	* Status staves in ''Thracia'' do not wear off, have infinite range, and boast a 100% activation rate if the user's Magic beats their target's and their skill is 10 or higher (a fairly easy benchmark to reach). This makes them pretty scary to deal with in enemy hands... and even ''scarier'' in the hands of the player. Sleep or Silence can totally disable non-boss enemies, and it also means they can be captured with no effort at all (which, if the enemy in question also had a status staff, means smart status use can pay off in dividends). And then there's Tina's Thief staff, which uses the same mechanics and can simply rob items straight out of an enemy's inventory, even a boss's weapons. With a bit of luck with Movement stars and some dancer use, it's not implausible to disable half the enemies on the map on the first turn. Combine that with Warp, and late-game ''Thracia'' is often referred to as "Staff Emblem" due to how easy it is to snap entire maps in half, even supposedly difficult challenges like the battle with Reinhardt.
107	* 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 excellent Might and 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.
108	* Dagdar, the local early prepromote, is meant as a CrutchCharacter who falls off over time--and in the long tradition of the series, he doesn't. While his growths are genuinely awful, Dagdar's raw starting statline is so high that he can continue one-rounding enemies and surviving their attacks even in very late chapters--in particular, his 43 HP won't be surpassed until well into the endgame, 9 Speed doubles reliably for a while, and when it doesn't, the Brave Axe patches things up. What's more, his massive Build, Charge skill, and very early access to said Brave Axe mean that Dagdar is among your best picks for capturing enemies, crushing them easily before they can even counterattack. And even then, his weakness in low growths can be easily resolved through various Crusader Scrolls that help boost his growths to tolerable levels, meaning that it's entirely possible to hit the game's strength cap at 20, meaning that he will likely hit hard after a few levels. Dagdar's only significant weakness is that Charge makes him vulnerable to long-range magic and ballistae, which can make deploying him a bit dicey on certain maps, though even that sometimes sees use for pure utility reasons, as he can soak up their shots if healed well.
109	[[/folder]]
110
111	[[folder:The Elibe Games ''(The Binding Blade'' and ''The Blazing Blade)'']]
112
113	* Although there are no units in ''The Binding Blade'' who can be considered gamebreaking over the entire course of the game, there are a handful of units that can break substantial portions of the game.
114	** Rutger can be recruited very early and combines solid bases (which go up significantly on Hard Mode) and growths with a Killing Edge that he can wield at base. He will usually be one of the few units with 100% hit rates, which is especially important in a game where many enemies have high Avoid. Promote him to [[CriticalHitClass Swordmaster]] and his already high crit rate goes up by ''30%.'' When properly specced and leveled, he will crit on almost every attack, and with a [[FanNickname full Critger setup]] (A support with Clarine, B support with someone else, given the Wo Dao), he can reach more than 100% crit. In a game where mounted units rule the roost, Rutger stands out for being able to one-round even bosses sitting on thrones, and some consider him arguably the best on-foot combat unit in the entire franchise.
115	** 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 struggling, 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.
116	** Melady only joins in the middle of the second act, but combines solid bases and growths with the incredible Wyvern Rider class. Her mobility is rivalled only by Pegasus Knights, and unlike them, she also hits hard and can shrug off arrow fire. With her base lance rank of C, she can wield Killer Lances to crit and one-round basically anything. But what really makes her this is that the game pretty much hands you everything needed to abuse her. You're given multiple Elysian Whips in prior maps and she joins at level 10, meaning she can be promoted immediately, but if you want her to gain some levels first, her joining chapter is a massive bridge level where fliers excel, and contains a ton of Paladins for her to gank for XP, a shop that sells those broken Killer Lances, and an Arena in case she had a few levels left before promoting. Then the next three maps all involve rough terrain (water, mountains, sand), meaning she can trivialize them, and the one after that contains a stealable Delphi Shield that [[KryptoniteProofSuit removes her one weakness.]] On top of all this, she boasts some of the best Hard Mode bonuses in the game (she's effectively level 20 despite joining at 10), such that she ends up with more Defense than an Armor Knight and can cap most of her stats ''even if promoted early''. And she's the one unit to receive these bonuses that doesn't need any work to recruit! Her brother Zeiss is a little better in some ways, but joins later during a harder section and lacks most of the above strengths, meaning he isn't nearly as broken.
117	** Niime shows up with a mixture of A-rank Staves and 21 base Magic, right when you start getting powerful staves like Warp. No other character can manage this combination without ''insane'' LevelGrinding. On top of that, she's a Druid with A-rank Tomes, meaning even a little combat will bring her up to S-rank and allow her to wield Apocalypse to boost her magic to an unrivaled 26. Simply spamming staves would be enough to make her good, but she can even become a strong fighter with almost no effort; despite her terrible base HP, her status as [[LifeDrain a Nosferatu-user]] means that she can shrug off basically anything that doesn't one-shot her, so a simple Angelic Robe and Body Ring (both of which are in very low demand) makes her largely immortal to standard enemies. She has bad growths and joins severely overleveled, but at that point, who needs either?
118	** Due to what is probably a bug (that would later ascend to official feature), some units in ''The Binding Blade'' Hard Mode get huge stat bonuses--specifically units that start as enemy units that appear on turn 2 or later, but can be recruited. Needless to say, some units that are already good on Normal Mode get even more crucial on Hard.
119	** Chief among the units rendered ridiculous by Hard Mode is Perceval. On Normal, he's a very standard lategame CrutchCharacter, with good stats that make him an adequate substitute if Lance and Allen turned out badly. On Hard? He outright ''squashes'' them in every stat, even assuming you managed to get one of them to his level and they didn't get stat-screwed. His growths are kinda bad, but that hardly matters when the stats he has are so great that he can get EmptyLevels for the entire rest of the game and still be viable. To reiterate, Hard Mode Perceval can trivialize the ''entirety of the second half of the game almost single-handedly at his base stats'', given some healing support and a continual resupply of weapons.
120	* ''The Blazing Blade'' is one of the easier games in the series, much of which owes to the overall higher power level of its playable cast and comparatively weak enemies. Even then, though, there are some standouts.
121	** Marcus. High base stats allow him to trivialize the early chapters, and his growths, although subpar, are just good enough to allow him to crush enemies all the way until the end of the game (even in Hector Hard Mode), barring perhaps the final map where you'll have access to the likes of Athos anyway. Access to three weapon types gives Marcus a weapon for every situation, and high movement allows Marcus to quickly defeat chapters. The only point against Marcus being a gamebreaker is that he isn't as favored on ranked runs due to his effects on your EXP rank, and he is reliant on gaining around 2-3 points of speed throughout the game at a 25% growth, something that he has a non-negligible chance at failing to do; regardless, he is still the best unit in the game even when failing to gain speed.
122	** Lyn Mode in general has this effect on the characters available during it, due to the enemies being very weak and the XP formula being unusually favorable compared to Hector Hard Mode. For an even semi-skilled player, this turns it into a massive pool of free experience that can enable its cast to join at rather high levels in the main campaign, particularly Sain, Kent, and Florina, who boast very strong classes but can have some trouble getting off the ground otherwise. There's even a number of strong statboosters and a Knight Crest, which can either be freely expended to make those characters even stronger (particularly Sain and Kent, who can reach Paladin to essentially become a backup Marcus), or saved up to gain a White Gem, which will pretty much eliminate early money troubles. Proper XP distribution in that period can yield the player ''three'' DiscOneNuke characters, who will only snowball from there.
123	** A bonus disc available with ''VideoGame/MarioKartDoubleDash'' allowed the player to add a heap of free statboosters to their inventory, along with a Silver Card. Statboosters are ''very'' rare in ''Blazing Blade'', and often units just need a tiny push to their stats to push them into one-rounding, giving the player a ton in the way of free resources (to say nothing of the Silver Card's obvious advantages, in a game with a notoriously stingy Funds rank).
124	** The Luna Tome ignores Resistance, is very accurate for a Dark tome at 95 Hit, and has an enhanced crit rate of 20. It's pretty weak for most of the game, as it's quite heavy, has 0 Might, and can only be wielded by Canas, who already has some doubling issues, giving it limited utility outside of killing the very small handful of high-Resistance enemies in the game. However, in the final map, you have a character practically built to use it--namely, Athos. With capped Magic and very high Speed and Skill, Athos boasts a frankly ridiculous crit rate, and with a Body Ring, he'll double almost everything there. The combo of Athos and Luna turns the entire boss rush, FinalBoss included, into a relative cakewalk. The spell was pretty much nerfed into the ground in ''The Sacred Stones'' and ''Three Houses.''
125	** 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 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.
126	** There is a glitch in the game where, if you reset the game while an enemy is taking damage from a Mine then resume the chapter, it is possible to control the enemy units for a turn. It is possible, with this method, to make the enemies discard all their items or transfer enemy-exclusive items to your party. The latter can be particularly game-breaking when used in Unfulfilled Heart to transfer Vaida's "Uber Spear" to the player - a special Spear that grants absurd stat bonuses (+17 HP, +5 Strength, +4 Skill, +9 Speed, +4 Defense, and +14 Resistance) and will turn anyone who can use it into an absolute monster.
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder:''The Sacred Stones'']]
130
131	* Seth in ''The Sacred Stones'' is the most powerful unit in the beginning of the game and has stats rivaling your trained units even in the endgame. Unlike Marcus, Seth also has a high growth total with a good growth distribution, which means that he is much less likely to slow down in performance later in the game. He's pretty much essential for fast, efficient clears and it's often said that the game is even easier than if it's just Seth and a lord. To top it off, Seth has the highly desirable Anima affinity, notable among other affinities for granting both offensive and defensive bonuses to any unit he supports with. He puts in a fairly strong argument for being the franchise's best character.
132	** Seth is so good that top-efficiency run Tier Lists base the placement of all other characters on what they can actually do to support Seth, or whatever minor thing they can chime in.
133	* The Bishop class gets this for one thing: Slayer. This skill turns every weapon a Bishop uses against a monster into a x3 effective weapon, enabling extremely high damage to the point of outclassing Sacred Twin weapons at points. Keep in mind that once you've hit the endgame, pretty much ''all'' the enemies are monsters. Bishop also has the best staff rank of the various classes (base C), meaning a character like Artur who promotes into Bishop can become a great utility character with basically no investment. Bishop is such a great class that it's one of the few in the game that completely outclasses its mounted counterpart, Valkyrie, and sees tons of use in both casual play for its great offenses and speedruns for its fantastic staff skill.
134	* The Tower of Valni, a map full of weak enemies that can be revisited. After one or two visits, your army will probably be far enough ahead of the game's level curve that nothing in the game can challenge them. Most drafts outright ban the Tower, except to grind up Amelia and Ewan out of their trainee class.
135	* 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 fifteen squares at a time turns theoretically tough maps into an utter joke.
136	* 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. However, what places summons in this level is a blessing in disguise: phantoms only have [[OneHitPointWonder one hit point and no defenses]], which sounds bad until you realize that [[AIBreaker this means enemies perceive summons as a high-priority target and will unswervingly hunt them down no matter what]]. This makes Summoners able to save just about any unit in their range, and completely nullify the threat of siege weapons like Shadowshot. There's a good reason why you only have two potential summoners in the game (discounting Lyon): 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).
137	* The Enemy Control Glitch returns, though the timing is somewhat harder to trigger--generally, it requires you to close out and reload after the enemy finishes attacking someone, with the window of timing increasing if the enemy is standing on certain kinds of tiles[[note]]Snag tiles, lava floors, spots where a Gorgon Egg starts, or any place where someone just used a Torch Staff[[/note]]. While there's no supercharged spears to work with and it requires very good timing to be done on maps that lack those tiles, the ability to force all enemies to drop or trade away their weapons or flee the seize points they're guarding and completely disable the map remains as silly as ever. And if you want to get particularly wacky with it, it can be used to replenish the durability of rare items like staves or the Dragonstone by trading them to enemies that drop what they're carrying. It can also allow you to trade enemy-exclusive items into your inventory--most of them are unusable monster weapons, but the dark spells used by Mogalls and Gorgons ''can'' be used, even by characters who can't use dark magic. (One even gives Weapon XP, letting you teach anyone dark magic.)
138	[[/folder]]
139
140	[[folder:The Tellius Games ''(Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn)'']]
141
142	* Titania in ''Path of Radiance'' is similar to Seth in ''The Sacred Stones'' with respect to parameters and growths, and has the potential to trivialize the entire game equally easily. Their surrounding environment makes a big difference; the presence of a glut of BEXP in ''Path of Radiance'' to easily and effortlessly power up growth units means that ''Path of Radiance'' Titania is not as dominant as ''The Sacred Stones'' Seth (though conversely, her ability to quickly blow through chapters makes her a great way to get lots of BEXP). Titania is still a great unit over the course of the entire game and can easily beat the game, sans the final boss, on her own, the existence of other gamebreakers makes her a bit less unique.
143	* Marcia and Jill are the other notable gamebreakers in ''Path of Radiance''. Though both have rather mediocre base stats, the player can pump them full of BEXP to instantly turn them into excellent combat units. The element that makes Marcia and Jill superior recipients of this BEXP (since any other character can be elevated to the status of a combat god with BEXP) is that they are able to fly over all sorts of terrain impediments and easily bypass large portions of many chapters. With their augmented stats, neither are vulnerable to enemy attacks and both are extremely capable at killing most boss enemies in a couple of rounds of combat.
144	** More generally, the Canto ability that cavalry & fliers share in ''Path of Radiance'' which allows them to reposition after attacking is extremely good, so really any cavalry or flier can be great in ''Path of Radiance''.
145	* The Japanese version of ''Path of Radiance'' has a [[GoodBadBugs Game Breaking Bug]] (but not a GameBreakingBug) involving forged weapons. Critical hit rates are among the things that can be modified, and if the weapon had an existing critical hit rate, it can be lowered as well as raised. It moves in increments of 3. Slim weapons and Thunder tomes have a natural rate of 5. Lowering this twice... underflows the critical hit rate, making a weapon that ''always crits.''
146	* The [[CriticalStatusBuff Wrath/Resolve combo]], generally considered the last word with regard to skills. Resolve significantly increases a unit's Strength, Skill, and Speed while they're below half health, while Wrath increases critical rate--resulting in a unit that dodges everything, kills most enemies in one shot, and has a colossal crit rate on whatever can survive one shot. It's actually much more common to see than any of the Mastery skills, even the PurposefullyOverpowered Aether. Fittingly, the only time you can actually use this combo in Path of Radiance (without Tauroneo, who comes with Resolve) is [[EleventhHourSuperpower in the last 2 chapters of the game]], after the battle against [[ThatOneBoss the Black Knight]].
147	* While you can't use him in the main storyline, Ashnard is playable in the Trial Maps of ''Path of Radiance'' after clearing the game 15 times. He can't be damaged by anything other than the player-exclusive Ragnell, dragon breath, or royal Laguz weapons, making him completely immortal while under your control.
148	* No unit is capable of trivializing the entirety of ''Radiant Dawn'' [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent due to how the game is structured]], but in the context of the game, the most obvious gamebreaker is Haar. Haar has excellent base parameters and growth rates that are well distributed; on top of that, he is in a flying class with some of the best movement in the game. Haar also boasts great availability and enjoys some exclusivity as well, being the only flying unit for a significant portion of the game. This is not to say that Haar doesn't have weaknesses; Haar's [[MightyGlacier speed base and growth]] are somewhat mediocre, and low resistance coupled with weakness to [[ShockAndAwe thunder magic]] make some enemy types extremely dangerous for Haar. Even then, though, thunder mages are rare and the presence of BEXP makes gaining speed a non-problem once Haar has capped a stat or two. He's such a well-known game breaker that Tier discussions for Radiant Dawn (or even other games in the series) frequently name the top tier "Haar Tier".
149	* The Earth/Earth support pairing in ''Radiant Dawn'', especially due to supports being much simpler. (It's useful in ''Path of Radiance'' as well, but there are only 3 Earth units that have a support in that game, and only one of them can support both at the same time.) Earth's boost in support is pretty simple; 7.5% avoid per support level. However, it doesn't need to be complex because two earth characters together doubles the boost, giving both characters in the support a ''45% boost to avoid'' at A rank if they're close to each other. At that point, even a Sniper would have a hard time hitting them.

Context GameBreaker / FireEmblem