"I cannot stand the sight of Reinhardt."
— Julius, which is also what many players thought back in 2017-2019 when Reinhardt was easy to come across in PvP.
Due to the nature of Power Creep and Fire Emblem Heroes being a gacha game that releases 11-12 new Heroes every month, there is bound to be at least one unit in every Version that gets on the playerbase's nerves when competing in PVP gamemodes. As time goes on and more powerful Heroes and skills get added to the game however, those Heroes that were once the bane of everyone's existence becomes irrelevant and easy to be disposed of. Nonetheless, these are the characters that are (or were) notorious in PvP due to their immense power.
Expect some overlap with the Game Breaker entries. For the Heroes that give players a hard time in PvE gamemodes such as Training Tower, Forging Bonds, and Tempest Trials, see this game's Demonic Spiders page.
open/close all folders
Version 1
- At launch, regular Takumi and Hector were the first examples of high tier units that were widely disliked. The main reason being was that they had access to Close Counter and Distant Counter respectively, making them a nightmare to fight in PVE and PVP modes, because initially there wasn't a good way to counter them except with specific units that were able to either one-shot them, or could trade hits, both of which were rare at launch. Hector in particular was nigh-unkillable because he was just tanky enough that Armads effect could keep him in the fight when combined with Pavise to reduce the damage of incoming attacks, with Takumi being only slightly easier because of his weapon's weak skill even at launch (his Fujin Yumi only allows him to ignore Obstruct when above 50%). While Takumi would eventually fall off once more skills became available, Hector was still a dangerous foe to face in Arena, to the point that even many years later, a fully invested in Hector can still be a dangerous unit.
- The original Reinhardt, released all the way back in 2017 on the Sibling Bonds banner. At first, upon release, he was nothing special, due to being a relatively standard Brave Tome user along with his sister Olwen. However, when Skill Inheritance was introduced in Version 1.1.0, Reinhardt became the king of PvP gamemodes, due to how easy it was to merge him to +10 (as he was a demote unlike his sister Olwen) and give him skills from other units that would increase his offensive capabilities even more, such as Death Blow 3 (and eventually Death Blow 4). For years, Arena and Aether Raids were infested with fully-invested Reinhardts, as tanking him with the units released back then was a daunting task. Over time however, thanks to the addition of tankier Infantry and Armored skills and units, as well as the Savior meta being added in Version 5, Reinhardt's infamy slowly faded away as the meta changed, and he would later suffer from his lack of speed and relatively poor stats in comparison to the newer characters. While Reinhardt himself could also obtain better skills from recent units as well as receiving a Resplendent variant in 2021 that would grant him an extra +10 to his stats, what what considered the kiss of death for the original High-Tier Scrappy himself was the release of Rearmed Reinhardt in Version 8.1, which many users cited as being just like the original Reinhardt but better in every way (thanks to his Rearmed variant having a similar gimmick of attacking twice as well as having the virtue of being a newer unit that isn't stuck with an outdated exclusive weapon (that also had no refine) and having high speed, allowing him to attack up to four times). Reinhardt is notably one of the few non-dancer or staff units from version 1 to never have been given a refine (alongside Olwen), seemingly out of fear that any kind of Balance Buff would make him too powerful again.
Version 2
- Ares was another unit that was notorious for popping up so many times in PvP gamemodes such as Arena and Aether Raids, for most of the same reasons as Reinhardt before him: He was a demote unit with high Atk and Def, which made it easy to merge him to +10 and maximize his offensive capabilities thanks to Skill Inheritance, with players often giving him the most powerful skills at his disposal such as Distant Counter to attack any unit that approached him and Vantage to counter any units that had an Area-of-Effect special such as Blazing Wind, combined with his exclusive weapon, Dark Mystletainn, which functions like Special Spiral (which accelerates his cooldown by -2 when he activates his special, allowing him to activate his next special sooner). Dealing with Ares in PvP was notoriously difficult, as it usually required having a unit that could tank his next attack (usually a Lance unit), a Staff unit with Dazzling Staff, or using the Hardy Bearing seal (which nullifies skills like Desperation and Vantage). While Ares would get a weapon refine later down the road (unlike other previous High-Tier Scrappies before and after him), it was not enough to restore his legacy as one of the most infamous units in Fire Emblem Heroes, and Ares was quickly forgotten about in PVP modes, though he's considered very strong for PVE content still.
- The King of Muspell himself, Surtr, was an absolute menace to fight against at first, thanks to his exclusive weapon Sinmara, which dealt a whopping 20 damage to all units within 2 spaces of him at the start of his turn, which would most likely weaken all units enough that Surtr could simply finish them off with a single swipe of his scythe. Paired with his B-Skill, Wary Fighter, which meant that the foe could not attack him twice per turn without a refresher unit on their team. Paired with his immense Mighty Glacier stats and his C-Skill granting him even more stats (and lowering the enemy's stats) at the start of his turn, meant that few units could defeat the Ruler of Flame himself. As time went on though, more and more counters would be introduced to deal with Surtr, such as Null Follow-Up, which disabled skills like Wary Fighter, as well as Power Creep in general slowly catching up to him, which left Surtr in a relatively awkward spot due to his lack of a weapon refine, as well as later Armored units being introduced with Near Save and Far Save, which left the normal Surtr behind in the dust.
Version 5
- The 2021 Valentine's banner, Love of a King, was what introduced what was unofficially dubbed by fans as "The Savior Meta", which referred to the new C-Skills that Armored Units obtained: Near Save for 1-range units, and Far Save for 2-range units. What made them so notorious in the first place was the fact that they protect nearby allies (within 2 spaces of them) on the battlefield, forcing the players to have to engage the same unit in battle no matter what. These units were often riddled with powerful skills such as Distant or Close Counter, damage-reducing skills and/or weapons that made them even more tedious to kill, and meant that the other units it was protecting were untouchable thanks to Near Save and Far Save being a strategy to negate all incoming damage from every attacker, which meant those units could get a free kill on the player's own units, if not destroy the entire player's team, especially in Aether Raids where this strategy was the most notorious. Armored units would become the meta from 2021 all the way to start of 2023, when Intelligent Systems introduced counters to these units, such Embla's exclusive skill, Enclosure, that would inflict the status "Unprotected" on enemies that were within 3 rows and columns of her, meaning they cannot be protected with Near or Far Save. This also prompted Intelligent Systems to relase more powerful nukes into the game that could easily dispose of these old Armored units, which many cite as a case of Gone Horribly Right since those nukes have become High-Tier Scrappies themselves (see Version 7 below for more information on them).
- Fallen Edelgard, at the time of her release, was regarded as one of the most infamous units in the game due to how extremely powerful and tanky she was. Due to her signature skills and weapon granting her one extra space of movement, an Extra Turn, healing 7 damage after every combat, cuts off foe’s natural follow-ups and 40% Damage reduction from the foe's first attack, on top of her ridiculously high Atk, Def, and Res stats and being an Armored unit and a Colorless Beast, there were few units in the game who could even hope to make even a dent in her ludicrous defenses. To make matters worse, her weapon has a built-in Distant Counter effect, so even trying to use ranged attacks would only result in the loss of any ranged unit foolish enough to attack her. It doesn't help that her Special cooldown is lowered dramatically, and combined with Ignis or Galeforce, it made Fallen Edelgard absolutely notorious to fight, and for a while, she was nearly unavoidable in most PvP gamemodes. Thankfully, stronger, more capable units have been added to the game as time went on, such as Thórr, Legendary Hinoka, Heiðr, and ironically, Edelgard's Brave version, all of which are easily able to defeat Fallen Edelgard without breaking a sweat. As a result, Fallen Edelgard had fallen off her pedestal as the most powerful Hero in the game, but she is still a very capable fighter, and can invoke ire from any unprepared player who doesn't yet understand just how powerful the Hegemon Husk is, especially with new skills coming out she can benefit from. Another factor of her release that contributes to her reputation was that she was such a broken unit with little counters at first, that the developers had to start releasing even more broken units just to counter her, essentially making her responsible for a new wave of powercreep.
Version 7
- Many Cavalry and Flying Nukes introduced in Version 7 (including but not limited to: Legendary Hinoka, Wind Tribe Claude, Both Gullveigs, Normal Kvasir, Ninja Duo Sanaki, Legendary Camilla, and Valentine's Duo Lyon) are widely hated for being borderline impossible to tank even a single attack during enemy phase. While Cavalry and Flying nukes struggled before to make a name for themselves after Savior skills were introduced, the way they bounced back proved to be a little too effective, due to the new skills they have access to, such as Flared Sparrow/Mirror and Occultist's/Assassin's Strike (which not only create Flame tiles that deal damage at the start of every turn and before combat starts, but also deal damage at the start of combat, which stacks up to 14 pre-damage total on top of Occultist's/Assassin's Strike dealing 20% true damage based on the enemy's Def or Res) as well as any potential prf weapon and/or skill the nuke might have, if any. Most of these nukes also have ways of reducing or outright negating percentage-based Damage Reduction effects just to make them even more impossible to survive against, and Legendary Camilla and Valentine's Duo Lyon in particular have prfs that deal even more pre-combat damage that can go up to 40% of their foe's Atk if they have the weapon triangle advantage or if their Spd or Res respectively exceeds their foe's. Fortunately, most nukes in the game have the virtue as being stuck as a Glass Cannon, meaning that while they can deal out a ton of damage that outright cannot be blocked and instantly tear through most Armored Saviors, the instant that another unit attacks a nuke, they are almost certainly done for. Despite this, the meta has heavily shifted in favor of Player Phase over Enemy Phase due to these nukes dominating the meta with their extreme offensive power combined with the new skills released in Version 7.
