"There's one among the Daein army whose power is overwhelming. To move with such speed with all that armor... I tell you, it's not right!"
Due to how Fire Emblem designs around the process of growing stronger with level ups blessed by the Random Number God, any unit with favoritism or luck can truly become a force to be reckoned with. Even the examples that do qualify for this page's below-listed requirements are numerous enough that they practically require its own page.
To both prevent every unit from being on this list and to consider both styles of play, keep in mind to only add examples of units that fit within two categories: units are designed to consistently grow into this role with time or investment even for casual play, or units that are just really, really good for hardcore play.
Series-Wide/Consistent Examples
- The "Jagen/Oifey" Crutch Character archetype serves intentionally this for the early-game, and less intentionally so past that point. A Jagen is a Crutch Character that joins early on with good bases but bad growths, with them falling off signifying their gradual replacement with fresh characters. Its sister counterpart, the Oifey, actually boast good growths on top of good bases, meaning even after their purpose of carrying the Early Game Hell is done, they can still be used if the player seeks to use them. While on paper overreliance on the Jagen or Oifey of a game was meant to actually punish the player for not training up weaker units, in practice and with gradual time players have found how hilariously broken they often were for both their high bases carrying well into the endgame alongside always being in a high Movement class. While they won't usually cap stats like trained units are often liable to do, they are ultimately far more reliable and never fall off, certifying them as some of the best units in their respective games. This gets more ridiculous with Oifeys, given they actually have a good growth pool that on average gives them higher base stats than almost anyone else. Some in particular, such as Seth and Titania, are some of the best units in the series for their perfect availability, high bases and higher growths, with the former being able to easily clear the game without usage of any other unit available.
- Wyvern Riders/Dracoknights are a relatively consistent example: being on paper a Mighty Glacier equivalent to the Pegasus Knight's Fragile Speedster, the Wyvern Rider boasts superb mobility coupled with, surprisingly enough, an above-average attack Speed stat, along with hitting very hard and being extremely durable across the board. Because of how easy it is to get a Wyvern Rider/Dracoknight into a full-on killing machine compared to other classes, it's unsurprising to see the class universally reach the highest echelons of tier lists very often. That isn't to say they don't have weaknesses; they manage to be Weak to Magic and the entire bow weapon type, though the latter is more manageable if you properly specced your Wyvern Lord to tank arrows, but the former is tough luck due to their abysmal resistance. And if they don't have a good Speed stat to compensate, they're far more likely to fall into the Mighty Glacier territory than be a full-on Lightning Bruiser (though a Mighty Glacier who can fly is still a significant step above most other units).
- Berserkers are another pretty consistent example across the board as well. They are, like Swordmasters and Snipers, one of the series' premier Glass Cannon Critical Hit Classes, typically coming coded with very high Strength and Speed, but terrible Defense and Resistance. On paper, this meant that they could dish it but never take it... but in practice, their dodge rate is closely on-level with classes that specialize in avoiding attacks like the aforementioned Swordmasters and Assassins, and unlike those two classes, they have a monstrous HP stat and growth, meaning even if they do take a hit, they are capable of shrugging off blows that'd be catastrophic for any other fragile class. About the only reason why Berserkers aren't nearly as overused as Wyvern Riders often are is because while a Berserker is just as formidable as a Wyvern Rider, they don't have the high Movement stat that class often does.
- Lastly, if a unit's in a heavy infantry/cavalry class that typically boasts high Strength and survival capabilities (such as a General or Warrior), but has a good Speed stat base or growth, they pretty much automatically qualify as this by default. These units tend to have very high Strength alongside some means of being able to tank an onslaught of enemies (high HP for Warriors and good HP and high Defense for Generals), but they typically would boast enough Speed to be able to outright double enemy units to deal ludicrous damage while taking barely any damage that would threaten it. Listed examples of units that fit this bill below are Ross, Amelia, Boyd, RD!Gatrie, the Black Knight, Nolan, Effie and Arthur just to list a few.
Archanea and Valentia Saga (Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, Fire Emblem Gaiden, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem and their remakes)
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem more or less codified the paradigm of Dracoknight characters being Lightning Bruisers, with all five (Caeda, Minerva, Palla, Catria, and Est) fitting in to varying degrees. This is particularly evident because in those games, Dracoknight is the promotion of the Fragile Speedster Pegasus Knight — meaning you start out as an extremely speedy unit whose only downside is bad defenses and raw power, and then you promote, keep the Speed, and get substantial boosts to Defense and Strength. Palla is the most notable example, as she's already meant as a Mighty Glacier among the Pegasus Knights — but her base Speed is massive, so she really just goes from "unusually tanky and strong while still being fast" to "borderline invincible."
Jugdral Saga (Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776)
- Sigurd in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War distinguishes himself as this very early on. He has the highest Movement of anyone in the initial army, even his fellow cavalry, the highest Strength with a strong weapon, the highest Speed with the Follow-Up skill to leverage it, and durability only surpassed by dedicated Mighty Glacier Arden. Astoundingly, he actually gets better from that point on.
- Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has one of these in Galzus, the resident 11th-Hour Ranger. He joins at max level, has maxed out his Strength, Skill and Speed at 20, the Astra (turns one attack into 5 attacks) and Luna (attack ignores defense, bypasses accuracy check) skills to kill enemies more efficiently than he would ever need to as well as 18 Con to let him use the heaviest of weapons without a speed penalty. Defensively, he's got 17 luck, 14 defense and an HP pool of 54, letting him survive a surprisingly large amount of damage. His only 'weak' stat is Magic at 9 points, but even that's extremely high for a physical class, and if he needs extra magic to tank enemy magic, he has a Flame Sword in his inventory that boosts it by 5 points when equipped. He also joins with a Master Sword, a Master Axe, the aforementioned Flame Sword and 2 vulneraries (for a total of 6 full-HP restores) letting him immediately go and lay waste to the enemy.
Elibe Saga (Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade)
- In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, particularly on Hard Mode, this role falls to Melady, who pretty much embodies the idea in the franchise of Wyvern Riders being among the best units in their games. Nearly all her base stats are very high (her only weak points being Resistance, which is low all-around outside of mages, and Speed, where she is only average rather than low, with her high growth and promotion bonus easily fixing the issue), and she joins at an abnormally low level for a unit with her statline, allowing her to snowball quickly. This results in a unit that can best be described as a guided missile, flying halfway across the battlefield right into enemy formations and killing everything there while barely taking a scratch. Tellingly, even the Aircalibur tome, something pretty much purpose-built for killing wyverns (a magic tome that deals effective damage against flying enemies) still fails to kill her at base level because she's just that sturdy. Perceval, who joins a bit later, is the other major Lightning Bruiser candidate: he lacks Melady's wings or snowballing potential, but he's in a Jack of All Stats class with abnormally high base stats, meaning he pretty much stomps anything that gets in the way of his horse.
- Rutger also definitely qualifies. While dodgetanking without the durability to back it up can be a risky proposition in most games, the low hit rates of all weapons in Binding Blade alongside his exceptional Skill and Speed means not only is he one of the only units who can hit enemies reliably (including bosses on a throne), but also dodge with such impunity as to be literally untouchable. He joins with excellent bases on the wholesale and is even better with Hard Mode bonuses (boosting his Strength up to 9, the same Strength total as Marcus), and only grows stronger when promoted to a Swordmaster, whose innate +30% Critical rate unique to Binding Blade makes it so he'd one-shot enemies left and right. Supporting him with Dieck and Clarine (both with the Thunder affinities) skyrockets his already insane Critical and Dodge rates. All of this together plus him being an early sight for sore eyes in a game with Early Game Hell in full effect makes Rutger an exception to the rule among infantry units, making him not only one of the best units in all of Binding Blade, but a very strong contender for the single best foot-locked infantry unit in the series.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
- In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, this is the intended end slates of Ross, Amelia and Ewan's roles as the resident Magikarp Power units in a game that encourages grinding: all three have Jack of All Stats growths, but the benefits of having an extra ten levels means that a Being Level 10/1 in their class of choice will let them have far higher bases than is typical of a Level 1 in any class, meaning you have examples from a Berserker Ross who can dodge everything, has a crap-ton of HP and can flat-out one-shot enemies with critical hits; a General Amelia who takes the Mighty Glacier class and adds extra wheels while dodging almost everything thrown at her, and a Sage or Druid Ewan who, again, dodges virtually everything in his way while nuking enemies magically. Either way, if one wants to put in the effort to use them, the as-designed results ensure the user will be very happy with them. Of course, (and a bit ironically), practice has all three of them as hard-rooted examples of Magikarp Power in a series traditionally encouraging speedy play and maximizing efficiency, so a lot of that effort put into the three could get equivalent units in much better shape with less effort, even given the sheer payoff involved in using the trio.
Tellius Saga (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
- Examples across both installments than individual cases in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn include:
- Ike, the protagonist of the duology, is notorious for this among the casual crowd to the point he's something of a Memetic Badass. Ike in Path of Radiance has perfect availability and very high growth rates including a personal 1-2 Range Sword by the end of the game, and typically by that point would have most of his stats capped. Fittingly, he's the only unit in the game at the point you'd fight a rematch with who can fight and defeat the Black Knight. In Radiant Dawn, he's even better, having much of his usual strengths plus base stats that'd be befitting of an Ogma archetype character, which - like the aforementioned Seth - can snowball into him potentially sololing both games by himself. While hardly the best unit in both games due to being Swordlocked for most of the series and a foot infantry, it's pretty hard to debate how powerful he becomes in most people's playthroughs.
- Boyd, Friendly Rival to the protagonist Ike. This is especially notable as he's of the Fighter/Warrior class, a class usually built with amazing HP and Strength, but middling Speed and Skill and bad Defense. Boyd completely defies the atypical stat distribution of this class: on top of having amazing HP and Strength, he also has a 45% growth in Speed and Skill (50% in Path of Radiance), and while he has bad Defense in Path of Radiance, in Radiant Dawn he has an insane 50% growth in Defense. Sure, for a class like a Swordmaster and General, this is unimpressive, but it's utterly insane for a Fighter and actually higher overall than Ike's growths. And despite having middling bases, these growths ensure that Boyd will become an exceptionally powerful unit, capable of surviving stuff most Fighter/Warriors would be completely unable to, while one-rounding or outright one-shotting his opponents with his high Strength and Speed. Even in Path of Radiance, his low Defense is more than acceptable given he dodges like crazy and has a very high HP stat to boot. His only bad stats are Magic and Resistance, but Magic has always been a Dump Stat for the Fighter class, and his exceptional survivability and dodge rate means his Resistance is no problem.
- Then we have Ike's recurring enemy, the Black Knight, who is repeatedly described as abnormally fast for a guy in heavy armor, and has the strength to match. And in-game, he's got astronomically high strength, defense, and speed stats, to the point of double-attacking pretty much everything in the game, and more often than not one-round killing it, while enemies can deal Scratch Damage against him if they're lucky. In Radiant Dawn, his Limit Break, Eclipse, activates often due to his good skill stat, and is noteworthy in that literally nothing in the game, even the Final Boss, is capable of surviving it.note
- The royal laguz units (such as Tibarn, Naesala, Giffca (Path of Radiance only), Caineghis and Nailah (both Radiant Dawn exclusive) are a case of this as well as Purposefully Overpowered. Their high speed lets them double attack nearly all enemies in the game, and their strength is more than high enough to take them out in a single round. With their high avoid, they're dodging enemy attacks more often than not, while their high skill means that their powerful Limit Breaks, which triple their damage, will be activating often and One Hit Killing enemies as well. There's a reason they're Eleventh Hour Rangers for the most part.
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn exclusive examples include:
- Trueblades, the class that Swordmasters turn into after level 20, could also count, especially Mia. They have a ridiculous evasion rate, hit their target most of the time, and between all of their offensive stats you'd be hard-pressed to find anything short of a mini-boss or boss that can survive more than a single round with one; usually they'll end up getting killed by critical hits or their Astra ability. One of the best examples is Stefan in both games. He has high base stats and retains the class line's advantage in speed and skill, but for story reasons, he also has unusually high growths in HP, strength, defense, and resistance. In Path of Radiance he was held back by his abysmal luck score. In Radiant Dawn he's all but guaranteed to max HP, strength, skill, and speed, has a very high chance of maxing out defense and resistance, and unlike other characters with this potential, he does not need to depend on Save Scumming or manipulating bonus experience. As an added bonus, his Heaven affinity ensures that supporting him with anyone allows him to reliably use the otherwise very inaccurate ranged swords. The only things preventing him from breaking the game is his late joining time, and the stat caps of the Trueblade class.
- Nolan, while having a relatively forgettable personality, is well-loved for basically how critical he is to survival of the Early Game Hell on harder difficulties. He has amazing bases and a good level for his join time when you sorely need it, being a much needed tank to the group. Hilariously, his stat total actually defaults to that of a Myrmidon than a Fighter, as he has astronomically high Speed and Skill growths. This means he can and does double like crazy when he gets going, and while he's much more frail than Boyd, he is present at a much more crucial time than him so he tends to rank higher on tier lists. His only real bad notch is his pretty meh Strength for a Fighter (45% growth), which still isn't bad given his bases in the stat, so he should have no problem catching up.
- There's a reason why the Dragon Rider Haar is the game's premiere Game-Breaker and the top of unit tier lists. He boasts one of the highest strength stats and growths in the game, as well as the strong defense to tank and one-round kill multiple enemies on his own, to say nothing of his good avoid stat which means enemies flat-out don't deal damage to him a lot of the time. His speed is decently high, allowing to double-attack almost everything in the game. He's essentially a One-Man Army.
- Gatrie, The Big Guy Armor Knight of the Greil Mercenaries. While he was a Mighty Glacier with high strength but low speed in Path of Radiance, in Radiant Dawn he boasts an impressive 60% speed growth, higher than all of the mercenaries except for Fragile Speedster Mia and Cold Sniper Shinon, and strange on a class known for normally being pitifully slow. He'll be double-attacking most enemies with his speed, and combined with his enormous strength and high defense that ensures that most enemies will be dealing Scratch Damage to him at most, you've got a Lightning Bruiser. His decent skill means that once he's reached the third unit tier, his Mastery Skill, Luna, which negates enemy defense and triples his damage will activate fairly often as well. The only thing that holds him back from being a complete Game-Breaker is his low movement range.
- Shinon, with his extremely high speed, skill, avoid, and strength ensuring that he'll be double-attacking everything, never getting hit by anything, and critically-hitting often. Even if his very high avoid fails him once or twice, he soaks up any damage done due to his high HP and decent defense. One he's reached the third tier of unit promotion, he gains his Mastery Skill Deadeye, which will be activating a ton of the time, and if the tripled damage isn't enough to kill an enemy, it also immediately puts the target to sleep. He's a Game-Breaker in his own right.
Fire Emblem: Awakening
- Chrom certainly fits this as he starts leveling up, dealing insane damage, usually attacking twice and being able to take hits. Upon promotion he gets Aether, like Ike, which he can use to soak up even more damage as the first hit drains health, and also dish out damage as it turns what would normally be a single attack into 2, with the second hit ignoring half of defenses. Play your cards right, and all of the second generation characters can become this. Special mention goes to Galeforce, which, provided you can kill an enemy in round, lets you move twice in one turn, making it possible to get twice the action done.
Fire Emblem Fates
- Corrin, the Player Avatar, with the right set-up, can potentially be this. Given how the Yato eventually gives bonuses to either Strength/Speed, Defense/Resistance, or both, with the right Boons, Banes, and potential pair-up, the Avatar can be blindingly fast, stupidly hard-hitting and potentially boasting tons of survivability. What's more notable is that they can get skills that can give a massive debuff to their enemies after combat, can halve damage when next to a more vulnerable opponent, increase their skill activation rate by 10%, and even be able to take on a partner's Triggered Skills without equipping them. With the right set-up, the only character that can feasibly surpass the Avatar would be their child, Kana.
- Ryoma is this trope, a rare breed for a Swordmaster. When he joins, he boasts stupidly high bases on top of a unrestricted 1-2 range weapon, a weapon that gives him +4 Strength for free, and he has ridiculous Speed and Skill to couple it. The only real issue is that he has mediocre Defenses, but this is offset by his fantastic Avoid, and he can still take a few hits anyway. As a whole, there's a very good reason why Ryoma frequents the top of the Birthright tier lists.
- Xander can also be this with some help. By himself, Xander has a free mount, fantastic offense and ridiculous Defense, owing to his naturally high growth in the stat and Siegfried, which gives him a +4 boost to the stat for free. The catch is that he has low Speed by default... but then you give him Speedtaker, Dancing Blade, and potentially a Charlotte pair-up to turn him into an unstoppable maelstrom like Ryoma is... only except with good Defenses. Sadly, his only real flaw is his terrible Resistance, so don't expect him to be a good mage killer.
- Camilla is also on the same camp. High HP, good Speed, ridiculous offensive and defensive parameters, and actually has good Resistance, unlike Xander. However, she also is more of a Jack of All Stats Lightning Bruiser, meaning while she doesn't have any obvious flaws, she doesn't have anything truly going for her, owing to her balanced spreadsheet. On the bright side, she's also a flier, which gives her access to fantastic movement.
- Effie is a rare case amongst the non-Royal characters for being not just a Lightning Bruiser, but a Lightning Bruiser in a class that's predominantly a Mighty Glacier. Like many Knights/Generals, Effie has amazing HP, Strength and especially Defense. Unlike many Knights/Generals, she has a very decent Speed growth that, with luck, can turn her into a doubling monstrosity. And even if her Speed doesn't work out, she can still gain access to Wary Guard, meaning while she can't double anyone, nobody can double her. And especially given her early join time, there's a reason why she's high-ranked on tier lists.
- Believe it or not, Arthur of all people can qualify as a Lightning Bruiser, just like his partner Effie. He's an interesting case, because unlike Effie, Arthur doesn't join with the same pedigree of bases as his friend. So what does he have going for him? His growths. High HP and Strength is to be expected of the Fighter class, but he has a 70% growth in Skill, meaning that despite having some accuracy issues at first, some levels will make it very hard to dodge him. And on top of that, he has a surprisingly high 50% growth in Speed and Defense, meaning with a little luck, he's capable of becoming frighteningly agile and durable. As a whole, though, this is offset by his bases being rather poor in comparison to Effie, and the fact that his Luck is bad enough (no surprise there) to actually threaten him with criticals on a regular basis. At the same time, however, his growth potential is extremely impressive for a non-royal, and he's really the only unit who needs those Goddess Icons anyway. Man, what's with Nohr possessing so many powerful warriors?
- Another weird example has to be Azama, who isn't just a Lightning Bruiser, but a Lightning Bruiser in a healing class. Yet it's true nonetheless: Azama has fantastic physical stats across the board with great HP and Strength, very good Defense, Speed and Luck, and a decent Skill growth. The conundrum here is that he's locked as a healer for his base class, and has a surprisingly sub-par Magic and Resistance growth, but promoting him into a Great Master guarantees he's just as likely to heal as he is to be one of your strongest units... or, as an alternative, you can bypass all of this with the Dread Fighter class and turn him into an outright Game-Breaker.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- Edelgard has no low growths aside from Luck and strong bases, including the highest Strength amongst the student characters. While she becomes a Mighty Glacier if her personal classes are kept, as a Wyvern Lord, Edelgard becomes capable of clearing entire maps on her own.
- Dimitri, while a Magically Inept Fighter, possesses high growths in every other category, including the highest Strength growth in the game. His personal classes have high modifiers across the board, notably being as fast as the Swordmaster. His lower Magic and Resistance are less of an issue than expected, as Dimitri has no use for the former, and is fast enough to often dodge magical attacks, and if they do hit, his sheer bulk allows him to take the hit anyway.
- Claude, after the timeskip, gains a higher Strength growth to go alongside his already-high Speed, plus innate Bowfaire. His exclusive Wyvern Master and Barbarossa classes give him the same growth rates as a Wyvern Lord, except with additional Charm.
- Sylvain's access to the Lance of Ruin gives him high attack power, while his Speed and Defense remain high, and if made a Dark Knight, he becomes capable of dishing out and taking magical attacks.
- Ferdinand has similar growth rates to Sylvain, trading some Defense for Dexterity and a stronger personal skill. Unless put through the Armored Knight line, Ferdinand grows well in Strength and Speed, with his marginally-lower Defense compensated by his ability to stack evasion buffs.
- After obtaining the Aegis Shield and the Strength stat to carry it, Felix transitions from a Glass Cannon to this. He has the second-highest Strength and Speed in the game, and ties with Dimitri for the overall highest offensive stats on a physical attacker, with the Aegis Shield's ability to halve damage and defensive buffs compensating for his relatively low defenses.
- There's a villainous example in the Death Knight. This jackass has enough raw power to plaster any character not named Dedue in two hits, a solid crit rate for a chance to triple his damage (i.e. instant death for you), and blistering speed that doubles the vast majority of your units. In addition, he has a skill that causes him to take barely any damage from gambits, the only safe way to attack him, and he always counterattacks your units. Great care must be taken to bring him down, and the only saving graces are that he's generally an optional boss whenever he appears, he's as weak as any cavalry unit to abilities like Dark Spikes T and Knightkneeler, he drops a very rare Dark Seal each time you beat him, and if you're a Black Eagle and choose to side with Edelgard, he joins your party with nearly all of his powerful abilities intact or obtainable reasonably quickly.
- Catherine, thanks to her incredibly high Strength, Speed, and Defense stats, combined with her signature Heroes' Relic Thunderbrand which has a Brave effect. In case you aren't aware a Brave effect means that the weapon will always hit twice, regardless of speed, and considering her insane Speed she'll pretty much always out-speed any opponent, meaning she'll actually get to hit FOUR times, in one turn! Her only real flaw is her below average Resistance stat, but that can be dealt with using some stat boosting items.
