Per troping policy, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
With the abundance in cast in Fire Emblem Heroes, some characters end up being the fandom's punching bags, even if they might not be as such in their original games (excepting the Original Generation cast).
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Groups of characters
- Anyone who finishes last in a Choose Your Legends poll is often hit with this status.
- Poor, poor Glade. The least popular Fire Emblem character of all time, according to the first Choose Your Legend poll with a measly 17 votes to his name. Fortunately for him, he garnered enough pity votes to finish 352nd in the second poll and 505th in the third.
- For the second Choose Your Legends poll, the bottom of the barrel is a tie between Garth and Bloom (even more ironic for Bloom is that his daughter Ishtar received the most votes out of any Genealogy Of The Holy War character), who got 7 votes apiece; rubbing salt even further is that Glade got more in the first poll than both of them combined, although the second Choose Your Legends poll was shorter than the first. Like Glade before them, both improved for the third poll; Bloom got 67 votes and placed 526th, while Garth got 41 votes and placed 548th.
- The third Choose Your Legends poll forces this status onto poor Frost, with a pitiful 11 votes. His only consolation prize was that he scored better than Bloom and Garth during the second Choose Your Legends. He climbed up to 59 votes in Choose Your Legends 4.
- The fourth Choose Your Legends poll had a three way tie between Halcyon, Hayden, and Dalvin at the bottom, again with 11 votes each. Somehow, in the next CYL, both Halcyon and Hayden got even less votes (Hayden got 10, Halcyon got 8), though Alder and Dolth got so little votes as shown below that Hayden and Halcyon got to escape last place.
- The fifth Choose Your Legends pool ended with Alder and Dolth tied with this dubious honor with a pathetic 2 votes each. Dannan wasn't much better, as while he has 50% more votes than last place, that isn't saying much.
- The sixth Choose your Legends pool would end with Jorge at the bottom, with a mere six votes. More details below on how it was a big 'fall from grace' for Jorge, who was infamously bot-voted into being the Grail unit for the CYL banner the year prior.
- The seventh Choose your Legends pool ended with Alder, once again, taking last place, not only being the first character to lose CYL twice, but also somehow doing worse than his previous loss, only gaining 1 vote.
- For the eighth Choose your Legends pool has poor Muston hitting dead last, and, worse yet, also having a single vote just like Alder.
- Anyone in the Voting Gauntlet who loses in a Curb-Stomp Battle is likely to be hit with this status.
- Leo is perpetually this on account of being in three Voting Gauntletsnote and failing to make it to the final round in even one of them. What really stings about the summer gauntlet though was that Summer Leo was ahead of Summer Gaius for the majority of their round and realistically should have made it to the finals, but was sniped by an ill-timed 7.3 multiplier right before the match ended. So even when Leo wins, he loses.
- Hinoka got this in the "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Gauntlet. Losing to Camilla in the first round during the Fliers Gauntlet was one thing, but in this Gauntlet, she lost to Shanna, who's not only from a GBA title but was usually known as a "Desperation Fodder". In the first round, no less.
- Katarina just cannot catch a break in Voting Gauntlets. She appeared in three of them (Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents, Enduring Love, War of the Tacticians), and each time she was eliminated in the first round.
- Poor Laevatein got the short end of the stick the most compared to the other first-round losers listed above. She participated in 5 Voting Gauntlets, and never got past the first round in any of them.
- Despite being a very popular character with all her playable variants being considered anywhere from "good" to "broken", Edelgard became a huge butt of jokes for losing 10 times in 9 voting gauntlets
, making her the current undisputed biggest loser in voting gauntlet history. While she did make it in the final rounds of two of them (Kingdoms vs. Empires and Brave Reprisals), in the 5 years of having at least one of her variants participate in every post-2018 AHR finals voting gauntlet, her status as this is even worse. Not only did she not have any of her variants win a single AHR voting gauntlet despite being in the Top 8 every year, but she has never gotten past the first round of each, especially losing to characters that are less popular than hernote , and the fact that she also lost in the first round of an additional two Voting Gauntlets in 2022 (Dueling Darkness to Fallen Rhea and Sea-Spray Skirmish to Summer Micaiah) and getting knocked out in both of them doesn't help.
- A few games in the series fall into this when it comes to getting any new units:
- The Binding Blade was an unfortunate one, having been stuck with this status for a while due to not having a dedicated banner for two years. While it did have a sizeable number of units at launch, only one new character, Klein, was added since then, with the only other additions being 3 alts of Roy and 1 alt each for Lilina, Cecilia, and Fae. These jokes died down in 2019, however, despite being two years after the game's launch, when Binding Blade got two dedicated banners that year, perhaps to make up for their absence.
- Awakening, despite its popularity and having saved the series, is sometimes seen this way, as new additions are very slow especially compared to games like Fates, to the point when a banner which added a number of characters from the game along side Mirabilis, a daydream fairy, fans remarked "Of course it's almost like a dream that it'd happen".
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE got hit with this hard, as it's the only represented Fire Emblem game to have only one dedicated banner, with no seasonals, Legendary, or Mythic heroes added in the years since. Out of all the characters, Touma and Yashiro get hit with this the hardest, due to the other playable characters at least being in the game itself. Many fans still hope that the game will be given a second chance by getting another banner.
- Fire Emblem Engage as a group has been hit with this status considering that unlike the other mainline games (Echoes: Shadows of Valentia andThree Houses) released after Heroes, it has only had one "New Heroes" banner instead of two consecutive ones, which has generally only been relegated to spinoff titles (Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes). Considering that only one gender (female) of the protagonist Alear has currently appeared (usually both genders of the protagonist have been available at the same time), along with an April Fools 2023 video acknowledging Timerra and Ivy appearing in the second 2023 summer banner, many fans have wondered whether if Intelligent Systems doesn't have as much faith in the game compared to the other two mainline titles. While they initially started to get better showings as 2023 went on, it came to a head when Choose Your Legends 8 came out, and there were absolutely zero winners from Engage when most fans expected at least one character to win.
- Male Wyvern Riders. Most of them will debut as a Grand Hero Battle unit, to which they would always be stuck in neutral stat spread, and usually be given non-unique weaponry, which won't make them stand out compared to other characters that actually have unique weapons. Making matters worse is that even if they were fantastic units in their home games, they're doomed to be mediocre in Heroes. It started right at the game's launch with the absolute joke of a unit Narcian, who originally wielded the rare and somewhat unique Runesword in his home game, but here, he is a Master of None that started with an Emerald Axe+. note It really ramped up in 2019 with Haar, followed by Cormag, Travant, and Heath in relative succession. All four were somewhat insulting portrayals of the characters for one reason or another. note While their voice and artwork are fine, their combat performances all pale greatly compared to their original selves, especially in Haar's case note . Ashnard actually broke the streak in May 2020 by actually being decent and wielding his unique weapon Gurgurant, and while fans feared for Seteth, he joined in October 2020 as a demote but with a good stat spread and good supportive weapon with his unique weapon Spear of Assal.
- Ever since the "Lovely Gifts" banner was announced to be the first banner with a 4/5 star focus character starting with Conrad, they've been on the rather short end of the stick. Compared to the 5-star exclusives on their banners, their skill kits are usually very underwhelming, especially in comparison to the other units on the banner. In fact, almost all of the non-seasonal ones so far don't carry an exclusive weapon either, making them more undesirable. The most infamous one is Merlinus note , who has not only the lowest base attack stat in the game despite having the second highest BST for Cavaliers at the time of his release, but the game itself Lampshades his uselessness in the Forging Bonds event where, when he was summoned, everyone reacted by going "Oh, its this guy...". But even though these characters have sub-par skillsets, they often still have decent enough stats, letting them be good options to invest in, but some like Ferdinand have the short end of the stick despite their usefulness.
- Units that debut without a preferred weapon but are still only available at 5-star rarity fall into this, to the point that most of the fanbase considers this to be the biggest death sentence a unit can receive. In theory, these types of 5-star locked units trade availability for better base kits and, sometimes, statlines, in comparison to 4-star and GHB units that also lack personal weapons, thus making them "better" by comparison and giving players a good reason to summon for them. In practice, however, the loss of availability makes these units near impossible to casually summon and max out their potential without wasting hundreds, if not thousands, of orbs, thus losing the main advantage common units have over premium ones and often the only way they get a leg up without a personal weapon. Combined with Power Creep and the release of common units that are similar, if not better, than these characters, results in these units often being looked down upon as prime fodder material at best and outright pity-breakers at worst, even when they're given often sought-after skills. Some of the most notorious include Galzus, who is The Dreaded in Thracia but lacks any personal weapon to take advantage of his admittibly good statline in Heroes, Niime, who's the only 5-star locked colorless mage in Heroes to not have a prf, Rennac, who was released a month before fellow Green dagger infantry Cath who is available at 3 and 4-star rarity, and Hubert, whose entire default skillset is available on units of lower rarity than him note even before he was moved to the 4-star special rate in February 2022. This is alleviated somewhat with the release of exclusive weapons for many of these units, but even that takes a long time to happen after their release due to the sheer amount of units in the game. Thankfully, I.S caught on to the complaints and started giving every 5-Star unit a personal weapon, with 2022's Arthur being the last premium unit to be hit with this.
- Every character that is either exclusively a seasonal unit So far, this includes..., an "alt" in the regular/grail pool So far, this includes..., or both So far this includes..., are made fun of as a whole, since being introduced in these ways tends to heavily lowers their chances of being featured in their normal outfits on New Heroes banners. Jokes about these characters being stuck in "seasonal/alt hell" are very common throughout the fanbase. While this mantle applies to any character introduced this way, there are a few notable examples...
- For the longest time, Charlotte was the butt of all jokes when it came to characters stuck in seasonal hell, mostly because of the fact that she was the first seasonal only character introduced in the game with the 2017 Bridal Blessings banner.... and remained in that state for four years. Whenever discussions about alt hell came up, jokes about Charlotte being stuck in a wedding dress were soon to follow, not at all helped by her appearances in Fire Emblem Heroes: A Day in the Life solely depicting her in her seasonal state. Even when Charlotte finally received her regular form with 2021's Dawning Reality & Nifl, it's still common for her to be referred to as "that lady that took four years to get out of a wedding dress."
- Inigo and Noire are often thrown in the same boat as Charlotte, being some of the longest characters to remain in seasonal/alt hell, and some of the few to remain before the concept started to take off. While this is at least Downplayed with Inigo in certain fans eyes, as the circumstances of his representation in Heroes has left some of them satisfied note , this is very much played straight with Noire, who is an outdated seasonal unit with widely panned art, and has been skipped on banners that would suit her, such as From a Future Past.
- Inigo also deserves special mention for being the character who's been stuck in alt hell the longest. Introduced into the game on September 28, 2017, Inigo has been stuck in alt hell ever since that date, even getting a second alt in 2021's Spring banner. To make things worse, Inigo is also the only seasonal unit introduced in 2017 to be still stuck in alt hell, with Charlotte and Shigure both having gotten their base forms. However, as of December 2023, this now applies to only Noire.
- Xane, Juno, Dorothea, and Ashe all have more than one alt, seasonal or otherwise, but no original variant, Dorothea in particular having three separate alts with no base forms. Veronica qualifies too, but her main form is still seen (and fought), while Dorothea, Ashe, and Xane's have yet to appear.
- For better or worse, Xane has also been the "demote" unit in both banners he's been featured with - meaning that he's common enough that players can pull him a bit easier (unlike Dorothea) but he's slightly less viable (although not looked down with scorn compared to most demote units generally released during the book stories) than units featured on the banner.
- Male Heroes original characters in general have a bad reputation for being treated badly by Intelligent Systems. Every year, one male OC from the latest Book is thrown into the hopeless "No default form released" club until 3 years. These characters also have a tendency to either get killed and are never relevant in the story again and/or revived, tend to be hated (intentionally or not), or both.
- Out of all the male OCs however, Njörðr is the one who got treated the absolute worst. He was a fairly decent, albeit forgettable, mentor character during Book VII, until it was revealed that he was the mastermind behind Gullveig's creation. The fans were excited to see what would happen with their new twist villain... only for the King of Vanaheimr to enter his downward spiral as he was immediately killed off in the very next chapter without a single fight against him, Gullveig taking over as the villain again, the story ended in what many felt was an unsatisfying note, and he was left in the club of Male OCs who were not going to receive their base form until 3 years after their respective Book ends. Adding salt to the wound is that unlike male OCs (sans Ótr) who at least had received a seasonal alt to tide fans over until their full release in 3 years and were all fought at least once so people could hear their voice lines, see their full combat art, etc., Njörðr received absolutely nothing, leaving him in a state of limbo that no other OC has had the displeasure of being stuck in.
- Veronica is a unique example of this in that her appearance from Book 1, which was her standard for the longest time, has yet to be playable in the base game outside of her various alts, something many have made fun of Veronica for, this form being playable in Dragalia Lost and not her game of origin not helping matters. However, her Book 6 appearance, which has become Veronica's default outfit both in and outside of Heroes, got released as soon as that book ended. As such, Veronica is in an odd situation in which she both is and isn't in alt-hell, a scenario strictly unique to her and her alone.
- Book V's entire Grand Hero Battle lineup note is infamous for its perceived low usability and quality, especially in comparison to Book 4 and 6's overall well received GHB lineup. Most of this can come down to the vast majority of the units being Mighty Glaciers of common unit types in a game in which Lightning Bruisers and Armored save tanks are largely the meta, with the few fast units of the bunch lacking any personal weapon to take advantage of their statlines and stand out from the sea of similar units, and the few units that do have personal weapons were either considered to be poor note or largely support based note . As such, the fanbase at large considers Book V's lineup to be the "dark days" of Grand Hero Battle units, with nearly every unit being seen as dead-on arrival and outclassed by the numerous options that came out afterwards. It's to the point that when Yen'fay, Book VI's first GHB, was shown to have a speed-based personal weapon that actually helped him in combat, he was near-universally praised on release and considered to be better than anything Book V had.
- All of the Choose Your Legends 6 winners (except for Female Byleth) fell into this status at one point or another, albeit with different reasons for each, and they did manage to either rise up out of it or make the most of what was done.
- Seliph got hit hard by this status in the first few years of the game. Despite being one of the best units in his home game, his initial version had mediocre stats and was a common unit, as opposed to the rest of his family who were all 5* exclusive. His own half-sister Julia and cousin Leif even got Legendary variants before him, and when Seliph got a Legendary variant, his was also considered one of the weakest. Over time however, Seliph's reputation would recover: first, he received the same Divine Tyrfing and its refine that his father got, which is a pretty decent budget weapon, and got a Resplendent version to boost his stats and improve his art at that. Second, he did become the runner up for CYL6, and his Brave version became a Game-Breaker, playing a lot like he did in his home game as a super powerful cavalry unit. And finally, he got to do that again when his Legendary version got a refine and remix that turned him from one of the weakest Legendary units to one of the strongest. He now has access to a dozen different effects, from a lot of Damage Reduction, to built in Null C-Disrupt (which cavalry units don't have access to), and one of which he shares with his Brave version in his innate Miracle. While things started off pretty bad for Seliph, it did turn around for him as the years went on.
- Poor Adult Tiki always has to live in the shadow of her younger self every single year. She only has exactly one variant that isn't tied to young Tiki whatsoever, and it's her mediocre Summer version released all the way back in 2017, which is long outdated and never received a unique weapon (unlike Summer Young Tiki, which also got a refine). Young Tiki got an alt basically every year, while Adult Tiki just continued to be ignored. The disparity between the representation of the two Tikis got so bad that the players took this matter into their own hands and voted en masse for Adult Tiki for CYL6, and she won, which gave her a Brave version. But, in a sort of monkey's paw situation, she was dressed as her younger self, almost as if the developers were saying "yeah, this is the Tiki you really wanted, right?". It didn't help that almost immediately after, another young Tiki version was released in the form of Ascended Young Tiki, who also even had the same Scowl Special decharging effect that was once unique to Brave Tiki for all of three months. Things heated up again when it was revealed that Adult Tiki would be the star of 2023's Bridal Dreams banner, featuring several Robin-exclusive love interests and Support partners, which included Adult Tiki herself. Except she was a Harmonized Hero with her young version as the backup unit, counting for both Awakening and Mystery of the Emblem. While Adult Tiki is the lead, her younger self was still the most prominent in both the Paralogue and in the conversation, almost as if she was the actual lead. However, Adult Tiki finally had a bone thrown to her when she received a Resplendent variant in early December 2023 with a Dökkálfheimr theme to boot, thus making her independent from her child self for the first time in years.
- Chrom's status in this regard mostly in terms of Voting Gauntlets, having been defeated no less than nine times, with only Edelgard faring worse than him. note Worse yet, his luck was even worse than Marth in Choose Your Legends, having all his chances dashed through various factors despite being a popular choice by many. People ended up chanting his Memetic Loser quote from the Super Smash Bros. franchisenote in the wake of this. Like Marth before him, he would ultimately have his bone thrown when he took victory in Choose Your Legends 6, and unlike Marth, there isn't even a hint of taint towards his triumph due to him placing first, and his Brave version has a unique gimmick where he gets to copy status effects from his allies, making him timeless.
- The Book VI Legendary Heroesnote were hit hard by this, because their banners suffered poor sales, and almost all of them were considered to either be too "tame" or "uninspired" by most players. This is a huge drop in quality compared to Book V's Legendary heroes,note , who were given a positive reception gameplay-wise, yet were heavily criticized for their annoying skills and stats, and being extremely unfair in most competitive modes, and even the previous highly-requested ones (Especially the Legendary variants of Lilina and Sigurd, who are commonly seen in Aether Raids Cavlines) were an eyesore to deal with. While Female Byleth's banner fared decently in terms of sales, Caeda's banner is notable for contributing in the declining sales and quality of Legendary Heroes, due to the poor timing of the banner, which isn't helped by the fact that it got leaked mere days before it dropped. This was muddied further by Xander, who, while a decent unit, had even poorer sales, becoming the worst performing banner in the game's history. All of these factors caused Book VI's Legendary Lineup to be nothing more than a joke to the community.
- Out of the four Aether Raids seasons, Anima has been hit with this status for a multitude of reasons. In Book V alone, Astra had Reginn, Ashera, and Thórr, all of which provided great utility and had great combat as well, while Anima had Seiros and Ótr, the former having her personal skill only supporting ally Mythic Heroes and the latter having no form of utility. In addition, Ótr’s banner had poor sales that set a new low in history at the time of his release. The introduction of Elimine was another harsh blow, as she introduced [False Start], which invalidated many units that were heavily relied on in Anima defenses, most notably Bridal Catria and Thea. Then the rotation between Legendary and Mythic Heroes were changed from 1 Legendary Hero and 1 Mythic Hero to 2 Legendary Heroes and 1 Mythic Hero, making the wait for a new Mythic Hero longer than before. The next two times after Elimine’s release that the rotation landed on a Mythic Hero, Medeus and Askr were released as Dark and Light Mythic Heroes, respectively, before Anima received a new Mythic Hero. This left Anima in the dust, especially since the former two seasons already had great Mythic Heroes in Nótt and Ash, respectively, while Anima was still suffering under Elimine’s iron fist. When Anima finally got its turn for a new Mythic Hero in the form of Arval in October 2022, which was a year and a month since Ótr, they only had the ability to inflict [Guard] on foes within 3 rows or 3 columns if Arval had more Res than the foe for any form of utility. This wasn’t enough to save Anima from Elimine’s rule, and as a result Arval sold worse than Ótr, with the only compensation being they managed to beat Legendary Xander. And then, as if Anima hadn't already suffered enough, Book VII introduced another free-to-play Astra mythic with Seiðr, who not only grants a status to her allies that prevents foes from doubling, but she also can end the turn of the nearest foes in a cardinal direction of her on odd-numbered turns. It's telling that when Fomortiis was introduced in January 2023, a mere three months after Arval, as an Anima mythic who can act as a save tank, he managed to not only place 2nd in the A Hero Rises 2023 event, but go on to win the subsequent Voting Gauntlet and be given out for free between March 22, 2023 and April 21, 2023. This status began to fade when Freyr was released as an Anima Mythic Hero who can prevent start of turn penalties such as [False Start] from affecting his team, thus finally ending Elimine’s 1.5 year reign of being the bane of many Anima defenses.
- Champion's Sword, Fire Emblem Cipher, and the first Fire Emblem Warriors game has the worst case of this status, because absolutely nobody from either of them has made an appearance in Heroes yet, and cannot be voted in every Choose Your Legends round at all since the game's launch, reducing the likelihood of them ever showing up in the game proper. In the case of Warriors and the first half of Cipher's original characters, this is especially jarring, since the former game was the subject of special collab maps released between late 2017 and early 2018, while the latter were present in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia as DLC-exclusive characters. One the other hand, Champion's Sword and the second half of Cipher's original characters moreso gets hit with it, since as of writing, none of them have actually appeared in a video game at all since their debut. Warriors got hit with this even harder after the announcement of a banner featuring heroes from Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, including both genders of the protagonist Shez.
- Units stuck in what fans call "refine jail". Every month, at least five or more units get weapon refines, as well as remixes an additional skills in the case of Legendary and Mythic Heroes. It's usually a mix of some 5* exclusives, a demote unit, a free unit, or a Duo, Mythic, or Legendary. Unfortunately, some groups of units are doomed to never receive a weapon refine, and are either stuck with whatever outdated weapon they come with, or have to settle for an Arcane weapon. Such units include:
- The regular versions of Hector, Reinhardt, Olwen, Ophelia, and Surtr, despite being units from very early in the game's life (with Hector even being a launch unit), they are doomed to never get a weapon refine for whatever reason. It's not confirmed, but it is likely that they were seen as too meta defining back in their day, and the theory is that they're not given any weapon refines out of fear that they would be meta influential again, even though they end up releasing new units monthly that could warp and shape the meta way more than they ever could.
- Common staff units, the ones that infect the summoning pool by having nothing for fodder (since, back then, staff units weren't even allowed to have an entire skill unlocked at 4* until they did away with that). They will never receive a weapon refine and thus, they will never get a unique weapon, even though plenty of them have also been demotes and should have been eligible. The only staff units that get refines are 5* exclusive.
- Refreshers. They face the same issue as staff units, but not even 5* exclusive refreshers are safe— only Mythic and Legendary refreshers have gotten refines. In November 2023, it was theorized that since Phina and young Marth shared a weapon in the Rapier, with Phina even introducing said weapon to begin with, the two would get the same refine. Sadly, young Marth ended up receiving a new weapon to learn and refine instead, the Brilliant Rapier, leaving poor Phina in the dust with an outdated sword. The other 5* exclusive and seasonal refreshers were passed up like flier Olivia or Performing Arts Azura, but many players thought that at least since Phina shared a weapon with young Marth, she would be able to avoid that fate, but sadly she wasn't able to.
- Every seasonal unit who didn't debut with a prf, as only seasonal units who debuted with prfs got refines. This particular category of units is huge, and what doesn't help is that since the majority of seasonal units are 5 star locked, trying to get them, let alone merge them is likely going to take a lot of orbs for fans who want to invest in these units.
Individual characters
- Alfonse got this treatment as early as the first Voting Gauntlet, with his score making up a measly 2.54% of the total, with the highest scorer, Lucina, having a score at least 13x higher than his. A person would be more likely to get a five-star character with a one-pull summon session than have been a member on team Alfonse. It also doesn't help that he has the status of a Low-Tier Letdown. He got a break in the June 2018 Voting Gauntlet, having made it all the way to the finals and keeping Gunnthrá at a similar score for hours before falling behind within the last half hour.
- As the years went by, Alfonse would soon grow out of this title, with his poor sister Sharena filling this status in his stead. It started during Book II when Sharena was Demoted to Extra like Anna to put more story focus on Alfonse and Fjorm. The story from that point onward would also give Alfonse the spotlight and show off his sharp thinking as he outwits the villains, earning him favour with fans, seeing him as a total badass. Sharena on the other hand continued her downward spiral in Book III when it was revealed that in Askr's alternative universe where Hel won, Sharena was killed while the Alfonse of that universe got an alt by the name of Líf. Additionally, Sharena was only the cheerleader of a Duo unit with her brother Alfonse, the main unit of the two, in the 2019 New Year's banner Renewed Spirit. While Sharena was thankfully given more focus in Book IV, many felt that her character arc was shoved out at the last minute to focus more on Alfonse once again. After Book IV, Movie trailers and artworks don't even feature Sharena at all. To add salt to the wound, Sharena never won even a single round in any Voting Gauntlet she participated in, often being curbstomped by another, more popular character, while Alfonse made it to the finals in one of the Voting Gauntlets. The final straw that pushed Sharena into the Memetic Loser category however, was during the Valentine's 2021 banner, where Alfonse got not one, but two alts (one for Alfonse, and another as his Líf alias) at once, with not even a mention of Sharena anywhere. Many Sharena fans hope that she'll get more attention in the future as a result.
- Tobin. Compared to fellow Tempest Trials reward unit masked Marth, who released prior to Tobin and came with a unique sword, Tobin was a tough act to follow, due to having a mediocre statline and no special skills. Players counted Tobin out, although he at least got a unique weapon in March 2020, even if it's just a souped up Armoursmasher+.
- Takumi was once top tier at the game's launch, but gradually he'd been saddled with this status.
- The first blow was introduction of Skill Inheritance, allowing for more diverse builds which were able to deal him without worry of Close Counter. Meanwhile, fellow launch Game-Breaker Hector, who comes with Close Counter's counterpart Distant Counter, has yet to budge from the top of tier lists across the board. Then Bridal Cordelia appeared and completely outclassed him with her superior Speed and Attack. Following not too long after was Brave Lyn, who had an amazing set of skills right off the bat and was a cavalry unit. The final nail in Takumi's coffin was when he was made available for free in the 2.5.0 update when he had always been a rare pull as a five star exclusive unit beforehand. Nowadays Takumi gets mockingly referred to as "Close Counter fodder."
- His Fujin Yumi, the weapon partially responsible for him being such a stellar unit in Fates, compared to other personal weapons only comes with Pass 2 built into it. For the longest time, it was simply recommended to replace it with inheritable bows. This wasn't even mitigated after his weapon refine, since while it drops the useless Pass effect, all it grants is the ability to ignore the movement penalty when walking through forest tiles, and when given its special skill, it grants Takumi the ability to warp to a space adjacent to any ally within two spaces. The former is accurate to its original effect, but they both have an HP threshold and do nothing to improve his combat performance, meaning he'll still be outdone by stronger, more available archers, and with inheritable bows at that.
- It got even worse after he lost to Shanna in the "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Gauntlet, as there wasn't even a multiplier active during the last seven hours to hand the win to whichever side got lucky.
- Things were looking okay for him during the "Shadow in the Mirror" Gauntlet when he bested his Fallen Heroes self, only to end up losing to Fallen Celica. He currently ties with Robinnote as having lost a gauntlet four times.
- Even the 2.5.0 change that makes him the player's first summoned unit can come off as this - Takumi is now so thoroughly outclassed that it's implied Intelligent Systems, who many players believe have reservations about giving out free units that are too good, considers the threat he once possessed has been effectively neutered.
- Marth was initially mocked for not having any alternates since the game's release, despite being the protagonist of the very first Fire Emblem and a playable character in Super Smash Bros. What's worse, random supporting characters and his own wife Caeda got alternates before him. He even lost his chance at getting a Brave version in the second Choose Your Legends poll because his votes were split between his Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem incarnations. However, Marth's Memetic Loser status began to fade out when he finally received an alternate as a groom, and became the first groom unit in the game, at that. His Memetic Loser status effectively died after he received a Legendary alt, which is one of the best Dragon Slayers in the game.
- Even then, he still had miserable luck in Choose Your Legends; after placing second in the third Choose Your Legends midterm, he was ganked by Eliwood in the eleventh hour and screwed out of a Brave variant again, and in the fourth Choose Your Legends, he was run down by the incumbent male lords Dimitri and Claude (adding insult to injury, he scored more votes than Lysithea, but because of the 50/50 gender split of Choose Your Legends, she got a Brave variant while he didn't). He finally won his Brave variant in CYL 5, but his status as the trope when it comes to CYL still remained for a while: because he, the main face and the OG protagonist of the franchise, only placed second behind the Gatekeeper, who amounts to a non-prominent NPC that got really beloved by the fandom, and since winners of CYL cannot participate in future CYL, Marth faced the danger of being forever associated with the result of that CYL with no hope of fixing it. When his Brave alt finally released, this risk effectively died out thanks to his incredibly powerful Genesis Falchion and having an exclusive special in Shining Emblem despite not winning first place.
- Virion, an already mediocre unit even from launch, has slowly lost what little relevance he had after being replaced by Fjorm (and later whoever the companion unit happens to be at the time) in the team composition for new story chapter/paralogue trailers, following her introduction. And as of the 2.5.0 update, he doesn't even have the honor of being the first hero you summon; new players receive former Game-Breaker Takumi instead. He made somewhat of a comeback when he received his unique Dignified Bow, which at least gives him some decent support capability, but otherwise remains a joke among players.
- Anna had this status for a really long time due to having no alts at all, even though she's appeared in nearly every game of the franchise and it's established that there are multiple Annas in the series. The third Choose Your Legends poll really brought this to the fore, since Anna still had her votes split due to each Anna technically being a different character, even though many other characters now had their votes combined. This resulted in Anna only getting third place, once again denying her an alt. It wasn't until "Renewed Spirit", nearly three years after the game's launch, that Anna finally got an alt (though based on FEH's Anna). And it wasn't until "Book IV Midpoint" banner for an Anna from another game to be playable: Apotheosis Anna from Awakening.
- Despite winning second place in the male's division during the first round of Choose Your Legends, Roy was thrust into this status as of late, albeit moreso than Seliph, due to how long he's been stuck with variants of himself that are nowhere near as good, compared to the Blazing Blade lords (Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector), and, despite having yet won a single round of CYL, his own childhood friend Lilina. Unlike him, at least one of their variants perform very well, and, at certain points in time, are considered huge threats in the meta themselves. It's also not helping that Roy hasn't gotten anything new since 2019, and that's not counting his base variant's resplendent attire in 2020. His only redeeming quality is that his Brave variant is still a decent unit, but he's been terribly outclassed by his own father's base version, due to sharing the same weapon as well as being more common than him. Thankfully, after 3 years of not having an new variant, "Bridal Blossoms" finally gives him one in the form of a harmonic, paired with Eliwood in his Blazing Blade incarnation, this time being a lot better metawise than his other variants, and for the most part, overshadowed other featured units from the same banner, which has generated controversy for its squicky lineup, and two months later, his legendary received both a remix and a refine. However, his remix/refine wasn't well-received by players due to being considered "weak" in comparison to fellow Dragonslayer, Legendary Marth, who got a better remix months prior despite lacking Distant Counter, which is the sole deciding factor Legendary Roy has going for him.
- Unlike her fellow dökkálfr, Triandra ended up falling into this territory instead. The chapter of her final canon appearance was titled similarly to Plumeria's which ended with her death. Unfortunately, her death wasn't even the final stage of the act, her 'heartbreaking' sendoff was eclipsed with the Mind Screw-ladden identity reveal between Alfonse and Kiran, in which Peony, despite being implied as her sister, was just given one 'sob' line before she invested even more on the aforementioned reveal. So for as much as the act's title was named after her and it was hyped in the trailers that she would get her day in the limelight like Plumeria, Triandra felt like getting shafted in order to boost up Alfonse's increasing Memetic Badass credentials. The fact she appeared as a Legendary Hero on the same banner as Freyja, with the same color, but with a far less interesting kit compared to her Mythic Hero queen (who has a unique skill), further cemented her as being this. She at least got a bone thrown to her when she appeared in New Year 2020, if she's willing to put up being a 'support' for Peony. Additionally, Triandra was completely absent in the Summer's Dream banner in 2021, which featured Freyja and Plumeria as well as Freyr (although granted, Plumeria was only a cohort for Caeda). It wasn't until March 2023 where she was finally given her own variant in the Spring Eternal banner, and in October 2023, she received an Attuned alt based on her appearance in the Nihility & Dream Tempest Trials+ story.
- On a similar boat, Mirabilis is the ljósálfr equivalent of the trope to Triandra above. Often considered 'inconsequential' in Book IV's plot by fans and only in it to fulfill the cliche of 'Moe Sleepy Head', her own Dark and Troubled Past was treated just as a passing note during Plumeria's demise chapter and since she wasn't that closely related to Sharena unlike Peony, when Book IV ended, she just outright vanished since she had no close bonds with the Askr folks, and unlike Triandra, Mirabilis completely missed out the New Year 2020, as if no one remembered her enough to send an invitation letter. Thankfully for her, she was thrown a bone with the Winter Dreamland banner, which gave her an alt at long last, even if she was the last Book IV unit to receive one (provided you count Triandra being a cheerleader for Peony's New Year's variant as an alt for her). However, she fell right back into this status after she was the only fairy to not receive an alt from the Nihility & Dream Tempest Trials+ story.
- Knoll from Sacred Stones, twice over. First, when Eirika was revealed as the first non-seasonal alt, she was revealed as a red mage with Gleipnir, a weapon many thought would go to Knoll due to being from his home country of Grado alongside him being one of the only units in Sacred Stones even capable of using, making Knoll the butt of jokes that he was shafted in favor of a unit who was already in the game. Then to add salt further in his wounds, when he finally did make an appearance in "Book V Begins: Reginn and More" banner, he was one of two "demote" units alongside Natasha. He also didn't have the Gleipnir as his weapon. Instead, he's more-or-less a clone of Hubert with a little less attack and a bit more resistance, sharing his weapon instead.
- Jorge had the most unfortunate fall from grace amongst Choose Your Legends goers. He had such a high showing in Choose Your Legends 4, ranking amongst the Top 20 male with 6,728 votes. However, it was later found out that he got that place because some Troll made bots to greatly multiply his votes. When the 5th CYL rolled in, Jorge ranked 477th place with a measly 27 votes, making him the character who fell the furthest ever in the history of CYL, since unlike the Gatekeeper, he earned most of his votes via cheating instead of a winning personality. This has gotten even worse as of Choose Your Legends 6, as Jorge would end up dead last at a mere six votes, which almost comes across as karmic justice given how he was cheated into the game.
- Larum from The Binding Blade suffers from this, because not only is she extremely rare as a unit combined with her relative obscurity, but due to her banner not being featured in any Story or Paralogue chapter, she also can't be fought in any PvE maps (except her own Heroic Ordeals), making it impossible for players to encounter her at all, unless she's in a PvP mode like Aether Raids and Arenanote . To rub even more salt into the wound, she's also one of the most forgettable units in the game, as many players only remember her as the random ? mark box listed at the very end of the Catalog of Heroes, so it's not uncommon for them to pass her off as such, or think of said box as "another new hero". Luckily, others have been sending out their friend codes, just so players who have yet to see her can add her to their catalog. She's also part of the June 2021 Hall of Forms lineup, giving some players a chance to pull her if they want if they have a Forma Soul and put her in the Catalog of Heroes. In 2022, she also got a Bridal variant as a free Tempest Trial reward, which was later added as a Grail unit, as well as being demoted into the 4-star special pool in August of that same year, both of which slightly neutered her status. Nonetheless, her regular self is still rare, albeit not as much as before, therefore she is still stuck with this status for the time being.
- Ótr, one of the main villains of Book V, has reached this status since Chapter 11 of Book V. For starters, his generally poorly executed backstory clashes with his actions throughout the story, making him Unintentionally Unsympathetic to most players. On top of that, when he was released in September 2021, his lackluster base kit made players see him as a downgrade to Reginn, unneeded if you had Seiros, and unworthy of the Mythic title compared to Nifl and Múspell, who are regular Heroes. This resulted in Ótr becoming one of Heroes' most poorly received characters so far, and his Mythic banner quickly became one of the worst-selling banners of all time (with Legendary Xander's and Arval's banners performing worse than it, and even then it can be chalked up to the poor timing of their releases instead of the character itself), beyond even the widely-panned Hostile Springs banner, and most players that did pull from the banner were more focused on getting other featured units such as Legendary Claude and Legendary Byleth, if not pulling for Ótr himself simply to fodder off his useful skills to other characters. And just like Mirabilis from Book IV, he missed out on the 2022 New Years seasonal while both of his siblings got alts. In Choose Your Legends 5, not only did he get the least amount of votes of the Book V characters, but also ended up in the bottom 4 most votes for a Heroes original character, making him the lowest rated Original Character in their first CYL appearance period, and remained in the same general area for the next one as well.
- Ylgr has become this among the Original Character cast. She started off fairly popular due to her role in Book II, her cute design, and her gameplay value being fairly good at the time of her release, going on to get a Summer alt the same year of her release. However, Ylgr quickly fell off in popularity due to her characterization as Motor Mouth causing people to find her annoying, her debut trailer garnering a large dislike ratio since it only features her and Surtr as the 5-star focuses (which no other banner before and after has done), and her gameplay utility quickly wore off after the initial hype died down, plus her being the only of her siblings to not be a Legendary Hero meant she lacked the same uniqueness they did, or even the Múspell characters. With in a year of her release, she dropped off heavily in Choose Your Legends, going from rank 137 with almost 2k votes, to rank 294 with only 430 votes. She then dropped even further and has remained the lowest ranked Original Character in the game for two years straight. Combined with her only having one alt, she's commonly viewed as one of the biggest "losers" in the game.
- Scáthach immediately got hit with this when he was revealed. Before his inclusion, it was almost an unwritten rule that every Isaachian or descendants of Od must be at least agile and quick, a trend that all other Isaachians (Ayra, Shannan, Larcei, Mareeta, Galzus) have followed. Scáthach, however, has only 30 base Speed, amounting him as 'the slowest Isaachian character', and many 'slow' jokes were made at his expense.
- Sue got hit with this status in the 2022 Bridal Bloom, since she's basically the only Roy's potential bride back in his home game that somehow hasn't gotten a bride alternate. Meaning that she looked like dead last on Roy's preference tier.
- Unfortunately, Regular Sothis has been subject to this as a result of her underwhelming remix and refine from the 6.9.0 update. When her remix skill was revealed to be Null C-Disrupt, people were concerned that she would not turn out to be a particularly powerful unit, as Null C-Disrupt is generally considered to be a skill that has fallen off in usage. Sirius+ did give her Null Guard, but it provided a mere 5% increase to both effects of her original Sirius special. Then her refine was later revealed to only have the effect of granting +4 to all stats and reducing damage from the foe’s first attack by 40% if her HP was 25% or above, ensuing mass disappointment. With all of the Choose Your Legends 4 units receiving amazing refines, as well as Legendary Julia receiving a powerful remix and refine and Haar receiving a fantastic refine by F2P standards, Regular Sothis stands out as by far the weakest of the bunch, especially since she's a Mythic unit who isn't part of the regular rotation.
- Yen’fay was hit by this status hard. Originally praised for having a great prf and stat distribution, over time, his flaws started to show as he had a solo damage reduction effect… and nothing else in a meta where you need some more extra stats. Complicating more was his great stat distribution played against him as if he wanted to go with an offensive playstyle, he pretty much would be stuck with a glorified Silver Sword. Not helped by the fact he was often killed by the units he was suppose to check. On top of that, Holst came with a far superior weapon and to rub salt in the wound, the recent Lumera has the damage reduction but trades DC for +5 to all stats and true damage. All these factors lead players who built him feel remorse, joke at his expense and even suggested he was always terrible but the timing of his release made him look excellent.
- Despite being considered about as good a unit as he was in Engage, Alcryst got on the receiving end of this in regards to Heroes' characterization of him. Many feel his Chronic Self-Deprecation and apologetic nature are Flanderized to an exaggerated degree (which is saying something) while his other traits and Hidden Depths that helped balance it out in his home game are barely touched on, making him come off as a major wuss. Not helping matters is how his Forging Bonds accessory is a forehead gauze resembling bandage patches with the explanation being that he is prone to accidentally banging his head while apologizing, which fans found hilariously pathetic.
- Ross started to fall under this after his Father-Son Axe turned out to only have a dual-phase brave effect with a 5 Spd penalty and the unique refine inflicting -5 Atk/Def on his foe, dealing true damage equal to 15% of his HP, and restoring 7 HP to him after combat if he initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally. These effects are not only rather underwhelming and not enough in the current meta, but they're also anti-synergistic with Vantage builds and speed stacking builds and already compared poorly to fellow dual-phase brave Axe user, Haar, who neutralized his flier weakness in exchange for a blue tome weakness which hardly mattered due to his already poor Res as well as receiving the powerful defensive tools of Guard and flat damage reduction equal to 15% of his Def stat. However, this status plunged into newfound depths when just one month after Ross's refine, Echidna received her Western Axe, which grants +4 to all stats, reduces damage from her foe's first attack by 30%, and deals damage equal to the total amount of damage reduced if she's within 3 spaces of an ally. This kind of weapon would be good on its own, but the unique refine takes things to a whole new level, as it gives her the Unity effect and an additional +4 to all of her stats as well as special cooldown charge +1 to unit per attack during combat if her foe initiates combat or if her foe's HP is 75% or above. The fact that both Ross and Echidna are back-to-back 3-4 star infantry axe demotes with the former receiving a lackluster refine and the latter getting a downright broken refine by comparison is what truly seals Ross's fate as one of the biggest "losers" in the refine department, to the dismay of his fans.
- After Mythic Freyr was released in July 2023, Elimine went from being a top-tier Astra mythic to one of the least viable ones. This is because Freyr's C skill, Dream Deliverer, hard counters Elimine's False Start debuff by neutralizing penalties on himself and his allies within 2 spaces at the start of both phases, robbing Elimine of her most useful role, which was preventing dangerous units like Bride Catria from activating their start of turn skills. Her C skill, Holy Ground, also suffered in utility with the meta becoming much more player phase focused with several nukes being introduced, most of which can bypass and/or mitigate her Drive Damage Reduction effect one way or another. She's now widely regarded as the Takumi of mythics, once ruling over Astra season with an iron fist, but now struggling to find a proper niche there.
- Despite being a decently powerful unit (in part thanks to his ludicrously high statline), Alfred hit this hard when he was featured in the April 2024 Hall of Forms. It all stems from one thing: Alfred in Heroes is a Rearmed Hero, a premium unit designed to be foddered and merged over and over again - and Formas cannot be foddered off or merged into other copies of that Hero. With most other characters, it's an Obvious Rule Patch to keep people from abusing Hall of Forms to get premium skills for free: with Alfred (and by extension all other Rearmed/Attuned Heroes), it renders him basically useless. Within a day of the event starting, Alfred received widespread derision for being the only character with an objectively useless Forma.
