History HighTierScrappy / FireEmblem

* '''The second generation units''', while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, power, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease when put into similar roles. Even kids that aren't viewed as top tier like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them because they outclass their parents so much.

* '''Seth''', a CrutchCharacter who goes well past his intended role into being flat out overpowered. Despite initially meaning to be the games early crutch, Seth has really good growths and starting stats, high rank in both Sword and Lances, and joins on the very first level, making him really good out of the gate much like Marcus in the previous games, and he only gets better as you use him. Not using Seth at all is considered closer to a challenge run than a Seth only run in fact. Worse, even if the player makes an effort not to over rely on him, he's still the best cavalier in the game by a wide margin, beating out all the other options like Forde and Kyle, and would only really lose out if a player actively never uses him, and only focused on other characters. Despite being a popular character, he tends to be looked at as a bad unit, in that he's so good that not using him is a major handicap, and some players hate using him because of that.

* '''The second generation units''', while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, power, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease. Even kids that aren't viewed as top tier like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them, since they end up so powerful that they make using other units like their parents useless.

* '''Lysithea''', though a popular character, is regularly criticized for being the best mage in the game, rendering all but healing focused mages obsolete. Not only does she have some of the best Faith and Reason spells like Seraphim and Dark Spikes for effective damage output, on top of Warp for extra utility, but her Magic growth ties with the DLC character Constance for the highest in the game. Unlike Constance though, Lysithea has two Crests, one of which is the Crest of Gloucester, which lets her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells without having to equip the NewGamePlus-exclusive Craft Dragon Sign, and her personal skill, Mastermind, lets her level in classes twice as fast as everyone else [[note]]Although Jeritza also has Mastermind, it's not his personal skill, so for him, it takes up an equippable skill slot which could be given to a more valuable skill, while Lysithea lacks this issue as Mastermind does not take up one of her equippable skill slots.[[/note]] and move between many classes to get skills. Already that makes her really powerful, but she's recruitable on all routes if the player wants, and isn't as hard as some characters to recruit, meaning she can quickly be recruited and upstage all other non-healer focused mages, to the point of the game being harder without her due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has[[note]]To give an example: Lysithea is fully capable of one-shotting the final boss of the Verdant Wind route with [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]], and she can do it without going out of your way to setup.[[/note]]. Her only downsides are not having some of the more unique spells, or having much healing support, but the trade off for raw magical damage, especially when she becomes a Gremory, makes her so good that she is often criticized for being simply way too strong.[[note]]This isn't even mentioning her potential as a MagicKnight, where she can also be broken in.[[/note]]

* '''Palla''' in both games is often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga had no idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game where stats for ''promoted units'' cap at 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that can promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but she's ''also'' a flier, and she joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, with nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this is virtually no problem at all. The remake kept her about the same, and she's arguably even ''better'' there, as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike in the original game, keeps her mount indoors and can freely use 1-2 range weapons as a result. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', you practically ''have'' to use her because many other units that players like more are practically unusable on Lunatic, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]]]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character), she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].
* '''Kris''', meanwhile, manages to be the best unit in ''their'' game. Already a pretty controversial character in the fandom due to their CanonForeigner status and accusations of being a SpotlightStealingSquad or a CreatorsPet, one thing that ''really'' doesn't help the debates is that Kris is incredibly powerful. Not only can they start in eight different classes with parameters that are at least above average in just about every category, but they also have a pretty lengthy prologue and tutorial where they'll pretty much always be your best character and where most of the units you use won't be playable again for a good while. This means, invariably, the best way to play ''New Mystery'' is to have Kris solo the tutorial, and then join up with Marth's gang as a level 10 or so DiscOneNuke that can proceed to turn even Lunatic into a joke.

* '''Palla''' in both games is often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga had no idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game where stats for ''promoted units'' cap at 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that can promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but she's ''also'' a flier, and she joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, with nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this is virtually no problem at all. The remake kept her about the same, and she's arguably even ''better'' there, as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike in the original game, keeps her mount indoors and can freely use 1-2 range weapons as a result. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''have'' to use her because many other units that players like more are practically unusable on Lunatic, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]]]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character), she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].