History LowTierLetdown / FireEmblem

* Perhaps beating out even ''Genealogy'' in extremely lopsided unit distribution, the eponymous UpdatedRerelease of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' takes the previous game's already-sketchy balance and lights it on fire before tap-dancing on the ashes. It's as a result one of the ''worst'' offenders in the series in terms of lopsided unit balance:

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar''
* It's no exaggeration to say that in a series all about using your favorites, ''Genealogy'' is some of the abject ''worst offenders'' in units coming as close to unusable as is possible in this series, only rivaled by ''VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem'' on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]]:
** Due to how [[MarathonLevel the game's level design works]], just about ''[[ExaggeratedTrope every]]'' unit in the game who doesn't have a Mount is going to suffer this fate. Mount dominance has always been a big problem in ''Fire Emblem,'' but even the inefficient units like [[MightyGlacier Armor Knights]], [[LongRangeFighter infantry Archers]] and [[MagikarpPower trainees]] in even the harder games have such a plethora of options to get up to scratch and potentially become [=MVPs=] with enough investment means that the only thing you lose out is time as opposed to results, especially as getting A-Ranks in games with rankings even with slower units was more than possible, even in games that have larger-than-average maps like ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade''. ''Genealogy'' renders practically all infantry units S.O.L. due to the nature of said maps; you need to be still speedy to get all the results and its still over a far larger map, meaning that any unit with a mount is bound to get to different points at a far faster rate and thus gets the lion's share of [=XP=] even more than they would otherwise. While there's nothing stopping you from ''using'' them, benching them and instead focusing on the mounts is a strictly-better option in all categories due to how absurdly crucial Move is in general for not having all the game's exclusive events pass by in the wind. Even units that are good in spite of this gargantuan handicap like Ayra and Jamke will receive flak thus much of their perks end up futile if they can't reach the battlefield in time like other mounted units. But of course, the ones that get hit with this the most are armored units like Arden and Hannibal. Their low Speed was just a bonus for players to pick on.
** Silvia and her children (Lene and Coirpre) suffer from this as well; forum discussions will practically ''implore'' you to kill Sylvia or not pair her up and take the substitutes Laylea and Charlot (basically both Lene and Coirpre are going to be garbage in combat no matter who their father is unless Coirpre is either Lewyn's son or Claud's, and Laylea and Charlot come with Charm and Paragon respectively, two skills that make them much better at their non-combat jobs). Lene's star as a ''character'' has risen some thanks to ''Fire Emblem Heroes''.
** Lester is rather infamous among the community, as unless he's given the right setup, he's among one of the weakest units in the entire game. Even with the right father (either Midir or Jamke), he has somewhat middling results as he is typically deemed as solely a hit-and-run unit who can be felled quite easily. Some players even ignore using him at all and focus on pairing to make Lana stronger, or even go with his substitute Deimne who is somehow about as good if not better than him.
** Tailtiu and her children often receive similar reactions; while most would agree that Tine and Arthur are ''usually'' better than Linda and Amid (although, thanks to packing both Wrath and Paragon and starting immediately with an A rank in thunder magic, unlike Tine, Linda can often end up pretty solid in her own right), Tailtiu herself is regarded as an awful unit who requires too much babysitting to be worth it [[spoiler:given that you have about two effective chapters in which to use her]] and pairing her with anyone but Lewyn or Azelle (who both have other, potentially better pairings, though pairing with the former allows you to get a mounted Forseti user as Arthur) is generally regarded as pointless. [[spoiler:The fact that the player never gets Mjolnir, and Tailtiu and her kids couldn't use it regardless, is another strike against her versus some of your other mages.]] As a result of her being so fiddly on multiple fronts, and Linda & Amid being perfectly serviceable for their combat roles with no effort required by the player, Tailtiu can often be left to molder so that the player can focus on other units and pairings.
** Also the thieves, Dew and Patty. Whereas in other ''Fire Emblem'' games thieves are vital for opening doors and chests and/or stealing certain items and/or weapons from the enemy, all thieves can do in this game is stealing an enemy's gold... by successfully attacking them. They can actually become good combat units through serious investment and promoting them, but many people do not deem this worth it, since not only do they start out incredibly combat-shy (and do not have innate Follow-Up), even at their absolute best, they are essentially Forrests/Swordmasters with much lower stat caps. Their role in keeping the party's funds liquid could be critical, if not for the fact that literally every unit capable of combat can usually earn enough money through the arena and visiting the villages on the maps. The decisions associated most with them are whether to train Dew or not and whether to pair Brigid with someone who improves Patty's usability.
** Most people agree that [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers Iucharba as a unit generally can't measure up to his brother Iuchar]], even though his base stats are better, for the reason alone that Iuchar has a horse while Iucharba is an infantry unit. Iuchar's much higher speed growth is generally also considered to be more useful than Iucharba's better skill growth.
** The replacement characters in general get hit with this (aside from the aforementioned Laylea, Charlot, Linda, and Amid, though even they have their detractors). By far the worst hit is Creidne, who replaces Larcei but lacks the ridiculous skillset that makes Larcei useful, and is regarded ''very'' negatively because of it. There are a few who are still liked as ''characters'' (Muirne is one example), but they're just so inferior to the "real" kids that deliberately missing the latter for the replacements is regarded as very, very foolhardy and a challenge run or completionist objective at ''best''.
** Azelle is a fairly strong GlassCannon with the highest magic growth in the first generation. Alongside being the only main spellcaster with innate Follow-Up, decent weapon ranks allowing him to use all of the anima triangle, and the ability to promote into a Mage Knight, making him horse-mounted and allowing him access to swords, including magic swords like the Light Brand, you would think he would be a fairly consistently used character? Unfortunately, Azelle's recruitment starts him with Fire, [[ScrappyWeapon the heaviest tome in the game]], and his shaky base stats make him very reliant on RNG to proc his growths. This leaves him with one of the worst showings of SquishyWizard in the franchise. Considering that his competition for equipment and lovers is [[EnsembleDarkhorse Lewyn]], who is far easier to EliteTweak and passes down one of, if not the best Holy Weapon in the game.
** Surprisingly, in a subversion of the usual ''Fire Emblem'' tropes, the starting cavaliers are considered by some to be some of the weakest characters in Gen 1. Both units have no holy blood, only average growths, and start out with very basic weapons. Their style of skills is also somewhat poor. Naoise has Accost and Critical, but doesn't have the best skill for consistant crits, and Accost has the unfortunate ability of causing multiple rounds of combat and increases the risk of him getting killed, whereas Alec has Pursuit and Nihil, which while nice, usually isn't enough to justify pairing him up with any character. With their weak equipment, they frequently won't be able to keep up with more specialized units, and their simple growths typically doesn't get them much in the way of levels. Alec in particular suffers the most from the poor Strength he risks having after the first two chapters, and both him and Naoise don't have excellent growths, making them, especially Alec, more often than not subject to RNG. It doesn't help they start next to [[DiscOneNuke Sigurd, who gets a Silver Sword in the prologue.]] While they are horse units and sometimes used as fathers for more unorthodox pairings, they tend to get the bottom of the barrel equipment where the most useful and powerful rings/weapons are put on more effective characters.

* It's no exaggeration to say that in a series all about using your favorites, ''Genealogy'' is some of the abject ''worst offenders'' in units coming as close to unusable in this series, only rivaled by ''VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem'' on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]]:

Many bad units have come and gone over the game's lifespan, but none are even ''[[MedalOfDishonor remotely]]'' as useless as the three main characters of the game: [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/alfonse Alfonse: Prince of Askr]], [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/sharena Sharena: Princess of Askr]], and [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/anna Anna: Commander]]. In addition to the handicap of suffering from very poor generation 1 statlines that hold up very badly in the face of years of PowerCreep, they have the unique problem of being unable to utilize merges, denying them a further 23 stat points across the board and crippling their score in the Arena. As a final nail in the coffin, they were three of the earliest units to get weapon refines, which have also suffered from PowerCreep that render them mediocre (Alfonse and Sharena) or outright useless (Anna), and they are very unlikely to get any new tools to fix their issues that can't benefit every other unit in the game in their weapon class more. Most of the oldest units in the game have much better options available to the player, but they can still be very much viable if heavy favoritism is shown. [[InAWorld In a game]] of a series whose selling point is that ''any'' unit can be viable with enough favoritism, the Askr trio sticks out as the damning exception of being completely unsalvageable no matter what the player does. It's fairly telling that many quests require the player to use one of them in certain battles, potentially using them to deal the killing blow to the boss, demonstrating that using them makes things harder for yourself.

** Due to how [[MarathonLevel the game's level design works]], just about ''[[ExaggeratedTrope every]]'' unit in the game who doesn't have a Mount is going to suffer this fate. Mount dominance has always been a big problem in ''Fire Emblem,'' but even the inefficient units like [[MightyGlacier Armor Knights]], [[LongRangeFighter infantry Archers]] and [[MagikarpPower trainees]] in even the harder games have such a plethora of options to get up to scratch and potentially become [=MVPs=] with enough investment means that the only thing you lose out is time as opposed to results, especially as getting A-Ranks in games with rankings even with slower units was more than possible, even in games that have larger-than-average maps like ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade''. ''Genealogy'' renders practically all infantry units S.O.L. due to the nature of said maps; you need to be still speedy to get all the results and its still over a far larger map, meaning that any unit with a mount is bound to get to different points at a far faster rate and thus gets the lion's share of [=XP=] even more than they would otherwise. While there's nothing stopping you from ''using'' them, benching them and instead focusing on the mounts is a strictly-better option in all categories due to how absurdly crucial Move is in general for not having all the game's exclusive events pass by in the wind. Even units that are good in spite of his gargantuan handicap like Ayra and Jamke will receive flak thus much of their perks end up futile if they can't reach the battlefield in time like other mounted units. But of course, the ones that get hit with this the most are armored units like Arden and Hannibal. Their low Speed was just a bonus for players to pick on.

Many bad units have come and gone over the game's lifespan, but none are even ''[[MedalOfDishonor remotely]]'' as useless as the three main characters of the game: [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/alfonse Alfonse: Prince of Askr]], [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/sharena Sharena: Princess of Askr]], and [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/anna Anna: Commander]]. In addition to the handicap of suffering from very poor generation 1 statlines that hold up very badly in the face of years of PowerCreep, they have the unique problem of being unable to utilize merges, denying them a further 23 stat points across the board and crippling their score in the Arena. As a final nail in the coffin, they were three of the earliest units to get weapon refines, which have also suffered from PowerCreep that render them mediocre (Alfonse and Sharena) or outright useless (Anna), and they are very unlikely to get any new tools to fix their issues that can't benefit every other unit in the game in their weapon class more. Most of the oldest units in the game have much better options available to the player, but they can still be very much viable if heavy favoritism is shown. The Askr trio sticks out for being completely unsalvageable no matter what the player does. It's fairly telling that many quests require the player to use one of them in certain battles, potentially using them to deal the killing blow to the boss, demonstrating that using them makes things harder for yourself.

* Many bad units have come and gone over the game's lifespan, but none are as useless as the three main characters of the game: [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/alfonse Alfonse: Prince of Askr]], [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/sharena Sharena: Princess of Askr]], and [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/anna Anna: Commander]]. In addition to the handicap of suffering from very poor generation 1 statlines that hold up very badly in the face of years of PowerCreep, they have the unique problem of being unable to utilize merges, denying them a further 23 stat points across the board and crippling their score in the Arena. As a final nail in the coffin, they were three of the earliest units to get weapon refines, which have also suffered from PowerCreep that render them mediocre (Alfonse and Sharena) or outright useless (Anna), and they are very unlikely to get any new tools to fix their issues that can't benefit every other unit in the game in their weapon class more. Most of the oldest units in the game have much better options available to the player, but they can still be viable if heavy favoritism is shown. The Askr trio sticks out for being completely unsalvageable no matter what the player does. It's fairly telling that many quests require the player to use one of them in certain battles, potentially using them to deal the killing blow to the boss, demonstrating that using them makes things harder for yourself.

* The game actually does a surprisingly good job at balancing out every class in the game for the most part - even commonly low-tier classes like Armor Knights and Archers have a place in Lunatic Mode due to the former's survivability in that difficulty's EarlyGameHell and the latter being ''especially'' useful for attacking from afar without fear of retaliation, especially in Lunatic Reverse. However, there's one class that is notably worse than any others, much to the disappointment of fans of the class: Warrior. The reason why is simple; [[OvershadowedByAwesome it's overshadowed by more specialized classes]]. Its caps are blown out of the water completely by Berserker caps, its role as an archer is done better by Snipers having a better Speed cap, bow rank, and access to the Longbow, and much of what it offers only comes for its T1 form, Fighters, which is universally regarded as one of the best options for the GameBreaker Avatar Kris to use aside from the Armor Knight.
* As a wholesale, the game inverts a lot of the trends in the series of pre-promotes being good or outright {{Game Breaker}}s, with many of the latter half of units in the remake having barely adjusted base stats from the [=SNES=] days, which leaves them barely passable on Normal and gets them utterly demolished on higher difficulties. These units, known as [[FanNickname Free Silvers]], are seen with disappointment for having such awful stats and only having high growths (and good luck training them with those stats) and good weapons ranks to make up for it. There's literally no reason to use any of the units to join after the Sable Knights, with the possible exceptions of Katarina, Xane, Nagi, and Michalis.
* Even by Free Silver standards, the [[InconsistentDub Wolfguard/Coyote's Men]] that joins in Chapter 19 are pathetic, which is made all the worse by the fact that they're some of the hardest units to recruit in the game (requiring you to go far out of your way, and then recruit each one ''in succession'' from the enemy side, while dodging swarms of incredibly powerful dracoknights). Once they're in your army, their stats are on par with units from Chapter 4, their growths are not nearly enough to save them, and they don't have anything worth noting--something made all the worse by their extremely late join time. On the highest difficulty, the only thing they can see use for is suicide attacks, and even then, they're frequently not that great at it.
* Every single unit on this list is dwarfed by one in particular though: '''Bantu'''. While all the other units are notoriously bad enough to qualify as a LowTierLetdown (by virtue of having no MagikarpPower to speak of whatsoever), they at least have some merits to them. Bantu has absolutely none--he can't reclass, his growths are awful, his bases are awful, his class is utterly gimped for the game it's in, he has only 6 move that he can't reclass out of, and he's seen as strictly inferior in every conceivable way to Tiki, a unit who in this game is not seen as worth it in the slightest. Even when capped out in every stat, something impossible without hacking, rigging, or pouring literally all the game's stat-boosting items into him, he's ''still'' mediocre at best.

* By the worst Laguz unit in the game, and by far the worst Beast Unit in the series is Lyre. Joining with a pitiful base '''7 Strength,''' in a game that hates Cat Laguz and with terrible growths, she is pretty much impossible to actually damage anyone with those stats and is practically better off as an actual house cat than a character designed for combat. She doesn't even come with any items or skills in her inventory for you to give to better units, unlike other bottom-feeders in the series.

* While ''Engage'' is a rare ''Fire Emblem'' game where Bows are good, most bow users would rather not be in the Sniper class. It has an unusually low Speed base for a promoted class (only Armored classes are worse) and doesn't offer enough to offset that or outweigh the advantages of Bow Knight (better Speed and movement) or Warrior (high Strength, Chain Attacks with bows). Alcryst is the only character who might appreciate the class... except he gets a personal class that's essentially [[OvershadowedByAwesome an objectively better version of Sniper.]] (Higher base stats and the far more useful [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]] skill while retaining the Covert unit type)
* The Swordmaster class is another rarely used promotion, to the point where starting in it may be one of [[GameBreaker Kagetsu's]] ''only downsides''. While it offers high Speed, other Backup classes can easily reach the same doubling thresholds with Emblem Lyn or her inherited skills, and they bring additional weapon types and far better class skills (such as Hero's Brave Assist). Swordmaster's skill is Run Through, which positions the user on the other side of the target after attacking, which isn't very useful on a GlassCannon that doesn't want to charge deep into enemy lines.

* Nil is infamously useless in the Fell Xenologue, due to his poor stats resulting in him doing little damage and dying in one or two hits ([[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou which will result in a game over due to his survival being necessary]]). It's a different story in the main game, but many players have ended up getting frustrated with having to keep him alive during the Xenologue.

* The Swordmaster class is another rarely used promotion, to the point where starting in it may be one of [[GameBreaker Kagetsu's]] ''only downsides''. While it offers high Speed, other Backup classes can easily reach the same doubling thresholds with Emblem Lyn or her inherited skills, and they bring additional weapon types and far better class skills (such as Hero's Brave Assist). Swordmaster's skill is Run Through, which positions the user on the other side of the target after attacking. Not very useful on a GlassCannon that doesn't want to charge deep into enemy lines.

* Vander is quite possibly the worst showing of the [[CrutchCharacter Jagen Archtype]] yet. Earlygame, he serves the role well by being able to tank blows and deal damage so your other units can finish the job and gain levels. However, his low stats from being a starting unit combined with his abysmal stat growths make it so that unless you bought the DLC, got Tiki as early as possible[[note]] the earliest you can attempt her Divine Paralogue is after completing Chapter 6[[/note]], and keep them together for every map since so he can benefit from Starsphere, his desired stats will likely not see much change from when you first get him, chief among them being Strength and Dexterity, and he'll start to fall behind a lot earlier than expected. This is confounded further on Maddening since even with Tiki, the lack of Skirmishes severely limits your ability to grind experience for him. Not helping matters is the fact that his weapon of choice are [[PowerfulButInaccurate axes]], ensuring that unless you do something to improve his accuracy, such as Sigurd's Hit+ Skills or Lucina or Edelgard's respective Dexterity increasing skills, he'll more often than not miss and leave himself open to getting countered due to his low speed, which makes him easily doubled and unlikely to dodge. And while this can be potentially fixed by just switching him to a more accurate weapon through class changing, it still doesn't fix his Dexterity problem and only serves to give him marginally better chance of hitting enemies.

!! VideoGame/FireEmblemEngage

* [[MagikarpPower Cyril]] normally is a decent MagikarpPower character thanks to having a personal skill that boosts his growths, and having a good selection of skills, but on the Silver Snow route, he's a borderline unusable character on anything above the lowest difficulty (due to infinite level grinding being possible), and even then doing so is not a good idea. The reason is because he joins one chapter before the timeskip due to plot reasons, giving the player only a few times to level and train his skills, time that can better be spent doing other things or on your already invested in roster. Furthermore, unlike other characters from outside the chosen house that either gradually level in classes or are in one to begin with, Cyril is always recruited as a Commoner, the base class all units share, meaning he starts off with lower growths than his level should have, and only has a B rank Axe and Bow skill (made worse by Maddening Mode making his Bow rank C+), meaning he can't go into any class above Intermediate (mainly Archer and Fighter), and promoting to anything above that is likely to fail. Worse, his strengths are covered by some many other characters (Bow is covered by Shamir who starts as a Sniper, Axe Flyer by Seteth who starts as a Wyvern Rider, etc), that he can't hope to catchup and make use of his full potential unless ''really'' coddled, at which point the player would be handicapping themselves. So instead of a MagikarpPower unit like on the other routes, you have a LateCharacterSyndrome unit that takes so much extra resources to make good, that doing so is comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* [[MagikarpPower Cyril]] is a unit that normally is a decent unit, and on two of the three routes he can be recruited is a good unit thanks to having a flat bonus to all his growths with his personal skill and being able to be recruited fairly early in the game, but on the Silver Snow route, he's a borderline unusable character on anything above the lowest difficulty, and even then doing so is not a good idea. The reason is because he joins one chapter before the timeskip, giving the player only a few times to level and train his skills since he is unable to be recruited due to plot reasons until a specific route choice is made, meaning he can't be recruited until the last minute. Furthermore, while other later recruit characters join in higher tier classes and trade versatility for raw power, Cyril being stuck as a Commoner gives him nothing to work with because its the basic starter class and offers almost nothing for him to use, so he has almost no skill proficiencies to make use of in the time you have left before the timeskip, which widens the gap between him and your units even more. Worse, his strengths are covered by some many other characters (Bow is covered by Shamir, Axe Flyer by Seteth, etc), that he can't hope to catchup and make use of his full potential. So instead of a MagikarpPower unit like on the other two routes, you have a LateCharacterSyndrome unit that takes so much extra resources to make good, that doing so is comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* [[MagikarpPower Cyril]] is a unit that normally is a decent unit, and on two of the three routes he can be recruited is a good unit thanks to having a flat bonus to all his growths with his personal skill and being able to be recruited fairly early in the game, but on the Silver Snow route, he's a borderline unusable character on anything above the lowest difficulty, and even then doing so is not a good idea. The reason is because he joins one chapter before the timeskip, giving the player only a few times to level and train his skills since he is unable to be recruited due to plot reasons until a specific route choice is made, and is stuck as the Commoner class at almost level 20, a class the player will move away any character from at level 5. Furthermore, while other later recruit characters join in higher tier classes and trade versatility for raw power, Cyril being stuck as a Commoner gives him nothing to work with because its the basic starter class and offers almost nothing, so he has almost no skill proficiency to make use of in the time you have left. Worse, his main role is covered by some many other characters (Bow is covered by Shamir, Axe Flyer by Seteth, etc), that he can't hope to catchup and make use of his full potentially. So instead of a MagikarpPower unit like on the other two routes, you have a LateCharacterSyndrome that takes so much extra resources to make good, that doing so is weakens the time needed for other units to improve.

* [[MagickarpPower Cyril]] is a unit that normally is a decent unit, and on two of the three routes he can be recruited is a good unit thanks to having a flat bonus to all his growths with his personal skill and being able to be recruited fairly early in the game, but on the Silver Snow route, he's a borderline unusable character on anything above the lowest difficulty, and even then doing so is not a good idea. The reason is because he joins one chapter before the timeskip, giving the player only a few times to level and train his skills since he is unable to be recruited due to plot reasons until a specific route choice is made, and is stuck as the Commoner class at almost level 20, a class the player will move away any character from at level 5. Furthermore, while other later recruit characters join in higher tier classes and trade versatility for raw power, Cyril being stuck as a Commoner gives him nothing to work with because its the basic starter class and offers almost nothing, so he has almost no skill proficiency to make use of in the time you have left. Worse, his main role is covered by some many other characters (Bow is covered by Shamir, Axe Flyer by Seteth, etc), that he can't hope to catchup and make use of his full potentially. So instead of a MagickarpPower unit like on the other two routes, you have a LateCharacterSyndrome that takes so much extra resources to make good, that doing so is weakens the time needed for other units to improve.

* While [[BreakOutCharacter Roy is very popular as a Lord with the casual fandom]], his perfomance in his home game leaves a lot to be desired. Despite joining with perfect availability, he's notorious for only being able to promote literally three chapters away from the True Ending of the game - and in the case of the Bad Ending, ''one,'' long after most of your other units would have promoted and neared their caps. Even though Roy ''does'' get a unique sword with 1-2 range that gives +5 to Defense and Resistance, this delay alongside the long time Roy is without level caps are the reasons why he [[NeverLiveItDown never gets to live it down]].

* Fiona is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, and she has absolutely abysmal base stats that are noticeably worse than the Green Units she rides up with, on top of being level nine, making it seem like her level was raised without adjusting her stats to match. Made even worse is that due to her join time, she only has so many chapters that puts her otherwise-significant advantage as a mounted unit to use, especially as her Third Tier caps are terrible and the last five chapters of the game are all indoors. She's easily the worst cavalier in the game, and even if coddled, really doesn't do enough to stick out.

* Many bad units have come and gone over the game's lifespan, but none are as useless as the three main characters of the game: [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/alfonse Alfonse: Prince of Askr]], [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/sharena Sharena: Princess of Askr]], and [[https://gamepress.gg/feheroes/hero/anna Anna: Commander]]. In addition to the handicap of suffering from very poor generation 1 statlines that hold up very badly in the face of years of PowerCreep, they have the unique problem of being unable to utilize merges, denying them a further 23 stat points across the board and crippling their score in the Arena. As a final nail in the coffin, they were three of the earliest units to get weapon refines, which have also suffered from PowerCreep that render them mediocre (Alfonse and Sharena) or outright useless (Anna), and they are very unlikely to get any new tools to fix their issues that can't benefit every other unit in the game in their weapon class more. Most of the oldest units in the game have much better options available to the player, but they can still be viable if heavy favoritism is shown. The Askr trio sticks out for being completely unsalvageable no matter what the player does.

* At least Meg has stats expected of a farm girl who just put on a suit of armor for defense rather than combat. Fiona is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, and she has absolutely abysmal base stats that are noticeably worse than the Green Units she rides up with, on top of being level nine, making it seem like her level was raised without adjusting her stats to match. Made even worse is that due to her join time, she only has so many chapters that puts her otherwise-significant advantage as a mounted unit to use, especially as her Third Tier caps are terrible and the last five chapters of the game are all indoors. She's widely held in the same breath as Meg for some of the most atrocious units in the series, even by bad unit standards.
* Somehow, Fiona isn't inarguably the worst cavalier in the game, though: she shares her place with Astrid, which is all the more saddening when her performance in [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance the prior game]] was rather good. On paper, Astrid is meant as a MagikarpPower unit: she joins very underleveled with bad base stats, but she has the Paragon skill that doubles her XP gain, making her much easier to train... except that in ''Radiant Dawn'', you can freely swap around unit skills, with the only penalty being that they don't initially take up capacity on their users. The moment you take Paragon off Astrid (which is something most people will do, as it's hugely beneficial to anyone who has it and good to swap around in a game that is very stingy with XP), she loses the only reason to consider using her. But even if you do decide to let her keep Paragon and try to train her up, her status as a bow unit means that she has no enemy phase before promotion (handily cancelling out her XP boost), her growths are mediocre by ''Radiant Dawn'' standards, and on top of all that, she's barely ever around: she appears for only ''four'' chapters up until Part 4, and she's overshadowed by nearly every other unit you have in all of them. The only minor niche she has is a decent third-tier Speed cap, but not only does this require you to train her up all the way into endgame, but her Speed isn't high enough to actually ''hit'' that cap reliably. Basically, to make Astrid good requires you to sandbag the rest of your army, and even once you have trained her up, you still don't get anything worth talking about.
* However, all of the aforementioned are dwarfed by the worst Laguz unit in the game, and by far the worst Beast Unit in the series - Lyre. Joining with a pitiful base '''7 Strength,''' in a game that hates Cat Laguz and with terrible growths, she is pretty much impossible to actually damage anyone with those stats and is practically better off as an actual house cat than a character designed for combat. She doesn't even come with any items or skills in her inventory for you to give to better units, unlike other bottom-feeders in the series.

* One of the most infamous units amid Beorc characters is Meg. Meg joins as your first Armor Knight in the Dawn Brigade, but with her stats as a wholesale, good luck getting her to help in any meaningful way. She has growths comparable to Amelia and (debatably) the aforementioned Gwendolyn, being a feminine Armor Knight with a great Speed stat, but while Amelia has the benefit of being in a game with grinding that makes anyone easily usable, Meg is like Gwendolyn in being out of luck. Not only is she in a game where there's infinitely better recipients for BEXP, she's in a game where caps matter, and her caps run directly contrary to her stat growths with her Speed cap being at a miserable ''30 Speed'' (which would be great in other earlier installments, but for ''Radiant Dawn,'' is pitiful). This leads her to having no use compared to the Black Knight, Gatrie or even her father Brom, and she's widely known for it as such.
* At least Meg has stats expected of a farm girl who just put on a suit of armor for defense rather than combat. Fiona is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, and she has absolutely abysmal base stats that are noticeably worse than the Green Units she rides up with. Made even worse is that due to her join time, she only has so many chapters that puts her otherwise-significant advantage as a mounted unit to use, especially as her Third Tier caps are terrible and the last five chapters of the game are all indoors. She's widely held in the same breath as Meg for some of the most atrocious units in the series, even by bad unit standards.

* The game actually does a surprisingly good job at balancing out every class in the game for the most part - even commonly low-tier classes like Armor Knights and Archers have a place in Lunatic Mode due to the former's survivability in that difficulty's EarlyGameHell and the latter being ''especially'' useful for attacking from afar without fear of retaliation, especially in Lunatic Reverse. However, there's one class that is notably worse than any others, much to the disappointment of fans of the class: Warrior. The reason why is simple; [[OvershadowedByAwesome it's overshadowed by more specialized classes]]. Its caps are blown out of the water completely by Berserker caps, its role as an archer is done better by Snipers having a better Speed cap and bow rank, and much of what it offers only comes for its T1 form, Fighters, which is universally regarded as one of the best options for the GameBreaker Avatar Kris to use aside from the Armor Knight.

* The game actually does a surprisingly good job at balancing out every class in the game for the most part - even commonly low-tier classes like Armor Knights and Archers have a place in Lunatic Mode due to the former's survivability in that difficulty's EarlyGameHell and the latter being ''especially'' useful for attacking from afar without fear of retaliation, especially in Lunatic Reverse. However, there's one class that is notably worse than any others, much to the disappointment of fans of the class: Warrior. The reason why is simple; [[OvershadowedByAwesome it's overshadowed by more specialized classes]]. Its caps are blown out of the water completely by Berserker caps, its role as an archer is done better by Snipers having a better Speed cap and bow rank, and much of what it offers only comes for its T1 form, the Fighter, which is universally regarded as one of the best options for the GameBreaker Avatar Kris to use aside from the Armor Knight.

!!Elibe Saga (''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'')

* Poor Gwendolyn, also known as [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Wendy]], has an uphill battle to contend with that left her notorious in the fandom as an unintended JokeCharacter. Being ostensibly a MagikarpPower character who's in the Armor Knight class, Gwendolyn has such hideously poor bases that on Hard Mode she's one-rounded by an archer on her join chapter, joins one (two, if you're going for the Gaiden chapter) chapter before an axe-centric set of levels, and worst of all is an Armor Knight in a game that's unfriendly to Armor Knights by default. While Bors and Barthe are bad for a variety of reasons, they avert this trope due to the former's near-perfect availability and the latter's workable bases, meaning they can at least come to do their jobs well with what they're given. Gwendolyn's growths aren't even that especially impressive compared to her brother Bors, and being in a game with large maps and low move on ''top'' of low bases means that she's simply going to do so much worse than almost every other character in the game even if trained to a level that caps her out in every stat. She's widely held as both the worst unit in the game and a contender for the worst unit in the ''series'', which is disappointing because she does have a fandom that likes her for her design, her being the first Tier 1 female Armor Knight in the series, and [[NarmCharm for how bad she is even in spite of her start]].

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', it's a game that's easy enough that even the lowest tier units can generally see use with favoritism. Karla, the little sister of [[BloodKnight Karel]], is an exception to this. She's recruited literally a handful of chapters away from the end of the game, outright ''requires'' that the player train Bartre to use him[[note]]who's already a unit that, while entirely usable and thus exempt from this trope, is considered in tier rankings a resource sink with not enough pay-off to be worth it on average[[/note]], and then survive an engagement with him... and even with 20/1 Bartre, she joins with base stats that he could easily sneeze at, and is sword-locked in a game where the majority of maps are extremely lance-dominated. This altogether gets Karla notoriously solidified as arguably the worst Swordmaster in the series, with the only one that rivals her for that title being Shannam in ''Fire Emblem: Thracia 776'', who's a ''JokeCharacter''.

* At least Meg has stats expected of a farm girl who just put on a suit of armor for defense than combat. Fiona is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, and she has absolutely abysmal base stats that are noticeably worse than the Green Units she rides up with. Made even worse is that due to her join time, she only has so many chapters that puts her otherwise-significant advantage as a mounted unit to use, especially as her Third Tier caps are terrible and the last five chapters of the game are all indoors. She's widely held in the same breath as Meg for some of the most atrocious units in the series, even by bad unit standards.

* However, all of the aforementioned are dwarfed by the worst Laguz unit in the game, and by far the worst Beast Unit in the series - Lyre. Joining with a pitiful base '''7 Strength,''' in a game that hates Cat Laguz and with terrible growths, she is pretty much impossible to actually damage anyone with those stats and is practically better off as an actual house cat than a character designed for combat.

* As a wholesale, the game inverts a lot of the trends in the series of pre-promotes being good or outright [[GameBreaker Game Breakers]], with many of the latter half of units in the remake having barely adjusted base stats from the [=SNES=] days, which leaves them barely passable on Normal and gets them utterly demolished on higher difficulties. These units, known as [[FanNickname Free Silvers]], are seen with disappointment for having such awful stats and only having high growths (and good luck training them with those stats) and good weapons ranks to make up for it. There's literally no reason to use any of the units to join after the Sable Knights, with the possible exceptions of Katarina, Xane, Nagi, and Michalis.
* Even by Free Silver standards, the Wolfguard that joins in Chapter 19 are pathetic, which is made all the worse by the fact that they're some of the hardest units to recruit in the game (requiring you to go far out of your way, and then recruit each one ''in succession'' from the enemy side, while dodging swarms of incredibly powerful dracoknights). Once they're in your army, their stats are on par with units from Chapter 4, their growths are not nearly enough to save them, and they don't have anything worth noting--something made all the worse by their extremely late join time. On the highest difficulty, the only thing they can see use for is suicide attacks, and even then, they're frequently not that great at it.

Even in [[Franchise/FireEmblem a series]] that's as big as it is on using your favorite character, [[LowTierLetdown there exists a scarce few units that simply won't work no matter how hard you try, and the fandom knows it]].