History LowTierLetdown / FireEmblem

* Even by the [[MightyGlacier literally-sluggish standards]] of his class, '''Arden''' is generally singled out as the worst unit in his game by an overwhelmingly massive margin, and contextually is [[MedalOfDishonor one of the all-time worst armor knights in the]] ''[[MedalOfDishonor entire series]]'' aside from [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Gwendolyn]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Meg]]. He is an armor knight, which is already a disadvantage strategically for the player due to armor knights having poor move, but there have been plenty of other units and games that made the class avoid this fate due to meaningful (if [[CoolButInefficient inefficient]]) niches to be gained in even the class's worse performers. Arden, however, is a case made far worse by virtue of being in a game utterly ''infamous'' [[MarathonLevel for its huge maps]]. His intended use is to defend the player's castles while everybody else fights on the frontlines, which is a completely superfluous advantage, since there should almost never be any situations where the player's castles are in any acute danger (and even then, one can simply teleport back a unit from the frontlines using the Return or Warp staves). Despite boasting a high [=HP=], Strength and Defense score, he's also one of the offensively worst units in the game due to his complete lack of offensive combat skills, being stuck with nothing but a B-rank in swords until he promotes (locking him out of using silver swords, steel blades and even iron blades), and being one of the few units that genuinely struggles with accuracy due to his poor skill stat. Any attempt to make him useful requires holding back the rest of the party back both strategically (letting him catch up to the frontline) and tactically (as he usually needs to borrow stronger weapons from teammates, such as the Hero Sword, which is better served in the hands of literally everybody else who can wield it). He doesn't become much better once he's promoted, either. While there are many other units in the game that are considered sub-par or even bad, such as Hannibal and Iucharba, they can at least contribute by defeating fodder mooks without necessarily handicapping the rest of the party, and ''can'' meaningfully turn into powerhouses with enough investment and effort. Not Arden; even considering the fact he's an armor knight, the advantages he provided are so borderline nonexistent that the very act of trying to get him out of his rut gimps the rest of your army and doesn't even give you a powerhouse worth talking about. The game's auto deploying all your units means Arden is not entirely useless, but he's still pretty dang close. He's even one of the least used characters in the first generation's character pairing system, because [[OvershadowedByAwesome another character, Lex]], provides very similar, but generally superior benefits for his children.

* Even by the [[MightyGlacier literally-sluggish standards]] of his class, '''Arden''' is generally singled out as the worst unit in his game by an overwhelmingly massive margin, and contextually is [[MedalOfDishonor one of the all-time worst armor knights in the]] ''[[MedalOfDishonor entire series]]'' aside from [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Gwendolyn]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Meg]]. He is an armor knight, which is already a disadvantage strategically for the player due to armor knights having poor move, but there have been plenty of other units and games that made the class avoid this fate due to meaningful (if [[CoolButInefficient inefficient]]) niches to be gained in even the class's worse performers. Arden, however, is a case made far worse by virtue of being in a game utterly ''infamous'' [[MarathonLevel for its huge maps]]. His intended use is to defend the player's castles while everybody else fights on the frontlines, which is a completely superfluous advantage, since there should almost never be any situations where the player's castles are in any acute danger (and even then, one can simply teleport back a unit from the frontlines using the Return or Warp staves). Despite boasting a high [=HP=], Strength and Defense score, he's also one of the offensively worst units in the game due to his complete lack of offensive combat skills, being stuck with nothing but a B-rank in swords until he promotes (locking him out of using silver swords, steel blades and even iron blades), and being one of the few units that genuinely struggles with accuracy due to his poor skill stat. Any attempt to make him useful requires holding back the rest of the party back both strategically (letting him catch up to the frontline) and tactically (as he usually needs to borrow stronger weapons from teammates, such as the Hero Sword, which is better served in the hands of literally everybody else who can wield it). He doesn't become much better once he's promoted, either. While there are many other units in the game that are considered sub-par or even bad, such as Hannibal and Iucharba, they can at least contribute by defeating fodder mooks without necessarily handicapping the rest of the party, and ''can'' meaningfully turn into powerhouses with enough investment and effort. Not Arden; even considering the fact he's an armor knight, the advantages he provided are so borderline nonexistent that the very act of trying to get him out of his rut gimps the rest of your army and doesn't even give you a powerhouse worth talking about. He's even one of the least used characters in the first generation's character pairing system, because [[OvershadowedByAwesome another character, Lex]], provides very similar, but generally superior benefits for his children.

* '''[[MagikarpPower Cyril]]''' is normally a decent MagikarpPower character thanks to having a personal skill that boosts his growths, and having very high-value affinities and a good selection of combat arts, 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 free periods to level and train his skills, time that can better be spent doing other things or empowering 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 so 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 catch up 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 many extra resources to make good, that doing so comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* [[MagikarpPower Cyril]] is normally a decent MagikarpPower character thanks to having a personal skill that boosts his growths, and having very high-value affinities and a good selection of combat arts, 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 free periods to level and train his skills, time that can better be spent doing other things or empowering 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 so 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 catch up 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 many extra resources to make good, that doing so comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* '''Arden''' is generally singled out as the worst unit in the game by a considerable margin. He is an armor knight, which is already a disadvantage strategically for the player due to armor knights having poor move, but there have been plenty of other units and games that made the class avoid this fate due to meaningful (if [[CoolButInefficient inefficient]]) niches to be gained in even the class's worse performers. Arden, however, is a case made far worse by virtue of being in a game utterly ''infamous'' [[MarathonLevel for its huge maps]]. His intended use is to defend the player's castles while everybody else fights on the frontlines, which is a completely superfluous advantage, since there should almost never be any situations where the player's castles are in any acute danger (and even then, one can simply teleport back a unit from the frontlines using the Return or Warp staves). Despite boasting a high [=HP=], Strength and Defense score, he's also one of the offensively worst units in the game due to his complete lack of offensive combat skills, being stuck with nothing but a B-rank in swords until he promotes (locking him out of using silver swords, steel blades and even iron blades), and being one of the few units that genuinely struggles with accuracy due to his poor skill stat. Any attempt to make him useful requires holding back the rest of the party back both strategically (letting him catch up to the frontline) and tactically (as he usually needs to borrow stronger weapons from teammates, such as the Hero Sword, which is better served in the hands of literally everybody else who can wield it). He doesn't become much better once he's promoted, either. While there are many other units in the game that are considered sub-par or even bad, such as Hannibal and Iucharba, they can at least contribute by defeating fodder mooks without necessarily handicapping the rest of the party, and ''can'' meaningfully turn into powerhouses with enough investment and effort. Not Arden; even considering the fact he's an armor knight, the advantages he provided are so borderline nonexistent that the very act of trying to get him out of his rut gimps the rest of your army and doesn't even give you a powerhouse worth talking about. He's even one of the least used characters in the first generation's character pairing system, because [[OvershadowedByAwesome another character, Lex]], provides very similar, but generally superior benefits for his children.

* '''Arden''' is generally singled out as the worst unit in the game. He is an armor knight in a game utterly infamous for its huge maps. His intended use, defending the player's castles while everybody else fights on the frontlines, is completely superfluous, since there should almost never be any situations where the player's castles are in any acute danger (and even then, one can simply teleport back a unit from the frontlines using the Return or Warp staves). Despite his high strength score, he is also one of the offensively worst units in the game due to his complete lack of offensive combat skills, being stuck with nothing but a B-rank in swords until he promotes (locking him out of using silver swords, steel blades and even iron blades), and being one of the few units that genuinely struggles with accuracy due to his poor skill stat. Any attempt to make him useful requires holding the rest of the party back both strategically (letting him catch up to the frontline) and tactically (as he usually needs to borrow stronger weapons from teammates, such as the Hero sword, which is better served in the hands of literally everybody else who can wield it). He doesn't become much better once promoted, either. While there are many other units in the game that are considered sub-par or even bad, such as Hannibal, they can at least contribute defeating random mooks without handicapping the rest of the party. Not Arden. He is even one of the least used characters in the first generation's character pairing system, because [[OvershadowedByAwesome another character, Lex]], provides very similar, but generally superior benefits for his children.

* Almost all of the Emblem Rings and Bracelets range in viability between a bit DifficultButAwesome to use or easy to use on anyone you give them to, with one exception: '''Emblem Leif''', who is notorious for his Adaptable sync skill(when a foe initiates combat, the ability automatically equips the weapon in the user's inventory that is "best" for countering) [[PowerUpLetdown getting his bearer killed]] by switching to weapons that result in them getting weighed down, sometimes in spite of his Build boosts (such as his sync weapon, the Master Lance) and doubled when the weapon they already had equipped didn't. Adaptable can also sometimes botch your Enemy Phase kills, where the skill can sometimes cause you to switch to a weapon that failed to kill the enemy when the one you had equipped earlier could have secured you a guaranteed kill; it's especially bad with Leif's Light Brand, a magic sword that is ''very strong'' in the hands of magic users (who likely shouldn't be wielding Leif's Ring), but mediocre in the hands of [[MagicallyIneptFighter physically-oriented units]]. Even ignoring Adaptable however, he is generally lacking in useful abilities outside Vantage, which can be inherited and combined with Emblems who use them better, like Ike or Roy. While it's not impossible to create a workable build tailored towards Leif's kit, it gave him a reputation as the hardest Emblem to use properly and it's not uncommon for him to be used solely as fodder for Vantage, Build boosts, or weapon proficiencies as a result.

* '''Miranda''' is generally agreed to be the worst non-JokeCharacter in the game (whether she's worse than Shannam is a real question), and one of the worst "Est"-type characters in the series. Her standout growth rates scarcely matter in ''Thracia'', where stat caps are generally low and Crusader Scrolls can give anyone good growth rates, and Miranda has to deal with bad starting weapon ranks, bad starting stats, no unique weapon, a skill that requires her to get attacked when she has wet-tissue durability, and coming in at a point where just about anyone can handle the majority of enemies. To add insult to injury, if she promotes into Mage Knight, she actually ''loses'' movement on indoor maps (which is most of the remaining ones). And all that's on top of the fact that Sara shows up around the same time and is generally agreed to be one of the ''best'' Est-type characters, meaning you have a much better option to pour your work into.

** 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.

* '''Fiona''' is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, [[OverratedAndUnderleveled yet 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[[note]]Her base stats would actually be overall decent if she was several levels lower. In fact, her base stats are basically the same as Oscar's base stats were in ''Path of Radiance'', yet he starts in the very first chapter, and at level 3, making it seem like Fiona was put at a higher level to be on par with the rest of the chapter 1 units, but without adjusting her stats to reflect that.[[/note]]. Making things even worse is that due to her join time, she only has a scant few chapters that put 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, which is all the more of a let down considering she has on paper really good growths and a good Affinity.

* '''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. He can, however, still use Emblem Rings, so most players just make him a SupportPartyMember with Micaiah, Corrin, or Byleth for its duration. [[spoiler: The InUniverse justification for this, being that Rafal was merely faking his weakness all along only served to make already frustrated players ''more'' pissed.]]

* ''Thracia'' is a game that's considered to have one of the most generally useful rosters in the series, with nearly every unit having at least ''something'' to offer. This makes '''Kain''', '''Alva''', and '''Robert''' all the more impressive for lacking any kind of selling point. A trio of cavalry units, they join about halfway into the game at ''very'' low levels with customarily low stats, to the point that they struggle to handle even generic enemies at a point in the game where most of your army can one-round (effectively turning the map into a rescue mission). Their weapon ranks are terrible, with Alva starting off with E Lances despite being a lance knight, and their classes are far less of a selling point in ''Thracia'', due to the dismount mechanic forcing them off their horses indoors (which makes the weapon rank problem all the worse). However, what really pushes them here is their total lack of character-specific traits: only one of them has movement or leadership stars (Robert has one movement star), and only one has a high FCM (Robert is highest with 3, Kain and Alva have 1), none start with any skills, and none have a personalized weapon, all things that most units in ''Thracia'' can boast at least two of--the closest thing they have is one-sided supports with Glade and Selphina, who are considered filler units at best but are still held in far higher regard. Their only redeeming quality is that their growth rates aren't bad, but in ''Thracia'', that matters far less than in other games, and it still leaves them held back by their classes and lack of unique qualities when raised. Given that they're also some of [[FlatCharacter the least characterized units]] in the game (if not the series altogether), it's not uncommon for people to compare them to [[RedshirtArmy generic green units]]. Robert's attributes are a bit better, but he's an archer, meaning that he can't counter at close range.

* ''Thracia'' is a game that's considered to have one of the most generally useful rosters in the series, with nearly every unit having at least ''something'' to offer. This makes '''Kain''', '''Alva''', and '''Robert''' all the more impressive for lacking any kind of selling point. A trio of cavalry units, they join about halfway into the game at ''very'' low levels with customarily low stats, to the point that they struggle to handle even generic enemies at a point in the game where most of your army can one-round (effectively turning the map into a rescue mission). Their weapon ranks are terrible, with Alva starting off with E Lances despite being a lance knight, and their classes are far less of a selling point in ''Thracia'', due to the dismount mechanic forcing them off their horses indoors (which makes the weapon rank problem all the worse). However, what really pushes them here is their total lack of character-specific traits: none have movement or leadership stars, none have a high FCM (Robert is highest with 2, Kain and Alva have 1), none start with any skills, and none have a personalized weapon, all things that most units in ''Thracia'' can boast at least two of--the closest thing they have is one-sided supports with Glade and Selphina, who are considered filler units at best but are still held in far higher regard. Their only redeeming quality is that their growth rates aren't bad, but in ''Thracia'', that matters far less than in other games, and it still leaves them held back by their classes and lack of unique qualities when raised. Given that they're also some of [[FlatCharacter the least characterized units]] in the game (if not the series altogether), it's not uncommon for people to compare them to [[RedshirtArmy generic green units]].

* '''Fiona''' is the daughter of one of the Four Riders, [[OverratedAndUnderleveled yet 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[[note]]Her base stats would actually be overall decent if she was several lower. In fact, her base stats are basically the same as Oscar's base stats were in ''Path of Radiance'', yet he starts in the very first chapter, and at level 3, making it seem like Fiona was put at a higher level to be on par with the rest of the chapter 1 units, but without adjusting her stats to reflect that.[[/note]]. 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, which is all the more of a let down considering she has on paper really good growths and a good Affinity.

* Many bad units have come and gone over the game's lifespan, but none are even ''[[MedalOfDishonor remotely]]'' as useless as the [[StarterMon 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're 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 a boss, demonstrating that using them makes things harder for yourself.

* While '''Roy''' is [[BreakOutCharacter very popular as a Lord with the casual fandom]], his performance 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, [[OverratedAndUnderleveled yet 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, which is all the more of a let down considering she has on paper really good growths and a good Affinity.

** Even to any fans of MagikarpPower units throughout the series, you'd be hard pressed to find ''anyone'' to defend '''Jubelo''', who is arguably the worst Mage[=/=]Sage ''in the series''. Which is a shame, as he was already of dubious but nonetheless-passable use in the original game, but only became exponentially worse in the remake. Jubelo is unique among other units in this sub-section by you getting him very early on, so on ''paper'' that should mean he alongside other units can at least snowball despite bad bases (like Ryan, who was originally a worse Gordin (who was already unimpressive in that game) in the original game, but his astronomically high growths, optics of reclassing and immediate jointime in the remake salvages him into a very useful party member), but good luck getting him to do anything. Having a bafflingly low '''[[BrokeTheRatingScale -2 base Magic]]''' in his starting class, this gives him a ''1 Magic stat'', when the rest of his bases are already below average even by Level 1 unit standards. To compound this, his growths aren't even especially inflated compared to other high-growth units, meaning they don't do nearly good of a job at getting him out of his abysmal start. This renders him barely usable on Normal, and practically unviable on any difficulty higher, especially Lunatic. When the game gives you plenty of viable mages such as Merric, Linde and Arlen, and when even milquetoast units like his own sister Yuliya can serve as healbots, there is no meaningful reward to training him and going through the pain of using him just to end up with a unit who will be outclassed by every other magic-using character in the game.

* '''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, which is all the more of a let down considering she has on paper really good growths and a good Affinity.

** Even to any fans of MagikarpPower units throughout the series, you'd be hard press to find ''anyone'' defend '''Jubelo''', who is arguably the worst Mage[=/=]Sage ''in the series''. Which is a shame, as he was already of dubious but nonetheless-passable use in the original game, but only became exponentially worse in the remake. Jubelo is unique among other units in this sub-section by you getting him very early on, so on ''paper'' that should mean he alongside other units can at least snowball despite bad bases (like Ryan, who was originally a worse Gordin (who was already unimpressive in that game) in the original game, but his astronomically high growths, optics of reclassing and immediate jointime in the remake salvages him into a very useful party member), but good luck getting him to do anything. Having a bafflingly low '''[[BrokeTheRatingScale -2 base Magic]]''' in his starting class, this gives him a ''1 Magic stat'', when the rest of his bases are already below average even by Level 1 unit standards. To compound this, his growths aren't even especially inflated compared to other high-growth units, meaning they don't do nearly good of a job at getting him out of his abysmal start. This renders him barely usable on Normal, and practically unviable on any difficulty higher, especially Lunatic. When the game gives you plenty of viable mages such as Merric, Linde and Arlen, and when even milquetoast units like his own sister Yuliya can serve as healbots, there is no meaningful reward to training him and going through the pain of using him just to end up with a unit who will be outclassed by every other magic-using character in the game.

* '''Sophia''' is not much better. Joining on [[ThatOneLevel Chapter 14: Arcadia]] as a Level 1 Shaman with base stats even base Roy could laugh at, Sophia is regularly one-rounded if not one-shot by every unit on her joining chapter, and even with a Flux tome she struggles to get hit rates above 40% or 50% on a ''good forecast.'' Even by Est standards, who at least ''do'' [[MagikarpPower get good should you go through the pain of training them]], she has mediocre growths, which combined with the investment needed to get her good, has her as a lost investment even by the standards of Ests. She's regularly held out alongside Gwendolyn as two of the worst units in the game, and some of the worst in the series.

** Even to any fans of MagikarpPower units throughout the series, you'd be hard press to find ''anyone'' defend '''Jubelo''', who is arguably the worst Mage[=/=]Sage ''in the series''. Which is a shame, as he was already of dubious but nonetheless-passable use in the original game, but only became exponentially worse in the remake. Jubelo is unique among other units in this sub-section by you getting him very early on, so on ''paper'' that should mean that other units can at least snowball despite bad bases (like Ryan, who was originally a worse Gordin (who was already unimpressive in that game) in the original game, but his astronomically high growths, optics of reclassing and immediate jointime salvages him into a very useful party member), but good luck getting him to do anything. Having a bafflingly low '''[[BrokeTheRatingScale -2 base Magic]]''' in his starting class, this gives him a ''1 Magic stat'', when the rest of his bases are already below average even by Level 1 unit standards. To compound this, his growths aren't even especially inflated compared to other high-growth units, meaning they don't do nearly good of a job at getting him out of his abysmal start. This renders him barely usable on Normal, and practically unviable on any difficulty higher, especially Lunatic. When the game gives you plenty of viable mages such as Merric, Linde and Arlen, and when even milquetoast units like his own sister Yuliya can serve as healbots, there is no meaningful reward to training him and going through the pain of using him just to end up with a unit who will be outclassed by every other magic-using character in the game.

** Even to any fans of MagikarpPower units throughout the series, you'd be hard press to find ''anyone'' defend '''Jubelo''', who is arguably the worst Mage[=/=]Sage ''in the series''. Which is a shame, as he was already of dubious but nonetheless-passable use in the original game, but only became exponentially worse in the remake. Jubelo is unique among other units in this sub-section by you getting him very early on, so on ''paper'' that should mean that other units can at least snowball despite bad bases (like Ryan, who was originally a worse Gordin (who was already unimpressive in that game) in the original game, but his astronomically high growths, optics of reclassing and immediate jointime salvages him into a very useful party member), but good luck getting him to do anything. Having a bafflingly low '''[[BrokeTheRatingScale -2 base Magic]]''' in his starting class, this gives him a ''0 Magic stat'', when the rest of his bases are already below average even by Level 1 unit standards. To compound this, his growths aren't even especially inflated compared to other high-growth units, meaning they don't do nearly good of a job at getting him out of his abysmal start. This renders him barely usable on Normal, and practically unviable on any difficulty higher, especially Lunatic. When the game gives you plenty of viable mages such as Merric, Linde and Arlen, and when even milquetoast units like his own sister Yuliya can serve as healbots, there is no meaningful reward to training him and going through the pain of using him just to end up with a unit who will be outclassed by every other magic-using character in the game.

** In contrast to the game's lopsided and downright-baffling character balance, the ''class'' balance for the most part is actually surprisingly good - 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 its fans: '''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.

** 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 its fans: '''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.

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses''
* '''[[MagikarpPower Cyril]]''' is normally a decent MagikarpPower character thanks to his growth-boosting personal skill, very high-value affinities, and good selection of Combat Arts, but on the Silver Snow route, he's a borderline unusable character on anything above Normal (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 free periods to level and train his skills, time that can better be spent doing other things or empowering 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 B-rank Axe and Bow skills (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 so many other characters (Bow is covered by Shamir who starts as a Sniper, Axe Flier by Seteth who starts as a Wyvern Rider, etc.), that he CantCatchUp 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 many extra resources to make good, that doing so comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* '''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. He can, however, still use Emblem Rings, so most players just make him a SupportPartyMember with Micaiah, Corrin, or Byleth for its duration.

* ''Thracia'' is a game that's considered to have one of the most generally useful rosters in the series, with nearly every unit having at least ''something'' to offer. This makes Kain, Alva, and Robert all the more impressive for lacking any kind of selling point. A trio of cavalry units, they join about halfway into the game at ''very'' low levels with customarily low stats, to the point that they struggle to handle even generic enemies at a point in the game where most of your army can one-round (effectively turning the map into a rescue mission). Their weapon ranks are terrible, with Alva starting off with E Lances despite being a lance knight, and their classes are far less of a selling point in ''Thracia'', due to the dismount mechanic forcing them off their horses indoors (which makes the weapon rank problem all the worse). However, what really pushes them here is their total lack of character-specific traits: none have movement or leadership stars, none have a high FCM (Robert is highest with 2, Kain and Alva have 1), none start with any skills, and none have a personalized weapon, all things that most units in ''Thracia'' can boast at least two of--the closest thing they have is one-sided supports with Glade and Selphina, who are considered filler units at best but are still held in far higher regard. Their only redeeming quality is that their growth rates aren't bad, but in ''Thracia'', that matters far less than in other games, and it still leaves them held back by their classes and lack of unique qualities when raised. Given that they're also some of [[FlatCharacter the least characterized units]] in the game (if not the series altogether), it's not uncommon for people to compare them to [[RedshirtArmy generic green units]].

* While [[BreakOutCharacter Roy is very popular as a Lord with the casual fandom]], his performance 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]].
* Poor Gwendolyn, also known as [[DubNameChange 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]].
* Sophia is not much better. Joining on [[ThatOneLevel Chapter 14: Arcadia]] as a Level 1 Shaman with base stats even base Roy could laugh at, Sophia is regularly one-rounded if not one-shot by every unit on her joining chapter, and even with a Flux tome she struggles to get hit rates above 40% or 50% on a ''good forecast.'' Even by Est standards, who at least ''do'' [[MagikarpPower get good should you go through the pain of training them]], she has mediocre growths, which combined with the investment needed to get her good, has her as a lost investment even by the standards of Ests. She's regularly held out alongside Gwendolyn as two of the worst units in the game, and some of the worst in the series.

* ''The Blazing Blade'' is 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 10/5 Bartre, she joins with base stats that he could easily sneeze at, and is sword-locked in a game where swords are considered very weak due to lack of a reliable 1-2 range option. 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''.

* 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 (during levels he appears), Gatrie or even her father Brom, and she's widely known for it as such.
* 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, which is all the more of a let down considering she has on paper really good growths and a good Affinity.
* 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.
* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* [[MagikarpPower Cyril]] is normally a decent MagikarpPower character thanks to having a personal skill that boosts his growths, and having very high-value affinities and a good selection of combat arts, 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 free periods to level and train his skills, time that can better be spent doing other things or empowering 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 so 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 catch up 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 many extra resources to make good, that doing so comes at the cost of all of the other units available.

* 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. He can, however, still use Emblem Rings, so most players just make him a SupportPartyMember with Micaiah, Corrin, or Byleth for its duration.

* 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.