Jagen is all over the place on tier lists. In the original game, he was a target of mockery for a very long time: his base stats (his main selling point) were just not all that great when Cain and Abel could catch up to him around level 5 with a little luck, and his ability to wield the Silver Lance at base wasn't impressive when Caeda could do so as well. However, appraisals of him have improved due to realization that enemies in Shadow Dragon are weak enough that his low stats are in the "just enough" range, especially if he's given a Speed Ring. His reappearance in the remake had him get a similarly dismal reception, with his small improvements being seen as not enough. Then people started cracking the game open and he proceeded to rocket up the tier list, as being able to reclass, wield a forged Ridersbane at base, and actually survive on Hard 5 without pulling out your teeth ended up giving him a firm place in the top tiers (it's often agreed that only Lena and Caeda surpass him). (Probably High-Tier Scrappy).
Elice's main gimmick is that she can use the Aum Staff to revive a unit Back from the Dead, and depending on the game, is usually the only one who can use it (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light) or has a high enough staff rank/level to use it (Shadow Dragon, Mystery of the Emblem). Problem is, both Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Mystery of the Emblem are easy to complete, meaning that her niche of reviving units is only useful in ironman runs. In the DS remake, however, because of how ridiculously overpowered Medeus is in Merciless, suicide attacks on him became viable, which is helped by Chapter 24x's rather simple requirements note simply lose Tiki and don't get the Falchion, resulting in Elice going from a "Priestess with an gimmick that almost never gets used" from "actually necessary to survive on Merciless", since the rest of her competition either requires heavy grinding (Maria) or completely impratical to use outside of their intended class (Caeda, Minerva). (Low-Tier Letdown?)
Thieves in general tend to get this. Rather than pure combat units, thieves are meant to be a major cog in the game's economy, being able to steal gold from enemies simply by attacking them and then donate the gold to any other unit. However, thieves also possess fairly low Movement, bottom-grade stats, C-rank swords, and do not have Pursuit until after promotion. This can make using thieves initially a risky proposition, and one that many new players simply ignore outright. However, the potential gold gained from thieves being in combat is huge, especially when Genealogy is a game where getting everyone in good condition and prepared for the arena takes a lot of money (especially in the first generation), and thieves have just enough weapon rank to use magic swords and steal at range, making their poor stats less relevant. This leads to an odd case of the class often being ignored in casual play, and yet regarded as nigh-essential for ranked play. (Low-Tier Letdown.)
The children characters can be all over the place tier-wise depending on who their fathers were, but none of them suffer from this worse than Edain's son Lester. His big problem is that he is a physically-oriented Bow Knight, but his sister Lana is a magically-oriented Cleric. As a consequence, any pairing with Edain that focuses on making Lana as good as possible (such as Azelle or Claud) will render Lester nearly useless; meanwhile, Lana is far less reliant on stats and growths, as she will have utility with staves no matter who her father is, and can inherit some good staves from Edain right off the bat. Even if Lester gets a father who gives him more optimal growths, he can still struggle: if he doesn't inherit the Killer and/or Brave Bow from the first generation, he will only come with an Iron Bow, making his combat mediocre at best, and he badly needs Pursuit in order to bring his damage up to a respectable level as well. The only father who can pass down both is Midir, and with this pairing, Lester becomes a solid unit overall (Jamke and Arden can also work as they can both pass down bows, but not Pursuit unless one of them got the Pursuit Ring, making them inferior options to Midir). (Don't know.
Speaking of which, there is also Arthur, who probably suffers even worse than Lester. Unlike Lester, who has at least one good father to pass down his good growths, Pursuit and a Killer Bow/Brave Bow, Arthur doesn't, due to having one of the most complicated pairings needed for optimal performance. Did you pair Tailtiu with Lewyn to get that Forseti tome early? Congrats, you have a Disc-One Nuke... But at the cost of lowering Ced's usability and potential, and having to pay to repair Forseti in the early game. Did you pair Tailtiu with Lex or Arden? He gets the deadly Wrath-Vantage combination of skills, but his magic growth will suffer in the long run (though Lex has Paragon to make up for it). The only stable pairing for him is Azel and Tailtiu, which boosts his magic growth by 50% and hands down Pursuit, which is an issue considering that Tailtiu is not exactly a great unit, but if Tailtiu is paired with someone, Arthur is notable for being the only Mage Knight unit that can be playable in the second generation. In short, you either get an Arthur with a great Magic growth and little besides double-attacking or an Arthur with a terrible Magic growth but having a good combination of skills.
Speaking of which, the entire debate of whether to allow Tailtiu to marry Lewyn also spread to whether Erinys should marry Lewyn or not, both for Shipping-related reasons and gameplay reasons. Defenders of Lewyn/Erinys pairings not only claim that this not only allows both Fee and Ced to overclock their speed stats (Fee can have an 75% speed growth, further augmenting her Fragile Speedster stats, while Ced gains an 105% speed growth, ensuring that he gains speed every time he levels) and Ced can inherit Forseti to basically become nigh-unhittable, as the game is unable to register his increased speed stat while wielding Forseti, it causes his stats to overflow, but also because that Thracia 776 canonized it How?Upon looking at his inventory, if one looks at the description of Forseti, it has a star symbol on it. This means that it is a personal weapon, and since only Ced can wield it, this means that Lewyn married Erinys, who is the mother of Fee and Ced. On the other side, those opposed to the pairings claim that it's an overrated pairing, since they can do fine without Lewyn marrying Erinys, and that since Ced is an footlocked unit like Lewyn and Jamke, he's likely to slow down a playthrough if players keep relying of the Lewyn/Erinys pairing. Thankfully, while Erinys does have other Gen 1 units she can pair with, Lewyn is the most talked about pairing due to it both being infamously broken and the fact that it's basically canon, which does frustrate some people who go for fast playthroughs. (Don't know.)
The substitute children of Sylvia and Tailtiu isn't not just a debated topic, but also a moral dilemma for them. On one hand, Laylea, Charlot, and Linda have better skills than Lene, Coirpre, and Tine, with Laylea possessing Charm, allowing both additional hit and evasion with adjacent units and even gets the Barrier Sword if visiting a certain village in Chapter 7, along actually having a great Strength growth, when combined with her speed, can fend herself in the event that she gets into a fight with another (though her physical defense is underwhelming to compensate), while Charlot has the Paragon skill to rapidly level up, which is a good thing for those focusing on the Tactics and Combat rankings, and even gets the only Berserk Staff in the game, and Linda has the Paragon skill to level up fast along with having the Wrath skill, and even can actually use Elthunder early unlike Tine. However, there are drawbacks against using them; namely, Laylea will have to buy the Knight to use them while Lene can get it as a inheritance from her mother, while the Berserk staff is both situational and requires a bit of luck to pull off one of the more insane feats, such as having a Loptous Priest reducing the Final Boss' HP to One, with Linda being agreed to being the only superior unit towards Tine (and even then, she doesn't promote into a Mage Knight). It also involves losing Arthur for Amid, when Arthur is better than Amid in almost every respect, regardless of which of his main fathers is chosen. Whether it is worth it leaving both Silvia and Tailtiu without children for the substitute children is of debate, but both sides agree that this will alleviate some of the drama both Silvia and especially Tailtiu go on later in the game. (Don't Know)
Not that they're the only second-gen characters that have mixed opinions on them. Brigid is praised for her extensive character arc along with her children, and Brigid is a prepromoted Sniper, but she, along with her son Febail, nonetheless suffer from the fact that both of them are footlocked bow-users like Jamke. That said, they do come with Yewfelle, which is pretty powerful to compensate for its poor accuracy, and exclusive to them due to their Major Ulir holy blood, and it grants them +10 Strength and +20 Speed to boot, and their joining situations happen to be where flying units come in swarms (Chapter 4 for Brigid, Chapter 8 and 9 for Febail), making them useful Crutch Characters for those maps, and can also clear arenas easily. Patty, on the other hand, will likely need a good father due to her being a thief, which is considered to be one of the game's worst classes and having a poor start, though she can at least bounce back if given a decent father and can steal a lot of money from enemy units pretty well if given a magic sword. (Low-Tier Letdown?)
Ayra was considered a borderline godly unit for a long time. Her class gives her Pursuit at base, her Astra skill allows her to attack five times when it triggers, and she obtains the Hero Sword through a conversation, which boosts her offense up even further. This makes her ferociously good at clearing the arena... but unfortunately, that's about the only place she'll be clearing, because she is one of the worst sufferers of Genealogys mount-centric gameplay, usually lagging far behind the rest of the army. And while Ayra's combat skill is rather good, it isn't to the point that she can effortlessly one-round anything, because Astra, while it will usually kill anything whenever it activates, has a low activation rate, the Hero Sword tends to be much better in the hands of units closer to the fighting, and Ayra isn't very durable, which is accentuated by large, lance-and-magic-heavy enemy formations. As a result, her position has dropped from "Game-Breaker" to "mid-tier on a good day in slower playthroughs." Her children tend to suffer a lot of the same issues, though a fairly easy-to-activate bug does at least allow them to obtain a holy weapon (at the price of Shannan losing his). (Low-Tier Letdown')
Her nephew Shannan has even greater issues with this. New players are often ecstatic about him, as he is a prepromoted Swordmaster with high base stats, the Astra skill and gets a Holy weapon in the first turn after joining. More experienced players merely see a combat unit without a mount (in a game where owning one is critical to performing well in battle) with little tactical versatility, horrible growths in everything except skill, and surprisingly poor durability. He can kill just about everything on his own, but when Everyone Is a Super, this is not quite as valuable, and he is less adept at surviving the enemy turn, and many of the second generation´s bosses (who often deal absurd amounts of damage, and are usually seen as one of the generation´s major stumbling blocks) can kill him with little effort. In the end, he is often about as useful as his cousins, Ayra´s children, who lack holy weapons, but have better stats and skills instead, in that he can reliably kill one mook a turn, but not anymore than that. His presence is typically more relevant in playthroughs where the player made poor (or few) first-generation match-ups, but even then he is usually far less useful than the other mandatory units of the generation, like Seliph, Oifey, Julia, Leif or Ares. To put more salt in his wound, there exists an easily-exploited glitch that allows both Larcei and Scathach to obtain Balmung easily (though only if Ayra married Chulainn, because Balmung requires Major Od Holy Blood to wield, and he is the only one capable of providing them with it), making him far less desirable. (Low-Tier Letdown.)
Lene and Laylea are an odd case in that most players agree them to be extremely useful (dancers in Genealogy are at something of a series peak), but the question of which one is better will start arguments. Most of the purpose of inheritance is to improve a unit's base combat and inventory, but in the case of Lene and Laylea, their combat will basically always be terrible and they therefore don't get much out of the few weapons they can wield or the skills they can inherit. This then caused many players to declare Laylea superior, as she has the Charisma skill, letting her boost the accuracy and avoid of nearby units, which would let her pitch in without being in combat. Later on, however, the prevailing strategy with dancers became to give them the Knight Ring, and often the Leg Ring as well, to let them keep up with the rest of the army and give them more versatility in where you put them—and while Lene can inherit one or both, Laylea will have to buy them, and she's not good at accumulating money. (Don't Know)
Leif was treated as a joke by the playerbase, between his poor bases, mediocre growths, lackluster skill in Adept, and late promotion that doesn't boost his stats much, leaving him often regarded as one of the worst Lords in the series. It was even more troublesome when the Leif of Genealogy had high growths and the game's best promotion, making him even more underwhelming. However, his appraisal has drastically improved in recent years, as people started figuring out the game's mechanics and realized that Leif is actually a Support Party Member, between his Leadership Star and the large number of units he supports, patching up the rather shaky hit rates of Thracia and adding on a hefty crit boost. He also has a surprising amount of early game combat to do, and he can do it proficiently, thanks to his Light Brand's range and magic damage and the lack of good units in Manster. Past that point, his promotion has very fast XP gain, and his growths can be patched by scrolls, allowing him to become a pretty effective late-game fighter. And since you Can't Drop the Hero, he's immune to the Fatigue mechanic. His position's been a comfortable one ever since—not a god-tier unit, but rarely anything below upper-mid. (Vindicated by History?)
Olwen is an unusual example, in that she is considered a below-average (though not bottom-tier) unit overall, but still remains one of the most popular units in the game and sees regular use thanks to having one of the more engaging plot arcs among the cast. While she joins reasonably early with good growths and the immediate advantage of having a mount, she has rather poor bases for a prepromote, and her durability will always be terrible, meaning that she'll have a lot of trouble surviving on the enemy phase. This can be mitigated by giving her the Ambush scroll, allowing her to get in a double attack with Dire Thunder and kill enemies before they can do anything (her high Follow-Up Critical Multiplier of 4 also being a big help here), but she faces a lot of competition for it, and with her hit rates being fairly low, she'll be in big trouble if she doesn't manage to land both hits. Olwen's two personal weapons, Dire Thunder and the Blessed Sword, are incredibly powerful and both have the Brave effect, but both also have notable drawbacks: the former is so heavy that it completely tanks her Attack Speed, and the latter isn't acquired until very late and she can't make as much use out of it as she could due to her low Strength (not to mention that it can be hair-pullingly frustrating to get, as it requires fighting through a gauntlet of tough enemies so she can speak to Reinhardt in Chapter 22). It doesn't help that if you recruit her, you can't recruit the statistically superior Mage Knight Ilios—but, given that Olwen has quite an involved story arc with relevance to the main plot where Ilios doesn't, a lot of players end up recruiting and using her anyway despite all her drawbacks compared to him. (Low-Tier Letdown.)
Carrion gets a lot of this, with the playerbase being divided between people who consider him one of the game's best mounted units and people who consider him utterly unremarkable at best. He has a good class in Cavalier, which dodges the problems of the more common Lance Knights by letting him always use swords, and he boasts a great critical multiplier (accentuated by him being one of many units who support with Leif), a movement star, and above-average growths. But much of this is countered by the fact that he shows up around the midgame with standard stats for a level 1 unit, at which point pretty much every regular combat unit you have should be able to one-round enemies reliably. Even after training him up, he doesn't do much that others can't, with Osian, Halvan, Fergus, Asvel, and many others boasting similarly massive crit rates and backing them up with actual combat experience and/or and personal weapons. This is also accentuated by his weapon ranks, with only an E in Swords to start with (the same as a dismounted Lance Knight) and only a D in Lances, heavily limiting what should be a diverse weapon selection. Encapsulating this issue perfectly is his Paragon Sword, which is an excellent weapon and is given to him by the plot—but while it's very much designed for him, any character who can use E-rank swords can wield it too. This creates the debate over whether to let him keep his sword and blossom properly, or bench him and pass it around to whoever needs it. (Low-Tier Letdown.)
Gonzales has buckets of HP, massive Strength, great Speed, the ridiculous +30 to crit given to Berserkers in this game, an extremely low level on one route and a promotion-ready level on another, Hard Mode Perks... and painfully awful Skill, in perhaps the unkindest entry in the series to low-Skill units, particularly axe-users like Gonzales considering the low accuracy of axes in this game. Gonzales comes in with a base Skill of 5 (8 on Hard Mode) and a growth of 15%, in the middle of a series of chapters with a dearth of lance-wielders. Even when promoted as soon as possible for +5 Skill and fed as many Skill-boosting Secret Books as you can find, in a game where both Hero Crests and skillboosters are at a premium, he still tends to range around 60% displayed hit. He also has an absurdly high Constitution, which, when coupled with high Speed, means he doubles a lot with axes (meaning he can actually hit somewhat more reliably than the slower and lower-Con Geese, who is supposed to be the more accurate one)... but upon promotion, his Constitution is 16; literally the only promoted mounted unit in the game who can carry him is Shin, which means getting Gonzales to the frontlines can turn into a chore. He is the hardest-hitting unit in the game by far, but when his hit rates are a coin toss, this can be a difficult gamble, especially when any swordsman will take him apart. (Awesome, but Impractical.)
Cecilia comes in as a pre-promoted Valkyrie and has a great weapon rank in anima magic and staves, including being able to wield Aircalibur at base (good!) and even has a better magic stat than Clarine if trained (also good!). However, she is also recruited in a frigging desert map and will suffer a movement penalty as a result for that chapter (not so good!), and she'll pretty much always suffer from slightly bad stats, especially when Clarine is far faster (also not good!). She's pretty effective as a support unit outside of that one map, especially since she needs very little investment to do her job, but her terrible first impression tends to get her benched a lot. (Don't Know)
Fir is a very popular character for her cute design, interesting supports, and prominence in Heroes, and is a Myrmidon, the game's best foot combat class for its superb accuracy and insane 30% critical boost on promotion. She receives Hard Mode Perks which, like most FE6 perks, are fairly insane, to the point that she basically starts with the level 4 stats of Rutger, considered one of the game's top three units, at level 1. But she also starts with Rutger's level 4 stats at level 1, and joins five chapters after he did, at which point Rutger is either promoted or getting close to it. The map she joins on is laden with axe-users that she can hold her own surprisingly well against, but this means slowing yourself down a lot to bring her up to par. Worse, her utility becomes questionable when Rutger's main strong point is that he can take on bosses, and you don't exactly need two characters for that purpose, especially when Hero Crests are in very short supply. Fir does slightly surpass Rutger, but she does so at a time when he's beginning to lose a little of his luster, and many question pouring resources into her when she doesn't decisively beat him. (Low-Tier Letdown)
Lilina was regarded as one of the game's most broken units for a long time, and it all came down to one thing: her 75% Magic growth. This means that when fully leveled, she will almost always slam right into the Magic cap, being one of the only units in the game who can do so without statboosters. She also has the game's fastest-building support with Roy, meaning you can get a C-support just for one turn of hanging out, and even B and A aren't uncommon, boosting up her offense even further, and as an Anima user, she has the near-broken 90% accurate Fire tome to effectively cancel out her somewhat poor Skill. But all that is countered by the fact that she shows up at level 1 in Chapter 8. This pretty much mandates spending all of 8x babying her up, when her durability is nonexistent and will probably never get much better, because as a growth unit, she suffers from the fact that Magic and Luck are her only good growths. While she can hit hard on single blows, she's hamstrung by the fact that she almost never doubles due to her lackluster Speed, so even in damage, the thing she's meant to be best at, she can be outdone by Lugh, who has better Speed and shows up a lot earlier. And while you can just use both, this means that Guiding Ring competition, which is already fierce due to the rarity of the promotion item, becomes downright vicious. While she can be pulled out of her rut without too much work, most experienced players find doing so to be more trouble than it's worth. (Low-Tier Letdown)
Shanna is basically the opposite of Lilina, being treasured in fast play and derided in casual play. She essentially personifies all the good and bad points of the early pegasus knight, being a blindingly fast and mobile Fragile Speedster who doubles anything, but with such low Constitution, HP, and Strength that she gets weighed down significantly by anything heavier than a Slim Lance, often doubles for zero damage, and struggles to handle anything stronger than a Soldier on Hard (though that last part is hardly unique to her). However, she's also your sole flier for anywhere from eight to ten chapters depending on route, meaning she provides a ton of utility when it comes to rescuing allies and negotiating terrain, and as a lance-user, once she's grown properly, her damage output becomes quite respectable. Because of this, fast players tend to invest a fair bit of work into Shanna to ensure she can do her job, often going so far as to promote her to Falcoknight as soon as possible so she can pick up swords and improve her Constitution at a crucial stage. Casual players, who focus primarily on sheer stats and shy away from early promotion, find an unspectacular flier who dies way too easily and advise people to use her sister Thea instead. (Don't Know)
Thea herself was considered much better than Shanna for some time, but as appraisals of Shanna improved, she started to take a tumble. She was lauded often for receiving some of Binding Blade's beloved Hard Mode Perks and having better Strength and Defense growths, along with better Constitution, meaning she was seen as the superior pick in Falcoknight. But as the meta shifted towards using Shanna more extensively, players found that Shanna could easily catch up to Thea and then some by the time Thea joined the army, Thea's base stats on Normal are utterly atrocious, meaning she's at-best on par with a raised Shanna on Hard, and Thea's lance rank is pretty bad at D, meaning she wants to promote quickly to raise it (which mostly nullifies her growth advantage). Nowadays, her position has become very debatable; fans note that she is still a reasonably strong flier with usable base stats and a very low-demand promotion item who joins before the most important time to be a flier, and raising her wards off the infamous Sacae route, while detractors point to her lance focus in the axe-heavy Western Isles and the presence of a much stronger flier to carry Arcadia, while believing that a raised Shanna alone can usually keep Sacae off.
While Melady is near-universally considered the game's strongest unit, her little brother Zeiss, especially on Hard Mode, is an oddball. He seems to have been intended as an Est unit, considering his low level, solid growths, and late join time, but unlike most Ests, his base stats, especially on Hard, are alarmingly high—including a superlative 19 Strength, 15 Defense, and 39 HP, all on a level 7 unpromoted Wyvern Rider. However, he suffers from several problems: his Speed on Hard is a lackluster 11 with a somewhat poor growth, his low weapon rank means he can't use Killer Lances initially and is forced to rely on the much worse Iron and Steel, his level means he needs to be babied up a little to early-promote him, and his joining situation is quite bad, with him being recruited near the very end of the chapter and the next few being full of ballistas, fast enemies, and magic units with siege tomes. Though he does pay off, it can be difficult to justify bringing him along and training him up when you should already have two or three strong fliers at this point. (Don't Know.)
Dayan, much like Juno, shows up late in a game where most of your units have enough stats to reliably hit and deal good damage and most of your horseback and flier units decently leveled. Unlike her, however, he starts out with some good weapon ranks and enough stats as a Nomadic Trooper, boasting a A-Rank in bows, which allows him to wield Silver bows to cripple Wvyern Lords in Chapter 22. What really sets him here, however, is the way he is obtained: He's only obtainable by going through the Sacae route, which means Sue and Shin having a higher level than Shanna and Thea, whom are units with mixed reception. Because of this, it's debated whether to go through Binding Blades most infamous level to get a decent unit who can hold out on his own or go through an easier route at the cost of earning a crappy unit whose only purpose is to complete the Awesome, but Impractical Triangle Attack. (Doesn't Count.')
Sue and Shin themselves also fall into this, due to the Sacae route creating a very strange paradigm. On paper, Sue is the best of the early bow units, while Hard Mode Shin is the best bow unit in the game, period: Nomad gives them accuracy, great Movement, rescuing, sword use on promotion, and anti-flier advantages, along with their stats being notably better than their archer counterparts, particularly Shin's. But overusing them means going to the Sacae route, and dealing with endless swarms of enemy nomads and absurdly dangerous swordmasters, something that few people want to get involved in. This creates a situation where players argue whether to bench them completely, play an odd balancing act where they try to keep Shanna and Thea ahead of Sue and Shin (which isn't too hard when dealing with bow units), or simply bite the bullet and head to Sacae. (Doesn't Count.)
Marcus is a perfect example of a varying type of Tier Induced Scrappy. In Blazing Blade, Marcus essentially kickstarted the trend of early joining Paladins that are considered "broken" in the tier list. However, Marcus is a bit special in the fact that he has a growth rate that isn't bad, but is still below average, while his successors Seth and Titania have some of the best stat growths in the game—meaning that while he does stay strong for a very long time, he tends to end the game on the lower end of the power curve, especially if his Speed growth isn't working in his favor. Notably, his Binding Blade incarnation mostly averts this, being seen as one of the few Jagens to actually work as intended—he significantly outstrips the other characters, but is also unable to keep up with the difficulty curve after a while. (Probably Doesn't Count.)
Hector was seen as amazingly broken for a long time, with his tankiness, axe use, and high attacking power helping him to stand out a fair bit from Lyn and Eliwood, as well as his Wolf Beil's much higher Might making it far more effective than the Rapier or Mani Katti. As the meta has focused more on speed, though, his reputation has declined considerably due to him being footlocked and his promotion actually being a downgrade for some, due to making him almost impossible to carry. This creates a large chunk of the game where he's pretty mediocre. That said, he's still generally considered the best of the Blazing Blade lords by far, and definitely the most idiot-proof due to being the only one with a strong early game. (Don't Know)
Geitz is an odd case in that, going in a vacuum, he's indisputedly a pretty good unit, with a decent class in Warrior, high weapon ranks, rather good stats, and even above-average growths by prepromote standards. What puts him in here is his recruitment requirements: to reach his chapter requires that Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector have a combined level of 50 or more. While Hector is relatively easy to raise on any difficulty, the hardest difficulty includes a significant cut to both XP and deployment slots. This makes it very difficult to find space for both Lyn and Eliwood and get both of them to double-digit levels in time for Geitz's joining chapter, on the mode where you would want a character like him the most. This results in him being very difficult to place, because getting a good unit essentially requires you to raise two mediocre units. While he is undeniably better than Wallace, detractors argue that Geitz is hardly what you'd call a Game-Breaker, anything he helps you with doesn't really compare to the roadblock of raising Lyn and Eliwood, and while Wallace may be weak, it's much easier to bench all three of them than it is to train Lyn and Eliwood just for the sake of using Geitz.
Ross, like Ewan and Amelia before him, is a trainee unit and suffers from most of the same weaknesses: very bad base stats, growths on the low side reducing his theoretically high potential, and a weak initial performance next to the enemies he faces. However, he also joins far earlier than either of them, in Chapter 2 as opposed to Chapter 9 or 12, making the gap between him and the rest of the cast much smaller and giving him much more room to dig out of his hole. He also has the odd advantage of being the first possible character who can access water-walking when promoted to Pirate, enabling him to negotiate obstacles that'd otherwise be restricted to Vanessa. This causes many players to consider Ross very good, as he can catch up to or surpass his allies quickly enough and has a few genuine utilities (to the point that he's seen use in low-turncount or even 0% Growths runs), while others find his early-game performance pathetic, his mid-to-lategame performance underwhelming, and his niche too situational. (Doesn't Count.)
Knoll was despised for a long time, due to generally being considered far the worst combat unit in the entire cast. His focus on Dark magic gives him little in the way of benefits, as the majority of Dark tomes have been nerfed into uselessness with colossal weight and bad accuracy, with even the legendary Gleipnir missing the effectiveness of its fellow Sacred Twins while also weighing a ton. He also has some of the worst durability in the game, with 2 Defense meaning he can't take a hit and his 0 Luck meaning he faces crit from every single enemy. Compared to Bishops with Slayer or strong Anima-users like Saleh and Lute, he seems utterly outclassed. However, Knoll is also the character who most easily accesses the Summoner class, able to promote instantly into it with no prior training, and said class provides him with a ton of extra utility, most notably being able to bait enemy attacks with low-health Phantoms or attack at very long ranges, along with giving him staves to act as a healer, all while never having to face an enemy attack. This has caused many players to reevaluate him as a support unit, with many even claiming that his main problem is simply his availability. (Vindicated by History.)
Ike was perceived for a long time as a Game-Breaker, due to his very high growths, good affinity, excellent promotion bonuses, access to Aether, and strong personal weapons, not to mention his status as the game's Lord ensuring that most players made a lot of use of him. As the meta evolved, though, more experienced players discovered Ike's flaws: he is extremely growth-dependent due to his lackluster bases, he is locked to swords in a game that is very lance-and-range-heavy, he's stuck on foot in a game where mounts are extremely powerful, and his actual promotion time isn't far away from Roy's (end of what's effectively chapter 20, though you at least appreciate it for longer). While Ragnell and Aether are very useful, one is available for only two maps and the other tends to be overkill against the rather weak enemies. This has led to Ike declining significantly in the tiers; though he's still a solid fighter and a very long way from the worst Lord, he's not the god-unit he was once regarded as. (Don't Know)
Shinon starts as a pre-promoted Sniper with bases high enough to one-round most early enemies and even more killing potential in crits from his Killer Bow, and being unable to counter at 1 range combined with his Provoke skill and being very tanky for a bow-user makes him an excellent lure, giving him amazing early-game utility. But then he leaves in Chapter 7 and doesn't rejoin until Chapter 18, via a very convoluted method (the above-mentioned Rolf needs to talk to him, then Ike has to defeat him in battle, something the game never hints at and usually permanently kills recruitable enemies). Your reward for managing to get him back? His bases are now awful for his level and join-time, his incredible growths don't do much to make up for it and Snipers are only good for chip damage on bosses at best. Overall the only reason Shinon ranks higher than Rolf on tier lists is his early-game utility, after he rejoins, he's only considered marginally better than Rolf at best. (Low-Tier Letdown?)
Stefan is very popular with the fanbase for his unique and cool backstory and Guide Dang It! recruitment, but he nonetheless suffers from all the problems this game has with Myrmidons and Swordmasters mentioned above. It can't be denied, however, that his base stats and weapon ranks are still incredibly good for his level and join-time, making him more of a Crutch Character who happens to join mid-game instead of early-game. (Low-Tier Letdown?)
Gatrie has all the side-effects of being a General, such being being weak against Anti-Armor and having low movement, in spite of having some interesting characterization. On the other hand, however, he has a whopping 60% speed growth, which is about the same as his defense and strength growth, and he comes in with amazing bases too, along with good weapon ranks in both Lances and Axes, and that's not even counting Old Save Bonuses. This means that he's a surprisingly good endgame pick, though his low movement is something to consider. (Don't Know)
Edward is one of the premier examples of how higher difficulties can completely destroy a unit's viability. On Easy, and even Normal to an extent, his rather high Lightning Bruiser-style growths, great availability by Dawn Brigade standards, and Wrath skill enable him to snowball with relatively little effort in the early chapters, likely ending up as one of the Brigade's best units by the end. But on Hard, suddenly Early Game Hell is a major concern, and Edward is now being starved for XP, lacks the defense of the weapon triangle, and is surrounded by enemies that can usually kill him in two hits and allies who can do his job much better. The resources needed to make Edward good suddenly becomes very tight, and could be much better spent on making already strong units better, especially when even Zihark, who has an infinitely better start than Edward, can still struggle in a number of maps. And while his growths are fairly high, Edward's stats are at a point where even one or two bad levels can usually leave him stuck well behind the curve on Hard. The result is a character who tends to spark a lot of arguments due to his vastly different performances depending on how you play the game. (Low-Tier Letdown, Hard/Expert (Hard/Expert is a different beast compared to Normal/Japanese Hard))
Anyone that doesn't have Galeforce. On one hand, they are absolute monsters on enemy phase, given the right amount of investment and skills needed to bulldoze through the entire game. On the other hand, they don't perform as well during the player phase, as most of them are oriented towards heavy retaliation during the enemy phase with a combination of Pavise and Aegis to tank attacks, while using Lifetaker to restore whatever health they might have lost. This becomes more apparent during Apotheosis, in which enemies over there hit so hard that Pavise and Aegis will not even save them from a massive onslaught of damage. As a result, while they can trivialize one part of the game, they suffer in another in which they are unable to provide a good player phase rush. As a result, all of the first generation fathers, Miriel, Panne, Nowi, Cherche and their children will suffer due to them not being able to provide Galeforce, which is vital on Apotheosis. That being said, they provide excellent hard support options, as they can access to classes that provide excellent pair-up bonuses, and are capable to perform great damage with Dual Strikes. (Don't Know)
Sorcerers. On the vanilla base game, they're notorious for having VERY Stripperific outfits in a game that was becoming even more Hotter and Sexier, being pretty much unstoppable juggernauts due to the fact that they have decent defense stats compared to Sages, and had access to a good variety of excellent Dark Tomes, such as Nosferatu (Aversa's Night is also a more powerful Nosferatu, but it's rarer than it) to heal back whatever damage they would have taken and it stacks with Sol as well, Ruin is a more potent version of Wilderwind, Waste is a more available and powerful version of Celica's Gale, and Mire is the only 3-10 tome in the game, though it comes at the cost of being unable to double enemy units. On Apotheosis, however, their weaknesses, which were normally ignored in the vanilla game, become much more apparent over there: Their low skill means that outside of Ruin, they won't be able to crit much and they're more likely to miss when combined with the poor hit rates of unforged Dark Tomes, and Nosferatu doesn't matter much when your magic isn't dealing enough damage in one hit, and Mire, perhaps outside of Aversa and potentially her child Morgan due to them wielding Shadowgift, isn't that useful due to their inability to double as explained earlier. Long story short, while they absolutely destroy the vanilla game, in Apotheosis, while not exactly that impractical, is instead more of a question of if it's worth it to use. (Doesn't Count)
Donnel is intended to be a case of Magikarp Power; he joins in the terrible Villager class with pitifully low base stats, but his growths are among the best in the game. However, this is offset by lackluster personal stat caps, the lowest amount of class sets in the game, weapon rank issues, requiring a Second Seal to get out of the Villager class, and that everyone can level up infinitely, meaning high growths with low base stats and a bad class set aren't that useful if you're playing for tiers. Difficulty is also a factor here, as getting him out of Villager is incredibly hard on the higher difficulty levels where enemies are stronger and experience gains are lower, and all the experience and resources needed to make him workable could be better spent on making the actual gamebreakers gamebreakers. On many of the Tier Lists on Serenes Forest, the bottom tier is named Donnel after him. However, Donnel's abilities as a parent make him worth recruiting in the first place. For some reason, he passes down to any children he has to reclass into Mercenaries and any daughters he has the ability to reclass into Pegasus Knights. Mercenaries are not only a useful class in terms of stats, but they get the Armsthrift skill from Level 1, which makes weapons degrade much slower, and also synergises with Donny's high luck stat. Pegasus Knights, meanwhile, have the ability to upgrade into Dark Fliers. When they get to level 15, they get the Galeforce skill, which lets them move again after killing an enemy. He can also pass down his Aptitude skill, which increases stat growths by a lot note 20%, as well as useful skills like Counter and Rally Strength that a female character wouldn't be able to get otherwise. Pair him up with Tharja, and you can have a Noire with extremely high stats that can move and attack twice per turn, with a Nosferatu tome that lasts essentially forever, and gains health back after every hit. (Low-Tier Letdown, combat performance only)
Owain is an odd example, in that he's either a good magical unit, or a terrible physical unit, all thanks to his mothers influence. Due to Lissa being a magic focused unit, Owain's bases and growths are skewed towards magic despite starting as a Myrmidon, on account of how the second gen units have their stats influence by their parents. If his father is overly focused on physical stats, Owain ends up a Master of None due to his parents growths and stats causing each to drastically weaken each other, leaving him with low overall growths across the board. If he has a magical focused father, he has more advantages because of the doubling down of magical parents, but becomes limited in classes because he won't get a lot of new classes due to the overlap a number of the magical units have. So if you want Owain to be a physical unit, he's not very good unit, but gets access to a number of options, while a magically focused Owain benefits the most stat wise, but he is significantly more limited in skills and classes. The only way to get around this is the Avatar, but that would mean a magically focused Avatar. (Doesn't Count)
Fire Emblem Fates has some rather unique examples. In general, most units wind up better on different routes compared to Revelation (where they are all available) owing to different availability, join times, and their niches not being occupied by game breaking royals.
Kaze and Silas are some good examples of this. They both join regardless of your choice, and are a ninja and cavalier respectively.
In Conquest, Silas is perfectly usable when you get him, but down the road will compete with Xander for a spot on the team, and will also eventually compete with Peri and eventually Gunter. In Birthright, however, he is the only cavalier you get besides Sophie (his daughter), and is one of the few units who can use two weapon types before promotion. On top of that, Silas and Sophie will have access to the entire weapon triangle if promoted to a Great Knight and get some nice defence boosts on top of that, the Hoshidan classes are somewhat squishy and more based around evasion. In Revelation, Silas joins much later than he did on either route (albeit buffed) and will still have to compete with Xander — and seven other royals. (Probably Low-Tier Letdown. Need further discussion.)
Kaze, in Birthright and Revelation, is one of four (including Asugi) ninjas. Down the line, it is difficult for him to see use as he is competing with Kagero, Saizo, and Asugi. In addition, it's possible for him to die if he doesn't have an A support with the Avatar in Birthright. However in Conquest, he is the only ninja you get, which doesn't give him any competition for his niche aside from the butlers & maids (whose stats are more balanced for healers than fighters anyway). He does have an earlier join time than the other ninjas in Birthright and Revelation, but the others don't join much later than he does and it wouldn't be hard to bench him.
Rinkah is unique in that she faces this within her own route instead of just on Revelation. Her niche is the answer to the axe-fighter class that is locked to Nohr, and is for all intents and purposes the only axe-user you have until you promote your units in Birthright (whereas Conquest gives you two). Unlike them, however, Rinkah's base strength and health are actually pretty low, and her growths don't fix it. Some bench her because of that, but at the same time, her defence is pretty good for someone of her niche as well, and her pair-up bonuses provide good strength and defense in the badly bulk-starved Birthright route. Whether or not she is usable depends strongly on who you are asking, and even then it might depend on some using her for the novelty. (Short of reclassing units, she is the only way you can get a playable Blacksmith or Oni Chieftain.) (Combine with her Low-Tier Letdown entry.)
Hinoka, in Birthright, can go either way once she is recruited. Almost all of her growths hang around the 50% mark (the exceptions being Magic at 15% and Defense at 35%; everything else is 45%-60%), meaning it's basically a coin-flip whether or not the stat will get raised. If RNG blesses you with steady and generous growths in Hinoka's main stats of Strength, Skill, and Speed, and especially Luck, she becomes a Lightning Bruiser capable of doubling anyone and everyone she comes up against, and with certain DLC abilities like Aether, she can waltz around the map, annihilating armies in one or two hits, dodging almost everything, and self-healing in the event that she does get the short end of the stick. However, on the flip side, if the RNG does NOT go in Hinoka's favor, she becomes more and more of a liability as her stats lag behind better characters. In short, whether or not Hinoka turns into a goddess of death or another permanent fixture of your reserve list depends heavily on whether or not RNG fires on level-up. The same could be said of her in Revelation as well, but she comes late in the route, meaning if the player wanted to get her up to that level, it would take a lot of grinding to boost her stats and get the abilities necessary to bring her up to speed with the roster at that point in the game. (There are ways to avoid RNG by swapping her into certain classes, and 50% isn't a big deal most of the time. Move to High-Tier Scrappy if possible).
For a class example of this, there's Kinshi Knight. On the one hand, it's loathed as a class to level up characters in, as its growth rate additions are mediocre to bad and don't really help any of the characters who can use it. On the other, it's loved as a final class once everyone is mostly done growing, as being a flying class gives it excellent mobility, and bow/yumi access combined with its Air Superiority skill makes it a great Anti-Air unit. (Doesn't Count)
Because of how the way the game works, much like Awakening, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows Of Valentia has certain examples that are great in the main game, especially in a Blitzkrieg run, but struggle during Thabes Labyrinth where Blitzkrieg isn't relevant. Note that DLC is not counted for this one, because most of them can turn even the lower-tiered units into crazy juggernauts.
Clive in particular has low stats and terrible growths, and doesn't even make an effective meat shield. He has a lot of competition when it comes to being a mounted Cavalier/Paladin/Gold Knight; namely Mathilda (who doesn't come much later than him, and has a decent resistance to magic, something that is very rare for the game) and Zeke (joins much later but has viable enough base stats). He did eventually receive a warmer reception over time, however, if only because that early on, the only Lance user that isn't him is Lukas, who is an Armor Knight with some of the disadvantages and the fact that it takes some time to even have some of the villagers to catch up to his bases, along with being the sole user of Ridersbane due to the former issues, but pretty much takes a massive nosedive during the post-game, where level-grinding without having to worry about Blitzkrieg's turn limit requirement exists, and can fall off as a result. (Probably Doesn't Count)
Atlas also has the quirk of his highest stat being Attack... and everything else being painfully awful. He ends up being a strong Archer for that reason, but he has to compete with Leon, who normally isn't as squishy, and isn't as slowed down by heavier weapons. The other promotion options for Atlas (Cavalier and Mercenary) aren't recommended since he has no durability, and Celica's party has more than enough mercenaries on her team, hurting Atlas' potential even more. As a result, it's often debated whether it's worth it to train a howitzer that can hit only hit potentially once, or just downright bench him, even in the post-game. (Doesn't Count)
Luthier is mostly intended to act as Alm's magic user if none of the Villagers were promoted into a Mage, and because Kliff's spell list is nerfed due to him learning his most powerful spells later on, along with Delthea being hard to train up, he can become a mainstay of Alm's army. Post-game, however, since grinding is now possible without consequences, he has to deal with a potentially well-trained Delthea- and several other mages due to both Celica's and Alm's parties being combined together, along with somewhat awkward growths. (Doesn't Count)
The two Magikarp Power units aside from Est, namely Delthea and Jesse, aren't really great in the main game due to them joining late and in a game that encourges fast play and low turn counts. While they have good growths, their low bases and level make it hard for them to even promote once. On the post-game, however, they do receive a chance to level grind, but even then there are some risk associated with them: Delthea's growths can make her even casting a single spell potentially fatal for her, as her low HP base and growth, combined with the daunting HP requirement needed for her most powerful spells, will most likely necessitate a healer on duty, and while she has a good speed growth to avoid getting doubled, there's also the fact that she has to compete with several other mages as well. Meanwhile, Jesse can perform the infinite Dread Fighter loop, but he will have to contend with several other mercenaries in Celica's team. Even Atlas, while starting somewhat underpowered at first, can somewhat become potentially better than him due to his earlier joining time compared to him. He also learns Excalibur earlier compared to other units... But various other mages who join earlier than him have the time to learn it as well. As a result, these can be quite the debates on whether to take them to Thabes Labyrinth or not. (Probably Low-Tier Letdown, Exclude Thabes)
Alois is a decent and respectful unit in all routes, but you don't get him until the middle of the game, so you have less time to train his weapon ranks, and has a huge case of Overshadowed by Awesome in two of the routes, first due to you getting Catherine, a Lightning Bruiser who fulfills a similar offensive role to Alois, but who has a Crest that allows her to use her signature weapon, Thunderbrand, a more powerful Brave Sword, and second because of Cyril, who's proficient in axes and flying, making him a very good candidate for the Wyvern Lord class, which, due to its high movement, immunity to terrain, and good stat spread, is considered one of the best classes in the game, and whose low base stats are offset by the fact that he has the personal skill Aptitude, which raises all of his growth rates, and there's always the option of waiting until he has better bases so you can recruit him. Both are available at least four chapters before Alois. That's not mentioning Seteth, who is a very good Wyvern Rider that joins only a chapter later. If the Black Eagles were chosen at the beginning of the game, however, Cyril and Catherine can't be recruited, and if the player sides with Edelgard instead of the Church of Seiros, Seteth won't join, which means Alois has a much easier time fulfilling a niche on your team, as he only has to compete against Caspar (and Raphael if he's recruited) as your axe/gauntlet user and does a very good job within that niche. He also has more viability on the Silver Snow route than the Verdant Wind and Azure Moon routes, since Catherine and Cyril join a chapter after he does, though the other factors are still at play. (Doesn't Count)
How much training Flayn pays off is debated. On one hand, she has a Crest that boosts the amount of healing she does half the time. She's one of the only units to learn Rescue, which can teleport an ally out of a dangerous situationnote The others are Anna and Constance (both paid DLC) and Bernadetta (a physical character who wants nothing to do with magic), the valuable Restore spell that cures status ailments, and she's one of only two units in the gamenote The other is Mercedes who learn the area of effect heal Fortify spell, all of which make her a very good healer. Her high resistance makes her an effective tank against magical damage, and if her Reason is trained, she will eventually unlock Seal Magic, weakening enemy mages if she attacks them. Unfortunately, she also lacks Physic, meaning her only form of ranged healing is to waste a Fortify charge, meaning that to heal, she has to go into the fray. Her fairly low speed means that she's doubled and easily killed by physical-attacking enemies while being unlikely to double anything herself, making her struggle to kill even low-resistance enemies. Her low speed and low luck make her unlikely to dodge an attack and increases her vulnerability to critical hits, while her low defense means she can not take any hits; even Nosferatu tanking is risky, since she'll usually take more damage than she recovers. She's great Gremory material at the very least, since her budding talent is in Reason. Her only weakness is riding, which means it's difficult to get her into Dark or Holy Knight. (Doesn't Count)
Ignatz has balanced but low growths in both Strength and Magic, limiting his damage potential, even with his high Speed and Luck giving him good double chances and critical rates, respectively. Even compared to other hybrid attackers, such as Byleth, Ignatz will never be able to match them in terms of raw damage, to say nothing of dedicated attackers such as Felix or Lysithea. However, as a utility unit, he shines, especially on Maddening. Ignatz learns Rally Speed at D Authority note Ignatz not only already starts with E+ Authority but also has a boon in the stat, which can save an ally from being doubled; he also learns Break Shot at C+ Bows note Ignatz has both a bow boon and starts at D Bows and Seal Strength through his Reason budding talent, allowing him to cripple any opponent he hits, leaving them easy pickings for a teammate. He can even retain utility even into the endgame, as he leans into Assassin (whose class skill prevents enemies from targeting him so long as an ally is also in range) easily, and learns Rally Strength and Ward Arrow. (Doesn't Count)
Cyril, like Donnel and Mozu, is intended to be a case of Magikarp Power, coming in as a level 1 Commoner in Chapter 5 with low bases, but having good growths to make up for it. Unlike them, he's largely considered better than bottom-tier, but it's still debated whether his risk-to-reward ratio is good enough to make training him up worth it. His personal skill Aptitude boosts all of his growths by 20%, which sounds good, but the problem is that his base growths are not particularly good, and when Aptitude is applied, they are only just barely higher than those of your students. In particular, his Defence growth is pretty low for someone built to be a frontline physical attacker. One thing Cyril does have going for him, however, is flexibility: he has proficiency in five skills, including both Riding and Flying as well as Axes, Lances and Bows, and because of this he can easily be classed as a Wyvern Lord or Bow Knight. These are widely considered the most overpowered classes in the game (see High Tiers above), and some argue that he is worth using for that alone, but he can still struggle in the face of competition from the other students and faculty (for example, Leonie will have nearly the same growths as him as a Bow Knight, but have the advantage of joining four chapters earlier with more time to work on her skills and abilities). Nevertheless, if he is trained up, Cyril will more than likely still become an excellent damage-dealer with high mobility - it's just a question of whether the player is willing to invest the necessary resources. He is also much harder to use on Silver Snow, as since he joins only if Byleth didn't side with Edelgard in Chapter 11, and due to scaling from only commoner growths, he tends to have low stats by the time he joins unless Byleth has saved enough stat-boosting items for him to use. (Use Low-Tier Letdown entry for Silver Snow)
Ferdinand. When recruited out of the Black Eagles, he's considered the hardest student to recruit without help from a New Game Plus due to his Heavy Armor requirement and being unable to B-support until after the timeskip. However, once recruited, likely late into the academy phase, Ferdinand tends to have Speed and Defense in the high teens and Strength in the low twenties, allowing him to keep up with the rest of the team in terms of raw stats. While this essentially forces him to stay in the Cavalier/Paladin line without focusing exclusively on another skill, note Ferdinand's default study plan is lances and axes, causing him to exclusively gain experience in those areas in the monastery his bases allow him to retain at least some usability, and if he learns Swift Strikes, he can quickly become a mainstay of the party. This is averted if the player chooses the Black Eagle house, however. On the Crimson Flower route, he underwent a similar situation with Ike. Prior to Jeritza being Promoted to Playable in the expansion pass' 3rd wave, he was considered to be one of the best horse-mounted units in the Crimson Flower route due to a combination of good speed and strength growths, along with having access to Swift Strikes. When Jeritza was made playable in the 3rd wave of DLC for free, however, players discovered that Jeritza practically does everything Ferdinand did but even better, being helped by the fact that he doesn't even really need to rely on his personal skill for optimal performance. While Ferdinand is still considered a good Paladin unit, he's not exactly the best anymore thanks to Jeritza. His access to Swift Strikes, however, saves him on Maddening, and he has the benefit of having all of Part 1 to train his skills, including the ability to train towards Wyvern Lord. (Doesn't Count)
Dorothea. On the one hand, her personal skill provides passive healing for adjacent allies, which can be helpful for saving healing spells/items in the earlygame; she learns Thoron for a 3-tile attack early on (C Reason, Dorothea has both a Reason boon and starts at D), and late into the game, she learns Meteor, allowing her to attack from a long distance, or at least contribute to linked attacks. Additionally, her sword boon and high charm stat make her a good pick for the dancer. However, Dorothea also has somewhat low growth rates, including some of the lowest Strength and Defense stats in the game. note Even within her native Black Eagle house, fellow Squishy Wizard Linhardt has 30% each in Strength and Defense, versus Dorothea's 20% and 15%, respectively. While she can make a good dancer and is basically guaranteed to win the White Heron Cup, her bane in riding means she will struggle to get Movement+1, which means she may be unable to keep up with the rest of the army, especially with the focus on mounted/flying units. (Doesn't Count)
Ingrid. She has some of the highest base stats in the game and the highest growth rate total amongst the non-lord characters, she has no weaknesses in any skill area, allowing for her to fit into most classes without difficulty; and through her Crest of Daphnel, she can use the Burning Quake combat art, which scales off her excellent Speed stat. The problem? While Ingrid's growth rate total is high, her Strength is just 35% before class modifiers, meaning she runs a real chance of falling behind if the growth fails. She's also both a beneficiary and victim of auto-leveling; as Ingrid becomes a Pegasus Knight by default, if recruited late into the academy phase, all of her core stats will be in the mid-teens at the lowest and low twenties at the highest, just like the aforementioned Ferdinand. note enemy growth rates are used for auto-leveling, and the enemy Pegasus Knight has some utterly insane growths, including +15% Strength and +25% Defense/Resistance. However, this will effectively lock Ingrid into the Pegasus/Falcon Knight line and deprive her of a solid advanced class. If the player chooses the Blue Lions or recruits Ingrid early, they will be able to utilize her class flexibility to its fullest, but also run the risk of being Strength-screwed. (Doesn't Count)
Annette. On one hand, she has the crest of Dominic which has a chance of preserving spells, which is useful for utility spells such as Heal and Recover and offense spells. On the other hand, that isn't significant in later phases of the game due to spells eventually having uses equal to the amount of weapon durability. That, and while she has all of the wind spells, including Excalibur, other mages in the game can outright outperform her such as Linhardt, who happens to also possess the highly useful warp and Flayn, for the reasons mentioned above. That said, she does have a proficiency for Axes, meaning that while she can be reclassed various axe-wielding classes (especially Wyvern Lord), the fact that she has a poor strength growth means that she's basically wielding most of the time Bolt Axes and her relic weapon Crusher. Because of this, she must master the Mage class in order to learn Fiendish Blow, as that gives a flat increase of 5+ to magic attacks unlike Death Blow. And the fact that she also has some nice rally skills means that she can act as a utility towards the endgame if one isn't interested in her as an attacker. (Doesn't Count)
Manuela. Like Hanneman, her only saving grace is a decent spell list, though unlike him, said spells just happen to be Silence (prevents non-commander enemy mages from attacking) and Warp. On the other side, however, she posseses a rather low magic growth, but compensates with a high speed growth, making her a unusual dodgy utility mage. However, that comes with the caveat that she must work around her weakness in reason in order for her to promote to Gremory, and Holy Knight isn't the best option for her for reasons explained above. (Doesn't Count, who said she was bad again???)
Catherine and Hilda when recruited in the Silver Snow route. On one hand, they only join late in the first part if Byleth didn't side with Edelgard, and while they have good stats for the most part (even Hilda has 16 defense paired with her high strength and speed), Felix can potentially occupy Catherine's niche of a Swordmaster with even potentially higher stats if trained very well, and Hilda has one of the more grueling recruiting requirements. That said, both make up for it by having access to their Relics (though Hilda's relic comes with the caveat that she must clear her Paralogue first) and even Hilda starts off with a high rank in both axes and lances, ensuring that she can become a Wyvern Lord without any trouble. (Doesn't Count)
Linhardt is a Both example in that he has a specific niche as a White Mage support character, and nothing else. In terms of healing and support, Linhardt is incredibly useful because he has Physic, Restore, and Warp, meaning he can provide long-range healing, remove status effects, and throw units long distances, which when combined with his Crest having the chance of providing extra healing, means that a Bishop Linhardt is a powerful support ally. At the same time, he has mediocre growths across the board, with all being below 45% (including Magic and Res), his spell lists having nothing unique or rare enough that would make him better than other units (Lysithea and Manuela for example can use Warp), and pretty much all magic focused characters are more powerful offensively or provide superior raw healing. He also is hurt by being unable to access Gremory to get extra power compared to someone like Mercedes and Marianne. His ability to Warp and Physic is really the best thing going for him, and in that role as a Bishop, he is exceptional and worth using, but if you use him as anything else, he’s one of the weakest students in the game (Doesn't Count).
Yuri. Yuri has low growths across the board save Speed and Charisma, and his ideal class of Trickster leaves him with no bonuses to his Strength or Magic despite having a decent spell list for both Reason and Faith. This makes him a poor fighter since other units can easily fill his role. However, once he gets access to his Hero relic, the Fetters of Dromi, he becomes an amazing support unit thanks to the Trickster's ability to swap allies and Magic Knight skillset, allowing him to use both forms of Magic. Combined with the Fetters giving him extra movement, a Canto effect, and a Pasive/Aegis effect, and Yuri becomes an incredibly powerful support unit who can save allies, hold down enemies, and counter Mages with ease. So if you use Yuri as a Trickster with his Relic, he's a borderline broken support character, but if you use him outside that role, he's a pretty weak unit (Doesn't Count).
Classes:
The Dark Mage and Dark Bishop lines. On one hand, they are the only classes that come with Dark Magic, which makes them especially viable with Hubert, whose benefits greatly from it. On the other hand, the item that is needed for promotion to the Dark Mage classline is notoriously limited, as in early game, it's only available by defeating the Death Knight. While this can be easily be remedied by training Lysithea to get Dark Spikes T and buying and forging Horseslayer weapons, there's also the fact that it's exclusive to males, and aside from Hubert (who is only playable if the Black Eagles house is chosen), their performance ranges from good (Linhardt) to mediocre at best (Hanneman, Lorenz). That said, their Mastery Skills, such as Poison Strike (deal 10 damage to the enemy after combat) for Dark Mage and Lifetaker (recover 50% of HP after defeating an enemy) for Dark Bishop are great, so it's not a bad idea for them to be in this class. (Low-Tier Letdown)
Valkyrie. On one hand, it's supposed to be the more ranged option for mages in this game compared to Dark Knight, which trades that for extra power. In practice, however, the class is very flawed due to it being exclusive to females, and it gets out-ranged by Dark Flier, which is not only a flying class, but also has better speed and health growths compared to Valkyrie, which also has a terrible magic growth. In short, while it is a good class, it just tends to get overshadowed by Dark Flier and the only reason to go with this class is if said female does not have a flying proficiency. That said, it does have a niche for snipers and low-dexterity females; its mastered ability, Uncanny Blow, gives a flat Hit+30 when attacking in player phase. This makes the more Powerful, but Inaccurate female units more likely to hit during the player phase, and even fixes Constance's one problem of low dexterity, allowing her to actually hit hard with Bolting, and for bow users, even if they were Magically Inept Fighters, the extra Hit+30 can be useful when paired with the dangerous Bow Knight class (see above for further reasons why it's broken as hell), given that the game subverts No "Arc" in "Archery". Long story short, while not exactly the best mounted unit for female mages, it is useful for low-dexterity female units for its mastered ability alone. (Low-Tier Letdown)
Lord. When used by Edelgard and Claude, it does offer some solid growth buffs, but beyond that the class does little to make it worth using for most players. The class is more of a support class by providing buffs to nearby allies, and acts as an easier way to level up their Authority quicker, but it offers no skills worth using, and the extra proficiency it buffs are Sword and Lances, which means the class is not synergistic with either of them since Edelgard and Claude’s main weapons are Axes and Bows respectively. Not helping is the Mastered Skills, Subdue and Resistance +2, which are very lackluster compared to the other Intermediate Class' skills like Vantage, Death Blow, or Desperation. Finally, they are both handed two unique classes for free post-timeskip, and these have all the benefits of Lord and more. Dimitri, on the other hand, actually makes very good use of this class; Lances are his primary weapons while Swords are the backup weapons of both his timeskip personal classes (High Lord and Great Lord) and his favored advanced class (Paladin). In addition, he wants to grind up Authority as fast as possible to unlock Battalion Wrath and Battalion Vantage, which can be combined to make him flat-out invincible on enemy phase; the Lord is one of the only classes available pre-timeskip that boosts Authority growth, the others being Byleth's exclusive Enlightened One class and the Dancer class. Long story short, the Lord is garbage for Edelgard and Claude and great for Dimitri. (Low-Tier Letdown, Edelgard and Claude specific)
