Worst class in the series?

[CyberController]

Aesthetics, stats and usability all factor.

 

I don’t like Armors/Knights. Their low movement prevent them from reliably fighting at the front lines, and they have poor speed as well.

[Magical Glace]

FE6 Knights

None of them are good, speed and move are much more important than defenses in Binding Blade compared to other FE games I've played and the one kinda speedy knight has one of the worst starts in the game (Wendy).  

Edit Actually FE4 knights are even worse now that I think about it, it's like FE6's move problem but worse lol.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Glaceon Mage

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Archer and Knight

 

Archer had this dumb design where despite having so many drawbacks already they tend to have hilarious stats. Funny enough Sniper tend to be pretty good because you know they actually have stats

 

Knight have the kind of stats that isn't "optimal" for Fire Emblem in general, and the mobility issue sucks. They were fairly useful in DSFE and theres several Knight that manage to shine a bit

[Slumber]

As a whole gameplay-wise, Knights/Armors. They have problems more consistently than any other class I can think of.

FE2 - Hit with the movement stick, and don't offer anything substantial compared to the other classlines.

FE4 - Movement stick.

FE5 - Every class has the same stats. All Armor provides is another effective weakness to watch out for.

FE6 - Just a bunch of bad Knights.

FE13 - Don't really offer anything substantial and can effectively be ignored.

They're the worst, or among the worst, classes in each of these games. This is like half the series here. Even when they're not the worst, they still tend to be a huge mixed bag, like in Tellius where you're either Gatrie or you're not.

Aesthetically, Fighters are the worst. FE1-4 has them doing this stupid crabwalk, and they look like Dragon Quest thugs, only in a much less cartoonish and light-hearted world. FE5-10 hit a decent aesthetic with them, then they divebombed right back into "Holy fuck this is the worst thing ever" with Awakening's... bone bikini. Fates wasn't much better, but at least they were wearing actual clothing, even if it still looked like bondage gear on anyone who wasn't Arthur.

[Armagon]

*Laughs in Knights*

Seriously, these guys have more bad than good going for them. They are slow, easily left behind, and just flat-out bad in certain games (FE4, 6). Archers suck too but at least they can be decent sometimes.

[Von Ithipathachai]

Cavaliers/Paladins, they're too good

Seriously, though, armored classes and any kind of primarily axe-wielding infantry seem to consistently get the shaft in some way in every game.

They're my favorite classes largely out of pity.

[Lewyn]

Armors.  They are low movement, which hurts.  Okay fine, surely they are the bestest in terms of defending a point?  Not necessarily, not only are their armor slaying/effective weapons, they always get doubled cause of their terrible speed, they usually have terrible res making it easy for mages to make short work of them as well.  What are they going to do flee from an approaching mage?  Ha, too bad, they can't move fast enough.  They usually have good power, but without being able to double they may fail to kill beefier attackers.  

Archers have at least been good in some games, usually thanks to insane stats/weapons/skills.  However I think Echoes really captured how to make them something better than mages who attack def stat but can't counter up close.  

[NinjaMonkey]

Pegasus Knights: Good mobility doesn't make up for their poor offensive and defensive capabilities. Add in an arrow weakness, and all they can do reliably is warm my bench.

[Shadow Mir]

Fighters. Low defenses and low speed are a terrible combination. Their skill issues combined with their weapon don't help. Other axe infantry fare little better. And in any case, it definitely doesn't help that most of them tend to be close to, if not outright terrible.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Cysx]

Chameleon and Griffon rider are the only ones I dislike to the point where I don't want to see them in a FE game ever again. Unless they're reworked almost entirely.

... thinking about it, Taguel fits the bill as well.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Cysx

[CyberController]

1 minute ago, Cysx said:

Chameleon and Griffon rider are the only one I dislike to the point where I don't want to see them in a FE game ever again. Unless they're reworked almost completely.

... thinking about it, Taguel fits the bill as well.

Explanation?

[Cysx]

24 minutes ago, CyberController said:

Explanation?

They bring nothing to the game, essentially. Griffon rider also feels really out of place since as far as I know, Griffons have never existed in Archanea.

Well obviously now they do, but barely, there's no lore to them or anything.

 

Edit: I guess I spoke more in terms of importance than what you asked for, though. Well Chameleon has limitations, but having more of your best units cannot exactly be considered as bad I suppose. As for Griffon rider, there is an argument to be made that wyvern lord is superior in essentially every way, but taken for what it is, it still flies, so it's not bad.

Taguel on the other hand is actually a terrible class, for what it's worth, due to its terrible bases and being limited to 1 range no matter what. No promotion bonuses either. The fact that Panne moves several tiers up when reclassed into wyvern rider with E-rank axes says a lot.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Cysx

[X-Naut]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Aesthetically, Fighters are the worst. FE1-4 has them doing this stupid crabwalk,

Excuse me the crabwalk is a glorious sight to behold

Blasphemy aside I agree with the sentiment about Knights, they're the most consistent about having innate weaknesses not backed by meaningful strengths.

[Solvaij]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

They bring nothing to the game, essentially. Griffon rider also feels really out of place since as far as I know, Griffons have never existed in Archanea.

Well obviously now they do, but barely, there's no lore to them or anything.

 

Edit: I guess I spoke more in terms of importance than what you asked for, though. Well Chameleon has limitations, but having more of your best units cannot exactly be considered as bad I suppose. As for Griffon rider, there is an argument to be made that wyvern lord is superior in essentially every way, but taken for what it is, it still flies, so it's not bad.

Taguel on the other hand is actually a terrible class, for what it's worth, due to its terrible bases and being limited to 1 range no matter what. No promotion bonuses either. The fact that Panne moves several tiers up when reclassed into wyvern rider with E-rank axes says a lot.

I'm with you on these. Lore-wise, the Taguel were also really shoehorned in and felt kind of out of place to me from a story perspective, so yeah.

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

They bring nothing to the game, essentially. Griffon rider also feels really out of place since as far as I know, Griffons have never existed in Archanea.

Well obviously now they do, but barely, there's no lore to them or anything.

Personally I'd like to see Griffon Riders return as their own class tree, as sword users, so we finally have swordfighting fliers again. They've been sorely missed, and riding on griffons wouldn't be a half bad way to do it.

Anyway, my vote goes to the taguel. It's basically a worse version of a class (swordmaster) that's already a worse version of another class (assassin), uses the most boring, unversatile and objectively terrible weapon type in the entire game, and to top it all off, it's not even a cool thing to turn into!

[Zkitty8]

Aw, knights are actually one of my favorite classes (but I will admit that in some games like FE6 and FE4 they aren't that good). I like a lot of their designs and it's really satisfying to see the enemies do no damage to them.

But I agree with archers being one of the worst since they can't attack at 1 range except in gaiden/echoes. Pegasus knights have such low defense and hp that they aren't much of a problem, wyvern knights have low resistance, and both are weak to wind magic, so I'd rather use a mage instead of an archer. I think archers would be useful if they stay the way they were in echoes and if there were also more ballistas that the player could take advantage of.

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, Zkitty8 said:

Aw, knights are actually one of my favorite classes (but I will admit that in some games like FE6 and FE4 they aren't that good). I like a lot of their designs and it's really satisfying to see the enemies do no damage to them.

But I agree with archers being one of the worst since they can't attack at 1 range except in gaiden/echoes. Pegasus knights have such low defense and hp that they aren't much of a problem, wyvern knights have low resistance, and both are weak to wind magic, so I'd rather use a mage instead of an archer. I think archers would be useful if they stay the way they were in echoes and if there were also more ballistas that the player could take advantage of.

My idea was to make all bows 2-3 range, so Archers have some sort of edge over Mages and other classes with access to 1-2-Range weapons.  However, bows would only have double effectiveness against fliers instead of triple.

[Garlyle]

Fighters. As already mentioned, they wield axe with low speed. Have high health, but low defense. They can hit hard, but axes are the least accurate weapon. Also when they promote, they unlock bows. What's that supposed to mean? Does it suggest that I should have a less accurate archer with more health? Using bows after you specialized in axe looks just silly.

[Slumber]

49 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

Fighters. As already mentioned, they wield axe with low speed. Have high health, but low defense. They can hit hard, but axes are the least accurate weapon. Also when they promote, they unlock bows. What's that supposed to mean? Does it suggest that I should have a less accurate archer with more health? Using bows after you specialized in axe looks just silly.

Two of the most consistent problems with Archers in the franchise is that the don't have viable close range options, and they simply don't hit hard enough most of the time. 

Warriors generally address both problems, and there are strong cases for units like Geitz to be the best bow users in the game. 

I don't think Archers are the worst class in the series, but even further, I can't really see them being better than Fighters/Warriors, outside of extreme cases like RD where Rolf and Shinon are insanely good, while Boyd and Nolan are just pretty good. There are fringe cases like T776 where your two Fighters(I'd argue that Orsin's mere existence keeps Fighters well out of the "Worst class" running) promote to Heroes instead of Warriors, and Bandits promote to Warriors, or Gaiden where playable Fighters aren't a thing(Alm doesn't count) and the Archer line is much stronger than usual, but on the whole, even if Fighters/Warriors don't make the best Fighters/Warriors, I'd certainly say they're better Archers/Snipers than Archers and Snipers. 

Even given a general rundown, I can find far more standout Fighters/Warriors than I can of Archers or Knights. 

FE1/3/11/12: Barst is insanely good in all of his appearances. 

FE5: Orsin might be the single best unit in the franchise, and Halvan's no slouch, either. On the Warrior side, Dagdar's a solid Jeigan. 

FE7: Geitz is probably the best Bow user in the game. 

FE9: Boyd is very good. 

FE10: Nolan is probably the overall most consistently good member of the DB, and Boyd is once again very good. 

FE4 has a poor showing, since there's only one Fighter, he's not phenomenal, and he's not mounted. FE6 has no good Fighters or Warriors, but there are several classes where this is the case in this game(Knights and Archers to name a few). FE8 has Ross, but Ross is way better as a Berserker. 

Awakening and Fates have solid showings, but not remarkable. Vaike, Basilio, Arthur and Charlotte aren't taking home many medals, but they're not stuck just getting participation trophies, either(Maybe Arthur is). 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Slumber

[Michelaar]

Knights and archers. Overall most of them I don't really like using because of problems they have. Both have also pretty solid examples though.

Knights - Effie, Gatrie
Archers - Ryan, Shinon, Takumi.

[Moblin Major General]

I want to say Soldier/Spear Fighter, but only because there are only 3 games where they are not treated like useless cannon fodder. In said games, Nephenee isn't necessarily the best unit, Aran is one of the better Dawn Brigade units, Devdan usually comes late and not really strong enough, and Oboro is a very good unit that has good skills available to her (and Haitaka is useful until you can replace him). In every other game, Soldiers are slow, low damage, and worst of all, enemy only. A lot of Armor Knights are outclassed/bad, but there are more than 4 of them (plus 1 optional unit) spread out over 3 games (actually more like 5, but that only makes it worse).

[Garlyle]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Two of the most consistent problems with Archers in the franchise is that the don't have viable close range options, and they simply don't hit hard enough most of the time. 

Warriors generally address both problems, and there are strong cases for units like Geitz to be the best bow users in the game. 

I don't think Archers are the worst class in the series, but even further, I can't really see them being better than Fighters/Warriors, outside of extreme cases like RD where Rolf and Shinon are insanely good, while Boyd and Nolan are just pretty good. There are fringe cases like T776 where your two Fighters(I'd argue that Orsin's mere existence keeps Fighters well out of the "Worst class" running) promote to Heroes instead of Warriors, and Bandits promote to Warriors, or Gaiden where playable Fighters aren't a thing(Alm doesn't count) and the Archer line is much stronger than usual, but on the whole, even if Fighters/Warriors don't make the best Fighters/Warriors, I'd certainly say they're better Archers/Snipers than Archers and Snipers. 

Maybe, but you need to be committed if you want them to be good archers and use something other than Iron Bows, so I still prefer Snipers instead of Warriors. 

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

Two of the most consistent problems with Archers in the franchise is that the don't have viable close range options, and they simply don't hit hard enough most of the time. 

Warriors generally address both problems, and there are strong cases for units like Geitz to be the best bow users in the game. 

I don't think Archers are the worst class in the series, but even further, I can't really see them being better than Fighters/Warriors, outside of extreme cases like RD where Rolf and Shinon are insanely good, while Boyd and Nolan are just pretty good. There are fringe cases like T776 where your two Fighters(I'd argue that Orsin's mere existence keeps Fighters well out of the "Worst class" running) promote to Heroes instead of Warriors, and Bandits promote to Warriors, or Gaiden where playable Fighters aren't a thing(Alm doesn't count) and the Archer line is much stronger than usual, but on the whole, even if Fighters/Warriors don't make the best Fighters/Warriors, I'd certainly say they're better Archers/Snipers than Archers and Snipers. 

Even given a general rundown, I can find far more standout Fighters/Warriors than I can of Archers or Knights. 

FE1/3/11/12: Barst is insanely good in all of his appearances. 

FE5: Orsin might be the single best unit in the franchise, and Halvan's no slouch, either. On the Warrior side, Dagdar's a solid Jeigan. 

FE7: Geitz is probably the best Bow user in the game. 

FE9: Boyd is very good. 

FE10: Nolan is probably the overall most consistently good member of the DB, and Boyd is once again very good. 

FE4 has a poor showing, since there's only one Fighter, he's not phenomenal, and he's not mounted. FE6 has no good Fighters or Warriors, but there are several classes where this is the case in this game(Knights and Archers to name a few). FE8 has Ross, but Ross is way better as a Berserker. 

Awakening and Fates have solid showings, but not remarkable. Vaike, Basilio, Arthur and Charlotte aren't taking home many medals, but they're not stuck just getting participation trophies, either(Maybe Arthur is). 

You have a point, but you often have to go out of your way to have Warriors be able to use any bow worth mentioning. Anyway, I would disagree on RD Boyd, Arthur and Charlotte - the former has an unimpressive speed base (and his case isn't helped by being outclassed from the word go by two other units that can use axes, with a third showing up in two chapters), and the latter two are honestly pretty awful (Arthur has nonexistent luck and a shit tier personal, both of which force him to use bronze if you don't want him to get critted out by cannon fodder - and even then, that's only a band-aid solution for a problem that needs real treatment; Charlotte has the defensive ability of wet toilet paper and comes underleveled. It doesn't help that they don't have Warrior access, instead having Berserker, which does nothing but make their fatal flaws even worse. Or that this is Fates we're talking about, where the game will find no shortage of ways to fuck you over).

Edited March 27, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[DragonFlames]

I wouldn't call myself an expert on Fire Emblem - I am certainly far from being "good" at the game - and I definitely won't claim my views as the "oBjEcTiVe" (read this in the most annyoing voice you know) truth, so I'll just list the classes that have never done anything useful others couldn't do better and the ones I had the worst experiences with in my time with the games:

Fighters and Knights are the big ones for me. They were universally horrid in every game I've tried to use them in.

Fighters are strong. That's it. They're incredibly inaccurate, because their Skill stats suck, their usually high HP does nothing to salvage their horrid bulk both physically and magically, they're prone to get crit due to atrocious luck and to top it all off, there is a much better axe using class available from FE10 onwards: the Wyvern Rider. Yeah no, if you're a Fighter, you're benched. End of discussion.

Knights are probably even worse off. I'm usually not a fan of the "high movement = good unit" argument, but in the case of the Knight, I can definitely see where people are coming from. Their slowness prevents them from being where they are supposed to be, forcing you to turtle if you want to make use of them, their bulk is compromised by an atrocious speed stat, meaning anything able to damage them will more than likely put them out of comission by attacking twice and they are allergic to three seperate weapon types: Hammers, Armorslayers and magic. With effective weaponry getting more and more prevalent in recent entries in the series, Knights are more and more becoming liabilities than assets.
This is of course implying they were ever assets in the first place.
The only exception to this is Gatrie in Radiant Dawn, who might be the only honestly good General I've ever used period.

I would have listed Archers as well, but you get a few decent ones in newer entries and SoV's Archers are pretty fantastic as well, so I'd be lying if I called them the worst.

Perhaps a more controversial choice: Cavaliers. I find them to be incredibly weak most of the time or at least not as good as people make them out to be.
Sure, high movement is nice, but their middling stats make them easy pickings for many enemy units in most games I've tried to use them in. They're not strong enough to reliably dispatch enemies, they're not tanky enough to reliably defend others and themselves from harm, they're not fast enough to double their enemies, in fact, most are so slow that they will get doubled in return and to add insult to injury, they get hampered by every terrain ever, so on a terrain heavy map, Cavs are pretty much wasted unit slots.
Like Knights, they also face the increasing number of effective weaponry and even have entire classes built around dispatching them to deal with in Fates, so their usefulness has definitely been hampered even further.

[Garlyle]

21 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Perhaps a more controversial choice: Cavaliers. I find them to be incredibly weak most of the time or at least not as good as people make them out to be.
Sure, high movement is nice, but their middling stats make them easy pickings for many enemy units in most games I've tried to use them in. They're not strong enough to reliably dispatch enemies, they're not tanky enough to reliably defend others and themselves from harm, they're not fast enough to double their enemies, in fact, most are so slow that they will get doubled in return and to add insult to injury, they get hampered by every terrain ever, so on a terrain heavy map, Cavs are pretty much wasted unit slots.
Like Knights, they also face the increasing number of effective weaponry and even have entire classes built around dispatching them to deal with in Fates, so their usefulness has definitely been hampered even further.

I'm not thinking highly of Cavaliers/Paladins either, but they are better than you think. The early Paladins in every game (Jeigen) is either an exp sponge, OR a lifesaver. In Binding Blade, Lance is actually the Cavalier who always doubles instead of getting doubled. Their movement is only highly damaged by desert maps, and they cannot climb mountains. Percival is considered to be the best unit in FE6.

Not my favourites, but they have value.