Most useless unit in Fire Emblem?

[De Geso]

It largely depends on the game in question. I'd say Est in the games she's featured in, considering even units who join after her (like Elice, for example) have some kind of value.

In Gaiden/Echoes I'd say the least useful unit is Delthea, though. Est joins similarly late but in Gaiden at least she's incredibly powerful due to her class. I like Doot, but she's a weak unit.

In FE4 it's Arden, probably? He gives you the pursuit ring but beyond that he's not too hot. You'll get 'em next time, man.

I can't speak about FE5.

There are a lot of very weak units in FE6, but I think the absolute worst is Wolt. Joining early means nothing if you are little more than a liability the entire time you're force-deployed. Archers are always bad, but with his vomit-tier bases he is beyond bad. Admittedly, his chip damage is marginally useful in the first few chapters...but if we talk about the minor contributions of every unit and decide that this makes them viable, we'll have no bad units left.

Similarly, Rebecca is the worst in FE7. Doing 10 damage to a handful of pegasi is not a contribution significant enough to outweigh the rest of her drawbacks. Don't use Rebecca. I know, she's cute.

In FE8 the worst is probably Amelia, but Ewan is so horrible that they kind of share the spot. Amelia's greater availability is offset by her inferior damage type - Ewan is able to deal damage at a distance and target the often weaker resistance stat. But Ewan is just a bad est-mage.

I can't speak about FE9 or 10.

See above for FE11 and 12.

The most useless unit in Awakening is Donnel. I shouldn't have to tell you why.

The most useless unit in Birthright and Conquest is Mozu. Sorry, kid. You're better in Rev, because your competition includes the Rev Nohrian retainers.

No unit in Heroes is truly useless. Even garbage like Odin can be made solid with the right IV and investment.

49 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Triangle attack. I don't blame you for forgetting it's not just for pegasus knights, given how everyone on this forum is infatuated with the move stat.

Do you consider Treck better than Rutger? Not even hyperbole.

One extreme corner case example doesn't invalidate the idea that - in general - high-movement, mounted units are superior to infantry units.

[NinjaMonkey]

48 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

There's like 3 spirits per turn, you have at least one guaranteed decent healer unless you actively didn't level Micaiah, and he has 82 HP. Unless you're failing to kill those spirits and/or Ashera is basically only targeting Gareth, he's really not that hard to keep alive on easy or normal modes.

He's still more of a liability than anyone else you could possibly field at this point in the game, and thigh massively outweighs any benefits he gives, in my opinion..

[LucarioGamer812]

Oooh I have three nominees.

Wendy: Already has been talked about

Meg: Absolutely a trash unit like my gods i benched her immediately and it is actually terrible how the game heavily implies Zihark should get with her cause he can do so much better than that, like Ilyana, she's a arch sage with maxed out strength on my current playthrough, no boosters either.

Fiona: Just the trash growth rates and weak base stats doesn't make her worth using, and I'm the guy who's using Astrid on his team, plus better cavaliers, Oscar, Titania, Kieran, Geoffrey, and even Astrid can be argued. Not Makalov though, he's trash but somewhat useful until you can actually form a team.

[Baldrick]

10 minutes ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

One extreme corner case example doesn't invalidate the idea that - in general - high-movement, mounted units are superior to infantry units.

Don't quote me unless you're willing to read the whole reply chain.

[Aut]

20 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

He's still more of a liability than anyone else you could possibly field at this point in the game, and thigh massively outweighs any benefits he gives, in my opinion..

If you kill 2 of those spirits, Gareth won’t die turn 1, and with his aid you can complete the map turn 2. Or you can pull some ward tile strats, or provoke strats (on a guy like Caineghis), and he doesn’t have much to worry about at all for final. And he makes a 2 turn a lot easier/ a 1 turn feasable.

[Dean]

I'm pretty sure just a Halfshift + Pure Water on turn 1 stops Gareth from being KOed by spirits. There are also other very easy ways to keep him alive, such as Ward staff, wardwood tiles, enemy aggro manipulation (slap Provoke on a lion) and Kurthnaga's passive, should you choose to field Kurth.

He plays a pretty important basically every quick clear of 4-E-5 I've seen. In this video, Blood Tide is activated 14 times for the Strength boost (and 15 for the Skill boost) on the first turn, adding a total of an extra 70 damage, helping facilitate the one-turn clear. Ena can't be everywhere at once.

@Mekkah has an excellent post here going into the subject further.

[NinjaMonkey]

30 minutes ago, Aut said:

If you kill 2 of those spirits, Gareth won’t die turn 1, and with his aid you can complete the map turn 2. Or you can pull some ward tile strats, or provoke strats (on a guy like Caineghis), and he doesn’t have much to worry about at all for final. And he makes a 2 turn a lot easier/ a 1 turn feasable.

I don't take Laguz Royals to endgame, nor do I care about turncounts. So this means nothing to me.

[Aut]

4 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

I don't take Laguz Royals to endgame, nor do I care about turncounts. So this means nothing to me.

It’s still something, and it’s far better than losers like Kurth and Meg and Fiona will ever do.

[NinjaMonkey]

22 minutes ago, Aut said:

It’s still something, and it’s far better than losers like Kurth and Meg and Fiona will ever do.

Given that I play on Easy, where all three of those are viable units, I severely doubt that.

[Brave Lance]

Fiona can rescue drop and canto. The dragons have access to very helpful exclusive skills. Meg, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing of note. She joins on a chapter where she deals minimal damage, her bases are lackluster, her growths are all wrong for an armor knight, her caps don't properly match her growths, she has to be a third tier unit to gain access to axes, she has low movement, she's in the worst army, she's completely outclassed by Tauroneo, she has very little character, and her design is boring. There's no time or reason to use meg in Radiant Dawn unless you're playing on an easier mode while valuing her over all other units. 

[Sage of the Mist]

Nino, Will, Wallace, Moulder, La'rachel, Roy, Wendy and Grey are awful in their own special ways. However Nino trancends to a new level of "why even bother?"  due to being  given some of the worst availability even for an est, not to mention getting one shotted by anything that looks at her funny. And for the love of god nobody bring up her stats as a sage at a high level. I don't care, it doesn't make her a good unit. Her stats don't mean anything if the game is practically over by the time she can actually start to be competent. I hold quite a bit of disdain   for ests( save one), theres just no point to using them, are they great stat wise? Yes, are there other people who have been available longer and have done their job just as well? Also yes. Case in point Nino just gets screwed in every possible way, both plot and gameplay wise.

• Shit join time? yup
• Irrelevant potential? You betcha
• Only claim to fame is getting a character far superior to her to join? Check
• Redundant as hell and pointless to use even in a ranked run? Fits it to a T

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Baldrick said:

Do you consider Treck better than Rutger? Not even hyperbole.

No. What a dumb question. Move doesn't cover up Treck's mediocrity. If a unit is more of a hassle than they're worth, their move won't matter. Treck's not going to stack up to arguably the best offensive unit in the game just because he's on a horse. 

But two bad units side by side, the one with the more GLARING movement issue will have less of a role to fit. 

Compounding the issue is the availability of promotion items. Treck is in the middle of the list of units getting one of the game's TWO(Realistically) Knight Crests, while Rutger has main claim to one of the Hero Crests. Sophia and Gwendolyn are both dead last when it comes to units getting their respective promotion items, but there's waaaaaay more competition for Gwendolyn than Sophia. 

Edited July 22, 2018 by Slumber

[Baldrick]

27 minutes ago, Slumber said:

No. What a dumb question. Move doesn't cover up Treck's mediocrity. If a unit is more of a hassle than they're worth, their move won't matter.

So you consider Treck not worth the hassle, but Sophia is worth it?

Note: this is a rhetorical question. It's supposed to highlight how useful Sophia's move advantage really is, i.e. not at all.

27 minutes ago, Slumber said:

arguably the best offensive unit in the game

Yeah, Rutger's ability to get a very high critical rate does make him a very good offensive unit. Even if it's less practical and more situational, it's not hyperbole to compare a similarly offensive unit.

27 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Compounding the issue is the availability of promotion items. Treck is in the middle of the list of units getting one of the game's TWO(Realistically) Knight Crests, while Rutger has main claim to one of the Hero Crests. Sophia and Gwendolyn are both dead last when it comes to units getting their respective promotion items, but there's waaaaaay more competition for Gwendolyn than Sophia. 

A. Guiding Rings aren't more common.

B. There are seven KC candidates to eight GR candidates.

C. Wendy's utility means she's still worth deploying if Barth or Bors are promoted.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

FE6 Wendy: Terrible base level, class and joining time

Edited July 22, 2018 by Hecatia Lapislazuli

[Slumber]

2 hours ago, Baldrick said:

So you consider Treck not worth the hassle, but Sophia is worth it?

Note: this is a rhetorical question. It's supposed to highlight how useful Sophia's move advantage really is, i.e. not at all.

Yeah, Rutger's ability to get a very high critical rate does make him a very good offensive unit. Even if it's less practical and more situational, it's not hyperbole to compare a similarly offensive unit.

A. Guiding Rings aren't more common.

B. There are seven KC candidates to eight GR candidates.

C. Wendy's utility means she's still worth deploying if Barth or Bors are promoted.

You can't ask a rhetorical question, then go: Don't answer, it's rhetorical. Especially when it's completely in-line with the rest of the question you posed. 

A.) Never said there were more Guiding Rings

B.) The competition doesn't come from the fact that there are more units, it comes from the fact that the game gives you four Cavaliers, which on their own, are in a completely different level than the Armor Knight units. And even then, there's a pretty clear hierarchy of Lance and Alan, then Noah and Treck. Once you get to Bors, Barth, and Gwendyln, you have to basically restrain yourself to even consider using ONE of the Crests on them. 

Compared to Sophia, the only person that really has a lock on a Guding Ring is Lugh, and even he's arguable as a "lock". He's a good unit, but the level of "Oh God, these Rings are burning a hole in my pocket" isn't as strong as with the Knight Crests. Saul, Ellen and Clarine don't really get a major benefit from promoting. They all do what you want them to do prior to promoting, and none of them become offensive powerhouses when they do. You can promote them, but you're not really limiting yourself by not. Raigh's similar to Lugh, but a bit worse. Having Dark Magic and heals earlier than Sophia is nice, but not really something that's going to make that much of a difference. Lilina's just kind of... Not very good, and like Sophia, is probably only going to be picked for favoritism. Hugh's fine and ready to promote when you get him, but he really only exists to be a backup Mage if you decided to skip out on Lugh and Lilina. Sophia, again, is below ALL of these people, but the competition for Rings in general is far more of a toss up. All it really takes to pick Sophia is favoritism. With Gwendolyn there's favoritism on top of totally neglecting the clear better choices. 

C.) WHAT

Let me be straight up with you. I'm not even saying Gwendolyn is necessarily worse than Sophia. I think Sophia is straight up the worst unit in the game. But I'm not saying Sophia is more useless. Gwendolyn is largely fucked by her class, which results in promotion and movement issues, in a game that really rewards high movement. It severely compromises her role in the roster, and more and more questions pile up if you decide to use her over Alan/Lance, or even Treck/Noah, made even worse that she's built like a Cavalier, but doesn't have a horse. Like. She's bad, but not the worst, but the mental hoops I have to jump through to be like "Oh yeah, her use is x" is insane. You saying "Well if Bors and Barth, two also bad units, are promoted, she can join in the triangle attack if you decide to bring all three of these bad units into a map" is crazy to me. I didn't forget about the Knight triangle attack, it's just something in FE6 that is even more useless than Gwendolyn that I didn't even think it was worth mentioning. It's a total novelty. It's something you do once just to see, then restart the chapter to bring your actual units into the chapter. 

Sophia has a role, as bad as she is and as shaky as it is, and I can see why somebody would simply decide to use her over any of the other good-but-not-great GR recipients. I don't think somebody's going to miss out on a high/top tier unit by using her, even if leveling her is a royal pain.

Plus, she herself gets you a Guiding Ring, which is more than anything Gwendolyn does. So, even if for a chapter, Sophia has a use. 

Edited July 22, 2018 by Slumber

[Dandy Druid]

Wendy came to mind first. She's the worst armor knight in Binding Blade without a doubt, coming in when you've already had Bors since the Prologue and get a better armor knight at the same time. She can't really compete with Duessel either. A lot of the cavs are tanky enough anyways, so there's really not much use for her.

Not to mention Binding Blade has huge maps, which really knock down an armor knight's viability.

[NobodiePichu]

personally gunter is the worst for me, useless or pointless from a narrative perspective and gameplay wise he suffers from poor availability, low stats, low growths, REALLY low stats and not even being allowed to support on the one route he does have okay availability on, and being outshined by better options from day one. I mean yeah hes a jeigan, but he suuucks at it so much that the game tries to force you to use him at certain points to give the illusion of him being helpful.

[CyberController]

2 minutes ago, NobodiePichu said:

personally gunter is the worst for me, useless or pointless from a narrative perspective and gameplay wise he suffers from poor availability, low stats, low growths, REALLY low stats and not even being allowed to support on the one route he does have okay availability on, and being outshined by better options from day one. I mean yeah hes a jeigan, but he suuucks at it so much that the game tries to force you to use him at certain points to give the illusion of him being helpful.

Gunter's not perfect, but he does have some uses (Though it bugs me that he's nowhere in Birthright)

However, Rinkah suffers a lot in Fates. She's meant to be a tank, but she's got poor strength growths (Lower than Azura's), and that makes it hard for her to get levels.

Another overshadowed character is basically everyone who shares a class with the royal siblings.

[Baldrick]

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

You can't ask a rhetorical question, then go: Don't answer, it's rhetorical.

Pretty sure I just did.

Treck and Rutger's performance doesn't have any relevance to Wendy and Sophia, expect as a counterexample to the claim more move makes a unit automatically more useful.

Quote

A.) Never said there were more Guiding Rings

I have no idea why the availability of promotion items is relevant, then, when neither of them will ever be an optimal candidate.

Quote

B.) The competition doesn't come from the fact that there are more units,

It's not "waaaaaay more competition" in that case.

I'd say you gain more from promoting your magic users than from promoting the cavaliers. Staff utility, or the ability to fight back, is much more helpful than just a bump to stats. I don't think, in either case, you're particularly hamstrung if you don't promote them, the prepromotes for both kinds of units are solid.

Quote

All it really takes to pick Sophia is favoritism. With Gwendolyn there's favoritism on top of totally neglecting the clear better choices. 

The other magic users aren't clearly better than Sophia? Considering you don't deny Sophia is the worst unit in the game later, this summary seems rather biased.

In particular, Sophia offers nothing different than the other mages whereas Wendy does something the cavaliers can't.

Quote

C.) WHAT

Tits on a bull.

Quote

 Sophia has a role, as shaky as it is,

Wendy has a better defined and more useful role, that doesn't necessarily require her to be trained. (Being a part of the 3rd best bosskiller)

Quote

Plus, she gets you a Guiding Ring, which is more than anything Gwendolyn does. So, even if for a chapter, Sophia has a use. 

You mean you have to keep her alive and transport her in a really annoying chapter.

 

EDIT:

Edited July 22, 2018 by Baldrick

[NobodiePichu]

1 hour ago, CyberController said:

Gunter's not perfect, but he does have some uses (Though it bugs me that he's nowhere in Birthright)

However, Rinkah suffers a lot in Fates. She's meant to be a tank, but she's got poor strength growths (Lower than Azura's), and that makes it hard for her to get levels.

Another overshadowed character is basically everyone who shares a class with the royal siblings.

 

outside of the chapters where hes a forced deployment, i never found any use for him personally. I mean, poorly aligned as her stat growths might be atleast rinkah can find some use in life as a speedy tank with a weapon type with poor (without reclassing) availability in birthright, and has a class basically all to herself (again, without reclassing) so she has hypothetical value going for her. Gunter is essentially just there to take up space in all of two chapters on all routes, another one on conquest, and another one on revelation, maps specifically designed with him being deployed in mind and the player being forced to use a very limited pool of units.

ugh, sorry im rambling a bit. I just... really dont like him.

[ping]

5 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Treck and Rutger's performance doesn't have any relevance to Wendy and Sophia, expect as a counterexample to the claim more move makes a unit automatically more useful.

What

If you take a unit and change nothing about it except giving it +3 movement, that unit will be significantly improved.

If you take one unit with 8 movement and abysmal combat parameters (read: Yuno), it'll still be significantly better than a unit with 5 movement and abysmal combat (like, I dunno, Roy at the point where Yuno joins).

@Slumber's point is "Higher Movement makes a unit significantly better", but you keep argueing against "Higher movement is all that matters". That's silly because I'm 99% sure that everyone who has posted in this thread already knows perfectly well that the second statement is not true. I'm pretty sure that Oswin is generally accepted to be one of the more useful units in FE7's earlygame, after all.

--

@topic: Half of the cast in FE12.

[Baldrick]

10 minutes ago, ping said:

@Slumber's point is "Higher Movement makes a unit significantly better", but you keep argueing against "Higher movement is all that matters".

" while she appears more useful than somebody like Sophia, [Wendy]'ll only ever have 5 move unless you waste boots on her. "

I would take that as the latter. Especially considering both units are useless in LTC, +1 movement isn't significant at all.

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by Baldrick

[DragonFlames]

Seeing how it is really hard to only name one unit, I'll once again list off the most useless units from the games that I've played so far.
Note: useless DOES NOT mean worst - at least to me, it doesn't.

FE6: Any Armour Knight, really. That game just isn't that kind to the class in general.

FE7: Farina sticks out like a sore thumb in this game. You need to pay no less than 20,000 gold to get her - a third Pegasus Knight when I have already trained Florina, Fiora and / or Heath? No, thank you.

FE8: Seth. Because who needs an OP Jeigan in a game that is as easy as this one? I sure as hell don't.
Honorable mention goes to Tethys, because you really don't need a Dancer in this game, either.

FE9: Zihark. I'll leave it to you to figure out why I consider him useless (hint: you already have Ike and Mia and Stefan joins in later as a promoted Swordmaster, though he suffers from a similar problem to Seth).

FE10: Has way too many useless units: Tormod, Muarim, Vika, Makalov, Astrid, Tanith, Sigrun, Edward, Leonardo, Meg, Fiona, Lyre, Kysha / Kyza... the list goes on and on and on. But poor Lethe has it the worst. One of the better (if not best) Laguz in PoR, her usefulness has REALLY taken a nosedive in this game.

FE11: If you don't care about turn counts (and I don't) Julian and Rickard once Marth gets the Fire Emblem. You can buy Door Keys in spades and the unit slots you would need for a Thief are better given to someone who can actually fight.

FE12: I don't know about you, but I never got much mileage out of Samto or Navarre in this game. Maybe because I almost always make Kris my go-to sword user *shrug*.

FE13: Donnel. Enough said.

FE14: Azura. Not because I hate her (I do), but I found a Dancer unit to be utterly pointless in this game. You're never really forced to use her utility and if you do put her on the battlefield, she's a liability because of her worse-than-wet-paper level of trash-tier bulk. Try keeping her alive when even your "tanks" are struggling to fend off anything or the enemy spams fliers and you prefer not to turtle your way through already sloggish maps. Yeah, no. It's bench city for you, you blue-haired fish-face.

FE15: Any Mage that doesn't have access to Seraphim or Physic.

[DisobeyedCargo]

Are we seriously fighting over the WORST unit in the game? It's not like either one is gonna be much better considering both are trash teir.

anyway uh

 

sophia, Wendy, or Meg 

Edited July 22, 2018 by DisobeyedCargo

[ping]

12 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

" while she appears more useful than somebody like Sophia, [Wendy]'ll only ever have 5 move unless you waste boots on her. "

I would take that as the latter. Especially considering both units are useless in LTC, +1 movement isn't significant at all.

No. Why would you?

Unless there's no middle ground between "Movement doesn't matter" and "Movement is all that matters", there's no fundamental reason why Wendy's better overall performance (which I find questionable in itself) cannot be worth less than Sophia's +1 movement. Less =/= nothing.

(also, I always found that the difference between 4 and 5 move is extremely noticeable, much more than the difference between 5 and 6. Giving Knights 5 movement, but keeping the Generals at 5 as well would make quite a difference, imo)

5 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

Are we seriously fighting over the WORST unit in the game? It's not like either one isn't gonna be much better considering both are trash teir?

Also this, yeah. I don't even have a definite opinion about Wendy vs. Sophia.

Edited July 22, 2018 by ping