Fire Emblem: Awakening Tier List (Initial Characters)

Recovering from mouth invasion, I played through Fire Emblem: Awakening for the first time in seven years or so, and these were my discoveries.
This tier list is based purely on gameplay, and one think I didn't mention in this video is that I'm not counting how good of a parent a unit can be.
There are no child charges characters in this list because they'll need their own list because of how complicated they are.

[@johntopping2728]

Vaike is bad because axes are bad but Cherche is good because axes are good.

[@ProfessorBopper]

Yes. My reasoning is impeccable

[@leaffinite2001]

This is me with caspar and hilda in 3h. Or lot and wade

[@midnightcowboi8193]

You gave me some terrible advice, but I got to use pair-up to fly armor knights all the way to the end of every map. Worth.

[@hirotrum6810]

Mmm yes I love pegasus knights that can carry horses and 10 ton shoulderpads and get stronger from it

[@wbjeg]

-Frederick also gets Luna real quick so he stays good for a while -Nowi does have over 100% hp growth and with support can sometimes take 0 damage but will almost never double -Olivia is surprising unnecessary especially if robin has reclassed and snowballed -Henry is kind of slow to be super useful and is definitely carried by his class -Basilio joins with Rally Strength and better hair than me also war cleric miriel is super cursed and not viable at all but it was really funny

[@heartnet40]

Dancing isn't really good in a game where the majority of objectives are route/boss maps and the enemies spend all their time rushing you. Even taking Galeforce out of the equation, you're better off bringing another powerful unit to just dust up enemies on either phase rather than risk an additional galeforce proc failing and Olivia biting the dust. Plus Olivia's dancing doesn't make the game any faster in speed-runs making her kind of irrelevant. If you could make Inigo a dancer, that might be a different story but alas.

[@javgamer722]

Yeah I love using Nowi so I am biased, but I think once you can get her a few levels she can just be the best tank you would ever need. The dragonstone gives her big boosts to defense and resistance and she will naturally grow out her HP stat. Yes if you don't grind her levels she can be slow and will probably take 2 or more hits to kill things, but (from my experience at least) she just becomes an unkillable tank with permanent 1-2 range that can kill an entire room in 2 turns. Give her a support, which would also give you access to Nah who has the same benefits as her mom, and she can be your solo character. She doesn't have the best pair up bonuses like you said and her potential skill list isn't good without a lot of grinding those are totally true. I'm no pro and like I said, biased, but still I think she deserves a lot better than D tier.

[@heartnet40]

@@javgamer722 The thing that kills Nowi the most is her abysmal starting base Speed, which the Dragonstone buffs don't help at all. She can be a decent unit, and a lot better than most low tiers, but that initial hurdle is *really* bad.

[@javgamer722]

@@heartnet40 That's true but at least she has that 1-2 range so she could steal kills easier and she starts at a low level so she gets a lot of exp per kill. I agree there is a hurdle but I think her ceiling is higher than some other characters.

[@just-mees]

war cleric miriel: "teach"ing how to "teach" with axes

[@pksprite6401]

Somehow when I did hard mode, I kept Donnel alive. That guy easily saved the run sooo many times as only a Mercenary. As a Hero with Sol; easily the best unit I used.

[@sephikong8323]

Donnel is the character that I always force myself to slog with for the early game, because if you play your cards right, by mission 10-13 he should start to become the mvp of your team. The simple fact that he has high luck very early with access to excellent luck based abilities (Sol and the one that is your luck×2 to not expand a weapon use) make him even more overpowered than he has any rights to be

[@WonderWaffleNin616]

Hero Donnel with Leif's Blade is a freaking bullion generator that can't die. I loved it.

[@pksprite6401]

@@sephikong8323 yea fr. When by the time he got to Mercenary he was absolutely insane. I can see the hassle Donnel might be to train in lunatic, but it was def worth it for me (hard mode)

[@sephikong8323]

@Road Runner And don't forget one thing : if he got the underdog ability he becomes broken once reclassed, since he is treated as a level 1, thus he gets the bonus since he is considered to be of a lower level than the enemies he is fighting. This character was clearly thought to be as broken as possible once you take the time to up him and I love it

[@krypsiematthews1027]

honestly yeah. on hard, if you pair up with kellam and really feed, he can be a merc by ch. 5 and he’s already stronger than chrom by then

[@heartnet40]

Awakening is a totally different game if you play without Pair-Ups. I've done so a few times and it can actually bring some new perspective on several units. Without it, Cordelia, Kellam and Lon'Qu are pretty mediocre meanwhile Libra, Vaike, and whichever Cav you decide to go with start to shine. But I understand Pair-Up is a huge part of the game so I won't try to argue it's place in a tier-list. Nothing saves Virion though. Believe me, I've tried.

[@kyshowman6847]

Bless Virion. He tried hard.

[@hosni4064]

I do like this setup for Virion for campaign: Bowfaire, Aggressor, All Stats +2, Lifetaker and Resistance +10. Makes for a good support unit in pairups imo

[@danydady6851]

This is a hypothetical build for the archest of archers, but here's what I would recommend. Bowbreaker, lancebreaker, swordbreaker, deliverer, and another good skill (lifetaker, quick burn, or hit rate 20 if you're not confident in his accuracy) and end him as a wyvern lord. Ironic how the archest of archers might be best utilized by abandoning his bow altogether.

[@heartnet40]

@@danydady6851 Virion getting saddled with mage is just agony. He can't use any of those skills at all, even Lifetaker since his damage is overall low. You know what could have saved him? Thief. Movement+1 would have been good utility paired with a forged Longbow and Lethality might have been a decent proc on Virion due to his absurdly high skill.

[@danydady6851]

@@heartnet40 agreed, but really any class would have been better than the mage class. Even the dark mage class offers vengeance and tomebreaker. The priest class would offer renewal, which is more reliable than life taker.

[@darc5925]

I personally think that Miriel is better than Henry or at least a B tier mainly for having the advantage of being an early mage and having an excellent skill pool plus growth rates: 60% on mag, skill, and spd. Though she starts pretty slow the moment you get her, after ch 7 she really starts to shine. At that point she should be able to double a few enemy units and that's when she really takes off. She is a pure glass cannon since she dies pretty easily but makes up for it by dealing doubles. By late to endgame her magic is so high she can double enemies for 40-90 damage each hit, pretty much one shotting most enemy units even if you aren't so rng blessed w/ level ups. I like to take her to Mage > Sage > Sorcerer because she can nostank with ridiculous mag and spd and tomefaire+mag2 gives her a +7 Mag bonus which increases to a +12 bonus when using Valflame. She also can abuse the skill Vengeance because her defense is so bad but you can make her take a hit, get her to low health and cuz of her high skill she'll activate vengeance almost every turn increasing her kill power. Even if you don't go nostank route, she's an excellent healer as a sage for her high mag and Rescue staves are affected by mag so you can warp units as far as 1/2 of a map. Of course being glass cannon she can die very easily during enemy phases so she's high risk high reward. Funny enough when grinding everyone, Miriel has like Mag 49 and Spd 40 and Ricken only has 24 for Mag and Spd despite grinding both of them at the same time. It's not just bad rng but also Ricken has no magic class other than dark knight to second seal to. sry this is long I just want to get my point across

[@CarbonMalite]

It's so crazy how much hate this game got simply because they made the characters attractive/optionally romanceable. Against all the other problems with the game that's perhaps what people yelled about the most. Honestly Awakening falls into the category of "great for most players at the start but gets worse the more you play it." Three Houses also falls into this category I'd say.

[@christianlangdon3766]

Yea both games suffer from having interesting choices that start to snowball so hard you don't play the game as much. In my super low optimal playthrough of three houses being blind as well I still trashed and one rounded all bosses and such without even trying. And I threw my best units away most of the time taking theif and such on byleth and such. Kinda the same issues when you are given so many darn options to optimize your going to run through the game. But they both uniquely have unfun harder modes because of the reasons they are unfun for late game play. Since In order to curb the snowball they made it so only like the best units can do anything to begin with and still get run down in the end game.

[@shadowpiplup]

Acording to the wiki virion has a 60% speed growth but i played awakening 10+ times and i can confirm thats an absolute lie. Dude never gets speed

[@heartnet40]

He's not fast, he doesn't hit hard, his reclass sucks, and his high skill is worth nothing because bows are already extremely accurate and even if he had a tendency to crit often (he doesn't) those crits will be laughably weak anyways. Virion's only noticable trait is that he weirdly has decent Defense but since he can't counter-attack half the time even that is wasted on him. Virion is a god-damn travesty.

[@ashtrakani9955]

I always enjoy watching tier lists like this. Some good insights too

[@ungulatemanalpha]

Stahl and Sully start really close to D ranks in their off-weapons and have the cavalier skill Discipline to increase their weapon xp. They can start using iron weapons of the opposite type after like three fights in Chapter 2, and it's really easy to have them hold the bridge after the initial rush in that chapter because of how the enemy units on the other side are positioned. Their main problem is that they really desperately want a pair up to solve their weak spots (strength and defense for sully, speed for stahl) which obviously hinders your flexibility elsewhere.

[@airtempest8945]

15:03 I would mention that Robin/Morgan double Galeforce lets you one-turn literally everything after chapter 15, except chapter 23 (Rescue also has to be used, but Galeforce is also vitally important).

[@ProfessorBopper]

Really? I only knew of a few possible one turns in this game. Gale force is even more busted than I could have ever imagined

[@airtempest8945]

@@ProfessorBopper Yeah. As someone who's done almost all of them in a draft (I know that 17 is possible, but I only 2 turned that 'cause I didn't have enough rescue range), you can 1 turn a lot of them really easily. I know the minimum turn count for Lunatic+ is like 68 turns or something absurd like that.

[@Hiiyapow]

Galeforce is really not what's important here. It's good for getting around on lunatic+, but if all you care about is 1 turning on lunatic and below, it isn't worth your time. 13,14,16,18,19,20,22,25 and endgame can all be 1-turned without galeforce. Given that 23 and 24 are rout maps, that only leaves 17 and 21 as maps that are tricker to skip with just rescue. I really don't think it's worth getting galeforce just for those when you can also beat those maps in good time anyway by skipping 75% of them with rescue.

[@ungulatemanalpha]

Taguel base stats are total poop so Panne gets insane bonuses if she second seals into Wyvern Rider, enough that she still obliterates people even with a bronze axe. And she comes in at level 10 so she can second seal immediately without any work required at all. I'd still put her in B tier, mind, but at the top of it.

[@heartnet40]

Reclassing Panne into a Wyvern Rider the second you get her makes her such an insane unit. I'd argue Taguel isn't too bad when you get Panne out of the gate as she actually has some bulk and good speed, but the second she reclasses she hits insane strength and keeps her good speed and decent bulk that nothing short of magic can touch her. I argue that alone can justify A-Tier depending on how you play the game.

[@April-tg2vl]

Panne's base level is 6. All of what you typed is correct except the stuff relating to that. Luckily the second gaiden chapter unlocks when you clear ch6, and with the xp from that chapter(which she can do with tonics and fred pairup on lunatic) she gets 10. Panne is the best unit in the game besides robin/fred on lunatic and its not particularly close. Not B tier by any means, she's like A with chrom, tiki, olivia, etc(and at the top of it).

[@valeriedure2341]

Wyvern Rider Panne became my best combat unit. Maybe I didn't play super optimally or whatever but clearing the entire map with an 80-something HP Rabbit with a hand axe is just fun to watch. eventually she got surpasses by Cynthia's galeforce but it was still a fun time

[@Hiiyapow]

​@@heartnet40 Wyvern Panne is bad. Allow me to point out why. The biggest reasons people give for reclassing to wyvern are the stat increases. "You get so many stats on second seal", these people say. The problem is that this ignores all the stats that Panne gets from the beaststone. Lets lay out her stats and see what we end up with: Taguel Panne (with beastone equipped) has 28 HP, 11 Strength, 14 Skill, 15 Speed, 12 Luck, 8 Defence, 3 Res and 6 Move. Given that the beaststone has 6 might, she has an effective 17 attack. She is also weak to beast-killer weapons. Wyvern Panne has 29HP, 13 Strength, 11 Skill, 10 Speed, 12 Luck, 12 Defence, 1 Res and 7 move. Given that the only axe she can use with E axes (the bronze axe) has 4 might, she has an effective 17 attack. She is also weak to beast, dragon, and flier-killer weapons. So, to summarise, from second sealing Panne, we have gained +1 HP, +2 Strength, -3 Skill, -5 Speed, +4 Defence, -2 Res and +1 move. Taking into account weapon strengths, Panne has gained an effective attack of 0. The amount of damage she can do in 1 attack has not changed. As I'm sure you can see, this is terrible. She loses a massive amount of speed and a couple point of res/skill for a bit of a boost to defence and move (the defence boost is basically negated by all of her new weaknesses). Nothing else changes. Actually, that's not true. Her pair up bonuses get worse. In taguel, she provides +3 Strength and +4 Speed which is very, very ,very good. She is one of the best pairup partners in the game because of these and relegating her to this awful wyvern is madness. Put Panne into wyvern if you enjoy it, but don't do it because you think it's good, because it isn't.

[@KoopaKoot]

Just watched this all to the end and it was really neat (was studying while watching (you have a nice voice)). I'll take this into consideration if I ever play Awakening again.

[@ProfessorBopper]

Thanks!

[@Sundel_Marlutte]

I replayed Awakening on Hard recently and tried using Virion as a joke and he trivialized the game and I'm not sure how he wasn't RNG screwed, but long story short, he's F-tier in my brain, S-Tier in my heart

[@Pm3m_Dia]

I just want to say that if you played Lunatic or Lunatic+ and used Anna you would know that she is S-Tier. Staff utility paired with being able to tank hits unlike any other healer besides libra AND being able to reliably oneround due to her high speed- and magic stat (levin sword) make her already a character with strenghts only and a lot of flexibility. Throw in the increased movement and locktouch skills and there is no denying it. She is busted without training and stays strong until the end of the game.

[@MegaScytheman]

not only do the children depend on the pairings but they have stat bonuses based on their parents stats so they're pretty impossible to tier accurately.

[@MegaScytheman]

although that said they are pretty universally not worth doing their chapters because the enemies are so strong and they all join at level 10

[@mickdipiano8768]

Support has always been a fun apart of the game. But I enjoyed the pairing not as a dating sim but like the way pokemon fans breed perfect iv mons with hidden abilities and egg moves.

[@Gab0ME]

Really nice video. Watched the whole of it. I'm big of fan of Fire Emblem since Awakening, so thanks for the insight. I'm currently playing it on Lunatic Mode and playing the DLC content. I love this game, thanks dude.

[@ja-qob]

Barbarian Vaike is instant S-tier for me, so hearing the stuff about instant F-tier being the popular opinion was a massive shock lmao Mans carried my hard mode run HARD

[@heartnet40]

Vaike literally is the only unit besides Robin and Fredrick who aren't weenies for the first few chapters. No one besides him and Freddy can take a hit and the enemies you fight get chunked big time by his attacks, and he even gets things like early hammers, hand axes, and a powerful reclass in Barbarian. There are next to no times he's hindered my progress in Awakening (not counting Lunatic), his only issue is lacking utility and a mount.

[@Draeckon]

Vaike was useless in my runs, but I may have just gotten really unlucky with his stat increases.

[@brightlight8852]

Lissa, Nowi, Panne, and Gaius ended up becoming monsters in my playthroughs on hard mode. They started out kinda weak, I admit but by endgame they all ended up being pretty damn strong. Not absolute units like Robin and Chrom whom I kept paired up (it was a mistake, I got 2 second seals and used them they went onto the Peg knight/Cav pair so they kept being ridiculous). Lissa was paired with Lon'qu which made it so that if she wasn't healing, he was killing pair and once he started to drop off Lissa was ready to become a Sage and start killing. She snowballed the minute she reached Sage class, then when I got the bright idea to do Apotheosis and gave her the second seal she became even more ridiculous after she learned Galeforce. Lissa was just better at killing things than she was at healing allies. Nowi I kept as a manakete until she learned the second manakete skill and she became another wyvern killer. Strangely her best pair up partner was Donnel (whom I reclassed into a fighter the moment he reached level 15). They were good for chip damage but then they started to snowball once second seals became more readily available. Panne was good but she needed to get to level 15 as a Taguel once she did and she got her second seal she became pretty reliable. Gaius is a good damage dealer with the right support he was the only decent 1st gen archer. He got good after I realized that the game reads two characters standing next to each other as a pair up. Virion can't be saved.

[@glitchless8947]

I made her a wyvern rider and clapped cheeks.

[@fieldystick]

Wish you'd do some more of these tier lists. The four on your channel now are *so good*

[@theghostcreator776]

We need more of these tier lists they're too good 😭

[@hylianfelldragon1308]

Huh! It might just be me starting the series roughly in between the Fates and Echoes releases using emulators for any FE game that wasn't a 3DS game at the time but, I always felt like the female characters in the GBA and Tellius games were cuter than the ones in Awakening.

[@ProfessorBopper]

Yes

[@JustSkram]

You are correct

[@silvertipstudio9622]

I agree with everything except for Maribelle

[@abaxmanjr]

My Stahl for my first play-through must have been blessed cause he was an absolute god among units. I always choose him over Sully because of that experience.

[@siglan6148]

Love the video, great discussion. I subbed! Personally I had a lot of fun with Lunatic Reverse. The first few chapters are lame because you gotta reset a lot since certain skills on the enemy are impossible to overcome. Also Fred is S+ tier, Lunatic Reverse is literally unbeatable without him 😅

[@hansgretl1787]

I know it's dumb to get annoyed by it, but I can't listen to you call Basilio Basilo any longer.

[@ProfessorBopper]

This is the first time I’ve ever noticed the second i and now I’m triggered at my own video

[@hansgretl1787]

@@ProfessorBopper RIP i

[@ferintown6628]

I cannot stand for this Nowi Slander Easily way better than Tiki Her growths make it to where she can get +2 in HP and +1 in basically everything almost every level up, the HP problem can be solved the same way that saving dancers can be solved, just don’t put her on the front lines, however unlike Olivia she can take at least one hit Also Donnel probably should be reclassed to D or C because of how good a parent he is, he starts off with basically free levels from villager, and he does in fact snowball Not to mention you can give him a special weapon and armsthrift, so he will never use it

[@bastian7430]

Yeah. And don't forget that Nowi is a manakete, which means that she can gain experience real quick since manakete is a "special class" (gain experience at the same rate as a base clase, and it's stat caps are of a promoted unit), this let her gain stats super fast, and if you obtain paragon is even faster, being not too rare to reach the stat caps early in the game.

[@ALocalBarista]

When Gaius pair up with Olivia carried you through Lunatic, but everybody says it’s bad.😭

[@ProfessorBopper]

If it works it works. I don’t know how you got it to work, but all that matters is winning!

[@magu8309]

i suppose giving the extra movement to the dancer can go a long way ;-;

[@brickwallace99]

wow this made me remember how much of a pain it is to, y’know, use the units you like in awakening. probably because I insisted on playing hard mode, but a lot of the units I find charming or likable are either difficult to use or straight up bad. I remember spending hours on chapters resetting to keep units like maribelle and panne alive just because I wanted them to be useful, even despite grinding.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

Anyone can work on hard. Pretty easily, in fact.

[@ALuckyLoser]

I would love to see a future child tier list. You could rank them with their best parents or you could rank best on a single play through and which parent should go to what kids

[@ProfessorBopper]

ALuckyLoser I would love to do that, but I just don’t have much experience with the kids or what even makes good pairings. From what I can tell, most kids are pretty good with good pairings. I know Morgan is really good, as is Lucina, but beyond that I’m mega ignorant

[@heartnet40]

@@ProfessorBopper You can generally tell which Child Units are better than others depending on what kind of fathers you need to get them different skills and appropriate classes. An example would be the difference between Kjelle and Nah. Kjelle lends herself well to her base classes. Knight gives her access to good skills, as does Cavalier. She can be made a good combat unit regardless of her father. Nah, meanwhile, has absolutely nothing going for her without a good father. Her base classes are just as mediocre as Nowi's to the point that she can just be considered Nowi Jr. Because of this you really have to toss her a good father to give her some more abilities and viability. Obviously there's a bit of importance on how their father's effect their stats and growths but generally if you plan on using the Children anyways, you plan on optimizing them with Second Seals already which greatly mitigates the stats issue. I get that this can be seen as limiting but without creating a standard for the Child Units like this there can be no real way to judge them as they are simultaneously the best and worst characters in the game under different contexts.

[@sarahsantos9628]

Panne as a Wyvern rider is definitely S tier

[@Hiiyapow]

S tier at getting a gameover screen maybe...

[@darkgladiator27]

Am... I the only one who stuck with Lyssa? She's been a decent mage so far (hard classic), but that may be due to good rng. I'm liking spellcasters so far

[@ProfessorBopper]

Lissa is good because a lot of her early game utility and it is easy to level her up a bunch and make her really good. The only reason I rank her low is because she's unable to trivialize the game the way Robin/Thraja can. On hard though, Lissa can become really good with some investment

[@darkgladiator27]

@@ProfessorBopper Have to agree on Tharja. She's basically a tank in my playthrough (maybe she's rng blessed) AND she kills. Too bad she loses black magic once promoted :/

[@ProfessorBopper]

dGladiator dGladiator To keep Tharja from losing dark magic on promotion you need to make her a sorcerer. For some dumb reason, dark knight loses dark magic and the game doesn’t tell you. Your impression of Tharja is right! Yours probably isn’t even that RNG blessed since the combo of magic, pair-up bonus, and high kill potential means she snowballs out of control better than anyone except Robin and Chrom even without Nosferatu

[@darkgladiator27]

@@ProfessorBopper I've finished the game, and I wish I had trained Morgan into white magic as a falcon knight, but I didn't want to grind endlessly to get perfect units. Lyssa was crap, but she spawned (a heavily RNG blessed) Owain. I'm eating my words

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

@@darkgladiator27 Who'd you S support Lissa with? And what class did you make Owain?

[@SkytripYT]

You are easily my favorite fe tuber to watch. If I have anything to say it’s to try to say uhm less (I don’t think you do it as much in your new videos but I just noticed it a lot this video) keep up the good content I really love watching it :)

[@ProfessorBopper]

Lol yeah, this video was right after a root canal and before I figured out how to not sound like a moron

[@smileytlj23]

Nowi with those Kellam defensive buffs is quite scary and should slot her next to him. Especially if she gets swordbreaker early enough

[@joaquinkhourysilvestre2530]

Holy shit, i´ve seen long introductions before, but 12 minutes?, that´s basically an entire video. Timestamp for those who just wan the tier list 11:58

[@ixlness]

Kellam at B I low key agree. During my hard playthrough I fielded him as a pair up bot during the final chapter to help patch up defense haha

[@foogles1526]

i began in Fire Emblem with 3H and this was the second one I played but after that I played Path of radiance and made me see how different Awakening is and I thought that 3H was the different one

[@Xertaron.]

Lissa has the advantage of staves giving a lot of exp compared to previous games. You can promote her very early by just spamming heal every turn. You don't second seal her into pegasus knight (her strength is really bad), it's better to go Cleric > Sage > Dark Flier/Falcon Knight so she keeps either staff or tome rank. And of course she has perfect availability so C tier seems very low. Weapon ranks on Frederick and cavs aren't that important as they build them insanely fast thanks to Discipline. You can get from E to D and then some in a single chapter with moderate ammount of combat. Gaius's personal stats are actually great, it's just thief class has really low bases. The thing with Tharja is that she has 5 skill at base. On normal it's not a big deal, but on higher difficulties her hit rates are very suspect and it takes time (either levels or high enough support) to reliably nosferatu tank. Henry i didn't like at first, but he joined Azelle as one of my favourite FE character. Terrible first impression with the puns and base speed, but i liked his initial support with Robin and decided to give him a chance. When i got to pairing characters i got him to S with Cordelia, due to their wholesome support and unwittingly broke the game. Suddenly his speed was no longer an issue and they proceeded to steamroll most of the midgame and paralogues. And unlike Tharja he would hit reliably. Virion gives good pairup bonuses and bows in Awakening have good might so Virion can one shot enemy fliers during dual strikes. He is definetely high maintance kind of unit, but he has genuine niches. Donny as much as i like him should be solely in F tier if we assume efficient playthrough. Villager's class bases belong in a 9th circle of hell, so similar to Gaius If you get him out there he gets really good, which is doable on hard, but on Lunatic and Lunatic+ you'd have to be insane to put yourself through it. But let's be fair - using Donny means you don't care about efficiency. And he is really fun unit in a slower playthrough.

[@Aeddy35]

Not sure if you know this by now, but promoted units can reclass into other promoted classes at level 10.

[@kindsteel5]

Fun Fact: Despite what the displayed Crit stat is, Virion actually has a guaranteed 33 percent crit chance at least it feels like it

[@PixxelTrixx]

Hey could you link the background music?

[@ProfessorBopper]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWOZoqJ5jrGXiZo

[@PixxelTrixx]

@@ProfessorBopper Thanks, you have nice taste.

[@pretzelking4618]

Haven’t watched yet, but in my first play through that I just finished, Cordelia and Lon’Qu absolutely carried my team along with Robin. I also didn’t change the class of anyone, it just didn’t feel right for my first time playing lol (Morgan ended up being my strongest unit but she’s gen 2 so doesn’t count for this) (Edit: clarifying that it was a Lucina was Morgan’s mother)

[@clintwaki6936]

I know this video is old. But I just recently replayed awakening and I think you underated Paine and Sully. Paine gets the bonus damage to horses which are all over the walhart chapters, and she gets so much speed in the late game she becomes a dodge tank that barely ever gets hit. Sully I found was really easy to snowball on hard mode with the Kellam pair up cause she could throw javelins and take no damage. Also Nowi is stupid easy to snowball in this game. Growth rates in general are ballooned to the extreme, so her initial weaknesses are quickly absolved after a few levels; and she also has 1-2 range. Not even halfway through the game I could just put her in the center of the map and she'd be untouchable. My favorite unit was Severa though, I put in the work to get her a jacked Vaike and galeforce Cordelia parent; and the last 6 chapters she was untouchable.

[@NinoyGonzales]

virion (bow Knight) and donnel (hero) are two of my best fighters. In fact, donnel got the gold medal at the end of my playthrough :))

[@TMOSP1]

I did a blind Hard Mode Iron Man of Awakening yesterday and I really didn't enjoy it. Every map feels the same it's just like 40 Mounted Guys running at you nonstop. You go "What do I do?" and then watch Chrom oneshot all of them. I tried Lunatic after that, and it didn't make the game fun. It just made me sad. Was I supposed to breed my soldiers? Is that how you make the game fun? Also I beat the game and I still don't know what Second Seals do. Was I supposed to use those?

[@RobotGuy405]

I'd say Awakening's christmas cavs are the least impressive of the entire series, their bases don't let them deal much damage and they can't double, and no canto in FE13 means that having a mount is nowhere near as essential in this game as it is in others.

[@scrapyarddragon]

I actually dropped sully in favor of Stahl in my first playthrough because he had swords, and with the endless hoards of axe enemies in the first third of the game I just found swords to be super useful and having a mobile sword guy was nice. He ended up marrying cordelia and the severa from that pairing pretty much mowed down the last couple maps. Also Tharja best girl.

[@giraffedragon6110]

For it being the first fire emblem I played. I enjoyed majority of the levels from the 1st arc and 2nd arc, but I dunno man. The last arc kinda blows because there are a hundred enemies in each map and they’re ALL super strong. I also just love hearing peoples opinions and thoughts on character usefulness. Player experience has an effect. I tried using Merial like 4 times and in all but the last one she kept not getting Magic, resistance, or speed. But in the last one she kept getting banger level ups and became my first screen staff user.

[@nick3805]

You must be mad to rank Donnel who has 200 might when he goes into his promoted class without grinding in worst tier!

[@ProfessorBopper]

On hard mode (forget lunatic because everyone sucks there except Robin, Frederick, gale force, and Nosferatu tank) Donnel has a very very tough time snowballing. Enemies are way too strong for him to handle when he joins, and no one has to be babied harder than him to become good. Obviously, if you manage to get him level up, he becomes really good, but its much more difficult to get him rolling than any other character in the game

[@nick3805]

@@ProfessorBopper Well, that is something one should consider but I still think it should be top D or C tier at least, because he is so good if you manage to get him leveled

[@aljien19]

As someone who starts to play awakening for the first time a few days ago, in hard because im stupid, Donnel sucks a lot, took me a lot of time to make him usable, i suffered when i leveled him up, and now he's good, but i don't think he actually deserves a better rank

[@Logan-xz7oj]

I would argue Lissa to go up, not much, but like B tier because you get so much exp from healing and she can actually get to level 10 pretty quickly abusing staves. Then you can master seal her into a super solid sage with staff utility and good magic/ decent speed. I don’t think she is A tier material because it does require a little favoritism but she has no competition in using healing staves so there really isn’t a reason not to spam staves imo. I found her far better offensively than any other magic units other than robin.

[@TheFierburn]

13:00 - Actually, i'm currently replaying the game and i had the mindset as well that wyverns were very prominent, but they actually aren't you basically see NO wyverns in all of valm and most of the last act, and just a few of the starting maps have them. (id say maybe 5 maps in the whole game has them actually)

[@mathishd5558]

The thing is that you see alot of then early game

[@MidwestArtMan]

I've only played the game on Normal Classic, but beaten it 3 times. The last time I played, I wanted to make Donnel the greatest warrior in history and marry a dragon, Nowi. I tried to get him as much experience as possible and by Chapter 13, he was pretty much unkillable, so I toned down my focus on him a bit. I had him fight Walhart alone with a bronze sword and he was fine.

[@silvertipstudio9622]

I wonder if that recent awakening Ironman changed any of these character’s places?

[@ProfessorBopper]

Probably. I can’t see the list right now, but I’d definitely raise a Virion as his chip is super nice, and I’m honestly confused about what to do with Donnel. On one hand, he destroyed the game and aptitude is an amazing skill that lets him snowball really fast. On the other hand, he starts in such a massive hole that the work to catch him up to other units is a massive pain in the ass

[@silvertipstudio9622]

@@ProfessorBopper if Donnel was in any other game he probably wouldn’t be worth it to train up (look at conquest Mozu) but because this games pair up can allow donnel to attack as well I think the time needed for him to catch up really isn’t a big issue, as long as you have enough money to buy a few rescue staffs it is entirely possible for donnel to deal a finishing blow from an attack from Frederick or chrom. Virions chip is pretty useful though because of it he won’t be getting as much kill exp unless you set it up for him so his journey to sniper will be slow and but once he’s there I’m pretty sure snipers give speed and attack on pair up so he can help snowball donnel or maybe put Frederick into doubling range. Man if stat creep wasn’t so insane and pair up wasn’t so broken then these units would really work well together to create a more balanced cast with good early game supporting good late game in the early game and vise versa, I think awakening should’ve been play tested more.

[@samflood5631]

My favorite Awakening characters: Cordelia, Chrom, Sumia, Lon’qu, Henry, Cherche, Stahl, Olivia, Gaius and Tharja

[@silvertipstudio9622]

I maxed tiki then used second seal to turn her back to lv 1 so I could max her out again...

[@WalkOnNick]

Why is this not listed?

[@daniellekalaskas5666]

Panne can become a wyvern tho!!

[@dry90125]

“The first half of awakening is split between enemy and player phase” bro I think that’s the whole game actually, in fact that might be every fire emblem game honestly.

[@ProfessorBopper]

Snark is a poor substitute for thought. There is a difference between player phase and enemy phase focused games. Games like FE6 and 11 where enemies are strong and 1-2 range options are weak tend to ask the player to do most of their combat on player phase while games with high enemy density and strong individual units with solid 1-2 range like FE8, 9, and Awakening late game have the player do the bulk of their work on enemy phase

[@dry90125]

@@ProfessorBopper Don't worry, I get the distinction. Awakening is all enemy phase in the latter half what with how strong nos tanking is and how much the game directs you towards juggernaughting. I get it. The point isn't lost on me. I'm being snarky cuz I thought it was funny out of context, Sue me Bopper. While I'm bein snarky, any word on the steel lance video?

[@chrisf.9595]

Tiering Awakening (and to an extent Fates) characters is so hard because there are so many variables to consider, hard mode being fair while lunatic is a turtle fest with Robin and Frederick, kids are broken, grinding freely while being able to reclass makes tiering these characters an absolute slog

[@wayward41]

I personally think RD Ike is the best lord in the series pre-Corrin/pre-3h since he starts good, swords are actually kinda nice in RD, and he gets his broken infinite use PRF really early all things considered. But I'm a moron

[@theblanksandwich7918]

3:52 Weird, Awakening was also my second Fire Emblem game and Sacred Stones was also my first. I've been wanting to play a third FE game for years but I keep putting it on the ol' backburner.

[@danydady6851]

Booty bopper: flying unit equals instant a tier Virion, who can reclass into a wyvern rider: am I a joke to you? The fire emblem fanbase: yes

[@mathishd5558]

He needs to be level 10 to reclass and his stat are trash, he gets both doubled and one shot in lunatic at least the others one of them not both

[@danydady6851]

@@mathishd5558 all of this could be said about lisa as well, but that doesn't make her bad. Virion has poke, so getting him to level 10 is child's play. I admit that his stats are pretty bad, but his growth rates are about the same as sumia's. I think virion can make for a serviceable late game flyer and early game poker.

[@mathishd5558]

@@danydady6851 Your argument Seems logical and when I think of it there is alot of flier in the early game like in chapter 5

[@mathishd5558]

@@danydady6851 Lisa bas staff utility it doesn't matter if she dies easily because she doesn't need to fight but virion will be in the frontlines to attack the enemy

[@danydady6851]

@@mathishd5558 virion has poke utility. As long as you're careful, he can provide just as much value as lisa early game. The only issue is that he gets outclassed quickly by the other combatants and snowballing is the way to go in awakening.

[@TheEcoolarg]

"so good" so basically FE13 its spiderman 3, when its bad, its so bad its good, when it good its legit good

[@Runexn]

Gregor has the best crit quotes, easy S+++ Tier.

[@romanzamishka]

Panne was S tier for me after reclass to wyvern. Also Nowi was an easy A, borderline S, tier for me. She starts off a bit fragile, but quickly becomes an unkillable monster that can clear half of the map solo as everything dies trying to kill her. Sumia on the other hand is B tier. Her strength just doesn't keep up and she gets quickly relegated to being a backpack for one of the nos tanks. She's definitely not in the same tier as Cordelia.

[@just-mees]

7:37 The path of ra- least resistance

[@starmaker75]

How to beat awakening: pair up robin with a somewhat strong unit. Also pair up a sorcerer with a defense unit and make that sorcerer equip nosferatu. You basically awakening Seriously the nosferatu tome is the most broken it has ever been in awakening.

[@ferintown6628]

This man thinks we’re promoting our Pegasus Knights into Falco Knights

[@Madchaskon]

gonna get my 3ds back from my gf to give another run to this game after watching this vid

[@snyperguy5006]

At first I thought Donnel was terrible, getting killed by units that he had advantage over. I paired him with kellam and used to feed him kills, and at level twelve he finally began to stand on his own. Once I promoted him to mercenary class he was doubling everything, and along with his 20% extra froths on everything he became a monster. He’s one of the worst units in the entire game when you get him, but if you put in the work and promote him he has the capabilities of being a monster.

[@sleepingforest3979]

Tharja tiki and cherche in Awakening casual I completely disagree 100%.

[@just-mees]

If you spend your first second seal on gaius and turn him into a myrmidon and give him lon'qu's killing edge he is literaly lon'qu but better. after that he can learn vantage of course and axe users will struggle to reach double digit hit rate on him. after the "so good" characters he was prob my best unit in early/mid-late oh, and all caveliers have dicipline, so weapon ranks arent too big of an issue. (If you trade a bronze lance to stahl he can get javelin ready before kellam even delivers one to you) I still dislike stahl tho, bc he cant double without a pairing for a signficant portion of the game. He is super bulky, but without overleveling he just cant.

[@marionwelzel2921]

Believe it or not but I got a really really good Virion and a beast in Miriel. But I agree, Virion without grinding is trash. Frederik on the other hand is just it. I say, someone who proposes just because he didn't vomit what could be more romantic😂

[@absoul112]

My only big disagreement is that you slept a little bit on my boi Libra.

[@deadjames3]

I think you're really underselling Panne, she's an easy S teir. Taguel bases are so bad that reclassing her to wyvern is basically as good as a promotion because her personal bases are insane, at E rank axes she will still be doing way more damage than she ever was as a taguel, and she joins early enough that she can pretty easily get herself out of E rank hell.

[@rosaparks6479]

Taguel bases are bad because the beaststone adds a ton of strength and speed when used

[@deadjames3]

@@rosaparks6479 still nothing close to how good her offense is as a wyvern though is the point.

[@rosaparks6479]

@@deadjames3 you lose like 5 speed for 1 attack

[@deadjames3]

@@rosaparks6479 but get access to better weapons, 1-2 range, and flier utility.

[@smileytlj23]

I like how everyone stresses speed when discussing viability when none of that matters when you can one shot nearly all the opposition

[@mickdipiano8768]

Riken below sthal? What

[@Hiiyapow]

Time to write an excessively long comment on the tier placements. This is part 1. Part 2 is in a reply to myself. Chrom- Probably A tier only. He is really really good offensively and as a pair up bot, but he's quite squishy early on and is locked to 1 range. Robin- Yeah Robin is broken af. Galeforce is a bit overrated but it's good for lunatic+. Other than that female and male robin are basically on the same level Lissa- C tier? REEEEE. I would possibly put lissa in the top 3 for the game, she's that good. Yeah, rescue is E rank, but you still need a good magic stat to use it and she's going to be the best user of it all the way up until libra joins up in chapter 9 and it's not like she still can't use it then. Before then, she's your only healer for roughly 6 chapters (she has literally perfect availability) and the paralogue1 rescue staff is basically her personal staff. And while other units can get E staffs on promotion, it is unlikely that they will be able to use rescue as well as her. Falcoknights will have pretty poor magic and mages like Ricken and Miriel take gigantic amounts of exp investment to train. Lissa trains herself for completely free. She can also second seal into falcoknight once she hits level 10 sage, meaning that she can be a falcoknight with insane rescue range (well over 10 tiles). Also master seals aren't a huge investment. You can buy infinite ones from the ch12 shop. Frederick- Yeah Frederick is really really really good. I would put him at number 2 for the whole game. Great combat, great movement, great pair up bonuses. Although I really don't recommend second sealing him out of GK. Sully- D tier Sully is a meh unit. Having E rank weapons is pretty bad at base (3 might weapons OP). She's pretty squishy and doesn't deal very much damage at base, but she's decent filler for some of the earlier chapters. However, I think you are missing out one of her most powerful features: Her promo bonuses. For some reason, cav promo bonuses are stupidly good in awakening and promoting her to paladin turns her into a huge ball of stats which can potentially deal with a good amount of enemies. Her issue is that she will never be more than a ball of stats though and it's arguably not worth going through the early training to get her there. Virion- Virion certainly isn't very good, but F tier is a bit extreme. He can chip units for a decent amount of time as he's force deployed in 1 and 2 and you may as well bring him to 3, paralogue 1 and 5 as well. It's nothing special but it's enough to keep him around E tier at least. Stahl- Being forced to use E rank lances if you want to use javelins is horrible. His stats are actually pretty decent, but he gets neutered by the fact he wields a 3 might weapon at base. He's basically the same as sully, but I would say he's slightly better at base due to being a bit bulkier. He doesn't scale as well though due to the aformentioned 1-2 range issue. Still D tier. Vaike- This is the most criminal rating in the entire video. I would say Vaike has the best non Robin/non Fred combat in the entire game. 29 HP is stupidly high and means that at base (with no training) he can take 1 hit from basically anything pre chapter 5/6 on lunatic mode. He's also going to hit back incredibly hard as well as he has 9 base strength + 7 base attack from his iron axe, giving him an effective 16 attack. That's 5 more than Stahl and 6 more than Sully, or what you would expect a ~ level 10 robin to have wielding the thunder tome. He's also got access to 1-2 range early with the hand axe you get in chapter 5. There is way less competition for it than the early javelin because not as many units can wield axes too. Axe accuracy is not a big deal. Sure, he has only roughly 50/50 hit against swordies, but they already get 1 shot by a lot of lance wielding units anyway (looking at you frederick). His hit against axe/lance wielders is generally going to be fine with the exception being equipping the hammer vs a faster lance/axe enemy which might give him disp 65 or so hit on lunatic. He has quite a high skill base and growth too so while he may miss every so often, it really doesn't matter very much at all. But we haven't even covered the best part about him yet. His promo bonuses to hero are astronomical. +6 Skill, +5 Speed, +4 Defence and +3 Res. Those are all stats he needs and he gets a lot of them. I cannot overstate just how stupidly strong this makes him. He goes from striking once really hard to striking twice really hard and killing everything while also getting bulkier. And he can get sol at level 5 too which basically removes his ability to die on hard and below, or makes him much bulkier on lunatic. Top of B tier at the absolute least, I would put him somewhere in A tier. Miriel- I actually mostly agree with what you said. She's good at doing chip damage early and works decently as a magical pair up. I wouldn't pair her with Robin though, as Chrom/Fred are still likely to be better. Where she does excel is pairing with units like Lissa or Maribelle to provide an extra 2 rescue range from the +4 magic she offers at base. She can actually reclass into dark mage with a second seal, but IMO she lacks the bulk for it to really work all that well without significant investment. I'd say mid/low C tier. Sumia- Hoo boy. This is going to be my most controverisial placement, but she does not belong anywhere near the top of the tier list. She probably belongs in low B tier/high C tier. Her early game is so, so, so , so , so , so bad. Seriously. What kind of unit has only 2 HP/Def/Str more than DONNEL??? She is utterly pathetic, barely being able to do so much as tickle enemies in lunatic mode (going for mostly 4 or 5 hit kos with iron lance, or 8 to 9 hit KOs with the javelin). She also gets 1 shot by 2/3 of her join chapter on lunatic so her enemy phase is basically non existent. Falcoknight is a good class, but is it really work dragging this horrific unit all the way up to level 10? You already will have Cordelia and Lissa by the mid/late game anyway and it's not like Sumia is going to be able to rescue anyone very far with her utterly comical magic base and growth. Oh and she can still die to just about anything so she can never ever see combat. Flier utility also isn't very good in awakening earlygame. Lategame you can fly around maps and stuff, but you have a ton of people to do that for you already. What exactly is Sumia going to do, outside of moving Frederick 7 tiles forwards on turn 1 in ch8/9? B/C tier is fine because +4 speed pairup at base and because falcoknight is decent if you get there. Kellam- Donnel- Yeah Donnel is very bad. Worst unit in the game, maybe one of the worst in the series. Donnel tier should be so low it's off the screen. Still salty Sumia got rated so highly when her defensive stats are basically the same as his. Lonqu- Lonqu is an extremely good pairup bot. +5 Speed at base and has a chance (roughly 10% i think) to instakill a unit with a crit pairup attack is good. He's kinda squishy so probably high C is a good spot for him. For what it's worth he's much better than Kellam though. Pretty good candidate for early promotion as well, actually as he can solo the ch9 wyvern brigade on lunatic. Ricken- I don't like Ricken very much. I think your analysis is pretty fair, he's really quite bad. low D is good. Maribelle- She joins with the same magic base as lissa, but 5/6 chapters later, meaning she can't use the earlygame rescue/phyisc staffs as well. Still, she basically gets free exp and can eventually turn into a good rescuer (She also has access to the falcoknight class through second seal). Low A/High B is probably where I'd put her. Panne- Panne is just a nice unit. Decent/good base combat (str/speed/bulk) to help improve the overall strength of your army. A big weakness of hers is that she can't promote though, so long term investment tends not to pay off very hard and she will just look worse than Stahl/Sully mid/lategame. But her pair up bonuses in taguel are stupid good. It's +3 Strength and +4 Speed ( not +3, as having over 10 of a stat in awakening adds an extra point to the amount you provide through pariup) which basically makes any unit drastically better on offense. She also has 6 move at base which means she can help ferry people around a bit, or just get to the action herself quicker. Probably somwhere around mid C tier. Gaius- Gaius is very, very bad. Awful combat no chests really have great loot in them. And anna joins, basically negating his thief utility. There is never a reason to field Gaius ever. F tier. Cordelia- Way better than Sumia. Better bases, better weapons ranks, better everything. Sumia's only lead is availability by 4 chapters. But her biggest strength is arguably her base level. Cordy joins at level 7, meaning she is only 3 levels away from promoting into the falcoknight class for low range rescue, good speed pairups, rally speed and high movement. This makes her a low investment unit with decent bases that pays off well. She definitely belongs in A tier. Gregor- Gregor is discount Vaike. Everything Vaike does, Gregor does slightly worse, just with a bit less investment required. The biggest weakness he has compared to Vaike outside of availability/stats is his weapon rank. He is sword locked pre-promotion and when he promotes to hero, he will have E axes. That is bad because he won't be able to use 1-2 range unless you train him with the 4 might bronze axe, or use the arms scroll from paralogue 4 (which could massively benefit other units). He's probably in the middle section of B tier. Nowi- Nowi bad. 6 Speed at base in chapter 8? Yes please! 19HP is also really bad too. D tier is where I'd put her.

[@Hiiyapow]

Libra- "Libra was one of the worst combat units I had". WHAT. This guy comes packing 40HP , 17 Res and 12 Defence in chapter 9 which means he is one of the only units who, at base, can take multiple hits from enemies on lunatic. He's also got decent offense as well (15 Strength is no joke). Not only that, but he comes with a boatload of magic and C staffs, meaning he can use staffs like physic, ward and most importantly rescue to their highest potential. Did you know his base magic is so high that he, at base, can rescue Anna in paralogue 4 on turn 1 from a safe distance? The only thing this guy struggles with outside of availibility lategame combat utility and lack of a mount. A tier is a good spot for Libra. Tharja- Tharja is overrated af. Yes, nosferatu is a good tome. But you don't get a buyable version of it until ch13. That means you have to stretch your one 20 use tome over chapters 9,10,11,12 and 13 for Tharja, as well as probably paralogues 2,3 and 4. Her combat without it is fine offensively, but she has pretty low base HP ( 3 less than base Vaike, or 1 more than base Cordy) meaning she goes down fast without it. And even with it she's only fine, not great. The thing about nosferatu is you need good magic and speed to make it work as well as at least decent defences. On hard mode, tharja can cross doubling/killing thresholds easier, but on lunatic the low might of nosferatu often makes it so she struggles to kill enemies in 1 round. Not only does this cause her to leech less HP, but if you have a bunch of low HP enemies around you, they will just suicide on you next enemy phase, and you will only recover like 1-2 HP (as nosferatu can't heal you for more HP than an enemy had). I'd say B tier is a good spot to put her. Definitely lower than Vaike. Maybe on par with Gregor. Anna- Very good. Stupidly high offensive bases, 7 move, healing/rescue utility and locktouch. She is very flexible and fits into any team. Your team is too squishy? Anna can heal them. Your team is immobile? Anna has rescue/high move to ferry units around. Want to get treasure like the boots? Anna comes with locktouch. Does your team lack playerphase offense? Anna can 1 round stuff at base even on lunatic for a while. A tier. Worse than Libra as she isn't as bulky and has a lower staff rank, but my god she is strong. Olivia- Dancer. Easy A tier. I don't think there's much to talk about else so I'm going to address one turning. You can 1 turn a lot of the kill boss with relative ease, not just 14. In fact: 13,14,16,17,18,19, 22, 25 and endgame are all 1-turnable with just rescue and olivia- no galeforce required! ( think I may have seen a 1turn for 20 without galeforce too but I can't rememeber). Galeforce overrated, Rescue activated, olivia A-tier-inated. ( In case it's not obvious, I'm reserving s tier for robin). Cherche- Good combat at base, good movement, can early promote to be even stronger and get 8 move. B tier. Why so low? Because she is a flier. Wait, wait, I know what you're thinking. Before you tell me that I'm falling into a pitfall, it's important to realise how important enemy phase is in awakening if you want to be a combat unit. You want to walk in range of a bunch of enemies and shred them all on enemy phase. Cherche struggles to do this in the valm arc, as there are a lot of bows and wind magic (especially in chapters like 12 and 17) which can potentially instakill her. This means she is mostly relegated to playerphase offense, and most of her rating will come from her flier utility. She does actually have really good flier utility, though. Promoting to Griffon Rider and levelling to level 5 gives her the deliverer skill, giving her an extra 2 move when paired up. Add on the boots and now you have a 12 move flier capable of transporting units across half the map which is really quite strong. Factor in her meh availibility and high B tier seems like a good fit. Henry- Henry is really quite meh. He is bulkier than tharja, but he is really quite slow and you NEED to double for nostanking to be good. It's also worth noting that when you recruit henry, you are about to head into maps filled with high res enemies like pegasus knights which will double and kill henry while he heals maybe 5 or so HP off them. There is a reason he gets rated lower than tharja, and it's not just his looks, unfortunately. I'm honestly tempted to say low C tier to be honest. Sayri- Pretty underrated, actually. She can kill pretty much anything you want on playerphase and can provide a lot of speed from pairup. Being locked to 1 range sucks though and hurts her long-term/enemy phase viability. Her bad availibility hurts her though, so she ends up probably around high C tier or so. Also worth noting her lack of supports actually hurts her quite a bit as she can't get as many stats of anyone else through pairup. Tiki- I hardly ever use her but her bases look pretty solid. C tier maybe? Flavia and Basillo help you not softlock yourself. They are good on hard and decent filler on lunatic. Flavia has better combat (thanks sol), while Basilio has better utility through rally strength/pairup bonuses. Bottom end of C/Top end of D is probably appropriate given what they offer and how long they offer it for. My god this was long. I guess I'll include a quick tier list incase anyone couldn't be bothered reading everything I put. S tier- Robin A tier- Frederick, Lissa, Olivia, Chrom, Libra, Anna, Vaike B tier- Maribelle,Cherche, Cordelia, Gregor, Lonqu C tier- Tharja, Sumia, Panne, Kellam, Miriel, Sayri D tier- Sully, Stahl, Henry, Nowi, Flavia, Basillo E tier- Virion, Ricken, Gaius Z tier- No one Shadow Realm tier- Donnel

[@ProfessorBopper]

The heart is for the Kellem analysis alone. Everything else was an awesome read. The two characters I want to look at again after reading your comment are Sumia and Lissa. Lissa being top 3 is sus, but you make an interesting case. I'll give her another go next time I play and really pay attention to rescue range + early physic utility. Both Cordelia and Cherche being higher than Sumia feels emotionally good because Cordelia and Cherche are the best. I still think I like Sumia for +1 move pair up, and her great flexibility, but what you wrote makes her seem questionable and I think it might be a classic case of my simping for early game pegasus knights. I'm surprised to see that so many chapters can be 1-turned. I remember reading that only a handful can be one turned, but maybe that's in the context of 0% growths or something. It is cool though, and I want to go back and mess around with the game to see if I can get some of those 1-turns (I was only able to 1-turn chapters 13 and 14 (the only fun way to play chapter 14 imo)

[@Hiiyapow]

​@@ProfessorBopper I think the thing about Sumia and Lissa is that they seem a lot more/less useful depending on what mode you play on. On normal and hard, Sumias early game combat is less awful (she still gets 2shot by most stuff but she can actually double some things) and so players are more likely to overlook her flaws, and then train her to the point where they don't really matter anymore (as any unit can solo hard mode). On lunatic and above, trying to get her to do anything is just painful. I will admit that having a decent speed pairup (she doesn't actually give move tho) and wings can come in handy in a few situations (paralogue 2 comes to mind), but awakening just doesn't have enough places earlygame where I consider flier utility to be all that great. Also other early fliers like fe7 florina or fe8 vanessa often have good long-term prospects, as the enemies don't scale very well in those games. Awakening takes a different approach and expects units to take on gigantic numbers of enemies all at once- just look at the disgusting placement of units in ch18 lunatic mode. It hurts my eyes. I think Sumia can work if you are willing to invest in her, but I think the investment is rarely worth it and could be better used elsewhere. Lissa is kind of the exact opposite to Sumia. She's a bit worse on normal/hard and is much better on lunatic and above. The more your units take damage, the more you need a healer and so she becomes much more valuable. That doesn't make her *significantly* worse on hard and below, but I could see her being more around the level of the other 3 staffers (anna, libra, maribelle) on lower difficulties. But generally harder difficulty= more healing= more exp and staff exp so she can use the paralogue 1 rescue and paralogue 2 physic= better unit. Also for some reason rescue gives you like a trillion exp when you use it so when you can buy it you can spam it every turn to level up and get closer to falcoknight. The basic way to get 1-turns to work is lots and lots and lots of rescue. Cherche's devliever and olivias dance obviously help, but rescue-chaining tends to be the backbone of 1-turn strategies. I actually didn't realise ch14 was kill boss until like 6 months ago. I was unbelievably happy when I found out it could be skipped lol

[@mickdipiano8768]

Lisa is better then libra. Just grt her to ten and give her an axe

[@markusbao6670]

Donnel and Cordellia are S tiers

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

Focusing the tier list on gen 1 makes sense. Gen 2 only has 3 tiers; easy access to Galeforce, limited access to Galeforce, and no access to Galeforce.

[@juangarcia0397]

Myrmidon gaius is a fucking train man justo grind him one hour with reeking boxes ando boom You get better ando faster lon'qut

[@benjamindunne8132]

I remember putting in work with Olivia and having her become an absolute monster. I also low key think Chrom is one of the most overrated characters in the recent 3 fe titles. Everything he does Lucina does better.

[@rosaparks6479]

Chrom is also available for way more chapters than Lucina is

[@benjamindunne8132]

@@rosaparks6479 very true, but he becomes rapidly inferior to her. He starts dropping off when she starts to hit her stride

[@rosaparks6479]

@@benjamindunne8132 thats just not true? Hes got 13 chapters on her so his bases will be better, and their growths are pretty much the same

[@rosaparks6479]

Chrom has 5% more strength and 10% more defense Lucina has 5% more skill and speed, and 10% more magic. However Lucina joins 13 chapters later, and with 10 more levels she has 3 more strength, 1 more mag, 6 more skill, 4 more speed, 2 more defense and 3 more res than chrom had 13 chapters ago, which is some pretty terrible levels

[@rosaparks6479]

But if you actually have been using chrom (as you should because he good) he'll of leveled up 10 to 20 times, probably already reclassed into cavalier and maybe even already promoted to a paladin or great knight, meaning that his stats will completely dwarf Lucinas at the time of her joining Theyre basically equal in growths, but with lucina joining with poor stats for her level 13 chapters later shes not going to surpass chrom anytime soon if you dont baby her. Shes still a good unit but claiming she surpasses him or that he drops off is absurd

[@stormyseas5193]

I hate the second seal. Hope it never returns I do like pair-up tho, evenif its not the most liked

[@Arthurdbsxx]

Dude O'donnel is shit just at first recruite. O'donnel can Ace any character if you KNOW how to use it.

[@marcomorgen300]

While Awakening has a granted number of issues. If it were not thanks to this game, we would not be enjoying Fire Emblem content nowadays

[@EviIM0nk3y]

Archers and lunatic + saves you so many headaches from counter.

[@Arthurdbsxx]

In the long run man, all character is nothing compared with O'donnel, If you really KNOW Fire Emblem.

[@bashfulpanda2596]

Algorithm yo

[@Anonymos185]

You know what? Donnel is not *bad*. 9 years after release, after the fandoms great hype turned into deep disdain, my conclussion is that he's really... neither Pretty much every KZbin tierlist maker jumped on the bandwagon of "prepromote trainee bad" and tried to apply logic from earlier FE unto Awakening and Donnel. But the comparison is useless. Because Awakening units level FAR more often than in earlier games. Fe7 Nino for instance, even ignoring her late jointime has at best 15+20 chapters to grow, and lkely conciderably less with early promotion. A Donnel that sees constant use can likely make it through nearly his entire class registry without grinding before Grima, so that's 10-20 levels in villager, mercenary and fighter, followed by 15-20 in Hero, Warrior and/or Bow Knight. Once again, I can confirm that this is possible to do at least 5 classes *without* grinding. With that many more levelups with his superior growths, he will quickly begin to outpace most units statwise, and only keep widening the gap for the rest of the game. When you actively train Donnel, he is dead weight for 2-3 chapters, below average for 2-3 chapters more, average for 2-3 chapters more, above average for 2-3 chapters more and then amongst your best units for the rest of the game. Depending on child paralogues that can be anything between 15-30 chapters where Donnel is absolutely amazing, which is more than a fair investment by FE standards. Now in a game where Robin can solo, Nosferatu is broken and Pairup is insane you don't need Donnel to do any of this. He's not S-tier because other units can be as effective without the painful start. But he's also not F-tier, because he can outperform most of the units for conciderably more than half of the game, with the same amount of effort. Armsthrift, Sol and Axebreaker also aren't skills worth sneering at, and he's an amazing father with Galeforce and Aptitude. Fire Emblem unit quality is about how much value you got out of every ounce of effort put into making a character good, averaged from the moment they join, to the moment the game ends. Donnel is a hefty investment, but one that pays out more value than effort across every chapter combined, which is more than can be said for most units. I'd probably put him in C- or B-tier.

[@glitchless8947]

Make Nowi a wyvern rider. Easy claps

[@mathishd5558]

Her bases are so bad, she has 19 HP and 6 speed in chapter 8

[@glitchless8947]

@@mathishd5558 thats why you max her as a manakete then make her a wyvern knight. Its ez claps

[@mathishd5558]

@@glitchless8947 you know to get her to max level you have to go through these bad bases to get there and also what makes nowi better than other people that can go into flying classes or join as flying class that join earlier or can fight without babying. Her growths aren't better than anyone

[@glitchless8947]

@@mathishd5558 I think maxing was a bit too high, more like a few levels over the second seal min. I mean I had a real good time having Nowi in my party and opinions are welcome but I will admit, there are worse characters in the game.

[@mathishd5558]

@@glitchless8947 One other thing is that once you have reclass you can only use bronze axes which means she can't use 1-2 range to attack safely, but of course there is worse but not much virion joins early on with the same advantage of 2 range free chip along with the advantage of flying effectiveness and ect. Nowi is probably in top 10 worst character in awakening lunatic. She is not the worst, Donnel lack 2 range which means he can't safely get kills and also has worst reclass options.

[@shardtheduraludon]

*sees Donnel in F and Nowi in D* *questions this person’s validity*

[@rosaparks6479]

They're horrible units wdym

[@shardtheduraludon]

@@rosaparks6479 Yes, they need to be worked on intensively, but when they start going, none but they stand.

[@rosaparks6479]

@@shardtheduraludon Robin, the fliers, tharja, ect are all just as good if not better and dont need babying

[@shardtheduraludon]

@@rosaparks6479 Donnel and Nowi have a much lower floor, but a much higher ceiling. Yes, the babying is a huge drawback, but get them there and they absolutely shred

[@rosaparks6479]

@@shardtheduraludon but they dont have a higher ceiling, unless youre grinding, and if youre grinding then the game is so easy that unit viability ceases to matter

[@SolarYoshi]

nowi hatred and slander on every awakening video :(

[@TheTrains13]

"I took advice from bad players." You mean you blindly believed players who knew a ton about fire emblem but they blindly believed they could not be wrong. That's why I only take advice on how to make everyone into a 4 movement armor knight

[@silvertipstudio9622]

Im disliking this video you did not make the obvious joke of ignoring Kallem Edit: acknowledged

[@Zarathustra-rj4yz]

Damn typical FE fans can't appreciate anything positive about the games and gripe over the lamest shit whilst praising the games that never released in the west because they're elitist weebs. Just enjoy the goddamn masterpiece for what it is.

[@ProfessorBopper]

Can’t tell who this is directed towards because of how unspecific you are, but if your attacking me with those arguments then you’re barking up the wrong tree

[@Zarathustra-rj4yz]

Pertains to all FE fans(except me). Love the series, hate the fans. 😊