Unit Balance List

Best Balanced Tier: Mystery of the Emblem (Fire Emblem 3 Book 2), Thracia 776

Better Balanced Tier: Gaiden, Birthright

Mixed Feelings Tier:  Conquest, Blazing Sword, Path of Radiance

Flawed, But Still Has Its Merits: Awakening, Sacred Stones, Holy War, 

Pretty Bad: Binding Blade, FE 1, Shadow Dragon,  

Garbage Tier: Radiant Dawn, Fates: Revelation, New Mystery of the Emblem (FE 12)

Why I have these games ranked the way that they are

                      

                          Mystery of the Emblem & Thracia 776: Both of these games have two things in common that do wonders for their unit balance:

• They both have caps of 20 in addition to growth altering items: This basically means that most characters can be raised to an acceptable level of combat. There are a lot of options to choose from and you definitely get rewarded for your efforts.

• They both have Dismounting: Dismounting is arguably the best mechanic for reigning in the power of high movement juggernauts. One of the biggest problems with unit balance in the Fire Emblem series is that high movement units tend to tower over infantry units. This is why one of my “Ten Tips to Improve the Series” post was titled ‘Nerf the Ponies’ (see here for more details: http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2015/11/ten-tips-to-improve-fire-emblem-2.html ). This is a problem that most games have and only a few actually try to do something about it.

                                    With dismounting there will be levels where high movement units will not have high movement. Generally speaking high movement characters will not necessarily be your default units to use here which means that other units get time to shine in the spotlight. This is what you want when it comes to unit balancing.

                                  Thracia 776 also has the fatigue mechanic which is actively designed to make you use a higher variety of units. Unfortunately warp skipping is a very efficient strategy in that game which hurts its overall balance. Mystery of the Emblem doesn’t do warp skipping although it’s more mount dominant than Thracia and it has the Again staff. Both of these games have weak enemies which means that it’s not difficult to train whoever you want and neither game lend themselves well to soloing (although warp skipping isn’t that much better). 

                                  Gaiden: Believe it or not I do believe that Gaiden has better unit balance than it often gets credit for. The majority of the cast is usable and the game lacks its Wendy / Fiona equivalents. The wonky inventory system means that you’re forced to spread your items and weapons around instead of giving your best units all your best stuff. It’s true that Alm, Celica, Silk and your Pegasus Knights stand head and shoulders above the rest of the cast but when you compare them to the juggernauts of other games these guys tend to require more work and effort. Unfortunately this game does not balance classes out very well. Pegasus Knights, Archers and Mercenaries are way better than other classes and sport huge advantages. Even with these advantages there are lackluster units in each of these classes so they’re not often guarantees for success.

                          Everybody gets to stand in the limelight which gives Gaiden an advantage over other games. Gaiden is also one of the least mount dominant games in the series. Sure Palla and Catria are proof that having high movement can still be a really big advantage but none of your cavaliers are super amazing. Both Claire and Est are Pegasus Knights who aren’t game breakers so even with evidence to prove the contrary I still think Gaiden is less mount dominant than other games which again is a HUGE advantage that should not be taken lightly.  

                                  Birthright: Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Yes, I know that Corrin and Ryoma can obliterate the game with relative ease. That being said Birthright gives you a ridiculous number of resources so you can give both your best units and your not-so-powerful units a healthy helping of resources without having to worry about competition. It’s also pretty easy to boost one’s stats to curb stomping levels and with low quality enemies this shouldn’t be particularly difficult. This game is low on awful units so you’re free to use just about anybody that you want. If Ryoma and Corrin weren’t so dominant I’d give Birthright a higher rating.

                               Conquest & Blazing Sword: These are the two games that people instantly point to as having the best unit balance in the series. While these games have their merits I also think they’re overrated in this category. So let’s go over their merits first. Neither of these games are soloable. That puts them above other games. They both have casts of characters that have their uses and they do an above average job of getting the player to use different characters at different times.

                                  That being said they both have problems that tend to fly under people’s radars. For starters they both have their fair share of units that are not worth using. Conquest has Odin, Nyx, Benny, Charlotte, Lazlow, your second servant, etc. Blazing Sword has Karla, Wallace, Nino, Dorcas, Batre, etc. Also while neither of these games have solo machines they get pretty close. Marcus is way better than he often gets credit for among the non ltc crowd and lol at anybody who tries to argue that Camilla doesn’t overshadow anybody not named Corrin.

                            Blazing Sword gives you a lot of prepromotes that are good enough to discourage using a fair number of growth units. The best example of this is Pent versus every other magic user you come across. It also is one of the Top 3 Most Mount Dominant Games in the series. Cavaliers and Pegasus Knights pretty much dominate the top ranks. Blazing Sword suffers from the same problem that people give Holy War crap for. Javelins and Hand Axes also tend to rule the game while most weapons weigh too much.

                              Conquest has some pretty insanely powerful enemies that can rip most units apart. This disincentivizes usage of non royal characters. To be fair non royal runs are possible even on Lunatic mode, but they’re significantly harder from what I hear. Plus all 3 of my playthroughs tended to give me the impression that a good chunk of the cast falls off a cliff after a certain point in the game. Having less experience to go around also discourages using weaker units and even the smallest miscalculation in resource management can screw the player over. The game reeks of “cheese or die” and often cheesing turns into a game of “kill quickly or else”. It doesn’t tend to leave room for variation or unit building.

                              So yeah, these games have their fair share of problems. On the other hand, I do think that they’re better balanced than most other games. They still have enough merit to prevent me from completely ripping them apart although if someone comes along with a better argument I could be persuaded otherwise.

                                 Path of Radiance: And here’s another game that tends to fly underneath most people’s radars. I think the main reason why is because it isn’t as obvious who the powerhouses are and because of the fact that the game is easy so any number of character can do relatively well. However, Path of Radiance is one of the most mount dominant games in the series. In fact some people have argued that Path of Radiance is even worse than Holy War in this respect. I think the main problem here is that Path of Radiance tries to give everybody good combat. This approach looks good on paper but to quote Syndrome from The Incredibles: “And when everyone's super...no one will be”. Once everyone has good combat it becomes a game of mount vs. no mount and of course the mounted units will always win.

                                   Bonus experience and forges tend to act like double edged swords in this category. On the one hand you can give these things to weaker units in an attempt to boost their usability. On the other hand you could just as well give them to your juggernauts and make them even better. Most of the cast is viable which gives Path of Radiance a nice boost, but unfortunately the disproportionate advantage that higher movement units have does it hurt it considerably.

                           Awakening / Sacred Stones / Holy War: There’s a reason why these three games are in the same tier. They all have glaring, obvious balancing issues that people give them crap over but they also have positives that most people tend to ignore in their haste to criticize them. All three of these games can be soloed easily by their super-mega-ultra chicken juggernaut (Robin, Seth, Sigurd) and they get crapped on for it, but they also have more unit viability than people give them credit for

                            Of these three games Awakening has the highest unit viability. Most of the first generation show up pretty early so you’re given ample amounts of time to train whoever you want. Pair-Up is absurd so while you can choose to have Robin obliterate the game you could also pair up other units and have them destroy the game. Heavy numbers of rout maps combined with Pair Up encourage the player to prioritize stats over strategy. 

                        The game is very generous with the amount of money and resources that are available so resource management is virtually non-existent. Yes Robin and Dark Magic are hilariously overpowered, but then again when most of the cast can also destroy parts of the game too then perhaps the game isn’t quite as unbalanced as we’ve been led to believe. Awakening has few units that are actually bad, especially in comparison to other games in the series which is enough of a saving grace for me to consider it to be superior to other games in the series.

                         Sacred Stones likewise has the obvious issue of Seth but outside of him you do have a cast that consists of mostly usable characters. Much like Path of Radiance Sacred Stones suffers from being easy which means that good combat isn’t terribly hard to come by. Fortunately it’s not quite as mount dominant as Path of Radiance, but the trade-off here is Seth. You do get outliers in the opposite direction like the trainees, Marisa or Knoll but they tend to be the exception, not the rule.

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                           And now to Holy War. Oh man, when it comes to Holy War lots of people pride themselves in ripping this game’s unit balance apart. While many of the criticisms are valid I do think this game is more balanced than others give it credit for. A lot of its problems are on the surface and are obvious, but once you start looking past the surface there’s more to this game than meets the eye. What do I mean by that? Well let’s start with a particular Holy War criticism shall we?

            “I think we can all agree that Genealogy does balance the worst, though.

Here is a flowchart: Do you have a Horse? If not, major holy blood? If not, Pursuit? And, lastly, at least minor holy blood?

If you say no to all of these, congratulations! You suck. If you have at least 3 of these, you are a god. 2 and you're great; 1 and you're better than the Armor duo at least.”

                             First things first: Despite having gargantuan maps, the possession of a horse does not automatically make you amazing. Here’s a list of mounted units in Holy War who are neither amazing nor game-breaking:

• Alec
• Noish
• Mideel
• Beowulf
• Fin
• Tristan
• Delmud
• Nanna
• Lester
• Tristan
• Jeanne
• Oifey

                   Now to be fair some of them are pretty good. Fin, Oifey and Lester are great units. Nevertheless, they are not amazing. Alec, Beowulf, Noish and Mideel are mediocre, Nanna and Delmud are kind of meh and the substitutes are pretty bad. Meanwhile Shannan, Levin and Sety are examples of foot units who are legitimately powerful.

                   You’d think the lack of Pursuit would actually make you near useless but that isn’t the case either. In fact most of the best units in the first generation don’t have Pursuit. Here's a list of them:

• Sylvia
• Levin
• Cuan
• Ethlin
• Lex

                    In the second generation Leif and Altenna don’t start out with Pursuit and Levin!Arthur is amazing even without it. I’m not saying that Pursuit doesn’t have an important impact on the game, but to simply say that not having it instantly makes you bad is demonstrably untrue.

                      Another interesting thing is that Altenna should be considered godly according to that chart. Here’s the “flowchart”: Do you have a Horse? If not, major holy blood? If not, Pursuit? And, lastly, at least minor holy blood? She doesn’t have a horse, but she can fly so she has high movement and can also ignore terrain. She has both major AND minor holy blood, a holy weapon and she gets Pursuit pretty quickly. Yet, in spite of all these things, she’s usually considered mid to lower mid tier in most Holy War tier lists and isn't generally considered amazing or game-breaking.

                  One more point about that “flow chart” is that most characters in Holy War at the very least have 2 of the 3 things mentioned so by this chart's definition most units don't suck. The one thing this person got right was that lacking all of those 3 means that you suck, but that only applies to a small number of units. Everybody else has something going for them, plus I could continually make a list of characters who have two of the three aforementioned things and yet do not qualify as “great” but I think I’ve done my part in debunking this person's criticism.

                  The reason why I chose to respond to that quote is because I feel like it’s representative of how Holy War critics think and behave and it’s a prime example of how most people only skim towards the surface when discussing Holy War’s issues. I’m not trying to suggest that Holy War doesn’t have issues. It certainly does, but they're often exaggerated or repeated ad-nausea without much thought being put into them. The game is mount dominant and the existence of Pursuit is a stupid idea, but it is possible to be a good unit without either of those things. Most of the cast in both generations can be used without ridiculous amounts of effort. The usefulness of the second generation is also is wholly up to the player and most of the children characters are usable even without their optimal pairings. Moral of the story: Holy War's unit balance is often not as bad as most people say it is. 

Binding Blade: This game deserves all the criticism that it gets for unit balance. Way too much of the cast is bad and don’t forget this is the game where Sophia and Wendy exist. People who defend Binding Blade rightfully point out that the top tiers aren’t as dominant as they are in other games. This is true, but then I ask myself this: Would I rather have a game where the super juggernauts could solo the game, but also have the rest of the cast comprise of mostly usable units OR have a cast where the top tiers can’t solo but also have to ignore a legion of garbage units?

                              Personally I’d rather opt for the former as opposed to the latter. At least I could pick and choose who I get to use with the former while choosing not to solo the game, whereas in a game like Binding Blade my options are limited. Not only that but I always question why characters like Wendy exist. What purpose do they serve? What were the devs thinking when they put that character in there?

FE 1 / Shadow Dragon: Warp skipping says hi. Also, these games have huge casts. More often than not (meaning that exceptions do exist here) big casts will tend to screw your game’s unit balance. There are no growth altering items like in Thracia and since the enemy make up in both games mostly consist of Armor Knight and Cavaliers access to weaponry that deals effective damage against these guys tends to have a HUGE disproportionate effect on both games. Marth’s Rapier in FE 1 and Caeda’s Forged Wing Spear in Shadow Dragon both say hi.

                                  FE 1 is the more balanced of the two games since enemies are significantly weaker and because stat boosters are more ridiculous so its easier to boost a weaker character’s stats up. Shadow Dragon, if my memory is correct, has a bigger cast and a slew of lousy pre-promotes. Also, I think FE 1 might give you more money so that also plays a role too.

                           Radiant Dawn: Oh look, another game with a huge cast of characters. Hmm...I wonder if there’s a connection here. Jokes aside it was not a good idea to bring back virtually the entire cast of Path of Radiance in addition to adding new characters as well. Availability is all over the place and it can screw over any character who’s only in the game for a few chapters. While you can say that about any game this is more common in Radiant Dawn. Like Path of Radiance you can give bonus experience to your weaker units, but you can also give bonus experience to your stronger ones too. A good chunk of the cast tends to fall off a cliff after a certain point in the game and then you get to use more laguz royals for a longer period of time. Laguz got nerfed hard and let us not forget that Meg and Fiona exist.

Fates: Revelations: Big cast of characters, most characters have either mediocre or terrible base stats for their join times and only a small handful of characters are worth using. Also, here’s a quote that I also thinks applies here: “It's less about that - after all, that can be solved by grinding if the character's growths/personals are worth it(see: Elise, the game's answer to L'Arachel).

It's just that some underwhelming chars which MIGHT have had a chance to be useful are just utterly destroyed by the statting of other units that join a few chapters later(kaze vs saizo), or ON THE SAME SAME CHAPTER THEY'RE IN(effie vs benny), or just plain face palmingly bad join levels that make them crap in the same chapter they join(leo and xander's retainers). All this together makes investment so much harder to justify, especially for no grind/minimal grind runs.”  

New Mystery of the Emblem:  This game should only have had a quarter of the cast that it currently has. Most characters in the harder difficulties join with base stats that are so bad that they either get double attacked right off the bat or they simply get one shotted by virtually everything. It’s hard to invest in any characters since resources are super limited, enemies are unbelievably powerful and there aren’t many opportunities to grind. It’s also hard to justify the existence of certain characters since the chances are high that there will be at least 4 or 5 other characters who can do what that character can do but like 1,000,000 times better. Note to the wise: Do not try to catch them all. Repeat: Do not try to catch them all. Pokemon lied to you. 


                       Keep in mind, I'm aware that every Fire Emblem game is far from the perfect balance that we're all looking for. However, some are better balanced than others. As I'll show in the next post or two the purpose of this criticism is to learn from the successes and failures of the previous games so that we can move forward in making future Fire Emblem installments better balanced.