The Greatest Pegasus Knight in the Series - Caeda (Shadow Dragon)

http://www.zerochan.net/801916

                       You want to know why Caeda is # 1 on this list? It isn't because of her base stats, it isn't because of her growth rates. The only reason why Caeda is this high up the list is that freaking Wing Spear. The funny thing here is that in every other game that she's in, Caeda gets outclassed by Palla and Catria. It's funny how the one time Caeda beats Palla and Catria is the one time where it actually mattered. The best to worst versions of Caeda go like this:

Shadow Dragon Caeda >>> FE 12 Caeda > FE 3 Caeda > FE 1 Caeda

                    Just to be clear, Caeda is never bad in any of the games that she's in, much like Palla and Catria, it's more about good, better and best. Caeda's strength and defense is usually brought up as a negative for her in each of the games that she's in. How she overcomes this problem affects her overall performance in each and every game. In Fire Emblem 1 she loses 5 speed and 2 skill upon promotion. Yeah, it's pretty sad http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Shiida. Her growth rates in that game are very good however (they're certainly better than her Shadow Dragon growths) and she's part of your army from Chapter 1 onward (just like in Shadow Dragon) so she's at least got that going for her. Her Fire Emblem 3 version is only slightly better. In Fire Emblem 3 she has small Marth and Ogma support bonuses (yes they existed back in Fire Emblem 3, although they're nothing like what supports are today) and this time around her promotion bonuses are better. However, Caeda still has that strength and defense problem and this time around she has to deal with dismounting, which also causes her to lose a few stats. Her Fire Emblem 12 version has the same perks as her Fire Emblem 3 version, but this time around she has the Wing Spear. True, the Wing Spear isn't as ZOMG-AMAZING as it is in Shadow Dragon due to the fact that there aren't as many horses in this game, but it still exists and is very helpful. In Fire Emblem 12 she can also reclass to a Paladin to help out with her strength and defense, which helps her out tremendously and forges exist in this game too. Also, Caeda is very useful in the prologue of Fire Emblem 12 too, even in the Lunatic and Reverse Lunatic difficulties. That being said, she is still outclassed by a good number of units (My Unit, Catria, Palla and Marth) which looks kind of "meh" in comparison to how awesome she is in Shadow Dragon.

             

                           Caeda is simply a monster in Shadow Dragon. There is no doubt that she is in fact your best unit. As I mentioned before the reason for this is that her Wing Spear breaks the game in half, so any serious discussion of Caeda must also discuss just how game-breaking that Wing Spear is. I should also mention that Caeda can also reclass into a swordmaster so that she can eliminate manaketes who are too fast to deal with as a wyvern knight. Fortunately for Caeda wyrmslayers exist and they can be forged too. The Wing Spear is basically a spear version of Marth's rapier. Here are the stats for the Wing Spear:
Mt - 8 

Hit - 90 

Crt - 10 

Wt - 4

* Effective against armored knights and cavaliers*.

                     What's better is that the Wing Spear can be forged. Every point of might that you increase on the Wing Spear becomes three extra effective might towards the vulnerable schmucks that cross her path. According to Ronaldo Villanueva "adding six Mt points leaves the weapon with 42 effective Mt, capable of decimating enemies in one hit, essentially duplicating its durability." For the sake of craziness let's assume that you forge the Wing Spear by the maximum amount of might that you can in this game, by 10 points. That leaves you with 18 might and 54 effective might which is almost double the might of a Jugdral Regalia weapon. Remember, we only need to add six might points just to murder things in a single hit. That is the insanity that we're dealing with. A forged Wing Spear allows Caeda to kill bosses who are armor knights and cavaliers in a single round of combat with ease. I've actually gone through the trouble to count how many bosses in Shadow Dragon are either armor knights, cavaliers or manaketes. 

I've also comprised a list of chapters where a significant number of armor knights, cavaliers and manaketes make up your enemy's army and have listed how many of each appear in their respective chapters:

20 / 29 bosses (15 bosses are either armor knights or cavaliers. 5 bosses are manaketes, not counting Medeus for obvious reasons)

Chapter 4: 7 / 18

Chapter 5: 7 / 16

Chapter 6: 8 / 24

Chapter 7: 7 / 17

Reinforcements: 8 / 8

Chapter 8: 13 / 17

Chapter 12x: 11 / 17

Chapter 14: 10 / 21

Chapter 16: 11 / 17

Chapter 17x: 11 / 27

Chapter 18: 20 / 21

Chapter 19: 10 / 17

Chapter 20x: 19 / 21

Chapter 24: 9 / 19

                    If you round up, Caeda kills 69 % of all bosses in the game in a single round of combat with either her Wing Spear or with a wyrmslayer. As you can see, there are also a significant number of enemies in numerous levels where there are a significant number of enemies that she will kill in a single hit with either a Wing Spear or a wyrmslayer. No other unit in her game has that kind of an impact. What's better is that this strategy's effectiveness isn't dependent on your play-style. You want to play casually? Go ahead. Caeda's still going to wreck enemies with ease. You want to Warp-Skip the game? Well she's your go-to boss-killer. As long as you're playing with growths (could someone confirm how effective she is in a 0 % growths playthrough?) she will break your game with ease. She can even turn H5 into a joke.

Credit to SubaruSumeragi http://www.zerochan.net/1272374

              Ronaldo Villanueva also had some great insights of his own to share about her game-breaking awesomeness:

                        Base Sheeda with a +6 Mt forged Wind Spear has 46 effective Atk, 12 AS, which is more than enough to reach the OHKO to the mentioned cavaliers with 30 HP, 7 Def. (He's talking about the cavaliers in Chapter 4) Additionally, base Sheeda with 46 effective Atk can reach the OHKO to Benson, the boss of the aforementioned chapter with 34 HP, 9 Def. Each level that Sheeda gets is valuable. Her strength growth of 20% doesn't matter since the Wing Spear has massive power, and she gets +4 Str as a promotion bonus anyways, but each speed point obtained through her 85% growth allows her to double-attack even more enemies in late-game. For example, Sheeda Lv11/2 has 24 HP, 49 effective Atk, 21 AS, 13 Def with a +5 Mt forged Wind Spear. With this, she can ORKO Stallone, the boss of Chapter 18, who has 44 HP, 11 Def, 17 AS, while she gets 2HKOd by his 34 Atk. GG the rest of the game.

                                 I'll finish up with a quote from someone on serenesforest.net about Caeda's impact on Shadow Dragon: If Marth goes Murderface with Forged Rapier...then Shiida goes on a rampage equivalent to watching all the movies in the Friday the 13th series in fast-forward AT THE SAME TIME thanks to Wing Spear. (Gone2Ground, "http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=31699)

Ronaldo Villanueva's Analysis: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ronaldo-villanueva/top-15-unidades-de-fire-emblem-de-todos-los-tiempos-parte-2/851379861570794 (Translated by Ronaldo Villanueva himself. Thanks buddy. :D )