Best Weapon for both games: Lances
Worst Weapon in Shadow Dragon: Swords
Worst Weapon in New Mystery: Axes
In both of the Marth DS remakes Lances are really good. The main reason is basically the same: They provide a plethora of weapons that deal effective damage against a wide variety of enemy units that simply need to die.
These weapons are:
- Caeda’s Wing Spear
- Ridersbane
- Dragonpike
- Flycatcher (in FE 12)
In Shadow Dragon swords are deemed the worst weapon type because:
(a) Consistent weapon triangle disadvantage since most of the enemies are lance wielders. This hurts swords even more since that means that sword wielders don’t get to take advantage of their juicy weapon rank bonuses.
(b) lower average might in a game where accuracy is more or less guaranteed.
According to Ronaldo the reason why axes are the worst weapon type in FE 12 axes is because: "Swords and Lances have dragon killer weaponry and other utilities, Magic has Nosferatu, Bows have Parthia and early utility against dracoknights...Axes are simply the least useful."
Awakening
Best Weapon: Tomes.
Worst Weapon: Bows
Yeah tomes are the best weapon in Awakening. You knew it. I knew it. We all knew it. Tomes give their users access to powerful weapons like Celica’s Gale, Nosferatu, and a host of other powerful weapons.
In Awakening the map objectives are “rout enemy” or “kill boss”. This means that weapons with consistent 1 - 2 range are important and weapons that can keep you alive while facing off against powerful groups of enemies are going to be more valuable.
Awakening also makes weapons like these more accessible than they otherwise would be in any other Fire Emblem game. The fact that you can forge both Celica’s Gale and Nosferatu also means that they’re going to be even more powerful than before. Combine Armsthrift with Limit Breaker and these weapons will never break.
During the previous post I said something about why bows are the worst weapon type in Radiant Dawn:
"Radiant Dawn also adds insult to injury by having a significant portion of the game be the "Rout" objective. The reason why this matters is because "Rout" heavy games tend to benefit powerhouse units who can wipe out huge enemy armies during the Enemy Phase. Since archers can't counterattack 1 range enemies on the Enemy Phase that means that there's a significant portion of the game where they simply cease to exist."Unfortunately that same line of reasoning also applies to Awakening. When you have a Fire Emblem game that has a significant number of “Rout Enemy” chapters the end result is that a lack of Enemy Phase combat prowess is going to hurt your performance. Bows don’t have 1 - 2 range so they don’t exist during the Enemy Phase.
Fates
Best Weapon Type: Hidden Weapons and Magic
Worst Weapon Types: Bows
So why are Hidden Weapons on this list? There are mainly two reasons:
a) They can debuff enemies
b) They have 1 -2 range while not having the same drawbacks that most 1 -2 range weapons have.
If you’re wondering why Magic is on here a lot of it has to do with the Horse Spirit. Horse Spirit is a scroll that gives its user a + 3 to Skill, Speed, Defense and Resistance without any drawbacks. Since it’s a tome it automatically has 1 - 2 range. So basically we have a 1 - 2 range weapon that gives very good stat boosts without any drawbacks or penalties. That already separates it from the vast majority of the other weapons in the game.
In case you’re wondering why I picked bows for “worst weapon type” it’s because Revelations and Birthright are also rout heavy games, which means that the lack of an Enemy Phase still screws them over.
