Mount Dominance Ranking 4

Worst Tier: This is the tier reserved for the most mount dominant games in the series. There's either no reason, or very little reason, to use infantry units. 

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Conquest


This ranking will probably surprise a lot of people, so I guess I better explain myself. First, let's take a look at the best units in Conquest. Generally speaking your top tier characters in Conquest are:

• Corrin
• Camilla
• Jakob
• Azura
• Xander

Camilla is arguably more busted than Jill and Haar are in Radiant Dawn. Considering how much criticism Radiant Dawn gets for how powerful Jill and Haar are, I think it's only fair to give Conquest the same level of criticism (heck, you could argue that it deserves more). Xander is a tank on a horse, and there's little reason to reclass him out of it. 

Why is Jakob ranked so highly? It isn't because of what he can do as a Butler. It's because you can reclass him into a Paladin, and then eventually reclass him into a Wyvern Rider. It's generally agreed upon that the best class for Corrin is Malig Knight, so that's another strike against it.



Wyverns are considered to be the best class in Conquest too. Here's a quote from Fire Emblem reddit that explains how busted wyverns are in Conquest:

"FE14: IS, clearly noting that maybe they made CQ a little too hard, decided to give the Nohr-Flavoured Wyvern a bit of a push ahead. See, Wyvern grants great pair-up bonuses, decent skills, flight in a game that really likes flight, has great strength/bulk and decent speed, axes, the standard affair. You'd think it'd be strong but ultimately AOK. Then someone had a bright idea of making Malig Knight, a 8 move axe/magic monstrousity that gets great skills and unparalleled raw power.

Like, Camilla is very stupid good, obviously. Fe!Corrin can choose Wyvern as their talent, whereupon Jakob can inherit the classline because Lmao who did this and then the game abruptly splinters in 2.

Even Beruka, a unit who would suffer in any other classline, is B tier from her class alone.

FE14 let Wyvern get some great options and utilities with few drawbacks (if any?), whereupon it also let too many units have access to this classline to compound these issues."

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ct96lv/intelligent_systems_doesnt_know_how_to_balance/

Leo and Silas are also among the best units in the game and they're both mounted. Elise and Gunter are both mounted and they're considered pretty good. 


Well at least you have Kaze, Niles, Azura and Effie right? Azura's a dancer. Dancers will always be incredibly useful, even in games that are super mount dominant, so she doesn't count. Effie's only useful early to mid game, but she'll eventually fall off a cliff. Here's a quote from reddit that sums up her usefulness quite nicely:

"A unit who is surprisingly helpful thanks to instant promotion. Can usually gain enough exp throughout chapters 7-10 to reach promotion and can help feed off the archers on the right in chapter 10 to reach level 10 if not already done so. When instantly promoted into a Great Knight, Effie becomes a walking tank. 7 move is actually good for early game and Effie’s attack is so high that she can flat out ohko enemies with a forged javelin such as Samurai, Ninjas and Pegasus Knights. Her speed isn’t that bad and with promotion, as well as an Arthur pair up she can manage to double some of the slower enemies in the game such as Apothecaries and Knights. Thanks to her high defense and ability to ohko some enemies Effie’s early game combat is actually pretty solid. She can also function long term as a pair up bot for Niles, giving him strength and defense as well as an extra point of move. 

Effie can function fine long term but feeding her enough for long term is usually stretching her usefulness and instant promoting her means she’s only really useful for early to mid game."

 (Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/agp1ap/rfireemblem_made_a_conquest_tier_list_redux/)

So Effie lacks long term viability and it's generally the best strategy to instant promote her to a Great Knight.

Kaze's legitimately useful without having to get a mount. Congratulations Conquest, you got one solid infantry unit. It's hard to tell with Niles. Bow Knight has a lot of great perks, but it isn't the obvious strategy to make him that. To be fair, Niles is still useful even if you don't make him a mounted class, so I'll give this one to Conquest. 



So if we just use this tier list as a frame of reference for the game, Virtually every B tier character or higher in the game either begins with a mount, or the best strategy is to promote / reclass that character into a class that has one. Unlike Fire Emblem 12, there's very little reason to reclass your mounted units into infantry units so reclassing ends up working against the game, not for it. 

 Yeah...that's a HUGE negative for a game that supposedly has "the best gameplay in the series." Yeah right. This game does not have the best gameplay in the series. And this is just one of many issues that Conquest has.

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Awakening



The next game on this list is Awakening. Chances are, you probably already know what I'm going to say next: Dark Fliers are stupidly busted. And you would be right. Galeforce is obscene. And to make matters worse, it's totally possible to to have 2 characters in a Pair-up both have Galeforce. To the game's credit, Nosferatu tanking is also super busted as well. You could make the argument that at least Sorcerers are really good. Unfortunately, it's not enough to compensate. Fem!Robin is better than Male!Robin because she has access to Dark Flier, and therefore Galeforce. 

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Fates: Revelation


At least half of Revelation is flight skippable. Here are two quotes that say it all about the game:
“The gist is Corrin > Azura > Camilla > Servants/Gunter > Ryoma/Xander/Leo > People with flight > Non-flight-Prepromotes > Staffbots > Everyone else > Odin > Nyx

Most of the cast doesn't do much in Rev. The first half is all a mostly a Corrin carry then with some Camilla. The second half is pretty much all flight skipped with Ryoma/Xander/Leo only having like 3 chapters where their routing capabilities actually can contribute. There are a lot of chests, but pretty much all of them are irrelevant since you get so many drops in the game so not much reason to not just fly up to the bosses most of the time.” 

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/4fdj49/revelations_tier_list_from_s_to_odin_rank/



“17 (Iago is just over the hill), 19 (Mostly just to go over the fallen pillars and reach the boss really early, still a lot of combat though for Corrin), 20 (Bridges), 22 (Fly over the trees. Burning them still leaves terrain penalties and the Spy Yumi Snipers are only in two corners), and 23 (Floating platforms). 24 is a stealth mission where not much else is happening for other people. 26 and 27 the boss is basically right there. Really only 18, 21, 25 and E are the only chapters where you need a number of other units to actually do a lot of combat.”

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/4fdj49/revelations_tier_list_from_s_to_odin_rank/d281exk/

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And now, the Top 3 Most Mount Dominant games in the series are...

Third Worst: Path of Radiance


Even the dancers have wings in this game. Virtually all of your best units either have wings (Marcia, Jill, Reyson and Tanith all say hi) or they're mounted (Titania, Oscar, Kieran, etc) Your best infantry unit is Soren, followed by Ilyana. Boyd is also fairly good, despite his lack of a mount. They're it. Every other infantry unit has problems holding them back. Lack of a mount happens to be one of them. 

Because of the fact that enemies are super weak, it's really easy to 1 Round KO enemies. If any unit can reasonably get good combat, then it's difficult to stand out all that much. When that happens, the game devolves into "mount vs no mount". Path of Radiance brought Holy War style Canto back, which hurts the game in this category as it makes mounts that much better to begin with.  

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Second Worst: Three Houses


Believe it or not, I actually consider Three Houses to be more mount dominant than Path of Radiance. Remember that quote about wyverns that I used about Conquest? Well, that same quote had something to say about Three Houses too:

"FE16: The reason I felt so inspired to make this post, really. Wyvern Riders have stupid easy requirements, stupid class bases in str/spd/defense, and they have a stupid master tier because why not.

In a game with unlimited reclass potential, why does Wyvern have to be so readily available? In DSFE, they were limited by class slots that prohibited more than an allotted amount to be fielded.

But in Three Houses? You can have Seteth, Hilda, Cyril, Petra, Ingrid and a plethora of other units in this class to go to town. They specialize in Axes/Lances Again and now they also have unlimited options for weapons they want to use. Hell, they even have Dismount, which gives them ~~ better stats when they dismount~~( it's actually -2 str/SPD woops)with ZERO penalty to a units actions or turns. You can mount/remount any time you goddamn like with zero repercussions.

...Well, not zero. Three Houses at least made certain Fliers could only use Flying Battalions, a smart decision to limit some of the best gambits in the game being used by them."

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ct96lv/intelligent_systems_doesnt_know_how_to_balance/




In case that wasn't enough, here are some more reasons why Wyverns are a busted class in that game:

"Wyvern Lords give a unit a boost in Strength, Speed and Defense while Falcon Knights give a boost in Speed, Dexterity and Resistance which generally are less important stats than what Wyverns provide. What also helps is that Brigand gives you one of the best skills in the game with Death Blow so almost anyone wants to get C in Axes, which is already halfway to what Wyverns need, which would be wasted if you went Falcon, plus Wyverns use a stronger Weapon type."

"Wyvern Lord uses a good weapon type, has really high movement and ignores terrain on a lot of maps. Though growths don't matter on a master class since your units will already be at a high level, it has high base stats; 4 strength, 4 speed and 3 defense compared to Falcoknight's 1 strength, 5 speed and no defense. It even gets Avo +10 on top of that which is good in a game that favors avoid tanking heavily."

Source for both quotes:
 https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/f883kb/what_makes_the_wyvern_lord_so_good/




Another reason why Three Houses is ranked as being super mount dominant is that there are no class limits. What separates Three Houses from other games when it comes to discussions about mount dominance is that you can make pretty much every character a Wyvern Lord (or a flier) and there's little reason not to. In each subsequent playthrough I've done of Three Houses, I've made more and more of my team a bunch of Wyvern Riders. Each playthrough is easier, and making them all Wyverns is a big reason why. 

You could argue that your Warp bots are better off not being Wyverns, because Warp. Lysithea has super high magic, so she's probably going to remain a magic user. But she's the exception to the rule. The fact that anyone in the game can be a flier with virtually no consequences is enough to label Three Houses as the second most mount dominant game in the series.  

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The Most Mount Dominant Game in the Series: Fire Emblem 4 - Genealogy of the Holy War



"Something something big map bad."

Holy War's gigantic maps give mounted units a disproportionate advantage over infantry units. The only time an infantry unit is considered good is either if they:

a) Have some type of utility unique only to them: Your dancers and Dew. Thief utility is really good in Holy War...at least during the first generation. It's not as useful in the Second Generation due to the inheritance system. Dancers are always amazing, so they don't count as a point in this game's favor.

b) They get a mount after promotion: Raquesis, Seliph and Leif are in this category. 

If you're an infantry unit that remains as an infantry unit though, it's not gonna happen. Having to move lengthy distances is just too time consuming. At least fliers don't get road bonuses in this game. That's a small consolation right? So if you're a unit in Holy War, get a mount, wings or be a dancer / thief. Otherwise, don't bother. 

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So here's the "Mount Dominance Tier List"