The Greatest Cavalier in Fire Emblem History - Seth

                 Fire Emblem - The Sacred Seth. Seth Emblem - The Sacred Seth. Fire Emblem 8 - Seth's Playground. Is anybody surprised that Seth is # 1? No? Well me neither. By now, Seth's ridiculousness is legendary. Seth is all you need to beat Fire Emblem 8. I guess Eirika and Ephraim exist for the sole purpose of seizing (and the story) but for the most part Seth will dominate Fire Emblem 8 and nobody is anywhere near close to how good he is.

                Seth will be in every chapter except one (I believe it's Ephraim first chapter in the game) so he's basically around forever. He starts the game with an A rank in swords and lances so he's using everything that isn't Regalia, although he'll be your first unit to use regalia due to his awesome weapon ranks. Seth murders 90 + percent of all enemies in the game with a javelin. A freaking javelin. It's also scary just how many mooks he can slaughter with an iron weapon as well. Also, the best units in our entire army don't even catch up to Seth's level without ridiculous amounts of favoritism or resources / turns. "Ephraim needs to be Lv14 on average to match Seth's str/def bases, and Franz doesn't hit Seth's str/def until Lv19, and needs to be Lv10 on average to match Seth's spd base." (Smiley Jim - Rate the Unit: Seth - http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=30304)

              Heck, even in the endgame Seth is still your best unit (arguably). Here's a list of endgame stats that helps prove my point:

           "Moreover, even in more "typical" playthroughs where Seth is not used for every task, Seth is still very adequate in terms of late-game stats:

Level 15 Seth B Franz
42.6 HP 21+2 STR 19.3 SKL 18.3 SPD 16.5 LUK 16.6+2 DEF 12.2+2 RES

Level 10 Franz B Seth
44.4 HP 19.2+2 STR 17.2 SKL 22 SPD 13.2 LUK 15+2 DEF 7.6+2 RES

Level 10 Forde A Kyle
45.55 HP 17.2+1 STR 20.5 SKL 19.35 SPD 15.05 LUK 14.6+1 DEF 8.75+1 RES

Level 10 Kyle A Forde
48.6 HP 22+1 STR 16.6 SKL 17.6 SPD 10.8 LUK 17+1 DEF 6.8+1 RES

And for kicks and giggles:

Level 6 Gerik
49.5 HP 21.75 STR 21 SKL 19.5 SPD 12.5 LUK 17.25 DEF 9.75 RES

(All these numbers brought to you by Anouleth in the Rate the Unit: Seth thread - http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=30304)

            So basically Seth is still competitive in the late-game while he makes the early and mid game of Fire Emblem 8 his personal punching bag. The reason why he's able to do this is because his growths are fantastic!

HP - 90%

Str - 50%

Skl - 45%

Spd - 45%

Def - 40%

Res - 30 %

Luck - 25%

             Holy growths Batman! Those are some of the best growths in the entire game! Seth also supports some of your higher tiered units as well like Franz and Cormag while also supporting Eirika (an important unit that you'll have to use if you go on Eirika route) and Natasha so he has that going for him too.

                 "One more thing I want to mention about Seth is that he gets to abuse 3x Mt slayer weapons, unlike for example FE7 Marcus or FE9 Titania. And unlike FE6 Marcus, he gets to have good accuracy with them. So whenever not even Silver or Killer weapons do the trick, Seth has access to an extra trick up his sleeve." (Mekkah - http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=18)

               I don't know what else there is to say about him. Seth is literally a textbook definition of a perfect unit. He has high movement, awesome availability, he's very durable, his growths are great and he slaughters everything without slowing down. If you don't give Seth a perfect score (10 / 10) then you get tarred and feathered. I'm just saying. Seth isn't just the greatest cavalier in Fire Emblem history, he's the second best unit in all Fire Emblem history. Seth is second only to Sigurd in terms of game-breaking awesomeness.

# 2 - Titania (Path of Radiance)

                 My reaction when playing Path of Radiance (a.k.a my first Fire Emblem game) for the first time: O_______O Holy crap! Titania is a 1 person army!

              I kind of wish that I hadn't gone along with the popular trend of that day of bashing pre-promotes but now that that train of thought has been changed my reaction to Titania is still the same after 10 years of playing Fire Emblem: Holy crap! Titania is a 1 person army!

               Titania, in Path of Radiance, is nothing short of a monster. She starts out her game being able to wield lances and axes, which are the best physical weapons in her game, and she just wrecks everything. Mekkah summed up her base stats beautifully when he said "33 HP/12 Str/14 Spd/11 Def turns Titania into an anything killer extraordinaire when some enemies are still trying to have a positive AS value. She can even take care of bosses on her own, and that's exactly what she should do to try and activate those beautiful growths." (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=16)

              Titania may not dominate the weapon triangle like Marcus but she compensates by having better growths which means that her domination of Path of Radiance has been assured.

HP: 80 %
Strength: 45 %
Skill: 60 %
Speed: 50 %
Luck: 45 %
Defense: 40 %
Resistance: 45 %

             Dang son! Those growths are awesome! Are you sure she's not a growth unit? Those growth percentages are usually what you'd see for a growth unit. Just to add even more ridiculous to the table there's the Knight Ward's defense and resistance boosts along with a + 30 % speed growth. Let's also not forget that bonus experience exists in this game so you can get extra level-ups FOR FREEEEEEEEE! (yes I just referenced the movie "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler in it. Despite hating Adam Sandler movies I actually liked that one)

                  
               Idk what else is left to say about Titania. She just dominates the game for forever and never stops being awesome. She would be # 1 if a certain red-head cavalier weren't even more ridiculous than her.

# 3 - Younger Marcus (FE 7)

                   Ah Marcus. Where do I begin? Marcus basically exemplifies everything that a powerful paladin / cavalier should have: High base stats, weapon triangle control and growths that allow him to stay powerful throughout the entire game. The primary ltc strategy for Fire Emblem 7 usually revolves around letting Marcus rush ahead and kill everything while everyone else stays behind and cleans up the left-overs.

              So what can be said about Marcus's base stats?

                 "Amazing. 15 str pretty much 2HKOs any generic enemy for the first half of the game (e.g. chapter 25 cavaliers have around 32 HP, 8 def to Marcus's 24 atk with Iron Axe and WTA), 11 spd doubles a huge portion of early-game enemies that hover around 6-7 AS, and 31 HP, 10 def allow Marcus to take an incredible amount of combat before succumbing" (dondon151 FE 7 character ratings: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=23766)

            Note: If dondon151 says amazing about something, you know it's going to be amazing because virtually nobody gets that kind of comment from him.

                  I should note that 11 speed is about as high as what Matthew gets at base and Matthew's a thief. Except unlike Matthew, Marcus has a horse, complete weapon triangle control and actual durability (Matthew is a scrub btw).

            Marcus starts out with an A rank in swords and lances and a B rank in axes. That's Percival level weapon ranks (except for an even better weapon rank in axes) except Marcus joins your army at the beginning of the game. Marcus can basically use any weapon he wants outside of Silver Axes and the regalia / S rank weapons. Marcus will probably be your first unit to use all of those weapons anyway just based on the fact that his weapon ranks are so much farther ahead of everybody else's.

                
                   Also being a prepromote has an advantage in a game where promotion items exist: He doesn't have to compete with anybody over who gets said promotion item. Also, many ltc players won't even get all of the promotion items because it costs too much turns. I realize that this applies to a good number of units on this list but for some weird reason I forgot to bring that up until now.

                The only reason why Marcus isn't higher on this list is primarily due to his growths (especially his speed growth). Marcus only has a 25 % speed growth so he's averaging 1 in 4 speed level-ups. Thankfully for Marcus this isn't as much of a problem for him as one might think due to the fact that FE 7 enemies and attack speed don't often mix so his base 11 speed will be enough to allow him to double scrubby generic enemies throughout the early and mid game. His defense growth is also really bad (15 %? Yuck!). Thankfully we have stat-boosters that rectify these problems but the thing is the two higher ranked cavaliers don't have this issue.

# 4 - Cavalier Chris (FE 12's My Unit)

             And now for the character that absolutely nobody saw coming: Chris, the My Unit from Fire Emblem 12 - Heroes of Light and Shadow. The rule for this list is that the most powerful version of a character can only make it on a list. Well, Chris has a lot of versions. Unlike Robin, Chris doesn't have a class unique to his/her self. You the player choose which class Chris starts out as and believe me there's a lot of different classes to choose from. Depending on who you talk to and what difficulty you're playing on there will usually be a different opinion on which class Chris should start out as. Cavalier is usually either the best or one of the best. As such, this is the class I'm choosing to go with. I may or not (probably not) choose to have another class involving Chris show up on a future list but for now, I'm going to assume the Cavalier class since that's arguably Chris's best class. Another reason why I may be choosing this class is because I'm biased towards it due to having recently completed a FE 12 playthrough with Chris being a cavalier (I named him Goku).

      

                       So now that we got the logistics out of the way you may be wondering why Chris is this high up. Well Chris is the first character on this list that's actually considered the best unit in his / her game. Up until now many of our other top tier cavaliers have been considered one of the best units in their games, but Chris actually is the best character in FE 12. Just look at any tier list of FE 12 and the top tier of that list will basically consist of all of Chris's different builds competing with each other for dominance. Sure you might see Mallesia and Catria up there but for the most part it's Chris that sits up there usually competing against all the different versions of himself.

                     Chris has perfect availability in FE 12 and basically gets 5 prologue chapters where he / she gets extensive amounts of training which is similar in a way to what Sain and Kent get in their game. Even in the harder difficulties of Fire Emblem 12 the optimal strategy revolves around rigging Chris's level-ups and letting him / her go to town on enemies while the rest of your army barely struggles to survive. The prologue also gives Chris the added benefit of having an actually good weapon rank once the prologue finishes.

(Here's the artwork for the female My Unit in FE 12. For reasons unknown to me the male cavalier is supposedly better than the female cavalier in terms of combat and in terms of artwork too. Could someone please explain this to me?)

                   Chris will also be your first character to actually be able to take 2 hits from an enemy. This is an outstanding accomplishment for a FE 12 character because nobody takes 2 hits from an enemy (ok this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously durability is a foreign concept in this game. So is dodging). This problem is even more exacerbated in Lunatic or Reverse Lunatic mode where the enemies are even that much more ridiculous. Having a character be able to survive an enemy phase is a pretty big deal and Chris will be first character to actually do so. I think Mekkah said it best: "Sometimes what you need is someone who kills things without dying. And that's what MU is." 

                     Thanks to the way FE 12 is set up you the player can increase Chris's growth rates and will increase some of Chris's base stats further making him / her an awesome game-breaking unit. Serenesforest.net has all of the different growth rates and base stat increases so it's actually easy to make a really good My Unit. Mekkah also pointed out another nifty perk that Chris comes with:
               "A last minor but cool thing about My Unit is that he supports everyone in the game. Supports have never been that great in FEDS, but sometimes if you stack them while having WTA, you can get some pretty decent results that might just put you through an extra enemy phase."

                       So overall, Chris is unbelievably broken in one of the most difficult Fire Emblem games in the series. Heck, Chris is one of the most powerful units in the entire series beginning a tradition of broken My Unit characters that Kamui will probably continue.

# 5 - Sirius (FE 3 Book 2)

           And here's our first dark horse contestant that very few people predicted would be on this list. I myself didn't originally anticipate Sirius being on the list (especially this high) when I created it but after talking to our resident Fire Emblem 3 expert, Sagi Heim, I have been convinced that this dude is just that awesome. All the information on this list was brought to you by Sagi Heim. Sagi, feel free to take a bow.
            So here's how Sirius in FE 3 was described to me: Think Percival, but with vastly superior availability in his game, good growths (for his game) and tankiness. I'm not saying that Percival's defense is bad, it's just not the first thing you think of when you think of Percival. Sirius in FE 3 has been noted for his defense not only by Sagi Heim, but also by serenesforest.net.
             Sirius has a 30 % defense growth, which is the highest defense growth out of any character in the game. Only a few other units have a 30 % defense growth so that's pretty pimpin'. What's also of note is that Sirius starts out with a base defense of 11 in a game where the caps only go up to 20. Combine that with a 30 % defense growth and HOLY COW! Sirius is going to laugh at the enemies who dare cross paths with him. Sirius also has a base of 13 speed which is practically light speed standards for a character that joins in chapter 4 of FE 3.

His growths are also really good:
HP - 80 %
Strength - 50 %
Skill - 50 %
Speed - 40 %
Luck - 30 %
Defense - 30 %
Resistance - 30 %
Weapon Level - 40 %

Did I mention that paladins in this game get a whopping 10 movement? Yeah that's pimptastic.

            Sirius is also part of a game whose experience gain formula is pre-promote friendly. Sirius will gain experience alongside all your other units so you can't even use the age old "experience drain" argument (not that you ever should but still). So you may or may not be convinced of Sirius's awesomeness in Fire Emblem 3. Well Sagi Heim was kind enough to produce a mountain of stats and numbers that show just how well Sirius performs AT BASE. All of the following calculations are just of him kicking butt without gaining a single point from his level-ups:

"Chap. 4 With a Iron Lance ORKO's all enemies 2RKO's the boss with a Steel lance. Reaches ORKO with a Silver Lance

Chap. 5 With a Iron Lance OHKO's mages 2RKO's Dragon knights with the Silver Lance ORKO's
Knights with the Silver Lance. 2RKO with the Steel lance. ORKO with the Armor Slayer. ORKO's Cavaliers with the steel lance ORKO's the boss with the Iron Lance


Chap. 7 OHKO's thieves and mages with the steel lance ORKO's knights with the steel lance 3RKO's the Dragon with the Silver Lance OHKO's the boss with the Silver Lance

Chap. 8 OHKO's thieves with the Iron Lance ORKO's Paladins with the Knight Killer 2RKO's Generals with the Armor Slayer 2RKO's Snipers with the Silver Lance

Chap. 9 ORKO's Bishops with the Iron Lance 2RKO's dragon Knights with the Silver Lance OHKO's mages and Thieves with the Iron Lance 2RKO's Snipers and Heros with the Silver Lance

Chap. 10 (dismounted) ORKO's mages with the Iron Sword ORKO's Mercenaries with the Iron Sword ORKO's bishops with the Steel sword

Sirius BASE is 5HKO'd by generic enemies during all the early-game

3HKO'd by Dragon Knights AKA most powerful enemies"

In addition to all those wonderful numbers I forgot to bring up the fact that Sirius joins your group already capable of wielding every sword and lance in the game including Regalia. That's the equivalent of an S rank in swords and lances and he joins in Chapter 4! He's also important for a certain endgame event so you might as well use him.

Overall, Sirius is a kick-butt paladin who turns Fire Emblem 3 into a joke. Heck, I might just want to play Fire Emblem 3 again just for Sirius and I hated Fire Emblem 3.

# 6 - Ares (Genealogy of the Holy War)

                  You know, I'm not a fan of most of the localized, translated names for the Holy War cast, but Ares is an exception. Naming this guy after the god of war seems appropriate given his amazing combat ability.

                   Mekkah's reaction upon Ares joining your army: "Really? I can have this? You know I will break your game with this, right? Well, thank you!" (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=9#entry1795748)

                    My reaction upon Ares joining my army: "Eltoshan's kid is joining my army? I've got a black knight on my team? OH HECK YES!"

                Aless just screams ridiculously awesome. 43 base attack with the Mystletainn in addition to Pursuit, Adept and Vantage (I'm using the modern names of the skills here. They're known as Continue and Ambush in Holy War). I should also point out that the Mystletainn gives the skill Critical and boosts Ares's skill by 20. Ares will start with a whopping 28 % chance of activating Adept (thanks to Holy War's ridiculous formula for calculating Adept) and a base 32 % chance of landing a critical hit with the Mystletainn. Keep in mind that in Holy War critical evade is always at 0 so the more skill Ares obtains the higher that crit percent chance is. Also, Holy War criticals deal more damage on average than your regular critical hits so a critical hit from Ares equates to a 1 hit KO. Yeah, that's pretty darn cool.

                       To get some further perspective on that only a small handful of units can avoid getting a critical hit from Ares. 99 % of all units in the game will get crushed in the meantime. The Mystletainn also provides Ares with a + 10 resistance boost which is pretty important in Holy War given how many bosses and late-game units are mages. It also allows Ares to ignore those ridiculously annoying status staves that enemies love to spam. I think Mekkah also provided some additional information that further proves my point:

                       "The longer the game goes on, the more important Res becomes. Ch7 and Ch8 both have Mage sisters (who looooove attacking Aless up close) and Blume. Around Ch10 is when the true magic show begins, with the Lopt Sect's Dark Mages and all their silly long range bull and accurate Jormung, an Ishtar encounter, and a Meteor shower. The Final chapter is pretty much an Aless and Celice playground, with Edda's very interesting and well designed (no) horde of Sleep staves, Meteor and Bolting. Pretty much every castle is guarded by a Dark Bishop with Fenrir and Jormung, and there's some Dark Mages standing on random cliffs. And of course there's a large amount of Sages coming with Ishtar, and Manfroy and friends..."
(Source: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=9#entry1795748)

Moral of the story: Resistance in the second generation is really important and Ares has a lot of it.

So to recap: Ares is a beast on a horse who's offensive prowess can roflstomp 99 % of all enemies in his game and his awesome resistance gives him long-term usefulness. I'll end with this little quote right here: "If Celice is the quarterback and Leaf is the receiver (who teleports the quarterback to his position, look this analogy only works so well), Aless is the lineman plowing through anything that stands between Team Horse and the endthrone." (Source: Renall - Rate the Unit: Aless. http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=32368)

# 7 - Percival (Binding Blade)

                      Percival fan girls I give you permission to fan-girl all over the place. Just be quick about it. Percival fan boys (which I am proud to call myself one) I also give you permission to fanboy as well. Just be quick about it.

                     Now that we're all done geeking out over him (which I highly doubt will ever happen but anyway) let's proceed to explain why Percival is here. For starters his base stats are just unbelievably sexy. They're so good that he'll still be one of your best combat units in a 0 % growth run. Dondon151's 0 % growth run of Sword of Seals Hard Mode is proof of this (which you can check out here. The link is just the introduction but you can check out the other videos as well). So yeah, Percival's base stats are so high that he doesn't need to grow a single point anymore in order to wreck face. Now obviously I'm taking his Hard mode bonuses into account. Percival's base stats with Hard mode bonuses look like this:

HP - 51
Strength - 20
Skill - 16
Speed - 20
Luck - 15
Defense - 15
Resistance - 13
Con - 12

                  Look at that strength and speed. Also, I should point out that his constitution is high enough for him to wield a lot of weapons without attack speed (like that really matters but it's still nice to not get weighed down by everything).  

                   Percival has been described as an RNG proof cavalier and I completely agree with this. In addition to his base stats he joins with some killer weapon ranks. Lances and swords are A rank while axes are C rank. So he can wield any sword or lance that isn't regalia (and only takes a little bit of effort before he gets there) and he can start out wielding Killer Axes. Yeah that's pretty awesome. His complete weapon triangle control allows him to deal with any kind of unit in any kind of situation.

                 The only qualm with Percival on a list like this is his availability. He's around for about 60 % of his game. He's clearly one of the Top 3 best units in his game but unfortunately he's in a list where other characters can roflstomp their games from an earlier availability. Even when you take that into consideration Percival is still freaking awesome and is an obvious candidate for a high spot on this list.