# 4 - Wendell (Fire Emblem 1)

(Credits to Fatecrashers for the image).

This old man injects too much coke

and makes Fire Emblem 1 a joke

with a knick-knack patty whack

he'll rip off your cat's head.

This man's the reason why everybody's dead.

TA-DA! 

                   So when I originally created this list I was going to put FE 3 Merric over Soren but Sagit Heim corrected me and not only did it turn out that Soren was way better, Sagit explained that Wendell was way better than Merric. Naturally I had to bump Merric off the list and replace him with this old fellow. So you're probably wondering why in the flying crap is Wendell this high up the list?

                    Well, for starters Wendell has the obvious advantage of joining you in Chapter 5 of FE 1, just like he does in Shadow Dragon so obviously he's got fantastic availability. In case you haven't noticed, this has been an issue for candidates 5 - 8. They all join around half-way through their games whereas old man Wendell is with you from the beginning. 

                 Wendell also joins your army with a weapon level of 10 in Fire Emblem 1. What does this mean? Well before Holy War came around, weapon levels were a number with a growth like all your other stats. Also, unlike Holy War, weapon levels were across the board so if you had a weapon level of 10, it would be a weapon level of 10 for both staves and tomes. You want to know who else comes with a weapon level of 10 in Fire Emblem 1? Jagen. Yeah, the other old guy who starts the game with the ability to wield Silver Lances. A weapon level of 10 is enough to allow Wendell to use EVERY SINGLE TOME AND STAFF (that isn't prf ranked) in the game. Wendell can wield the Starlight tome (a.k.a the tome with the highest weapon level in Fire Emblem 1) from the get-go. He basically starts Fire Emblem 1 out with an S rank in tomes and staves. Wendell's Shadow Dragon counterpart, by contrast, only starts out with a B rank in tomes and a D rank in staves which isn't anywhere near as impressive by contrast. 

 

Nothing like the original am I right?

                        Wendell is considered a great warp-bot in Fire Emblem 1, which is an overwhelming advantage that he has over not only his Shadow Dragon counterpart, but over the rest of his competitors ranked below him. The real defining advantage though is that in addition to being a great warp-bot, he's also a fantastic fighter too. Sagit Heim was kind enough to provide me with a statistical analysis of Wendell's combat abilities from Chapter 5 onward. The analysis down below was all done by Sagit Heim. Feel free to take a bow Sagit Heim, you did an amazing job. Feast your eyes on this my fellow Fire Emblem fans:

Chapter 5

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome, even the boss (2 hits per round)

Resists 5 hits from cavaliers with 13 Atk (highest atk in all the chapter excluding the boss)

Chapter 6

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome, even the boss (2 hits per round)

Resists 4 hits from knights with 14 Atk and resists 3 hits from Silver Lance!cavalier (highest atk in all the chapter excluding the boss)

Chapter 7

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome (2 hits per round), 3RKO's the boss

Resists 5 hits from knights with 13 Atk and resists 2 hits from Lance!Draco Knight (highest atk in all the chapter excluding the boss)

Chapter 8

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome, even the boss (2 hits per round)

Resists 11 hits from Bow Knights with 10 Atk and resists 4 hits from Steel Sword!Cavaliers and Lance!Knights. Resists 2 hits from the boss

Chapter 9

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome, even the boss (2 hits per round)

Wendell Resists 4 hits from Hunters with 14 Atk, resists 3 hits from Steel Axe!Pirate and resists 2 hits from Demon Axe!Pirate.

Chapter 10

2RKO's all enemies with Fire/Ice tome (2 hits per round). 3RKO's the boss and the Hero.

W1Ndell resists 4 hits from Cavaliers/Knights/Pegasi with 14 Atk, resists 3 hits from Lance!Draco Knight and resists 4 hits from the Hero. Resists 2 hits from the boss.

Chapter 11

Blablablabla kills everyone in 2 rounds with a fire tome, even the boss and the sniper blablabla resists 22 hits from the Bow Knight (LOL!), resists 5 hits from Swordies/Cavaliers/Pegasi, resists 2 hits from the mamkute

Chapter 12

Kills everyone in 2 rounds, resists 4 hits from generic enemies and 2 hits from the mamkute. GG.

Chapter 13

*yawn*

Kills generic enemies in 2 rounds with the Fire tome, dies in 3 hits blablabla just warp-skip the map.

Chapter 14

W1Ndell!IceTome kills everything in 2 rounds, kills Jiol in 3 rounds, dies in 4 hits from generic enemies, resists 2 hits from Sniper/Silver Lance!Knight/Jiol, gg.

Chapter 15

Kills everything in 2 rounds with the ice tome, resists 4 hits from mages. OP, pls nerf.

Chapter 16

Kills every-non-hero-enemy in 2 rounds, kills heroes in 3 rounds, resists 5 hits from the Bow Knights, 3 hits from DracoKnights and 2 hits from the Silver Lance!Paladin. Kills the boss in 3 rounds. GG

Chapter 17

Kills everyone in 2 rounds with the Ice tome- wtf, srsly? What kind of base stats are these? ._.

Resists 2 hits from Snipers/Heroes. Yeah, a glass canon.

Chapter 18

*sigh* Kills every enemy unit in 1 round (!) with Thoron. Resists 5 hits from generic enemies, resists 2/3 hits from the Paladins.

Chapter 19

W1Ndell!IceTome Kills everything in 3 rounds (2 rounds if he reached level 6 lol). Kills Heroes in 4 rounds (3 rounds if he reached level 6).

Chapter 20

(Base level)

W1Ndell!Thoron ORKO's Paladins and Generals. Resists 2 hits from Paladins and 3 hits from Generals.

Chapter 21

(Base level)

ORKO's Paladins/Generals/Draco Knights with Thoron. Dies in 2 hits.

Chapter 22

Kills Paladins/Draconknights/Pegasi in 1 round with thoron (Ice tome against Pegasi). Dies in 2 hits.

Chapter 23

ORKO's generic enemies with Thoron. Dies in 4 hits from mages. Resists 2 hits from the sniper.

3RKO's Garnef with Starlight (2RKO's if he reached level 6).

Chapter 24

2RKO's Bishops/Mamkutes with the Ice tome. Resists 2 hits from Snipers/Mamkutes. Resists 5 hits from Bishops with fire.

Final Chapter

W1Ndell kills Paladins/DracoKnights in 2 rounds with Thoron. Kills Snipers in 3 rounds with the Ice tome. Dies in 2 hits.


                Needless to say, the enemies in Fire Emblem 1 are a joke and Wendell makes short work of them. So to sum this post up: Wendell is an amazing fighter and an amazing warp-bot who's there with you from the beginning. This old man really is ridiculous. 

(Here's  where the above picture came from: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=32521 Look for Dark Sage's post)

# 5 - Sety (Genealogy of the Holy War)

                     And now we get to another one of my favorite mages in the entire series: Sety. Sety is the king of overkill. He's one of the few second generation characters in Holy War that cannot be screwed over regardless of what crack pairing you decide to make. As I've mentioned before when talking about these lists if multiple versions of a character exist, the performance of the strongest version is the one that gets taken into account. For Sety, that means that his performance with Levin as the father is the one he'll get rated by.

                     Sety basically turns into Levin 2.0 if you decide to pair up Levin and Fury. According to Mekkah, Levin!Sety joins with 45 HP, 22 Mag, 21 Skl, 17 Spd, 9 Def, 14 Res, and 12 Luk. With Holsety, that makes for something like: 52 Atk, 32 AS, and 76 Avo. 32 AS would already be enough to (if you could) quadruple most enemies in most other games, but in this world where an 1 AS advantage is enough for doubling, not even that covers how overkill that Spd is. Since 52 Atk hitting twice on resistance is not enough, Sety also has 31% Critical and 52% Continue. You know, just to make sure it's dead. To round it all out, he has 1-2 range. This basically allows Sety to murder just about everything in sight in a single round of combat. As I mentioned earlier in my Levin post, Sety has enough attack speed to double attack virtually everything in the Fire Emblem universe while also having an avoid that goes through the roof. Also, Mekkah was kind enough to provide us with Sety's stats at maximum level. At Level 30 Sety will have 45 Attack Speed, a 65 % chance of proccing Adept, a 37 % chance of activating a Holy War critical, 107 avoid and around 57 base attack. Yeah, this guy is the KING of overkill.  (Quote Source: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=3)

                Even if Levin isn't his dad, and we pair Fury up with Claude, Sety's combat will still be excellent. His base stats are high enough to allow him to double attack everything and frankly all he needs is the light tome that he automatically gets in order to obliterate 90 % of all generic enemy units. If Claude is the father then Sety's resistance will be out of this world allowing him to ignore the status staves that enemies like to spam towards the end of the second generation of Holy War. He'll also have access to every staff in the game, turning him into a fantastic staff bot who also has great combat. Just to reinforce my point about how unstoppable Sety is, here's another quote for you: As has been said, choosing to pair for Fee instead also doesn't really bother Sety in the slightest. He's cool like that. You wanna make Noish his dad, giving him a whopping 10% MAG growth? He'll say "Whatever," take the Critical and Charge skills, and still destroy everybody with Lightning. And let me put it this way: Statistically, Noish is one of his worst fathers, giving him little MAG or SPD. Nearly every other dad, no matter how gimmicky or shitty, gives him either an okay MAG growth or decent SPD growth, and often DEF and HP as well, and that's all he cares about. (Quote Source - 'Renall': http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=32471)

                   All of these wonderful stats give Sety a top notch Deadliest Warrior record, but as I've said before stats aren't everything and Sety unfortunately inherits some of Levin's greatest weaknesses.

• He's a foot unit in a mount dominant game. Sety has 6 movement in a game with enormous maps, so regardless of how godly his stat parameters are if he can't get to the enemies first, he won't get the chance to put them to good use. That is the sad reality of being a foot unit in Holy War. 

•  His lackluster availability: Sety doesn't even join your army until the latter end of Chapter 8, which is the half-way point in the second generation. This holds Sety back, because once again, it limits the amount of time that his godly parameters get to be put to use. 

•  Intense competition: Sety is in the second generation of Holy War, which is home to some really overpowered units. The second generation has Seliph, Leif, Shannan, Ares and Fee (no I am not joking about Fee. She's is one of the best units in the second generation). It takes a lot to stand out in the second generation and unlike everyone else ranked above him, Sety's contributions seem somewhat limited by comparison because he has to compete with so many other great units. 

                  Overall Summary: Sety is amazing at killing things, but in Fire Emblem that simply isn't enough. Movement is also a big deal and considering the fact that Sety has the same problems as Levin, it seemed natural for Sety to be ranked just slightly above him since Sety more-or-less is just Levin with better combat and better bases. Sety and Levin are the best examples of why people shouldn't equate stats with efficiency. If efficiency were solely about how high a unit's stats were, Sety and Levin would be considered the best of the best.

                 That being said, I still love Sety and as long as I continue to play casually I will always use Sety as a wrecking machine for enemy units. After all, nobody says that you have to play LTC. I'm still a Sety fan-boy through and through.

# 6 - Levin (Genealogy of the Holy War)

                    Ah Levin, one of my favorite FE characters of all time, it's so nice being able to talk about why one of my favorite characters is awesome. Levin is one of those wonderful, rascally characters who never ceases to entertain, and one of the best parts is that he's a pretty good mage.

                     Levin has the best offense of all your infantry units in the first generation of Holy War. Levin starts right off the bat with a 34 % chance of procing Adept and a 12 % chance of landing a critical hit in a game where virtually nobody can land critical hits. Levin also has a very high base speed combined with a 90 % growth rate allowing him to be a dodge machine in a game that uses only a single RNG. Levin also joins your army conveniently placed next to the villages in Chapter 2 and will most likely be your means of saving them. One of these villages contains the super useful Bargain Ring, which means that Levin nets you a rare ring that saves you an awful lot of money. Go Levin! Once Chapter 4 rolls around Levin gets the almighty Holsety tome and becomes an unstoppable killing machine with it. For those of you miserable souls who haven't played Fire Emblem 4 yet go play it right now and put everything else in your life on hold until you finish this masterpiece of a game  let us take a moment to ogle over the Holsety tome's stats:

Holsety:
Mt - 30
Hit - 90
Wt - 5
+ 10 Skill, + 20 Speed
(http://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/inventory/fire-thunder-wind/)

           Just to give you an idea of how ridiculously fast Levin is with the Holsety, a Holsety wielding Sety is the same class as Levin and both characters literally have the same exact attack speed at max level. Levin has an attack speed of 45 when he's equipped with the Holsety tome. Sety, who has the exact same attack speed as Levin, has literally double attacked all of his enemies in every Deadliest Warrior Battle that he's ever participated in (except for one, but the point still stands) and mind you, Sety has gone up against Lunatic mode Grima and the Radiant Dawn versions of Ike and Tibarn. All of these characters come from games with significantly higher caps and yet Sety is the one double attacking them instead of the other way around. Since Levin has the same attack speed as Sety we can logically conclude that Levin would double attack these characters as well, provided he wields the Holsety tome. It goes without saying that Levin equipped with the Holsety can not only double attack every enemy, generic or otherwise, in his own game chances are he's double attacking them while they can't even touch him.

          Just so we're clear, Deadliest Warrior Battles are NOT to be used as gameplay metrics here, but I am using this example to demonstrate a point. Levin equipped with the Holsety, is one of the fastest characters in the entire Fire Emblem series. Combine that speed with a 30 might weapon with 1 - 2 range that targets resistance and you've got overkill in one heck of a sexy package.       

              Levin is also one incredibly lucky dude when it comes to his love life. He is the best father for Corpul, Arthur and Sety (he's the only guy in the first generation of Holy War who's the best husband for THREE different women) so it is in the player's best interest to get this guy to bang one of these chicks so he can pass down the Holsety tome to his future son resulting in some overpowered offspring (lucky jerk).

                  So some of you may be asking 'if Levin's so powerful, why is he this low on the list? Shouldn't he be higher up?' Well, here's the thing. Contrary to what some people might believe, stats aren't everything in Fire Emblem. There are multiple factors that account for a unit's worth and Levin's proof of that. In particular, there are four negatives that Levin has going against him:

• Levin's first issue is the fact that he lacks the Pursuit skill. Fortunately this is a minor problem that can easily be solved because, as luck would have it, the player gets the Pursuit Ring in the same chapter that Levin joins. Also, I would like to argue that Levin is your best candidate for the Pursuit Ring from an objective standpoint. I mean, who else can use it better than Levin? Cuan's attack speed is lower than Levin's due to lances weighing a lot, Ethlin's combat won't be anywhere near as good as Levin's and Lex has the Brave Axe. Levin, by contrast has a very high speed stat and will most likely wield wind magic which weighs as light as a feather, so Levin's attack speed will definitely be higher than Cuan or Lex's. Also, Cuan and Ethlin leave in Chapter 4 whereas Levin sticks around. Plus, depending on who you pair Levin up with, his potential offspring could need the Pursuit Ring too so even from an inheritance perspective it makes perfect sense to give it to Levin.

  

• He only gets to use the Holsety for a short period of time. Unlike any of his potential offspring, Levin only gets to use the Holsety tome for the latter end of Chapter 4 and all of Chapter 5, which is the shortest non-prologue map in Holy War (lol). He doesn't get to take as much advantage of the Holsety tome as we'd like him to which means that he spends the majority of the first generation without the Holsety tome. Sad day :'(

•  His lackluster availability. Levin joins halfway through the first generation of Holy War. This is a bigger issue than the first problem, because it isn't one that can be solved by the player. Levin wishes he could join earlier, and so do we the fans. 

•  The biggest problem that Levin has is that he is an unmounted unit in a mount dominant game. When people in the past complained about Holy War's giant maps I usually just ignored them because the giant maps didn't bother me as a casual player. However, I came across a criticism on serenesforest.net that was further substantiated by Ronaldo Villanueva and Sagit Heim that I cannot ignore when objectively rating the worth of a Holy War unit. The criticism is that Holy War's gargantuan maps give high movement characters an even more disgusting advantage over infantry units. This is a balancing issue that every Fire Emblem game has, but in Holy War this efficiency gap gets taken to a whole different extreme. What this means is that no matter how powerful a foot unit is, no matter how much utility they have, no matter how much they bring to the table, a foot unit's worth decreases simply for being a foot unit. It doesn't mean as much to be a speed demon if you can't even get to the enemies in time. For a casual player this means nothing, but for an LTC player this makes all the difference in the world. 

   
              I want to make it very clear that even though Levin is a foot unit in a game that punishes them, he is by no means a bad unit.. Levin is still one of the best units in the first generation, he just has another flaw that we casual players don't really have to deal with due to the differences in our playstyles. I for one, will continue to use Levin regardless of what anyone tells me and hopefully this doesn't dissuade anyone from using him in the future.


           Overall Summary: Levin is a powerful mage that has a great set of skills combined with one of the most overpowered weapons in Fire Emblem history. He makes for a great father, but unfortunately his contributions are hampered by his lackluster availability and by the huge maps that screw him over. That being said he is still one of my personal favorite characters and he is still one of the greatest mages in the series.

# 7 - Pent (Blazing Sword)

                            Ah yeah! This is the moment you've all been waiting for. If you paid any attention to my last post I practically gave it away that Pent was going to be on this list, and why shouldn't he be? Pent has a lot going for him and I'm here to talk about that today.

                            Pent joins the game with everything he needs without having to gain a single point. He's even been considered to be one of the best units in a 0 % growths run as you can see here. Pent starts out with 17 AS, which is high enough to double attack the vast majority of all enemies in the game. Also, like Saleh, Pent kills just about every generic enemy with a simple Thunder tome. His starting defensive parameters of 33 HP and 11 Defense mean that he can actually take a hit, which is a big plus for mages seeing as how they're not exactly known for being able to survive for very long. What makes this better is that he comes with an A rank support with Louise that actually boosts his defense AND he gets a 30 % defense growth, which is considered to be a little above average for FE 7.

                            Another huge point in Pent's favor is his amazing A rank in staves. What's better is that he joins you with a physic staff ready to go. He also makes for a good warp-bot too. His growths are decent too which is another positive for him. Pent is clearly the best mage in Blazing Sword, rising above his competition like everybody else below him.

                The biggest negative for Pent is his lack of availability. Pent wishes that he could be around longer (and so do we) so he could break the game for a longer period of time. Everybody else ranked above him can wreck their games from an earlier point in their games. It makes me wonder how awe-inspiring Pent's performance would be had he joined Blazing Sword any earlier.

# 8 - Saleh (Sacred Stones)

                       So next on the list is Saleh from Sacred Stones. Unlike the previous two entries, Saleh starts out as awesome right off the bat and ready to go, unlike his super lame trainee Ewan. When you first get Saleh during Eirika's route he literally kills every enemy unit in either 1 round of combat or in 2 rounds of combat with a thunder tome. This basically never changes throughout the game, which should give you a good idea about Saleh's combat prowess in Sacred Stones. Saleh is also considered to be the best candidate for Excalibur. Lute gets weighed down a lot for it, Ewan sucks and is never getting to the point where he's using it (not without babying or Tower of Valni abuse, which is not considered a valid factor for lists like these) and good luck getting anyone else to use it. Saleh is also well known for wrecking the desert map, which is the one chapter Seth can't destroy everything in due to lowered movement in the desert.

                      What also makes Saleh stand out in particular is his C rank staff level. With a C rank in staves, Saleh can basically abuse the ever-living crap out of Barrier staves up until he gets the coveted Warp staff. From then on Saleh turns into the guy who warps Seth to wherever he needs to go. His high magic also allows for a very nice warp and physic range and just makes him a fantastic healer in general.

                    Saleh's only "issues" are his meh growths and meh defense. Dondon151 summed up Saleh's defense during his Top 25 Fire Emblem Characters in 0 % growths" list:

                    "30 HP, 8 def actually renders him 2HKO'd by some stronger unpromoted enemy types; even Iron Lance gargoyles in chapter 12 3HKO the solemn sage. Often the player simply has to bite the bullet and count on Saleh dodging enemies, since his 1-2 range offense is too powerful and consistent to be restricted by death chances. As a point of comparison, Saleh @ Thunder has about the same atk and AS as Gerik @ Hand Axe, except Saleh has 26 more hit and targets lower enemy resistance stats. When the going gets tough, Saleh can even fall back on Excalibur for a blistering 34 atk with no net AS loss." (Source: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=45927&page=3 All credit to dondon151 for his wonderful analysis here)

                 Now to be fair, this IS him analyzing Saleh's defense in a 0 % growths playthrough, but I think this still applies to Saleh even when growths get taken into account. That being said, Saleh is a great unit and a great mage with a lot of perks. Another big reason why Saleh isn't getting higher up on the list is because he's often considered to be a nerfed version of another sage well known for his staff rank who may or may not make it to this list. ;)

# 9 - Cliff (Gaiden)

                   So what happens when you put your Est archetype in the beginning of the game and give them ridiculous promotion boosts? You get Cliff! Cliff is one of those really weird examples when it comes to rating based on an objective efficiency metric. Cliff starts out as literally the worst unit out of all the units who join you first. Take a look at how well he does against a measly level 1 thief (which is the weakest enemy in the game) versus how well the rest of your army does:


Thief (Level 1)
HP: 26
Power: 7
Skill: 1
Speed: 2
Luck: 0
Defense: 2
Resistance: 0
Movement: 4
[Right outside Alm’s village. The first enemies that you have to fight]

(Alm deals 8 damage and double attacks every enemy. Enemies only deal 1 damage to Alm. If Alm dishes out a critical hit he deals 24 damage.)

(Ruka deals 8 damage and double attacks every enemy. Enemies only deal 1 damage to Ruka.)

(Robin deals 5 damage and double attacks every enemy. Since Robin dodged every attack, I could not determine the damage that enemies give to him)

(Gray deals 7 damage and double attacks every enemy. Enemies only deal 3 damage to Gray)

(Cliff deals 5 damage and only gets to attack once. Enemies deal 4 damage to Cliff)

Cliff is the only starting unit that you get who DOESN'T double attack the wimpy generic enemies. Considering how you only need an attack speed difference of 1 to double attack in Gaiden, that's pretty sad. When you also take into account the fact that Cliff has a starting HP of 20 you realize that even the weakest generic enemies kill Cliff just as quickly as he kills them. Said generic enemies have a better accuracy than he does on average (or that could just be the RNG Goddess acting like a spoiled pain in the butt for me. Seriously, the RNG in this game takes sadistic pleasure in screwing me over) so POINT GOES TO THE GENERIC ENEMIES.

                    So how does Cliff make it higher on the list than Soren if he starts out so bad? Well you can thank Gaiden's promotion mechanic for that. Unlike other Fire Emblem games there is no uniform level for which every character can promote by. Every individual class has a unique level in which they promote. (See here for more details: http://serenesforest.net/gaiden/classes/promotion/) Cliff doesn't start the game as a mage, he starts his game out as a villager, which means that he only needs 2 levels before he promotes. The link I just gave you explains why Gaiden promotions are so unique:

               "If any of the character’s stats (Max HP, Str, Skl, Spd, Lck, Def or Res) are lower than their promoted class’s base stats, those stats will be increased to their promoted class’s base stats."

           So translation: Cliff is going to be getting some pretty huge gains after promotion. His wimpy base stats magically vanish after 2 levels. Then his growths kick in and he turns into one of the best units in your army. Another major advantage that Cliff has over other characters in Gaiden are his really high growths (for his game). Gaiden is notorious for having the lowest growths all around. Compare and contrast some of Cliff's growths with some of the best growths out of the characters in Alm's party.

Name	HP	Strength	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance
Cliff	50	20	40	50	20	40	0
Alm	50	35	40	30	20	30	0
Zeke	40	20	35	55	30	40	0
Silk	20	30	30	30	30	10	0
Dyute	30	50	30	20	30	10	0

              Cliff is tied for the highest HP, defense and skill growths while he has the second highest speed growth out of anyone in Alm's party. It's only his strength and luck growths that are average. (Yeah 20 % is considered average for a strength and luck growth. That's how bad Gaiden growths are) Moral of the story: Cliff's growths are really awesome for his game and they help him surpass any of your starting units that aren't Alm since he'll be getting better level ups on average.

             Let's fast forward a little bit to when you actually meet the first difficult boss in Gaiden:

The Enemies in the Barren Wasteland after the Thief Shrine:
Enemy Thief - Level 1:
HP: 26
Power: 7
Skill: 1
Speed: 2
Luck: 0
Defense: 2
Resistance: 0
Movement: 4

Enemy Archer (Level 1):
HP: 24
Strength: 9
Skill: 1
Speed: 2
Luck: 0
Defense: 3
Resistance: 0
Movement: 4


Thief Boss (Level 3):
HP: 29
Strength: 8
Skill: 2
Speed: 3
Luck: 0
Defense: 3
Resistance: 0
Movement: 4

Uber Merc (w / Leather Shield)
Level 4
HP: 27
Strength: 9
Skill: 9
Speed: 11
Luck: 0
Defense: 8
Resistance: 1
Movement: 4

(Archer Robin deals 6 damage and gets to land 2 strikes. Generic enemy thief deals 4 damage)

(Mage Cliff deals 11 damage in 1 strike to generic enemy thieves)

(Mercenary Gray deals 7 damage and gets to land 2 strikes. Generic thief deals 3 damage)

(Alm deals 7 damage to thief boss and double attacks. Thief boss deals 2 damage to Alm)

(Archer!Robin deals 1 damage to Uber Merc)

(Alm deals 2 damage to Uber Merc. Uber Merc deals 3 damage to Alm and gets to strike twice)

(Mage!Cliff deals 10 damage to Uber Merc)

(Ruka deals 3 damage to Uber Merc. Uber Merc deals 3 damage to Ruka and gets to strike twice)

 

                   "Uber Merc" is the first of many frightening mercenary bosses this game likes to throw at you. What makes Uber Merc so challenging is that he's guaranteed to double attack your entire army while also doing a pretty good job of dodging anything you throw at him. Uber Merc is the first actually difficult enemy you the player have to deal with. Mage!Cliff dispatches Uber Merc in 3 hits without having to worry about taking a counter from Uber Merc while Alm, the best unit in the game, deals a measly 2 damage. Cliff is essential for taking out Uber Merc. Also, Cliff went from killing the same generic thief in 5 hits to killing said thief in 3 hits with range advantage. That's a big leap and this is still the beginning of the game. Robin and Grey's low growths will eventually make them irrelevant once Part 3 comes around. Cliff, on the other hand, will still be one of your best units. 

This is the face of a stone hard killer right here. 

                       One of the reasons why Cliff is rated higher than Soren is because Cliff doesn't have to deal with nearly as much competition as Soren does. Most of the cavaliers in Soren's game are either god tier or are very good plus Soren has to deal with 2 god tier fliers and a third flier who's still one of the best units in the game (Tanith). Cliff only has to deal with 2 cavaliers who aren't anywhere near as good as the cavaliers in Soren's game and he only has 1 flier to deal with. Granted, said flier is still good, but again nowhere near Marcia or Jill level. Cliff's biggest competition is Alm (who is better than everyone else in his army), Silk (little Miss Generic Warp bot), with Claire (the aforementioned flier) being a debatable possibility. Because of this, Cliff tends to stand out more in his game and his contributions tend to be more significant.

                            

               There are a couple of downsides to Cliff that prevent him from rising any higher up. The first downside is his brief, terrible start. From # 8 on this list onwards every character will either start out as good or great. In other words, Cliff's got some crazy competition in this list. The other major downside is that magic costs HP to use in Gaiden regardless of whether the mage hits their target or not. This is a big disadvantage in comparison to the other mages who rank above him. 

 

               Even with these so called downsides Cliff is one of the best units in his game and like Soren, Cliff is the best mage in his game (staffbots don't count) which is why he gets the # 9 spot on this list.

# 10 - Soren (Path of Radiance)

                So kicking off my "Top 10 Greatest Mages in the Fire Emblem Series" list is Soren from Path of Radiance. Some of you who are reading this may wonder why Soren isn't rated higher up on this list. Some of the really hardcore fans of the series who may be reading this would most likely believe that Soren shouldn't even be on the list to begin with. This is something of a compromise between the two and chances are, neither side will be fully satisfied. So with that in mind, let's begin our analysis of Soren's worth as a unit.

                Soren is hands down the greatest mage in Path of Radiance. This doesn't say a whole lot about him given the fact that he doesn't have the best competition, but it's still something that he has going for him. His availability is fantastic and he gets a sweet support bonus from Ike. Soren also comes with innate Adept, which helps his offense out quite nicely because who wouldn't enjoy getting an extra consecutive hit? Soren usually doesn't have any trouble double attacking enemies either which helps his case out quite a bit. Let us also not forget that Soren has staff utility after promotion which is also very nice as it means that he can eventually use the Rescue staff, provided you manage to somehow get his staff rank up to the point where he can use it.

                Speaking of Soren's offense Chiki-chan gave a wonderful post about Soren's usefulness on the Fire Emblem Reddit that you should check out (which you can find here). According to Chiki, Soren does incredibly well with forged Thunder tomes that have maxed crit so there's that for you. Add the Vantage skill and ballistic siege tomes and Soren can pretty much wreck face. It's wonderful watching Chiki's videos of Soren ballistic blicking enemy scrubs from long distances away.

                 So with all those positives in mind, how does Soren get such a low spot on the list? Well, for starters, his durability is crap. If Ike is considered fragile in comparison to the rest of the Greil Mercenaries how do you think Soren would fare? Soren starts out with a measly 18 HP and 5 defense which means that he's gets killed in 2 hits by just about any enemy that isn't a mage. The rest of the Greil Mercenaries all have vastly superior durability at base and the thing here is that they're not going to remain at base level when Soren joins the group. What further compounds this problem is that Soren joins in a chapter where the map is an open field chock full of non-magic enemies. Basically, Soren starts out as a major liability for your team and has to fight an uphill battle for resources and bonus experience.  

                     Also, Soren has 5 movement. You want to know who else has 5 movement? Freaking Gatrie, the armor knight. There is only one Fire Emblem game where 5 movement isn't considered horrible at first and Path of Radiance isn't it. Sure, you can mitigate this problem with Shove and Rescue but that still doesn't change the fact that Soren's going to lag behind the rest of your team. What also makes this worse is that all of the best units in Path of Radiance happen to have very high movement too. Titania, Marcia, Jill, Oscar and Kieran can all wreck schmucks left and right while also getting to the enemies first. They can also do other things that Soren can't do too which makes his life even more miserable. Yeah, no wonder Soren's so sullen most of the time. He just wants a little extra love and attention.

                    While Soren will eventually get high speed and magic his base stats in both areas start off less than desirable. 99 % of the Tellius cast rejoices at the new attack speed formula which keeps them from getting attack speed losses; guess who's part of the 1 %? Yeah Soren. Being a mage means that his strength stat isn't likely to be very high and it doesn't grow very much on average so getting weighed down by a considerable number of the tomes in his game. Fortunately, this isn't as bad in practice as it looks, but it is a setback for Soren. His low base magic means that he's dealing chip damage too at first. Again, like his speed, this gets remedied over time but it's still a pain in the butt.

                Overall, Soren is a good unit that faces a lot of challenges and setbacks when he joins, but given enough time and experience he will eventually grow into a powerful mage in his own right. Given the fact that Soren doesn't face the same level of competition as the cavaliers did in my cavalier list, he gets to make it to the list, but barely. In spite of all his shortcomings, he is a pretty good unit and character wise he is one of my favorite units in the series and I will probably always use him in Path of Radiance regardless of what anyone else may say.