# 2 - Catria (Gaiden)

http://www.zerochan.net/1124355

                   So Catria in many ways is just like her sister Palla. Catria exists in just as many games and usually serves the same, exact role as Palla. Depending on which game you're playing Catria might be better than Palla too. In Fire Emblems 3 & 12 Palla is the superior Pegasus Knight. In Fire Emblem 1, and in Shadow Dragon, Catria is the superior unit. I could be wrong since I'm not as knowledgeable about the Archanea games in comparison to the other games in the series. That being said, Catria is almost always awesome in each and every Fire Emblem game that she's in. If I had to rank the different Catria's together the order would look like this:

Gaiden Catria > FE 12 Catria > FE 3 Catria > FE 1 Catria > Shadow Dragon Catria

                  Shadow Dragon Catria joins late for her game and her base stats aren't that good either for her game. In Fire Emblem 1 the enemies are significantly weaker, her growths are better and her base stats are better here than in Shadow Dragon which is why FE 1 Catria beats Shadow Dragon Catria. In Fire Emblem 3 she's significantly better, in fact I would put Catria in the Top 5 Best Fire Emblem 3 characters. Her availability is fantastic, her combat is amazing from the word "go" (she can use silver weapons at base level) and her growths are still amazing. However, Fire Emblem 3 has the dismounting feature which nerfs her whenever you're in an indoor map. Catria is one of the few characters in the Archanea saga that didn't get nerfed between Fire Emblem 3 and Fire Emblem 12. She joins at the same time in FE 12 as she does in Fire Emblem 3 but she no longer has dismount issues and a couple of the units that used to be her competition in FE 3 are no longer her competition in 12 (Sirius and Linde). Also, Catria can reclass to a cavalier in 12 and gain some extra durability (not that she has bad durability as a Pegasus Knight). That being said, FE 12 Catria still has to deal with the existence of My Unit, Palla and Mallesia (to a lesser extent) so while she's great her contributions aren't as great as they are in Gaiden for reasons that I'll get into.

 

                    Catria is the best unit in Celica's army. For those of you who don't know, Gaiden tier lists always rank Alm and Celica's army separately. The reason for this is because Alm and Celica's group are separate from each other for 99.9 % of their game. The only time Alm and Celica's armies fight together is literally at the end of the game when you're fighting against Doma, the final boss. It's a similar reason to why the first and second generations of Holy War have their own separate tier lists. 

 

                  To repeat myself from before Catria IS the best unit in Celica's army. For starters, she doesn't have anywhere near as much competition here than in her other games. Caeda, My Unit and Mallesia don't exist in Gaiden and all of your warp bots are in Alm's army so the only competition that Catria has is from Palla. Palla and Catria both join at the exact same time and they both can fly which is a huge deal in Celica's route. Palla has a slight lead over Catria in HP, strength and defense while Catria's leads in speed, skill, luck and resistance are significantly higher. What gives Catria the edge are her growths. Palla has a 10 % speed growth in Gaiden so eventually she will run into enemies that she can't double. Catria never has this problem. Catria's strength and defense will eventually be greater than or equal to Palla's while she continues to maintain her significant leads in speed, skill, luck and resistance. Many of Catria's growths are considered excellent for her game except for HP, luck, defense and resistance which are considered average.

 

Character Growth Stat
HP		Str		Skl		Spd		Lck		Def		Res
30%		30%		30%		40%		20%		20%		0%

 

 ^ No I am not joking nor being sarcastic. Those are considered some of the better growths in this game. Catria also joins your army with the awesomeness that is the Angel Ring, an item that doubles stat gains during each and every level-up in addition to boosting luck automatically to 40, the maximum luck cap in the game. 

 

                    So after I decided to bump Marcia up to # 3 on the list I began to ask myself whether Marcia in Path of Radiance was better than Catria in Gaiden. In the end, I came to the conclusion that Gaiden!Catria was better for reasons that I'm about to get into. 

 

 

             The way I see it Marcia has two major advantages over Catria:

• Marcia joins earlier in her game: Marcia joins in Chapter 9 of Path of Radiance, whereas Catria doesn't join your army until half-way through the game. That's a pretty big advantage.

•  Marcia promotes earlier than Catria: Marcia benefits greatly from bonus experience which she is going to get a lot of, Catria doesn't have this advantage in any of her games, much less in Gaiden. Not only does Gaiden have the worst experience gain formula in the entire series but also Pegasus Knights promote way later than the vast majority of the other classes. Pegasus Knights don't promote until Level 12 in Gaiden, whereas the majority of second tier classes are promoting to third tier by Level 10. When you combine that with the horrific experience gains that this game gives you it will feel like 129837129035109235618536745823 years have transpired before these ladies get to promote. 

         Well those are some pretty big advantages right? So why is Gaiden!Catria ranked higher? Well...

• Catria has a better start than Marcia: Even though it doesn't take very long before Marcia turns into a powerhouse unit, she still doesn't join your army as that great a unit. To quote Ronaldo Villanueva's Marcia analysis, At first sight, Marcia's base parameters are mediocre, with 20 HP, 8 Str, 8 Def, which is not capable of enduring a considerable amount of hits, while it lacks capability of doing good damage on a consistent manner.(https://www.facebook.com/notes/851371554904958/)   Catria, by contrast, doesn't have this problem. Catria is awesome from the moment you get her to the moment where the game ends. This feels like more of a nitpick considering how quickly Marcia becomes powerful, but when you're comparing two amazing units even the smallest pros and cons can make the difference between placement on a list like this. 

• Catria outclasses her competition more than Marcia does: This, for me, is the biggest reason why I consider Gaiden!Catria to be better than Marcia. Marcia is a great unit, but she's a great unit in a game full of great units. Catria by contrast is part of an army of mostly mediocre units. Every unit in Celica's army, prior to the arrival of Palla and Catria, starts out with 4 movement. Even if you manage to promote them (which is being very generous when you take Gaiden's experience gains into consideration) your characters still aren't likely to have more than 5 movement, so they're at a huge disadvantage when they're up against a unit that will most likely have 3 extra movement and can fly (which means that she can ignore terrain that they can't). Catria's strength, and durability (which includes her resistance) also manages to be above average in comparison to the rest of her army while she outclasses everyone in terms of speed, luck and skill.

                       Marcia, by contrast is in the same game as Titania, Oscar, Jill, Kieran and Tanith. All of them have high movement, awesome combat ability, rescue utility, and most of them have decent join times. I'm not saying that Marcia is bad, but if her contributions stand out as much as they do in her game when you have a bunch of powerful units to pick and choose from then think about how much Catria's contributions would stand out when she's in an army mostly full of mediocre units.

•      Catria has better in-game perks than Marcia: This is the final point I'd like to make before ending this really long post. Marcia and Catria come from different games and can therefore take advantage of different perks that their games give them in order to succeed and dominate. I personally believe that Catria has superior perks to Marcia in this regard.

                         For example, every level in Gaiden has a rout objective which means that all Catria has to do is charge ahead and kill everything while Marcia's maps have more variety in terms of objectives, which means that it's harder for her to do everything at once while Catria only needs to get better stats and she can murder everything in sight. It's true that Marcia gets support bonuses from some of the best units in her game, but Catria doesn't have to worry about bows. In fact, there isn't a single weapon in Gaiden that deals effective damage against fliers so Catria can charge ahead without having to worry about what weapons the enemy has. 

 

                  Also, after Catria promotes she can land an automatic critical hit against monsters. Remember all the monsters from Sacred Stones? Well 99 % of them originated in Gaiden. Instead of having a bishop with Slayer, it's the Falcon Knights who are the monster killers and considering the fact that the majority of enemies in Celica's route are monsters this is a HUGE advantage that Catria has since she can easily crush them all.

                    So to sum it up: Gaiden!Catria is the best of the 5 Catrias, Catria is a juggernaut in an army of mooks so her contributions tend to stand out more and her ability to crush things without fear of the consequences is a huge advantage that she has going for her. All-in-all Gaiden!Catria is a freaking goddess on wings.

# 3 - Marcia (Path of Radiance)

             So if Karin was the least anticipated candidate on this list then Marcia's Path of Radiance version was easily the most anticipated character on this list. When you start to take a look at her parameters and all the positives that she has going for her, you start to see that all the praise that she gets is warranted and easily justified. Heck, even Ronaldo Villanueva considers her to be the eighth greatest unit in the Fire Emblem series. So why is Marcia praised so much?

                Well, like the vast majority of Pegasus Knights on this list she joins your army early, which is always a plus. Her base stats aren't the best though. 20 HP, 8 strength and 8 defense is nothing to brag about. However, as Mekkah points out, Path of Radiance is the best game to start out bad in (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=10#entry1798082). Why? Because bonus experience exists. Marcia's levels can be raised super early in the game, resulting in her getting really strong really fast. Because she's a flying unit, and can therefore get to the enemies first, she's objectively one of your best candidates for this. As Ronaldo Villanueva puts it "her offensive growths of 40% Str, 50% Skl, 55% Spd are really good, allowing her to reach high offensive stats after a BEXP investment". Marcia also has a couple of advantages over the GBA Pegasi too. Because Path of Radiance calculates attack speed based off of the strength of a unit, rather than constitution, Marcia doesn't suffer ridiculous attack speed losses from wielding a non Slim lance so she is free to use whatever weapon she pleases. Also, forges exist. This increases Marcia's damage output immensely, letting her avoid another issue that plagued Florina. Ronaldo put things in perspective when he said that at Lv20/1, Marcia's 28 Atk, 20 AS with an Iron Lance forge pretty much ORKOs everything until Chapter 16, but by then Steel Lance forges are available which make her ORKO everything until Chapter 20.

Mr. Cotton Candy for brains is screwed.

                One really huge advantage that comes with flying is that a unit can easily ignore terrain that all the other units in your army are forced to deal with. Path of Radiance has a lot of maps with terrain so this becomes a huge advantage for Marcia.

Chapter 11: Villages block your path. If only we had a unit who could fly over them. Oh wait....

Chapter 12: Ha. Ha. Ha. Your entire army is stuck on a really small ship while Marcia can fly all over the place and murder all the birds for you. Jill may have joined you, but Marcia's most likely going to be higher leveled at this point, and definitely won't get double attacked by the ravens unlike Jill at this point.

Chapter 13: Multiple ships attached to each other by bridges? Screw that nonsense. Marcia can just fly over and wreck everyone.

Chapter 15: The game's desert map. Ha. Ha. Ha. Marcia is one of the few units with unhindered movement. Get rekt laguz scrubs. She's your best candidate to beating this level quickly. Also,
Offensively, Marcia Lv20/3 has 41 effective Atk, 21 AS with the Laguz Lance. This means that Marcia is one of the few units that can fly across Chapter 15 and ORKO Muarim (45 HP, 14 Def, 17 AS) in Turn 2.

 Chapter 17 - 4: Oh there's a mage with Meteor? Let me go shank him in the face for you. Also, Marcia can reach Mario, I mean Oliver, sooner than most of your army normally would be able to. 

Chapter 19: Ronaldo says it all: In Chapter 19, Homasa has defenses of 37 HP, 11 Def, 20 AS. Marcia Lv20/8 with a forged Steel Lance has 33 Atk, 24 AS. She 2HKOs, and is one of the few units that can either double-attack Homasa or reach him in Turn 2 without taking risks to deal with Naesala. She is the only one that does both of them.

Chapter 20: There are mountains she can fly over to get to the boss early. If nothing else, she can at least go murderface on the ballistic tome mages.  

Chapter 21: Marcia can fly over that little body of water in the left side of the map and can really reduce the number of turns in that map. 

Chapter 23: Marcia laughs as she's one of the few characters that isn't affected by all those annoying pot-holes. Also, she can fly over those little walls too which is really nice. You get the Full Guard in Chapter 16, so Marcia doesn't care about ballistae. 

          
            I could keep going, but you got the point a long time ago. Also, Savior exists in this game. Savior for those of you who don't know is a skill that negates penalties to a character when they're rescuing a unit. Sure, it comes late, but think of all the things you could do with it. Mekkah summed up Marcia well when he said, Marcia really has everything the "chicks with wings" group has going for them, except her combat is so easy to make good that it's laughable. Good combat, high move, availability, and flying are really the core things that make a unit good (not in any particular order), and Marcia pretty much has all of them. (Again, from the same link posted above. So yeah, Marcia is a monster in Path of Radiance.

(Here is the link to Ronaldo Villanueva's post about Marcia that I quoted multiple times: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ronaldo-villanueva/top-15-unidades-de-fire-emblem-de-todos-los-tiempos-parte-1/851371554904958 

                   Obviously it is still in Spanish so major kudos and props to Sagit Heim for translating that massive wall of text for me. I greatly appreciate it. Also to Ronaldo Villanueva: Why haven't you translated the rest of your list? Your analyses are freaking amazing and our group would benefit so much if you were to post them. Seriously guys, his Top 15 Greatest Fire Emblem Units list is AMAZING and very informative.

# 4 - Palla (Mystery of the Emblem)

http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/File:Palla_%28Fire_Emblem_Monshou_no_Nazo_-_3%29.png

                                You want to know the reason why I have a rule in place where I only pick the strongest version of a unit if multiple versions of that unit exist? Palla is one of those reasons why. Palla currently exists in 6 games (FE 1 - 3, & FE 11 - 13) and in the 5 games where she's not a dlc character she is never bad. Palla at worst is meh and at best is one of the greatest units in her game. Most versions of Palla could make this list. Personally I think it would be pretty boring to repeatedly put Palla's different versions on this list. When you realize that most of Catria's versions could also make this list too you start to see my point. A Top 10 Best Pegasus Knights list would easily turn into a "Top 10 Best Palla and Catria List with a splash of Marcia and MAYBE Florina". Yeah, I don't think that would be a list most people would care to read. Needless to say Palla is a great unit across 5 different games and picking which version to go with wasn't easy.

                    In terms of the order of best Palla to worst Palla the order goes as follows:

FE 3 Book 2 Palla > Gaiden Palla > FE 12 Palla > FE 1 Palla > Shadow Dragon Palla 

            Four of the five Pallas all join you with a Silver Lance. Gaiden!Palla is the only version that doesn't start out with a Silver Lance, she starts out with a Javelin. Since weapons don't break in Gaiden (that's right, FE 14 did not invent that) starting with a Javelin is a big deal. You can't buy weapons in Gaiden. so the trade-off is that you don't get access to nearly as many of them as you would in a normal game. You only get access to one javelin in Gaiden and it's the one that Palla joins with, so it's a pretty big deal. An interesting trait that all Pallas share is their craptastic speed growth. Throughout the 5 games Palla's speed growth ranges from 10 % (Gaiden) - 30 % (Heroes of Light and Shadow). Fortunately, they all have fantastic speed bases combined with either a javelin or a silver lance so they'll be kicking lots of butt. 

"The Whitewing Sisters in Mystery of the Emblem." http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Palla

                   So now I'll get to the reasons why I've ranked each of the Pallas in the order that I have. Shadow Dragon Palla is meh in comparison to the other Pallas because her base stats are the worst for her game in comparison to the other games and her join time is usually considered to be a major negative for her. Palla in Fire Emblem 1 is good, but she doesn't have the same kind of impact that she does in her other games. Fire Emblem 12 Palla has 16 base Spd coupled with 10 Str, and a str growth at a whopping 60% and Spd growth of 30% as a Pegasus Knight and 24 HP / 9 Def with 70% / 30% growth (which actually is good for a Pegasus Knight). (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=31822 Palla also starts in Chapter 3 of her game so her offense and speed are AMAZING and she joins you very early on. FE 12 Palla does have a few issues though. Like the rest of the cast Palla lives in the shadow of My Unit so her contributions are relatively limited by comparison because of My Unit's Seth level of domination. Her 30 % speed growth will bite her in the butt eventually, but she's your best candidate for a speedwing so that's not as big of an issue. That being said, Palla is your second best unit in FE 12 so she's still really good.  

                   Then there's Gaiden!Palla. Gaiden!Palla and FE 12 Palla are both really awesome in their games so this was kind of hard to gauge at first. However, I think the biggest difference is that Palla is outclassed far more by My Unit in FE 12 than she is by Catria in Gaiden. Palla is the second best unit in Celica's route in Gaiden and she's fairly durable for a Pegasus Knight. Palla has great base stats and even gives Catria a run for her money. The only issue is that Palla's growths (particularly in speed where she has lol 10 %) will let her down and she'll have some issues double attacking a few enemies here and there. It doesn't make her bad since she double attacks the vast majority of enemies in Gaiden but at this point you have to nitpick because she's just so good. Her HP will always be great and she's got great strength and defense growths so she'll wreck enemy schmucks easily. With that being said, it's now time to talk about FE 3 Palla and why she's the best Palla of the five.

http://www.zerochan.net/1105416

                     Fire Emblem 3 is the only game where Palla can actually claim to be your best unit. Like her FE 12 counterpart Palla joins you in Chapter 3 with a Silver Lance, however this time around there's no My Unit and the enemies are significantly weaker. In the vast majority of cases FE 3 units are usually better than their FE 12 counterparts. There are two major reasons why. The first is that My Unit exists in FE 12. My Unit dominates his game similar to how Seth dominates Fire Emblem 8. This in turn makes everybody else look bad by comparison. The second reason is that in Fire Emblem 3 the enemies are a joke, whereas in Fire Emblem 12 they aren't. Lunatic and Reverse Lunatic in Fire Emblem 12 are up there with Lunatic and Lunatic + mode in Awakening when it comes to being the most challenging difficulty modes in the Fire Emblem series. Fortunately Reverse Lunatic isn't RNG b.s like Lunatic + in Awakening is.There are exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptions and for the majority of cast their Fire Emblem 3 counterparts are better than their FE 12 ones.

               Sagit Heim was kind enough, once again, to create a wonderful analysis of Palla's in-game performance:

Palla´s base stats are AMAZING. She starts with a perfect lvl 10 with 10 STR, 16 SPD, 24 HP, 9 DEF. She can use the Silver Lance at BASE level, needles to say, Palla has the best personal bases in the early-game... Yes, even better than Sirius.

Palla!SilverLance lvl 10 has 24 atk and 9 AS, enough to kill every enemy of the early-game in 1 round.

The player can promote her with the Elysian whip of chapter 7, which makes her even better thanks to the str bonus and 10 movement. The speed could be an issue since she only has 20% but she has enough base speed for the entire game (0 AS Paladins in chapter 15???? HELLO????), and you can use Libra´s star shard to increase her speed growth (20%---->60%)

Palla Lv15/1:
15 STR 17 SPD. 29 Atk, 10 AS with the Silver Lance. ORKO´s every human enemy in the game, gg, OP pls nerf.
14 DEF 32 HP. Oswin on a flying horse.

She may have problems in indoor maps, but she still a great unit because she can use special weapons to kill dragons (Dragon Killer), Knights (Armor Killer) and Bandits (Lady Sword)

Inb4 “But she is weak against archers”

No because you get the Delphi shield in chapter 4 ;)TL;DR: kills everything in 1 round, dies in 1783287472378437347 hits

http://gallery.minitokyo.net/view/464311

           
                  So if Palla is such an amazing unit why is she # 4 then? Well, for starters competition on this list is pretty intense. I used to believe that Titania was better than Marcia, but I've recently changed my mind and after talking to certain individuals I now believe that Marcia is your best unit in Path of Radiance. This makes Marcia more competitive, but more importantly, I received some new information regarding Palla's performance that has caused me to believe that she's not as great as I once thought her to be. Don't get me wrong, Palla is AMAZING in Fire Emblem 3, but when you're comparing 2 different amazing units from different games, even the smallest nitpicks can make an impact on where a unit goes on a list like this.

                  For the first issue I'd like to go back and quote my Sagit quote from my Linde post back when I was rating all the mages in the series:

 I must explain one thing. From chapter 11 onwards, you're in Anri's Path. In this part of the game, Dragons are the most abundant enemies, and they're ferocious foes to face. Dragons are tanks with 40 HP and 10 of defense. Using common weaponry against them is futile. You need to use the Dragon Killer to ORKO them... or use Magic.

Palla lvl 1 Draco Knight (Dragon Killer)
Dmg 35 x 2, ORKOs Dragons

Sirius lvl 7 Paladin (Dragon Killer)
Dmg 32 x 2, ORKOs Dragons

Linde lvl 1 Bishop
Fire, Dmg 20 x 2, ORKOs Ice Dragons
Blizzard, Dmg 23 x 2, ORKOs Fire Dragons
Shaver, Dmg 20 x 2, ORKOs Flying Dragons

The three of them ORKO dragons without problem. What makes Linde special then? Well, Sirius and Palla need to dismount in order to use the Dragon Killer, and with this they lose a few points in stats and the high movement. They also need to compete for the weapons: Dragon Killers are rare and expensive while you don't have enough money to buy a ton of them. Linde, unlike Sirius and Palla just needs common weaponry to ORKO dragons without having to lose movement and stats. Linde has just become your best unit in the Anri's path. 

                  Basically, once the dragon appear Palla is no longer your best unit, Linde is. Sure Palla can annihilate dragons with anti-dragon weaponry, but as Sagit points out they suffer some penalties and anti-dragon weapons are few in far in between with multiple characters competing for them. Since Linde doesn't have this problem she becomes more relevant while Palla becomes less relevant. Since this is the FE 3 version of Palla we're talking about, we have to mention indoor combat. Whenever a mounted unit fights indoors they have to dismount, which means that they only get 5 movement and they can only wield swords. They also lose a few points in stats so they are slightly weaker. This means that Palla cannot fight to her maximum potential on certain maps and it's a hindrance that Marcia never has to deal with in Path of Radiance. Also, Palla's relevance gets further shafted once the Warp and Again staves are brought into the picture. Imagine if a dancer has the ability to refresh every unit on the map from any distance away and that's basically the Again staff in a nutshell. So basically, once Warp and Again show up, you're mainly going to try and warp Marth near the throne which means that you won't need Palla as much.

http://home.gamer.com.tw/creationDetail.php?sn=2380558

                So to sum up this huge, gigantic post: FE 3 Palla is the best version of Palla in the series, she's an amazing unit whose relevance dwindles a little bit towards the end-game. FE 3 Palla has to deal with issues that Marcia never has to face, thereby giving Path of Radiance Marcia the necessary edge over Palla. That being said, Palla is awesome and a worthy addition to this list.

# 5 - Florina (Blazing Sword)

                   Oh hooray! Another frail rescue-bot that was in the same spot as Karin and Vanessa in Mekkah's Top 30 Best Fire Emblem Units Countdown. If personal experience actually meant anything Florina wouldn't be on here since the RNG Goddess likes to screw me over when it comes to the FE 7 Pegasus Sisters. Despite all that Florina is still a fan-favorite when it comes to Pegasus Knights for reasons other than shipping so it stands to reason that she has merit when it comes to the game.

                  For starters, Florina has the advantage of Lyn mode, which means that her 5 base strength and 40 % strength growth won't hinder her as much as it could in theory. Florina will be able to gain levels murdering mercs and mages while also providing much needed rescue utility that is so helpful in shaving off turns. According to dondon151, Florina is also a great candidate when it comes to the stat-boosters one finds in Lyn mode. (He's talking about the Seraph Robe in chapter 6 and the Energy Ring in Chapter 10. Also, here's the dondon151 source that I'll be quoting several times in this post: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=23766&page=5)

                As I alluded to earlier, Florina is a rescue bot so naturally her rescue utility must be taken into consideration. Dondon151 gives a great description of what her flying utility can do from that same link that I just provided:

Chapter 16: Florina, with Lowen's assistance, can drop Marcus across the cliff on turn 1.
- Chapter 17x: Florina skirts Fargus's trigger zone and can talk to him on turn 4. If she rescues someone on turn 1 and drops him on turn 3, a player can also obtain the Short Bow and one of the Sleep or Lancereaver.
- Chapter 19x: Florina and Fiora can cut across the mountains while rescuing Hector. An effective strategy is dropping Erk, Lucius, or Canas on a mountain on turn 2 and having them easily ORKO the Javelin knights near Aion on enemy phase - Kishuna does not appear until turn 3.
- Chapter 21: Florina and Fiora can more easily visit the Elysian Whip village and the Pure Water vendor.
- Chapter 23: Fliers can carry combat units and thieves over desert terrain.
- Chapter 24A: Fliers can visit the Earth Seal village in 2 turns.
- Chapter 25: Fliers can seize the east gate and visit the Elysian Whip village within 3 turns (2 if Ninian dances).
- Chapter 26: Fliers can easily visit the Hammerne village. They are also needed with any reliable armory visiting strategy.
- Chapter 27: Fliers and Rath have the most movement on the map when snowing, but Rath takes movement penalties from forests.
- Chapter 28x: Fliers traverse the water and are necessary for any sort of efficient clear on this map.
- Chapter 29: Fliers can easily avoid activating reinforcement trigger zones.
- Chapter 32: Fliers, in conjunction with staff users, are necessary for any sort of efficient clear on this map.

 To go along with all of that, Florina can rescue just about every unit that isn't Merlinus. Because of this, she can make even more effective rescue-bot since one of Hector's issues is that he's so fat that only a small number of characters can actually rescue him. Well, Florina is one of those few characters that can rescue him which is significant considering that Florina's being rated off of her performance in Hector Hard Mode.

 
                   Like any Pegasus Knight, Florina has great resistance which is nice considering all the mages that Hector Hard Mode likes to throw at you. Case and point: Cog of Destiny. In Hector Hard Mode Cog of Destiny throws 10 shamans, 5 mages, 7 monks, 1 sage, 3 bishops, 3 druids and 10 valkyries at you. Holy crap! It's the second coming of the Grandbell Empire. Some of those magic users also have irksome status staves designed to piss you off if you don't have the right tools to deal with them. Also, there are several important bosses in the later game who are powerful magic users that Florina can deal with too (Ursula, Kishuna, Kenneth, Sonia, Limstella and Nergal) or at the very least can take an actual hit from. This is one of many reasons why Florina totally outclasses characters like Heath and Vaida despite the fact that they have better defense than her. 

                      That being said, Florina does come with some major disadvantages too. As I mentioned earlier when quoting dondon151 her strength sucks and her 40 % strength growth isn't high enough to compensate for it. In addition to low base strength she also has a constitution of 4. That's low enough to suffer attack speed losses from every lance in the game that isn't a slim lance. Florina loses 4 attack speed from an iron lance, 7 attack speed from a javelin and 9 attack speed from a steel lance. To quote dondon151, Florina has a plethora of early-game offensive problems that stem from having either poor atk or insufficient AS due to her 4 unpromoted con. An example of this problem can be illustrated against an 18 HP, 3 def, 5 AS Iron Lance PK in chapter 16. 7/0 Florina has on average 11.4 atk, 12.3 AS with Slim Lance and 14.4 atk, 8.3 AS with Iron Lance. Florina doubles but misses the 2HKO with Slim Lance, and 2HKOs but does not double with the Iron Lance.

Two popular characters that I really don't like. Boy would I love to Aether their faces off.

                 
                   Also, in addition to her crummy offense, she's also pretty frail. Most enemies in Chapter 17 can kill her in 2 hits. Many of these enemies will have weapon triangle advantage over her too. Florina's growths in HP and defense are the same as Rebecca's, which I consider to be a bad thing. (I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but in due time I shall make my case known to the Fire Emblem community). A 15 % defense growth is atrocious and a 60 % HP growth isn't very good either. Fortunately Florina gets a + 5 HP and a + 2 defense promotion bonus that helps with these issues.

                 That being said, Florina's pros definitely outweigh her cons. I make not like her, and I probably won't use her in any future FE 7 runs but that doesn't take away from the fact that she's an objectively good unit that deserves to make this list. 

# 6 - Vanessa (Sacred Stones)

                        Yeah....Vanessa. She exists and does stuff. Not going to sugarcoat it here, there isn't a whole lot to write about when it comes to Vanessa. She seems, more or less, like Karin 2.0. Vanessa is just another early-game rescue-bot who's not that good at fighting and that seems to be all about there is to her. There's a reason why Mekkah listed Vanessa and Karin together when he made his Top 30 Greatest Fire Emblem Characters Countdown. To quote Mekkah from that same link that I just provided you, here are some things that Vanessa (and other Pegasus Knights like her that he listed) can do:

- Move a juggernaut such as Seth, Marcus, Othin, etc towards a boss or group of enemies to be killed.
- Get to a village before brigands do or before you end a map.
- Get a lord to a throne/gate to seize.
- Rescue NPCs that do things you don't want them to do, or transport the NPCs to where they need to go.

                      Vanessa does have to worry about the fact that the first few levels in her game are full of axe users so she's likely to take a few axes to the face without being able to dish out as much damage back. Unlike Karin, Mekkah also was kind enough to show us some of the applications of Vanessa's utility:

Ch2 Ross, Ch5 villages, Ch7 skip around 80% of the map
Then Tana joins so it's only half credit from here, but sometimes you can make use of two fliers.
Ch9 Eirika, Tana has an annoying starting position that makes Vanessa a better choice for carrying someone over the south sea.
Ch10 Eirika, you need both fliers to drop Seth and Eirika near Pablo.
Ch12 Eirika, you could possibly use two fliers since there's so many places to go to over the mountain ranges.
Ch10 Ephraim, not sure what strategies you can employ safely here with fliers, but I'm sure there's something.
Ch15, from here you have Cormag but there's also a desert. Using Vanessa and Tana to ferry thieves and combat units around allows Cormag to actually fight things.
I'd make a point about Ch20 if you don't have Warp but by now you have Syrene so I won't.  

 

              Personally, I believe that Karin's utility makes a bigger impact on her game, but Vanessa does have access to the Luna, I mean the Pierce skill if she promotes to the wyvern knight class so her offense does end up better than Karin's. Also, Vanessa isn't quite as outclassed in her game as Karin is. Karin has to deal with Asvel, Safy, Dean, Fin and Nanna while Vanessa's only competition is Seth, Franz, Cormag and....Gerik? Yeah, Vanessa doesn't get outclassed as bad as Karin does. This means that her contributions are a little more valuable in the long run.

              So in short, Vanessa is an early joining rescue-bot with the potential to get Pierce. There's not really much else to her.

# 7 - Karin (Thracia 776)

             And here's to our one (and probably only) dark horse candidate: Karin, from Thracia 776. Karin is what happens when you take every stereotypical aspect of a Pegasus Knight and amp it up by 11. This applies just as much to the bad stuff as it does to the good stuff and boy does Karin have a lot of flaws.

               Low defense and HP? Check. 18 HP and 4 defense is not good if you want to be able to take more than 2 hits. Low strength? Check. In fact, Karin has the worst combat ability of every Pegasus Knight on this list. Karin also has to deal with the fact that Dean exists. Who the heck is Dean you might ask? Well, Dean is a wyvern knight that's super durable, in addition to having base stats that are pretty good. When he shows up he completely outclasses Karin, doing whatever she does better than she can. Karin also has to deal with the fact that dismounting exists in indoor maps. If you recall from my Asvel post, whenever a map takes place indoors high movement characters have to dismount which limits them to 5 movement. They also have to use swords instead of their primary weapon (although she has a higher starting sword rank than a lance rank which is odd). Karin also has a measly Pursuit Critical Coefficient of 1, so she's not going to be landing crits on her second attack, which is sad considering the fact that as a pegasus knight she's going to be doing a lot of double attacking. Speaking of double attacking, Karin's constitution is not that good so be careful what weapon you give her lest she lose too much attack speed to double attack with.

Credit to the original artist / person who took this screencap: http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-Thracia-776/Update%2053/

                           So if Karin has all these weaknesses, then why in the heck is she # 7 on this list? Well, like many Pegasus Knights in the series, Karin joins your army really early in the game. She's your only flier for 10 chapters until Dean and Eda crash the party. This is Karin's saving grace since she has A LOT of useful utility between chapters 6 to 13. Whether she's para dropping Leif (Thracia 776 invented the rescue mechanic fyi), visiting villages or, as the above picture shows, eliminating enemy ballistae, Karin will be put to use by the player and is very important to beating the early chapters quickly. The enemies in Thracia 776 have a love affair with ballista so being able to eliminate them quickly is a huge plus in her favor. Even dondon151 has admitted that Chapter 9 gave him trouble until he learned that Karin made it possible to beat that level in 2 turns. (This is where he said it: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=33043) ). Karin also has great magic, which in this game also counts as resistance, so she can deal with enemy magic users while also ignoring the legion of status staff users that dominate the later chapters of the game. There are a lot of magic swords in this game so should the player choose to bump up Karin's sword rank she could make fine usage of these weapons.

                          Overall, Karin has a lot of flaws that are made up for by her amazing utility. Out of all the candidates on this list, Karin's utility is what ultimately sets her apart. It's rare for a character to be on a list like this because of things that they do that aren't combat related, but hey I'm down for uniqueness and Karin is definitely unique.

# 8 - Fee (Genealogy of the Holy War)

                     
                Fee is one of those units that's there, but doesn't really get talked about whenever Holy War gets brought up. It's understandable and I'll go into why that is in a little bit but for now let's focus on Fee's positives. Fee is basically Fury 2.0 in terms of combat. She inherits her mother's Brave Lance which is a big plus for her as it helps to compensate for her low strength. A lot of players tend to give Fury the Brave Lance that Finn gets so I'm going to assume that Fee will inherit the Brave Lance from her mother. Regardless of who her father is she'll do fine kicking butt. Fee will always have Pursuit so she'll always get to double (or if she's using her brave lance quadruple) attack no matter what.

                 Her best fathers are considered to be Levin, Claude and Noish. Levin passes down Adept and Critical while she'll have a 75 % speed growth. Noish gives her Charge and Critical, while her strength growth goes up to 40 % and her defense growth will go up to 50 %. Claude gives her a 35 % resistance growth, which is nearly 3 times as much as her resistance growth will be with most of her other potential fathers and a B rank in staves once she promotes. Levin is usually considered to be the best father for her considering the fact that he gives Fee the best speed and skill she could get while giving her an extra 18 levels of Adept (which is a bigger deal than it sounds because Fee will spend more of the game unpromoted than promoted) and the Critical skill. Levin will also give Fee enough magic to be a good healer which is something that most fathers can't do for her. True, Noish gives her better strength and defense, but her speed and skill will suffer for it.  Also 18 extra levels of Adept is much better than Charge and both fathers give her the critical skill. Claude turns her into a flying staffbot and a resistance tank, but he doesn't pass down any skills for her which will cause her combat to suffer as a result.

Why do Pegasus Knights never wear pants? Are their pegasi allergic to them?

                         As I stated before, Fee can use staves after promotion which gives her healing utility. If Claude is her father she will get a B rank in staves after promotion, which means that she can use physic staves. Fee has perfect availability for a second generation unit so she's got that going for her as well. With Levin as her father her speed and skill are really high which means that she'll be able to quadruple attack the vast majority of all enemies that she will face. Fee also has access to B rank swords with most fathers so she gets partial weapon triangle control and a viable alternative if the Brave Lance weighs her down too much. Since Fee is also a flying unit she can save villages for you and thereby net you cash and rings, which is always a nifty perk. Fee also gets the distinct privilege of being your only flying unit in the second generation until Altenna comes along. Even when Altenna comes along Fee will have already done so much for you that it's clear that Fee is the greater unit between the two.

                        Remember how I mentioned that Fee never really gets brought up or talked about when people mention Holy War? Well there's a reason for that. Fee suffers from what I call "Chrom Syndrome". Back in 2014 when I ranked every Fire Emblem lord in the series I noticed something about Chrom. Chrom is a great unit in his own game, in fact I am still of the opinion that he's one of the best units in his game, but Chrom tended to get overshadowed by several units in his game who were just better. To sum it up: “Chrom's biggest flaw is that he isn't as ridiculous as some of the units you get in this game (I'm looking at you, Avatar and Panne)."  

http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2014/08/7-chrom.html

              

                 So what does that have to do with Fee? Well, Fee's a great unit in her game, but in comparison to her competition her performance tends to look underwhelming by comparison. Let's take a look at who her competition is:

• Seliph: If I ever got around to revamping my Lords ranking, this guy would be # 2 on the list. Seliph is Mr. "I Inherit Everything and turn the entire second generation into a joke." He is clearly the best second generation unit.

• Leif: Mr. Master Knight: The Master Knight class has 9 movement, the best caps out of all your mounted units (flying units don't count although Master Knight caps are just awesome all around. See here for more details) and gets access to 99.9 % of every weapon in the game thanks to his awesome weapon ranks. Leif also caps strength, skill, speed and defense on average at maximum level while also having high HP. Leif basically has higher caps / stats than the majority of Tier 2 units in the GBA games and Path of Radiance. (Master Knight Leif has even beaten Ike's Path of Radiance version in a Deadliest Warrior battle. I'm not using this as a gameplay metric, but it does give one a sense of perspective about how awesome this dude is). Also, Leif has access to the Rescue staff which is a staff that Fee can never have. 9 movement + the Rescue staff = hilarious shenanigans that break his game into a thousand tiny pieces.

 

•   Ares: Mr. "I have a 30 - 40 % chance of 1 Hit KO'ing 99 % of every enemy unit in my game". Currently ranked # 6 in my Top 20 Cavaliers list, a.k.a. the list with the most intense competition out of all the lists I've done so far Ares also has Adept and Vantage while also having a high enough resistance to deal with the plethora of mages and status staff users that are frequent in the second generation. 

• Levin!Arthur: Remember this guy? He's ranked # 2 in my Top 10 Greatest Mages list. Arthur joins at the exact same time as Fee and with Levin as his dad, he obliterates everything in his path without getting hit thanks to the almighty Holsety tome.

                ^ See what I mean? When you're in a game full of gods like them you tend to look rather underwhelming by comparison, even if you're an above average unit. To sum it up, Fee is a great unit who fills a niche role in her game. She can fight and heal while not being uber at either of them and she joins your army from the very get-go so she's very useful. That being said, she just doesn't have the impact on her game that the other 7 pegasus knights ranked above her have.