Fire Emblem Main Character Tier List! 

You are VASTLY underselling Corrin’s upsides in fates. Fates isn’t a game that can really be solo’d (even Xander has trouble with a lot of the team comps) but even with that Corrin does SO much for your army. Corrin with dragonstone is essentially the Jagen until you get Camilla and then is able to do whatever you want. You don’t even have to dedicate your talent to wyvern thanks to the fast support with Camilla letting you get to Wyvern around the same time dragonstone falls off. Not only can Corrin do whatever they want but they also enable any other unit to do whatever they want. Easily top 3 units in conquest and as close as a hard carry as conquest can get.

Probably a controversial take, but i am a big fan of lords being on the weaker side. Being forced to dedicate a deployment slot to a weak baby like Roy adds a lose condition you need to play around, which I vastly prefer over something like Hector who just murders everything

Not specifically related to this tier list but Eliwood should’ve started as a Lance Lord. Lyn=sword, Hector=axe, and Eliwood=lance would’ve been the weapon triangle. Maybe a remake will make it happen.

The only help Hector needs is movement. You drop him and everything fold themselves against him.

hot take: I think leif is solid all around say what you will about him but he can do alot in the manster prison arc and just being a guy who can make basically your whole army better through supports and leadership stars + being free to use due to lack of fatigue makes him vastly more useful than even leif apologists often give him credit for, imo

I'd actually make a case for RD Ike being a hard carry (or on par or better than some hard carries) because of how absurd his bases actually are. The only reason he isn't the best unit in that game is because Haar exists, and that's solely because Haar is a flier with no weakness to bows. Even then, he still has some combat advantages over Haar such as having better base and cap speed and evasion thanks to Earth affinity, as well as access to Ragnell towards the lategame, and Ike eventually surpasses Haar towards the endgame. The only other lords who have similarly strong bases to Ike relative to their join time are Sigurd and Kris to some degree. I would argue units like FE1 Marth and maybe even Seliph should be lower because part of what makes them so useful is how rewarding investing into them can be, except they actually require more investment/favoritism than someone like RD Ike, who's already extremely powerful even from the start. FE1 and FE4 are also much easier games with respectively smaller cast of characters as opposed to RD. In FE4, Seliph is still objectively inferior to Sigurd overall as Sigurd already starts off promoted in their respective parts. And FE1 Marth is the best unit in his game largely due to how FE1's simplistic mechanics favor him significantly rather than being traditionally strong like most other best units, hence why is considered to be the "weirdest best unit of the franchise". Meanwhile, even though RD Ike falls second to Haar, he is still very strong in his own right and arguably better than some of the best units of other FE games, with FE1 Marth being a prime example.

Oh a small correction on Sieglinde and Siegmund - all the Sacred Twin weapons are only double effective against monsters. In fact, Ivaldi's Sacred Twin effectiveness overrides the effect of Slayer's triple, so an FE8 Bishop will do more damage with one hit of Aura (3*12) than they will with one hit of Ivaldi (2*17)

In terms of Three Houses I think Claude can be moved down a tier. His personal class doesn't actually grant him extra range on bows, its just that Failnaught has bonus range, and anyone can use Failnaught. The actually unique part of Barbarossa is that it's a flying class that can double stack bowfaire, normally only Bowknight and Sniper can do that, and being in Barbarossa does mean he can't use Hunter's Volley. You might read that and think "okay but that still sounds pretty busted," but Three Houses is a game where almost everyone is busted. That and the fact that Dimitri and Edelgard are *so* much more broken than him make him feel a lot less absurd. Edelgard can beat so many maps in a single turn with Raging Storm and Dimitri might not be as fast as her but he's even more threatening with high strength and being able to stack battalion wrath, normal wrath, and batallion vantage to have over 100% crit chance and attacks first. You can literally just stick him infront of the final boss and watch her kill herself as he counter crits her for 200+ damage

I don't have time to watch the full video yet, but thanks for putting the end result in the thumbnail! Roy needs his own tier for dog 💩 though.

Celica mediocre? 0/10 Alm not carrying? 0/10

>lyn and Roy and Marth in the same tier despite Roy and Marth Actually being useful even while being bad >Celica and eirkia in the same tier when celica Actually has good combat and can one round enemies at base >Echoes!alm and gaiden!alm being tiers apart when echoes alm even has killer bow > " Corrin needs help " >Hector being in B tier

Lyn and Eliwood both should be higher than Roy because at least they can promote earlier with much better promotion upgrades also.

Can confirm that Byleth themselves doesn't get any particularly broken tools - Windsweep at A Swords is frankly just not very impactful, especially given how late in the game it comes considering that they don't get tutored in the typical way, and they don't get Battalion Wrath as one of their Authority skills. While Professor's Guidance being applied to themselves is nice for hitting Level 5/10 for Beginner/Intermediate classing, it's mostly good either for your Lord (for the total x1.4 exp while adjacent to Byleth) or for getting a bit of extra exp on your other units The lack of special tools means that eventually they kind of get carried by the merits of their class. Which, to be fair, they generally have a relatively easy time reaching before other units start to really develop and use their broken tools since Professor's Guidance means you probably want them pretty close to the action. And you can never complain about 13 base Str and 8 base Spd, which are the same bases in both of those stats as Edelgard. Notably, if you don't choose Blue Lions and they happen to get 2 AS in some form before you fight Dimitri in Maddening Chapter 1 (e.g. through 2 Spd levels or 2 Str / 1 Spd), then they don't get one-rounded by his 10 AS while holding onto an Iron Sword (5wt) with 0 chance to get crit due to Sword Prowess. So it's a nice bit of tech that they can potentially provide in one of the more brutal Maddening White Clouds chapters

Sad to see most of the gba lords so low down, but I completely agree with the ranks. The gba sword lords are bad 😅

I think you're vastly underestimating PoR Ike in an effort to try to be fair. His growths are actually really good, to the point that on average he caps str, spd, skl, and def around 20/14, which is not hard to reach at all. He has earth affinity, the best type in the game, as well as a potential support partner with earth affinity in Oscar, giving them both a massive boost. You didn't mention Aether at all when it's one of the best skills in the game and Ike almost always gets your first Occult scroll. The regal sword is a really good early game prf weapon. He promotes at a good point in the game, close enough to when everybody else is getting promoted, unlike a lot of other lords. His downsides are very few and far between. Going off your tiers, I don't think anybody would really say that Ike needs help, so I'd put him at least in Solid All-around. Edit: I forgot to mention the stat rings! Ike joining at level 1 means he can make the most use out of stat growth rings to have even better growths than his standard ones. He can cap his main stats even earlier with the right rings, meaning you don't have to put quite as much into him if you don't want to.

I can't disagree with Eliwood's placement. But I do train him up and having access to lances and a horse while being force-deployed can at least allow him to do things Lyn can't. Having canto and rescue/drop is pretty powerful, even if others can do it too.

Alear can't get Strength to save their life.

i'd change FE2 Celica to good but needs help, the ability to counter at range or use magic to avoid counters is pretty good most of the time in general, and seraphim demolishes monsters

Here's the take: Roy should be in mediocre at best. The rapier is a really good early tool to deal accurate and effective damage to those cavs. This is super useful in hard mode where the early game is the most brutal. Plus that fire support is pretty good and can do stuff with the binding blade.

fembyleth is hard carry. they give motivation bonus when mvp. access to early flier class. and can auto recruit sylvain.

I don't understand the downplaying of Echoes Celica. She doubles, can frontline with shields, and heals which is a lot of utility in one. She doesn't really need a crazy spell list when Seraphim and fire get the job done. Also if this is relative to the performance in game, idk why Radiant dawn Ike wouldn't be top tier. The only units that are really better are Haar, and maybe Jill (but not really).

Robin isn't technically hard carry until several promotions. An actual hard carry or strong unit would be Sigurd, RD Ike(although POR Ike carried before Titania shows up if you take too long rescuing Mist and Rolf.) Alm and Celica from Echoes. There's literally dialogue where Lukas tell Alm NOT to hog all the EXP when they have the first battle.

You're forgetting the potential Roy has at being Ike's cute little uke.

Sigurd is hands down the best lord in FE, at least the older ones (I haven't played any of them after the DS titles). He starts off pre-promoted with a mount/high movement, great base stats, and his growths are some of the best of any unit in the franchise. To make matters better, the end of the first chapter gives him the Silver Sword while all your other units have iron weapons. In his final chapter, he gets Tyrfing which is kinda funny. It's like the developers were teasing you to solo the map with him at that point. I like to joke that Sigurd is FE Jesus and in his death, he blessed us with his son who can be even more overpowered than him. I always give Seliph every ring and Sigurd's silver sword early on. Chapter 6 is pretty much designed in a way you can solo most of it with Seliph to grind him up. The 2nd generation of Holy War should be played to try and promote Seliph as quickly as you can. Once he gets a mount, the rest of the game is a breeze. Seliph can actually be better than Sigurd though due to higher resistance stats. I have to agree on the GBA Lords. However, one thing you didn't point out is that Hector greatly benefits in that game due to the heavy number of enemies who have lances. The weapon triangle plays in his favor, whereas it is a major weakness to the other lords. Eliwood is sword locked for most of that game against enemies with lances. Lynn is pretty darn bad cause she's a glass cannon. Eliwood always frustrated me in their game, but looking back at it, I think a lot of his issue is being sword locked. He is OK once he gets promoted despite that being so late in the game.

I would probably put PoR Ike into mediocre. While he isn’t an active detriment to your team because the enemies are so weak, he is 1 range locked until the 2nd to last map and his stats are ok at best

Nice to see por ike getting some credit I feel like people overestimate how much being sword locked more than anything I think him not having a mount hurts more.

Personally I would swap Eirika and Lyn's placements. Lyn can consistently double pretty much every enemy in her game and has excellent evasion, while Eirika just has poor stats all around. By the time Eirika gets her promotion, basically every other character that you're using can do the same thing of killing monsters with legendary weapons. Lyn actually has an important role of killing armor knights and cavaliers easily with the Mani Katti.

I can definitely vouch for that FE11 Rapier. Missed an 88 Hit on Hard 5 once with that crappy weapon. A very traumatic experience for me. Marth died because of that miss. Very disappointed!

Ahhhhh FE2 Celica... the lord of FE2 who doesn't get any class bases from promotion. That was certainly a choice that was made

i think claude is the best out of the three lords. you dont train him until the timeskip so he autopromotes. carries the second half.

Roy and Eliwood are neat cases to me because Roy is imo a unit who would be improved if you had the option to not deploy him, and Hector mode Eliwood proves that case well enough to satisfy me.

Roy needs to go up a tier

I think both Alear and Corrin deserve to go in Solid at the least. Corrin honestly deserves Hard Carry imo, I think she’s definitely better than Claude, who I think should be moved to Solid. As for Alear, I’d say around where the first Marth goes. I would also swap Ike and Celica. Anthiese deserves Fine I think as she is a solid magic user throughout most of the game and can always contribute, which is more than I can say for Ike, who’s just mediocre for the entire game aside from the last ones.

Chrom legit solos the second half of the game with Aether, Rightful King and Javelins, that probably deserves a higher tier imo

I would like to throw my 2 cents in regards to my beloved (Male) Byleth. I would personally put Byleth at Just Fine, as much as I love him, but it really depends on which class you put Byleth into. For example, if you went for Magic Byleth, he does end up with enough Speed to double some of the late game Armoured enemies but his Magic Spell list is just basic with nothing special to go along with it. What Byleth does have, is an advantage over essentially all the other mages is his bulk. But he does need to get going with that Magic stat of his, in a way, he needs a bit of feeding. If you opted for Enlightened One Byleth, he gets a mix of both Strength and Magic and it makes it difficult because he usually doesn't have enough Strength to double and his Speed becomes mediocre at best. But his EO Mastery skill is pretty nice as a Support skill. If you went for a physical build for Byleth, then you want to get lucky with his Strength and Speed depending on which class you put him. The enemies that he can usually double and kill have weapon advantage over him (if you stick with swords) and the Sword of the Creator can actually weigh Byleth down in the early game.

Eirika should join the scrub lords at the bottom, she is such a liability in every strategy she is put in. No strength, no bulk, she even fails to double some enemies, her OP sword and pony come in when the game is already over. You can make the case Echoes Celica is slightly better than Gaiden Celica because of the existence of movement skills, swapping is handy. Alm is on the same boat, in both Gaiden and Echoes he is an exp thief in Act 3 but Echoes Alm can help swap some people. Hector I find shabby, he peaks in the earlygame where he is the 2nd or 3rd best fighter, but he does less and less as maps go on, as you discard the earlygame scrubs for better units who are more useful than him. Past a certain point Hector is not a unit anymore, in kill boss maps you have much better units to do the job, in rout maps you have better and more mobile fighters than him, who does anything in defend maps doesn't matter whatsoever.

Imo I would disagree that Alm isn’t a hard carry, specifically after promotion. Granted, I am biased as in my only playthrough of gaiden it got to the point where only alm and dread fighter klif were alive, but Alms high stats combined with bow range and regen allow him to handle the entire game after promotion. Compared to Marth, who only becomes good after he gets enough stat boosters, Alm requires no effort to trivialize the endgame of gaiden.

Nice Background Music. Age of Empires 2! :D

Alear early game combat wise is just awful 6 str and 7spd are only salvage thanks to marth (who is better with chloe) and also their dragon bonuses for the other emblems dont really help them, alear is way better as a support with their personal and spurr attack and just be a +5 attack and probably using micahiah mend strats to get him to promotion in ch7. In the mid game is when they start to shine as one of the best supports either the cheapest with Byleth rally +3 in everything or being the best lucina user in the game in either flier, cav or qi adep. you can try to make alear a good combat unit but honestly is just not worth it.

Yeah, I’d say the TH lords are in the right spot. The TH meta is basically Byleth supports the lords as they go on a rampage.

I dont think lyn is that bad. sure u might have to give all the str boosters and get some lucky str level ups or give her that item that increase her stat growth. but yea she usually will capped skill, speed, and luck. I would put her with eirika but thats just me. even mangs said she wasnt that bad and before he used to think shes bad. and oof alear lol

OMG you know a lot about FE games, I'd only move Crhom and Lyn a tier up, but mostly you're right

Just a couple of notes from what I know about the meta of certain games: * Awakening meta is Robin and Chrom solo. I don't know if I'd put Chrom in hard carry for that reason, but definitely higher than just fine. * Three Houses meta is Byleth solo. In fact, the speed run literally kills off your entire team apart from Byleth and your lord and solos the game with Byleth. I feel like this means Byleth ought to be in hard carry. * The normal mode Echoes meta is Alm and Celica solo in their respective routes. Given that normal mode is basically Gaiden, I think that means Gaiden Celica should be a bit higher. Hard mode meta is a bit different, with Alm route being basically a merc Kliff solo, but Celica route still uses Celica extensively, so I think you've underrated her quite a bit. Alm I think is in a good spot, because although he starts out strong in act 1, in act 3 you can basically just bench him if you want. Because of the way promos work, any levels or stats he gets before promo aren't going to matter because of the huge boost he gets at promo. Unless you grind him extensively, he's not going to go over his promo class bases, so it's just a waste of time. As soon as he does promo, though, he's incredibly good, especially with the killer bow, in both act 4 and 5. Even though he comes back strong in the later game, his mediocre performance in the earlier game makes definitely not be a hard carry. Gaiden Alm would certainly be worse than Echoes Alm, due to him not having access to a killer bow or Hunter's Volley. He's not bad, but certainly not as good as Echoes Alm. Celica is definitely better than you give her credit for. Having Seraphim early isn't a small thing. Seraphim is a high might, high hit rate, relatively low HP cost spell that is not only effective against terrors but hits melee and magic units harder than most other spells (it's why people should try out mage Faye, because she gets Seraphim early as a mage, and can get up to 100% hit with her Alm support, but I digress). Her major issue is the fact that she can't use magic on enemy phase, but if you give her a good weapon (and don't waste money getting Beloved Zofia), or better yet, a good ring, then her magic on player phase does quite a bit. Sure, the mercs on Celica route are better on paper, but half of act 3 is desert, so they can't even move that well, and half of act 4 is swamp, so they can't move that well there either. Celica isn't going to be moving much more than them, but she has the added bonus of being able to heal and hit with magic just as hard as they can with melee (if not harder, due to effective damage). I would put both Gaiden and Echoes Celica in good but needs help at the very least.

Echoes Alm is definitely a hard carry, he has great bases and growths, being one of your best units for all of the game, the moment he starts to fall off the game gives him the Royal Sword, allowing him to OHKO or deal heavy damage to most enemies once he gets Double Lion. But if that's not enough for you, his promotion not only gives you crazy stat boosts(in case your Alm got RNG screwed) but also gets access to bows, which means Killer Bow, which means Hunter's Volley aka the best skill in the game. Personally I'd say he's a hard carry but would understand putting him at the top of all-around good, but definitely not on needs help, that man can actually solo the game, actual broken unit and I love it