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So... once upon a time YEARS ago (before I joined the guild I think even... Rhys, Lili, and Primmy were all here at least though), (Prof.) Rath had this idea that he posted in the Strategy Sharing subforum about having a FE character of the week to examine every facet of (not physically, of course wink ).

It sorta died out over time (you can look it up on page 5 of the Strategy Sharing forum though to get the gist).

(Assistant Prof.) Fire Dragon wants to revive the concept (in this subforum which didn't exist back then)! ...And reinvent it somewhat. (Prof.) Rath's version started before FE10 was even out and started with FE7. Fire Emblem as a series has evolved quite a bit since then.

Starting with FE10, a different unit will be the character of the week (or every three days? or five days? or however long seems appropriate?) based on the order they're received in the game! IF this thing manages to survive the Tellius cast, we could go backwards through the games to rinse, wash, and repeat.

(FE biggrin S is out... but that cast is as ridiculously huge as the Tellius cast, and has the personality of a rotting corpse for the most part... if people want it, we could go there - it just seems to have less potential.)

So FEF, give your spin on the units!
What do you think of their supports? What do you think of the unit? What do you think of their personality? How are they for their class? Are they outdone by another? Their contribution to the game? Plot significance? Their stats, growths? Pairings (OTP & otherwise)? Do you use them? Do you favor them? Hate their guts? Give everything you've got about the unit.

First unit: Micaiah (quite the polarizing main character, yes?)
Second unit: Edward
Third unit: Leonardo
Fourth unit: Eliwood
Fifth unit: Marcus (circa FE7 only)
Sixth unit: Lowen
Seventh unit: Sigurd
Eighth unit: Noish
Ninth unit: Alec
Tenth unit: Ike
Eleventh unit: Titania
Twelfth unit: Oscar
Thirteenth unit: Eirika
Fourteenth unit: Seth
Fifteenth unit: Franz
Sixteenth unit: Robin/MU
Current unit: Chrom

Discuss to your hearts content.

Order in which game characters are discussed (three from each before moving on)
FE10-->FE7-->FE4-->FE9-->FE8-->FE13-->FE5-->FE11-->FE6-->FE12-->FE10

tl;dr much? Sorry guys, I might have gone overboard.

Micaiah is often considered a miss for being a Mage “Lord.” Plenty of people love the idea, but don’t love it on Micaiah – and for good reasons generally. But the privileges she gets for being the “main character” manage to make up for her shortcomings on a number of levels so that Micaiah is generally a benefit to the team rather than a required detraction.

A lot of it has to do with Thani. Seriously, as far as unique Lord weapons go, Thani is among the best. With 8 Might on it, it’s as strong as Valaura – the strongest S-Rank Light tome available. Better yet, with its super effective damage to armored and mounted units, combined with the constant 1-2 range, Thani allows Micaiah to be a powerful attacker capable of one-shotting many enemies (and Part 1 bosses for that matter) despite not being able to double much. It’s her ultimate saving grace as far as offense is concerned, And allows her to net select kills throughout the game.

Her exclusive Sacrifice ability is pretty nifty too. When Micaiah is unable to kill something (or unable to kill something without putting herself in harms way), she still might be able to gain some exp that turn with Sacrifice. Sacrifice works well when you want to be as efficient with gaining experience as possible, also, as Micaiah can heal someone for her to gain experience just to have Laura heal her for more experience rather than Laura healing someone directly. Sacrifice is more than a support ability however, as it gives can make Micaiah an effective offensive unit on enemies that aren’t Thani-weak when combined with the Wrath skill. If Micaiah takes Edward’s Wrath (which quite frankly, doesn’t do him much good since he’s rather poor on the dodging side for a Myrmidon and shouldn’t stay at a low HP for long), she’s able to make much greater use of it due to being able to activate it through Sacrifice when she wants to, rather than risk enemy attacks like other units would have to. This gives Micaiah an excellent optional offense in chapters like 3-6 (behind defensive lines) where there are no enemies Thani is effective against.

Not having to work for an A support is one less thing to have to deal with also. Although Sothe ilikes the boost more from the support than Micaiah does, having the instant A support with Sothe gives Micaiah an opportunity to actually approach the front lines without worry thanks to Sothe’s Guard skill if they’re adjacent (a detriment to Sothe more often than not, but still situationally useful – and Sothe will appreciate the offensive boost given his poor caps during Part 3 and 4 of the game). They also share a Bond support that boosts their Critical and Dodge rates by 10 (good for Sothe’s survivability, great for both offensively).

So between her effort-free A support with Sothe and his Guard skill, the Critical bonus she receives from her bond support with him, Thani, and the potential to activate Wrath without putting her in harms way (if given Wrath), Micaiah can be an a serious situational weapon under the right circumstances. The majority of these things are given to her for free anyway – the only resource she’d take from someone else is Wrath from Edward. This becomes less effective further on in the game however, as Sothe’s defenses become less and less impressive and other impressive offenses become available without being so situational.

Micaiah is also the only unit that can wield Paragon in a first tier class.

Gaining staffs upon promotion allows her to be a great support unit later on in the game, and can be a lifesaver for the Dawn Brigade when one healer simply isn’t enough (and that’s assuming you’re using Laura for healing to begin with). With her poor speed and defense, and her offense being situation at best, it doesn’t hurt that Micaiah can always use staffs to support the team without going out of her way to be in enemy’s range. Her forced promotion times often put her behind other units to the point that her best option is generally to focus on staff support first. And the fact that she’s required means she doesn’t take someone else’s spot. She’s the only healer you have to take to endgame, so she has some uses there – although her extend of usability will largely depend on her Staff Rank.

Micaiah has options if nothing else.

AND… that’s when I stop saying nice things about Micaiah's performance as a unit. That IS quite a lot in her favor though.

Lets face it, her speed growth sucks at 35%, and between her 40% HP growth and abysmal 20% defense growth she’s got the stamina of wet paper. Why don’t we look at her growths overall, though:
HP: 40%, Strength: 15%, Magic: 80%, Skill: 40%, Speed: 35%, Luck: 80%, Defense: 20%, Resistance: 90%

Overall, that’s 400% - higher than any other character in the game. Yay? Not so much. Over 60% of her growths are stacked into three areas: Magic, Luck, and Resistance. The magic is mitigated by her speed for most enemies, and Resistance does her little good at all: the vast majority of the enemies in the game use physical weapons so that 90% growth is useless the majority of the time. And luck is arguably one of the least important stats – its uses are so situational. So she has less than 40% of her total growths for everything else. Very poorly laid out (think of how much better Micaiah would be if her Speed and Luck growths were switched). You’d think that made her a great option to Bonus Exp abuse though. Maybe… if she didn’t have forced promotion moments which limit her time to grow anyway. By the way, Micaiah is expected to Cap luck at the end of Second Tier. The luck cap stays the same for the Third tier though, so that’s 80% of stat growths wasted for an entire tier. You’d think she’d be totally Bonus Exp abuse friendly in Third Tier as a result, but she isn’t. She’d still gain an average of 3.2 stats per level, in comparison with the 3 of a Bonus exp level up. And its’ Endgame anyway. Your Bonus Exp is much better off being used on people approaching actually IMPORTANT stats who’ve been Third Tier for quite a while already.

Plus she’s sluggish in comparison with most units due to that reduced movement. Worst of all, even if she somehow got speed blessed, she has the caps to match a General, and so she wouldn’t double too much anyway. Sacrifice has its uses, but making it makes her even frailer. And having to stick her next to Sothe to give her durability is terribly unrealistic, as he’s the Dawn Brigade’s only character to open chests and doors and whatnot. Plus his mobility is so much better than hers, it’s usually unfair to have to slow him down to keep up with her, especially in Part 1 where her offensive options are most viable – because he can kill plenty of things himself without any effort, so it requires a good deal of favoritism to help out Micaiah much for most chapters. And Healing is swell and all, but the introduction of 6 use Concoctions healing 40 HP didn’t do it any favors. Healers (not named Elincia) were nerfed. Magic users were nerfed. Micaiah is both.

I’d say that’s enough about her performance. Onto her other attributes.

Micaiah… is an idiot in my eyes. Her behavior and blind nationalism did a lot more harm to both her country and that of others later on in the game then they did help. Her unwillingness to listen to others is what dragged the war on for so long, and her love for Daien citizens over other nationalities really brings her “virtuous” character into question. It seems she would have the rest of the world perish if Daien would survive rather than the other way around. Not cool. Terrible, in fact. Extremely narrow minded and selfish of her. Especially considering that she’s been around and knows there’s more to the world then Daien. And then there’s the fact that she’s a hypocrite when it comes to battle tactics, looking down on Izuka’s poison plan, but willing to use oil and fire on her own enemies. And even when she gets called on it, she continues with it – but she can’t even do that right – as she quit when Sothe was threatened. More selfishness on her part. She just fails at life to me, frankly. But she’s supposed to be a great leader? If Sothe was ever kidnapped, I wonder if she’d still be such a great leader or if she’d start start piling her own people’s bodies up if required to get him back… I’d call that being a detriment to society. And for the good that she does do like liberating Daien and all that, the fact is that people followed her because their belief in her “powers” rather than her merit. I terribly dislike her, but to each their own.

And as far as comparing her to other units goes, after Part I, she and Laura are the only Magic users available to the Dawn Brigade. And as big of a pain as Micaiah can be, leveling up Laura is bigger in my eyes. Once all the groups combine however, she gets outclassed both in healing and using Magic. =/

She has a lot of novelty value as a unit, and gets a good deal of points for breaking FE stereotypes by being the first female to use light magic unpromoted in my eyes though.

Thinking of reviving this. But only if people are interested.

Are people interested?

It will all depend on the game, but should you keep this back, I will try to add my input, as long as I have used the character.

I think I would be interested in this thread though some games I might not be able to give input.

Did someone say something about me? XD

I LOVE Eddie. He's one of my favorite characters in the game. In a game where you have so many returning characters, you may not be inclined to liking any new ones, but he truly shines out as a character and a unit (particularly part 1). Even in a game where support conversations are highly dimmed down, he quickly became evident of having one of the best personalities of your entire cast. His design is one of my favorites, too. He quickly reminded me of my Abel, when I saw the character.

There are other swordsman options and Zihark has the better affinity, but in my last playthrough, Eddie maxed out all his stats at 3rd tier, and I was wonderfully happy with him (Along with Nolan and Aran, who are also amazing DB units). He is one of the Dawn Brigade's true assets and without him, those later DB levels would be much more difficult, I think.

First thought upon seeing Edward, for me, was "Ffffff those boots I love those boots." I tend to notice odd things about characters. Like how Tibarn bothers to wear a shirt under his impressive jacket. Or how Shinon's shoes are a ridiculous shade of baby blue that clash with everything else he wears. Or how Bastian's shoes are pointy.

why are 3 of those 4 examples about shoes

Anyway.

I never really used Edward as a unit, but I do like him as a character. He shines in personality in a squad that doesn't get as much screentime as the other characters - or at least, that's what it feels like to me. After Part 1, they're all completely unimportant. At least the FE9 returning cast had ALL OF FE9 and those supports for us to get to know their personalities. (And each of their brief moments in that sweet Part 2 cinematic.)

I ended up using Mia, though. Damned if I don't love me an ADD-esque, fighting-crazy crazy girl with the hots for a sickly priest.