I might not have yet fully finished the game by the time I make this tier list, but here’s how I make my take on the tier list
Review on each character
Amelia: While she does start off weak, she has a unique skill that can actually significantly boost attack power of other units and this is not an exaggeration, in fact it becomes even more powerful when she’s promoted and gets Str capped. Even before her relatively late progression-locked promotion that is only available after finishing chapter 17, she has a level cap of 25 and slightly better caps to compensate for it. After that though, near the end of the game she gets access to Glock, which gives her a strong permanent infinite use 1-2 range, and allows her to disregard weapon triangle disadvantage vs lances (before that, she gets Lancebreaker). If you leveled her all the way to 25 before promotion, she will also have Resolve and Aether, so she’s no slouch at direct combat herself. All in all, for a lord character she excels not only in support, but also in combat.
Reine: She starts off mediocrish for the “Jagen”, but her high anima rank makes her a good early natural user of Bolting (and she’s the only one that can use the Explosion tome from a hidden event in Chapter 2). She does get Rally Speed, and while her stats will apparently fall off through mid-game, if you manage to do something right in one of the gaiden chapters after chapter 21, she can suddenly get massive stat boosts and be able to catch up again. Awkward to say this, but she’s actually very viable in the late game under the correct conditions.
Fauna: As the first archer she’s okay at chip damage. Has balanced stats but can be pretty useful with a DEF-negating PRF that also allows her to counter at 1 range, and she can make a good support unit (especially with a certain skill that she can get from a hidden event in Chapter 21). She lacks an offensive skill to fix her accuracy unlike Botan, and doesn’t have as powerful offense as Flare. I’d say promote her to Sniper for Sure Shot to fix both issues.
Mumei: She’s not much powerful offensively, but gains Bargain if you get her to level 5 on 2nd tier as quickly as possible. Her higher skill growth makes her a good candidate for Assassin, since she’ll have a pretty good Lethality proc rate. If she gets her PRF though she can do some damage even on some of the bulkiest enemies. Also she actually gets to keep Steal as an Assassin (or learn Steal+ as Rogue), and the only thief to have stealing skills aside from a certain later character…
Miko: As the token “Lena”, Miko’s just about as good as an early healer at the start. Her Elite personal skill has no effect initially aside from her getting 2 EXP if she’s attacked and she survives instead of 1, but once she promotes, she snowballs her growths and levels. The thing is, this makes her a good candidate for receiving redebuts or even one of the Master Proofs for even higher stat caps as a Battle Sage. She also gets Cultured upon promotion and has a psuedo Powerstaff when stopping next to an ally with Nice Thights.
Suisei: Highest Con at the start of the game, she’s a prime capturer that can get you good weapons and items early in the game, only held back by the fact she’s an infantry unit who only can reach 40 caps at best. However, she is going to likely to cap Str early and come close to it at level 20 promoted. Her skill also amplifies her hit and critical rates. Once she gets Axefaith, you can keep her equipped with a Tomahawk and watch wonders going for her as she disposes enemies from 1-2 range.
Baelz: Relies on crits to do a lot of damage, if you can get her magic to increase she can be potentially even better. Promoting her to Bishop is just crazy since she retains her Anima rank and she would have Slayer and deal effective damage to Monsters which make up majority of the later half of the game.
Polka: While not exempt to the permadeath rule, she’s actually very hard to kill especially when leveled up, and tends to bait enemies due to lacking ability of attacking. Also, she has rally movement that can boost allies movement, which is pretty good. She can also make use of Steal+ since she can steal any weapon with such base CON and good speed base and growth. Shame that she’s not available on most of the gaiden chapters…
Nene: Fragile early on, as a versatile flier (or maybe not quite), she can be sufficiently good enough to handle most of the game. Also gets Poise which negates weapon triangle disadvantages and permanently gives her +1 move once she gets into a second tier class. Which means 9 movement (unless her final class is Mahou Girl where she only gets 7 movement instead, but lacks flier weakness).
Watame: It’s a staple FE refresher unit, so she’s ought to be useful. Can buff others too.
Noel: Does an early game armored knight can get any more broken than this!? To recap, she has a high str growth and ridiculous base HP at this early point of the game, with a good defense stat too, and has axe-cess at base. She even has a leadership star! (even if it’s just one.) Her weakness is that she’s slow early on, but if you get fortunate enough, she can be pretty powerful. Get to play the gaiden chapter after chapter 19 and finish it, and she gets her exclusive T3 that further amplifies her ridiculous HP, Strength and Defense. She can even tank some of the enemies that nobody else should even try. Heck, she can even tank Kronii in chapter 23 with high enough defense stat, Shield Seal and given a Nihil scroll, effectively killing the player’s urgency to run away from Kronii. If that wasn’t enough, Noel also naturally have Colossus and every time she procs it, she’s going to yeet one more enemy into shadow realm. Perhaps imo she’s the most busted character in this hack, if not for…
Flare: While not as immediately a gleaming comparison with Noel to begin with, Flare can have potentially jacked up massive stats with being able to reclass more than once by having her promote normally to Sniper or Ranger, and then get an A rank support with Noel and reclass to General. She also gets a siege weapon PRF this way too and it’s just as broken as you’d think. Want to make it even worse? Use a Master Proof on her and watch as Master Knight Flare just straight up yeets and deletes enemies (it also solves her biggest issue from the early game, lack of bulk). Seriously, Noel and Flare are the ultimate power couple in this game.
Luna: As the “Maria” archetype, she has different selling points from Miko. Notably, her mount gives her an extra movement stat, and she also gets access to Candy Staff (heal and restore all) with no actual staff rank required for her. Her lack of bulk is very noticable, but this is mitigaed by her Shade passive which prevents her from being targetted early on, and her speed and luck gives her a lot of avoid. Giving her the Blossom scroll makes her all but guaranteed to cap Mag, Spd, and Luck, and the best part is the Blossom scroll doesn’t affect her staff exp gain (lmao). Suddenly, Luna can be pretty good at combat too after promotion since she gets Corona skill (ignore enemy resistance). Solid regardless of which promotion you give her. She also have 2 leadership stars, so consider that for deploying her.
Subaru: Tanky cavalier (not so much early on, but will become one due to how fairly likely she’ll proc Sol). Starts with capped skill and strength growth is pretty good too. Promoting her to GK gives her 15 con which means she will not be weighted down by Battle Axes. Though, she’ll be unweighted by Superior Blade/Lance as a Paladin anyway.
Aki: Your other flier in case Nene’s not a flier anymore or is not available. She has low speed but good strength and defense. Can be devastating on offense on player phase. Not much else for me to say.
Choco: Strong starting stats, kind of like the second Jagen, she flies with 7 movement, has unbreakable PRFs, Slayer skill makes her relevant for the second half of the game when fighting against monsters, though she has a lack of skills early on (but again, that’s what skill scrolls are for).
Roboco: Okay, hear me out. This is a hot take. But Roboco has weak base stats (especially low bulk) and counts as a prepromote. She does kind of struggle to get powerful enough. She does have a few saving graces, the first being a crit boosting DEF ignoring PRF, and the second is an exclusive promotion if you manage to keep her, Miko and Suisei alive, recruit Sora and AZKi and keep them alive too. Not that she’s not unusuable, but she’ll be likely useful if you want to invest on her, that’s it.
Botan: Great accuracy with Deadeye and makes her a prime user of a certain endgame S rank bow with low base hit. Gets Double Lion later on and this amplifies her offensive power. Since she has already great accuracy with Deadeye, she should promote to Ranger to get 7 Mov and Canto+. PRF gives 1-2 range and does even more damage to fliers, but it’s just at most okay. She’s not impressive in stats though and tend to have low speed.
Risu: A fairly tanky dark magic user with surprisingly high CON for a mage. Her mediocre magic and skill growth can be a bit worrying, though. Great at using Luna and Nosferatu tomes, and maybe can double with Bolting.
Sora: She’s hard to use as a combat unit with such low base HP (WHY DO YOU HAVE ONLY 20 BASE HP!?), and is more support orientated. However, deploying her adds 3 leadership stars which grants a global hit and avoid bonus to all of your units, which can be handy when it counts. Gets access to Rally Magic to make your other magic users more powerful.
AZKi: A limited-use early on dancer which is actually a trainee mage in disguise. Her main selling point is that she becomes a walking buff aura with Inspiration once she reaches level 10, and also stacks it with Charm at level 20 to give +4 damage to allies within 2 spaces (regardless physical or magical). Make her a Shaman → Druid to give Malefic Aura to make a good magic support combo. And gets one more skill that boosts her movement, so she doesn’t lag behind. Kind of hard to train and she’s squishy, too…
Lamy: The third healer though she’s has a high base level but she might be lagging behind in base stats compared to a well-trained Miko or Luna at this point (but only if they did get good stat growths). She does get Powerstaff though, so she’s works well as a support (she also has Drive Resistance and Charisma too.)
Lui: She’s worse at offense compared to Noel, also doesn’t get axes at start unlike her. She can however have high speed and defense, making it hard to wipe her out on physical attacks. Also ties with Suisei for highest CON after promoting to General. As Tesuka said, she’s a great Steal+ user with high speed and CON that can theoritically steal almost any weapon in the game. Outside of that though her biggest game-changer is Armor March, which also boosts the movement of your Great Knights, as well as the aftermentioned Noel who always counts as armored even after promotion(s), and even Master Knights. So don’t sleep on her.
Laplus: What the FAQ. Her base stats start horrible, but keep feeding her exp and she’ll snowball even harder than Miko does. Like, as in, having the highest growth rates as well as Aptitude and Elite, she’ll just keep becoming stronger and stronger as you keep feeding her kills. By the end of the game, she will be not just hard hitting, but also bulky and fast. Especially with getting a specific gaiden chapter for her promotion. She also provides one leadership star much like Noel.
Pekora: Second thief and highest level unpromoted unit, she might be weaker than Mumei if the latter got good growths. Her bases are not great. Pekora’s skill is worse but her strength growth is higher, so she makes better use of Rogue unlike Mumei. Her personal Rabbit’s Luck can allow her to move and zoom through map. But she’s fragile and struggles with combat. Pain Peko. At least she has 2 leadership stars.
Rushia: Summons before even promoting? You know she’s not just a freaking standard Shaman. Heck, she gets to outright promote to Necromancer with T3 caps with Holo Emblem, and every summon gives 10 flat exp for Rushia so she doesn’t even need to enter combat in the first place. Of course, her promotion to Necromancer gives her massive stat boost and it doesn’t even need a Master Proof. I call this BS, but she’s not really as ridiculous as Noel is (but still pretty busted though). Her speed is not impressive, but her bulk’s workable for that.
Zeta: Hard to say about her, but like, she’s not particularly that strong early on. If you do manage to train her and get something good from a certain gaiden chapter, she can become a strong glass cannon that wipes out enemies in close range with Assassinate too. Compared to Pekora who she appears in the same chapter for the first time with, Zeta’s a prepromote and have much higher speed stat than a recently promoted Mumei or Pekora will ever be. Shame that Zeta can’t steal.
Ollie: The biggest meme unit here I think - she’s a great meatshield and provoke makes enemies target her before anyone else. Physical enemies also take damage trying to hurt her with counter, enemies can even die attacking her due to Devil’s Whim. But she can end up getting killed if not used carefully, since her low speed makes her automatically get doubled. Worse, she can’t even promote regularly unless you do a good certain thing in a gaiden chapter. If you do get it though she’ll be a meatshield prime. Good job going out there protecting the other girls.
Kiara: Fairly tanky and decent stats for a prepromote, and your first user of Rally Spectrum which grants +7 to ALL of Strength, Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck, Defense and Resistance. Yes, you heard that right. Even Strength (I don’t think there’s a Rally Strength in this game lol). This can be a lot more useful than you think. If her bases seem to fall off and not quite appealing, when killed for the first time she gets boosts to her stats that allow her to take some more hits and do well in combat (despite losing 6 HP per combat round due to Fury).
Matsuri: The apex of all of the trainees. Matsuri struggles to be trained early on but if you set her right, she will just get more ridiculous the more you use her. Promote her to Cavalier early on and give her Elite Sword to level up quickly, once her stats’ capped promote her to Paladin. It doesn’t help that Matsuri has Cultured and works well with units with Nice Thights such as Amelia since it grants her a bonus turn if she ends her turn near a unit with Nice Thights. And then, with a certain paralogue she gets to promote to Master Knight without even needing a Master Proof. If you had some of her stats capped on 40 before this… well, I think I didn’t even expect this is what is literally meant when Matsuri said she’s god. LMAO
Shion: She competes with Risu who has the same class. Shion has worse CON but has good enough base stats to make it work.
Marine: Hard to say on this one but it’s maybe because I didn’t use her much, but she’s a decently useful for her supporting abilities, and one of the biggest contributors to “Thighs team”, and White Pool giving 5 ATK and AS is huge. She can do well in combat though she’s not as capture-happy as Suisei.
Kobo: Her stats seem pretty weak by the time she joins as a level 1 Druid with particularly low HP and her low CON makes her slowed down by most tomes. Her AS is pretty bad because of this, so she’ll often get doubled. That being said she gets Drive Magic on top of class skill Malefic Aura, and act as a support for other mages.
Gura: Enemy phase tanker/meatshield, she immediately start with a skill that is essentially a fixed super crit chance and her high defense through combination of skills make her be able to take hits well. She also comes with her 1-2 range PRF too. While maybe nearly as good as Noel or Lui on defense, she doesn’t do as much on offense unless she gets to trigger Impale. Also, she joins as a level 10 tier 2 when like, she won’t get much exp this early?
Chloe: The only prepromote Assassin, and mainly there for moving around other units. She has highest CON out of the thief class family playable characters but again, can’t Steal. Her high skill works for her Lethality proc rates, but she’s a pretty much big time glass cannon (she doesn’t even have Shade, unlike Zeta).
Ina: Comes with her own PRF that increases her defense/resistance and grant Nihil, but pretty hard to train and low AS means she gets doubled. Her base bulk isn’t too impressive either (Rushia can outclass her on being a bulky dark mage), Ina does have a niche though in inflicting a status effect to incapaciate an enemy temporarily if she rolls sleep or berserk (or for magic-based enemies, silence). She also has Reposition for some reason.
Korone: Doggo got base 8 movement +2 with Doogstone, and Charge at base, also gets Outrider later. With that much movement and bonus crit, you can direct her to choo choo train ram and yeet an enemy. She also has lockpick, which means she can open doors and chests by her own. Not so much bulk, but she’s fast enough to have noticable evasion. Also she levels more quickly than you think at the start because she actually counts as unpromoted in her initial class (and she has a gaiden chapter-locked promotion).
Okayu: Ugh, fine. Let me say with this, she has 14 base strength - pretty low for a prepromote in a quite late game like her. She might be less squishy than Zeta, but with lack of accuracy and power on offense, and having actually less base speed, she’s easily outclassed by Zeta outside of the stealing capability. Even having Cultured doesn’t really exactly save her. Even Pekora does have at least something unique going for her, but Okayu’s Steal+ isn’t exactly unique since Mumei can also get this if she promotes to Rogue, neither is her Charm skill which there are better overall damage-buff supporting units compared to her. She’s just stuck in a limbo where she does not excel in a particular category.
Ayame: Squishy and not so much potential without redebut. Only one of her swords she joins with is actually a PRF of hers, which gives Slayer ability (just make it effective vs monsters). She does have high avoid and crit, and Lucky Seven mostly counts during the first few hectic turns of the fight. Though, there are other sword users that can doubt and contest her role.
Mio: Tome Range+1 innately means she can snipe enemies with her access to all three types of tomes without fear of retaliation. She has low AS though, but she’s pretty deceptively bulky in case enemies attack her in enemy phase. Foresight makes her practically immune to crits and offensive skills. She has 2 leadership stars.
Shirakami/Kurokami: Gimmick unit with stat swap and one of the better magic sword users in Kurokami form, who also has Slayer and works well against monsters. You want to switch to Shirakami though for non-monster enemies that are better taken down with physical damage. Growths are also variable, too. Shirakami later gets Double Lion at level 15, which means she can use Superior Blade for maximum damage. Has 2 leadership stars.
Kaela: Combat medic. She works well with using heavy axes like Kiara, though she also has a good niche in using staff to heal and support. Has a unique staff that is basically Hammerne. Statwise though she’s pretty average.
Anya: Free 1-2 range PRF, 8 range flier that doesn’t count as having flying weakness for some reason, S rank swords base, has Keep Up skill by default which extends her mov to 10 if she’s near a unit with Canto(+). Sounds not totally ridiculous to me for a late game gaiden-chapter exclusive unit.
IRyS: Despite her innate Nullify and flier status, and S rank base Light and Dark magic, she has weak stats when recruitted for the first time. Even with having one leadership star isn’t enough to justify stacking her amongst leadership star units. You can tell this because I witnessed her get one-rounded by the Deathgoyles right after her chapter. What the heck!?
Kanata: Bane of monsters. She’s a flier with actual flier weakness unlike the previous two, but she comes with A Light rank which allows her to use Aura from the start. She will likely do massive damage if not outright one-shot monsters with Aura. Her capped STR is virtually useless… unless… Colossus scroll…
Friend C: She has low base speed so you need to be careful with her. She’s mainly there for maps with Dragon Veins (Chapter 20, Chapter 23 and 23x), though she can fare well against monsters (there’s still a plenty of monsters until the last few chapters).
Koyori: Mainly deploy her for additional healing items, which can be used to technically get more funds before the final shop on Chapter 23 by selling them. Outside of that she has all magic ranks but her bases are nothing spectacular
Iroha: Hatsuru’s Self-Insert She has T3 caps of up to 50 on stats, base 45 skill and 45 grants her high hit, avoid and crit, she can double almost anything. She would’ve been even more scarier with Resolve and if her strength is boosted with Engage Rings. She could effectively have 70 speed with Speedwings (a gaiden chapter item drop) and her PRF Chakimaru. With Astra proc she will be very likely to one-round most enemies (each Astra hit can crit). A big glass cannon
Aqua: Similar low bulk and high skill/speed but her skill/speed is not as good as Iroha. However she does have Aether + Hero + Miracle which makes it easier for her to survive and deal significant amount of damage. She lacks the T3 caps that the aftermentioneed Iroha has, but she contributes to 2 leadership stars when deployed.
Iofi: Comes as level 20 already so she needs to use Redebut to grow further - but her base stats are high, her exclusive methods of attacking are infinite use, one of which deals massive damage at close range and the other provides a 1-2 range option. Strong in “Thighs Teams”. Park her next to Amelia and watch as she easily wipes out an enemy in one attack if they don’t have a lot of HP. These stats would not look out of place on a Gotoh archetype!
Sana: Not impressive for a late game prepromote. Her base ranks are pretty good, but its near the end of the game and the enemies are stronger. She’s bulky by mage standards and have Nihil, but not much else going for her. Her low base speed makes her prone to getting double attacked by the fast enemies in the endgame.
Towa: She can only use staves. But that’s all what she needs. She comes with Powerstaff, and A rank staves (yes she can use Fortify at base), her high base magic works well too for offensive staffs like Sleep. She pretty much dies though if an enemy looks funny at her, so keep her away from enemies.
Mel: Slow but bulky enough to survive with Nosferatu. Her base magic is actually so high that she can act as a magic nuke early on. Also she has Charm + White Pool and can support allies.
Calliope: Slow, but she deals insane damage with her PRF Ricky, which is also effective against monsters. She only gets T2 caps though, but she comes with Resolve and Frenzy. Also, 5 leadership stars! And she can summon to bait/distract enemies in case she doesn’t have anything to attack in range.
Kronii: Chat, get cooked. As the true Gotoh of this hack, Kronii starts with capped HP of 80, STR, SKL, and SPD of 50 all each, and capped Luck at 30. Not only that, her Rightful God + Aether + Astra makes her an immense force that will destroy anything foolish to attack her in close range, or anything unfortunate to be attacked by her. Even worse? She has 20 leadership stars. This means all your deployed units in chapter 25xx / 26 / final, will have +100 Hit and +60 Avoid. Hell, she can and will rip and tear the final boss. She’s a game over condition but it’s not hard to prevent her from getting killed.