Pegasus Knights
In the original Greek mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse sired by Poseidon, and was ridden by Bellerophon to slay the monster Chimera. This would not be possible in any game apart from Fire Emblem Fates, due to the gender lock on the class - but only due to that. From Caeda and the Whitewings, to the Illian mercenaries, to so many more, their utility, strength, and fantasy has let them cement themselves as a staple of Fire Emblem.
The platonic ideal of a pegasus knight, or at least the default one I think, would be the classic, weak, frail, but fast and accurate lance flier. One that starts off weak and with unimpressive combat forecasts, but whose flying nature can provide unparalleled utility by ignoring mountains, cliffs, and fences to reach places no other units can reach quite as easily. This utility is part of the core conceit of the archetype - a flier with mediocre combat can provide a lot of value, compared to an infantry, or day I say, a knight, whose combat is only slightly better.
This is doubly useful due to GBA having Rescue, the ability to store a unit with less con than your aid stat. With fliers having innate Canto, pegasus knights can utilize the mounted aid formula to ferry around powerful infantry, thieves, or lords to seize points, making them capable for side objectives such as chests or villages, or for speeding up the map. This is reflect in many hacks having rescue.
To curtail this strength, Fire Emblem utilizes archers, giving bows effectiveness against fliers in order to box out certain areas with carefully placed archers, or a ballista if we’re feeling especially hateful. Wind magic has also proven to be effective, but are less effective due to often decent or serviceable resistance. With this, map design and enemy placement can be used to, on paper, give pegasus riders small routes they can use. Cliffs to block anyone off can be under the watchful eye of a sniper, a path to reward you for using a flier can be through forests or thickets, with only frailer sword users.
But of course, weaknesses can be overcome. And when your weakness is that you have everything except combat, there’s nothing that love, care, boss abuse, and performance enhancers cannot fix. Body Rings can fix the -4 AS from an iron lance. Energy rings can net you that kill. Angelic Robes and Dracoshields can turn you from a wet towel to someone who can tank a bow and kill in retaliation. A promotion from a Master Seal or Elysian Whip will give them plenty of stats and a sword, bow, or even staff for extra utility. By the end of the game, any unit can become a monster if you please, and nobody benefits more from being a monster than a flier.
Vanilla Pegasi
A Complete History Of Pegasus Knights In Fire Emblem
This is a video going through every pegasus knight in Fire Emblem. It’s long for sure, because pegasus knights have a very long history, starting from the beginning with Caeda and the Whitewings, with many many impressive performances. In this case, due to this being a effort post regarding hacking and how to use the class, we’ll go with a classic, Florina, in an era kind to flier, especially due to Rescue.
This is Florina. In Lyn mode, she starts in Ch 3, against a map with 4 brigands, 2 archers, and plenty of fences blocking off a house she can reach turn 1. She starts with a Slim Lance because, believe it or not, she loses 4 AS from starting with an Iron Lance.
As above, she’s unimpressive early on - Slim Lance deals paltry damage, holding an Iron or a Steel Lance will prevent doubles, or even cause her to be doubled herself. But Lyn mode is very kind to her, offering everything a flier would want - outdoor maps with plenty of mountains, rivers, and bridges to fly across, weak enemies you can set up kills for, and most importantly, an Angelic Robe and an Energy Ring, two statboosters she enjoys a lot. Oh, and effectives are only 2x here - she’ll fear bows early on, but patching up her HP and Defense will let her reach thresholds to survive bows far earlier than in FE6 or 8.
With Lyn Mode under her belt, she’ll remain a mainstay in the army for the whole game - offering competitive offenses, and when that fails, using her minimal Con to Rescue and ferry units like Marcus or Hector where they need. Rescue being what it is gives a massive boost to mounted units, especially fliers to ferry someone over a mountain. Even if you skip Lyn mode and go straight into Hector mode, Florina’s no slouch by sheer utility of flying and Rescue. And even if you don’t deploy Florina…
There’s always a second or third flier waiting in the wings. That isn’t to say she’s a replacement - the more, the merrier. It’s well worth deploying them alongside your wyverns if they’ve grown fine.
Hackrom Pegasi
There’s always a push and pull compared to the times. When a class is good, you want to see it be bad. When a class is bad, you want to see it be good. There’s been many questions of “How do I make archers good?” or “How do I make armors good?”. The reverse would be, “How do I nerf cavaliers?”, or “How do I make wyverns bad?” While my initial expectations were that they’d lean towards the latter, the impression early game pegasi have managed to thread the needle somehow. There are some that are worse, some that are better. But none have ever fallen into the hypothetical “10 MOV, 0 STR flier that rescue drops” where they’re all utility, no fun. Instead, I’ll talk about a few situations that are similar or contrast the existing pegasi template, and how they benefit from certain things.
TLP - Statboosters
I’ve played TLP a long, long time ago, so these are hazy memories. Inanna joins in Sieg mode, The Last Promise’s Lyn Mode equivalent, which cannot be skipped. She’s fine, an early game pegasus knight for sure. Not bad offensive growths if I recall correctly, not amazing either. However, just like Florina, she has unique advantages from being in this mode.
The image shamelessly ripped from an LP like many others, there are both buyable Angelic Robes in the last chapter, and an early Elysian Whip in Chapter 3, her join chapter. These won’t carry over, so you need to choose who to invest in - prime candidates being Cia and Inanna.
I personally sold everything to get Inanna to 40 HP after promotion, shoring up her middling HP. WIth all this investment, when she rejoined on Chapter 16 she was… solid, to say the least. My Ben had turned out cracked somehow, and my Karina was no slouch – wyverns are often considered one of the best classes for reason. Still, she was great, and having a high hp, tanky promoted flier felt great.
Unfortunately, Lirin the second one didn’t take off. This is purely off my subjective experience and rng, so this isn’t a unit evaluation, but the Lirin in my save was incredibly strength screwed. She failed to pick up kills, and was frequently weighed down and doubled. Unfortunately, with 2 / 3 fliers to invest in by the time she arrived, I didn’t particularly want to invest extra in her. This was a flier without statboosters or much grinding. She got exp, she got kills, and she turned from bleh to serviceable.
Serviceable was enough.
There is a booster called the Ether Sphere, which gives 10 HP and 3 to every stat. This is a very, very competitive booster. You can give it to Howard, you can give it to Kevin, or you an give it to Alice, the final Pegasus Knight who joins. With the booster, she performed better than Inanna, albeit with less HP. The reason why I invested a high value item for her was because you can pull off the Triangle Attack, a guaranteed crit. In current FE8 hacks where enemies are less bulky and you have more offenses, this is less useful. In The Last Promise, there are multiple high dodge, bulky throne bosses. A guaranteed crit on one of them made bringing Lirin along acceptable.
In the end, I think it was worth deploying and using all 3. Ben and Karin, my wyvern riders, and Howard, the late game paladin, had better performances than all three, despite my investment. However, 3 more fliers, ranging from good to fantastic, is nothing to sneeze at, and Inanna got her time to shine on her own during Sieg mode.
Shackled Power
I think it’s worth posting this effort post about Eileen, which says exactly what I was going to mention on Shackled Power.
She’s unimpressive in combat initially, has poorer growths than most other early game pegasi at 30 STR, and still manages to contribute due maps being designed around letting her maneuver through tricky terrain, her join chapter being a highlight.
Embers Entwined
This is Deesa, your Chapter 1 Pegasus. There are several chapters including cliffs and thickets, villages, even desert maps to fly across freely. On the flip side, there’s these.
Navigating these, not letting Deesa die, and training her up lets you get a good head start for a good flier, even when Wisteria, a solid wyvern joins. I did this myself, and Wisteria and her made the desert maps early on a lot more bearable, and with her good growths I invested certain boosters into her.
Then she died, and I got stuck with this one in Taking Back the Town.
Mary’s not the traditional pegasus rider. She has swords, leaving her without the Saunion. She has worse strength and speed for her level and join time than Deesa. You even just got out of 2 desert maps where flier movement was appreciated. To make use of her, I tried using the Wind Sword, to at least try and nail down fliers with effective damage - and even then you have a few sword units who would like that 1-2 range instead.
What she offers instead is defense, which, with my army, was surprisingly useful. Without Wisteria (who likely wouldn’t have had the same defense at this level, she was a useful shield that could swoop in and block a spot. The Arbalest does negate this and make her moot with HP that’s just okay, but she can still soak a hit and even kill if you throw a pity Brave Sword. This was an odd ironman run, and it did show that giving worse and worse offenses can let pegasus knights struggle. However, the unique statline did allow for a different usage and role she could fill - not unusual for a telephone, but still relatively novel.
Wing Spear
I can see the writing on the wall with this writeup so far, so rather than just talking about certain ones that may or may not fit the template, I’ll talk about a rather common trend - the Wing Spear equivalent. The Wing Spear, debuting in FE11, was a Caeda exclusive - a rapier-esque lance that makes her far, far better. There is a non-zero amount of pegasus knights who follow this trend - be it with a literal Wing Spear, or with an effective weapon, or a skill or something that incentivises it, or even just a reaver prf. Something that turns the grind of feeding kills to a weaker pegasus knight into less of a grind, giving matchups to win.
Vision Quest
Natsuko from Vision Quest starts with swords, a type that does not weigh her down, and has the Lady Blade, a weapon great against brigands in her starting chapter and in the port chapter soon after. Not a prf, but it does give her good match ups. There is something to say about her starting skill, Lightweight, which gives AS upon holding 3 or less items. With the lady blade and iron sword not weighing you down, this skill is what lets her make or break certain speed thresholds. If you pick up an item from a village, pushing you to 4? This’ll become an issue.
Absolution
Absolution leverages its unique favored weapon system, divebomb, and the power of having a starting inventory to help give her good early matchups. While not as accurate or devastating as a normal prf, having these match ups helps her snag kills, while still performing like a normal pegasi knight - one that will blow up due to being weighed a ton, but with good enough stats/growths and enough terrain that you still like her.
Four Kings
Four Kings’ whole conceit is prfs, which each of their units having their own unique prf.
With Marcie as the first flier you get, it dials it up - she’s defined by the Wardlance giving her great magic match ups, while relegating her to ferrying around. Patty’s similar - in this case, being optimized against armors with decent defense.
Dark Amulet
Freya’s largely here to show that it doesn’t have to be an effective. A reaver weapon letting her one round fighters and thus giving her good matchups is nice - though, in my playthrough, she didn’t take much time to get off the ground without it.
Cistia from Daughters of Braghedunn
Of course, there is no other unit you’d know better than your own. No other sandbox are you more familiar with than your own. So, compared to others, this is the one I have the most to say, to fit.
Years ago, when LTPhone was in development led by me, I chose to be Chapter 3. An early game chapter, one where the current party hadn’t had a pegasus knight yet. Of course, I designed the map with the flier utility in mind. Of course, I knew I couldn’t make a pegasus knight strong or abusable - what fun is a unit that would break the game? So I wracked my brain, knowing that no matter how much I nerfed a unit, she’d still be useful due to flier utility.
Meet Cistia. The fabled 0 STR utility pegasus knight. There’s an obvious twist here, of course.
Who needs Strength when you don’t need it? Cistia is a 0% flavored unit. As long as she has effective weapons like the horseslayer she starts with or the mage effective lance and the requisite enemies, she’s happy. And there’s plenty of those enemies on her starting map. She has a solid showing, with mountains and rivers and enemies that want you to cross over or run away. Not to mention, her skill gives her beautiful numbers when she’s has a good match up, and she has reposition when she doesn’t have one in sight. What a great unit!
And for the next few chapters, she’s having fun. Chapter 4? Port map with small bridges and cavaliers, as well as a dragonspear. 5? Some dragons to pick on. 6? Probably her best map the whole game - defend map with plenty of swamp to fly over, a soldier effective weapon, and many side objectives to gun for.
Then the vibes begin to change. There are less bodies of water to cross, no more villages. There’s a few more ballisticians. Your effective weapons begin to run out, or rather, you don’t get any new toys. These guys begin to appear.
Cistia is still dealing single target nukes, even against some bosses which meet the right conditions. But it’s different. You can only eke flier utility out of a flier as much as a map lets you, and the maps begin to not let you. Often times, if you’re bringing her, you’re using Cistia as a combat unit for the most part, rather than really utilizing her flying. In my own runs, Reposition, usually a winning flier skill, was rarely used.
Part of the reason why Cistia’s flying utility falls to the wayside isn’t because of other fliers. There’s a flying manakete, and you can promote a fleet into an airship, but neither is brought for big flying shenanigans, and the next wyvern is several chapters away, on another map where fliers aren’t that necessary.
It’s because the sandbox narrows the gap due to long-range attacks, baiting, and even warping. Your early-game archer has a skill that lets them set up a temporary line-locked siege shot. Your fleet? Playable ballistician. You have an early game duo that can swap places in a heartbeat across the map, a thief who phases through walls, an armor that can rescue and warp to tagged allies, and a swordsmaster that is just insane, rewarping and warping and delivering devastating 1-2 range attacks, and more. This isn’t an exhaustive list - it doesn’t include staves and items that can grant movement abilities. Best described by someone else, maps just don’t encourage high move via the move stat, and you have weirder ways of moving around that are better.
This monopoly on movement and range and presence being shattered doesn’t mean she’s unusable. In the eyes of many, her niche of obliterating a single target is enough. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, and it’s easy. I’ve seen several screenshots of high numbers against normally deadly bosses, and that’s part of the unit’s appeal. Not to mention that there are some maps that still reward fliers, even if fog or wing crushers can clip your feathers. Part of the reason this write-up took so long was that someone would pop in and mention that they liked Cistia and she’s fun, making me smile.
But Cistia sometimes doesn’t feel like a pegasus flier, or feels like changing her to a cavalier would change little. By zeroing in on the “solutions,” she gives off the opposite feel of someone like your classic flier. Overreliance on the weapons means that stat boosters don’t matter. No amount of babying will fix her strength (even though there are tools that could theoretically fix it). She’s a unit who averages out to a lukewarm reception when you take into account the hater(s) who do point out that other units can also one-round without hogging effective weapons.
In a way, she’s a success. She’s a C to B-tier flier who can’t juggernaut. She still has good numbers for people to enjoy. I don’t hate her at all. But the design was founded on an unfounded fear of making a unit too good, when in reality, it’s a lot more fun to let them grow.