Gonna just pin a comment addressing this because I've seen a few comments about it. You should always play in the way you find fun and use the units you think are fun! I addressed the exp stealing argument because it's usually presented as a reason Jagen's are bad to use, and I disagree with that! But obviously, you don't have to use Jagens if you don't like them lol. If you're not using a Jagen because you don't think they are fun, keep doing that!

Clearly Sigurd is the worst jagen. He falls off so fast halfway through the game he isn't even playable. Could you believe it?

No of course I don't fall off

Can I pick my favorite Jagen based on their quotes? Because my favorite Jagens would be Frederick telling enemies to "Pick a god and pray" and Seth asking a series of questions ending in "Why do you conceal a blade within your doublet?"

Seth is the best Seth because he's very Seth. But actually I really like how Sothe works as a Jagen, because he can change weapons to control when he gets kills, and can provide thief and hidden item utility even if you want to go nuts with training Dawn Brigade scrubs.

I remember playing por for the first time and.going "ok titania is rly good, her growths probably suck." She then got a full stat level up and i realized what a monster IS made

“Pick a god and pray.” quickly became a meme in my friend group when Awakening came out. Frederick is great.

I remember there was some FE1 playthrough where the guy just used Jagen as much as possible, and gave him all the stat boosters. It worked far better than I'd have expected.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="915">15:15</a> You forgot the third and most critical reason: nearly every game has some NPC that tells you "Hey! [Jagen Unit] will steal EXP from your other units! *Don't overrely on them!*" Thus, many people will misinterpret that advice as "Don't use [Jagen Unit], period."

I wonder what engage would've been like if vander's growths were not just good but absolutely bonkers? turning him into a jagen early-game, and a trainee unit late-game once he can actually gain exp

I really like how Sothe is designed. He's the most reliable unit in the Dawn Brigade, prior to part 3, and when part 3 comes around he can go nuts with his effectiveness against beast laguz, but at the same time he isn't overkill like Seth and Titania and can actually die, due to bad placement. Also, the fact that he's forced in the Endgame and still can contribute with the Baselard and Peshkatz is a cherry on the top.

Marcus in FE6 will always be my favorite Jagen; he is absolutely essential in the first few chapters, a key player in Chapters 4-9, and fades into the sunset as better options become recruitable. He does just enough damage to severely weaken enemies so that your lower level units can get kills, but his growths are so bad that going all-in on him is typically not a great idea (especially on hard mode).

Back in the day I had truly internalized the "don't use your Jagen" advice. My first game was PoR and I relied a lot on Titania, to the point that when I got to the BK fight, my Ike was super untrained and he got SMEARED. So I looked up advice online, started a new game, did not so much as LOOK at Titania, and I ended up playing the other games in that same way for a long time. It took a WHILE for me to truly have my mind changed. RD was a very special hell bc I would Not use volug, I would Not use nailah, I would Not use sothe, I would Not use tauroneo, I would Not use BK, etc etc. it was pretty intense

"A unit being in your army for a bit, doing a job, then getting benched, isn't a BAD thing." I've had this mentality recently, and Engage I feel really encourages it. With how nearly every unit works both as a temporary filler AND long-term investment (even Jean and Anna can contribute at base with staff utility and chain attacks respectively, I will never stop bringing up how I once brought an untrained Anna to Maddening Chapters 10 and 11 just for utility and I was able to protect her just fine) Etie for example WILL kill a few crucial fliers for you in the early chapters, her getting benched later won't take away from that. Clanne is your only practical answer to Chapter 3's boss on Maddening, where Marth's Rapier doesn't work. People like Diamant and Lapis can put in work in Brodia even if not brought all the way. And so on. (Of course, in my last run Clanne decided he didn't want the bench and proceeded to become one of the most RNG-blessed units I've ever had, forcing himself onto my endgame party, but my point stands)

The Jagen cycle: New FE player - Jagens are amazing! They kill everything and never die! Experienced FE player - Jagens are awful! They steal experience and then fall off! Veteran FE player - Jagens are amazing! They kill everything and never die! Although I'm not sure if this is true now, as I find it rare to find anyone these days who actually uses the "exp steal" argument unironically. I acknowledge Jagens as (usually) amazing units, and that's why I tend to not use them for too long. Seth is boring.

'jagens that don't fall off' are called oifeys for the same reason that 'growth units you get somewhat late into the game' are called Ests: because people who played Fire Emblem 7 worked backwards and applied principles that were only true in that game to previous games in the series haphazardly and named them after units from older games to pretend that the pattern was there the whole time. 'est' as an archetype consists pretty much entirely of nino, but people on gamefaqs in the 2000s didn't want to pretend they only had experience with the only game released in english.

Corrin's Dragonstone is my favorite Jagen. Really like how Fates/3H tried out having no true "Jagen" at the start, and at least from a 'feel' perspective, it's nice to not have a unit that feels like it's sucking XP away, but is still very strong.

FE6 Marcus will always be the coolest Jagen. Essential, but doesn’t necessarily overstay his welcome. Great video!

Oifey stand out in the fact that his growths and stats are actually comparable to those of a growth unit from Gen 1 (like say Finn), he isn't amazing, but the fact that his growths aren't bad is quite fascinating considering his role, and how most of the Jagens (except the FE 7-9+13 bunch) have very intentionally below average growths in any context. Also, yeah, Oifey is an unit that stand out a lot more when you're in a super scuffed run, or one where you're using a lot of Substitutes... the fact that Oifey is effectively a promoted growth unit in a sea of jokes (and Shannan), makes Oifey's position quite the curious one, Oifey will eventually fall off, specially if your run has good inheritance; but the fact he's an unit you could actually depend on for quite a while is interesting to see. BTW, I find a bit funny that Oifey's skill combination basically turns him into a "normal" Fire Emblem unit, having both Follow Up and Critical xD.

I'll make a point in Titania's favor in that she can also make use of the Knight Ward, bumping her speed growth to an amazing 85%. Sure, you could also use that on Oscar or Kieran too, but the fact you don't have to put investment to promote Titania and still have early access to a Paladin who can use spears and axes is a huge benefit.

Honestly except in a few cases I think the jagens are always good because they're a guaranteed paladin. Having someone who can do rescue duty is a plus. Plus in a lot of games you could just disarm them and use them as stone walls

I think it's proof how well designed Fire Emblem is with the amount of psychology added to the discourse of the game by simply making one of the starting units much more powerful than the others.

I think the only Jagen I actively avoid using is Seth. He's just too damn good! If I could bench the entire team, give Seth 4 Javelins and an elixir at the start of the game. He'd solo 70% of the game, no problem. He's functionally as strong as a self-insert romhack character... only he came packaged in the base game! Titania is a monster but at least I don't feel dirty for using her and Fredrick is downright NECESSARY on Lunatic and Lunatic+ awakening.

Let's be honest if Seth was not wounded by valter he would have joined as a 20/20 with all Green stats. They had to give this guy a crippling injury for him to not be op, and you can still solo the game

Love your videos overall, but this might be your best so far. Great arguments, pacing, and examples.

Gunter certainly fell indeed.

Gunter is my favorite Jagen (if you consider him one) just bc of how well he transitions from a good combat unit to a stellar support unit. He wrecks dudes for the first couple chapters you have him. He'll do pretty well for a bit in Revelation, and then in both Rev and CQ can easily become a good lunge bot and a stellar backpack for Corrin especially, but even in general with how nice Wyvern bonuses can be. He's ALWAYS got some kind of use no matter what part of the game it is

so i think one character that fits into the jagen archetype better than possibly even jagen, is Sothe from radiant dawn, the only things holding him back from the title is that he doesn't join in chapter 1 right off the bat and he isnt a paladin. But he is a a super powerhouse unit that can solo the majority of part one, doesn't get a lot of exp at this time, is prepromoted, is the main "guardian" of the lord, BUT then he reaches part 3 and falls off the face of the earth combat wise, but rather than having that horseback utility, instead he becomes a laguz slayer with theif utility.

Excited for Unicorn Overlord to come out and then you can talk about that game's Jagen, Josef. At least in the demo he is a straight up monster, and while he doesn't get any experience at all, the squad system in this game allows you to use him to feed exp to weaker units as you can put them directly into his squad. It's a very unique take on a Jagen, as he shares exp by one rounding enemies rather than thieving it, and I think it's quite neat that UO is elaborating on fire emblem archetypes. My other favorite thing about UO so far is that you unlock more army slots as the game goes on, at about the same rate that you acquire new units. Before the last chapter of the demo, I even had a couple extra slots to spend on mercenary recruitments, which allowed me to interact with that system and use a couple classes that were not available to my story characters. I paired them up with Josef for the final chapter and had a blast with him, and then I needed to withdraw a few squads and assemble a dedicated squad just for killing the demo's final boss which included Josef, all in the middle of the fight.

Guess next we'll get a summary of the dancers and see how adding weapons to them made them better or worse in later games. The azura dance spam for early game was pretty fun to make her end game ready for lunatic difficulties. Engage with the dance was pretty fun to use in mid turn set ups and so on

I’m surprised you didn’t have anything to say about Jacob/Felicia in Fates. They aren’t traditional Jagens but they occupy a similar role in the army and they’re fairly interesting units to discuss.

Aww man I love Jagens. My favorite is probably Titania PoR. I like it when they come with good base but can keep up until the end of the game. I love Seth but I think he was just too powerful, borderline Gotoh tier that you get early in the game. Titania felt more balanced where she's your best unit and might stay as a Top 5 unit by the end. I also felt like it was a steady progress going down the list. She did not feel like she dropped off quickly at any point in the game.

I’ve always seen a good Jagen as someone who could save you from a mistake earlier on but can still be lost if you play horribly an unfair or unseen event that happens before your party can survive atleast a mistake. I like it when they are still useable late game but not the best top 10 is reasonable

Yeah, the "Jagen worries" are so prevalent, you see the same discussion in Unicorn Overlord about Joseph. Despite the fact that Joseph doesn`t steal XP since XP are awarded to each squad member individually, people still make the argument that he takes a slot away, despite the fact that you propably will have some weaker units or freshly recruited generics that are a bit behind and appreciate the additional XP they can gain from fighting stronger enemies with Joseph being able to carry them.

Something about the XP argument that I haven't seen addressed is that you can think of enemies as being somewhere on a line from obstacles to resources, depending on how challenging they are to deal with. When enemies are impeding your ability to win the map, I think using Jagens to make sure you have a good chance of completing objectives makes a lot of sense. But there are an awful lot of maps in the series that just aren't that hard. So if you aren't playing for turn count, those enemies are more like XP piñatas than actual problems, so it's basically a question of who you want to show favoritism towards. And Jagens, by virtue of already being good units, aren't great favoritism targets-Seth isn't going to end up stronger by getting to level 20 slightly earlier. You could also think of using them early as "favoring" faster play over army development.

I think it's worth noting that Vander is the only early-game unit who can use the free S-Rank Axe from the well. It's not the _greatest_ weapon, but he does have virtually uncontested access to it

A conspiracy theory I made up a long time ago as to why Seth is so good to being borderline broken in FE8 is because some dev saw the discourse happening around FE7 Marcus saying how bad and shit people viewed him back in the day. So to satisfy everyone with the release of FE8 they somehow thought it would be a good idea to make them better! Thus Seth was created and here we are still praising him to this day.

People always seem to forget that oifey can use swords and has a crazy magic stat. This makes him crazy good in fe4 no matter if it’s a scuffed run or not. And he will always have the money due to the fact he can finish the arena on every map.

Titania is honestly my favourite of these types of character. She's both great in combat and she is gorgeous. 10/10 imo.

I have played Awakening a lot, and I second that Frederick is really important in those first few chapters in Hard and up. If you plan for pair-up usage, you can turn a soft unit into one that can survive long enough to kill things just by keeping Fred at their side. I have at times passed Frederick around among a few characters as they attack to make them all tougher on the player phase, and if he joint attacks, he might flatten a unit that character wasn't quite able to kill, but the character you are training still gets the juicy EXP gain. For a long time, I was a "don't use the Jeigan" guy, too, but as I have challenged myself more with these games, I have come to really value them for what they are.

I'm really glad you acknowledge that Seth's speed growth is shaky, because that was the main thing that actually did make him fall off for me going into the lategame - he simply no longer doubled any unit with a decent speed stat, even when equipped with a light weapon. Together with his strength and defense also not going up all that much, that really lowered my evaluation of him and even contributed to him falling off in the biggest way he could, in that he was taken out near the end of the chapter where Syrene joins and I didn't bother resetting (or loading my several-turns-earlier save state). Also, one interesting thing you didn't mention is Thracia 776 having no fewer than three Jagens, each of whom play very differently from each other, and one of whom only technically falls off due to straight-up not being available for most of the game.

Will never forget you Frederick ❤

I think "Oifaye" as a term revolves pretty heavily around growths and the sort of slower pace a lot of people used to play back then. As an old boomer from a bygone era I can tell you that promoting before 20 was borderline unthinkable to most people back in the day. Oifaye himself gaining an average of 2.8 stats per level compared to a lot of Gen 2 units being in the 3.8~ range is not that bad compared to a lot of characters people call Jeigans. He starts with solid bases and he's more likely than not to cap skill and other relevant stats are not far behind. Going in release order through the series it isn't until young Marcus that any character in this role really compares growth wise. And if we're looking at the notion of an "experience thief" growths can be very important to this perspective, again especially if you play at a slower pace. Or to put this another way: Jeigan 0.4 or 0.43 Arann 0.63 Oifaye 2.8 Dagda 0.96 Eyvel 1.16 Old Marcus 1.85 (and it's disproportionately in HP) It's true that average growths vary a bit from game to game but not by so much that the 2.8 isn't obviously and clearly not like the others. There is of course a lot more to whether or not a character falls off than growths, but in the old slower perspective that is more focused on growths it makes sense that he would have his own named archetype in a fandom that really likes naming archetypes after characters.

It's funny I now only realize Seth got his name from the fact two of the first ever mounts in series were Cain and Abel

My favourite Jagen has and probably always will be Marcus from Fe 6, dude carries your scrubs ass all the way until Melady and Perceval take the torch from him, as well as Lance/Alen, depending on whom became the better Cav. Has complete weapon triangle with effectiveness against cavs and armors, high movement for rescue chains, and stats that are just enough for early Fe6. And depending on Level up luck he can stick even a bit onto midgame. Love the dude.

I’m a bit partial to the Gotoh’s, myself :P but FE6 Marcus is my favorite; the mentor on a horse is a great idea and Marcus embodies it well for two generations

I really wish jeralt was a jagen in three houses. Having a bulky unit for the early maps on maddening would be so helpful.

I do think if they gave Vander an A rank weapon like the Silver Axe wouldn't have made him broken and if you have the expansion you can give him a Silver Axe early anyways. Interestingly, he's the only character with access to A rank in the early game giving him slightly more lastability if you do have access to the higher rank weapons.

I keep my Jagen's around for the first 10 or so chapters just to have them quickly nuke a problem if i get sloppy and put one of my other units into danger. It varies from game to game though.

My favourite Jagen is the Lightning Sword in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Seeing Faye becoming my main DPS was glorious.

My favorite jaegan? The dragon stone.

Thank you for covering this topic with some degree of nuance. People love to make blanket statements and it bothers me, Seth and Arran are a perfect example of the broad range between them. Seth remains powerful right until the endgame provided you don't completely ignore him, meanwhile Arran is replaced with a strictly better Paladin by Chapter 4. I'd go so far as to say Seth is a failure of a Jagen on the whole, he's too strong and simply can't NOT one round enemies so he can't even feed your weaker units.

Juat found your channel. Fe is my favorite series yet i dont know everything and havent beat or played wvery game

Yes, they do. End of video. Jokes aside. Imo, the jeigan concept is one of the most interesting elements in the entire franchise. You have this really good earlygame nuke that is just great, is mobile, is great, has better stats than your other units, and is just great. But as the game progresses, that unit starts to get overtaken by other units. The degree, to which they are getting overtaken depends on the unit, but even the almighty Seth starts to face come competition at the highest level with Franz being able to hit speed benchmarks that Seth usually doesn't hit (and with "benchmarks" I mean "is able to double Fomortiis", lmao). Creates this interesting concept of a tradeoff where using the jeigan makes the critical earlygame easier (where most of your units are scrubs), but holding the jeigan back gives the other units more opportunities to grow and turn into even bigger statballs than your jeigan could ever be.

Another point to the "stealing exp" I wanna bring up is that in the grand scheme the exp the early chapters provide are merely miniscule specks of dust and individual level ups seldom that impactful that missing out on one or two levels on a few units will neither impede their performance early on nor lag behind in levels later.

Regarding Frederick specifically, it always feels like the intention was that he´d basically fall in line when other units reach lvl 10-15, I like setting him up with Cherche, and by the time you recruit her, frederick is basically as strong or even slightly weaker than some of your other units, and feels more like a stahl that has promoted on lvl 10 into great knight, but his growths are still good enough that he doesnt really fall behind, and I think this is mostly due to his class, if he were a paladin, we might have another seth situation at our hands, literally, because the only thing that bogs fred down is his low speed and res

Expectation: Jagen and Wendell will fall off in H5 Shadow Dragon Reality: Flying Jagen and Swordmaster Wendell go brrrr But seriously, jagens are fun units to use. I remember my first fe7 run seeing that Marcus was just...way too powerful so I benched him because he was just breaking the game before I got to the dread isle. I took him back out during the denning map and...he still was cleaning house. Meanwhile Seth and Duessel in my first fe8 run were 🔥🔥🔥 I've seen impressive things utilized with CQ Gunther and most recently Celica Vander in the earlygame lol.

My problem with Seth was never that he wasn't good at what he did, even in late game, but rather that the other units you're getting early in Sacred Stones are people who really kind of need a bunch of exp in the early maps or they won't survive the later ones. Chapter 1 is easy enough for Erika to solo, and if she does then chapter 2 is also straightforward, but if you let Seth contribute in chapter 1 then you can't survive ch2 without leaning on him, which in turn leaves Erika unprepared for ch3, and so forth. And Vanessa, Ross, Colm, Lute, etc. are all units that you're going to want in the late game, but who will never make it there if they don't get enough kills in the first few chapters. Seth feels less like a helping hand and more like a trap when you get to a hard map and realize that your force-deployed lord is still going to get one-shotted by anybody who can reach her. My opinion on Frederick is pretty much the opposite though. Awakening gives you more than enough exp for everyone and the way the reclassing system works leaves less difference between pre-promotes and units that start at square one, so there isn't really any long term disadvantage to using him... and on higher difficulties he will definitely save all your lives a dozen times over. Also, PICK A GOD AND PRAY!!!

Hope you're having a good day

Titania from PoR is my favourite Jaegan. I like her because she is cool, I still user her for the endgame, and I don't think that I can survive the first few chapters without using her.

I like actual Jagen since Shadow Dragon's prologue lets him sacrifice as a decoy of someone decades younger. Favorite one is Sothe though because he isn't final class and slides into his unit's role rather than straight up being worse than same unit types you train and become better

"Exp thieving" is not a thing because the amount of exp a unit gets depends on their level relative to the opponent's level. So even if your low level unit misses out on killing a bunch of enemies, they will make up for that by getting more exp on the next enemies they kill.

You got a link to that bright bold sandstorm remix? Can't find it anywhere.

Just an idea for a potential future video. Should you train your lords? If so which ones and why?

One type of Unit who can be mistaken as a Jagen despite for being available later are traitors due of their massive stats like Orson tried to scam you by hogging the Exp away from Ephraim, Forde and Kyle, and as for Black Knight from Radiant dawn despite that he would betray you later on you have no choice but to use him or Miccaiah will get one shot by the hidden enemies “I forgot which chapter was it but its the one when Black Knight becomes playable for the first time”

i usually use Titania as a meat shield for choke points or something and thats it. in my play throughs, my units usually eclipse her by the time she starts getting meaningful XP from kills, so i dont see a point of adding her in, but i think next time i play im going to make the effort

So story wise Seth got badly injured near the beginning of the game right ? That would mean that before the game started he would’ve been even stronger, that’s terrifying to think about

Seth is fun because he is probably the main thing solidifying Sacred Stones as a good first FE game, like it was literally my first and it was nice to have Seth as a reliable unit to fall back on in almost all occasions, and it's not like Sacred Stones is really that hard anyway that Seth single-handedly ruins the game or anything Only thing I'd say is that his ass should not be considered a Jagen when he has literally Top 6 total growths out of every unit in the entire game, only beat out by the main lords, the dancer, the manakete, and the literal last creature campaign unit

I remember firt time i played FE and had a level up with Jagen on HP strength skill and speed. I don't think it'll ever happen again

I think the Engage DLC changed how good Vander can be. With the DLC Hector ring, if you reclass him as a general, he can more or less block entire passageways with his insurmountable defense. I know a lot of other units can do that with Hector, but because Vander has such a high base HP, he can outlast quite a few of them if you go and get that ring early on. Also, one other note I want to mention is the training area actually gives decent XP to Vander, and since your other units are generally sponging enough XP to be good, I would just run Vander through the training hall every chance I got.

Jagens never really fall off. The early western fandom mistakenly assumed FE7 Marcus was a bad unit and wanted to assume the same of Seth. The problem being that even for the early fandom, trying to call Seth bad was just a bit too ridiculous. So they retroactively created two archetypes: the Jagen (the ‘bad’ prepromote) and the Oifey (the ‘good’ prepromote) by scouring through past FE games to find characters with superficial similarities rather than just admit that FE7 Marcus is the best unit in the game. Because the truth is that there is no Oifey archetype. In fact, Oifey is a worse unit in FE4 than Jagen is in FE1.

People justifying their suboptimal play: unpromoted characters have higher growths, so they're better long term than Jagens and prepromotes who steal exp and fall off later. Younger me justifying my anti-optimal play: I have to train everyone equally so they're all the same level, and anyone who's at level 20 can't be used cuz they steal exp. Also, I have to arena grind with save states until everyone's level 20, then never use them again so that I can train my other untrained characters. My younger self apparently loved doing equal-level challenge runs without knowing FE challenge runs were a thing.

Sothe as a jagan has the funniest drop in performance i have ever seen part 1 he is cracked but like most of the dawn brigade falls of heavy in part 3 even with investment

Common lizard W

*Titania, my beloved.*

My honest strategy with jeagans (largely as a result of Sothe and Titania being my intro to the archetype) is to give them minimal use until my lower level units match their starting level. This strat is probably also a result of me starting with RD and POR and wanting to spread exp evenly so everyone is about the same level on any given map. Of course the tellius games are unique for their auto-classup system, so using the entire cast for the whole game is more viable there than it is in games like fe7 where promotion items are limited. Still working on breaking myself out of this habit on those limited resourse games.

Seth is my favorite Jagen for 1 primary reason... and a terrible secondary reason. Primary reason, you always remember your first unit of any type. Seth being my first "Jagen," well, I actually call all of the "good" Jagens Seths because, oh yeah, he was my first and then it was either Marcus or Jagen himself that showed me what a "Jagen" is. So, I call all those who can scale (or have to scale *looks at Sothe*) into the Endgame and keep up with your other powerhouses Seths and I honestly only learned about Oifey... while learning more about the "Jagen" archetype units. Oh and the crappy second reason? And this is why Titania is like my second favorite "Jagen," red hair. I love redheads in terms of character traits. I just do. Like flaming red hair is awesome to me. DKW, but I just love seeing them. *shrug*

I want to add something interesting about FE5 giving you two jeigans Eyvel despite being so powerful and having plot armor helps a lot with those bosses with +10 defense bonus of gates and thrones that no other character at that point can defeat, but at the time when you lose her at chapter 5 you already got a unit capable of defeating those bosses With Dagdar is that he joins with around 10 in his stats that at first can't look so good but taking in consideration that in thracia all caps are 20 he have half of the caps and this game throws you tons of unpromoted units even in the late game and while his growths are awful this is also the game with scrolls, he having A in axes can instantly use silver, killer and even master axes without griniding weapon ranks

Titania is one of my fav fe character designs I'm glad she doesn't fall off

Jagen is the best Jagen. Because he’s Jagen

Sadge Titania and Frederick didnt make it to the list but a honorable mention, for my experience titania IS a jagens for quite a long time very good to help you get some units going early game

Honestly, the reason most Jagens fall off eventually is not because of "Growth units catching up and eventually surpassing them"(Oifey is the only one I can think of that could be put on that category), but rather either because "You get a bunch of strong prepromotes on mid-late game that makes the Jagen obsolete", or "The map/enemy design of that game is not favorable to that particular Jagen".

I love Seth. Sacred Stones was my first FE game, and I abused the hell out of Seth. He carried me comfortably for the entire game, and then died to Fomortiis at the end, softening him up enough for Myrrh to finish the job.

Jagens are a resource that should be managed correctly

Frederick is the man

Path of Radiance has so many units that could be considered Jagens. While Titania is the Jagen, there's also Shinon and Gatrie before they nope out being able to dominate the few chapters they're in and Lethe and Mordecai as all the Laguz units are bonkers through the whole game. The worst part about Shinon and Gatrie is that they actually are exp thieves, as when you get them back later, their levels and stats are different from when they left. For example, on my current playthrough, I lucked out and Gatrie got a speed level on 5 of 7 levels at the beginning, so he was around doubling everything. When I recruited him back, he was a level lower than he left and only had 5 speed. Dude fricken slacked off after he left.

The one thing I wanted to add about the exp stealing argument is that with the way exp can drop off when you're overlevelled, sometimes you'll be at practically the same point by lategame regardless of the early kills you get - once a unit starts getting reduced exp per kill then you're "wasting" a lot of exp you could have spread around more? I'm not sure if that makes sense but ultimately unless you're training a *lot* of project characters you'll never get the theoretical maximum exp per enemy possible

I'm curious what your, or anyone's, take on the idea of Jakob and Felicia as the Fates Jeigans is? Because I always saw them as the Jeigans of that game despite having a really different role, being set up to debuff and support with staves while being pre-promotes.

Does "jagen" also apply in other tactical rpg? I assume Milanor also counts as a jagen since he got alot of advatages and his stats are high in the early phase of the game.

My favorite Jagen is the lightning sword in SOV

Titania is the only one I like and used till the end of the game. I usually only use 'jagens' for like 2 or 3 battles at most and only as tanks (I remove their weapons usually)

I like using Jagens to assist my other units in the early game. They bait enemies with their high range, tank hits with higher stats, and I make sure they deal chip damage so that my other units can finish them off and gain the EXP

FE6 Marcus will always be the best Jagen in the series since he has a clearly defined role in the first half, able to pick up the Axe-using slack that your Axe bros can't usually reach while chipping down tougher enemies enough for Roy, the Christmas Cavs, Shanna, etc. can use to make themselves stronger. I prefer to play FE6 on Normal mode so I usually have Marcus rescue Bors for Chapter 1 since Bors is useless on that map and it keeps Marcus from ORKOing the Fighters that all of my weak sword users would like to kill for the EXP. Yes, he'll become obsolete once you hit the Etruria arc and start getting the midgame monsters that are Miledy and Perceval, but until then he's incredibly useful without ever feeling overpowered in the same way Seth feels in FE8.

Something else of note is that most of the games have mechanics in place to help underleveled units catch up. For example, it's common for the EXP formula to be balanced such that a lower level unit fighting a higher level one will yield greater amounts of EXP than if the units were more evenly matched. So even if a Jagen "steals" exp from a unit in chapter 1 and causes them to miss a level up, they'll just end up gaining more EXP from the now comparatively higher level enemies in chapter 2 and will quickly catch up. BXP from the Tellius games is another example of this, where lower level units enjoy a more favorable BXP --> EXP exchange rate. So you can use Titania or Sothe to quickly blast through a map for max BXP, and then use some of it to help out any units that might be falling behind. Even keeping mid/late game training projects in mind, there's still more than enough BXP to go around.

FE7 Marcus for me. He's easily strong enough to be endgame viable, but not so dominant that he trivializes the game. He also arguably makes the best use of most of the stat boosters.

Hi Lizard!

Does Haar count as a Jeigan for Radiant Dawn part 2 and 3? He'd be my favorite if he counts.

So I have two things. 1. How would you Rank Jacob and Felicia? Or Gunter, who technically has good growths, but really bad join times? And 2. My favorite Jagen is Frederick, but not because he actually does any fighting. He makes an exceptionally good pairup for early game Chrom, and a massive boon for late game girls who need some help to build up their potential. For actually fighting, Gunter actually. He can provide a very niche coverage of offenses, and if you're willing to spare some speedwings and res boosters, he can handedly use Silver weapons even as his offenses tank.

What about the ultimate Jagen in Fire Emblem history? Silver Snow Edelgard. A Jagen who Jagens so hard that she literally becomes unusable in the mid to late game.

in a month someone tell me if anything funny happens with the jagen in unicorn overlord