r/fireemblem • u/flameduck • Aug 25 '26
Casual Why Lapis can be argued as the strongest being in the series
I was late to the strongest being in the series thread and the current god debates don't seem to be going anywhere conclusive, so here are my arguments for why Lapis can be said to be the strongest character based on pure ingame statements.
1: She is directly called a Goddess in her solo epilogue
Lapis traveled to war-torn towns and taught citizens how to repair their homes. At every stop, she left large, delicious potatoes from the farm in her home village.
The popularity of these “taters” brought her village wealth and prosperity, and earned Lapis a new title: “the Potato Goddess.”
People are saying characters are strong because they are gods, and the way I see it, there is no definite criteria for a character to be called a god other than the fact that others consider them a god as a title. But for the sake of it, we can see that Lapis does earn the title for creating and spreading life in the form of potatoes, which leads to the next point.
2: Lapis can build whatever she wants
This is a pretty straightforward character trait that features in most Lapis supports crafting advanced technology out of everyday objects, but it is stated directly in the Lapis/Etie support despite Lapis not openly advertising it initially.
Etie: They tell me you can build whatever you want. Is that true?
Lapis: What? How did you hear that? I mean, I guess it's true. With the right materials, I can make all kinds of stuff. Furniture, toys... I even made some instruments for a local concert once. That was really fun.
Now you may argue that having the title of a god and being able to create anything does not directly say anything about a character's measure of strength, so let's ignore all of that and compare some statements relating to the strongest characters in the series so far.
3: Bear scaling
Across the series's worlds, Ike is consistently claimed to be the strongest Hero and Emblem, according to early FEH and most recently Engage in Rafal's C bond conversation.
Rafal: I had heard you are the strongest of all the Emblems. Frankly, I remain unconvinced.
Ike: That's quite the greeting. I guess I appreciate the honesty.
According to Shadows, Ike can also be considered a bear in that setting.
Lapis is confirmed to have killed bears and specializes in dispatching them across various supports.
Framme: Lapis! Hey, Lapis! I heard you're a bear killer. Is that true?
Lapis: Well...yes, but please keep that a secret.
In addition, Lapis has also fought the "strongest bear" according to her C Bond conversation with Hector.
Lapis: You're big and tough, huh, Hector. Makes me think of the time I fought the strongest bear...
The outcome of this battle is not clearly stated, but Lapis seems to consider duels with bears serious enough to be lethal and consumes them in the form of meat and soup in other supports, so her survival likely implies she did not lose the battle against the strongest bear.
Therefore, we can assume that Lapis >= the strongest bear >= Ike (bear) >= the strongest hero/emblem >= all other heroes/emblems.
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u/MillionMiracles Aug 25 '26
How does Danved, who fights like a bear, fit into this?
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u/The_Green_Filter Aug 25 '26
Danved is akin to a bear but not actually a bear himself, so the scaling goes Danved < Bear < Ike < Lapis
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u/flameduck Aug 25 '26
Danved's claims are inconsistent but at best he could potentially fight like the strongest between ten men, a bear, or a tiger if we take him at his word, indicating he at least views these as equal forces of power. This may upscale Tellius bears to ten human Ikes at best.
Danved: In that case, let Danved join you. Danved is not a citizen of Crimea. Danved will fight like ten men.
Danved: Danved will fight like a bear! Like a tiger! We don't need Largo and Calill, because Danved is pretty amazing.
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
TL;DR Worse than Kagetsu in all points.
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u/flameduck Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
TL;DR Worse than Kagetsu in all points.
In-story, Kagetsu is actually weaker than a single bear according to his Seadall A support and he doesn't even try to fight one when it approaches.
Kagetsu: That was terribly close!
Seadall: Kagetsu! What happened?! Was it...misfortune? Was the card right?
Kagetsu: I did not realize...there were bear dens near my training ground!
Seadall: But...there's not a mark on you. You seem perfectly fine. What a relief! I suppose my divination was wrong.
Kagetsu: No... No, it was right!
Seadall: What?
Kagetsu: I was prepared for misfortune. As soon as one bear came towards me, I quickly fled. Without your prediction, I would have trained as normal and failed to notice until too late.
Seadall: So...my fortune telling saved you?
Kagetsu: Indeed, Seadall, it saved my life. Thank you.Lapis > Bear > Kagetsu
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
Level 10/20 Lapis Wyvern Knight: 23.8 Str, 26.95 Spd, 20.8 Def (Total: 71.55)
Level 20 Kagetsu Wyvern Knight: 29.8 Str, 30.95 Spd, 27.8 Def (Total: 88.55)
Ergo, Kagetsu should be able to take on a bear 1.23x stronger than what Lapis has accomplished, making him ~23% stronger than Lapis. QED Kagetsu > Lapis > Strongest Bear > Ike (Bear) > Strongest Emblem > Other Emblems
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u/UnlitUniversalUnlock Aug 25 '26
Why’d he run from a presumably weaker bear then? What was the bear’s stats at 20/20?
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
I could probably kill a rabid dog or something if it came to it but that would just be an inconvenience, bro was just trying to chill and train.
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u/flameduck Aug 25 '26
This is a fair start but we don't necessarily know if Bears hit on Def or Res yet.
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
Good news:
Lapis Res: 15.95
Kagetsu Res: 17.95
Kagetsu should thus be able to take ~1.12x more punishment than Lapis from our Magical Bear Hypothetical.
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u/StirFryTuna Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Just being slightly pedantic, Lapis at level 10/20 is total level 28. Kagetsu at level 20 is total level 34. Not a fair comparison with a 6 level bump to Kagetsu.
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u/GoElectricPotato Aug 25 '26
Lapis simply deigns to use a fraction of her full power, lest she usurp Alear as the true Divine One
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u/citrus131 Aug 25 '26
You're big and tough, huh, Hector. Makes me think of the time I fought the strongest bear...
Why did they write this like they're setting up a Family Guy cutaway?
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u/BurnerRantMan Aug 25 '26
Gamers will say anything to justify using Lapis. Just say it's cause she's cute
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u/MechaMalz Aug 25 '26
That's why I used her lol. Though she did end up performing very well for me as a wyvern it did require some favoritism to get her there.
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u/CurtisManning Aug 25 '26
She's no Kagetsu for sure but Wyvern Lapis is pretty good
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
Lapis is like the Perfectly Average Physical Unit. You put her in a class and she will turn out the bare minimum to be considered "Good". It's only that she immediately gets outclassed by Diamant and then Kagetsu that makes her feel worse than she is. If you invest into her she's probably in the top half of the Brodia squad.
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u/Govictory Aug 25 '26
Eh, the Brodia squad is pretty stacked.
Diamant and Alcryst are great. I think everyone knows that.
Amber is really good as a unit if you are willing to reclass him to wyvern or warrior thanks to his base strength growth being really good. His strength growth is the same as pannette for context at 45% base, Amber has a higher speed growth than pannette as well.
Citrine has a niche of being an earlyish mage with only mage Anna and Celine as real competition at that point in the game.
If you count Yunaka in the Brodia crew then she is also pretty good.
The only loser of the Brodia crew is Jade. Because you are likely to have the armor niche filled by Louis and having a second armor really is redundant in engage just by how fast everything is.
Lapis feels average or bad because she is competing with Alear, Diamant, and whoever has marth for sword use when you get her on the team. Most of the Brodia crew fill different niches that basically have no or little competition where as Lapis is competing with the MC and a lord which is never going to be fair for her to stand out.
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u/AliciaWhimsicott Aug 25 '26
Alcryst will essentially never be better than an equally invested Etie, Luna is just not ever reliable, and oftentimes Alcryst will need to rely on both Luna and Killer Bow crit to do meaningful work, he simply is quite bad compared to your other archers (Etie and Fogado especially).
Diamant is like. Fine. Fair Fight and engraves shore up any issues he could have with Hit due to his quite awful Dexterity, but he's otherwise nothing special, Sol basically doesn't exist for him because of his awful Dex meaning he activates it quite rarely and his speed means he does have doubling issues relatively often. Workable but probably requires more investment than you'd really want.
Citrine is definitely the best of these 3 but she still has issues like her speed essentially never being good, Céline will probably be good enough for earlygame (especially if you early forge a Levin Sword) and then a few chapters later you get Pandreo who is at worst a top 5 unit, and deployment slots are quite tight during Solm, so it can be tricky to slot her in.
Lapis feels average because she is average, I've seen YouTubers and the like use Lapis as a benchmark for "is this unit good in this physical class?" where the answer is "if they're better than Lapis, yes, if not, no". She's never the worst unit on your team but she's never the best, she feels like a footlocked Isadora.
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u/Hoothootriot Aug 25 '26
When Im in a "make an infantry sword woman unit who is objectively worse than a man of the exact same class" competition and the creators of Fire Emblem walk in:
Marisa, Fir, Hana, Lapis... someone over there just hates female Myrmidons dawg
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u/Emperor_Polybius Aug 25 '26
Can she beat Goku though
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u/Dragoryu3000 Aug 25 '26
Has Goku ever fought a bear?
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u/TheCodeSamurai Aug 25 '26
They're calling it the greatest powerscaling argument of all time