So, I'm playing Fire Emblem: Awakening and...

[Super_Boom]

Wright said:

I shall check base stats for everyone. I still think Marcus/Titania were far superior to Frederick, even with the lesser stats growth.

Base stats for the Jeigen character will generally vary within +/- 5 points (excluding Titania in FE10 for obvious reasons), but I generally gauge a character's usefulness based on their capacity for growth. In that sense, Frederick is far superior to Marcus. Having the majority of his growth rates in the 20s is just...*shivers* Even doing the math and excluding HP growth (which would give Frederick an edge), Marcus has a 25% of leveling up with no stat growth, while Frederick is about 2%. For a promoted character, a null level up is about the worst thing that can happen to them, excluding character death. I even reset my game when it happens. XD

Of course...this will vary from playthrough to playthrough, which is why there's an old adage in the fandom that a character's viability can never really be judged by personal experience alone. I've had Mist in FE10 dominate with Alondite before. :P

EDIT: I accidentally used Marcus's growth rates from FE6 in the calculation above. It's really at about 10% in FE7...which is still pretty bad.