Fire Emblem: Awakening

Golden Rule: NEVER USING UNITS FROM A PLAYTHROUGH FILE. Shut up. Hackers. RNG abusers. Mario Kart DS Snakers. That's why.

Silver Rule: Nintendo buffs or Nerfs given units or bans certain weapons/items outright based on fan feedback. No Meta Knights.

Step 1: Have a cast independent of the main storyline with the same set stats. Assign each member of said cast a strategic effectiveness level. Let player build their own parties with a limited amount of points.

Step 2: Steady flow of new maps to download

Step 3: Optional three or four army bouts and/or computer-controlled enemy armies.

Step 4: Player filter (to filter out the usage of certain weapons/units/maps)

Step 5: Include leveling up but reset the level ups after each map.

Step 6: ???

PROFIT
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I am the Cashew Swordsman! I am ProtoPiranha's eternal mortal arch-rival!
[This perspective was repressed at the request of a moderator or administrator]

I think it'd be better to have a certain amount of stat points you can assign to your units (a set amount of points for the whole team, not individual points per unit), maybe with some incentive to give certain the stats that complement the class, such as Generals getting 1 point of Def for .5 stat points, but getting one point in Spd for 2 stat points. It'd add more customization and variation between players which seems complement Fire Emblem more than giving you static units for a more chess-like experience.
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"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller

From: Winsage | #004
No. If there's one thing you can trust competitive battlers to do, it's to take a seemingly fine system and break it.

Don't blame the players. If the system is broken, it's broken. It's up to IS to make a good system that isn't easily broken. And if it was handled the way the OP suggested, people would just find the best set of units (as some will obviously be better than others) and exclusively use them.

There'd be a bunch of people running around with super-berserkers backed by some support snipers or mages or something.

Then find a strategy to counter that. If your enemy puts all his stats into one unit, ideally one of two situations will occur. Either one, you'll have done the same and have a strong unit to fight their strong unit, or two, you'll have a decent amount of units that have a decent amount of stats between them and you can gang up on your enemy's strong unit, leaving them with only weak units to fight your decently strong ones. In fact I don't see anything wrong with a bunch of people running around of super-Berserkers. Make yourself a super-Swordmaster and counter it. Make yourself some decent-Sages to attack the Berserker's naturally low Res.

The only way to ensure maximum balance and turn this into a "strategy game" would be to make the playing field totally level.

I agree, if you want optimal balance both players should be using the exact same units. But optimal balance is not the same as optimal fun. A completely balanced fighting game would have only one character. I think the system I came up with makes up for it's potential lack of balance (and I stress the word potential because you do have the option of doing exactly what your enemy does if you so choose) with added fun through variety and customization, something FE has always been about. If you want a strategy game with static units and perfect balance, play Chess.
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"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller

Make time limits shorter. It doesn't take 5 minutes for a few moves to happen.