Leonardo has been here since 1-P and helping. Existing > Not existing unless of course you suck so much you're bringing down your team but that's not the case.
From 1-P to 1-4, there are multitudes of congested chokepoints. And his chip damage actually helps.
1-1
5x Fighter lvl 5 (Bronze Axe)
HP 25, Atk 17, AS 9, Hit 107, Avo 24, DEF 6, RES 1, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Fighter lvl 5 (Iron Axe, west)
HP 25, Atk 20, AS 9, Hit 102, Avo 24, DEF 6, RES 1, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 5 (Iron Lance, west)
HP 22, Atk 17, AS 9, Hit 109, Avo 24, DEF 8, RES 3, Crit 4, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 6 (Javelin, guarding door)
HP 23, Atk 17, AS 9, Hit 91, Avo 24, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 5, Ddg 6
1x Archer lvl 5 (Bronze Bow)Avo
HP 21, Atk 13, AS 10, Hit 108, 26, DEF 6, RES 2, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Fighter lvl 6 (Hand Axe, Arrive square)
HP 26, Atk 21, AS 10, Hit 92, Avo 26, DEF 7, RES 1, Crit 4, Ddg 6
1x Isaiya lvl 7 (Myrmidon boss, droppable Steel Sword)
HP 25, Atk 16, AS 10, Hit 119, Avo 26, DEF 6, RES 3, Crit 12, Ddg 6
Edward - 13 atk 12 AS, (or 14/13 if he gained a level).
Nolan - 23 atk/21 w/ handaxe
Micaiah - 10 atk
Leonardo - 14 atk
Nolan + Leo one round all the fighters, which is nice because it frees Nolan from having to heal himself, and gives him a chance to use the dracoshield or something or simply attack on the player phase when he wouldn't have had a chance before. e.g That javelin soldier in front of the house that doesn't move, Micaiah + Nolan fails to one round so Nolan would have to attack that soldier again instead of healing or attacking someone else.
Ch 1-2
1x Soldier lvl 6 (Bronze Lance)
HP 23, Atk 14, AS 10, Hit 116, Avo 26, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 7 (Bronze Lance)
HP 24, Atk 15, AS 10, Hit 116, Avo 26, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Fighter lvl 8 (Bronze Axe)
HP 27, Atk 18, AS 11, Hit 111, Avo 28, DEF 7, RES 2, Crit 0, Ddg 6
2x Fighter lvl 6 (Iron Axe)
HP 25, Ak 20, AS 10, Hit 102, Avo 26, DEF 7, RES 1, Crit 4, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 7 (Iron Lance)
HP 24, Atk 18, AS 10, Hit 111, Avo 26, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 5, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 6 (Steel Lance)
HP 23, Atk 20, AS 7, Hit 106, Avo 20, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 5, Ddg 6
2x Soldier lvl 8 (Iron Lance, one of them has stealable Vulnerary)
HP 24, Atk 18, AS 11, Hit 113, Avo 28, DEF 9, RES 4, Crit 5, Ddg 6
1x Soldier lvl 9 (Iron Lance)
HP 25, Atk 19, AS 12, Hit 113, Avo 30, DEF 10, RES 5, Crit 5, Ddg 6
1x Archer lvl 7 (Bronze Bow, stealable Vulnerary)
HP 23, Atk 15, AS 10, Hit 110, Avo 26, DEF 7, RES 3, Crit 0, Ddg 6
1x Archer lvl 8 (droppable Steel Bow)
HP 23, Atk 22, AS 11, Hit 113, Avo 29, DEF 8, RES 3, Crit 6, Ddg 7
Leonardo lvl 7 - 15 atk 11 AS
Micaiah Lvl 5 - 12/17 atk light/thani, +2 when she gets in range of sothe.
Nolan lvl 11 - 24/22 atk steel/hand
Micaiah + Nolan barely OHKO on a couple of units at the start of the map, so if Micaiah is missing a point of mag or Nolan misses a point of str, that fail to one round together. Then sothe appears and can whittle basically anyone on the map to 1 ~ 3 hp or something.
Ch 1-3 and 1-4 are basically the same thing, but both of them have congested chokepoints (and chapter 1-4 having more than one choke point) and we get more people. So something like Micaiah + Ilyana (or Nolan or Aran or whoever) doesn't one round but them + Leonardo does occur a lot.
Ch 1-5, we can have him park on a ledge and fire down, which saves us from having to put a unit we wouldn't use like ilyana because we don't want to funnel exp into her because it disappears or someone important there like sothe or volug who doesn't have any 2 range.
Ch 1-6 In this chapter there are peg reinforcements, Leo OHKOs them which is nice because they come from all directions and can OHKO people like Laura and Micaiah, and other people are busy doing stuff like killing the generals in the northeast corner of the map or Nolan who's trying to break through that chokepoint.
Ch 1-6-2 is a pain for everyone in general if your trying to raise them, almost no one can survive the cav rush unless your tauroneo or aran + a draco shield.
Ok from what I remember from this map. They're fighting on different sides, Leo and other people are going north while others are going east to where Tormod is. Myrmidons + Fighters are ^^ thataway. Tormod's never going to be facing them. Leonardo is actually good against these enemies. The myrmidons double alot of people except Jill and Volug + others.
Leo lvl 15 C Jill 25 - max mt iron forge 25 atk. Jill would love the atk boost, although it doesn't matter much earlier on, it becomes especially important later on when Jill is severely lacking in attack and has no time to support anyone else that has an attack affinity. The only other affinities are earth, which turns Jill's durability from crap to might not get hit but my durability is still crap.
Leo + Jill ORKO the myrm's, which is good because the myrms double and Nolan risks the chance of missing and then getting critted on the counter and being ORKOed. Volug + Leonardo can also kill the fighters, or Leo can switch to a weaker weapon to give Jill the kill or something.
The mages? There are two guarding the ledge so Tormod has to try and one round at 70~ displayed hit. The others are either in front of the boss, when you have your whole team there so offense doesn't really matter or in front of the doors which Sothe is going around killing.
The armors? This is where everyone is, your teamm >>>>>>>armors <<<<<<<LEA. Or you could have Sothe in range of Micaiah, and then she is able to OHKO with Thani. Then there's Nolan with the hammer, sure he may have shaky hit, but he has 2~3 tries to KO it before we even recruit Tormod.
Also and any kills we feed in Tormod make our team weaker for part 3 which is obviously really bad with 40 might tigers running around and everything.
Look at the placement, the LEA are all forced to the bottom (he doesn't even meet up with any soldiers/a bunch of mages because they're on the other side of the map.) and Nailah's in the top left who's going to bumrush down and OHKO everyone. So Tormod 3HKOes bandit, but he's basically rushing into the river on the first 3~ turns to try and kill that dracoknight and then he has to get out or try and walk across the river. Meanwhile Nailah is blitzing across the left side and going to get to the bottom soon OHKOing everything in her path. Also, Tormod is getting 3HKOed (poison) so he has to waste turns healing while Muarim is getting into the action on turn 3 and not taking any damage at all except from poison.
What is leonardo doing? He's helping your main group advance towards the boss. As you said, they're offense is severely lacking so every chip damage helps.
I'll concede that Tormod does do better at 1-E, also note that most of our characters will promote this chapter. So halfway, through they'll gain a 1+ mov adv and Tormod will fall behind. Also note that two things happen in this chapter. Nailah w/ pass carrying someone is rushing up to get to the thieves in time, obviously Nailah won't have time to stop and attack the 2 range people so the ledges will be blocked. And also our other units will clogging up the stairs so it's hard for any unit to do anything. We also have the BK to wtfraep anything we don't want to kill and the BK has more move than Tormod and infinitely better durability so we can just have him do stuff and then, funnel exp into our units.
Do note that there are major negatives, any exp that is put into him is exp missing from our team in part 3. Which actually matters because part 3 DB is among the hardest in the game (lolwut? units that are as strong as GM bosses running around), and even missing a few levels will hamper severely.
And then Leo is actually helpful in Part 3. We can dump wrath on him (a skill that no one wants) and have him ORKOing tigers at ridiculous chances ( 75%~ chance to crit, Leo at 20/1 with lughadahdajhda doubles tigers and has a 87.75 chance to ORKO a tiger which is ridiculous, which is considering that for anyone else to achieve that, they'd have to have beastfoe which anyone can use, and risk exposing themselves to more than one laguz on the enemy phase. If we stick Leo where only one laguz can attack, it means he basically never dies since he doesn't counter. Also note that 20/1 with A Jill, survives the toughest tiger.
Part 3-13? The major cause of failing this chapter is some random hawk laguz passing the line, we can help this by using Leo to jump on the ballista or just have him OHKO the bird outright
And then we can get into part 4. He can go on Micaiah's route to the desert and help out, i.e Jill can rescue him, Leanne can then vigor Jill and she can drop him off somewhere and he can help out, although he has only a couple of move in the sand. He must be nearing promotion, or you can probably crown him or something and he has 1-3 range which means he can outrange everyone if you throw him into a group of enemies.
While Tormod's just sitting in a corner somewhere in 4-E-5.
And we can actually at least salvage Leonardo for endgame by giving him wrath. (wrath + 15 innate + 15 from a forge + 16 from skill - 26~ = 79% chance to crit, and then a 32% chance to deadeye.) He requires 50 atk to kill a general with a crit, which requires lvl 20/4 + A support + the double bow. "But Shinon needs the double bow." Given how flexible having 3 range is, you can easily trade the double bow around. Given how everyone else is struggling to ORKO these armors, an 85%~ chance to ORKO one is pretty good.
4-E-2 is ended in 2 turns. 4-E-3, Leo has 3 range meaning he never has to take a counter from a dragon (unless he wants to get into wrath range), which is useful because all our other fighters are taking a beating (Tibarn is what, 3HKOed), it spares Micaiah/other healers to heal other people or if we're using fortify, not having to worry about Leo's durability is nice in general.
tl;dr Leo is actually salvageable whereas it takes an extreme amount of effort, to get Tormod anywhere up to speed.
I don't see how Muarim is manlier than BLOCKS AXES WITH HIS FACE eddie.
Leo's support convo: After Leonardo chastises Edward for being so carefree and dreamy, Edward asks him "why so serious" and Leonardo is dumbstruck.
Leonardo also gets cool points for being a ninja turtle, albeit the worst one (although Donatello comes pretty close). He also has that awesome third tier costume.
