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Now, I haven't actually played RD yet, (but I really want to) so out of pure curiosity I compared the growth rates of Leonardo with the other archers, Shinon and Rolf. And I really don't get all the hate Leo gets, he came in at least second in every stat except speed. I realize this is a big issue, but since he has much more levels to grow than the other two, he'll end up with only (roughly) 3 less speed than Shinon by the time he reaches the same level, and his other stats will probably be on par or greater. So, with the exception of being on the Dawn Brigade, is there anything terribly wrong with Leo because I don't see why he gets all the hate.

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I think the reason Leo might not seem so bad is because you're looking at growth rates and comparing the characters at equal levels. In reality, it's not likely that Leo is going to be equal to in level to Shinon or Rolf.

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At least Shinon and Rolf get crossbows to play around with. Leo gets nothing.

Edited by Sol Man
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At least Shinon and Rolf get crossbows to play around with. Leo gets nothing.

Which would actually mean something if crossbows didn't suck and have very limited strategic applications (and funny enough, Leo's one of those who can use them for hilarious results).

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Leo gets all this hate because of the conditions that accompany him whem he arrives: he's a squishy unit with terribad durability, early game enemies hit hard and 3HKO him (at best, I can be lying but he's 2HKO'd by almost every enemy unit), his bases are meh and needs to lv up fast and balance his stats, specially hp str sp and def, and his growths for those stats aren't really good. He just loves silly skl lck res lv ups and them won't be of big help. He needs loads of care and train, and people are too lazy to do it, specially when there are more confortable and safe options such as Edd, Nolan, Jill, Volug, etc. But his situation is managable.

Rolf shares a similar condition to Leo's: bad durability, can't orko enemies until his nice lv up'd/relies on killer crtkills. But what saves Rolf is that the GM's environment isn't as hostile as the one the DB's are in.

And Shinon is just better than both of them.

Which would actually mean something if crossbows didn't suck and have very limited strategic applications (and funny enough, Leo's one of those who can use them for hilarious results).

Beastfoe+Crossbow Leo in 3-6, amirite.

Edited by Red Fox of Fire
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Oh, this one is easy.

Leo comes in at a relatively low level, but you'd *think* that because he comes in at the first chapter of the game that you'd have time to raise him, right? WRONG! Well, mostly wrong -- you CAN make him viable, but it's damn hard. I'm probably SF's biggest fan of archers, and see good in them most people don't, but Leo has serious issues.

Nice SPD base, alright, and IIRC his wep gives SPD, but his growths are SO screwed up. 35% SPD growth? Unless you're a Laguz, Miccy, or Geoffrey, that's pretty much as low as you're going to get. At least his STR growth is high -- oh, wait, it's 40%. Archers can afford to be on the slow side because they're supposed to attack from range ANYWAYS, but you need a stupid high STR growth to compensate, at least. But hey, 75% SKL growth in a game where there aren't THAT bad of hit rate problems, 65% LUK growth, and 55% RES growth in a class with a low RES cap *totally* make up for it.

Never mind the limited experience in the dawn brigade and the crazy AS that enemies in part 1 HM have.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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It's as you say. Leonardo has pretty awful speed for his class, and his atk doesn't make up for it. With only 10 speed at base and a lackluster 35% growth, he is hard pressed to double anything without severe RNG blessage. As an example, a theoretical 10/0 Leo going into Chapter 1-5 has 20atk/12AS with a steel bow, which neither doubles any of the enemies on that map, nor does it 2HKO anything outside of mages and myrms. In fact, 12 AS is almost DOUBLED by myrmidons. This is terrible performance as a whole. Compare this to more useful members of the DB:

[spoiler=Comparisons]

10/0 Leo w/ Steel Bow: 20 atk, 12 AS

10/0 Eddie w/ Steel Sword: 20 atk, 16 AS

13/0 Nolan w/ Steel Axe: 25 atk, 11 AS

8/0 Micaiah w/ Thani: 21 atk, 9 AS

Eddie's 16 AS at Lv10 is capable of doubling a good chunk of the enemies on this map(he gets all the mages and most of the fighters, and is one speed away from doubling soldiers). As for Nolan, while he isn't doubling much of anything either, he 2HKO's basically everything on this map thanks to his above average strength and axes. Hell, Miccy has far more use than Leo since she hits the softer res of most enemy types, 2HKOing them by a comfortable margain.

And that's not even getting to Sothe and Volug, as those two will ORKO pretty much everything at this point in the game.

And like a lot of people already said, archers aren't terribly useful in part 1.

Edited by General James
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it's too bad that leo doesn't get lughnasadh earlier; it's a really fantastic weapon.

i don't even think that will save him, though. for a unit that needs to gain at least 40 levels to be viable by the end of the game, being locked to player phase offense is a nail in the coffin. even if he had decent bases and growths, he would still be pretty bad.

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His growthspread is terrible and is pretty much the very essence of what growthspreads in this game tend to be: Skill/Luck/Res. The game just loves fapping to these. It really doesn't help that his offensive growths are terrible (40% Str/35% Spd, really?). Even Rofl has much better offensive growths.

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Leo's stats aren't his main problem.

His problem is the competition. When he joins we have Edward and Micaiah then comes Nolan then Aran then Jill. All of these characters are better than Leo. And while DB has good funds EXP is a resource that it... lacks. You also have pre-promotes getting EXP which makes things even harder for Leo.

His stats are nothing special when trained.

And he uses bows. Can't forget his use of bows.

Edited by bearclaw13
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it's too bad that leo doesn't get lughnasadh earlier; it's a really fantastic weapon.

i don't even think that will save him, though. for a unit that needs to gain at least 40 levels to be viable by the end of the game, being locked to player phase offense is a nail in the coffin. even if he had decent bases and growths, he would still be pretty bad.

I'm not sure that I *completely* agree with that, though. I think he'd be at least average if his STR and SPD growths were, say, 15% higher (just an arbitrary value, mind you, but a reasonable one). He's competing with the likes of Nolan and Edward, who don't have the greatest durability to begin with and won't be abusing EP much anyways. I find that good chip damage is always useful, and as long as he's not OHKO'd, he's not hard to keep alive.

The problem is you can train him pretty decently before Volug and Co., but it's just not worth it. Also, at least in my experience, he kind of struggles in Part 3 regardless.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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I'm not sure that I *completely* agree with that, though. I think he'd be at least average if his STR and SPD growths were, say, 15% higher (just an arbitrary value, mind you, but a reasonable one). He's competing with the likes of Nolan and Edward, who don't have the greatest durability to begin with and won't be abusing EP much anyways. I find that good chip damage is always useful, and as long as he's not OHKO'd, he's not hard to keep alive.

no, he'd still be doomed. nolan and eddie rely a lot on EP offense (3-6, 3-12 especially). shinon starts effectively 30 levels higher than leo and even he starts tapering off going into endgame if you don't commit some favoritism.

Edited by dondon151
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Leo gets all this hate because of the conditions that accompany him whem he arrives: he's a squishy unit with terribad durability, early game enemies hit hard and 3HKO him (at best, I can be lying but he's 2HKO'd by almost every enemy unit), his bases are meh and needs to lv up fast and balance his stats, specially hp str sp and def, and his growths for those stats aren't really good. He just loves silly skl lck res lv ups and them won't be of big help. He needs loads of care and train, and people are too lazy to do it, specially when there are more confortable and safe options such as Edd, Nolan, Jill, Volug, etc. But his situation is managable.

Rolf shares a similar condition to Leo's: bad durability, can't orko enemies until his nice lv up'd/relies on killer crtkills. But what saves Rolf is that the GM's environment isn't as hostile as the one the DB's are in.

And Shinon is just better than both of them.

Beastfoe+Crossbow Leo in 3-6, amirite.

Why double post man, you know better.

Anyway, even just looking at the growths, Shinon at least has Spd while Rolf at least has Str; Leo has neither. An Archer with bad offense is a very bad unit.

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Beastfoe+Crossbow Leo in 3-6, amirite.

I'd say that's something when the only other use Crossbows are good for is disarm shenanigans.

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Simply put, Leonardo contributes very little. He has to have a lot of exposure to even be able to use Steel, which is rather tough and generally not worth doing. He sort of has a niche in potentially luring, then one-shotting Wyverns in 1-8 and Lugnasadh/Crossbow chip, potentially with the use of Beastfoe, in 3-5, but... this requires investment, and the Dawn Brigade is sorely scrapped for resources. Why waste a forge or EXP on Leo to do something for a map when offering the same resources to Jill, Nolan, Sothe, Zihark, Edward, or Volug will do the same thing, and offer better returns later on?

Not really talking about lategame because it's crammed with excellent units. There's no chance he's getting in--most hardly get one Dawn Brigade unit in, if memory serves.

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If you dont care about turncounts, and dont mind feeding kills to him, Leo is perfectly capable. Not to mention Bexp exists.

Leo's real problems are him being an archer, and only 3 maps in Part 3. You can only get like 2, maybe 3 DB units to tier 3, but the only way to do that is to have them kill every enemy. Archers lack good EP combat, ergo Leo cant be trained like other units can.
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What Cyron, dondon, and Charlie said basically. He needs a lot more work for a mediocre result, and why waste your time training him when Shinon and God-forbid even Rolf comes at a higher level.

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If you dont care about turncounts, and dont mind feeding kills to him, Leo is perfectly capable. Not to mention Bexp exists.

Even bexp doesn't really help him as much as it should, since his bexp levels are more often than not dominated by skl, luck, and res ups, rather than the speed+str ones he really needs.

Edited by Constable Reggie
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  • 2 weeks later...

On average, he caps Skill and Res at level 15, so that's five levels of BEXP gambling (I say gambling because he's never capping Luck unpromoted). Good luck getting him there! Assuming he's on averages, gets five BEXP levels, and he miraculously gains both Strength and Speed, he'll promote and be. . .ahead of Rolf in Strength by 1 and equal/inferior to Rolf in stuff that's remotely important. Why did we bother again?

EDIT: If I messed up my math, please say something.

Edited by eclipse
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