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Who is the worst unit in FE:A ?


Chloe Neo
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Donnel is not particularly difficult to train once you know how, and he gives you an interesting class set and skill. Aptitude is fun, Donnel snowballs quickly, and he has some small potential as a decent father. That's not much, but it edges out "player feels that the best use of this character is to donate his inventory to Miriel or Robin".

Donnel is merely very bad, where Ricken is sort of homeless.

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Donnel is not particularly difficult to train once you know how, and he gives you an interesting class set and skill. Aptitude is fun, Donnel snowballs quickly, and he has some small potential as a decent father. That's not much, but it edges out "player feels that the best use of this character is to donate his inventory to Miriel or Robin".

Donnel is merely very bad, where Ricken is sort of homeless.

I disagree - Donnel takes too much experience, and a very rare and valuable Second Seal, if he wishes to contribute - both of which could've made other units better. Oh, and have fun dealing with bronze lock twice in a game where arms scrolls are rare. And as a pair up bot, he doesn't give stats that most units would really care about.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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I disagree - Donnel takes too much experience, and a very rare and valuable Second Seal, if he wishes to contribute - both of which could've made other units better. Oh, and have fun dealing with bronze lock twice in a game where arms scrolls are rare. And as a pair up bot, he doesn't give stats that most units would really care about.

Please complain to someone who said that Donnel was efficient. Spoilers: not me.

I'm just pointing out that Donnel at least has something of a future that you can invest in, one that's unique to him and somewhat useful. Ricken doesn't have anything like that: his class set is weird, and he's outclassed by a similar unit that you get before his join time.

When you get down to it, in the battle between two shit units, give the nod to the one that might be cool for a particular kind of style. Donnel's archetype has a target audience.

Edited by Interceptor
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Please complain to someone who said that Donnel was efficient. Spoilers: not me.

I'm just pointing out that Donnel at least has something of a future that you can invest in, one that's unique to him and somewhat useful. Ricken doesn't have anything like that: his class set is weird, and he's outclassed by a similar unit that you get before his join time.

When you get down to it, in the battle between two shit units, give the nod to the one that might be cool for a particular kind of style. Donnel's archetype has a target audience.

Hey, I see where you're coming from, but in such a case, I'd personally give the nod to someone who can actually do something without being a serious drain on resources. And if, by any chance, we were grinding, I still wouldn't give the nod to Donnel, as it's not like he becomes anything special when you grind him...

Edited by Levant Caprice
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I guess you don't realize that you're addressing someone who absolutely can't stand her. It's largely because of her personality.

If a bunch of aliens had killed the rest of humanity and then asked you to aid their cause, I'm sure you'd be exactly the same towards them (I know that I would) as Panne is to the human cast of Awakening.

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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If you wanted to take advantage of the 50 Luck + Armsthrift combo in postgame, would Donnel be the best unit (or father the best unit) for the job? (A genuine question; I don't have any experience with it). If so, I think that's a niche worth considering, no matter how irrelevant/expensive it may be.

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Hey, I see where you're coming from, but in such a case, I'd personally [...]

Meaning that you don't understand where I'm coming from.

Imagine a world where efficiency doesn't matter. This is a useful exercise, because both of these units are horrible. Donnel is more enticing as a pick in this world, because while he's super-weak at first, he eventually becomes kind of a badass just by getting crazy level-ups. He also gets Armsthrift after a reclass, and can give Peg to a daughter without it.

Now understand that this no-efficiency construct isn't actually a hypothetical, it's the world that a lot of players live in for reals. And that's why Ricken is the worst unit in the game, because he does not even have THIS. He's just bad.

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If you wanted to take advantage of the 50 Luck + Armsthrift combo in postgame, would Donnel be the best unit (or father the best unit) for the job? (A genuine question; I don't have any experience with it). If so, I think that's a niche worth considering, no matter how irrelevant/expensive it may be.

I dunno - only Lissa and Maribelle have enough of a luck modifier to get 50+ Luck on the child without taking Limit Breaker and pair up into account.

EDIT: And Nowi, but I think Armsthrift has questionable value on a Manakete, among other concerns...

Imagine a world where efficiency doesn't matter. This is a useful exercise, because both of these units are horrible. Donnel is more enticing as a pick in this world, because while he's super-weak at first, he eventually becomes kind of a badass just by getting crazy level-ups. He also gets Armsthrift after a reclass, and can give Peg to a daughter without it.

Now understand that this no-efficiency construct isn't actually a hypothetical, it's the world that a lot of players live in for reals. And that's why Ricken is the worst unit in the game, because he does not even have THIS. He's just bad.

I WAS thinking in such a concept, believe it or not. The issue I have here is that you brought up Miriel and Robin when this is Ricken vs Donnel, not Ricken vs Robin or Ricken vs Miriel... Also, you're addressing someone who doesn't care for turns or efficiency, and yet still wouldn't use Donnel. Incidentally, Ricken does have a niche of his own as a father - he's the only magical father who passes down Luna.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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If you wanted to take advantage of the 50 Luck + Armsthrift combo in postgame, would Donnel be the best unit (or father the best unit) for the job? (A genuine question; I don't have any experience with it). If so, I think that's a niche worth considering, no matter how irrelevant/expensive it may be.

He's certainly good at getting there, and his Lck is high enough that he can reach it with either a tonic or All+2 alone- no LB or Pairup required. He's not the best- Avatar and certain children can do much more with AT- but it is a strength of his and if you raise him during the maingame it's definitely useful early to mid postgame, or postgame in general if you only have partial DLC.

Imagine a world where efficiency doesn't matter.

Technically in such a world my Avatar has an S support as soon as the Barracks are unlocked and is promoted+capping all stats before the end of Cht.4 with nothing but a healthy dose of RNG manipulation and a lot of patience. No Wireless features required, either. Basically nobody else matters.

Ricken definitely is less useful once gotten past his hump, though. His growths and classes just don't match up at all. And even his Elwind isn't quite as big of a boon (to others who can take it from him) as it could be thanks to the potential recent addition of a Forged Rexcalibur to your ranks.

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Incidentally, Ricken does have a niche of his own as a father - he's the only magical father who passes down Luna.

Which means he's useful for exactly as many children as Donnel is: 2. For Ricken it's Inigo and Owain, and for Donnel it's Kjelle and Noire. While Vengeance isn't QUITE as crappy as I had come to believe, I still feel it's inferior to Luna by a significant margin simply because of the setup required.

But even then, I'd probably argue that giving galeforce is probably the more valuable asset.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Ricken makes a pretty good Severa, Brady and Laurent too. Having the highest Mag mod of any father in the game makes you pretty eligible.

Ah yes. Right. I even forgot about Severa, that's another lunaless one. It's a shame that not every stat has a +3 parent for each gender, kinda sad that +2 is the highest magic on any non avatar guy, and there aren't even any TIES.

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Technically in such a world my Avatar has an S support as soon as the Barracks are unlocked and is promoted+capping all stats before the end of Cht.4 with nothing but a healthy dose of RNG manipulation and a lot of patience. No Wireless features required, either. Basically nobody else matters.

I think the point he was making was some people judge a unit solely on output, rather than output - input. Donnel has the worst value for the latter but not the worst value for the former. A resource is as valuable as you want it to be.

Edited by Baldrick
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I think the point he was making was some people judge a unit solely on output, rather than output - input. Donnel has the worst value for the latter but not the worst value for the former. A resource is as valuable as you want it to be.

Okay then. When you put it that way, I could agree with that.

I will say, though, at the end of the day, this IS Fire Emblem, and thus you can't really guarantee that so-and-so will turn out amazing.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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Ricken makes a pretty good Severa, Brady and Laurent too. Having the highest Mag mod of any father in the game makes you pretty eligible.

Let's not forget Gerome either. Even Yarne could use Hit +20 if we're talking about min maxing. Ricken's classes are poison to himself but fucking amazing everywhere else. Everyone likes cavalier and archer tree.

I see where Int is coming from.

Efficiency: Donnel and Ricken are shit

Non efficiency: Donnel has a bright future because he caps everything forever. Ricken stays shit.

But this dates back to the old argument. You put in that amount of work into just about anyone and you get a good unit. Would be nice if we had accurate growths.

Wrt Ricken's classes I think it is because he looks up to Chrom or something since they have the same reclass options. Likewise Cherche was a Cleric in the past so they gave her Cleric and Troubador tree. It's still fucking retarded beyond belief tho. Could you imagine Cherche with Peg tree? Build up her Lance rank as a wyvern lord, reclass her to Falco and watch her rape everything forever. One can dream~

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I think the point he was making was some people judge a unit solely on output, rather than output - input. Donnel has the worst value for the latter but not the worst value for the former. A resource is as valuable as you want it to be.

Donnel actually is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel in minmax potential. If you're going to put in the effort to fully train someone, why not train someone with more potential?

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If you're going to put in the effort to fully train someone, why not train someone with more potential?

If you want the best AT user possible and have other plans for Avatar (I wouldn't think +luck/AT is the most optimal build for them) or really hate critical hits?

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Maybe. But postgame criticals aren't exactly an issue in Awakening thanks to the much higher stat caps- in the past, Skl/2 -Lck worked out just fine because if you've got 15 Skl and a 5 crit weapon against 10 Lck, you've got listed crit and are dangerous. Or maybe you've got only 10 Skl against 15 Lck, but you have a crit+10 skill? Breaking even, all you need is a weapon. Killers are legitimately scary.

But postgame in Awakening, you're looking at a 45 Lck cap, with a potential 24 more from LB and Rally alone, and of course more for pairup, tonics, etc- and the omnipresent Dge+10 bonus from pairup. Even with just base 45 and a support, that still takes 50 Skl with a killer weapon just to have a chance. Apply everything else, and enemy crits are completely nonexistant no matter who you are.

In fact, ingame there are only two places where getting critted is even a concern: the boss on Lunatic(+) Prologue (though not only can you reduce his crit to 0, but actually survive one from him if you got good levelups) and base Tharja if you want to train her.

Enemies are still easy to crit though thanks to pairup and a lot of common aura skills giving +10 crit.

If you want my honest opinion, the real best reason to train Donnel for non-Apo postgame is to equip the Vengeance axe for a 100% chance of cut-ins (AT is good here) to have him keep yelling that critical quote over and over. It's really amusing.

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In all seriousness, I really didn't find Donnel hard to train.

It's kinda like:

No/Minimal investment (no unnecessary inefficiencies): Well, really only the Veteran characters matter. Even Panne pretty much trains too slowly.

Some investment (tbh doesn't have to be grinding): Everyone is usable, but remarkably, for a large portion of this gradient, Donnel outstats everyone but the Veteran children (and he has availability on them). By gradient I'm referring to the various different levels of "some investment". Of course, there's matters of overkill as well, and he does have the largest initial hump, and low move besides.

Max grinding: Donnel is eh, but max stat is a steamroll anyway.

I will say, though, at the end of the day, this IS Fire Emblem, and thus you can't really guarantee that so-and-so will turn out amazing.

Donnel has one of the best chances of not getting RNG-screwed, in the sense of he'll very, very rarely not get great statups (and also being rather rigorous vs. averages). His personal bases are also passable; villager is just terrible. One interpretation is, he's more probable than others to payoff the investment solely wrt to RNG/stats (but contextually, for the variety of aforementioned reasons, it's not really worth giving it to him).

Edited by XeKr
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Something I'd like to do if I ever get the time is do a whole bunch of Lunatic(+) runs in which I either consistently use the same team, or swap out Donnel for one of the members, and do it enough to get a sense of how much and in what direction using him impacts my reset count.

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