Do you think Rinkah is a bad unit?

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

as much as i think rinkah is an bad unit, i wouldn't dare try to compare subaki to her.

atleast she can use axes in birthright, Subaki is a Pegasus knight that wants to be an armored knight with a passive that revolves around him not being hit so he MIGHT be able to dodge somehow with his awful speed growth.

nevermind that unlike Rinkah, who without reclassing is one of your few possible axe users, Subaki is hands down the worst of the two other Pegasus flier units.

really who i'd compare both of them too to make them look bad is Scarlet who can do both of their jobs much better, even if her unique skill is YOLO.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I dont think Rinkah is a bad unit. She needs a bit of effort, but its not like you need to pour every resource into her. Shes rather thwompy.

Zerker Rinkah is probably about as tanky as an Onichan Rinkah against most physical attackers.

As someone who ran Zerker Rinkah a couple of times, i can attest to this. She does fine in that class. In fact, its a really good option for her because Axefaire helps her delete things.

[Shadow Mir]

Extreme example: if everything tinks you, do you care how much HP you have? Defence is more important than HP when dealing with enemies, especially the ones without huge str stats. Who's a better tank in FE6 for example, Miledy or Garett with his huge base HP? It's obviously Miledy.

But really, don't overstate how bad Rinkah's HP (-growth) is. Holy Lancer Oboro is only a tiny bit healthier at a similar level.

I guess, but just as high HP alone doesn't have much merit without a good defense to back it up, a good defense can only do so much good if you don't have good HP to go with it (Case in Point: The Pokemon Shuckle. Its amazing defenses make it look like a good tank at first glance... until you see its HP).

Edited August 20, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Emerson]

I guess, but just as high HP alone doesn't have much merit without a good defense to back it up, a good defense can only do so much good if you don't have good HP to go with it (Case in Point: The Pokemon Shuckle. Its amazing defenses make it look like a good tank at first glance... until you see its HP).

Eh, I don't think that's a good example. Pokemon's formula for damage works much differently than Fire Emblem's. FE's is directly based on known numbers while Pokemon's is much more complex.

Pokemon's IVs and base stats are also set in stone from the moment you get them (Until Hyper Trainer I guess), where as FE has RNG levels ups.

While you do have a point, I don't think Rinkah's HP growth is even that bad anyways. 40% in her base class isn't terrible. By 20/10 her growth of 40% -> 30%, promoting to Oni Chieftain takes her to 9.4 HP gained, meaning her average HP should be ~29. When you also consider her Defense average at 20/10 is 16.2 making her average Defense by then 26.2, it starts coming into perspective about how little she needs extremely high HP. Also considering she has an average of of 22.3 Speed, she won't be easily doubled.

TL;DR: Comparing FE and Pokemon's damage calculations is not a good idea and Rinkah's HP doesn't really matter when she won't get doubled and has stellar Defense.

[MeddlingMage]

She's not a bad unit, but like some of the other people said, she needs a little more effort to use than some of the other units. Probably in my next run of Birthright or in my first run of Revelations, I'm going to make her a Dread Fighter.

[guedesbrawl]

Rinkah has definite problems and needs some help to be good. She can't tank that well without a seraph robe, and later on can't do a whole lot of damage without a couple energy drops.

But i still like using her. Tanking while knowing the enemy can attack at 2 range and will still be countered is a good thing to me. Other tanks cannot do the same withotu pitiful damage thanks to their non-existent MAG (Rinkah doesn't have a whole lot, but her small growth + cheiftain promotion bonusse gives her an actual mag stat to wrok with at least).

I find that she is great in the sense that she helps me bring Hayato up to speed, who is an extremely good investment due to the little guy's damage output (Pride+ good speed+ good magic+ enemies that have low RES. Do the math). Hayato later thanks Rinkah for helping by using rally Magic or simply pairing up with her, which gives 8/10 more damage to Rinkah due to her good speed.

The issue is the help she needs to keep going. Two things are crucial: the first seraph robe, and the second magic-boost item ( i forgot the name).

Seraph Robe is actually a good investment if you ask me, because few units can translate +5 HP into one more hit. The other tanks also like the boost, yeah, but it doesn't greatly impact their performance as much as rinkah.

The magic booster is an easy one. None of the actual mages can really translate +2 damage into kills (they will always one-shot or leave the enemy with just enough HP for the likes of Kaze to get an easy kill). hinoka and Saizou are pretty much Rinkah's only competition for the item, but given the Rinkah is a frontline unit, she can make more use of it than hinoka (and using Rinkah and saizo unless your goal is marrying them is pointless.)

Rinkah's offense is an awkward topic.

One one hand, her STR and MAG are low, even when considering the +4 boost from her personal.

on the other hand, she is a Anti-tank tanker: the sturdiest units in BR have low RES and SPD, making them prime targets to be tanked by Rinkah who can take little damage from them while dishing out a fair deal when compared to most characters and especially most tanks (Guard naginata is pretty weak, Dragonstone can't double, and Hinata has bad skill). Access to Hammer and Pike-ruin Club is also pretty nice for her offense.

I think she can be extremely valuable if you use her right, but it stands that she will never be great combat-wise. She is a solid C-tier in Birthright, which is good enough.

[UNLEASH IT]

I can deal with the low strength. That can be remedied with a stronger weapon or with the myriad of damage boosting skills present in Fates. The low health is much harder to deal with, especially in this game, where classes don't give the 45-65% HP boost that they did in Awakening (hell, you'd be lucky to find a class that addds 20% to HP). And no, her defense is not high enough to tink, especially on harder difficulties.

[guedesbrawl]

I can deal with the low strength. That can be remedied with a stronger weapon or with the myriad of damage boosting skills present in Fates. The low health is much harder to deal with, especially in this game, where classes don't give the 45-65% HP boost that they did in Awakening (hell, you'd be lucky to find a class that addds 20% to HP). And no, her defense is not high enough to tink, especially on harder difficulties.

a normal rinkah has roughly the same DEF as Guard Naginata!Oboro at all points in the game, give or take a single point lead for either.

It is more than enough to tank stuff in Lunatic. PEMN, but i know my Rinkah had the average DEF for her levels 90% of the game, and damage-wise she took very little from most stuff especially once i got my hands on Horse Spirit (which... wasn't truly necessary, but during the massive waves of chapters 22~25 i kinda got too lazy to calculate how much damage she would take and went for that over bolt axe)

[shadowofchaos]

I think most views of her can be summarizes as thus:

She's not as bad as the memes state, but she is also not what you would expect out of a fighter type class.

If you don't obviously know how to get around her problems, the investment won't be worth it.

Such as a no reclass vanilla first time playthrough, she absolutely does not fit what her art and personality advertise her to be.

[guedesbrawl]

I think most views of her can be summarizes as thus:

She's not as bad as the memes state, but she is also not what you would expect out of a fighter type class.

If you don't obviously know how to get around her problems, the investment won't be worth it.

Such as a no reclass vanilla first time playthrough, she absolutely does not fit what her art and personality advertise her to be.

She is a knight type class.

[shadowofchaos]

She is a knight type class.

It is the Japanese side representative of the fighter class. A physical centered class with qualities of the Armor knight and Fighter.

Which, regardless of role, is known for HP, Def, and most importantly, strength.

The last of which she has trouble with.

[Shadow Mir]

Eh, I don't think that's a good example. Pokemon's formula for damage works much differently than Fire Emblem's. FE's is directly based on known numbers while Pokemon's is much more complex.

Pokemon's IVs and base stats are also set in stone from the moment you get them (Until Hyper Trainer I guess), where as FE has RNG levels ups.

While you do have a point, I don't think Rinkah's HP growth is even that bad anyways. 40% in her base class isn't terrible. By 20/10 her growth of 40% -> 30%, promoting to Oni Chieftain takes her to 9.4 HP gained, meaning her average HP should be ~29. When you also consider her Defense average at 20/10 is 16.2 making her average Defense by then 26.2, it starts coming into perspective about how little she needs extremely high HP. Also considering she has an average of of 22.3 Speed, she won't be easily doubled.

TL;DR: Comparing FE and Pokemon's damage calculations is not a good idea and Rinkah's HP doesn't really matter when she won't get doubled and has stellar Defense.

Now that you mention it, you're right. Anyways, Rinkah, as I stated earlier, has the annoying tendency to face crit chances, which can compromise her durability. That's no bueno, especially when you have crap HP.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Blademaster_Aio]

No, I don't think she's a bad unit at all.

Honestly, I use her in all my runs.

And she does her job great in every run. She does get outclassed by certain units, but she's one of my favourite units, and I like her, so I'm willing to put in effort to train her.

[Renall]

I think she'd be fine with D Axes to start. She's screwed over by being a pre-routesplit unit so for some reason they gave her E (even though Kaze gets D Hidden) with no feasible way to reach D in the two maps she's available. Her tankiness + personal + faster C means Steel Clubs for extra punch and immediate access to the Bolt Axe once it shows up (and who else are you giving it to in Birthright?). Having D Axes in Revelation would at least allow her to wield an Iron Axe right away, which is at least better than a Brass Club.

She's not fantastic but fix her base weapon rank and at least she's not in Bronze Hell right out of the gate.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Renall

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Now that you mention it, you're right. Anyways, Rinkah, as I stated earlier, has the annoying tendency to face crit chances, which can compromise her durability. That's no bueno, especially when you have crap HP.

I take with this statement and with what you said about Steffan that you really don't like characters with low luck.... or you had a really bad experience getting critted

[twice]

She actually does very well for me, so..

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

now that i think about it, doesn't rinkah also have bad resistance?

in my castle battles i've managed to one shot other rinkah's in their own castles with magic due to the low HP growth.

[Renall]

now that i think about it, doesn't rinkah also have bad resistance?

in my castle battles i've managed to one shot other rinkah's in their own castles with magic due to the low HP growth.

20% personal, not great but not abysmal either; Sakura has the same, as does Hayato, and Hinata only has 15%. It's mostly that Rinkah has a garbage base (3 to Sakura's 7) and Oni Savages are supposed to be weak to magic (0% class growth for Savage and Blacksmith, 5% for Chieftain). Hoshidan classes other than Oni and Archer have semi-decent Resistance growths so Rinkah should be pretty savagely (heh) weak to magic.

By comparison, Oboro has a base of 8, a base growth of 30%, 5% from Spear Fighter, and access to the Guard Naginata for an immediate +5 Res. She's got a 10 Res lead on Rinkah just from bases which Rinkah is not making up in the time between her joining and Oboro joining. However, Rinkah has like a +15% growth advantage in Def and a deficiency of just 3 in terms of bases, so she'll probably tie Oboro for Def and exceed her pretty quick to make up the Guard Naginata difference, so she should be comparably durable or more durable than Oboro against physical hits.

Also Oni Chieftain Rinkah can tank Lances and counterattack with the Bolt Axe which allows her to hit Res (and thus apply her personal to magic damage). That's her edge over Oboro I think: Tanks physical hits comparably or slightly better and whacks the shit out of physical lance classes with Bolt Axe WTA, not as good an all-rounder tank due to lack of Guard Naginata access and shit Res.

It's a bit of an odd niche but I don't think it's unviable either.

[Shadow Mir]

I take with this statement and with what you said about Steffan that you really don't like characters with low luck.... or you had a really bad experience getting critted

The correct answer is actually. . . Both. Also, Rinkah died at least twice in my BR playthrough to critical hits. Incidentally, I resent Berserkers in this game for the innate crit evade penalty they have going against them.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Emerson]

The correct answer is actually. . . Both. Also, Rinkah died at least twice in my BR playthrough to critical hits.

Personally, my Rinkah never got criticaled outside of the early game where my bs criticals typically happen to me anyways.

I lose my cool for the rest of the day when that happens tbrh.

Not much you can do about her Luck though. One or two Goddess Icons isn't gonna do too much for your sanity her Dodge.

Granted, she's not the worst unit to give them to, assuming you're using her. She has one of the lower luck growths in BR, tied with Setsuna, just above Kagero and Reina. Then there's Kaze with his 20% Luck, who doesn't need it since he's paper thin anyways. Everyone else generally has a 10% or higher growth than her, making it much more reliable.

EDIT: Shura has lower Luck than her too. Rhajat also has an equal Luck growth.

Edited August 21, 2016 by TrueEm

[Renall]

The Bolt Axe also kills Avoid so frankly if you're going that route just plan around Rinkah never dodging anyway.

[PuffPuff]

The correct answer is actually. . . Both. Also, Rinkah died at least twice in my BR playthrough to critical hits.

She is not known for her good luck. She needs Brass more than anything.

----

Let's see...

Pros

-Def

-Str

-Speed

Cons

-Bad HP (50% growth as a Zerker)

-Bad Luck

-Bad Res

If you want a Zerker though, Charolette would be the better choice, but she will have badder Def than Rinkah.

Edited August 21, 2016 by PuffPuff

[Emerson]

She is not known for her good luck. She needs Brass more than anything.

----

Let's see...

Pros

-Def

-Str

Cons

-Bad HP (50% growth as a Zerker)

-Bad Luck

-Bad Res

If you want a Zerker though, Charolette would be the better choice, but she will have badder Def than Rinkah.

Add a pro for good Speed. Her Speed growth is actually really good, so she doesn't get doubled like Benny and Effie before getting Wary Fighter. Plus she actually can get enough speed to start doubling faster enemies. The calcs take her to 22.3 Speed as a Level 20/10 Onichan. Putting that into perspective, Oboro's average (Having the same growth) is 23, starting with 12 as a level 10, and gaining an average of 11 over the time to 20/10 Spear Master.

Also just imo it should be Meh HP, not bad HP. 40% is meh range for me. Actually, thinking about it, her Onichan growth is 30% so maybe stick with Bad.

EDIT: Their growths are 55% in both their base and said promoted class, if you're curious.

The Bolt Axe also kills Avoid so frankly if you're going that route just plan around Rinkah never dodging anyway.

The heck does her Avoid matter when she takes little damage from everything non-magical. Besides, even as a tank she shouldn't have to be dealing with 12 enemies at a time. She's more meant for choak-pointing and general destruction via Bolt Axe, not Benny-style multiple enemy tanking.

Edited August 21, 2016 by TrueEm

[PuffPuff]

No. She's like the only tanky unit you can get in Birthright unless you have an Ike Amiibo and put him in the game. I found her useful for walling so everyone else could kill stuff without having to worry about getting killed in one or two hits.

Sure, Subaki and Hinoka were surprisingly kinda tanky, but they still couldn't take hits like Rinkah could. You just have to keep her away from magic, and of course, Subaki and Hinoka are there to handle that.

(note, I'm not including the kids here because I did not recruit/use them. I also didn't use Oboro, Hinata, Setsuna, Azama, Yukimura, Izana, or Shura, so I don't really know about them, but none of them strike me as tanky units)

Awful HP makes this no different.

Use her. She is an Uber tiered unit.

I'd honestly say yes - while I did use her in BR, she felt like the weak link on the team, especially after Birthright stopped screwing around with unpromoted losers. That said, her defense is good... but her HP and Luck both being suspect defeat the purpose of a tank. I'd rather use Hinata, Silas, Oboro, or Hinoka for tanking.

Hee hee...

Especially the huge difficulty spike they put in after Camilla's map. (Ch23) That can 1-2 round anything with their Silver weapons.

This is probably the best summary of her character. Bad start, and while she has some utility, there are other characters who can do her job but better. I wouldn't discount her personal skill, however. It's basically a free +4 damage.

As Thor has shown, a reclass to Berserker does wonders for Rinka's stat spread, but it does require getting Fighter off of Avatar or Charlotte (Revelation only). Rinka might be a good candidate for a Dread Fighter seal.

^This.

Only use her on Rev. She's useless on Birthright.

Being tanky doesn't mean jack if you have shit for HP, AKA one of the key defensive stats for a tank. Her Luck is also suspect, which can compromise her durability...

That she has along with HP growths/in general being lower than usual in most games as well as the Mag classes HP caps being even worse than in Marth's games.

She's fantastic as a Dread Fighter with a bit of help from an Angelic Robe, but you could say the same for a lot of characters. The E Axes really hurts her usability early game and she seems to really struggle to catch up thereafter. Giving her Shuriken access gets her past that hump. There are definitely other characters worth using over her.

Not at all. Her luck is bad. She can use Brass from the get go as that itself is good enough for her.

You know, high defences taking care of physical damage and all that. By the time enemies start running silvers, she should have a sizeable enough defence stat to tank them even with minuscule HP (but really, HP is more of a luxury for a lot of units in this game).

Only reason to having the HP crap is to make this a harder game than anything else.

TBH, her miniscule HP means she's only really good for tanking in the earlygame - I felt she lost value as a tank as the game went on, and lategame, she outright became the weak link on my team because she had crap for HP, and high defense doesn't make up for that imho.

Shameful that she only get 50 fucking percent even as a Zerker.

Rinkah is statistically crap as an Oni Savage.

Outside of Strength, Speed, and Defense her bases are decent at best. Granted, she IS a level four unit but her piss poor growths (particularly in Str and HP) ensure that her stats won't improve a whole lot from these early game bases.

Her strength growth is tied for second lowest in Birthright, tied with Yukimura and only beating out Orochi. Her HP growth is even worse, sitting at the lowest in Birthright (and I think she only beats out Gunter in Revelations, which is hardly an achievement).

While she does have solid Skill, Speed, and Defense growths, they do little to help her as a unit in her base class: her skill cap is low in Oni Savage, doubling doesn't mean anything if she can't do damage in the first place (or only hits for 3 damage), and high defense while nice won't matter if she's unable to get more than 25 hp consistently.

TL;DR, don't use Rinkah. If you must use her, if she's your favorite character ever, do yourself a favor and reclass her asap into a Berserker or Dread Fighter.

now that i think about it, doesn't rinkah also have bad resistance?

in my castle battles i've managed to one shot other rinkah's in their own castles with magic due to the low HP growth.

This game itself needs Miracle and Vantage more than anything.

20% personal, not great but not abysmal either; Sakura has the same, as does Hayato, and Hinata only has 15%. It's mostly that Rinkah has a garbage base (3 to Sakura's 7) and Oni Savages are supposed to be weak to magic (0% class growth for Savage and Blacksmith, 5% for Chieftain). Hoshidan classes other than Oni and Archer have semi-decent Resistance growths so Rinkah should be pretty savagely (heh) weak to magic.

By comparison, Oboro has a base of 8, a base growth of 30%, 5% from Spear Fighter, and access to the Guard Naginata for an immediate +5 Res. She's got a 10 Res lead on Rinkah just from bases which Rinkah is not making up in the time between her joining and Oboro joining. However, Rinkah has like a +15% growth advantage in Def and a deficiency of just 3 in terms of bases, so she'll probably tie Oboro for Def and exceed her pretty quick to make up the Guard Naginata difference, so she should be comparably durable or more durable than Oboro against physical hits.

Also Oni Chieftain Rinkah can tank Lances and counterattack with the Bolt Axe which allows her to hit Res (and thus apply her personal to magic damage). That's her edge over Oboro I think: Tanks physical hits comparably or slightly better and whacks the shit out of physical lance classes with Bolt Axe WTA, not as good an all-rounder tank due to lack of Guard Naginata access and shit Res.

It's a bit of an odd niche but I don't think it's unviable either.

Having her prone to getting attacked more easily will be bad around Mag users. -20 avoid Bolt Axe. Oni Chieftain fixes that issue though with Tiger Spirit.

Add a pro for good Speed. Her Speed growth is actually really good, so she doesn't get doubled like Benny and Effie before getting Wary Fighter. Plus she actually can get enough speed to start doubling faster enemies. The calcs take her to 22.3 Speed as a Level 20/10 Onichan. Putting that into perspective, Oboro's average (Having the same growth) is 23, starting with 12 as a level 10, and gaining an average of 11 over the time to 20/10 Spear Master.

Also just imo it should be Meh HP, not bad HP. 40% is meh range for me. Actually, thinking about it, her Onichan growth is 30% so maybe stick with Bad.

EDIT: Their growths are 55% in both their base and said promoted class, if you're curious.

Updating...

[Emerson]

Only use her on Rev. She's useless on Birthright.

First off; That's just your onion. Opinion.

Secondly, I think she's worse in Revelations actually. She's only with you for 2 Chapters (One of which she can't do anything in besides be a pair-up bot) before leaving until Chapter 9. By that point, her stats are so bad she'll immediately be put into the bench or as a pair-up. THAT'S where I personally think she's somewhat useless. At least in Birthright you have her from the get go. You actually get Oboro at the end of the very next Chapter with much better stats and usability and weapon rank than Rinkah.

EDIT: Also, because I'm too lazy not gonna make a new post for this, I want to say agree with the post below this one.

Edited August 21, 2016 by TrueEm