Dawn Brigade appreciation thread: Final - Who's your favorite DB member?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

In this thread I'd like to discuss the personality and quality as unit of all DB members. I define DB members as the ones who appear only in FE10 and fight alongside with Micaiah till part 3.
These units will be discussed:

• Micaiah
• Edward
• Leonardo
• Nolan
• Laura
• Aran
• Meg
• Fiona

Results
Edward

Spoiler

Leonardo

Spoiler

Micaiah

Spoiler

1. Do you like Micaiah's character?

Meg

Spoiler

Fiona

Spoiler

Nolan

Spoiler

Aran

Spoiler

Laura

Spoiler

#1 Edward
I've argued with other people several times about this guy in other threads because I think some people don't see his true potential. He's easily the character in FE I could talk about the most.


For me Edward is in amazing unit in the longrun and could be easily the best myrmidon / swordmaster in the game for me... but he's suffering on a few things.

1. He's member of the party with the strongest enemies. Edward is a myrm so very fragile. In HM he can barely take two hits, mainly only by cats, swords and a few lance users with weapons not stronger than steels. If you're a lucky with his def and establish a support which gives him +3 defense, he can take two steel bows. Yes, Edward is definitely not the best front unit. And wrath is rather a suicide skill in close combat.
2. His earlygame is hard. He needs one speed point to double the enemies in the next chapter and one strength point to finish weaken enemies by Nolan off. Since the possibility of getting strength and speed in one level is only 36%, he usually needs two levels in the prologue which is possible to get if the gets all the kills. After 1-3, the worst chapter for Edward, you can grind him quite well to make him fast enough to double some stuff. In 1-5 he can ORKO all the mages with the wind edge from the ledge. The best chapter to give him some levels. In general on HM you will mainly focus on very few units. Edward and Nolan are the ones who need level the most until Jill shows up.
3. He has strong competion in person of Zihark. Many people tend to bench Edward when Zihark joins.

Does it automatically mean that Edward is worse than Zihark?
No!
Zihark just joins with a level at a time Edward won't reach in 99% of the cases so Zihark has the bases to take several hits.
Tbf if Edward is level 15 at the end of 1-6-2 (not impossible at all) and has a A-support with Leo, he'll have the same strength and defense as Zihark in 1-7. Only his speed is worse which doesn't matter too much. With his 19 speed he'd still double the soldiers in 1-8. If you give him a bexp. level to max his speed, he'd even double some brigands. Edward will reach the same close combat perfomance as Zihark.

However there's another point which speaks for Zihark on paper. He has earth affinity, and earth affinity is the lifesaver for the later DB chapters. You need as much evasion as possible because the enemies hurt like trucks. Zihark with best biorhythm, A-support in earth and resolve will be untouchable. 

Does it mean that Edward is worse in combat than Zihark?
Absolutely not!
They're just different to use. While Zihark is amazing in close combat, Edward is great with wrath + range swords. It's a great way to get some free kills. Just bring his HP down by letting him attack by a tiger unequiped. And for the rest of the chapter attack him from wind edges / storm swords. If you really want to have a good hitrate, then support him with Meg who can be brought in each part 3 map for free and can be used as support at least.
Unfortunately Caladbolg is the worst of Daein's holy weapons.

As for the growths Edward is more powerful while Zihark has more speed and resistance who reminds me rather on a female swordmaster. In general I prefer Edward's growths because his strength and defense are better while resistance doesn't matter.
That's the reason why he always turns out better than Zihark and I bring him along with Mia to the tower as second SS sword user.

I find Edward underrated because he's a great PP unit. The only first tier unit aside of speed transfer Jill who can constantly double.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Reimu Hakurei

[Baron the Shining Blade]

Being as Swordmasters are my second favorite class and red is my favorite color, I always use Edward. And he turned out fantastic every time I used him, pretty much capping his stats. Alondite always goes to him.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I fall into the "he's not bad really, but I'd rather just use Zihark" camp.

If there is a non-Nolan/Jill/Micaiah unpromoted DB I'm going to train, it's Aran. Sure Edward will in the long term have a higher payoff in the Tower and dodgetanking in Part 4 overall perhaps, but I'd rather have Aran's concrete bulkiness over Edwards doubly-ness. It's not like I turn to the DB for Tower units all that often really, they just need to survive P1, their P3, and if I'm lucky, they'll help out in P4. So Aran's long-term losses aren't so meaningful for me.

For the Tower, if I want a second SS sword user, I'm guaranteed one- you might recognize him as the thing the Vague Katti comes with. By that point BEXP should be plentiful, and you've got 4 fights to get him the 3 Spd he needs for Aura doubling, which won't be hard with a 60% Spd growth. 

As for Wrath sniping, being able to double frequently does work in Edward's favor for using it (as does the fact he naturally has it), but except Laura all DBers can run it.

Edward really isn't bad, and you'll have to use him for the first few fights at least. I've used him on a few playthroughs where I wanted to deviate from my standard unit usages, but at the end of the day, on a "normal" run, I'd rather devote my time and EXP elsewhere.

Yet if you like him, use him. Personal Experience Means Personal Preference/Opinion/Meaning/Enjoyment.

Personality/Character-wise I rate them: Zihark>Stefan>Lucia>Edward>Mia.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I fall into the "he's not bad really, but I'd rather just use Zihark" camp.

If there is a non-Nolan/Jill/Micaiah unpromoted DB I'm going to train, it's Aran. Sure Edward will in the long term have a higher payoff in the Tower and dodgetanking in Part 4 overall perhaps, but I'd rather have Aran's concrete bulkiness over Edwards doubly-ness. It's not like I turn to the DB for Tower units all that often really, they just need to survive P1, their P3, and if I'm lucky, they'll help out in P4. So Aran's long-term losses aren't so meaningful for me.

For the Tower, if I want a second SS sword user, I'm guaranteed one- you might recognize him as the thing the Vague Katti comes with. By that point BEXP should be plentiful, and you've got 4 fights to get him the 3 Spd he needs for Aura doubling, which won't be hard with a 60% Spd growth. 

As for Wrath sniping, being able to double frequently does work in Edward's favor for using it (as does the fact he naturally has it), but except Laura all DBers can run it.

Edward really isn't bad, and you'll have to use him for the first few fights at least. I've used him on a few playthroughs where I wanted to deviate from my standard unit usages, but at the end of the day, on a "normal" run, I'd rather devote my time and EXP elsewhere.

Yet if you like him, use him. Personal Experience Means Personal Preference/Opinion/Meaning/Enjoyment.

Personality/Character-wise I rate them: Zihark>Stefan>Lucia>Edward>Mia.

More or less where I'm at. EXP for the DBs is competitive until the VERY endgame where you can pretty much BEXP one(HM) or two(NM) unit from tier 1 to reasonably high-leveled tier 3.

But Edward does very little to justify why HE should be the one who gets it. There are units who are a bit easier to use(Nolan and Jill) or units who fit a specific niche(Aran in NM. He takes a hit in HM where he really needs like, just 1 or 2 more speed than he has. That said, even in HM, I'd put him about on par with Edward in HM, IMO.). If it was just these factors, yeah, fine, Edward would be a decent BEXP sponge. But he has more competition within his class than anyone else in the game.

With a total of 5 Trueblades, ALL of which are trained up and ready to use at recruitment, Edward really needs something major to make him worthwhile. He has Caladbolg, but Caladbolg is the worst of the 3 DB prf weapons, and it really isn't worth saving for 40+ hours of gameplay just so you can bring it into the tower and get it blessed. You're really better off just using the Vague Katti. It really doesn't help that one of the swordies he's in direct competition with is a defacto part of the Dawn Brigade. Zihark and Edward don't differ enough statistically in the long run to really say that Edward pays off more than Zihark, which is just another nail in Edward's "Is he the best Trueblade?" coffin. And then if you're getting the Vague Katti(Which you really should), then you're getting another Trueblade who is ready to use and take to endgame immediately.

As for his personality, I have no idea. Nobody in the DB leaves any sort of impression beyond Nolan being the older, reasonable one. I do hate his dumb face and wish he'd stop looking at the sky.

But he's ultimately a fine unit. Middle of the pack for the Dawn Brigade. You can totally use him if you want, and he's not totally pointless like Leonardo, and you have to go through fewer hoops to justify using him than units like Meg and Fiona. If you like him and want to use him, go for it. If you're playing HM, it's totally acceptable to swap out Aran for him.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Slumber

[Sweet_Basil]

He's probably my favorite myrmidon/sms in FE10 but I really like Zihark too, and Lucia is a nice character but I rarely use her. Edward is not the best by any means but he's flexible enough to become something great without much difficulty.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Sweet_Basil

[This Is A Whatever]

Gotta love that HD Coat.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I fall into the "he's not bad really, but I'd rather just use Zihark" camp.

If there is a non-Nolan/Jill/Micaiah unpromoted DB I'm going to train, it's Aran. Sure Edward will in the long term have a higher payoff in the Tower and dodgetanking in Part 4 overall perhaps, but I'd rather have Aran's concrete bulkiness over Edwards doubly-ness. It's not like I turn to the DB for Tower units all that often really, they just need to survive P1, their P3, and if I'm lucky, they'll help out in P4. So Aran's long-term losses aren't so meaningful for me.

Honestly Aran is more painful to train than Edward in HM. He can take two hits in the chapter he joins except for steel axes but his high defense won't help him later on if his speed doesn't grow up.
Unlike Edward he won't cap stats as fast to fix his speed with bexp. I tried to use him in tons of HM runs but if he didn't get at least one speed point in his first two levels, he was benched. I don't need units who get doubled because this means ORKOed in like 90% of the cases.
 

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

You can totally use him if you want, and he's not totally pointless like Leonardo, and you have to go through fewer hoops to justify using him than units like Meg and Fiona. If you like him and want to use him, go for it. If you're playing HM, it's totally acceptable to swap out Aran for him.

Shall I be honest?
Leonardo is actually really solid in part 3 against the Laguz if he has at least 15 speed to double the tigers with the Lughnasadh. He can technically even kill them with one crit. However this requires to have the appropirate level - and I agree with the pointless part in part 1 - it's really hard to give him levels due to his low strength and speed. 
He's basically a second "Wolt", only good for chipping and fishing a few peggies from the air in 1-6-1.
But overall he's not entirely awful.
And unlike the other two archers he can even double auras without whitepool.


I'm a bit wondering why people are complaining about his sprite.
His smile represents his cheerfulness.
Sure he's a bit impetous and overrestimates himself but I really like his friendly and happy character. He's confident and tries to transfer his postitive mood despite the dark sides of the current war to the others.

[Lady Sansa]

I pretty much always use him. He makes a great support partner for Nolan. You just need to make sure he procs str/spd every level or his offense falls off fast. I always battle save abuse for level ups anyway.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'll concede not really taking HM into account, playing it is a bit of a chore due to that stupid disabling of enemy range toggling, so I normally stick with Normal since enemy stats aren't that much lower. On NM, I guess Aran is about equal to Edward, with an Aran tilt outside of 4-Final. And on Hard, Edward is roughly equal to Aran, with a possible lean towards Edward on average.

 

5 hours ago, Reimu Hakurei said:

Shall I be honest?
Leonardo is actually really solid in part 3 against the Laguz if he has at least 15 speed to double the tigers with the Lughnasadh. He can technically even kill them with one crit. However this requires to have the appropirate level - and I agree with the pointless part in part 1 - it's really hard to give him levels due to his low strength and speed. 
He's basically a second "Wolt", only good for chipping and fishing a few peggies from the air in 1-6-1.
But overall he's not entirely awful.
And unlike the other two archers he can even double auras without whitepool.

Leonardo has the problem of being a backline unit on a team that wants more frontline units. Well okay, you don't really need that many, you'll never need more than like 5 for Part 3 and Sothe, Zihark, and Volug already provide 3, and Tauroneo adds a fourth outside of 3-6. Perhaps it's more just a problem of Bows not really being particularly outstanding in RD since they lack 1-2 range outside of stagnant crossbows, and other physical units have solid 1-2 (not to mention few enemy fliers that are vulnerable to bows).

As for the competition, while Rolf has Str, and Shinon has Def and ease of use, what does Leonardo have? Skl, Lck, Res- he couldn't have chosen a worse trio of stats to specialize in. Lughnasadh is very cool since +5 Spd and 16 might fixes his problematic Str and Spd, though Beastfoe + Bowgun would be better for 2/3s of DB P3. His Gaelic-God-in-a-bow does free him from the Double Bow competition if you opt to bring him to 4-Final, sure he won't be able counterattack with it, but it might outdo the Brave Bow vs. Auras and possibly the Red Dragons due to their high Defense (I need to run the numbers)?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

Leonardo has the problem of being a backline unit on a team that wants more frontline units.

I don't know exactly how to understand this.
In each game you need units who can take at least one hit. Each melee unit of the DB (Meg + Fiona excluded) can do it. Even Edward can but wrath can kill him easily.
Leonardo is actually the only real 2 range weapon user besides Edward (Micaiah will be busy with healing) if you use him the way I explained in my OP. Having chippers against the Laguz is really nice because most of your allies can't ORKO any Laguz except for beastfoe or crits.
Volug will reach S strike - which is required to ORKO cats - not before part 3. And same goes for having Edward and Zihark reached 26 speed to double all the cats.
 

[Shadow Mir]

Edward is rather hit-or-miss... but unfortunately, he leans far closer towards "miss". First off, the DB chapters are already brutal enough as is. Second, he has to compete with 4 others in his class. Third, one of those happens to be part of his group and outclasses him in practically every way. As far as I'm concerned, if there's any unpromoted DB unit that I'm giving any attention to (that isn't Nolan), it's Aran for his durability. And while Wrath sniping is something that tends to get mention as a niche he has, he's not particularly good at it thanks to his weapons.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Ether]

Edward is... interesting. On lower difficulties, he's fine, there's nothing really wrong with him, but on HM he suffers from needing to consistently proc Speed in order to keep up with the enemy curve... miss one early speed proc and he's finished. His main problem is just that he doesn't do anything special compared to the competition. Several DB units are better uses of the limited amount of exp available to Micaiah's group(Nolan and Jill are just flat out better investments than Edward, Aran is roughly equal to him, only really losing out by endgame, not to mention that a good amount of enemies fall to Sothe and Volug if you're playing with speed in mind, nevermind people like Nailah or the Black Knight). And unlike Nolan or Jill who have a specific niche, with Nolan being a strong reaver choice due to Boyd's mediocre speed, and Jill being in contention for best unit in the game, Edward just... doesn't. Mia, Zihark, and Stefan all do lategame trueblade things with more reliability and less investment than Edward, and availability against Stefan is the only real tangible advantage that he has over any of them.

In conclusion, there's nothing particularly wrong with Edward as a unit. He's extremely helpful early on when he's one of few options, but he doesn't make a great case for himself as far as being kept around is concerned. The biggest problem with Ed is that a lot of people look at nothing but growth rates and then conclude that he's obviously the best trueblade, which in practice is far from the case. I personally dislike him because of bad experiences in the past, but if you want to use him, go ahead. Overall score is low, as far as I'm concerned, he's a 4th string trueblade at best(personally, he's 5th string, but the fact that I'd rather baby Lucia if I want to baby an extra TB isn't something I would apply to the majority), use him if you want, don't shove him in people's faces. Easy.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, Reimu Hakurei said:

I don't know exactly how to understand this.
In each game you need units who can take at least one hit. Each melee unit of the DB (Meg + Fiona excluded) can do it. Even Edward can but wrath can kill him easily.
Leonardo is actually the only real 2 range weapon user besides Edward (Micaiah will be busy with healing) if you use him the way I explained in my OP. Having chippers against the Laguz is really nice because most of your allies can't ORKO any Laguz except for beastfoe or crits.

I honestly shouldn't have made that criticism, as my diluting of it immediately afterwards indicates. What I meant was with the limited DB EXP pool, I'd rather invest in another primarily melee attacker instead of a ranged unit. But yeah, Leonardo is the only ranged unit who stays with the DB beyond Miccy once P1 ends, so he does have value there, I may have underestimated him a little.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Dawn Brigade appreciation thread: #2 Leonardo

Umm... where shall I just begin?
Leonardo is an archer, not a great one for sure. His growths in the important stats (str, spd) are pretty bad with <=40%. Really bad premises to turn out into a promising unit. Despite his combat is pretty bleh, he has his uses to and fro. His chip is useful enough in some chapters. He can prepare kills with the long bow in 1-5 because normally no one else can ORKO all the enemies from the ledge except the mages. And in 1-6-1 he can wreck the peggies. But that's pretty much where his usefulness stops. He's basically your "Wolt" in part 1.
However in part 3 his perfomance can become much better. It depends how fast Leo is. Lugnasadh, the best holy weapon of Daein, gives him +5 speed. If he has 15 speed at least, he will double most of the tigers which is still good enough. And since you're lacking on range weapon users, Leonardo is really welcome in part 3. So it's definitely not wrong to train him in part 1 even if it might be tedious. At least for part 3 it might be paid off. 
Lugnasadh and being range weapon uers are the reasons why I prefer him over Aran in HM - yes I'm not kidding! I always use Leo in HM because his chip in part 3 is really helpful and I don't need slow tanks because I have enough walls with Sothe, Nolan, Jill, Zihark and Volug.
Fun fact: He can double auras without whitepool. Just find a way to rise his strength and speed. Tbf since skill and res are capped fast you could fix these stats with bexp. levels. But it's still more effort in total than to fix Rolf and Shinon.

Characterwise he's rather a serious guy. He's suffering on the war and even questions himself.
All in all he's a nice guy despite you don't get to know much about him.

[Darros]

Leonardo is like - entirely skippable. You could just not use him period and it'd be fine. But he's not terrible - its his weaponlock and not very useful skill that kind of hurt him a bit. Still, chip damage is kind of cool and it's not like he and Shinon are really fighting together ever, so he's not really outcompeted until the tower,

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

No one likes Leo :(
or Leo-fans they don't want to come out
Actually one person voted for him.


Anyways hopefully the next character will appeal a bit more interest.


#3 Micaiah
First of all she's the first female lord who doesn't use sword but it's a classic mage. This makes her already interesting for me.
However this offers her main problem already. FE10 hates magic classes. They're not only squishy but also really slow (equal to knights). And this makes Micaiah very vulnerable through the entire game. In HM almost each physical enemy oneshots her. It become worse when she gets doubled. 1-9 can be a pain in the ass if her stats are bad and you're not aware how to place out of any enemy attack ranges.
In part 3 it'll become easier because you don't fight range weapon users in the chapters against the laguz.
Her combat is pretty alright. Thani can oneshot early bosses and she's a much better chipper than Leo, actually the only real good chipper of the DB. However in part 3 her main task will be to heal people besides Laura. She'll keep the frount units alive and will gain the best sword in the game.
She'll be able to reach SS in light and staves which will make her a great stave user at the end.


Characterwise I find Micaiah a very interesting character but FE10's writing made not very great at the end. The Yune-part nerfes her personality a lot and the game only cares about Ike at the end.
It's a shame than Yune can't hit Ashera so only Ike can finish the game. He steals her the spotlight. 


Nevertheless I really like Micky, much more than Ike. And her light priestess dress is one of the most adorable looks I've seen in videogames.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Reimu Hakurei

[Darros]

Commenting as a unit again:

 

I feel the poll doesn't accurately describe how I feel about Micaiah as a unit. She can either be really good or really bad and the absolute pivot point of that is her speed. Her speed is spotty and she usually ends up on the slower side, but if you do get lucky or get her speed with items and BEXP she really has the potential to be incredible. Frail, yes, but mages aren't meant to be thrown into 89230482394 enemies and survive. Well. Usually.

[Magical Glace]

Purely from a character standpoint, she's my favorite female FE character and, tied with Roy, my second favorite FE character overall.  As far as I'm concerned, she should have been the only lord in FE10, and Ike should have been a side character or at best an antagonist.

As a unit, she definitely has some problems, namely low speed and low HP/Def.  However, she has a free Restore staff built into her, and instant access to C rank staves upon promoting, which is good for support.  Also Thani is really useful for oneshotting Cavs/armors in Part I.

[Eliza]

As someone who's played through Radiant Dawn at least 20 times at this point (I've done a lot of playing around with different characters) I can say that Micaiah is an extremely underrated endgame unit IF you get the correct growths throughout the entire game, these being magic, luck and resistance. With the amount of magical enemies that you face in the endgame, if her resistance is high enough then getting doubled won't matter because enemies will be barely damaging her. Magic is vital because, duh, she's a slow mage, and she needs to level up luck constantly to be able to dodge in part 3 and 4. If she can't dodge then she'll just be the reason why you get game overs so much as usual. All in all, I think gameplaywise if you train her she turns out very well, and the thani spell is invaluable. Also, unless you're low manning the Dawn Brigade, she's the only healer worth training- Laura just takes too much energy to level starting at level 1. 

Characterwise..... I think that she's just a decent character. Micaiah has her strengths in character, my favorite of which being (don't shoot me for this) her ability to continue to fight for a losing cause against all odds no matter how much the world may paint her as evil just to protect her people. Most people hated her choices in part 3, but I think that those chapters playing as the Dawn Brigade were some of the best moments of the game, and she deserves more credit for being the focus of that. As for weaknesses, or rather what I would improve upon her, I'd like to share the idea that Mangs came up with for fixing Micaiah's character in one of his videos for his letsplay of Radiant Dawn. Basically, Micaiah should of been an actual tactician, extremely smart and skilled, and have a bit of credibility in general for being what she would be, like how Soren was regarded in the Laguz Alliance. It would of made the parallel between Soren/Ike and Miciaiah/Sothe fit so much better with two great tacticians fighting on each side with two people devoted to them helping lead their respective armies. 

 

So in the end, I like Micaiah, but her faults keep her from being one of my favorite characters.

[Shadow Mir]

As for Micaiah, she has her faults, though she manages to be really useful in spite of those, mainly for Thani access. And I REALLY think needing to finish off Ashera with Micaiah would be stupid - Micaiah can't even so much as scratch Ashera with her 50 Res.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Indeed it's hard to rate Micaiah and I had my issues with making the polls.
She's a hit or miss. You can be lucky with her that she has enough speed not to get doubled and can double herself by having resolve, or you can be very unlucky with a speedscrewed Micaiah who will get oneshotted furthermore. Her stats and growths aside of magic, luck and resistance are mediocre at best.

In part 1 she's a walking target. Sure, you don't want to keep her out of any enemy attack ranges but in a few situations like in 1-9 it's almost unavoidable.

In part 3 her stats don't really matter because she'll be mainly your staffbot besides Laura. 

Also the difficulty is a thing. In EM and NM you have enough bexp. to let her catch up, but in HM where your bexp. is very limited you want to use it on units with more potential.
Micky doesn't really need bexp. in endgame. As long her magic is high enough for effective healing she's useful enough. She won't see much combat except maybe in 4-P with thanibombing the generals.

 

2 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

And I REALLY think needing to finish off Ashera with Micaiah would be stupid - Micaiah can't even so much as scratch Ashera with her 50 Res.

Indeed it would become hard practically.
On her own she can do 2 damage to her with maxed magic and rexaura.
With support and whitepool she could do 2x10 at best.
Bringing Ashera down to 10 / 20 HP would be still a tough task.
 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Character-wise, Micaiah is at her best in Part 3, where she struggles without any powers to back her up. In Part 1, well she does have the whole issue of trying to not outshine Pelleas and does trip up when sparing Jarod, and overall though special, she isn't that bad. Part 4, Micaiah does have dialogue and meaningful scenes, but yeah, Yune steals screentime from her, the Tower is Yune and Ike, with Micaiah though appearing not being felt as the equal of the other two.

 

In gameplay, she's a very fragile mage lord, so unlike the durable Robin, she isn't broken, I wouldn't call her the worse either because Eliwood, Roy, Lyn and Eirika exist. Speed is Micaiah's biggest problem, it relegates her to being a heavy hitter, but not a killer barring Wrath/Resolve. It also means she can't take hits at all, because she's liable to being ORKOed even with a Robe. While her Magic is awesome, Res and Luck are terrible stats to be so heavily focused on. Res is bad because enemy mages are relatively rare, and have high Res themselves, and easy to kill with physical units. Luck is bad because it can't make her into a dodge machine because Mic lacks Authority Stars and has problematic Speed, Light is highly accurate so the hit boost is unneeded, Mic doesn't fear crits because regular hits already scare her to death, and Luck has a universal cap across all her classes of 40, so you don't have an easy time BEXPing Miccy Speed given her Mag and Res also take a while to cap.

In Part 1, Micaiah makes decent chipper/Thani nuke. Her high Staff rank on promotion to Light Sage lets her do something useful for P3 and P4, because her magic offense isn't quite as good in these parts. For the Tower, just make her a dedicated Staffbot/Purge shooter, because she'll be underleveled (even with ParaPhysics spam and BEXP), and Red Dragons sting too much while Spirits and the final bosses have high Res. This isn't a bad role, because nobody else forced into the Tower is a staffer, and it frees up one of your ten character slots for a combat unit, though bringing a second staffer to help Micaiah out is a great idea.

 

5 hours ago, Eliza said:

Basically, Micaiah should of been an actual tactician, extremely smart and skilled, and have a bit of credibility in general for being what she would be, like how Soren was regarded in the Laguz Alliance.

No. I liked that she was incompetent in P3. She'd be too perfect if she was a master tactician. Micaiah is already praised to highest heavens by Daein in P3, and her failure to actually match those expectations due to the chaos blocking her powers is something we don't really see in FE and makes her stand out.

[Troykv]

13 hours ago, Reimu Hakurei said:

No one likes Leo :(
or Leo-fans they don't want to come out
Actually one person voted for him.


Anyways hopefully the next character will appeal a bit more interest.


#3 Micaiah
First of all she's the first female lord who doesn't use sword but it's a classic mage. This makes her already interesting for me.
However this offers her main problem already. FE10 hates magic classes. They're not only squishy but also really slow (equal to knights). And this makes Micaiah very vulnerable through the entire game. In HM almost each physical enemy oneshots her. It become worse when she gets doubled. 1-9 can be a pain in the ass if her stats are bad and you're not aware how to place out of any enemy attack ranges.
In part 3 it'll become easier because you don't fight range weapon users in the chapters against the laguz.
Her combat is pretty alright. Thani can oneshot early bosses and she's a much better chipper than Leo, actually the only real good chipper of the DB. However in part 3 her main task will be to heal people besides Laura. She'll keep the frount units alive and will gain the best sword in the game.
She'll be able to reach SS in light and staves which will make her a great stave user at the end.


Characterwise I find Micaiah a very interesting character but FE10's writing made not very great at the end. The Yune-part nerfes her personality a lot and the game only cares about Ike at the end.
It's a shame than Yune can't hit Ashera so only Ike can finish the game. He steals her the spotlight. 


Nevertheless I really like Micky, much more than Ike. And her light priestess dress is one of the most adorable looks I've seen in videogames.

Oh indeed, I like Micaiah a lot, and I like to use whereas is as offensive unit or as a support unit; although Micaiah has a weak bulk she is a unit I consider useful even if you don't purporsly use Exp in her (thanks to Thani and Physic that gives her ocassional utilities that are more than other units would say).

Micaiah has a really pretty design and I consider her character an interesting usage of subversions of a character with many of her background traits (aka: the traits usually connects her to the concept of "Mary Sue"); even without talking about this she is kind and caring.

And yeah, I would like to have more time to Micaiah, Ike is playable almost in almost in the same amount of chapters... but Ike can use more and better the Exp because everyone (but a underleveled Ilyana) is already Tier Two.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

No. I liked that she was incompetent in P3. She'd be too perfect if she was a master tactician. Micaiah is already praised to highest heavens by Daein in P3, and her failure to actually match those expectations due to the chaos blocking her powers is something we don't really see in FE and makes her stand out.

She isn't a master tactician; but I give her credit to try her best to survive a bit against probably the best tactician in the Continent and a big army... She would have done a better work but considering the circunstances the choices were few, specially without her oversight skills.

[Baldrick]

Gameplay, Micaiah is really good at her job. She's bad at everything else, but that's what meatshields are for. 

In the plot, I liked her a lot more once I stopped considering her as a protagonist.

[Ether]

Micaiah is a good unit that doesn't fall under most people's expectations of a good unit, and thus they don't think she is one. Micaiah isn't fast enough to ORKO things, and not durable enough to be chucked into a sea of enemies and live, but she has a few key functions that keep her relevant. Excellent earlygame chip in a team that wants to take as few hits as possible, which continues for the entirety of the DB chapters if you bother to keep her in rough level range of the rest of your team, easy boss(and a few other enemies) deletion with Thani risk free due to how easily she flat out OHKO's with effective Mt, as well as healing and status restoration to supplement Laura in part 1, and completely replace her main function in part 3 as she gets an immense C staves on promo combined with her naturally high magic.

In short, Micaiah isn't your stereotypical strong FE unit, but she's functional at what she does, and played correctly, she's quite useful.