Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 36: Anna

[Barren]

Next we get to our notorious merchant from pretty much every Fire Emblem game we can think of Anna.

Rules

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.)

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning.

- Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more.

- Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~!

-The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage."

-The ranking assumes no grinding and no stat booster items

- Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.."

- Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please!

-We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea."

-The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable.

 

Scores:

Dimtri: 9.14

Byleth: 9.05

Edelgard: 9.00

Claude: 8.977

Felix: 8.625 

Lysithea: 8.472

Petra: 8.34

Leonie: 8.2

Jeritza: 8.2

Ferdinand: 7.78

Catherine: 7.7556

Sylvain: 7.66

Ingrid: 7.34

Hilda: 7.31

Seteth: 7.2273

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Marianne: 6.9769

Mercedes: 6.756

Shamir: 6.65

Dorothea: 6.375

Cyril: 6.0454

Dedue: 5.8571

Alois: 5.75

Annette: 5.5375

Hubert: 5.525

Ignatz: 4.88

Flayn: 4.583

Caspar: 4.32

Hanneman: 4.18

Lorenz: 3.8077

Raphael: 3.7273 

Ashe: 3.69 (nice)

Manuela: 3.1

Gilbert: 2.27

 

Underscore: Black Eagles

Bold: Blue Lions

Itallics: Golden deer

Purple: Faculty

Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC

Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94

Average score for Blue lions: 6.82

Average score for Golden Deer: 6.543

Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number)

Edited November 15, 2020 by Barren

[Dark Holy Elf]

Beware false advertising; Anna may appear to be pay-2-win, but she doesn't actually help you win.

The good: Anna's best stats are speed (7+55%) and charm (7+50%) along with very high luck due to her personal. The speed is probably best compared with Hilda, a figure which gets pretty high if you build towards it, but short of the highest level. The charm is good for a non-lord.

She has a boon in bow and a budding talent in riding, so Bow Knight's a good option, and a boon in axe gets her towards flying builds too. If you'd rather make her a mage (her str and mag are equal), she has a boon in Faith which leads to Rescue at B, and she gets Meteor at A in reason. She's also got a magical combat art.

The less good: Anna's offensive stats let her down no matter what build you go for. 7+35% str is the lower than any proper physical unit (Cyril is 7+40%), and 7+35% mag is lower than any proper magical unit (Lorenz is effectively 9+40%). In fact, her stat build is easily compared with that of Ingrid, and Anna's comes out a bit all-around worse, luck aside. She also has a pretty weak talent list, due to having an Authority bane.

Her magical build is the more interesting one, with Rescue and Meteor, but several things hold it back. Aside from the low magic stat, she's weak in Reason, so getting to Meteor is an incredible slog. Meteor is also much less useful in her hands than any other, even once she gets it, because she has no supports, and thus the best she can do is hand out +5 hit with gambits.

Not having supports actually just sucks in general; Anna can expect to have less hit than the numbers suggest (making her the least accurate character in the game, since the effect of dex on accuracy is so small), and also does nothing to help her team.

Overall, the only thing Anna really has going for her is a low-range Rescue. This invites comparisons to Flayn, and while Anna can take hits better and potentially get Rescue a bit earlier, Flayn having actual supports, a better magic stat, and Fortify makes her clearly the better choice, and I already don't have much respect for Flayn. That leaves Anna clearly worse than anyone except Gilbert. I think "has Rescue" probably gets her above him, but not by much. Anna gets a 1.5/10 (Maddening).

Edited November 15, 2020 by Dark Holy Elf

[GaryGaryGary]

Anna. I like Anna. The idea of having a merchant fighting on your army is pretty cool. Anyways, let’s see how much she brings to the table.

Good Traits

So Anna is the earliest Church of Seiros unit you can get at Chapter 3 I believe? And she’s free meaning that you don’t have to train in anything to get her.

Have pretty solid(not amazing but decent) growths on her

Has a budding talent in Riding, which gives her Pass, which is gimmicky but usable.

Has Rescue and Meteor which is definitely a plus.

The best faculty Training (imo) for Byleth and other Sword Users.

Has a Crest, which means she can hold Hero Relic’s with no drawbacks.

Axe boons=Brigand=Death Blow!

 

Bad Traits

35% in both Strength and Magic is mediocre.

Rescue and Meteor are dropped by this so unless you stuff Magic Boosters down her throat, you are not gonna get far with that.

Despite her Crest, she doesn’t get a Relic Weapon suited for it and gets no benefit from others besides immunity to self-damage.

Business Property is not a good personal ability for Anna. It give her + 5 in her luck, but Luck is pretty useless stat. I would’ve been happier if she gotten an ability where if she defeats her enemy, enemy has a chance to drop a bullion or a +weapon based off her luck, but alas, that would be BrOkEn!

Bane in Reason means an uphill battle to get Meteor and Authority bane is always terrible on a unit.

Her biggest and most noticeable flaw is her lack of supports. This is blasphemy! No supports means no bonuses on Might or Hit, which means Anna and her ally has to rely on themselves to push through. No support with Byleth, Ashe, Raphael and Ignatz, not even Jeritza. Pitiful!

Overall Score: 2.5/10

Love her, but lack of support is her downfall. Even if she can do without, other units do her job better anyways...

[Barren]

It's time to talk about Anna. What is there to say about her. She's been everywhere in about every Fire Emblem so she has to be well versed right? She's also notorious for other appearances like debuting as a outlaw in Fates. Or that time she was wielding a brave lance and spear on the apotheosis map. You would think that she'd be great right? Ehh....not really. Here's why and this is assuming hard.

You can recruit Anna as early as chapter 3 and get a large bullion along with her. That's a nice 5,000 G right there. She comes in as a Myrmidon at Level 5, or if you want to wait until chapter 6 or so she comes in as a Thief. Her growths are okay, Anna starts with a speed stat of 11 with a 60% growth thanks to the Myrmidon class bonus. Her charm stat starting at 9 with a 55% growth means she should be decent with gambits. Her luck stat could have been better, 9 with a 45% growth. Anna is not as lucky as she wants to be. Or can she be? Her personal ability Business Prosperity grants her a flat bonus of Luck +5. While the luck stat adds to her crit and crit avoid, it's the least reliable stat in the game. The rest of her stats are pretty average, her strength and magic have a starting stat of 8 with a 35% growth. Her HP and dex both have a 45% growth as well, combine that with a 30% defense growth and a 35% growth in resistance, she has at least noticeable bulk. But she's not a tank by any means. Also to get this out of the way, she has no supports with anyone. So she doesn't contribute to boosting your allies whatsoever.

Anna has a boon in swords, axes, bows, faith with a budding talent in riding. Her banes are reason and authority. These at least give her a variety of options she can go for. Her sword combat arts consist of Soul Blade at rank C+, and Hexblade at rank A. Soul Blade is a decent attack for her since they get boosted thanks to her res, and Hexblade is a straight up magic sword combat art. Her axe combat arts are quite interesting. She gets Spike at rank C+ which is an alternate version of Smash. Anna also gets Armored Strike at rank A, which deals more damage based on her defense. Ironically, there is a way for Anna to go defensive if desired. Her bow combat art only gets Break Shot at rank C+. This is nice for debuffing monsters and bosses in case you need her to attack from range. When unlocking her budding talent in riding, she gets Pass. Her and Bernadetta share this trait as you can get around their restricted movement when enemies stand in the way. Her eventual boon in riding gives her easy access to movement +1 so that in conjunction with pass allows her to move around rather freely.

Her faith spell lost consist of Ward at rank C which is only situational and Rescue at rank B which can be useful. Her reason spell list consist of Fire at rank D, Thunder at rank D+ and then Meteor at rank A. Going for her reason magic is simply not worth it because as I mentioned earlier, she has no support bonuses with anyone. At least Manuela can pull off some siege tome support despite that being her bane. Hilda and Dorothea are better as siege tome supports because they have a wide range of support with other units on the team. Anna has no such qualities.

As far as class options, she can get Brigand's Death Blow, Archer's Hit +20, she can also go Pegasus Knight if you like to combine flight with Pass and get Darting Blow if desired. You could get Miracle for her as a Priest since she gets a Luck +5. But that is quite unreliable to bank on surviving anything fatal, especially since Divine Pulse now exists. Since we can mention DLC, she is made to be a Trickster. Like Yuri, her proficiency in swords and faith sets her up perfectly for it. You would need to qualify as a Thief to get access to Trickster, you do get a Abyssal Seal from Abyss by offering renown. Her combination of Rescue and Foul Play can provide some interesting utility. Her also getting Duelist's Blow for adding avoid when engaging in combat can be okay for evasion purposes. You can even get Death Blow and Darting Blow with her when using a weapon. The Trickster class though has it's problems. Like half use of magics for example. It's not an attractive quality because you could use all the help you can get from your spell kit. So having the uses getting cut in half limits your options. Trickster also doesn't get Swordfaire but gets Lucky Seven. Lucky Seven adds to your stats at random every turn as a one buff. This isn't to say you won't get the same stat buff more than once, but the stat buff itself is random so you'll have to keep rolling the dice. Trickster also is stuck at 5 move. So overall, this is only a novelty class for her and not that viable. 

Anna can also go Assassin if you want her to be more physical but it adds no strength bonuses but more dex and speed bonuses. Anna can even go Fortress Knight or Great Knight if you want to take advantage of her Axe combat arts which are pretty good. Bow Knight is another option for her if you want long range Break Shots. Hit +20 really helps in that department. She gets Rally Luck at authority rank D and Battalion Vanatge at rank C. Her bane in authority will make it rather tough to get to rank C if that is what you're going to focus on.

Overall, I think Anna is a meh 2/10 unit. Somewhat usable but ultimately outclassed but virtually everyone. Even Ashe has a niche that can be helpful at times with Locktouch as well as easier access to Wyvern Lord compared to her. And that is saying something

Edited November 15, 2020 by Barren

[LoneStar]

They did Anna dirty. No supports is not only lame, but hurts her combat capabilities. In Maddening the enemies are dodgy, so for the early game before you get Hit+20, she won’t be hitting as well as others. She is similar to Manuela, so that already spells trouble. Speed is really good, but her other stats are middling to low. She has good assets in Bow and Axe, to be able to get those meta skills and classes.

If you are using her she can dodge or avoid getting doubled decently well. Then her Soulblade can do decent damage, and she can debuff with Break Shot. Rally Luck is good to help an ally avoid crits. The best spell she gets is Rescue, but her low magic limits it’s range. She also gets Bolting, but no supports, and Reason weakness makes it a waste of time getting. The Secret Transport battalion is pretty nice, but that map is so gross with Bow Knights spawning behind you.

For classes she leans towards Assassin or Trickster. Bow Knight and Wyvern Lord are some stronger options, and she can probably be a decent Sniper. At least she has the strengths to get into those classes without too much trouble.

My Rating: 2/10. I used her in my Maddening runs, but she hits the bench soon eventually.

Edited November 15, 2020 by LoneStar

[Brock]

Something I've never seen discussed about Anna is that she is the best user of Foul Play in the game.  Combine Pass with Fetters of Dromi and she can sneak any unit across enemy lines, and then go back.  Might not be the best trick but I think its interesting.  

[Sooks]

2/10, Anna also makes for a great bench warmer. 35% in both offensive stats? Pass. She has high speed and charm at least. She also has res at defense at 35% and 30% respectively. Not looking very good for a growth unit. She has banes in reason and... authority. Ugh. Her spell list was looking kind of nice with meteor but nope. And everyone wants a gambit, yet getting a good one on Anna will take longer. At least she has a boon in faith (have fun with her low magic though). And one in swords, axes, bows, and a budding talent in riding, which gives her pass, which is always good (I mean she dies in one hit but still). That will give her easy bow knight if you absolutely must use her since that is one of the broken classes. Her personal literally just gives her 5 more luck, which is usually useless. She gets a two for having rescue, being fast, and having pretty good boons.

[L3xandr3]

I like Anna. Not in TH. She's worse than most other characters, yet IS had the gall to make her paid DLC? Hope you guys don't mind...

     Skill Levels:      I have not used her, and

     Abilities:     will not use her. If fact,

     Arts:     I protest IS cheeping us out

     Spells:     on this front. She’s paid DLC,

     Stats:     and yet she has no supports

     Classes:     and a nonexistent personal. Why use her?

          The Verdict

GTFO. Eh Bases, bad Growths, no Personal Skill, decent Sword Arts. 2/10

[Shadow Mir]

3.5/10. High speed with a sword and bow proficiency makes her somewhat similar to Petra. No supports hurts, but having supports doesn't save some students from sucking harder than SSB Link's recovery *cough RAPHAEL hack*.

[SnowFire]

6 hours ago, Barren said:

-The ranking assumes no grinding of any form, no DLC and minor, (one or two stat boosters per month) use of the Greenhouse.

 

As a nitpick, think you're gonna have to remove this line for Anna & the Ashen Wolves!  Strictly speaking, no-DLC Anna is unrankable since she doesn't exist, after all.  If you have Anna, you also have Trickster/etc. access.

To wax philosophical a bit, IntSys lovingly added specific voice acted lines for all the Abyss residents to speak during the various "normal" campaigns, which surprises me a bit rather than just having them be like "yo I have no idea what's going on up there, hello."  Fair enough, since clearly the Abyss randos & Ashen Wolves voice actors were already there, so might as well record normal campaign lines in addition to Cindered Shadows lines.  And I get that bringing back existing Voice Actors is probably expensive or tricky.  But still, IntSys couldn't find anybody to come back for cheap?  Even VAs who clearly were already back to record CS lines, like Lords / Lin / Ashe / Hilda?  Or hell, do text-only supports if you have to.  I respect not making Anna an OP pay2win character stat-wise, but support conversations are secretly what we're paying for if we use this character; filling out that conversation list and hearing cool lore can make even weak characters worthwhile.  You're only using Anna for sheer gameplay, and there's not much here.

Anyway, I haven't used Anna yet, but yikes.  She's Manuela, who can potentially get a much earlier start at training if you want (C2!), but even less inspiring stats.  And NO SUPPORTS.  An out-of-class random recruit already has some issues with merely fewer supports, but NO supports?  As Dark Holy Elf noted, this makes Anna effectively the least accurate character in the game, and the least useful for pumping other character's accuracy, so she actually manages to make her team a bit worse.  Gilbert isn't great, but even he can manage this basic task.  Her personal is quite uninspiring as well (maybe +10 Lck would be enough to notice?).  Like Manuela, I guess the "optimal" build for her is slogging through that Reason bane for Mortal Savant, or maybe being some mixed-damage Sniper or Assassin with a Magic Bow / Levin Sword, but meh.  (And one of the nice things about your Snipers / Bow Knights is that their high range sets up more supports, for the likes of Bernie / Ashe / Ignatz.  Which Anna is inherently less useful for.  Welp.)

Anna has exactly one aspect unique to her that is genuinely to her benefit: She is the only character in the game (with one insane exception*) who can join at any time post-timeskip, appropriately leveled to the chapter (albeit as a Thief the whole way).  And I'll certainly grant that even an inefficiently trained Anna is way better than an empty slot or a hugely underlevel character.  So, if you have empty deployment slots for a lategame mission, you can recruit Anna, flash-certify her as an Assassin, and toss her into the fray.  On Maddening, the "expected" level is probably a bit higher than your actual level, too, at least for non-healers.  I can think of 3 circumstances this might be relevant: Linhardt & Leonie's paralogue on Crimson Flower where Edelgard & Hubert are missing and you have 11 deployment slots (so if you were leveling 12 characters, you have 1 missing), a "death march" Classic run that has eaten late casualties, and some sort of speedrun situation where you only leveled 2 characters but want 3 for the final map or the like.  This is not much, but I legit used Anna in that first scenario in my Crimson Flower run, and I suppose I'll grant the other scenarios aren't totally crazy either.

Anna gets a 1.5, same score as Gilbert for me.  She'd be a 1.0 (Manuela trading training time for NO SUPPORTS) but +0.5 for the final quirk of hers, of being an emergency warm body.

* The insane exception: The other way to have a character join in any chapter post-timeskip is if you happen to have a save file of Crimson Flower pre-Jeritza DLC.  He'll join immediately the next Monastery phase appropriately leveled, but, uh, requiring old save files is pretty nuts.

[Barren]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

As a nitpick, think you're gonna have to remove this line for Anna & the Ashen Wolves!  Strictly speaking, no-DLC Anna is unrankable since she doesn't exist, after all.  If you have Anna, you also have Trickster/etc. access.

Good on you for pointing that out. I’ll fix it

[Dandy Druid]

There isn't anything Anna can do that Petra, Ingrid, Felix, Hilda, Leonie, etc. can't do better. Sure, she has high speed and charm... but so do many other characters. Annnnd they have STR/MAG that Anna just doesn't have.

2/10 tempted to put 1/10 since the only way to get her is to BUY her with real money... but that shouldn't affect her score as a unit in-game.