History with units

[FailWood]

20 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Kagero sidesteps the other ninjas' issues

She's pretty much Kaze, except she has more strength with less accuracy and slightly less speed.  I definitely prefer the brothers over her.

Another character I have a rough history with is Sylvain.  He's been the definition of painfully average in each of my Blue Lion playthroughs, commonly getting Speed screwed.  I'd be convinced he's terrible if it wasn't for him having Swift Strikes.

[defensedefumer]

Let me try one character per game:

1) Odin (from Fates)

I never had a good time with him. Although he is a mage, he has mediocre stats in magic and resistance. Sure he has the skill aching blood, but I rather use Nyx than him. Plus he dresses like a male stripper.

2) Delthea (from Echoes)

Delthea may seem strong in the narrative, but when I freed her from puppet state I was disappointed. Although having decent magic, her speed and health are low. Bear in mind that in Echoes, magic is cast from hitpoints. This means Delthea can only cast a few spells before her health runs dangerously low.

3) Ignatz (from Three Houses)

Ignatz's high accuracy first drew me to him. However, Three House is a game where lack of accuracy is not an issue for snipers or bow knights. So I benched him.

 

 

[Shadow Mir]

43 minutes ago, defensedefumer said:

2) Delthea (from Echoes)

Delthea may seem strong in the narrative, but when I freed her from puppet state I was disappointed. Although having decent magic, her speed and health are low. Bear in mind that in Echoes, magic is cast from hitpoints. This means Delthea can only cast a few spells before her health runs dangerously low.

Personally, I found that she could usually do just fine spamming FAYAH. Also, this game does give you a magic range boosting equip (rings, like the one in question, also have a passive recovery effect).

43 minutes ago, defensedefumer said:

1) Odin (from Fates)

I never had a good time with him. Although he is a mage, he has mediocre stats in magic and resistance. Sure he has the skill aching blood, but I rather use Nyx than him. Plus he dresses like a male stripper.

How was Nyx? Did she whiff up a storm?

[defensedefumer]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

How was Nyx? Did she whiff up a storm?

She was OK. I liked her better than Odin. In Fates, you tend to rely more on the royals anyway.

[edgyiggy]

I've never had any luck with Sain in FE7. He'll cap strength, sometimes, and he'll have high HP, and not much else. There's no reason for me to use him over Marcus, Lowen or Kent when his stats never pan out the way I wish they would.

[LJ_Reflet]

6 hours ago, defensedefumer said:

1) Odin (from Fates)

I never had a good time with him. Although he is a mage, he has mediocre stats in magic and resistance. Sure he has the skill aching blood, but I rather use Nyx than him. Plus he dresses like a male stripper.

I never used Odin either cause I know he has pretty bad stats, but imma be honest, him dressing like a male stripper gives me more of an incentive to use him tbh

[defensedefumer]

15 hours ago, LJ_Tenma said:

I never used Odin either cause I know he has pretty bad stats, but imma be honest, him dressing like a male stripper gives me more of an incentive to use him tbh

Haha, never thought of it that way!

[ciphertul]

22 hours ago, edgyiggy said:

I've never had any luck with Sain in FE7. He'll cap strength, sometimes, and he'll have high HP, and not much else. There's no reason for me to use him over Marcus, Lowen or Kent when his stats never pan out the way I wish they would.

That is knida funny as it was the opposite for me, no matter what I did Kent could not compete with Sain. I tried many times but Kent has always been a let down.

While not surprising Leonardo has never been even salvageable for me. Last Ryoma, a bit shocking I know but he is personally responsible fir about 75% of my resets on Fate alone. I also have to agree with Mir here, Niles has always been trash for me and I really hate his personality so he gets the biggest loser medal from me.

Edited August 16, 2021 by ciphertul

[Shadow Mir]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:37 PM, defensedefumer said:

She was OK. I liked her better than Odin. In Fates, you tend to rely more on the royals anyway.

Ehh, I just asked because her accuracy is pretty much going to be a problem forever.

On 7/16/2021 at 10:48 AM, FailWood said:

She's pretty much Kaze, except she has more strength with less accuracy and slightly less speed.  I definitely prefer the brothers over her.

Another character I have a rough history with is Sylvain.  He's been the definition of painfully average in each of my Blue Lion playthroughs, commonly getting Speed screwed.  I'd be convinced he's terrible if it wasn't for him having Swift Strikes.

That reminds me, Sylvain has been underwhelming in my current run, and it's gotten to the point where I dropped him in favour of Leonie.

[ANDREW BENINTENDO]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That reminds me, Sylvain has been underwhelming in my current run, and it's gotten to the point where I dropped him in favour of Leonie.

In my first 3H run, Sylvain was a dominant Dark and Holy Knight - probably the MVP of the crew besides Byleth. That was on Normal difficulty.

On more advanced difficulties, he was too much of a tweener - not enough physical or magic power to be effective, and as you said too slow. Got benched halfway through.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Conversely, Sylvain might just be my strongest unit on my current VW Maddening playthrough. He's on Death Knight duty whenever that punk shows up (Lance of Ruin + Knightkneeler). He just got Swift Strikes - bolstered by Paladin's Lancefaire, Death Blow, and Strength +2, it's basically an insta-kill. Before that, he was still doing good damage, whether with a Horseslayer, Lance of Ruin, or even a simple Training Lance. Heck, with the last one, he could hit doubling thresholds against slower enemies (think other cavalry). His Hit rates aren't the greatest, but he can bolster that via a few supported units. In short, he was great when I picked him up out of house (Chapter 2), and he's not slowed down since.

[FailWood]

Another unit I haven't had a good history with is Mozu from Fates.  I don't know if there's something about her that I'm not noticing, but she doesn't feel satisfying to use in any route and her not getting Strength for me in her earliest levels hurts.  Even if she does manage to get good levels for me, she still ends up being slightly worse then other units I'm using, so she never stands out.  Very much a downgrade from Donnel before her, who could easily get out of hand (even without DLC).

[ANDREW BENINTENDO]

7 hours ago, FailWood said:

Another unit I haven't had a good history with is Mozu from Fates.  

Generally agreed on Mozu. While she did okay with me, she was a liability for longer than I thought she'd be and she never did reach stratospheres of domination like other Est units. Interesting Donnel comparison, too. I wonder if she was nerfed because Donnel 

[FailWood]

53 minutes ago, ANDREW BENINTENDO said:

Interesting Donnel comparison, too. I wonder if she was nerfed because Donnel 

Possibly.  Did a Male only playthrough of Awakening (on Hard mode) recently and found that getting him caught up with the other guys was not difficult.  Him being part of a support triangle with Stahl and Kellam helps his survivablity, and the boost in stats he gets once he's done as a Villager is pretty good too.  Only downside I find with him is that none of his reclass options use a lance, so he'll need to start from scratch with his weapon ranks.

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, FailWood said:

Another unit I haven't had a good history with is Mozu from Fates.  I don't know if there's something about her that I'm not noticing, but she doesn't feel satisfying to use in any route and her not getting Strength for me in her earliest levels hurts.  Even if she does manage to get good levels for me, she still ends up being slightly worse then other units I'm using, so she never stands out.  Very much a downgrade from Donnel before her, who could easily get out of hand (even without DLC).

Mozu does have Archer as a reclass option... but unfortunately for her, this puts her in competition with Takumi on two routes. Then there's the limited amount of Heart Seals for most of the game to consider, which means opportunity cost is a concern...

RE: Donnel: I always found using him hard to justify, mostly because of his jointime (he's a lance unit that joins early with bottom-grade stats, which, considering that axes tend to be more common than other weapons early on, hurts. Then you consider that the chapter right after he is first available has only 6 unit slots, disregarding one of those being Chrom, and after THAT, wyverns start appearing, which is bad news for lance-locked Donnel). As if that wasn't bad enough, he needs a Second Seal to get out of Villager, and even then, he STILL can't perform on the level of your other units because he's stuck with E rank again.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[FailWood]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

RE: Donnel: I always found using him hard to justify, mostly because of his jointime (he's a lance unit that joins early with bottom-grade stats, which, considering that axes tend to be more common than other weapons early on, hurts. Then you consider that the chapter right after he is first available has only 6 unit slots, disregarding one of those being Chrom, and after THAT, wyverns start appearing, which is bad news for lance-locked Donnel). As if that wasn't bad enough, he needs a Second Seal to get out of Villager, and even then, he STILL can't perform on the level of your other units because he's stuck with E rank again.

Chapter 4 also doesn't have many enemies, so bringing Kellam or one of the cavs will help give him the bulk needed to survive, and Lissa for healing (hell, I made it work without Lissa during my Male only run).  After that, I use the skirmishes that appear commonly after beating a chapter to train him.  As for his weapon rank situation, I early promote him from Mercenary to Hero, then give him the Arms Scroll from the Anna Paralogue.  By that point, he's golden thanks to Armsthrift and how he has a 100% chance to get a point of Luck and HP every level (unless you take off Aptitude, which why would you before he caps?).

As for the Second Seal, the first one you get is in Chapter 8 (unless you're lucky and Anna spawns with one to sell in the world map) and by that point the only other unit I'd consider giving it to is Vaike to make him a Barbarian.  If I'm not using him, then it's going to Donnel.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, FailWood said:

Chapter 4 also doesn't have many enemies, so bringing Kellam or one of the cavs will help give him the bulk needed to survive, and Lissa for healing (hell, I made it work without Lissa during my Male only run).  After that, I use the skirmishes that appear commonly after beating a chapter to train him.  As for his weapon rank situation, I early promote him from Mercenary to Hero, then give him the Arms Scroll from the Anna Paralogue.  By that point, he's golden thanks to Armsthrift and how he has a 100% chance to get a point of Luck and HP every level (unless you take off Aptitude, which why would you before he caps?).

As for the Second Seal, the first one you get is in Chapter 8 (unless you're lucky and Anna spawns with one to sell in the world map) and by that point the only other unit I'd consider giving it to is Vaike to make him a Barbarian.  If I'm not using him, then it's going to Donnel.

That's small comfort when most of the enemies in that chapter are the stuff Donnel sucks against (fighters, mages, knights), and that's putting aside the fact that I could do better than bringing a villager with bottom-grade statlines when slots are at a premium. Also, grinding benefits everyone, not just Donnel.

I don't know about you, but that's way too long to put up with him being in Villager when clearing the chapter after that means everyone else that isn't a mage, Panne or Nowi gets to upgrade to steel weapons, while he's stuck with bronze again.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[FailWood]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, grinding benefits everyone, not just Donnel.

Which is why I use that to help him catch up, because it hardly benefits those who are further ahead (especially when it's a skirmish again lower level enemies).  Even then, I tend to get a better payoff from Donnel then I'd get from other units like Lon'qu, Ricken, and Gaius.

[Shadow Mir]

21 hours ago, FailWood said:

Which is why I use that to help him catch up, because it hardly benefits those who are further ahead (especially when it's a skirmish again lower level enemies).  Even then, I tend to get a better payoff from Donnel then I'd get from other units like Lon'qu, Ricken, and Gaius.

You missed the point I was trying to make, which is that while Donnel has great growths, his poor bases make it such that he has to play catch-up first, which isn't easy when you're that weak (in terms of bases, his best stat that isn't luck starts at a laughable 4; no one else in Awakening has bases that are this dismal). Not helping is the fact that he doesn't even level up any faster than everyone else despite this (which Ross, Ewan, and Amelia did, and it made it easier to get them into a real class). This means having to pray that Donnel can kill enemies to get anywhere, which is not easy when you are stuck dealing what merely amounts to minor chip damage. At a point where the enemy lineup is mostly saturated with axes, which Donnel fares poorly against. And because you can't use a second seal until level 10, you're stuck trying to feed him 9 levels of experience, which is slow and agonizing when he does next to no damage and he's a liability on enemy phase. It gets worse on harder difficulties, as enemies in skirmishes have higher-end weapons. And this is on top of the fact that Reeking Boxes get price hiked (they cost nearly ten times the amount they did in normal mode). TL;DR, Donnel needs way too much effort to become useful. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[FailWood]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

You missed the point I was trying to make, which is that while Donnel has great growths, his poor bases make it such that he has to play catch-up first, which isn't easy when you're that weak (in terms of bases, his best stat that isn't luck starts at a laughable 4; no one else in Awakening has bases that are this dismal). Not helping is the fact that he doesn't even level up any faster than everyone else despite this (which Ross, Ewan, and Amelia did, and it made it easier to get them into a real class). This means having to pray that Donnel can kill enemies to get anywhere, which is not easy when you are stuck dealing what merely amounts to minor chip damage. At a point where the enemy lineup is mostly saturated with axes, which Donnel fares poorly against. And because you can't use a second seal until level 10, you're stuck trying to feed him 9 levels of experience, which is slow and agonizing when he does next to no damage and he's a liability on enemy phase. It gets worse on harder difficulties, as enemies in skirmishes have higher-end weapons. And this is on top of the fact that Reeking Boxes get price hiked (they cost nearly ten times the amount they did in normal mode). TL;DR, Donnel needs way too much effort to become useful. 

And I'm saying that it's not as difficult as you make it sound (at least if you're playing Normal or Hard, haven't tried it on Lunatic yet).

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, FailWood said:

And I'm saying that it's not as difficult as you make it sound (at least if you're playing Normal or Hard, haven't tried it on Lunatic yet).

The thing is, I'm not convinced it's worth it. I cannot see fielding Donnel over anyone else in chapter 4 as anything other than shooting myself in the foot, and things only get worse for him from there on out, especially since wyvern riders start appearing in the chapter right after (and there's still the fact that he's a lance unit with bottom-grade stats in an axe-dominated portion of the game... yeah). What am I supposed to do then? Grind (which benefits everyone else even more because they don't have terrible stats, and thus aren't as easily killed)? Having good growths is one thing, but when you struggle to kill enemies and thus level up, they aren't much help... oh, and on Lunatic, he's practically unusable.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Shadow Mir