Thoughts on each Laguz unit

[FailWood]

After finally playing Path of Radiance on each difficulty and using each of them as part of my team, what are some thoughts on the Laguz units?  I prefer how the transformation gauge was handled here over Radiant Dawn, and thought each of them held their own in battle pretty well.

[ping]

They still have big issues, to be honest. Their fangs are, roughly, equivalent to non-forged Steel weapons. No scaling whatsoever, which means that they're outclassed in this department very quickly. Lethe at max level has 34-35 Atk, which is the same ball park as Mia with a fully forged Steel sword, or a base Silver (also at max level). That's just not very impressive, considering that Mia can ungrade to the Vague Katti or a forged Silver if she needs the extra oomph. Plus, no 1-2 range, which is a pretty big deal in PoR with its wimpy enemies.

Honestly, the only laguz that I regularly use as a combat unit is Lethe, and that's just as a decent filler unit when she first joins. She does have great mobility and hits pretty hard for that point of the game, can shove or take-drop if there's no combat - but she goes down on my prioritisation as the Beorc characters approach promotion.

Mordecai is great as a Smite bot. He stays on my roster for longer than Lethe because of that, since he's very good at it even while untransformed. Once you get the Demi band, it's even better. But as a combat unit, his low Spd makes his damage output really bad.

The others, I honestly just never use at all. Well, Janaff to talk to Naesala that one map (and maybe bait him in beforehand, while carrying the Full Guard). But I'm not sure if I've ever even just fielded Ulki.

[FailWood]

27 minutes ago, pong said:

Mordecai is great as a Smite bot. He stays on my roster for longer than Lethe because of that, since he's very good at it even while untransformed. Once you get the Demi band, it's even better. But as a combat unit, his low Spd makes his damage output really bad.

The others, I honestly just never use at all. Well, Janaff to talk to Naesala that one map (and maybe bait him in beforehand, while carrying the Full Guard). But I'm not sure if I've ever even just fielded Ulki.

Mordecai became extremely bulky once I got the double Water support going with Ulki (+3 damage dealt, -3 damage received at A, and they support decently quick).  His high base Defense and HP made him nearly unkillable on the physical side, but I still had to be mindful of magic and his slow gauge.  As for the Demi band, I had it on either Ranulf or Muarim.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I didn't like the laguz much in this game. No 2 range, low Atk (due to how weak their weapons are), you have almost no control over what turns you can use them on,  and then you had to choose between them being unusable half the time and having even lower stats than they would otherwise. Lethe and Mordecai are useful early because of their high stats (though they'd be way better if you had more control over their attacking/countering ability... i.e. if they were Titania. But Titania's broken so it's okay that laguz are worse). As mentioned Mordecai is also useful for Smite. But later on they all just feel very subpar.

One neat thing you can do with the Demi Band at least, is give it to someone like Lethe so she can start the battle transformed naturally, then swich to Demi once she would untransform. You have to be careful to unequip it before the battle ends, though, because if it's equipped (even in the base) to start the next chapter, she'll start at 0 gauge if it's unequipped.

[vanguard333]

Out of all the non-royal/non-dragon Laguz, I mainly use Lethe and Muarim.

Lethe is neat because she's fast and she transforms right at the start of any chapter. Muarim is neat because he already comes equipped with a demi band and I didn't know until reading @Dark Holy Elf's reply above that there was a way to unequip a demi band without the laguz starting at 0 gauge, so I never put the demi band on anyone else.

I usually never really use Mordecai, Ranulf or any of the birds outside of the chapter where you need the birds, and even then, the first couple times I did that chapter, I read all the dialogue where the bird laguz say that having them talk to Naesala wouldn't work and interpreted it as, well, that that tactic wouldn't work (I was a kid at the time and it was my first FE game), so I kept coming up with strategies to beat the chapter while avoiding Naesala.

 

I usually try to make sure to beat the Black Knight, so I usually have Nasir on my team for the last two missions. He's pretty useful, though he would've been better if he had 1-2 range like in Radiant Dawn.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Alright look, I'm only saying that if a cat could turn into a human and you then fucked the cat, it would still be bestiality, right? So if you fuck a human that turns into a cat, why would that suddenly be okay?