Dunal

To be specific, I've always thought that Elena being able to really conveniently take the Medallion away from Griel after he impales her to be a bit silly.

Looks nice. Having enemies from only seemingly one direction might be a bit odd for a defend map though, as typically they require you to tackle enemies from multiple angles (being pincered) for a bit more nuance (You could stretch the map a few more tiles to the right and have fliers pop in from there?). Either way, as long as you cannot powerhouse the map and have to make smart usage of defensive units, then it's a thumbs up from me.

Canonically he might have been planned to be her uncle or something (since Lanvega is hinted as dying instead after FE9) but yeah, the devs didn't get around to confirming that and they just left a fast support for them. A possible re-write though would be that Lanvega left Daein with Griel many years ago as retired comrades, entrusting the control of Morado to his best advisor/warrior and then to Fiona when she comes of age. He ends up being involved with the tragedy in Gallia and is the one to actually end Griel's madness by pulling the Medallion out of his grasp after he kills Elena (and immediately is dropped). However, this then means that Lanvega has been exposed to it, if only slightly. He doesn't go completely mad, but his mind shatters and the rest is history. Not a bad concept IMO. Danved actually being one of the four riders would be an interesting twist.

Not quite, no. Gonna have to settle with the T-stance combat animation if you're attacked (or just turn off solo animations for her) -- but at least it won't cause any issues to the game. For gameplay purposes its well worth doing though and staff users shouldn't really be attacked. But it's why I haven't given new weapons to physical classes (although the only addition I'd consider is maybe Axes!Meg in tier 2 or something). Therefore this will only happen with Astrid/Fiona/Marcia/Tanith and Sigrun with staves.

My main point really is that I doubt anyone would ever want to spend ~5000g on what essentially a +4 HIT boost to a unit (Secret Book). Even if that's buffed to +6 HIT (yay -- you get to land an extra attack out of 20). That value is really really low. To the point where even 2500g is a hefty amount when you can spend on pretty much anything else. Like a Silver weapon at some point. (As a side note, I had to reduce the Secret Book down to 1500g for it to be a considerable buy in FE10:R -- and that game has tons of skills that proc based on SKL). Talisman is the hardest to value because I don't really know how common you're making mages. But then you run the risk of having too many to fight which could be really annoying since they all have 1-2 range. That's why I also advocate a magic type that is 1-range only. Dark magic might be a good fit if you gave Dark casters much more DEF and MAG (like ~magical armor knights~). Then you can make magic units appear more often while being less annoying -- and you then make the RES stat more useful as a result. The magic triangle could be buffed as well. To be +/-3 MT rather than +/-1 MT. Because magic users don't really do much damage to eachother at all and this actually makes the triangle somewhat relevant. Someone like Lugh doesn't remotely care about targeting a thunder mage when he'll be a lot more effective attacking a physical unit. This can change that somewhat.

Technically she isn't bow locked by having staff utility (and gains 34 EXP per Mend use so doesn't even need to take kills). Her combat still isn't fantastic even with high speed, but there are a lot of enemy Falco Knights in both 2-3 and 2-F which she is great at taking down (Who nobody else except possibly Danved can 1 round). EDIT: Speaking of Danved, I have the hilarious urge to retcon him to actually be Lanvega (Fiona's father) who suffered anmesia and disappeared suddenly years ago. That would be why he keeps changing his identity (because he forgets it) and why him and Fiona have one of the fastest supports in the game (I'm not joking, this is in the vanilla game).

Will promotion items be cheaper as well? I've never thought they should cost that much. Their limitation should be availability and not gold. While weapons are the opposite. I do also think that stat boosters should be priced differently (if that isn't done already) based on how generally useful they are. Something like: Dracoshield/Speedwing = 5000g. Angelic Robe/Energy Drop = 4000g Talisman/Secret Book/Goddess Icon = 2500g. Secret Book and Icon should boost Skill and Luck respectively by 3 points rather than 2 points as well (unless you incorporate FE7x's stat formula changes which I think will really be a good idea to make those stats better). Although even if Speed is nerfed (by how much evasion it gives in favor of Luck), I'd still price it the highest since attack speed is so incredibly valuable for anyone borderline doubling (Aran/Lott/Dorothea etc...).

Basically, Leo benefits from it far more than any other unit and he's freely deployed. Let's say that Nolan goes from a 7 to an 8 from having beastfoe. Leo goes from a 3 to an 8. He becomes the best player phase unit because he can freely kill anything he wants without taking damage. In other words, you basically get an extra good unit without much effort. With Nolan you'd just be making an already good unit better. Your roster of 5-6 good units goes up to 7. That's kinda huge, so it's worth doing. Even if you really don't want to give him speedwings (to kill tigers), he can still 1RKO any cat with the Bravebow, and chances are one will be in range each turn. And then you give him the Taksh in 3-13 and he one-shots everything. He could have 0 speed at that point but still be a murder button. So yeah, speedwings if you want him killing tigers. No speedwings if you just want him target everything else. The latter might be the more more viable option IDK (which if it is, makes him even better as a unit since then he only needs 6 level ups, a master seal, and a skill).

Many people overlook this particular setup for Leo. It's mostly because he can abuse effective damage at 2 range with not a whole lot of investment. The thing is, a lot of people overvalue units on "potential" or growths etc... So in a vacuum, Leo doesn't seem very good. But he doesn't need a whole lot of growth considering his contibution. With a steel bow he can freely chip enemies for ~10 damage throughout part 1. Water support can be kinda handy for some units. Good on the ledge on 1-5 w/ the Iron Longbow. One-shots the peg knights in 1-6. Can poke mages without taking much damage. And in part 3 he's the best player phase unit (outside of 3-12) without even needing to do much in part 1. And none of that has to do with stats and growths which what is kinda weird about him but also why people overlook him. Leonardo is a solid 6. His part 1 is kinda average/meh but still better than some other units. Part 3 he's great. Part 4 he's benched but you have a ridiculous amount of other units (including Shinon/Rolf) and Leo has performed solidly enough prior to that. You can train him much more though to make him useful in part 4. Marksman is a really powerful class and you can justify using two of them. But it's unnecessary and the DB part 3 maps are some of the more difficult maps in this game -- and you're going to be far more tight for useful units at that point. Praise Beastfoe I suppose. Without it he'd drop to a 4.5 IMO (still has his uses in part 1).

You can justify Leo on hard as well. Needs to reach level 10 only (doable by 1-7 and then you can bench him until part 3). Then Beastfoe + Speedwings + Master seal. Can 1RKO every enemy on 3-6 and 3-13. Granted the Speedwings are contested. But you're getting another useful unit for almost free. Worth it IMO. He gets exclusive access to both the Brave bow and Lughnasadh. Brave Bow is used to kill the kitties in one round. Lughnasadh for everything else. If he doesn't reach LV10 by 1-7 (understandable) you can just deploy him as a filler unit in 1-E and grab a few kills that's leftover. Then he makes the hard part in part 3 quite a bit easier.

That order is not necessarily wrong except from Aran IMO. Who I believe is about on-par with Edward overall due to being tankier and having better 1-2 range. Also one-shotting cavalry in 1-6. He also seemingly benefits the most out of defensive supports and the Dracoshield/Robe. Bringing him up to ~25 DEF from the start of part 3. That's 4/5 damage from a cat. 10 from a tiger. So he's 4RKOed consistently which no other unit can achieve except Tauroneo. Edward has more kill potential and 1-P to 1-2. I'd both rate them 6. Aran's offence isn't even bad anyway due to high STR.

If Edward is gaining two levels per map then what's other units getting? Evaluation Average LV15 Edward (which is indeed over-leveled) has 11 DEF total with supports. 9 DEF base. Borderline needs a Dracoshield to survive more than two hits. The later soldiers in the map also have 26-27 ATK. And archers have 25-26. Regardless of all this. Edward is looking shaky and isn't even all that great after training him (the most out of any other unit) so far. Meanwhile Zihark exists at this time and is performing much better. Then when part 3 rolls around their stats will be similar. And this is me as someone who still thinks Edward is an above average unit who can be okay overall, just not stellar or notable compared to others. He's like Soren, Boyd or maybe Rolf. They're okay/decent but are surrounded by better units. Edward was/is changed in ReDux to be about as powerful if you focus a lot on him (higher bases and promotion gains and overall lower growths). But stronger overall if you use him less or promote him early. And that's a good thing because Leo/Ilyana/Meg/Volug wants their share of kills now too. I appreciate his 1-P to 1-2 performance for the most part. Not sure if I'm overvaluing that or not.

But: 1. He needs more of it. He's level 5 at 1-1 while Nolan is level 9 with much better bases. 2. "Easier" doesn't have any basis and you're not fully explaining why. Edward has low base STR, the weakest weapon type and struggles to double a lot of enemies unless he's vastly overleveled. You haven't really looked into the examples I've provided. A couple of cats murder Edward and he can't double them. You really need to look up numbers because that's not rue at all. How is he suddenly better against soldiers when they deal the same damage to him as NM? Bare in mind that they would have 1-2 more base STR in HM (enemies are auto levelled 3 times in HM and they have a 50% STR growth). Here's a 1-7 soldier: 1x Soldier lvl 14 (Steel Lance, Turn 1, southeast) HP 29, Atk 24, AS 14, Hit 116, Avo 36, DEF 12, RES 7, Crit 7, Ddg 8 Here's Edward at 1-7 Edward lvl 12 (Steel Sword) HP 26, Atk 21, AS 17, Hit 123, Avo 46, DEF 8, RES 2, Crit 13, Ddg 12 Soldier does 16 damage to him. He's not surviving two attacks without the Seraph Robe. Edward 4HKOs the soldier and can't even double (he needs to be level 15 which highly unlikely at this point without favouritism). Me thinks you'd have a really blessed Edward in a particular PT and are using that as a basis of your argument. It's not fair to do that. Edward cannot fight lance users well at all. I mean, if he's SPD blessed and has the Brave Sword, he can kill them in a single round now. But he's still dying easily and killing things on enemy phase just makes matters worse. Oh and that soldier has 70% hit on him which is ~77% true hit. Edward isn't reliably dodging as you say. It's only gets worse against things like armor knights. Nolan does a lot more in a single hit (5-7 damage) and can survive. Doubling isn't an important factor when enemies have such high speed to the point where Edward is struggling to double unless he's blessed. There's archers in 1-7 with 16 speed and even armor knights with 14 speed. There's also a bunch of soldiers with 15 AS and you need a level 16 Edward to double them.

I think I've only seen it happen for Roy and Wolt in CH2 to CH3? Mostly CH2 though. And they get 0 stats when it happens (I think). Yeah promoting early can be a good boost if you need it. Although with both Markus and Jerrot it may or may not be needed and they have huge movement to boot to outperform any non-cavalry you promote. Barth and Diek are good examples where it can be put to use. However, you would need to add more promotion items into the game compared to the original to make this strategy more viable. Because you don't want to be wasting them for later. Or the gold you can get from them. (It might be cool to add a new item that can only promote units at level 10-12. Can be any class and is cheaper than other promo items). Jeigan's Seal Or, there's no level limitation but lowers EXP gain and/or growths. "Lowers maturity" on the description is apt. You could get 2 or 3 of these items as a whole.

I'm really not sure why Edward is performing better than others in part 1. Any objective number crunching would suggest otherwise. Edward cannot dodge axes anymore. EXP gain is lower and he is more EXP reliant than anyone else not named Meg/Fiona. And lets look at a random enemy in 1-4: 2x Cat lvl 5 HP 34, Atk 18, AS 14, Hit 128, Avo 34, DEF 8, RES 4, Crit 8, Ddg 1 Edward on average at level 9 (gained just over a level per map -- which is still tricky in hard mode that gives 20 EXP a kill) will have 19 ATK with a steel sword and 14 speed. He's dealing 10 damage so needs 4 round to kill the cat. With 6 DEF and 23 HP he also gets killed in 2 hits... by a cat. Nolan at level 11 (gained half a level per map) has 23 ATK with an iron axe and 11 speed. Nolan has 31 HP and 10 DEF. He gets killed in 4 hits by said cat. And benefits even more from a Dracoshield because then it's 6 hits. Giving Edward the shield lets him get killed in 3 hits instead. This is consistent throughout all of part 1. Aran has more favourable numbers as well. Especially in 1-6 with the Horseslayer and being 4H or 5HKOed. Moving on a bit, enemies in 1-7 also have 15 speed on average. Edward needs to be level 16 by then... That's not really happening unless you give favouritism. Even Nolan won't be that high at this point at standard use (about 14-15?). And even if he is doubling, he needs the Killing Edge or Brave Sword to kill anything in one round outside of maybe a mage (and has to be immediately healed every time he fights with not much exception). FE is all about numbers -- so personal experience doesn't really apply without providing them. Basically, you can hypothetically train Edward a lot to kill one enemy per phase. But that sounds less impressive when another unit is required to lure in enemies for Edward to feed on, and requires healing when he does get hit -- which in hard mode, will actually happen against axe users. Not necessary since the numbers in the OP are about right when taking into account all modes. So I wouldn't really be affecting them. 6 for Edward and 8 for Zihark are accurate and what I'd rate them overall. Upon reflection, I'd still rate Zihark an 8 on HM because avoid becomes even more important.

I could just as well say that you're being too bias towards Edward? (gets dibs on a dracoshield and all the BEXP that the DB has apparently) Nolan has high SKL/LCK. Aran has high SKL. Volug has 90 hit on his weapon let alone high SKL. Jill... might need hit the most? But her high SPD means she abuses extra avoid even more. Biorhythm or no Biorhythm I doubt 8 hit is making that much impact. Forged irons can be made cheaply if that was ever an issue. Handaxes/Javs can have iffy hit, but you're fighting Laguz for most of part 3 so you don't even need those on enemy phase. If this mattered at all then Heaven affinity would suddenly be fantastic. But it really isn't. I mean, you're kinda grasping at straws here. Earth is established to be the best support affinity because it's over-tuned considering avoid tanking is OP in FE. Especially in this game. To the point of where it can make DEF/RES redundant. 1 or 2 points of DEF really isn't doing anything in HM either since enemies are either 2HKOing or 3HKOing everyone across the board. Very very rarely will minor points of DEF will let you live (if you have 35 HP and enemies are dealing 15 damage per round, you need 11 more DEF to survive an extra hit). Unless you dodge them... And Earth/Earth is +45 avoid. It's broken and shouldn't exist but it does. Tigers in 3-6 have 39 ATK. Edward having 16 DEF means taking 23 damage. Suddenly his DEF really is meaningless. With 35 HP he needs 22 DEF to survive more than 2 hits. Defensive stats really don't mean a whole lot unless you're taking single digit damage. That's always been the case in Fire Emblem. Overall I'd rate Edward 5.5 and Zihark 7.5 (in HM). I don't think that's unreasonable whatsoever. Ignoring everything else, Zihark has lower opportunity costs in an army that's really scarce for resources/availability. That's really the only main factor necessary. (In NM, Edward being 7 and Zihark 8 -- Edward is allowed to be given BEXP with not much detriment to the army and can actually fight axe users and reliably avoid their attacks, making it easier to train him while still given reign to train other units as well). Reason why Zihark also drops slightly is because his EXP is almost cut in half in part 1 and goes from being 3HKOed to 2HKOed in some instances (from 1-E onward).

Yeah, I really wouldn't imagine that Gonzo would have higher RES or that Lott would have low RES. Nor Wado having lower HP for that matter -- he's the generic meathead who would seem to have high HP/STR/DEF but poor RES. AKA Boyd from FE10. Higher RES seems to indicate intelligence or at least a more steady/reserved demeanour. Based on that, I'd re-evaluate these stat spreads personally. But hey, depends on your interpretation on this matter.

On the flip side it just makes her good with BEXP. Her overall Marshall caps are better than all other Marshalls for what its worth. She also still doubles tigers in 3-6 and 3-13 and only gets better with the Brave Sword or Killing Edge. Only Zihark and Volug double cats anyway so she's not exactly bad off in this regard. Nolan needs to reach 20/9 to be at 22 speed in the first place. She's still second worst in the DB but I can raise points in her favor where I can (there's a maaassive gap between her and Fiona though so that sounds more bad than it actually is). Meg is a bit underrated... but still not good. =L

I think it would be a far greater factor if Micaiah wasn't a mage. But since that's not the case, I don't believe it's too detrimental to go out of your way to recruit him. A slight factor indeed, nonetheless. Micaiah is probably just Physic healing people anyway and not much else. So it isn't placing her anywhere ineffective.

Meg is reliant on you playing less efficiently in order to actively use/train. She also needs more EXP from her jointime onwards than Edward. Level 7 or 8 for Eddy is reasonable for 1-4 and stats to match. Granted Meg's bases are pretty good for her level and that means more EXP gain. Overall Edward needs less than her from her jointime. Her movement is bad though forcing you to play slower to make use of her. And in hard mode you pretty much are forced to make her choke-block in 1-4 for dozens of turns to make her relevant after that. 1-5 she sucks at climbing. 1-6-1 the only thing she can reasonably do is tank the armors that show up to the slight north. 1-7/1-8/1-E etc... she's just slow. I don't even think her stats end up bad or anything (like some seem to suggest). Her growths are kinda weird but she works. She just takes a lot of effort to progress. You need to give her a forge and Dracoshield to consider using as well -- to patch her middling STR and DEF. She also really wants/needs the Brave Sword and Killing Edge to help her offence when needed. Which means not giving it to someone else. I suppose she would get dibs on an arm scroll though for Javelin use.

I'll single out this point because I think that's highly debatable. Zihark can cap every relevant stat if you're using BEXP on him as much as Edward. So stats aren't a factor. It's basically Adept vs. Wrath and Caladbolg vs. Earth affinity. BTW, I don't think you've taken into account the fact that Zihark's Earth makes him a better partner for certain units, not just the fact that it benefits Zihark. Other units want Zihark more than Edward. Volug has all of 6 turns on 1-5 before Zihark joins and that's arguably not enough time to get a C with anyone else (I mean, in Redux I've buffed support speeds a lot, and even then Volug struggles to support anyone for 1-6 as you need to be stood next to someone for 2 of the only 6 turns that exist). Besides the fact that Volug again, wants to be even more powerful by pairing with Zihark. Zihark's supports are not selfish towards him, he's pretty valued for other units. That needs to be brought up. Basically, you're giving Edward too much credit with his 'potential'. FE10 isn't exactly a game where it's remotely difficult to cap stats. Part 4 is kinda easy for the most part and it's effortless to just cap out any unit to speak of.

He's not strictly worse than the royals because he has two range. Most enemies in endgame have two range. But that mostly account to the royals being overrated as opposed to Stefan being amazing or anything. And granted you need to not be using another sword user for Stefan to get dibs on Alondite. I'd rate him higher than Giffca but about .5 less than Cain. Other royals have more availability though.

That's... harsh considering he's perfectly usable in Endgame with little resources. Assuming Edward/Zihark/Mia is about 20/20/10 for Endgame their stats are... pretty much the same. In HM of course. Normal mode that might be 20/20/15 or something. Granted he has almost no availability, but that's not stopping the Laguz royals who have no 2 range. Granted it's hard to rate due to that. I personally wouldn't rate the royals any higher than 8/10 because of this alone. Except Nailah who I'd rate the highest because of her extra existence (still lacking two range though -- what are these Royals doing on enemy phase on say, 4-E-3 or 4-E-4?). In fact, it's surprising how low Stefan's level is for how good his stats are. Just means he gains EXP faster~

Also make sure you have: NET Framework 4 XNA Framework Redistributable 4.0 Look up those and make sure you have them. That might be the reason why it isn't working.

For units like Stefan, people might rate them low because he won't really match their uber trained units like Edward/Zihark/Mia. However, he's a powerful enough replacement and almost zero opportunity cost. But some people do disregard that. It depends on how people value potential in unit, superficial/unnecessary or otherwise. OR low availability, which is really valid. Endgame isn't the hardest part of the game for most people, so I understand that completely -- he doesn't exist where it might matter.