[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

56 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ferdinand is a solid unit, but I disagree that he's so amazing that I would be unwilling to make him a dancer, particularly if his stat gains are a bit worse than you'd like.

Yes, he's a great dodge-tank... and he can still play that role as a dancer. He won't be able to benefit from Alert Stance often if ever (since a dancer doing that is giving up dance), but Sword Avo +20 exceeds regular Alert Stance anyway, and Alert Stance+ is a long slog for someone without flying talent.

Wyvern Class bases will ensure that he's good to see combat. 21 Strength / 17 Speed / 14 Defense will keep him relevant no matter what his stats were like before. Especially when coupled with things like Deathblow or C Armor for Weight -3 and for the chance passing the Fortress Knight Certifcation for 19 Defense.

If he becomes a Dancer, not only will that mean he loses a substantial amount of offensive prowess due to missing out on a faire skill and +3 Strength class Mod, he'll also be impacted by terrain and miss out on two Movement. 

Put simply, why would Fredinad be the best pick for a dancer when he's the one who needs Sword Avoid the least to become a dodgetank?

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If your dancer is Ferdinand, that gets pushed to 95, and you can toss on an Evasion Ring for 105, Axebreaker for 125 when active. That's definitely relevant - it won't dodge-tank everything, but enough formations to be worthy of note. Him and Dimitri are probably the only dancers I'd seriously build for evasion, though (and obviously, Dimitri's combat is such that making him a dancer is very much a sub-optimal "for fun" thing).

I'd be pretty against Ferdinand becoming a Dancer in the first place with how valuable of a unit he is. He's one of the few units that can hit over a 100 Avoid with the regular version of Alert Stance. 

Even if you didn't want him to Dodgetank, he'd still be one of the only three units in the game that learns Swift Strikes. That's pretty vaulable Niche with how hard Swordmasters and Assassins are to take down on Maddening, especially with his high Accuracy thanks to Perfectionist. 

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

3 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

I still like Sword Avoid though. It's better than not having any Avoid bonuses. It's not like the dancer has more pressing skills that they need to equip. It doesn't hurt them to have it.

Cross Recruits are still viable choices for dancer though. It's a case by case situation. If you recruit someone like Marianne, whose stats aren't exactly special, early enough you can still get her riding rank up to A+ with worrying too much since she has a boon for it.

It certainly doesn't hurt to have Sword Avoid, but I'm not convinced it's particularly useful to have as it's simply to unreliable to depend on and Dancer really shouldn't be targeted in the first. 

The thing about using unspectacular cross recurits as Dancers is that none of them autolevel any Moment skills, only their weapon skills.

So if you recruit a unit like Marianne by Chapter 7, she'll be behind in Riding by as much as 506 Ridining Exp compared to a Starting House unit like Ingrid and will have to be tutored in Lances to certify as a Cavalier. 

It's a minor advantage to be sure. But I don't see what boons an unspectacular cross recruit unit will provide as dancer when almost unit can get the job done. 

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

4 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

The boons a dancer should have IMO should one or two of the following:

• Swords (to capitalize off of Sword Avoid)
• Authority (the dancer battalion capitalizes on their niche, and it's A locked.)

Recruits are also great candidates for dancers because by the time you get them, they probably haven't been invested as much as your starter students and may not be as good.

Tbh I don't think Sword Avoid is ever really relevant on a Dancer. Even if you had it with Sword Prowess 5 and Gautier Knights along with 20 Speed, that'd only be 80 Avoid. While that may sound high, it really isn't enough to consistently dodge enemy attacks when they all have 110 + after the timeskip, especially ones with Sword Breaker. 

Putting on the Dance of Goddess Battalions on Dancers is not also not a great idea. It should really be used to instead refresh the Dancer instead so you can refresh five units in single a turn rather than just three. I find its much better to put it on to a healer since they don't see a lot of combat and how the gambit best used at the start of map to get rid of things like Ballistas or Reinforments triggers. 

You should also really consider only Starting House Members for Dancers rather than Cross Recurits. Not only would starting units have more time to build up their Riding Rank, Cross Recurits often have significantly better stats than those of your class even when invested in.

Here's an idea of how good Cross Recruits stats are: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxxdq5VuCoX0y8HFIptCJi_jZZFCLY2GDNlWY3CMCLY/htmlview#

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Long story short, I much prefer a consistent and reliable strategy that doesn't force me to jump though a lot of hoops to be viable than one that needs a shitload of investment and setup just to achieve, and even then is still vulnerable to Murphy's Law.

How exactly is needing a specific battalion and perhaps an Accuracy Ring a 'Shitload' of investment? Especially since when it grants 90+ hit rates which can be improved even further?

And you still haven't answer the question. What other units are capable of OHKOing Chapter 13 enemies in Terrain while still being able to Canto out of danger? 

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

44 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Thank you for that. Just curious, wich battalion is used, i can't find a list of the flying ones.

2nd picture - Kingdom Wyvern Company

Here's a list that tells you whether or not a battalion is flying: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11AVDrZwEzt4bie3kuP5Wq9KQ9SuaudArNnTft_XuN58/htmlview

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

20 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

And the fact she needs constant linked attack support just to have respectable accuracy with those weapons doesn't bother you? Because I find it strategically limiting. At any rate, I'm fine with something if the payoff is worth the investment. Unfortunately, I think it most definitely is not here.

Needing Link Attacks for Respectable Accuracy? What? She has 90 Hit across the board on some of the most dodgiest enemies you have to face. How isn't 90+ Hit Rates respectable?

And what units are worthy of investment? Because I don't see many units being capable of OHKOing Chapter 13 enemies in Terrain while still being able to Canto out of danger.

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Magic weapons use a different formula for accuracy than most weapons that makes it harder to shore up.

High power doesn't do you a lick of good if you miss. Some of us here are not fond of gambling on every attack. 

You do realize that the Magic Forumla often results in enemies losing more Avoid  due to them not having nearly as much Luck as Speed, right? Enemy Assassins and Falco Knights can lose upwards to 10-15 Avoid by using the Magic Hiy Formula rather than the Physical Hit one. And that's putting aside the fact that the Formula also denies the enemy Terrain bonuses. 

I also still don't understand why you're making a big deal out of Axes missing when you can easily mitigate any Hit issues in this game. Just take a look at an Wyvern Annette's Hit Rates in Chapter 13: https://imgur.com/a/lPUmynX

If you're still not convinced by those 90 hit rates being enough to consistently hit enemies, you should also take into consideration that her Hit Rate can boosted even further in the form of Link Attacks and Adjutants.

Units in Three Houses  are only innaccurate if you don't invest the right resources into them. To judge the accuracy of a unit just by the base Hit of a weapon completely ignores various other factors and really gives a distorted perceptive.

[Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions]

How about we show some numbers to give some context about reaching A+ Riding?

 

It takes 1760 Skill Exp to reach A+ Riding. On Maddening, the Skill Exp from Weekly Training   is reduced from 36 to 30 compared to Hard when studying only a single Skill, or from 44 to +36 if you have a Boon. 

 

So from weekly training alone, it'd take more months than they're are in the actual game to reach A+, since there's only 47 Weeks of training in the game and it take 49 Weeks to reach it with a boon. So it's clear that they'll need to be tutored regularly.

 

Let's assume that the Dancer starts getting regularly tutored by Chapter 10. By that chapter you can safely hit A rank Professor Level, which grants 7 tutoring sessions and should be enough to add instructing a Dancer regularly. 

 

With the Maculi Statue bonus and assuming they have a Boon in Riding, every session with a Dancer will give them at the very minimum 32 Riding Exp. Getting a single perfect will also increase that to 48 exp. so let's just assume it averages to the point where they earn +40 Exp from Tutoring every week from than on out.

 

Assuming that the Dancer has studied nothing but Riding by this point they will have earned 684 Riding Exp, or just barely reached B rank. By adding the tutoring Exp, they'll be earning ~76 Riding Exp a week.

 

So a Dancer with a boon can reach A+ Riding by Chapter 17 without much difficulty. But there's still a lot that could be added to that to make it them earn Movement +1 that much faster. 

 

They could, for example, Certify as a Cavalier and then proceed to be placed as a Adjutant to a unit that see's a lot of combat. While Adjutants have a reduced Exp Gain, they'll still gain Skill Exp at a normal rate. So if they saw only 50 battles as a Adjutant before becoming a Dancer, that'd still be the difference of +250 Riding Exp thanks to Cavalier granting 2 Riding Exp for every round of combat.

 

They could also participate in Stable Duty, where a Good will grant them 12 Riding Exp while a Prefect will add 16. So let's average it out and say that they gain +14 Riding Exp per week.

 

All this means in total the Dancer will gain +50 Exp from weekly training and will have an additional +250 Riding Exp. So that B rank by Chapter 10 would instead be only 120 Skill Exp away from A rank (1320 Exp).  Add on the average +40 exp from tutoring and that will result in getting ~90 Riding Exp a week. 

 

That means you can make a Dancer with a boon in Riding realistically reach A+ Riding by Chapter 15. 

 

But what about if they didn't have a boon? In that case, they would only gain +30 from Weekly Exp gain, Average +10 from Stable Duty, and obtain 200 Riding Exp after 50 rounds of combat as cavalier. So by Chapter 10 they'll have 760 Riding Exp and will gain a total of ~70 Exp a week. 

 

So Dancer without a boon will not reach A+ Riding until Chapter 17 at earliest. 

 

So with all that in mind, who is the best Dancer? I think that it's pretty safe to say that it should be most certainly a unit with a Riding Boon and a good starting Lance Rank so they don't have to be tutored to certify as a Cavalier.

 

This might be controversial, but overall I think Ingrid is the best unit for the job in the Blue Lions house. Not only is she a unit that joins with both a boon in Riding and Lances, she's also has enough Charm at base to reach 13 with dance instruction making it easy for her to win the dance competition. 

 

But the biggest reason why I think she does better than most other candidates, however, is the fact that her Link Attacks provides +3 Attack to Sylvain and Felix. That attack bonus can really make a difference when Sylvain's attacking with Swift Strikes or Felix is quading with Gauntlets or a Brave Weapon. Her learning Thoron at C Reason also really helps in this 

[Maddening Tips]

-Be sure to use Gambits. Not only do they stop the enemy in place, they also weaken them and cut them off bonuses they get from a battalion. And keep in mind that while a units gains or loses 5 hit for the difference Charm, up to 3 unit that can attack the enemy add +5 Hit, with an additional +5 per every support rank. 

 

- Support gambits are also really good. Kuroi already mentioned some, but two in particular that stand out are Retribution which makes a unit counterattack regardless of range for 5 turns and Sacred Shield, which makes a unit take zero damage from ranged attacks, even magic one contrary to the description. 

- Fishing up Bullheads and cooking will give a point of Speed to the entire party and stacks every time it's cooked until after the battle at the end of the month. 

- That being said, it's better to fish up and cook Teutates Pike(+Def fish) for the first three chapters as Bullheads have a very low chance of being caught without three star Bait. 

 

-Rallies can make a huge difference in the early game, especially when stacking different types of rallies on one unit. So rush to get Annette to C+ Authority to learn Rally Speed, as combined with her personal can make units even one round some enemies. 

 

-Training a unit that Heavy Armor can pay off as not only will they learn the Weight -3 Skill at C Armor, thy can also increase their defense to a base of 12 if they can pass the Armored Knight Certification. That's the same class base of most Advanced classes. Wouldn't recommend staying as a Armor Knight, however, since the class itself is pretty bad due to lowering a unit's Speed. 

 

-Weight from Shields can also be canceled out by having enough Strength. A unit with 20 Strength and the Weight -3 Skill would suffer no AS loss from wielding a Training Axe + and a Steel Shield.

 

-Be sure to have long range attacks such as Meteor or a Long Bow on a Bow Knight equipped on them. They will actually be able to add hit to other units in the form of link Attacks. 3 Hit for three units in range, with an additionally 2 Hit per support rank. 

 

-Be sure to equip the units who have shaky accuracy with Adjutants. At A Support, it provides +10 Hit and Avoid even on the enemy phase unlike Link Attacks. Some supports even give +3 to attack, such as Dimitri and Dedue. 

-Students that you can obtain from recruiting from another classes have very good bases, to the point they're usually better than when raised up from scratch. Here's a spreadsheet showing their stats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxxdq5VuCoX0y8HFIptCJi_jZZFCLY2GDNlWY3CMCLY

[Emperor should have been able to use magic]

22 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't know precisely how the formulas work, but I can't think of a single instance where a magical option for hit rate was lower than a physical one.

There actually are a couple example of this earlygame where enemies get weighed down.

The Magic Formula uses Speed/2, not AS/2. So against something like the Thieves with Steel Swords, Physical units would have slightly better Hit Rates than Mages. But it's so slight and for a short period of time that it really doesn't matter. 

[Emperor should have been able to use magic]

12 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

60 base hit that cannot be shored up easily. 

Uh, yes it can? This game is the most flexible game in the series in terms of hit rates.

From Battalions, Combat Arts, Accessories, Link Attacks, Adjutants,  - Breaker skills, and skills such as Rally Dex and Speical Dance, there's no shortage of ways to get Accuracy to acceptable levels

[Emperor should have been able to use magic]

51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That makes the Bolt Axe and Crusher even shittier than I thought they already were... which is pretty damn terribad.

Why? If anything it makes those weapons better since they ignore Avoid bonuses from terrain and overall lowers the avoid on enemies since enemies have lower luck than they do Speed.

[Emperor should have been able to use magic]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Neither of them are Luna though. Durability is also a thing. I think bolt axe and such are still effected by normal weapon accuracy too.

Luna's might is effectively Enemy's Resistance +1. Considering that Edelgard averages ~16 Resistance by that level, a Lighting Axe using the Sliver Axe+ will do 30 (17 might + 4 Lightning Axe + (16*.3) Resistance Scaling + 5 Axefaire) Damage by itself. That means that even against Mages Luna isn't doing that much damage compared to it.

Durability is admittedly a concern for the Bolt Axe. But the random amounts you get from the Monastery should be enough to tide you over until the Dark Merchant shows up. 

And Magic Weapons / Magic Weapon Artes most certainly use the Magic Hit Formula. Here's some proof: https://imgur.com/a/Hbiwe9x

[Emperor should have been able to use magic]

People often say this, but I never understood why she'd want to use spells when she already has tools such as Lighting Axe and the Bolt Axe.  

Using the Lighting Axe Combat art with a Silver Axe + makes her capable of dealing 21 damage before adding the Resistance scaling damage, which more already damage than her most damaging spell of Hades at 18. And you can use Axefaire, Superme Armored Battalion, and a Magic Staff all to further augment that damage. 

Even if you wanted to used range magic attacks, the Bolt Axe + has three range and 14 Might, more than enough to substitute a spell like Bolganone.

Though, I'd question as to why people would even want to use Emperor on Edelgard in Maddening in the first place. Having a -4 Speed Class Mod for 8 Defense is most certainly not worth it with how hard enemies in Maddening hit. Like a level 36 Emperor Edelgard averages 30 Defense, 17 Speed, and 57 HP at that level. Take a look at how hard enemies in Chapter 16 hit: https://imgur.com/a/FNYZhoR 

Now you can add defense boosting bonuses such as a Silver Shield or a Battalion to increase her Defense, but that still wouldn't be enough to really have acceptable combat when she's losing a third of her life in a single round of combat. 

And the kicker is that Emperor doesn't even show up until Chapter 16, Armored Lord is the class she stuck with and it gives a -3 Class Speed Mod for only +5 Defense. For reference, even Fortress Knight gives a +10 Defense Mod in exchange for -6 Speed while also has a 17 Base Defense. 

Overall, I don't see much use for giving Edelgard's Personal class the option to use Magic when it she already has better tools available to her and Emperor isn't even a very good class to begin with. 

[I've created an enemy stat sheet for the Blue Lions Route]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

What do the square brackets in the "number of" column mean? Are they reinforcements?

Yeah, those are reinforcements.

The dashes in that column mean that they continuously appear until you to complete a specific objective.  

[I've created an enemy stat sheet for the Blue Lions Route]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gZgsmLXotKzW7f-t55rJXL-6J0N73wvv0MzHWd2znbY/edit?usp=sharing

Here's an Imgur Gallery for those who want to a more mobile friendly way of viewing them:
https://imgur.com/a/OKu6iXs

[Arthur's Legendary Bad Luck]

It's not really his Luck stat that's his problem. Luck only provides half a point of Crit Avoid for every point of it. You never hear about Kaze being crit, yet he only has base Luck of 4 with a 25% growth.

It's his personal that's the real issue. -5 Crit Avoid would require 10 Luck to cancel out, and Arthur only has a base of one. In his join map, for example,  he'd only face 1% chance to be critted, but he actually faces a 6% chance thanks to his personal. Promoting him to Berserker makes this even worse as the class has an innate -5 Crit Avoid. 

But like other users said, there's way to lower the chances. Pairup actually innately increases Crit avoid by 5 without any support levels, and a Bronze Axe provides an additional +10 Crit avoid. So he can avoid low Crit rates if you really want him to. 

[Is there footage of a completed 0% growths Birthright run on Lunatic?]

Not a full run, but this is about the best I could come up with:

There's also this Reddit thread that beat the game without Ryoma, but there's no footage: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/bb9lrn/i_finished_birthright_lunatic_0_growths_without/?ref=share&ref_source=link

 

[Lunatic!Birthright PMU.]

Dreadfighter Hinata

[Cleric Sonya]

The reason people don't talk about is:

1). She doesn't learn Seraphim until she reaches a level 1 Saint. That means having to get through 11 levels having to depend on a 60% accurate spell to hit for her to promote in a timely fashion.         

2). There's better reclass options. Falco Knight would not only increase her Movement and Durability, but Banish would also allow her one round most terrors outside of Duma Tower.

3). There's better Pitchfork Candidates.  Mae reclassed as a Pegasus would just as good, if not better, than Sonya as one and joins much early. You could also do something else like Archer Valbar for an sniper with extra durablity.

4). Just the general opportunity cost of recruiting her over Deen. 

[Did anyone else find Lunatic!Birthright harder than Hard!Conquest?]

Like with most things in Fates, it's difficult until you realize how to boost your unit's stats to the point where they can defeat entire sections of enemies by themselves. 

The enemies in the Camilla chapter hit pretty hard, with pretty much no physical enemy hitting for less than 34 Attack, with some Sliver Axe enemies even breaking over 40 Attack. That may sound like it would be a lot for unit to handle, that's actually pretty manageable. 

Take a base Ryoma for example. With the Raijinto equipped, he only has 36 HP and 15 Defense, meaning that he cant stand even two rounds of combat against most enemies. 

But then you'd have to consider all the Defense increasing opportunities. Let's list them all out:

A Great Knight Pair Up: +4 Def

Activating Bushido: +2 Def

A Defense and HP Tonic: +2 Def and +5 HP

Rally Defense: +4 Def

Eating a Defensive meal: +2 Def

Reclassing to Master of Arms: +2 Def and +2 HP

------------------

Total: 43 HP and 31 Defense 

So suddenly, Ryoma goes from being 2 round KO'd all the way to only taking 5 damage from most enemies without even a single level up. And this isn't even including the Dual Gauge, personal supports bonuses, or reclassing to a more bulky class like Great Knight.

And this isn't exclusive to Ryoma either. Anyone in your army can easily be improved to the point where they can have the same durability, even less bulky units like Hana or Kaze. 

So while it is rather difficult if you don't take every advantage that comes your way, if you do so the game be

[A Semi-Noob’s SoV Hard-mode Tier list *Open to change!*]

21 hours ago, Anathaco said:

You could make the same argument for Nomah about being unneccassry. You don’t need Valbar as a tank in the early game, but if you want, he’ll get the job done, and won’t detract from your team in any way. 

Having overkill defence is better than having just enough. That high defense stat that seems way too high for Act 2 can come in handy in Act in maps such as Grieth’s Citadel.

Valbar should get 1 or 2 levels from bonus experience, which helps extend his longevity as a tank a bit further until he falls off towards the end of Act 3. If you do invest in him and promote him, you have a unit strong enough to be on Celica’s final team for Duma Tower and the endgame. 

With Nomah, however, if you give him a speed ring, you’re potentially taking away an item that could be put to better use on one of your other units.

Nomah only really fills the niche of a healbot in early Act 4, and even that isn’t necessary to beat Celicas route. If you have a decent Boey, he’s more than a little redundant, and even if you don’t, Nomah will just be an inferior version of that, if you decide to use him at all.

Valbar detracts from the team in that his offensives aren't good enough to chip down enemies for other units to defeat while also being completely hampered by terrain to point where everyone has to slow down for him to catch up or actively gets in everyone's way.

Grieth’s Citadel is a prime example of this. Valbar has to spend a turn just to move desert tiles at the entrance, blocking other 1 movement such as Genny or Celica. 

Not to mention his durability is not anything particularly special. A promoted Palla, for example,  has 10 Defense so that she only takes 2 damage from the Bonewalkers and one rounds them in exchange. Even a base Myrmidon only takes 5 damage, which means they're 5 round KO'd with low hit rates due to floor tiles and potential healing from the blessed sword. 

And while Greith is threatening, he's not so much of a threat that you need to drag Valbar all the way to where he is to fight him. He even fails to 2 round KO a base Mymidon with a Leather Shield. It's his durability that is the cause for concern, not  his offense. 

Getting one or two levels also isn't going to help a unit's longevity when you're never going to gain the Attack or Speed to hit new benchmarks.  Valbar also getting anywhere near promotion is also very dubious. Saber is one of the best units in the route and is given a map almost entirely to himself, yet still struggles to reach promotion before Mila Temple. 

Even if we assumed that he managed to promote to Baron by Duma Tower, he will not be doing anything productive in there. Not only would he be unable to do any meaningful damage since he'd be unable to double anything, he'd also being taking huge amounts since they're are some enemies that reach upwards of over 30 attack while the Baron base Defense is only 18. And that's not to mention how some of those same enemies double him.  

As for Nomah taking the Speed ring, it's a largely uncontested item. Enemies in Celica's route are either so slow they fail to break over double digits in Speed or are so quick that most units will be unable to double them even with the Speed Ring, so other mages don't need the Speed ring. 

To give a example, a promoted Celica with Speed Ring only has 17 AS using Seraphim. That's no way near close enough to double the Mogalls in Duma Tower with their 23 AS. 

With the Speed Ring and Sagittae, Nomah reaches 28 Attack and 7 AS. If that doesn't seem impressive, that's because it's not. It's not often not enough attack to one round many enemies and it's sometimes not enough Speed to outspeed enemies in Duma Tower. 

But I would ask of you to look at the stats of the enemies in Duma Tower and realize just how durable they are. You have Fiends with 51 HP and 13 Resistance, Necrodragons with with 53 HP and 14 Resistance, and Mogalls with only 41 HP and 4 Res, but with 23 Speed. 

These are not one rounding benchmarks any unit is capable of reaching, even with spells that has effectively 21 might. So having a unit that's capable of inflicting a moderate amounts of damage can help to result in other units being suddenly be able to one round these enemies. 

Even if you have Boey use the Speed Ring instead, you still have him engage in using the Mage Ring for a five range Sagittae chip and then have it be traded it off to another unit. Niche, but it can provide the necessary amount of chip for other units to one round.  

So while he may be stuck with middling stats, Nomah still contributes by able to deal damage when everyone else struggles to one round. That's more than anything Valbar is capable in Acts 2 and 3. 

It's getting a bit late here and this post is long enough, so I'll respond to Side Bee's comments tomorrow.

[A Semi-Noob’s SoV Hard-mode Tier list *Open to change!*]

17 hours ago, Anathaco said:

Valbar is an amazing early game tank. In Deen’s map, for example, he’s amazing at tanking all the mercenaries/myrmidons while your mages attack from behind.

This is also Echoes. The only time unit deployment slots matter is in dungeons. Bringing him to dungeons also lets him gain afterbattle EXP, which lets helps him keep up with your other units. 

In comparison, Nomah, who joins as a healbot and stays a healbot, doesn't have any reason to be deployed in any dungeon. You recruit Conrad just before Lost Treescape while in Duma Tower all of you're units are going to be stronger than him. 

Basically, while he’s not a great unit, I’d still say Valbar contributes more to the team than Nomah does, even if you’re not willing to actively level him up. 

Valbar's durablity is superficial during Act 2 since nothing hits that hard to justify his high defense when he is incapable of doubling. He also fails to do anything meaningful in the desert maps of Act 3 due to his 1 movement in that terrain. 

Even in the map you cited as a example, you don't need Valbar to mitigate the damage of the enemies. You could instead use Inovke to impede the movement of the Myrmidons since nothing barring Deen one rounds the phantoms, which is enough to inflict enough chip damage to comfortable dispose of them. 

That's the only map where Valbar's overkill defense can come into play at all, and it's not even guaranteed to be played at all. If the player decides to engage Sonya's map instead, he's a down right liability considering that he could easily be one rounded by the Thunder Witches. 

Dungeons also don't impact the performance of a unit at all, considering almost every fight in them is optional and is often your entire team against 3 or 4 units.  They're only relevant by giving units free experience, which really only matters if a unit is nearing promotion, which Valbar will never be. 

Nomah, on the other hand, can replicate a promoted Boey's performance for Act 4. This is noteworthy because if one decides to give the Priory Shinres to Mae instead for guaranteed one rounding, Boey will never come close to his promotion due his middling combat. 

A Speed Ring Sagittae user isn't exactly the best combat unit by that point, but they can still provide chip damage against the more durable units such as Necrodragons or Bonewalkers in Duma Tower that other units struggle to one round. That's a lot more than other units such as Conrad or Valbar provide. 

[A Semi-Noob’s SoV Hard-mode Tier list *Open to change!*]

12 hours ago, side bee said:

Boey should not be in Celica's place. While they do have pretty comparable base stats, Celica has the better growths. You said yourself boey comes close to one rounding pirates, but close to one rounding means little to nothing.

The most important thing to a mage in this game is their spell list. Celica's spells and learn times are all significantly better than boeys, most notably seraphim, which is what really sets her ahead in the long run.

By Act 4 of Celica's route, the player should look for two things in a unit; firstly, the ability to take on mages, and secondly, anti-terror capabilities. The sword Celica uses helps her a little bit with the mages, but they're main concern are terrors, Celica's access to seraphim immediately sets her above boey in this regard.

Also, Nomah has no business being above Valbar. Valbar at least has some use early game as a meatshield even if he doesnt do it as well as saber or kamui. Nomah does nothing. His combat is pitiful as he has no good deal with terrors in Act 4 and doesn't provide any useful utility. 

While Boey may be reliant on the Level ups to be able to one round pirates, having the chance to one round is a lot better than being completely incapable of doing so since Celica since she retaliates with her Sword on Enemy Phase. Having better growths also doesn't matter that much considering that Boey is going to be gaining more Experience due to seeing more combat on enemy phase since he deals more damage than Celica. 

Seraphim also doesn't really do much for Celica for both Act 2 and 3 due to the general lack of Terrors outside of Cantors, which aren't that threatening. And while you claim that Boey has no tools for dealing with Terrors in Act 4, he gains access to Sagittae when he reaches level 12.  

That spell is only 5 might less than Seraphim against Terrors, while being 9 might stronger than everything else. Combined with the Speed Ring from Alm's route, he can do significant chip damage against all enemies, if not just straight up one round them. 

Plus, you're overestimating Celica's performance with Seraphim just a tad. Most terrors that aren't one rounded by Dreadfighters she will also have a difficulty one rounding them. The Dracozombies in 4-2 and 4-3 for example, require 36 attack to one round when Celica only has a base of 34 attack with Seraphim after promoting. 

You also have to consider that Celica performs very poorly in act 3. She only has 1 movement through desert tiles while Boey has 2 movement. That means while Boey can do things like provide chip damage or shove some units, Celica is going to be struggling to much of anything of note in the those maps. 

Not to mention that her starting position always locked, so she will easily be left behind in a great deal of maps simply because she stuck with 4 Movement. 

While Boey may not be best unit in the route, His enemy phase in act 2, increased movement in act 3, and being able to deal massive chip damage in Act 4 puts him far above Celica's performance.

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As for Valbar being better Nomah, I have yet to find a compelling scenario where Valbar would be preferable to deploy over any unit in the route. At best, he baits the 2-8 boss, but even that can easily be done by any other unit.

Nomah, on the hand, can replicate a promoted Boey's performance for Act 4. Being able to chip enemies with Sagittae for no investment in Experience is far better than just being available without doing anything substantial.