Samias
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Posts posted by Samias
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Heh, they keep on parroting on about Gareth's supposed fighting prowess, but not only is he entirely weaker than Deghinsea, he's not even stronger than Caneighis! In fact, since he probably won't get SS strike, I think he's even weaker than Giffca, and that's completely disregarding the speed disadvantage. Good ol gameplay vs story segregation, I suppose.
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It ain't just about skill issues - he's stuck with thunder and dark magic, neither of which are known for their accuracy. Also, Resolve strats are Russian Roulette strats that require you to luck out continuously, and that's no bueno, especially since Sanaki (or Pelleas) will be one (un)lucky hit away from death.
Bold: You misspelled "Balberith".
To be honest I forget Balberith exists sometimes, since you can't even use it on a fresh playthrough. Same with Rexaura. Despite the bad hit, it does still have 2 MT on Rexcalibur though, and the only time you really have hit issues is vs Ashera due to authority stars/maybe Daunt/the right support. To be honest the only SS tome that I find extremely good is Rexflame, since Rexbolt is only really good for 4-E-3. I find the best mage weapons are siege tomes, especially if you steal the Bolting and bless it, you can absolutely wreck swaths of 4-E-3 with any mages you want.
Personally, I like Pelleas for his exclusive 10 uses of Fenrir. Despite the shaky hit, it's going to put a large dent when it lands and Pelleas doesn't need to be anywhere near the enemy to make use of it. I don't think I've ever taken him into the tower, but free sieges is a nice perk and with your army split up, it's likely you aren't optimally filling every deployment spot anyway.
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Ike: He's just so damn strong and can tear through just about anyone. He's a bit hurting for speed to start but since he caps everything else so fast you won't have troubles fixing his weaknesses. He also gets Ragnell for a good number of chapters. Hilariously, since Ike gets axes and Nihil on promotion he can deal with the Black Knight in a single round, a far cry from the amount of RNG you needed to even survive the BK in PoR.
Mist: Since the devs left magic weapons out of this game, despite what the Florete's description says, it is not based on her magic. Mistake or not, it also means Mist has zero offense, but she's also a less fragile, more mobile healer than Rhys. Since neither of them want to be anywhere near the enemy, I consider Mist to be the better healer but compared to PoR she isn't ridiculously better than the other healers this time. And yes, Mist can use SS swords. No, her offense is still terrible even with them, due to a disgustingly bad strength cap of 25. One she may not even hit.
Titania: Also has ridiculous bases, Titania requires virtually no effort to use, though you may considering using a speedwing on either her or Haar. Despite being yet another mobile axe user, she doesn't really need to worry about being overshadowed because it just means you can tackle multiple objectives in an even faster manner. Despite being a "Jeigan", there is almost never a point where Titania is not good except that she doesn't reach 34 speed. Big deal, she can use hammers AND wyrmslayers and you can have other characters deal with things that Titania is not.
Soren: A very focused mage, with amazing magic and good weapon ranks means he can somewhat mitigate his terrible speed by opting for Blizzard, Bolting and Meteor. Wind got a pretty big power buff in this game and his caps are probably the most optimal of the Archsages. His only downfall in the end is that Rexcalibur is the worst of the SS tomes. But since the GMs could really use another healer who isn't "doubled by everything" Rhys or "can't actually hurt anything" Mist, Soren actually does an extremely good job as a replacement healer even capped out at B staves. Too bad he can't go the desert where he could kick the "mages have bad movement" stigma, but he can still continue to heal for the GMs.
Rhys: Healing is nice, but Rhys is my least favourite dedicated healer. Despite crazy high magic, Rhys is somewhat problematic to position throughout the GMs maps, especially in fog of war. All mages are fragile, sure, but Rhys is really pushing it...
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Dude, I got her to like lvl.10 in a HM LTC by having her erase half the map, and only at the cost of Resolve+Daunt and a lighter-weight tome. She's severely underrated, and so are a ton of characters that people choose to handwave because ''they don't need them'', or whatever.
To be honest Sanaki is fine the way she is, only she does fine with her own personal tome and doesn't necessarily need Rexflame. So you can invest in Calill and you can do some interesting siege tome trading chains to clear a path from safety. I think "because Sanaki takes a slot I don't need any other sage" is also kinda BS, because even if the other sages are not godlike like the laguz royals, they still serve an important function of taking out enemies on cover panels and actually do very well vs the dragons other than Deghinsea (but there are very, very few characters who stand up to Deghinsea anyway). Yeah it blows that the final two chapters have very high res bosses, but then there's so many units capable of killing bosses. I'm actually more frustrated that genuinely bad endgame units like Sothe are forced and taking up slots from more valuable units.
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Totem Wishiwashi isn't as hard, it just has stall tactics and can survive for a very long time. If you bring along any of the abundant grass types or Magnemite, or even a well leveled Pichu/Pikachu, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Totem Salazzle is a huge problem if you get hit with poison, if you don't one or two shot this fight you're in for a very bad time. Totem Lurantis is ridiculous if it summons Castform, as it will just spam Sunny Day buffed Solar Blade and Synthesis, while Castform gives it coverage with a fire-type Weather Ball. It's just so much damage and I'm very jealous at the people lucky enough to not face that hell. However the difficulty eases off the electric trial, as Vikavolt doesn't use Charjabug's strengths to its advantage. I mean people would probably get extremely frustrated if Vikavolt was firing off buffed Thunderbolts instead of Spark, but overall Vikavolt's moveset feels a bit like a mistake because it has no synergy with its partner. It seems more like an annoyance strategy rather than damage but it never kicked in. The difficulty picks back up for Totem Mimikyu though, who is defeated handily by Toxic but you have to be careful about the Disguise and Mimikyu's hard-hitting Shadow Claw. It does suck when an SOS'd Gengar comes and spams Hypnosis but I just let poison do its work. There isn't much to say about Kommo-O, by the time you've cleared Vast Poni Canyon you can easily handle it.
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Sanaki averages 29.7 speed and 9.6 strength at 20/20, never mind that 20/20 is a higher level than I'd expect Sanaki to hit without blatant favouritism. (And at no point is it practical to BExp her for those stats, they're two of her lowest growths.)
Meanwhile Calill hits 32 speed at 20/10, and always has enough strength.
Pretty much this. Sanaki's base strength and speed is really bad, with bad growth, and she has so little time to fix it. She has all of the usual mage problems but doesn't cap ram anything to fix her problematic stats until extremely late. She *might* reach the level where she can use Rexflame but honestly that extra 2 magic for the cost of positioning flexibility isn't really worth it. The fact that she needs to sandwich herself next to Gareth/Ena and Nasir is depriving someone with a physical weapon of a more direct boost in power. Calill only needs to stand next to Nasir. Calill also exceeds Sanaki's durability, so Sanaki is only marginally a better mage than Calill.
I wouldn't even consider Sanaki better than Soren or Calill due to a lack of staff rank.
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Kieran: He's almost as good as Geoffrey at base and gets a little more availability too. He's one of the more trainable CRKs and will not be as painful to catch up. He's got some great strength and good durability, but Gamble is a pretty bad skill for Kieran so you might as well take it off of him and hand it over to someone with more accuracy. He's nothing exceptional and he's going to be fighting for deployment but he's decent filler.
Astrid: Despite having Paragon and being capable of utilizing the Parablossom combo, Astrid is abysmal. She's weak, she's slow, she's frail, she's level 1 and her inability to set herself up for enemy phase means her growth rate is abysmal too. She'll do OK chipping a few enemies here and there since at least she can Canto out of the way, but her damage output is bad. Everything that was good about Astrid in PoR has been stripped from her here, for no reason. And since she's with the CRKs, who have some of the worst availability in the game, there's no real way for Astrid to ever kick into Parablossom-fueled greatness.
Makalov: He's ok. He's kind of weak to begin with but with a bit of prodding he has some nice growths and he's not set too far behind. If he had more chapters, like the rest of the CRKs, he'd probably be pretty damn good. He wishes he could one-round a few more units though. There's not much to say except that Makalov is pretty much the embodiment of an average unit.
Danved: Exists to be one of the few CRKs who is NOT weak to a Horseslayer. Much like Makalov, he's not really sturdy enough to hold the line and not really fast enough to take anyone out in one round at base. However unlike Makalov, Danved is more spread out with his growths but with a bias towards HP and luck, which isn't really helpful when you size him up next to other infantry. Danved is good enough at his job in the chapters that focus on the CRKs but is extremely unlikely to find a place in your part 4 deployment.
Calill: If you want to use Rexflame with a naturally fast user, Calill is your best best. She's tied as the speediest of all magic users, though it comes at a cost. Her magic growth may lag behind and she could really use whatever magic dust you have laying around. Thankfully there's not really anyone else who needs it, though. She also starts off with a Meteor, which is really handy for when you just need to nuke something far away. Even though mages are all universally not so great in this game, I really like to baby Calill because she gets some really good results with Rexflame whereas Sanaki can hang onto Cymbeline and any remaining siege tomes instead. Nihil is a nice bonus to leave on her if you decide to bring her all the way.
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I think the worst part about managing cat gauge is that you really, really need to watch your enemy phase because of their poor durability compared to other laguz. If Mordecai runs out against a physical unit, he's still got more durability than a unit like Marcia or Lucia, aside from the fact he's probably getting doubled. At the very least he is not incapable of tanking through an enemy phase if his transformation runs out. Lethe is also getting doubled, but she also has 7 less defense and 7 less HP than Mordecai, so she's far less likely to survive bad positioning. Only Ranulf is really able to get through the shortcomings of being a cat, since his bases are really high, and for laguz bases are extremely meaningful due to their lower-than-average EXP gain.
Heather: Standard thief, except she doesn't really have a lot of chests to open and she needs to raise her strength to steal the really good stuff. She's not promotion locked either. While not essential like Sothe is, she can still drum up a lot of supplies/money for the Greil Mercs, so she's nice to bring along. She's a good candidate for Ilyana's Shade since she probably won't get one-rounded with her crazy speed.
Lucia: Is really good for one chapter in part 2 as a nearly untouchable dodge-tank with hyper offense. Then she vanishes for most of the game and doesn't see redeployment until part 4, with no improvement to her bases. Well, she's not completely abysmal when she returns but she's also not really good. Parity is a toggle now, so at least she isn't constantly disadvantaged like she was in PoR. Her base strength is particularly bad by the time she returns, which for a unit who revolves around offense, is not a good thing. She's not the most difficult unit to fix, but at the same time, she's not really worth the effort when she's gone for so long. Out of all the swordmasters, she requires the most babying, and that includes the fact that Edward starts out as a tier 1.
Lethe: Oh... Lethe... she was such a strong early game unit in PoR but here she's just... not good. She's OK in part 2, with decent durability and offense and great vision in the dark. In 2-E she can offer some OK offense though she can't hold the line like Mordecai and Brom can. She's got TERRIBLE bases for being level 21 though. Volug joined the DBs with similar bases to Lethe but he's 6 levels lower than her. She basically has a similar situation with Ilyana where she's OK for one part then gets tossed onto the GMs where her stats just aren't cutting it anymore VS the opposition. Except Lethe never has advantageous parts of the game ever again.
Mordecai: An extreme tank especially while he's transformed. He's nearly impossible to touch when it comes to physical attacks, even if he gets doubled by quite a lot of enemies. He's one of the few laguz who can really continue to function while untransformed, especially since he can still move people around with Smite. He did get nerfed a bit from PoR, but he's still solid. Essential to a slow play of 2-E to hold the frontlines along with Brom.
Geoffrey: Gets a little more use than Lucia but similarly is absent throughout so much of the game. You do at least get a few chances to shunt a few Paragon-boosted boss kills his way, though, making him less likely to be underleveled come part 4. If you do want to invest in Geoffrey, you'll want to do a slow play of 2-E instead of skipping through with Haar or Elincia on turn 1 or 2. He is a bit on the slow side though and leans on his brave lance to one-round some opponents, but he is extremely strong throughout part 2 and for his one reappearance in part 3. Sadly he comes back so late, instead of coming back in 3-11 like every other Crimean units.
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Playstation Now is not the same service as PSN. It's more like a streaming rental service in that you don't get to own the games, you just get to play them for a subscription fee. So you are not going to get really recent games that also have PS4 ports, but it's more like you get to play some "greatest hits" titles of a substantial age, sometimes in a rotation.
Bluray is in HD while DVDs are not. They also have a lot more storage capacity in general. If you don't have an HDTV, you probably won't notice much a difference. In fact, you may have parts of the screen cut off due to the widescreen resolution. The Wii U gamepad isn't even HD, it's 480p, but some older TVs are 360p or lower. The biggest peril of playing a game or watching a movie in HD on a non-HD screen is that you won't be able to read the on-screen text, because it will be too tiny. If you just got this Bluray player I highly recommend picking up an HDTV. A 1080P TV is already coming down in price as 4K TVs are being pushed heavily right now. The jump to HD from 480P screens or below is *huge*.
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I agree, grading these things like you would grade school assignments doesn't make sense if people are rating 1-10 with the assumption that 5 is a unit that neither excels nor fails, and that even a unit with a 3 or a 4 is contributing in some way. 1 and 2 is pretty much the realm of completely awful units.
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Based on the chart in the OP, 4 is not "slightly below average." Based on that chart, it puts him in the E ranks, below S, A, B, C, D, and all the + and - (S+, B-, C even, etc.), basically meaning "this is a bad unit, avoid." So...no, I don't think 4 is a reasonable score for Brom at all.
We ARE only about halfway through the characters and there's a lot of part 2 junk coming up, let alone some late joinees in part 3 and part 4. I can assure you there are much worse units than Brom on the horizon.
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I will once again point out that Brom's luck is high, 70%...which is good. And his other growths are not THAT bad, it's being seriously overstated how "bad" some of these growths are.
It isn't that Brom's growths are bad, it's that they don't cap ram as a tier 2. With BEXP working the way it does, a unit who caps three stats within a few levels can use BEXP to suddenly get crazy good stats in something they are weak in. This is why Nephenee is considered good but Marcia is treated lukewarm. This is part of why Rolf has such a hard time catching up to Shinon's damage despite a crazy strength growth. This is why Mia is absolutely nuts for capping stats. This is why Boyd can get in a rut with his speed without transfers. This is how Nolan focuses his weird fighter growths into greatness. This is how Jill can become a god like Haar and overcome weak bases.
I mean, there isn't enough BEXP for everyone but Brom has a rough time as a tier 2 unit and doesn't get good until tier 3. Even Gatrie, a unit with godly bases and growths, has it rough as a Marshall when it comes to endgame consideration, and Lance Marshalls get better stat caps.
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But he does still need to dodge against mages, so it's still a good stat. I'll never claim Brom is the best unit in the game no matter how much bias I have for him, but I stand by my statement that he's underrated.
As for herons, I actually kind of agree with Ana. I give Reyson and Rafiel high marks, but only because of being able to revitalize however many units at once, Canto, etc. But JUST because they're the "dancer" characters...that doesn't mean I'm gonna give them a high rating.
I think a 1 is insane for ANY refresher unit. No matter how fragile they are, they are easier to field than an untrained combat unit. They always slot in and double the effectiveness of your favourite units. Like even the worst of them like Tethys is still a really good unit, and she only refreshes 1 unit with literally nothing else to her name. A unit who lets your army penetrate almost twice as deep into enemy ground is worth the trouble to keep safe, especially in this game where a strong enemy phase is just so important.
Also poor Brom is so bad in every growth that isn't HP and Defense which makes it difficult for him to reach the threshold to fix bad stats with BEXP. He has to share availability with Gatrie, who has better bases and growths, and Haar, who is... Haar. Combined with being an Axe Marshall, which is pretty much a worse version of Dragonlord in every way except res (seriously, Dragonlord (M) shares max HP, has more strength, has more skill, has more speed, has more defense, and can fly), Brom doesn't really shine in this game. But he is definitely a wall among walls in part 2, it's just hard to find the room to field him going forward because of class disadvantages.
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On Olivia's shop there are fossils for sale.
You can only pick one however.
You can buy both, but only one of each. It's misleading.
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How do you get fossil Pokemon though? One of the caves on Poke Pelago?
You can buy two from Olivia's shop in Konikoni, behind the person who sells evolution stones. You get tirtouga and cranidos if you're playing Sun, and archen and shieldon if you're playing Moon.
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It's about time someone feels similarly to Nephenee that I do. Man I do not like her in RD.
I feel like Neph is feast or famine. If you aren't going to pump her full of BEXP the moment she caps skill/speed/res she's not going to fix her terrible strength. I was looking up bases and Neph is really not performing better than Marcia from on-paper statistics. The only difference maker is that once they both get going, Neph has more strength and durability, and Neph has more chapters to work with to get there. But just trying to use Neph without BEXP and she's not really good. And yet Neph with BEXP has some of the most ideal caps in the game for a beorc unit. Higher than average durability, the magic 34 speed, and a respectable 34 strength puts her ahead of the pegasus knights as a pure combat unit. Hence why she is frequently cited as a good Wishblade user.
But yeah, Neph just gets a ton of bias because she's good looking and in a class you don't normally get to play with.
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Lots of characters all of a sudden!
Leanne: Refresher, except she doesn't move as far as Reyson, can't refresh 4 units ever, is the most fragile of them all and is overall completely overshadowed by her brothers. She doesn't even grow faster than them, nor do herons really gain appreciable EXP anyway so she's not really doing a great job being the in-between between Rafiel and Reyson. Still useful, but definitely the worst of the three herons. Bias for great story presense and cute ending with Naesala though.
Nealuchi: He does a decent amount of work in part 2 with great speed and decent strength and durability, though he can't actually see in the dark. At all. Ravens are kind of weak.
Haar: The legend. The game breaker.
Brom: Necessary unit in part 2, less so in part 3 but he can keep up if you train him. Unfortunately his speed really sucks. He can tank early on in part 3 still, but he'll go through a long stint of wide open maps where generals just don't do well.
Nephenee: Again, necessary in part 2 even with some strength problems, but she's in a great class, cap rams skill and speed for BEXP abuse, and she's a good candidate for the Wishblade because of her ideal speed cap. Essentially a swordmaster, but sub in a spear. I'm completely biased but she's cool. Her 35% growth rate in strength somehow doesn't cause her issues as much as other strength starved units like Meg or Marcia, likely because she's already likely to cap three stats in 10 levels and she gets some additional time to train.
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Yeah, I think I'll request one too. Though I don't really have anything worthy to trade. I was looking to try Castform since a lot of people seem to request it, but that one seems equally hard to find. It's another SOS-only Pokemon, and for it to even be that, you need certain weather effects, which my team lacks moves for. -_-
Try Ula Ula island outside of Po Town. I think it's always raining there so Castform should show up? It isn't a specific SOS battle to any one Pokemon... it just takes a very, very long time for it to show up...
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Elincia is the best healer in the game, hands down. Technically Micaiah will heal for more and have more fortify range, but Elincia does enough without being as fragile. Elincia still has a gigantic range and enough magic to heal people to full health. Her offensive prowess is unmatched among healers, considering she actually has passable strength and an amazing personal sword. She was only good for staff utility in PoR but now Elincia finally has an offensive presense too.
Marcia has a pretty bad strength base and not a good growth, so you might end up dropping her if her stats don't cooperate. However this game really loves fliers and having a trained Marcia is going to help a lot in the future, so she's worth the investment. At the very least you'll want to keep Marcia in mind when you need to cross that one bridge...
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Fiona on paper is a good unit. It's just that 90% of the maps she can go to absolutely wreck her horse based movement. She's also less available than other units are who need a similar amount of time to grow, so if you invest in her you are acknowledging you are NOT investing in a character who will need to be deployed in Fiona's absence. You have 7 chapters of which Fiona needs to grow into a tier 3 units from a tier 1. Comparatively, a unit like Edward could have 15. In part 1-E, Fiona is entering an indoor map that has a significant shortcut only open to infantry units or fliers, which means she has to take the long way while also taking an indoor movement penalty. In 3-6, Fiona cannot enter the swamp, limiting her movement to about a quarter of the map. In 3-12, the mountain terrain slows her down so she can't use the full extent of her movement. In 3-13 she FINALLY gets her first chance to fight unhindered. Then in part 4 you can pick the route most advantageous to her, which is a toss up between following Elincia or following Ike (following Micaiah to the desert is a bad idea).
Meanwhile, a popular 1st tier unit like Jill gets 1 extra chapter to train, starts several levels higher than Fiona a chapter earlier, has better offensive statistics so she can secure her own kills, and her flight overcomes all the aforementioned obstacles the DBs face in their chapters. So even though people know she takes time to raise, the payoff is worth the price.
There isn't anything wrong with Fiona's stats once she gets rolling, but she takes so long to actually make it to the frontlines where her class is supposed to be. So when people say she's not worth the trouble outside in Easy mode, they are thinking about turn counts and efficiency. Fiona doesn't do anything faster than anyone else, so she's only there to raise out of favouritism.
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Oh, so it's like how Seviper and Zangoose attacked each other in horde battles. That makes sense.
Yeah. Sableye also appears to attack Carbinks. On the nicer side of thing, Kangaskhans come to assist Cubones (in gen 1 Cubone and Kangaskhan seemed to have been initially designed together), and Hapinny and Chansey appear to take care of baby Pokemon.
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I love Nailah. Her only downfall is lack of 2 range but she has some other tools at her disposal that makes this less of a problem. Great movement but she can still climb ledges, no gauge to worry about, she can even Glare enemies to feed kills if you're lucky. Her availability isn't even that bad considering how strong she is. I use her to just destroy those damn thieves in 1-E since no one else can really catch them.
I'm kind of at a loss of how to rate the Black Knight. Despite being functionally invincible he really only shines in 1-9 because of the fog and tight quarters making you go on the hyper defensive to keep Micaiah safe. He's not as useful in 1-E as you'd hope due armor knight movement although you can literally toss him at anyone for no loss. If you were poor at training, the Burger King and Nailah are your delete buttons in the part 1 finale. For the rest of the game he doesn't really do anything because he arrives so late or arrives in a position where he can't really make it to the frontline.
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Makes sense since Nebby couldn't fight for awhile.
Almost all story legendaries have had high catch rates since Diamond and Pearl, like 30 or higher, because they were mandatory to fight/catch for the story and they wanted to avoid the frustration that was catching Groudon/Kyogre in a story mandatory battle in RS. The exceptions are Giratina in the Distortion World since it can come back in post game, Ho-oh and Lugia in their new story battles in HGSS (they also come back if knocked out post-game), and Kyogre/Groudon in ORAS (again, they come back).
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Vika does a couple useful things in part 1 due to her flight and can one round a fair share of enemies with a decent, but not great, gauge. Not as good as Muarim's anyway. It's nice to have her around in the swamp since she's one of the few people who can intercept the dracoknights in a timely manner. However she is doomed to be anemic and ineffective in part 4. If she didn't rank up in Strike she is basically just a hunk of flesh who can't even chip well. Tormod is a pain but trainable. Muarim kinda pulls his weight, if a bit ineffectively. Vika? Vika does nothing. Raven beaks are already the weakest of laguz strikes and her speed is overkill while her strength and durability languishes. So basically enjoy your three half decent chapters with Vika in tow where she's pretty good (but not even great like Tormod and Muarim), and then she returns to warm the bench if she can even make it there.
Rafiel's movement works against him in most part 1 chapters, though he can snag Celerity from Tormod, especially in 1-E where you could really use that extra turn to push forward and race the thieves to the chests. In most situations I like Reyson's flexibility with Canto and his naturally high transformed movement more than Rafiel's permanent foot movement, but for endgame Rafiel is the obvious choice who allows you to 1-turn most of the 4-E chapters. Refreshing 4 units at once in what is guaranteed to be tight formations is such a huge tactical boon and seriously multiplies your firepower per turn.
FE10 Tierlist 2017
in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Posted
Rolf: He shares all of his time with Shinon and is very useful for chip early on, but since archers don't have an easy way to earn EXP other than dipping into the BEXP pool, he starts to fall behind. He's definitely very strong once he gets going, but because Shinon has such a huge headstart there is no real incentive to use Rolf except for favouritism. They will end up in the same place anyway. At least Rolf can man some ballistas and has decent starting stats given his low level.
Boyd: He hits things really really hard but his speed is pretty bad. I think he's very useful on lower difficulties but his inability to double things weighs down on him. Reaver is a really good class but since Boyd arrives with a boatload of equally good or better units, it's hard to polish up Boyd like you could for Nolan on the DBs, as Boyd is the one being babysat instead of the other way around. Still very useful for those early objectives, though, and not necessarily a liability, merely a disappointment considering how good he could be in PoR.
Oscar: He's well rounded to start, but his growths push him in a good direction for the future. He's at his best when he's teamed up with Titania to cover distant objectives. I find Oscar extremely reliable, but not totally outstanding. However he starts at a pretty high base level so he'll be one of the first GMs to probably reach promotion, right after Titania and Haar, which will give him a leg up over the others.
Shinon: He is an absurdly good sniper with crazy high skill and speed... and durability, for a change. If you want someone who won't miss his target even with the hit nerf beyond 3 panels, Shinon will fulfill that duty. The problem with most archers is that their low levels and low bases make it difficult for them to ever reach their stride, but because Shinon is already rocking great bases and a close promotion, he's one of the few unlikely to fall behind. Although having no good close range attacks for most of the game (crossbows are pretty weak without effective damage applied), Shinon rocks the promoted range boost harder than anyone.
Gatrie: Beastly, amazing bases and growths...kneecapped by his class caps and low movement. He's tanky as an armor knight should be, he has great strength, and his speed is crazy good. He's not really even lacking in skill or res! Seriously, if Gatrie wasn't an armor knight, he would be totally on par with Ike, maybe even better. Gatrie is just so good at combat overall that you could probably just toss him a brave lance, hammer and potentially even a wyrmslayer and he'd do fine on many an endgame chapter.