Berwick Saga: Thoughts on characters, ranking/tierlist.

[rdrouyn]

After about 4 (2 failed) playthroughs through Berwick Saga, I can confidently say it has become my favorite FE adjacent game. I didn't see any threads relating to ranking the characters in the game, so I'm starting mine here to get some discussion going. I'm interested in hearing other people's experiences and thoughts. 

S Tier: 

Dean: He is one of the hardest hitting units in the game due to his high str and Axe usage. Axes are probably the best weapons in the game since they hit hard and have a lot of useful effects like ignoring shields and armor. He can double attack on occasion with Adept, which makes him even more deadly. Desperation allows him to work around the main downside of relying on Axes, which is accuracy. A 20 point boost to hit rate allows axes to hit with 90+ accuracy and they often hit hard enough to one shot most non-boss enemies. His promotion is one of the best in the game and is easy to reach, assuming you use him regularly. He gets the a unique brave weapon upon promotion, plus a bunch of stat increases. A promoted Dean is the closest way to enable a Berwick Easy Mode.

Larentia: Larentia is a very powerful and interesting unit. She's basically your best scout unit for fog maps or maps with a lot of units with stealth, since she can fly and has the Watchful skill. One amazing thing about flying units in this game is that they cannot be attacked by melee ground units, only counterattacked. She's basically invulnerable and can move around better than any other unit in the game. So she's great for sniping far away units, retreating or achieving difficult side missions in maps. She also starts with a kick ass unique spear with high accuracy and can use swords as well. Recruiting her permanently is basically guaranteed as long as you use Reese. Just keep her away from ballistae and archers.

A Tier: 

Elbert: Elbert is probably the best tank of the game. Sure he doesn't have the defense or heavy shield proficiency of a Armor Knight, but he has enough defense and the Provoke skill, which makes tanking a lot easier. He's mounted, so he can reach chokepoints a lot faster than an Armor Knight could. And on top of that, he is virtually immune to arrows due to his Arrowbane skill. His offense is nothing to write home about but he can wield a sword pretty well. Once he levels up he can have decent offense with a Knight Sword. I would probably put Elbert in S tier if I could promote him with more certainty. It has been a struggle to get his spear rank high enough before Chapter 13 without soloing the game with him. He doesn't really need the promotion to kick ass, but I have to nitpick to make some distinctions here.

Christine: She is one of the better offensive units in the game, mainly because there are some powerful crossbows and arrow combinations. Her accuracy is godly thanks to the Aim skill. Her health and defense are low but with horses and Canto she'll be able to get in there, attack and retreat and keep herself safe. Promoting her requires to develop her bow rank, but it isn't that difficult because you want to keep her at 2 range and out of harm's way as much as possible. Only use her crossbows against tough/boss level enemies. She's your typical glass cannon character, but she's extremely effective at it. 

Aegina: She isn't that good of a unit, but she's your only mage for a significant part of the game. Her skill ranks with magic suck and are hard to increase for some reason. I have to actively solo the game with her to get to promotion. And the Sage promotion sucks. +2 to magic and +2hp. Meh. Even with all of that, her unique magic and focus skill make her an amazing armor knight/boss killer, so you'll want to deploy her on almost all main missions. Her unique magic replenishes after every chapter, so she'll be able to kick ass even in the end game. She has low hp and her move sucks, but her magic makes up for it. 

Sylvis: One of the powerful pre-promote Mercenaries, she is probably the best one when it comes to cost/benefit. She's an amazing Sniper and starts with all of the powerful archery skills, including Aim. She's also relatively straightforward to permanently recruit and gives a paralogue mission when you recruit and use her enough times. I rank her below Christine because she costs money on every chapter and can't use mounts, but she starts out significantly better than her. 

Clifford: Another amazing pre-promote Mercenary, he's a Paladin and starts out with powerful gear and an expensive mount. He has Provoke, so he's also great as a tank. He can also use Lances, which are really powerful weapons. His downside is that he's probably the most expensive mercenary to recruit and he's practically impossible to get to join permanently. He's certainly worth that money, though. He can make impossible side missions in early maps seem easy. 

Volo: I've only used him for a couple of maps, but I do recognize that he's a powerful character. He has this combo that can be used to kill tough bosses by using Deathmatch while equipping a miracle charm. That gives him a niche that no other character can provide, as far as I know. Aside from that he's a powerful pre-promote swordsmaster that can be recruited early in the game and costs a pretty penny. He does have the despoil skill to recoup some of those expenses from his fallen enemies, so he's not as expensive as he seems. If you use him enough, you can get him to join permanently without much hassle and that is another plus. I generally use him to help with the tougher parts of the early maps and ignore him once my main characters are up to speed but I could see myself using him long term if I needed to.

Sherpa: He's basically Volo but with an amazing personal weapon and slightly more tanky. He's great at countering attacks with his Counter skill and he can protect weaker characters with Guard. He's also super easy to recruit. There's basically no reason to leave him as a mercenary. His availability is worse than those ranked above him. 

B Tier:

Faramir: Faramir is another powerful pre-promote, but probably the worst one out of all of the other expensive options. He's available for fewer maps than the others and isn't as straightforward to recruit permanently. His skills are also a bit of a mess. He's a sword/bow hybrid, but he doesn't have Adept nor Aim, so he's not quite as good at either. He has decent equipment so it isn't all bad but there are better options.

Reese: Reese starts out relatively weak and he can only be deployed on main missions, so he finds himself at a bit of a disadvantage early on. His equipment is pretty good and only gets better as the story progresses. His promotion is really strong and allows him to equip medium shields so he'll definitively become as powerful as any other character. His lack of availability factors heavily into this ranking.

Ward: Ward has the same issue as Reese, he can't be deployed on side missions. Not that you'd want to do that anyway, as the Jeigan exp drain meme is an actual issue in this game. Any kill or attack that Ward gets is one attack taken away from a character that needed weapon exp to promote. Also Ward is an additional Game Over condition when you deploy him in a map and trust me, it can happen when you least expect it. Still, he's a powerful knight will useful skills like Guard, so he has his uses on maps when going for completionist mode. He's also required to fulfill some villager requests, so he'll get some use.

Leon: Leon is the hard hitting side of this game's Christmas Cavs and that makes him the more useful side of that duo. He also has Deathmatch, which is an amazing skill when used carefully. He promotes in every single run I've done so far and becomes quite powerful due to his ability to use Lances. The only annoying part about him is that his Support with Adel compels you to use his partner.

Sherlock: Sherlock starts out pretty crappy. Sub 60 hit rates on his bow attacks, can occasionally double hit, but that is it. You might be compelled to bench him and not use him, but that would be a mistake. Once you start getting quality bows and arrows, his usefulness skyrockets. He does learn Overwatch which adds some strategic value to him. He can only use bows, but that makes him easier to promote than Christine. Once he promotes, he gains triple hit and becomes a killing machine. I rank him this low because it does take him a while to become useful and he doesn't have access to the Aim skill. 

Arthur: He's a perfectly serviceable mounted sword knight. He has decent skills, like desperation, but nothing too outstanding. He's inexpensive, easy to recruit permanently and can be promoted easily since he can't use spears. The only problem he has is that Elbert exists. 

Izerna: She's your only healer for the first few chapters and that makes her useful, but as a unit she sucks. 3 mov makes it a pain for her to keep up with the rest of the army and heal. Because of her low mov and low hp/defense, she can easily get killed by mounted knights if you aren't careful with positioning. Her best attribute is that her promotion is a requirement to promote Dean.  She does become fairly decent after promotion, gaining the spell that recovers units from crippling and after expanding her spell collection with the Expertise skill. But healers in this game are not remotely close to Thracia levels of broken.

Czene: Czene is a pretty powerful thief with a lot of useful abilities. The problem is that the thief class is absolute shit. Daggers have low might and have this weird combat math where they don't fully benefit from the strength stat. It would be a bigger issue for a different character but Czene's strength stat is pretty low to begin with. So she'll often hit for 1-3 points of damage on attack. Her only saving grace on offense is a wind dagger that can be crafted early on and allows her to kill enough enemies to promote. Once she's promoted she gets a mount, but is still overall pretty useless when it comes to combat. She can be useful for crippling and mugging enemies for items, but RNG is never kind to me on those types of tasks. Search and Watchful are a must for various maps, so you'll use her often but never be ecstatic about it.

To Be Continued.

Edited April 22 by rdrouyn

[Saint Rubenio]

Always a pleasure to see more people play and enjoy Berwick Saga.

As for the list, it's fine. I'm of the opinion that everyone is usable in Berwick Saga, and only two units can really be described as "bad", at least by the usual standards of other FE and FE-adjacent games (there's certainly no Wendies or Bantus here).

I think my biggest disagreement so far is that Owen is just... not here? Presumably he'll be in one of the lower tiers when the list is continued, placing him below Izerna. However, Owen has far higher base magic and light rank, far higher level combined with expert (he only needs a handful of levels to use fortify), starts with an array of great orbs that only he can use for most of the game, is one of the cheapest mercenaries and he can even shoot a fireball or two in an emergency. Not only that, his gimmick is a non-issue in most maps, and outright helpful in escape maps, which are decently common in this game.

I'd argue he's the best healer in the game, and Izerna takes a long time to get to where he starts.

[MuteMousou]

Neat list, glad you're enjoying the game!

Quote

Sherlock: Sherlock starts out pretty crappy. Sub 60 hit rates on his bow attacks, can occasionally double hit, but that is it. You might be compelled to bench him and not use him, but that would be a mistake. Once you start getting quality bows and arrows, his usefulness skyrockets. He does learn Overwatch which adds some strategic value to him. He can only use bows, but that makes him easier to promote than Christine. Once he promotes, he gains triple hit and becomes a killing machine. I rank him this low because it does take him a while to become useful and he doesn't have access to the Aim skill. 

I don't think Sherlock takes that long to be good, I believe he is the best archer in the game and one of the best units in the game. Being locked to light bow for 1 level sucks but if you give him decent equipment (like with any archer) he will be pretty strong. I think Sylvis gives an unfairly better impression than him. While she is better than Sherlock early on, I think it is a bit deceiving because a lot of this is the fact that she has access to a composite bow and steel+ arrows, and nobody else can use those for a few chapters. After that though, I think Sherlock easily surpasses her because he has the best movement in the game (light cav is ridiculous, it's basically having a mounted unit movement except you don't have most of the downsides of "knight" movement), and has really strong offensive skills, in comparison to sylvis whose only combat skill that sherlock doesn't have is deadeye (which i don't find very useful) on top of having much worse movement.

 

[rdrouyn]

B- Tier:

Alvina: Alvina is a solid, albeit unspectacular late joining Paladin. Her spear rank is a bit low for the map you start using her, so she might struggle to hit targets. Still, she has outstanding gear, including a brave lance and a horse, plus adept, so you can't go too wrong by using her. By the time she joins, you may have better knights that her.

Paramythis: Probably the best healer in the game, since she can use a horse. However, she joins about 4 maps before endgame so she doesn't get to use her abilities too much. Her sword rank is a bit low for when she joins, so her offense will struggle. Still, I'd rather use Paramythis than Izerna.

Adel: Adel is the speed focused unit of the Christmas duo and has some sweet abilities like Vantage. So why is he down here? The problem is that speed is probably one of the most useless stats in Berwick saga. He often has lower strength, defense and HP than Leon, so he just feels like a lesser version of his partner. There is another hidden downside to his setup. His ability Vantage will make it a pain to raise his shield rank, meaning that he will often not promote by the end of the game, at least from my experience. The Lance Knight promotion increases his damage potential by a lot, so missing out on it is huge. Still, he's a mounted unit that can attack with accuracy and that can't be ranked too low down the list. He also has storyline events so you'll feel compelled to use him a bit. Plus his Support with Leon increases both units accuracy by 20 and that is huge in the early game. Both Adel and Leon may be your most accurate attackers early on. 

Faye: Faye is your female myrmidon and she has amazing combat animations and combat abilities. Unfortunately, she starts at level 1 and she also has a ridiculously small HP pool. You'll always be stressed when you use her in combat and praying to the RNG gods that her evasion holds up. She does start with a brave sword and various abilities and her promotion is great. Her joining the party permanently is pretty straightforward as long as you use her often plus you gain a valuable paralogue chapter when adding her permanently, but the HP problem remains till the end. 

Daoud: Daoud is a unit that I haven't tried out enough because of my love for Dean and I had missed him in my first playthrough. I did give him a try in one of my last playthroughs and he's pretty good. He's like a more defensive Dean. He trades the use of accessories for Medium Shields and trades Adept + Desperation for Battle Cry. Battle Cry is quite a bit slower than Desperation, but it works well if you are using him defensively. He also gets a promotion, which is nice. I may be underrating him, but Dean is so good that it depresses Daoud's value a bit. I still like using him in maps that encourage defensive stances.

Marcel: I'm not a fan of Armor Knights, so this rank may be a bit biased. Marcel is pretty good for an Armor Knight. He gains a personal Brave Weapon in one of the side missions, plus he has some sweet abilities like Guard. The problem with Armor Knights is that overall they aren't that much better at defense than Heavy Knights and their mobility is much worse. The way stat growths work in Berwick means that you don't get any units that snowball at a particular stat. He also gets a decent promotion if you use him enough. Marcel is viable, but he won't be ideal for many maps that require far travel and have strict turn limits. 

Percival: Percival is the second mage in the game and he's OK. He's focused on Thunder magic, which Aegina can't use so he has a niche. Also comes with some nice abilities like Arrowbane and Adept and with the Dire Thunder spell. His lack of Focus Skill and later join time puts him a few notches below Aegina, but Mages are necessary for a few maps so he has a clear use case in the army. He's relatively inexpensive and easy to get him to join permanently as long as you use him. He also plays a role in the promotion of another unit so you'll want to recruit him at the very least.

Edited April 21 by rdrouyn

[rdrouyn]

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Always a pleasure to see more people play and enjoy Berwick Saga.

As for the list, it's fine. I'm of the opinion that everyone is usable in Berwick Saga, and only two units can really be described as "bad", at least by the usual standards of other FE and FE-adjacent games (there's certainly no Wendies or Bantus here).

I think my biggest disagreement so far is that Owen is just... not here? Presumably he'll be in one of the lower tiers when the list is continued, placing him below Izerna. However, Owen has far higher base magic and light rank, far higher level combined with expert (he only needs a handful of levels to use fortify), starts with an array of great orbs that only he can use for most of the game, is one of the cheapest mercenaries and he can even shoot a fireball or two in an emergency. Not only that, his gimmick is a non-issue in most maps, and outright helpful in escape maps, which are decently common in this game.

I'd argue he's the best healer in the game, and Izerna takes a long time to get to where he starts.

 

I'm getting there, but yeah I'm not too high on Owen. I'll get into more detail soon. To be fair, I haven't used Owen enough to feel strongly about my ranking. I may be completely wrong about him. 

[rdrouyn]

4 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Neat list, glad you're enjoying the game!

I don't think Sherlock takes that long to be good, I believe he is the best archer in the game and one of the best units in the game. Being locked to light bow for 1 level sucks but if you give him decent equipment (like with any archer) he will be pretty strong. I think Sylvis gives an unfairly better impression than him. While she is better than Sherlock early on, I think it is a bit deceiving because a lot of this is the fact that she has access to a composite bow and steel+ arrows, and nobody else can use those for a few chapters. After that though, I think Sherlock easily surpasses her because he has the best movement in the game (light cav is ridiculous, it's basically having a mounted unit movement except you don't have most of the downsides of "knight" movement), and has really strong offensive skills, in comparison to sylvis whose only combat skill that sherlock doesn't have is deadeye (which i don't find very useful) on top of having much worse movement.

 

Yeah, the movement thing is something I didn't take into consideration. Heavy Knight movement sucks in most terrain types. I do think Sherlock is good, but he is very dependent on good gear and arrows early on. I didn't feel like Sylvis and Christine were that limited by gear choices because of their ability to use Aim. And Brave Crossbows are plentiful but brave bows are not, so his damage potential is rather limited. I do agree that I may be overrating Sylvis. Mounts are that good. 

Edited April 21 by rdrouyn

[rdrouyn]

C tier: 

Burroughs: He's the lone ballista unit and he can be pretty devastating in the right circumstances. His ballista bolts can deal upwards of 25+ damage in one hit with relatively decent accuracy and a max of 7 range. He can also boost his accuracy with Battle Cry and Aim. The problem with Ballista units is that they are extremely vulnerable and must be protected. They also can only move through road or plains terrain at a rate of two, so that limits the amount of maps where they can be useful. They also have a limited range in the direction they are facing, so you'll be forced to waste turns rotating the ballista if the enemy is out of range. Their ammunition is also pretty scarce, so you'll want to choose wisely when to deploy. Due to all those limitations they can never be a fundamental part of the army. I can't give a part time unit that high of a ranking. They do excel in defensive maps, so there's a clear use case.

Owen: Owen is a unit that I haven't tried that much and there's a few aspects about him that I'm unclear about. This ranking may be completely off, so take it with a grain of salt. I've definitively tried to make use of his appealing skill set and have ran into some roadblocks that inform this ranking. First, the positives. Owen is another powerful pre-promote mercenary (Bishop) and he can use all Holy and Anima magic. He also starts with some advanced holy magic like Physic, Calm and Escape. He's also cheap compared to other pre-promotes. Sounds great, right? Well, now comes the downsides. His weapon rank in all anima magic starts out at 1, so he'll be lucky to hit enemies with anything other than the most basic of spells. But wait, why don't we just use him all the time and grind up his magic skills? Here comes the dagger. His combination of Priest movement plus his 20 turn limit per map means that he doesn't get the opportunity to grind up his attack magic until very late in the game. His 20 turn limit is also a real downside in a lot of maps that go longer. You'd think that 20 turns is close enough to 24 for it to not matter, but there's real pressure in the last few turns of most main chapters, especially if you are trying to hit all of the objectives/gather all of the items/kill all bosses. He's still a good healer and has his uses as a backup attack mage, but he doesn't excel enough in combat to compel me to use him over Izerna most of the time. There are a few maps where he's perfect, especially those where you want to have your units escape a few turns before the 24 turn limit, but there aren't as many as you'd think. Once Izerna gains Physic and Escape, I'm hard pressed to find a reason to drop 700gp to hire him. I'm not that clear on the requirements to recruit him permanently, but I think it can go wrong in certain scenarios.  If you don't achieve his recruitment goal and continue to use him there's a huge downside. Maybe someone can clarify this aspect to me. But it sounds like another downside to me. In conclusion, he's a very appealing unit with a bunch of small downsides that add up to a big downside. I do want to force him into one of my future playthroughs but that would mean abandoning Izerna (and Dean's promotion) so I have a hard time doing that. 

Axel: Axel is the only Pirate unit in the game and he has a very useful niche. He's the only unit that can travel on water and there are a few maps that you can gain a huge advantage from using this ability. Plus there are many villager requests that can only be completed by using this ability. He's relatively cheap compared to other mercenaries. He's also a better Searcher than Czene so he has a little bit of added utility there. Unfortunately, he's an Axe user and his low hit rate makes him pretty rough to rely on as a combat unit. He doesn't have the skills that Dean and Daoud get. Pulverize is nice, but it does nothing to improve his low hit rates. He's also relatively easy to recruit permanently, so if you like him you'll get him. I used him extensively in my first run and he was useful but fell off hard in the end game. 

Kramer: Kramer is the definition of meh. He's not horrible by any means, but there are so many sword units that offer more than him. He has the ability to knock away shields, which is useful at times but is RNG reliant. He has some nice defensive abilities like Arrowbane, but he has low defense and can't equip shields so he can't be a tank. He gains a paralogue chapter if you use him enough to join permanently and he gains a sword upon promotion, but even that is underwhelming. His personal sword is nothing special. He's the definition of a C tier character. 

Enid: She's the first true Est archetype character you get in this game. I guess Faye can also be considered an Est of sorts, but she joins early enough to not be considered one. Anyway, Enid is a very extreme version of an Est. She is almost useless in her unpromoted form. Has no special skills of note that improve her combat, is locked to swords, no mount and has a low starting sword rank. On top of that, she has low hp and defense. So keeping her alive long enough to level her up is a chore, even if she does have Paragon. Her promotion is amazing though. She becomes the best mage in the game and gains a unique spell that is better than Aegina's, plus the Focus skill. But her promotion requirement is a pain and you aren't guaranteed to reach it even at a high level. You may dump a bunch of levels into Enid without any payoff. I don't want to discount a unit that has a S tier upper range, but the floor is very low. 

Thaddy: Thaddy is the best thief in the game. Unfortunately, that is like being the tallest short person (no disrespect meant to short people). And Czene can do the job well enough to save you the 5,000 gold required to permanently recruit him. It is possible that there's some special event when you recruit him that makes him amazing but I have no knowledge of that. The way the Steal skill works in Berwick reduces Thaddy's appeal even more. If Czene dies, he becomes necessary for a few missions but as long as Czene exists, the right strategy is to save your money for horses or weapons. Money is at a premium in this game and we can't be spending it on thieves. 

Edited April 23 by rdrouyn

[rdrouyn]

D tier:

Esteban: He's the other Est in the game. He's supposed to have a niche in fog of war maps with his Scotopic skill, but fails at truly being useful since he lacks the Watchful skill against the many stealth enemies that are present in those scenarios. He has a really annoying permanent recruitment quest where he has to be deployed in a bunch of main missions and speak to enemy soldiers. Because of that, I've never bothered trying to recruit him permanently. From what I hear, he becomes really busted when you raise him to level 20 but I don't see the point of doing that when he starts out so lousy. His initial skillset and gear are the worst of any mercenary archer and he doesn't serve a particular niche role. The only good thing you can say about him is that he's an Archer, which is one of the better classes in the game. At the same time, there are 4 other amazing archers and arrows aren't plentiful enough to run more of them. 

Ruby: It is hard to rank a mounted unit as a F tier, but Ruby comes close to it. I've used her almost every single run and I've never had her turn out even close to average. The main reason why she isn't ranked as an F unit is because there are some clear benefits to using her. If you use enough and level her up she joins and you gain a paralogue chapter with some decent rewards. If by some miracle you are able to promote her, Clifford also joins permanently and that is clearly a great boon. It still kind of depresses her value because all it means is that she's getting benched for her pops, making all that effort of getting her promoted somewhat pointless.  It may not be worth bothering with her in the end, but the value is something that the F tier units cannot claim to provide. And that mount and sword goes a long way in keeping her out of F tier.

F tier:

Saphira: As my rankings clearly show, I think priests are pretty awful in this game, so why would I want to use an Est priest? She's not even good at her job off the bat. On top of that she has story relevance, so she adds a Game Over condition. Her supposed benefits for being this lore important character really suck. She has a unique holy attack spell and that sounds great in theory, but it has an attack range of 1. Really? I'm going to throw my weak ass Priest character that is a game over condition into melee range??? And yeah she has all of the downsides of the Priest class, so good luck getting her in and out of combat. Her Silence skill becomes useful in the later stages of the game, but you'd have to deploy her in really dangerous maps to get that benefit, so its probably not worth it. The only scenario where I'd use her is if both Izerna and Owen are unavailable and even then, I just would try to make due with vulneraries. 

Edit: I take that back, there's one map where you can easily keep her protected and her Silence skill is very useful.  I don't think one map of usefulness is enough to keep her out of F tier, but it still should be noted. 

Derrick:  This ranking may be off because I've only used Derrick once, but I think it is warranted. He's an Armor Knight with Axes and no special skills to speak of. As I understand, he's the meme unit so this is by design. There may be some special event that you gain by using him in a bunch of maps, but I'd have to be something really special to make using him worth it. 

Edited April 22 by rdrouyn

[LoneRecon400]

Some thoughts:

-Izerna does not need to be promoted to promote Dean. Just her being alive is enough.

-Thaddy has some pretty great utility with Provoke. Not only can he really mess with the AI using hide, he can also use Evasion to boost his avoid to 80 at base for 2 turns. Combined with Bolt Knife (42% chance to wound) and the fact that enemies with 0 hit on him will still attack while provoked, he becomes really good at wounding bounties and other capture targets.

Steal is also pretty nice with a Estoc Flourish from Arthur.

-Owen's 20 turn limit can actually be a boon in some cases. If he transforms during escape map, rather than being crippled if he doesn't escape, he returns to base safe and sound. That's pretty nice compared to izerna who is just spending those last turns walking to the escape point.

Theres' also nothing about his recruitment that's particularly complicated. Just use him enough and he joins without any issue.

81 base hit and 21 atk with fire also ain't that bad. He two shots the armor Knights in Children's Hero, which is pretty nice with Provoke.

-Percival has a niche in being able to guarantee cripple as well as consistently boost his hit rate.

Lighting doubles cripple chance. So if you drop 80% of a wounded target's current HP, that's a 100% guarantee to cripple a foe which is easy to do with mercy. Really helps aganist capture targets with Arrowbane.

Him and Enid also have a +4 hit support that activates whenever they are in 2 tiles of another.

So if you combined that with a Tiger Brace, Reese's Commander, and Enid's Charisima, that's 96 base hit in his join chapter alone.

It's not the most practical thing ever since deployment slots are pretty contested. But just the fact he can zap Theodore pretty consistently is pretty cool.

-Marcel ain't great. L Shields are quite exensive and have very limited durability, draining funds pretty fast. He also reaches a 100% guard rate pretty easily, which can cause enemies to ignore him if they deal 0 damage to him. He also can't cross cliffs at all until level 15.

And to top it off, Zewihandler is only a 20 rank prf sword. So anyone can use it once they hit level 20.

-Daoud can be interesting if you get him to promotion. At that point he can reach a 100 hit with Commander and a 60 hit axe like a Battle saw. He can do stuff like tank two lance charges and guarante one shot a lance knight on 9-m

Really takes a long time get there and really isn't worth it, but it's just funny turning him into the world's strongest man.

-Adel has much more of a problem with his Spear Rank rather than Shield Rank. Having only a 30% Spear Growth Rate means he needs on average 400 attacks to reach 30 Spear Rank before level ups. That's a bit much.

And then he promotes to a worse movement type. Kaga really was scared of Vantage.

-Arthur can strangely enough be called a growth unit. With tight brackets and high promo gains, he's guaranteed to be as strong as Ward by as soon as level 12. At that level he is guaranteed to have 34 HP - 11 Str - 9 Def compared to Ward's 38 HP - 11 Str - 10 Def. And those are his bottom brackets, he can easily have +2 over those.

Also you haven't lived until you see a Level 30 Arthur skewer someone using Fauchad with Desperation. It is glorious.

...And that's about it. While I don't necessarily agree with some placements, (Aegina too high, Sherlock too low) those are some of my main impressions looking at your list.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[rdrouyn]

2 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Some thoughts:

-Izerna does not need to be promoted to promote Dean. Just her being alive is enough.

-Thaddy has some pretty great utility with Provoke. Not only can he really mess with the AI using hide, he can also use Evasion to boost his avoid to 80 at base for 2 turns. Combined with Bolt Knife (42% chance to wound) and the fact that enemies with 0 hit on him will still attack while provoked, he becomes really good at wounding bounties and other capture targets.

Steal is also pretty nice with a Estoc Flourish from Arthur.

-Owen's 20 turn limit can actually be a boon in some cases. If he transforms during escape map, rather than being crippled if he doesn't escape, he returns to base safe and sound. That's pretty nice compared to izerna who is just spending those last turns walking to the escape point.

Theres' also nothing about his recruitment that's particularly complicated. Just use him enough and he joins without any issue.

81 base hit and 21 atk with fire also ain't that bad. He two shots the armor Knights in Children's Hero, which is pretty nice with Provoke.

-Percival has a niche in being able to guarantee cripple as well as consistently boost his hit rate.

Lighting doubles cripple chance. So if you drop 80% of a wounded target's current HP, that's a 100% guarantee to cripple a foe. Really helps aganist capture targets with Arrowbane.

Him and Enid also have a +4 hit support that activates whenever they are in 2 tiles of another.

So if you combined that with a Tiger Brace, Reese's Commander, and Enid's Charisima, that's 96 base hit in his join chapter alone.

It's not the most practical thing ever since deployment slots are pretty contested. But just the fact he can zap Theodore pretty consistently is pretty cool.

-Marcel ain't great. L Shields are quite exensive and have very limited durability, draining funds pretty fast. He also reaches a 100% guard rate pretty easily, which can cause enemies to ignore him if they deal 0 damage to him. He also can't cross cliffs at all until level 15.

And to top it off, Zewihandler is only a 20 rank prf sword. So anyone can use it once they hit level 20.

-Daoud can be interesting if you get him to promotion. At that point he can reach a 100 hit with Commander and a 60 hit axe like a Battle saw. He can do stuff like tank two lance charges and guarante one shot a lance knight on 9-m

Really takes a long time get there and really isn't worth it, but it's just funny turning him into the world's strongest man.

-Adel has much more of a problem with his Spear Rank rather than Shield Rank. Having only a 30% Spear Growth Rate means he needs on average 400 attacks to reach 30 Spear Rank before level ups. That's a bit much.

And then he promotes to a worse movement type. Kaga really was scared of Vantage.

-Arthur can strangely enough be called a growth unit. With tight brackets and high promo gains, he's guaranteed to be as strong as Ward by as soon as level 12. At that level he is guaranteed to have 34 HP - 11 Str - 9 Def compared to Ward's 38 HP - 11 Str - 10 Def. And those are his bottom brackets, he can easily have +2 over those.

Also you haven't lived until you see a Level 30 Arthur skewer someone using Fauchad with Desperation. It is glorious.

...And that's about it. While I don't necessarily agree with some placements, (Aegina too high, Sherlock too low) those are some of my main impressions looking at your list.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure I got plenty wrong, but that's part of the reason of posting my thoughts. Finding out who I was wrong about. 

-Good to know about Izerna. Not sure where I got the idea that she needed to be promoted. She does get the injury recovery spell from promotion so I don't think my ranking changes too much. There's a decent reward for using and promoting her. 

- I do admit that Thaddy is the best thief. Just not sure how valuable that is for normal gameplay. Thaddy, Owen, Esteban and Derrick are the characters I've used the least, and I'm sure my lack of experience with them shows in my ranking. 

I forgot that Thaddy had provoke. That Provoke Evasion combo sounds pretty sweet, I'll have to try it sometime. I theoretically thought he would be good at acquiring money like most thieves, but I had mistakenly focused on the Steal skill. The fact that you can only use it 3 times per map and only before moving was a huge bummer. If he's useful for locking down enemies and getting multiple crippling strikes in, maybe he deserves another chance. I guess you are supposed to provoke enemies towards you and steal from them, but without evasion that is playing with fire. 

- Fair enough about Owen. Sounds like he should be B- character at the very least. The 20 turn thing is still a real downside IMO. For example, the desert map where you fight all of the wyverns is a perfect map for him. High magic resistance, can attack with any element. But due to the annoyingly random attack pattern of the wyverns it can often take more than twenty turns to kill them all. So he leaves you hanging high and dry when you need him the most. 

I read somewhere that if you don't raise Owen's happiness high enough and use him on map 12-1, he turns on you. Not sure how accurate that is, but that is what I meant by his uncertainty when recruiting him. Considering that happiness is an invisible stat, it is a downside, even if it is minor. 

- I do like Percival, but I've never had any success with consistently crippling units. I didn't know that Lightning was that good at crippling, good to know. You still have to hope the enemy survives long enough to be struck by Lightning twice (assuming lightning deals about 40% of hp), but it is one of the better methods of crippling I've seen.

- Yeah, I honestly wanted to drop Marcel further, but I didn't want my bias against Armor units to influence me too strongly. He does go through L Shields rather quickly. I went through 2 of them in the snow map. I thought the Zweihander was his personal weapon, my bad. The biggest drawback to me is that his defense isn't special. He tops out at 10-11 defense like most of the heavy armor cavalry. Don't see a point in using him over Elbert or Arthur. He does have Guard, which is nice on occasion, so its not like he deserves to be too low. I could see maybe drop a tier. 

-Interesting. To be honest, I've had problems with promoting Adel in both directions. Depends on the playthrough. But I can't ever get him to promote. Vantage can be a broken ability if given to a powerful unit, but honestly Lance Knights are probably the worst class for it. Lances can't counterattack anyway and spears in general aren't great defensive weapons. 

- I do agree in a sense, but like I mentioned with Faye if a unit joins early enough, it is hard to consider them a "growth unit". At that point, they just are a unit that is slightly behind the curve. And Arthur certainly can be competent at base. And yeah, you don't have to sell me on Arthur, he's pretty amazing. 

- Honestly, if I were doing the list again, I'd probably swap Aegina and Sherlock. I do admit in my review that Aegina is an objectively bad unit, but at the same time she's the only one that can deal with many bosses/strong enemies in a timely manner. It is hard to give a bad grade to a unit that can accomplish goals that others cannot.  

 

 

 

Edited April 22 by rdrouyn

[LoneRecon400]

8 minutes ago, rdrouyn said:

The desert map where you fight all of the wyverns is a perfect map for him. High magic resistance, can attack with any element. But due to the annoyingly random attack pattern of the wyverns it can often take more than twenty turns to kill them all. So he leaves you hanging high and dry when you need him the most. 

I read somewhere that if you don't raise Owen's happiness high enough and use him on map 12-1, he turns on you.

I do like Percival, but I've never had any success with consistently crippling units. I didn't know that Lightning was that good at crippling, good to know. You still have to hope the enemy survives long enough to be struck by Lightning twice (assuming lightning deals about 40% of hp), but it is one of the better methods of crippling I've seen.

Impossible Dream is actually one of the better maps for Owen. The dragons will berserk after attacking once, so it's important to dispatch them as quickly as possible.

Holy is really useful as it counters their high evasion and deals a pretty good amount damage with the Divine Barce. It also really shows off the difference in magic between Izerna and Owen.

Actually the opposite occurs in Heathen God. Owen transforms early if you do get his happiness high enough, but he still follows his 20 turn rule if he doesn't.

You really need to wound enemies to have a decent chance at crippling. If you don't, you're pretty much stuck with a less than a 10% chance to cripple, even going from full health to 1 HP. It's why the Bolt Knife is real important.

Cripple chance is also based on current hp. So even if Percy deals 4 damage to a wounded 5 HP enemy, it's still a guaranteed cripple with lighting.

[rdrouyn]

6 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Impossible Dream is actually one of the better maps for Owen. The dragons will berserk after attacking once, so it's important to dispatch them as quickly as possible.

Holy is really useful as it counters their high evasion and deals a pretty good amount damage with the Divine Barce. It also really shows off the difference in magic between Izerna and Owen.

Actually the opposite occurs in Heathen God. Owen transforms early if you do get his happiness high enough, but he still follows his 20 turn rule if he doesn't.

I agree that this map is ideal for him, but you have a 3 move unit chasing after 7 move flying behemoths. It is unlikely to be finished in less than 20 turns. 

I'm confused. Why would Owen turn on you if you raise his happiness stat? I'll have to try him out in my next playthrough and see. 

[Saint Rubenio]

43 minutes ago, rdrouyn said:

The 20 turn thing is still a real downside IMO. For example, the desert map where you fight all of the wyverns is a perfect map for him. High magic resistance, can attack with any element. But due to the annoyingly random attack pattern of the wyverns it can often take more than twenty turns to kill them all. So he leaves you hanging high and dry when you need him the most. 

Personally, the only maps where I've ever wished Owen could stay for longer are 9-main and the one you mention - and even those can be done fast enough, I'm just not the best player haha. Anyway, point is, that's 2 maps out of 41. Every other map, either the action is basically over by turn 20 unless you're going extremely slow, or it's an escape map and his gimmick is a legitimate upside. Even if you don't have him escape on turn 20, he can't be captured or killed by enemies after he turns, and he just comes back after the map is over. I've used this more than a few times to my advantage.

And then there's all his other strengths, like being able to use all magic types in a pinch if you need him to, high-power healing with no investment, low recruitment cost, easy recruitment conditions (the thing you mentioned about him turning on you in chapter 12-1 if he's not recruited is not true), being invulnerable to crippling, his giant assortment of great utility orbs only he can use for almost the entire game...

B- still sounds a mite low, I won't lie. That places him right next to the likes of Marcel, Daoud and Adel in your list. Dude is a really versatile unit that can offer tons of support and even some utility combat for a very low price.

Just now, rdrouyn said:

I'm confused. Why would Owen turn on you if you raise his happiness stat? I'll have to try him out in my next playthrough and see. 

It's, uh... just a bit of weirdness to expedite his recruitment cutscene. That's basically it lol, just Kaga being Kaga.

Edited April 22 by Saint Rubenio

[rdrouyn]

1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

You really need to wound enemies to have a decent chance at crippling. If you don't, you're pretty much stuck with a less than a 10% chance to cripple, even going from full health to 1 HP. It's why the Bolt Knife is real important.

Cripple chance is also based on current hp. So even if Percy deals 4 damage to a wounded 5 HP enemy, it's still a guaranteed cripple with lighting.

Ah interesting. So weapons that say 2x crippling chance do nothing to non-wounded enemies? How the hell are you supposed to wound an enemy and have them survive several hits that would cripple them? Aside from blind luck of course. 

Edited April 22 by rdrouyn

[rdrouyn]

6 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Personally, the only maps where I've ever wished Owen could stay for longer are 9-main and the one you mention - and even those can be done fast enough, I'm just not the best player haha. Anyway, point is, that's 2 maps out of 41. Every other map, either the action is basically over by turn 20 unless you're going extremely slow, or it's an escape map and his gimmick is a legitimate upside. Even if you don't have him escape on turn 20, he can't be captured or killed by enemies after he turns, and he just comes back after the map is over. I've used this more than a few times to my advantage.

And then there's all his other strengths, like being able to use all magic types in a pinch if you need him to, high-power healing with no investment, low recruitment cost, easy recruitment conditions (the thing you mentioned about him turning on you in chapter 12-1 if he's not recruited is not true), being invulnerable to crippling, his giant assortment of great utility orbs only he can use for almost the entire game...

B- still sounds a mite low, I won't lie. That places him right next to the likes of Marcel, Daoud and Adel in your list. Dude is a really versatile unit that can offer tons of support and even some utility combat for a very low price.

That's fair. Do you even use Izerna at all? I can't imagine using both Owen and Izerna in most maps. And that means missing out on the un-crippling spell which is huge. 

[Saint Rubenio]

Just now, rdrouyn said:

That's fair. Do you even use Izerna at all? I can't imagine using both Owen and Izerna in most maps. And that means missing out on the un-crippling spell which is huge. 

Ehh, I'm not sure if I'd call it huge, to be honest. Most runs I tend to get it and then I proceed to use it like, once?

...In fact, I often have Owen use it instead lmao

Anyway, even if you want the orb that badly, she promotes very easily. She has a couple chapters of head-start, plus 5-main, then you can just deploy her in a few sidequests and she gets there without much trouble at all. I've done it a few times.

[rdrouyn]

9 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Ehh, I'm not sure if I'd call it huge, to be honest. Most runs I tend to get it and then I proceed to use it like, once?

...In fact, I often have Owen use it instead lmao

Anyway, even if you want the orb that badly, she promotes very easily. She has a couple chapters of head-start, plus 5-main, then you can just deploy her in a few sidequests and she gets there without much trouble at all. I've done it a few times.

 

That's true. I probably use it once or twice per run. But when I have to use it, it usually prevents a unit from dying or from getting captured and losing all of their gear. Its a peace of mind thing. 

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, rdrouyn said:

So weapons that say 2x crippling chance do nothing to non-wounded enemies?

How areyou supposed to wound an enemy and hit them have them have enough health to take several hits that would cripple them? Aside from blind luck of course. 

They do work, it's just the base chance is really low it doesn't make a difference.

The way cripple works is it that it divides the hp the enemy has at the end of combat with how much they had at the start of combat.

It then takes that amount and subtracts by 75% and then halves it.

So if an Enemy has 10 HP and you do 9 Damage:

9/10 = (90% - 75%) = (15% * 50%) = 7.5%

...You have a 7.5% chance of cripple, or 15% chance using a double cripple weapon.

You can see how bad that is.

What wounding does is reduce that 75% chance to instead 30% and removes the 50% multipler.

So if you instead attacked a wounded enemy for the same amount:

9/10 = (90% - 30%) = 60%

So now instead you have 60% chance to cripple instead and lighting will have a guaranteed cripple chance.

TL:DR: less than 12.5% to cripple at best unwounded.

           Around a 60% chance to cripple at best wounded.

           2x cripple weapons guarantee cripple if they do 80% of the enemies health while wounded.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[rdrouyn]

15 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

They do work, it's just the base chance is really low it doesn't make a difference.

The way cripple works is it that it divides the hp the enemy has at the end of combat with how much they had at the start of combat.

It then takes that amount and subtracts by 80% and then halves it.

So if an Enemy has 10 HP and you do 9 Damage:

9/10 = (90% - 75%) = (15% * 50%) = 7.5%

...You have a 7.5% chance of cripple, or 15% chance using a double cripple weapon.

You can see how bad that is.

What wounding does is reduce that 80% chance to instead 30% and removes the 50% multipler.

So if you instead attacked a wounded enemy for the same amount:

9/10 = (90% - 30%) = 60%

So now instead you have 60% chance to cripple instead and lighting will have a guaranteed cripple chance.

TL:DR: less than 12.5% to cripple at best unwounded.

           Around a 60% chance to cripple at best wounded.

           2x cripple guarantee cripple if they do 80% of the enemies health while wounded.

Interesting, that's not how I thought crippling worked at all. I thought there would be some carry over from early attacks or something, but it is all pure RNG. 

[LoneRecon400]

22 minutes ago, rdrouyn said:

Interesting, that's not how I thought crippling worked at all. I thought there would be some carry over from early attacks or something, but it is all pure RNG. 

Yeah, that's why getting the Bolt Knife and Aperion/Lighting are pretty important if you're going for Captures. There's no consistency elsewise.

And being able to capture enemies like Riddle for 12k gold is really nice. As are some non bounty captures like Empire boss in Food Supply who has a knight sword/shield and 3 Vulnearies.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[rdrouyn]

42 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Yeah, that's why getting the Bolt Knife and Aperion/Lighting are pretty important if you're going for Captures. There's no consistency elsewise.

And being able to capture enemies like Riddle for 12k gold is really nice. As are some non bounty captures like Empire boss in Food Supply who has a knight sword/shield and 3 Vulnearies.

Yeah, this tier list is from the perspective of someone who doesn't know much about the inner workings of the crippling system, aside from the small pieces of information in the weapon descriptions. Sylvis and Arthur have abilities that supposedly help them injure enemies but I have no idea how to use them properly. They could be amazing skills that change their value, but I have no idea since the wounding/crippling system is a black box. From my experiments, all of the skills are too unreliable to be something that brings a noticeable amount of value. 

As far as spells go, I remember having some success with the Blizzard spell. I think the text says it adds 30 to the injury success rate, seems like that spell would be pretty good. More than I did with the Apeiron and the Lightning spell. 

[LoneRecon400]

37 minutes ago, rdrouyn said:

Sylvis and Arthur have abilities that supposedly help them injure enemies but I have no idea how to use them properly. They could be amazing skills that change their value, but I have no idea since the wounding/crippling system is a black box. From my experiments, all of the skills are too unreliable to be something that brings a noticeable amount of value. 

As far as spells go, I remember having some success with the Blizzard spell. I think the text says it adds 30 to the injury success rate, seems like that spell would be pretty good. More than I did with the Apeiron and the Lightning spell. 

Flourish is pretty good since it just adds a flat +33% chance to injure. You can also combine it with an Estoc to get 2 chances at wounding a target with high accuracy, which is neat.

Maim is a meme. It does nothing when the enemy is wounded, and it only gives around ~40% at best chance to cripple. It's also completely random as to when it procs, so it's pretty useless.

Blizzard can run into the problem where it does too much damage and can cause issues with one shotting without mercy. It also can't be repaired for one repair stone use like the Bolt Knife can.

It does have some pretty good applications with wounding riddel since he has a ring to resist the wind damage. But that's really the most note worthy case I could find for it.

But yeah. Crippling is definitely a dice roll that you can lose out on. It's just the rewards are so good that it's still worth the gamble even if they don't work out.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[Omegaprism]

If I may, I would like to argue a case for Reese being in a higher tier. My reasoning is that he is an example of a lord type unit that comes with his own horse right off the bat, no less than two absolutely bonkers prf swords for free over the course of the game, a very easy (or possibly inevitable) promotion, and a weird but effective example of giving great returns for whatever you invest.

He is the only unit who has a whole subsection of the office/town portions devoted to powering him up, and many of the benefits of buying furniture for Reese's office are rare or unique. He is one of the very few units in the game that can get the armsthrift ability, which significantly increases the longevity of all of his equipment. Everything costs a pretty penny in a game that is notoriously stingy with its money, but you also do not have to buy any furniture if you don't want.

His stat growths are actually quite impressive for Berwick Saga, and he learns some very nice skills. The inability to field him in most of the side quests does on its surface hurt his availability, but if you use him at all in the main chapters he will have no trouble keeping up based on the foundation of his durability and high movement alone. the side chapters are more for your other squishy units that need catching up to him, if you ask me.

I'm not saying he is the second coming of Sigurd or anything, but he can charge into the front lines, hit really hard when he needs to, gives a passive hit bonus within a decent radius, and is among the most durable lords I've used in my history of playing SRPGs. Personally I'd put him at A rank.

I had other thoughts about Larentia, but I have to get back to class. To be continued!

[LoneRecon400]

3 hours ago, Omegaprism said:

If I may, I would like to argue a case for Reese being in a higher tier. My reasoning is that he is an example of a lord type unit that comes with his own horse right off the bat, no less than two absolutely bonkers prf swords for free over the course of the game, a very easy (or possibly inevitable) promotion, and a weird but effective example of giving great returns for whatever you invest.

He is the only unit who has a whole subsection of the office/town portions devoted to powering him up, and many of the benefits of buying furniture for Reese's office are rare or unique. He is one of the very few units in the game that can get the armsthrift ability, which significantly increases the longevity of all of his equipment. Everything costs a pretty penny in a game that is notoriously stingy with its money, but you also do not have to buy any furniture if you don't want.

His stat growths are actually quite impressive for Berwick Saga, and he learns some very nice skills. The inability to field him in most of the side quests does on its surface hurt his availability, but if you use him at all in the main chapters he will have no trouble keeping up based on the foundation of his durability and high movement alone. the side chapters are more for your other squishy units that need catching up to him, if you ask me.

I'm not saying he is the second coming of Sigurd or anything, but he can charge into the front lines, hit really hard when he needs to, gives a passive hit bonus within a decent radius, and is among the most durable lords I've used in my history of playing SRPGs. Personally I'd put him at A rank.

I had other thoughts about Larentia, but I have to get back to class. To be continued!

While you could definitely argue Reese for A Tier, I don't think Furniture is a point in his favor at all.

Most of the benefits he gets are either niche (bird figurine, +13 hit in Forests), not great (Hope, +3 Avoid), or complete memes (Deer Mount, +3 Crit Avoid) for prices that completely rip you off.

Armsthrift ain't exactly great since it only has a flat 20% of working, so it really doesn't boost durability that much. Extra Gram uses are good, but I wouldn't say they're worth 22k worth of gold.

About the only good pieces are the Tapestry and potentially the Vase depending on who you want to recurit. And I can't deny, those can be pretty great.

Still, Reese just doesn't have good combat in general outside his Prfs. His bulk is actually rather low at a base 26 HP and 5 Def, with promotion only bumping it up to 29 and 7 Def. That's what less than what someone like Arthur starts with.

Combined with his relatively low skill rates and high brackets, I'd actually say Reese is more on the bottom half of the list when it comes to combat. He at least makes up for it utility though.

[rdrouyn]

On 4/24/2024 at 2:40 PM, Omegaprism said:

If I may, I would like to argue a case for Reese being in a higher tier. My reasoning is that he is an example of a lord type unit that comes with his own horse right off the bat, no less than two absolutely bonkers prf swords for free over the course of the game, a very easy (or possibly inevitable) promotion, and a weird but effective example of giving great returns for whatever you invest.

He is the only unit who has a whole subsection of the office/town portions devoted to powering him up, and many of the benefits of buying furniture for Reese's office are rare or unique. He is one of the very few units in the game that can get the armsthrift ability, which significantly increases the longevity of all of his equipment. Everything costs a pretty penny in a game that is notoriously stingy with its money, but you also do not have to buy any furniture if you don't want.

His stat growths are actually quite impressive for Berwick Saga, and he learns some very nice skills. The inability to field him in most of the side quests does on its surface hurt his availability, but if you use him at all in the main chapters he will have no trouble keeping up based on the foundation of his durability and high movement alone. the side chapters are more for your other squishy units that need catching up to him, if you ask me.

I'm not saying he is the second coming of Sigurd or anything, but he can charge into the front lines, hit really hard when he needs to, gives a passive hit bonus within a decent radius, and is among the most durable lords I've used in my history of playing SRPGs. Personally I'd put him at A rank.

I had other thoughts about Larentia, but I have to get back to class. To be continued!

B tier is by no means a bad rating. It is just indicative of his lack of availability during the early game. He misses out on nearly half of the maps in the game, and that has to count for something. By the time you start Chapter 2, Elbert is level 4, Leon/Adel might be around level 3 or 4 while Reese is level 1 dealing small amounts of damage with his rapier. He doesn't become a A tier unit until he gets his Gram sword and that is 5 or 6 chapters in. His charisma skill is pretty good, so I may be underrating him a bit.

Furniture is far too expensive to be practical. Unless you have some infinite money exploit or some build to guarantee injury, it is unlikely that you'll buy more than one piece of furniture in a run. Also consider that you have to spend around 15k  22k on one piece of furniture to get armsthrift, but with that amount of money you can buy 5 or more high end weapons for him. Making the investment kind of pointless. 

Edit: Also, comparisons to Sigurd are not accurate. Sigurd starts out with great combat from map 1 with his Silver Sword and he's by far your best combat unit for the first half of the game. Only Sylvia and Forsetti Leywn can really compare to his power level. He doesn't struggle for the first few maps while he levels up like Reese does.

Edited April 27 by rdrouyn