ITT I rank the characters

[Interceptor]

Why don't you just admit that he has a point about Boyd and the Speedwing, instead of pretending that you're only adding it to the commentary in order to "shut him up"? It's either a good point or it isn't: pick a side.

[Colonel M]

Before I decide to respond or not, answer this question for me: Are you trying to argue for a higher rating for Boyd? Honestly if you're saying that Boyd is fine at the 9.0 bracket, this is just a waste of time, and I'll fucking put "hey boyd can use a speedwing" in my rating if it'll shut you up.

I guess honestly no. Maybe it would give him the push for 9.5, but then again I don't know your projected 10.0 Ratings. I was just doing it to kill time. I was just insinuating it because I thought that it was one of his "problems", so I merely addressed it. At the same time all you had to say was "I'm not taking stat boosters into account" and I would've been fine with it.

Honestly, you telling me to shut up? Give me a break, it's not like I'm saying put the Speedwing on Mia or something. I was being pretty serious with the Boyd point.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Tyranel M

[-Cynthia-]

Boyd at 9 is what he deserves. His lack of Mov puts him below Jill/Oscar/Kieran, and Titania is the only 10 in the game IMO.

[Colonel M]

Either way, if he wasn't noting the statboosters in his rankings, then I won't bother. I'm just making sure that he isn't going to contradict himself and, for example, insinuate that Devdan is getting that Speedwing, etc.

[Progenitus]

I'll only note something if the competition for it is low, like with masteries or really specific stat boosters (like spirit dusts, since no one except mages really cares for it), or like FE8 garm, but if it's speedwings or FE8 vidofnir, etc., I usually won't even bother. Maybe I'll bring something up if it's funny, like oscar with wrath, but I don't usually advocate for those.

Or if a unit really needs something to not suck (like Devdan needing KW + speedwing), then I'll mention it, but I won't necessarily assume it's locked to that unit. Again, only if competition is fairly low (so I'll assume KW is on Devdan for most of his level ups, but not speedwing).

[Progenitus]

Gatrie

This Gatrie in PoR was before scientists genetically mutated him into what is now known as the phenomenon Gattacca.

Like Shinon, he has some usefulness earlygame. moreso than Shinon though, because he can 1-range and tank. Very good durability with good str, and since enemies like weighing themselves down his 5 spd might actually double some things, which results in rape. Watch out for axes though because his hit sucks against them.

And like Shinon, he disappears after the earlygame chatpers. However, unlike Shinon, he doesn't blow when he rejoins, since his rejoin time is far more reasonable; instead he's just mediocre. He can still tank, but he struggles to double anything other than really, really slow enemies like knights, even if you give him the knight ward. And tanking doesn't really remain useful for long; by promotion, many units aren't THAT worried about dying, at least to the point where his overkill durability can make up for his lack of doubling and poor mobility.

Still, earlygame utility is nice, even if it lasts for only a few chapters. When he rejoins he becomes average though, and by promotion he falls below average.

5.5/10

[Progenitus]

Soren

Soren has one of the worst joining times ever. I'd say the only units who have a crappier joining time performance in this game are Astrid, Rolf, Mia, and Tormod.

Soren's earlygame fails hard. He has 8 base att with Wind, which means even with hitting res his offense is terrible. Like, 5 damage a hit or soemthing, and he may not double the faster enemies. His 18 HP/2 def is worse than everyone except Rhys (who's about tied), and unfortunately his HP and def growths are among the worst in the game. 1-2 range to avoid counters helps alleviate this, but he gets 2HKO'd by a wet paper towel wielding half-eaten string cheese.

His offense does improve though. His 60% mag growth means his att picks up quickly (he also gets att from supports, but... he only has Ike and Stefan as options, and the Ike support is actually kinda slow so that'll take awhile). He has a 45 effective spd growth (since he doesn't stop losing AS from anything until promotion, lol 0 base and 5 growth), which isn't spectacular but his base isn't too bad (7 effective), so it'll be fine given how slow FE9 enemies are. Spirit dusts can also give more att, since most units that aren't mages don't care for them, so whenever you're not fielding Ilyana/Tormod/Calill he can get them no problem.

His durability takes a long time to improve, unfortunately and that's if you let him support Ike (though I usually do, as Ike doesn't really care who he supports as long as it starts early). He has aforementioned terrible HP and def, and a mediocre avo growth, so his durability is heavily reliant on getting full supports for avoid. Though, after his supports are done, he can semi-tank against low hit enemies. 1-2 range mitigates his durability failings, and staves is nice for healing stuff and exp pool, but unfortunately all this stuff just cancels out his earlygame failing. There's really no excuse to 8 att and getting 2HKO'd by my grandmother, even with hitting res/1-2 range/etc.

Band suggestion: Like Rhys, he benefits from basically any band. spd/def are obvious, and mag is nice because it means he doesn't have to rely on the heavy tomes as often, which is pretty cool since it's unlikely you'll be using more than one unit that wants the mage band. If nothing else, something with str.

5.5/10

Edited March 17, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Anouleth]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Gatrie's awful performance against Mages, especially Thunder mages since they have crit on him.

Soren is really screwed over by joining in Chapter 4. High enemy density, everything 2HKOes him, and a strict turn limit mean that even the most generous of players will only get him to about level 2.2. The map is also really open and hard to chokepoint in, so it's hard to protect him with your other doods.

I wouldn't say his join is worse than Tormod's. Tormod has the good sense to join right after a potential BEXP windfall and his chapters make it easy to protect and baby him.

[Progenitus]

True.

w/e, too lazy to change it

[Progenitus]

Mia

Mia is like her FE10 incarnation. After her shaky earlygame, her offense isn't bad. Durability is a completely different story though.

Unfortunately, this is FE9 with joke enemies, not FE10 with enemies that are hard to ORKO and Mia's overkill crit and AS mattered.

Mia's big problem with earlygame is the fact that when she joins, there are so many lances. Liek, 2/3rds of ch 7 uses a lance. Ch 8, ch 10 (if you decide not to do stealth) and ch 11 are not much better. Ch 9 is in fact her only decent chapter and that's because the beach has axes. Otherwise she's 3HKO'd, sometimes 2HKO'd by the higher att enemies like steel lance knights, and faces 50+ hit rates and takes counters from everything, which means her actual durability is just as bad as Soren's, since he at least avoids counters and mages tink him.

Even after this rough start, Mia doesn't improve greatly. Her offense is good because she doubles everything with decent att, but her durability is poor, since the only units she beats in HP/def are the mages/healers (and ties Zihark), the mages avoiding player phase counters and the healers not even being near enemies, so she's only performing around average at best. Vantage can help, but it does barely anything before promotion since she won't be OHKOing anything, and after promotion her crit rates are only in the 20s or so after enemy lck, 50 if she uses a killing edge, but those don't OHKO everything, such as generals, and with no 1-2 range, sages/javelins/etc can wail on her.

If anything, after promotion her performance gets even worse. More people start doubling so her offense gets worse relative to the team (her att is still fine though with Rhys support, though still on the low side, but crit helps a bit), and now the people she used to beat/tie in durability closed the gap (supported Soren actually has more avoid than her, while Ilyana/Mist have about the same def). 1-2 range like javelins also becomes more feasible (and forgeable) due to everyone getting more hit and such, so while people like Marcia or Neph can be going around with javelins, Mia can't do that.

Band suggestion: str and/or def. Yeah, this is pretty obvious.

So we get a unit with a poor start for several chapters. After that, she has good offense but poor durability, so average overall. Post-promotion her offense drops to around average, but her durability falls behind the rest of the team even further, and lack of 1-2 range is very prominent now as people become better with javelins and such.

4/10

Edited March 17, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Progenitus]

on a side note, I forgot to mention bands. There's 1 band that boost str, 3 that boost spd, 1 that boost def, and 2 that boost str and def, so there's a good chance that each unit can get a band they want, especially since prepromos don't really care for them. 7 "good" bands total, and I don't really recommend using a team size larger than 10-12, and I find it to be pretty unlikely that you're going to, say, field more than 3 units that want str band, especially since many units benefit from more than one band anyway (other than high tiers, but they can go without a band if needed because they're that ridiculous). Lemme go back quickly and edit some stuff in.

And just to clarify, I still won't generally consider stat boosters, since they aren't nearly the same thing as bands. Obviously, +2 immediate effect > +1-2 very gradual effect (and almost no effect on prepromos), so the boosters are in much higher demand. For example, even Kieran likes an energy drop (he's obviously not 2HKOing everything before promotion, and even after promotion it helps with hand axe, or he can use iron instead of steel for more hit or something), while he doesn't really mind if he can't get a str band or not.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Colonel M]

Just for the record, are you or are you not assuming that Seals can be used on anyone as well (since in a sense they're like stat boosters)? If you were, I was going to suggest putting it in Soren's rating since he can escape to Staves and do "okay" in combat.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Tyranel M

[Progenitus]

Lots of people really like seals too. Mak for example gains axes and +2 str, so he effectively gains 5 att. Promoting at liek level 15-17 would do him wonders (use KW to help make up for lagging endgame speed if you're worried about that).

I think the only unpromoted units who DON'T care for a seal are like, Boyd and Astrid, the former getting only +1 spd from promotion (so it's kinda worthless, since he can make do without the HP/str/def bonuses) and the latter having paragon anyway.