itt Bblade ranks the characters

[Dat Nick]

That and I'd prefer just using the best reclass option over viable ones so there's less to type, but that's just me.

Marth:

Recommended path: dur

Earlygame Marth seems alright. Swordslock isn't a big deal in axe-loaded chapters although you should never expect him to dodge anything, his strength is kind of iffy [same str as Gordin, but Gordin has a weapon with better ATK so it's nullified] Rapier helps against the cavs in C2 although it's probably better just to Wingspear them instead. A final thing to note is that he has no 1-2 range whatsoever, which can be annoying to deal with, especially this early. So earlygame Marth is nothing special but he's doing alright.

He has a bit of a midgame rut. Say around the time enemies start pulling out silvers, C10. Constant WTD is nullifying his extra weapon rank power and then some since they're always A, which kinda sucks because he really wants it as his str isn't all that good and his spd isn't good enough to double anything outside of armors. Sure, he has Silver Sword and Rapier access, that's why his midgame is "ehhh okay" instead of "omgwtfbbqawful".

He picks it back up some when he starts doubling cavs, he needs to be about 18-19 to do it consistently so let's call it 16. He likely has the strength to kill armors too, so that's cool. However he gets trapped in ANOTHER rut once the game spikes in difficulty, which is C20 where brave weapons are everywhere and tear his rear end apart, C21 which is an open map and doesn't give him a lot of areas to back off if he gets cornered by too many dudes at once, C22 which just has ridiculous flier stats and brave lance pallies to boot, C23 which is lololol 34 atk Thoron mages that he can't one shot, but Falchion makes him pretty goddamned useful in C24 which is probably like the hardest chapter in the game [i'm barely exaggerating, if I am] because it deals ridiclious damage to the mamkutes that are ridicliously hard to damage. I mean, 36-ish damage at level 22? yes plz.

To recap, he's good earlygame, slows down a bit midgame, but not enough to make him useless, has a serious rut near endgame but is made up for with epic endgame rape. He's not a spectacular unit, but he does alright and you never have the option of not fielding him so you may as well always use him seriously since otherwise it's going to be a serious PITA to keep him alive during C23's worm sages, C21's open mapness, getting him to the starlight village in C22, etc.

7.5/10

Cain/Abel:

Recommended path: Cav/Draco for one, Cav/Sniper for the other [it can be either or]

I'm combining these two characters because they're hysterically similar and are more or less interchangeable. I could nitpick that Cain gets doubled by the hunter and boss in C1 if they hit the high end of speed but it would be silly to harp on that one too much. The only real thing separating these two is Abel having javelins earlier which also equates to getting Ridersbane earlier, and the axe-fest earlygame makes it irritating for Cain to build up his lance rank, even though he only needs 15 attacks to do so. Anyway, by the time they get to 20/0, assuming they both hit average stats there's not going to be a huge differential in stats, so you may as well flip a coin to see which one goes Sniper in that scenario.

Anyway now that I've made the point that they're similar to each other, you can also say they're similar to Marth. The main differences are Lances, which beats the crap out of a swordslock in a lance-loaded game, 1-2 range, notably better base strength, move which can come into play despite it not being as important of a factor as in say FE7, and most notably a promotion, which either gives them flight+axes or instant longbow use with pretty nifty AS. And that's cool because I could literally write a 500 page essay about how epic longbows are in this game. Anyway, all of these advantages mean they perform visibly better than Marth does during his iffy period.

Cain/Abel have all the makings of high tier units. Come early, don't take serious babying, stay strong lategame, et cetera. If you don't want to use both, at least take one and promote him into whichever fits his stats better.

8.5/10

Jeigan:

Jeigan's a pretty easy character to rate. He starts out your best guy for a good deal of time and then he gets even better in C4 where he can reclass to Draco and avoid the ridersbane penalty to set the boss up the bomb without blowing too many of his ridersbane uses. To capitalize on how cool Silver Lance earlygame is, he can kill a pirate after Gordin softens with Steel Bow, which is pretty danged nifty since you want to kill those aggressive pirates while taking as little damage as possible. Silver Lance in general is pretty cool for softening so the scenarios in which it helps are limited only by the amount of enemies in the game, even though you can only take advantage of 20 of them. Since Ridersbane does exist too, I'd say he even has some longevity to midgame although he's probably losing to the cavs by now, and admittedly he's screwed when Silvers come. Still, Jeigan is excellent during the time he's actually useful, but don't expect him to do anything against Silvers. And certainly not braves.

6/10

Edited October 1, 2009 by Germany

[Aitherion]

A final thing to note is that he has no 1-2 range whatsoever

I haven't played the game enough to remember the name, but I know for a fact there's some kind of sword that hits the opponent with lightning at range and stabs up close.

[Scarlet]

A final thing to note is that he has no 1-2 range whatsoever

I haven't played the game enough to remember the name, but I know for a fact there's some kind of sword that hits the opponent with lightning at range and stabs up close.

There is, but IIRC, it can't be bought, so it's limited, and it uses MAG for attacking, of which Marth has exactly 0. He could never possibly do more than 9 damage with it (A swords on a 0 RES enemy, unless he eats Spirit Dusts, which would obviously be a waste), which, to put it simply, sucks epically. So he more or less does have no 1-2 range whatsoever.

EDIT: Ah, right, forging would work as well, but honestly, even a forged thunder sword would kind of suck in Marth's hands. Not to mention that it's kind of ridiculously expensive to forge enough Mt on that thing for it to go from "suck damage" to even "meh damage".

Edited October 1, 2009 by Raymond

[Rodykitty]

He could never possibly do more than 9 damage with it

Forging, but this applies to all swordsmen.

[Colonel M]

I'm finishing mine up, but seriously keep going with this one.

[Eltoshen]

A final thing to note is that he has no 1-2 range whatsoever

I haven't played the game enough to remember the name, but I know for a fact there's some kind of sword that hits the opponent with lightning at range and stabs up close.

There is, but IIRC, it can't be bought, so it's limited, and it uses MAG for attacking, of which Marth has exactly 0. He could never possibly do more than 9 damage with it (A swords on a 0 RES enemy, unless he eats Spirit Dusts, which would obviously be a waste), which, to put it simply, sucks epically. So he more or less does have no 1-2 range whatsoever.

EDIT: Ah, right, forging would work as well, but honestly, even a forged thunder sword would kind of suck in Marth's hands. Not to mention that it's kind of ridiculously expensive to forge enough Mt on that thing for it to go from "suck damage" to even "meh damage".

The Levin Sword is sold in stores, but only in chapters 18 and 24, one before the final. You can buy them in the online shop, though.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Eltoshen

[Dat Nick]

The levin sword is a piece of fail that only fails slightly less than Est. That's why I skipped over it.

Okay, it does have uses. It 2RKOs armors, for instance. And it's pretty good earlygame if you've got a good doubler. It's probably the only reason for Athena to stay myrm, tbh. It's not as useless as we always joke it is, but it's close. Limited uses probably go against it the most, really.

anyway

Gordin:

Reccomended path: Curate

Gordin's cool in C1 just for chip damage. Then he starts to suck because his chip damage gets less and less useful and it gets harder and harder to keep his frail ass alive. Furthermore, we keep our units bunched yes, but 5 move makes it difficult for Gordin to do that because he needs to slow down the average movement of the team just to keep up. Another hindrance comes with this, 5 move means Gordin will not always be able to reach something to attack on the player phase which means he is totally useless for that turn. And after all this suck you spend leveling him as an Archer, Gordin promotes to Sniper and...continues to suck.

Don't believe me? Here, I'll give you an example. Some guy in the H5 tier asked "well somebody give a list of Gordin's cons because I don't see any major ones"

My response. "Here, I'll tell you one. Speed."

the averages tell all

I really shouldn't have to explain why his spd is a problem. I also shouldn't have to add that his EXP gain blows in comparison to everybody else due to his combination of crappy movement, crappy offense, and no enemy phase to speak of, so similar AS to the cavs on promotion really doesn't say anything considering Gordin will never be anywhere near their level.

Not even early promotion can save Gordin. 10/1 Gordin has 12 AS with 35% growth. That's pretty awful.

Really, the only reason why we even consider Curate for Gordin is because healing is the only thing that not even Gordin can mess up. And he should probably go down for that since you can do the same thing with 95% of the rest of your failure combat units, or even generics.

tldr Gordin freaking sucks don't use him as anything other than a Healbot.

3/10

[Blackbird]

Levin Sword has a niche role, imo. It essentially allows your sword users to take a minor in Sage, gaining some of the advantages of both. As an example, Cavaliers using Levin Sword can do some magical damage, while generally being a lot more durable than the Sage class. Swordmasters have better base and maximum speed than the Sage, so they allow you to inflict double magical damage to faster enemies (albiet doing less damage per hit). These exceptions don't really matter all that much in H5, but they might mean something in multiplayer.

I don't think Gordin is good for anything =P. At least, anything he can do, any other character can do just as well or better.

[Dat Nick]

Honestly I think the Levin Sword as a whole is completely useless unless you double with it. I don't see Abel or Cain doing that by the time the sword shows. Ogma? Hm...his earlygame might have gotten even more epic.

I don't think Gordin is good for anything =P.

It's pretty hard to fail at healing in this game. Yes others do it better, but with Gordin he's such a failure combat unit that we don't really care about him losing his ability to fight, so he's actually one of your best candidates for a spare Curate. It's not like his curate ability is worth nothing, but I stand by my statement that it's not much, because even Joe Blow from Idaho has possible healer utility in this game [well not Est, she joins way too late with E Staves]

anyway

Draug:

Recommended path: Hunter>General.

Draug is epic in C1 and mediocre in C2 and C3. You can kinda salvage those with javelins, but I wouldn't bother too hard. Reclass him to Hunter in C4 and you see a big improvement already. 9 base spd and 65% growth is like Cain on speed or something. He'll start doubling MUCH faster than any other archer in the game. And while his strength is kind of "eh", consider that Steel Bows make up for it and that his base isn't awful enough like Shiida's for it to show, plus Draug takes no counters which is a big deal in this game since enemy atk starts out at ridiculous levels.

Draug's iffy str may start to show, but it's made up for by access to Silver relatively early [buy in C14 and you get three in between them] and he's pretty damned handy to have around and essentially extends the middle finger to Jeorge's earlymid "utility" [Never doubling anything with 12 AS and eh str didn't account for much utility last time I checked] despite the fact that he's not even promoted yet.

So what happens when he is? His AS drops to 18, but that's not a huge deal because that's still plenty to double with Silver and his 40% growth will send it back up quickly anyway. He loves the +2 str boost as well, but what really sells the promotion as awesome is good concrete durability on top of rarely being attacked, meaning good survivability overall in H5 [something very few characters can claim] And as if all of this crap wasn't enough, if Draug had 8 attacks in the timespan of his three chapters of armor, then guess what? He's all ready to use Ridersbane and Dragonpike and all that cool stuff. Who's gonna argue against uber speed+Silver bows early on plus good durability and slayer weapons on promotion? I'm certainly not going to.

Draug is cool earlygame. He's cool midgame. He's cool endgame. He's pretty much cool for the whole game and he even joins at the start of it. His only problem is C2 and C3 in which he's forced in anyway, and he may have some issues building up his bow rank in C4. Everybody needs some period of babying in this mode unless you're, say, Jeigan or Wendell or one of the other few characters good out of the box, but if you wanted me to name a character that needs nearly no babying at all to be good for the whole game, the first name to come to my mind would probably be "Draug".

9/10

Edited October 2, 2009 by Athena's Chest

[Blackbird]

Draug's awesome in C1, especially if you get him on a fort. In C2 and C3, he -sucks-. Many of the enemies one rounded him on open ground, in my playthrough anyway. Maybe if he got another level or two and gained HP/Def he'd live. It's a close thing, anyway. After you reclass to Hunter, I found it a bit tricky to get past Draug's short initial period of having E Bows, no doubling (yet) and low strength. I guess it is related to how I use archers; because they aren't getting countered, usually I have them chip damage an enemy, then have another unit finish them off. For that reason, my archers seem to get fewer kills. That's a weakness specific to my playstyle, but it makes tactical sense to me.

That doesn't really make him any worse off than any other bow user you could field, reclassed or not, though. Gordin's terrible even with his early Steel Bows, and Castor's not doubling as quickly.

[Dat Nick]

In C2 and C3, he -sucks-. Many of the enemies one rounded him on open ground, in my playthrough anyway. Maybe if he got another level or two and gained HP/Def he'd live.

There's a reason Javelins exist.

After you reclass to Hunter, I found it a bit tricky to get past Draug's short initial period of having E Bows, no doubling (yet) and low strength.

yes, I addressed this

Also, 7 base strength is not low

Shiida:

Recommended path: Mage>Sage

auto-10 for recruiting half your army, the slut

Early on, the fact that Shiida can double things is somewhat canceled out by the fact that she's also two rounded. So in C1 she's not that great, in C2 she starts showing more worth since she actually has cavs to kill, C3 still has none of what she's actually good at killing[she also struggles to double the fighters 10-11 AS] and it's made worse by the fact she's one-shotted by steel axes, but in C4 and C5 there's a lot of cavs and 5 has a lot of armors, so Wing Spear has a lot of utility if you want to keep her on Peg for those two chapters.

By C6 I'd just put her on mage though. Yes, Wing Spear utility is nice, but PegShiida's offense is completely centered on it, and even then her damage is going to blow on anything that isn't a cav or an armorm, which MageShiida can rape with ease later on anyway. Besides, which such awful HP/Def, being countered is the last thing she wants happened, and while you could forge to avoid that, other characters want forges, plus you can trade around a forge whereas a Wing spear forge only benefits Shiida. To make matters worse the spear loses all unique value when Ridersbane/Armorslayer start popping up, so you may as well avoid the bad period before it starts and start training her as mage in C6. Her base AS will pummel a bit, but 65% growth will rocket it back up to doubling level in no time, weighed down or not.

Anyway, once her offense kicks in she's pretty epic. Way better offense than most of your team members and her getting 2RKOd doesn't stand out since very few characters can do better, plus not taking counters compensates for that anyway. However, she's in a bit of trouble once enemies whip out Silvers/Forged javs, because she's in a period where everything is going to one shot her, so now you really have to be careful with her. 12x isn't as bad, and in Wooden Calvalry she does alright, so it isn't all bad.

Anyway, skip to promotion and now she can healwhore too which is awesome even with E Staves. On top of healing being innately useful despite it being an abundance in FEDS, it increases Shiida's levelling speed by notable amounts, to the level where she can realistically hit 20/15 in a game where most characters struggle to hit 20/10. I should also mention that you could probably train her as Cleric for a bit if you're worried about her staff rank, but it'll get high enough to use Warp and Physic and Mend and all that good stuff so don't be too worried about it.

Comparing her to Merric, durability and not getting staff rank is easy are the only thing's she missing, and Merric consistently ORKOs anyway so it's not enough to compensate, but just comparing to the best magic user in the game sends a strong message.

The only thing you can really negatively say about Shiida is that she has iffy moments earlygame and her durability is terrible, but it stands out less in a game where everybody and their mother is 2-3RKOd. Consistently ORKOing things in a game where ORKOing is kind of rare and doing it with no counter damage to boot certainly stands out, however.

snap, Lena has more experience with staves than her. Whodathunkit?

8/10

Riff:

Recommended path: CurateSage[if you're actually going to use him that long]

Riff is a healer before you can reclass your useless combat units/people who want to go Curate as a serious class route into healers, and that's really all he is. This isn't to say his healing isn't much appreciated in the very early chapters where your units are getting raped the hardest and they don't have anybody else to depend on for healing, but you can only put so much weight on three chapters, even if they are three of the harder chapters in the game. Past his time of sole healer utility, the only thing Riff does is take up a curate slot. Other characters heal just as well as he does once reclassed to Curate and they actually have futures in that class: Merric for CurateSage, Matthis for CurateSniper, Roshea for CurateSwordmaster, etc. Riff has no future. Assuming you managed to do the ridiculous and managed to get him to 20/1 as Archer-Sage, the best his speed is going to get, even his 20/20 speed is rubbish [lmao 15] and he doesn't even have the decency to to be even SLIGHTLY better [Okay, 1 mag and 1 staff rank nearly qualifies as slightly, but this 1 mag equates to a WHOPPING 1 HP and staff ranks go up stupidly fast anyway, plus Mend doesn't become buyable until WAY after Merric hits C anyway] than instant-curates, so thank the old chap for his charity work for your army and send him in the line of fire for a gaiden sacrifice back to the Talys nursing home.

4/10

Ogma:

Recommended path: MercHero

You know how Gordin is like a worse version of Jeigan as far as utility goes? Well Ogma is like Jeigan on steroids. He's cool earlygame [albet not as cool as Jeigan/Barst] and is generally useful for the rest of the game. Although get this, oddly enough earlygame is the portion of the game where Ogma has the most trouble doubling [He can only x2 low end AS fighters with iron sword] but he takes a big dive upwards in performance during C4 where the axe trend dies down and he's likely gained enough str to not be weighed down enough to double cavs with Steel. As if that wasn't epic enough, the game chucks you a Silver, of which Ogma is likely the only person who has enough sword rank to use it. Observe how epic this is.

8 Ogma: 26 HP, 8 str, 13 AS, 7 def, 20 atk with Silver

Cavs have 30HP/9AS/7DEF. He's not quite ORKOing them, but he's doing a crapload of damage of which only Shiida can top. But once cavs in C8 which generally just have swords, they're facing at least 4 more atk [ignoring Ogma's str growth] and they aren't even damaging him as badly in return due to no WTA, so Ogma is cementing his status as MVP here.

As if Ogma wasn't already raping hard enough, the game decided "Oh let's just give him the Levin Sword, I mean it's not like the player will be able to make good use of it if not even frickin Ogma can, lol!" How wrong they were. For one, Ogma can actually double with the Levin Sword by now, and two, his sword rank gives him bonus attack with it [i don't think Levin Sword faces WTD, does it? Even if it does 9 is loaded with pirates and you get it in 8] 9x2 2RKOs most stuff so even though the sword only lasts 10 uses, it's pretty cool while Ogma has it and only serves to make his earlygame even more epic than it already was.

Ogma DOES slow down by the time your units start promoting, but not drastically. He'll double fine, but 14 str in C16 [maybe earlier] can be problematic. Still, he's 2RKOing which isn't that much worse than anybody else and his durability is roughly the same as most other units, plus armorcide is fairly useful to have around if your cavs haven't been building up their sword rank.

Even if you're not going to field Ogma longterm, the least you can do is field him for earlygame since he is more or less required for those chapters [i.e hes pretty much the only way you're going to kill the C3 boss in any reasonable amount of time]

8/10

Edited October 3, 2009 by Athena's Chest

[Blackbird]

Agreed on most points.

Shiida is really a unit that prioritizes offense over defense; she's very much a glass cannon.

Earlygame, I think Shiida's durability makes no practical difference; you touched on this already, but in the first several chapters, almost all of your units not named Jeigan die in 2 hits, anyway. In this scenario, Shiida's also dying in two hits doesn't mean anything; arguably she's better because she's never getting doubled. To be fair, though, some axe units can OHKO her, though. Notably bosses like C3 hand-axe guy.

Regarding the degradation of Wing Spear's utility: I disagree. Cavalry are among the most numerous, if not the most numerous, of all the enemy types you face. Armors are probably the second most numerous. Shiida's Wing Spear wtfowns both of those types. I think it's a scenario where you really can't be too effective; Shiida having the Wing Spear means you can give the Ridersbane to another good lance unit (Abel, Hardin easily have C in Lances when you get it). This essentially means you can have one more unit in your party that can annihilate cavalry. It's important on a map like C8, where there are a pile of cavalry/horse archers.

Additionally, Ridersbane is less available than Wing Spear. You have multiple opportunities throughout the game to purchase additional Wing Spears if you expend them, including one as early as C8. With only 20 charges, it's highly probable that you will run out of Ridersbane uses before you can obtain another, and Ridersbane is only available in later shops.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Blackbird

[Colonel M]

The Levin Sword faces WTD (which loses Atk). Even so, it's not a terrible weapon to forge Mt onto it simply because breaking through RES is not a bad point for swordies. Even 10 damage is better than 0 on the Player Phase if we want to avoid counterattacks.

EDIT: To be fair on Peg!Shiida's part, she isn't terrible to a fault. She can stick with DracoKnight, but of course everyone hates the craptastic Spd cap going on so most likely Paladin is the optimal choice. Granted it was ranked on Mage!Shiida anyway so... yeah.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Colonel M

[Dat Nick]

Earlygame, I think Shiida's durability makes no practical difference; you touched on this already, but in the first several chapters, almost all of your units not named Jeigan die in 2 hits, anyway. In this scenario

This isn't really an excuse in C1 because Gordin is the only other one besides Riff who gets 2RKOd. In C3, yes, it starts to stand out less, but eventually it does start to stand out, as Silvers do one shot her.

Regarding the degradation of Wing Spear's utility: I disagree. Cavalry are among the most numerous, if not the most numerous, of all the enemy types you face. Armors are probably the second most numerous.

yes

But they're not the ONLY enemies, and she likely needs an expensive forge to blick whereas Mage just blows the sucker away at 2 range without any maintenance required.

Shiida having the Wing Spear means you can give the Ridersbane to another good lance unit (Abel, Hardin easily have C in Lances when you get it)

This is why Wing Spear is one of those earlygame utility only things.

Additionally, Ridersbane is less available than Wing Spear. You have multiple opportunities throughout the game to purchase additional Wing Spears if you expend them, including one as early as C8. With only 20 charges, it's highly probable that you will run out of Ridersbane uses before you can obtain another, and Ridersbane is only available in later shops.

The huge difference is you can buy as many Ridersbane as you want in a shop, and it first becomes buyable when the Silver Card is acquired.

The Levin Sword faces WTD (which loses Atk). Even so, it's not a terrible weapon to forge Mt onto it simply because breaking through RES is not a bad point for swordies. Even 10 damage is better than 0 on the Player Phase if we want to avoid counterattacks.

C9 is very axe heavy, remember.

[Blackbird]

One other worthwhile point, this time for Sage!Shiida. She's arguably the best candidate to use Linda's Aura tome, which is a big plus, because Linda probably won't be using it (she's really underleveled, recruited late, durability worse than Shiida, etc. etc.) Your other option is Lena, who isn't bad, but can't utilize it as well as Shiida could, with her impressive speed. I generally have trouble getting Lena's rank in tomes up to B, as well, because there is so much incentive to raise her as a Cleric. Aura is a decent selling point for endgame. Unless you want to forge an extremely expensive Thoron tome, no other tome is close, regarding raw damage. You even get a second copy of Aura if you go to 24x.

My only real complaint about Shiida as a Mage is that she has no defense to speak of at all. 30% HP/0% Def is frighteningly frail. At least Peggy!Shiida has a chance to gain Def, however slim, and promotion adds to that Def base. I guess the point of Mage!Shiida is that her defense is so bad, you might as well not even bother. Instead, you attack at 2 range and don't let her be countered/attacked at all.

[dondon151]

I'm going to say again that Wing Spear extends way into midgame utility for Shiida, and probably even into lategame as well (though I can't say for sure because I've never actually played that far).

[Colonel M]

It can to a sense, but the utility crashes between C23 - C24X. C25 has a lot of everything dangerous but you'd need such a sick forge on it anyway to actually OHKO if it's even possible to begin with.

Speaking from personal experience though, it can extend. You might want to be kind and give her a Seraph Robe if you plan on doing some dangerous stuff.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Colonel M

[Dat Nick]

One other worthwhile point, this time for Sage!Shiida. She's arguably the best candidate to use Linda's Aura tome, which is a big plus, because Linda probably won't be using it (she's really underleveled, recruited late, durability worse than Shiida, etc. etc.) Your other option is Lena, who isn't bad, but can't utilize it as well as Shiida could, with her impressive speed. I generally have trouble getting Lena's rank in tomes up to B, as well, because there is so much incentive to raise her as a Cleric. Aura is a decent selling point for endgame. Unless you want to forge an extremely expensive Thoron tome, no other tome is close, regarding raw damage. You even get a second copy of Aura if you go to 24x.

There is Aura yes, but I didn't bring it up because really with Bolganone she's already killing, so Aura is really just a 25 use free overkill.

I'm going to say again that Wing Spear extends way into midgame utility for Shiida, and probably even into lategame as well (though I can't say for sure because I've never actually played that far).

I didn't say the utility didn't exist. I said it's just not standing out anymore since everybody and their mother can kill cavs with Ridersbane now and they're buyable for 600 and aren't that much more expensive to forge so everybody can blick, so nobody really cares that Shiida can blick cavs anymore because now 75% of the cast can too, with much better durability and actual offense on things that aren't cav/armors. Mage just replaces blicking anyway without needing a forge [unless the cav has a jav] and doesn't have bow weakness [Which does come into play, there are a lot of bow users around] and can even rape archers on the counter, lol @ Shiida doing that with jav.

anyway

Barst:

Recommended Path: Fighter>Hero

Barst just might be your best character earlygame. Yes, better than Jeigan. Main reason for this being bosskilling [He's good backup for the C2 boss with an Iron Axe in case the boss got enough speed to double Jeigan], but with a steel axe he's doing roughly the same damage as Jeigan plus he has better 1-2 range with handaxe.

The only thing you can really nitpick at Barst is his AS issues during mid-lategame. But promote him to Hero and he picks right back up as awesome as he was when the game started. 40HP/15 def is a 4RKO on cavs and he one rounds them all back, and he does it with a handaxe too. Poleax even gives him the option to blick cavs. He's basically one of the few characters in this game that can maintain both good offense AND defense at the same time. Not even joking when I say he's nearly as epic as Zag after promotion.

It's a pity he has that short rut of not doubling, otherwise Barst would probably be a perfect score.

9/10

[Blackbird]

Barts is great. Adding to what Athena said, Barts is one of the few characters with meaningful supports in this game, which makes him even better. He forms a support triangle with Bord and Cord, and all of these characters are in turn supported by Oguma. He can receive A support from all three of these characters, meaning up to +30 Evade, +30 Accuracy, +15 Crt and Crt Avoid. These supports can also be accomplished within a reasonable timeframe; I think C is effective by Chapter 7, and B (full avoid+hit) by chapter 13 (assumes gaiden chapters). Would you like over half the game with full avoid supports?

I find them pretty worthwhile, especially because Oguma and Cord are also worthwhile units that stand a good chance of being fielded. Bord is a bit more questionable because of his speed problems, but he's definitely passable. The supports make all of these characters better; the accuracy certainly benefits the axe users. Extra crit is nice too, and devastating if you class Barts as a Berserker. Most enemies have little to no luck.

I do find that it takes Barts a little while to build up enough speed to reliably double anything, but by the same token, he's always reasonably fast, and rarely in danger of getting doubled himself. Actually, looking at my cart, Barts has only gained 1 Speed in 7 levels. A little under par. Some more luck and Barts might be doubling some things sooner.

Even getting RNG screwed, he makes up for this somewhat by being so strong that he can simply oneshot weaker enemies instead. I compare him a lot to Oguma, but with less initial speed and more strength. He's got really balanced growths, high base Str, lots of HPs, and passable Def.

Barts' only major weakness, in my opinion, is his earlygame accuracy. Before he builds up his weapon rank and supports, he's got maybe a 60-80% percent chance to hit the average enemy, depending on which axe you use. Lower if you try to hit a fortified boss. It doesn't sound bad, but I find myself often frustrated with those 75% misses on H5. For this reason, I wouldn't weigh Barts' 2-range very highly, at least early in the game, because Handaxes in particular are very inaccurate (60% base accuracy).

Edited October 5, 2009 by Blackbird

[Dat Nick]

Cord:

Recommended path: Fighter>Hero

Cord is nearly identical to Barst, but he's notably worse earlygame, notably better midgame [He can double] Slightly better during the early stages of promotion where Hero Barst isn't 100% consistent yet, and then Barst wins for the rest of the game. Honestly you could pretty much call these two as close as Cain and Abel, except the superior one keeps switching on and off as opposed to Abel being better in the beginning and then they tie the rest of the game. Even though Barst probably wins due to earlygame sucking more, Cord's a big asset to the team and should certainly be used in conjuction with his brother.

in fact when I get around do doing Bord I'll probably combine these two :/

9/10

Edited October 12, 2009 by Athena's Chest

[Blackbird]

I concur. To elaborate, I feel Cord's offense lags slightly compared to Barts (and even Bord, for a short period) because his weapon rank starts at a lowly E. Cord gets a big boost once he scales up to D and C ranks, unlocks better weapons, and starts getting +accuracy from his rank. He doesn't have as much utility in the earlygame for this reason; it'll be some time before he can use hammers and poleaxes. Fortunately he makes up for it somewhat by raw damage =P.

I also feel Barts has a slight lead in durability, because his bases in HP and Def are slightly better. Bart's Def growth is slightly better as well. It's not big on paper, but I have noticed it being the difference between Cord's 2HKO to Barts' 3HKO before, so it is there.

I mentioned the support factor in a previous post.

[Fruitloop Multipuck]

Yes, but...

Where is he from? Banjo Kazooie or something?

[Dat Nick]

shut up

[Rodykitty]

Yes, but...

Where is he from? Banjo Kazooie or something?

Hahaha.