Rate the Unit, Day 15: Florina

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

Florina, what can I say? She's possibly your best flier in the game, and fliers are in huge demand in FE7 for ferrying.

Her growths are almost identical to Rebecca, although her crappy CON and weighty lances mean her AS is a bit shaky even with a high SPD base/growth, and she has a weakness to arrows (and, more importantly, ballistae) and crappy DEF in general (which is less forgivable since she can't 2 range like Beccy can). All in all, her combat isn't that hot.

But you don't bring Florina for her combat. No, you bring her to shave like 20 turns in LHM and quite a few in HHM, and she's irreplacable until Fiora (who, unless she's sorely underleveled, will outlevel and thus outclass) comes around; you NEED her for the lowest turn counts possible.

So, for being irreplacable, 9/10, but no 10/10 just because it's a pain in the ass to keep her alive at times.

Current ranks (in order):

Bartre-2.8

Rebecca-3.13 (...the irony)

Dorcas-4.1

Eliwood-5.34

Guy-5.63

Erk-6.05

Lyn-6.12

Matthew-6.3

Serra-6.3

Oswin-6.7

Lowen-6.75

Hector-8.3

Priscilla-8.3

Marcus-9.29

Edited January 3, 2012 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[Integrity]

Pegasus Knights are nice, but Fiora is prettier, has a better personality, and I like her more. 8/10.

[Florete]

9/10, early flier and good fighter with some effort.

[Raven]

Florina is the first and most prominent of the three Pegasus units. She starts off as a reliable mercenary and magic slayer for Lyn Mode, and gains a good few levels through LHM. She does experience a slightly slow earlygame when she joins in HHM, even with the LHM kickstart she needs to be babied for a few chapters - maybe even until she promotes. Her low con means she can ferry units around over mountains and cliffs, which is always a good plus here. She has great skill, speed and luck growths and bases, meaning stat-wise, she's a great dodge-tank, and with 35% res growth, there's potential for her to be a good combatant against magic units.

However she's frail with her low defenses, and bows carry great hit rates which Florina would be lucky to avoid if ever pitted against an enemy bow unit.

Midgame appears and she will be promoting around chapter early-mid 20s. Once she promotes, she's a reliable enough unit to fly solo to rescue villages when necessary, flying over mountains and stuff with her huge 8 move.

She's not a very offensive unit, and she gets weighed down by anything that is not a Slim lance. However her decent speed should keep her from getting doubled even if holding a Javelin or, later in the game, a Steel lance. She may even be doubling with a Javelin through midgame if she's lucky with her speed growth.

I think she's worthy of a decent score due to her positives outweighing the negatives, so...

Raven's rating: 75%

[Aran613]

I would use her more often if she'd actually survive for once.

It's sad that she can not even double many axe users due to the failure CON she has, so I even have to avoid using Steel weapons with her as she'd just get doubled, and providing her with only slim weapons makes her damage go way down. I find her more useful outside of combat, and I think that the other mounted units are just as useful as her. The only advantage she has is that she comes into the game early.

5/10

[Integrity]

The only advantage she has is that she comes into the game early.

And, y'know, that she flies.

[Thor Odinson]

Right. Personal biases aside, Florina's a good unit. She can get a few precious levels in LHM to help her combat, as her combat is close to unsalvagable if you don't train her in LHM. But as we're taking into account LHM, she can get a few levels under her belt and doesn't suck at fighting as much. Her main asset, though, is being the earliest available flier you get, with SIXTEEN rescue to boot. That's enough to carry OSWIN, even though you wanna use it on Hector mostly anyway. Even when promoted, her 15 rescue can STILL carry a promoted Hector, which is really nice.

Like her fellow pegs, she gets good resistance once trained. This is especially useful on chapters such as Cog of Destiny where it's basically a magefest and taking out those pesky Valks and Druids would be best left for a physical unit due to their high res making magic attacks do negligible damages on them (I suppose Luna works too, but it's easier with the pegs)

However, at the cost of her epic rescue, she has one less con than her sisters, making her lose even more speed to most lances other than slim. And when she gets swords, her level is bad enough with them that she's still best sticking to lances instead. High speed does mitigate this problem later on once her growths kick in, but it hurts her early combat even when trained in LHM as her lowish strength means slim doesn't do much and iron already weighs her down by 4.

Also her durability is really ass. While one should be smart enough to avoid getting her into normal bow range, sometimes accidentally ballista may happen, and in that case she's pretty much as good as dead unless she dodges.

Despite these shortcomings however, her ferrying capabilities are more than enough for me to give her a high score. 8.7/10.

Biases included, 2/10.

[dondon151]

early flier 9/10

[Peppy]

Quite an awesome Pegasus Knight, Very reliable.

9/10

[Parrhesia]

I hate Florina so fucking much.

...but she's an early flier so high mark. She can't fight for shit, so she gets an eight objectively and a negative eight subjectively. Fiora? Any day. Farina? I'd be tempted to hack Farina over Florina's slot when not doing Hector Mode.

[Ein]

I hate Florina so fucking much.

...but she's an early flier so high mark. She can't fight for shit, so she gets an eight objectively and a negative eight subjectively. Fiora? Any day. Farina? I'd be tempted to hack Farina over Florina's slot when not doing Hector Mode.

This statement confuses me.

[Galenforcer]

9/10

Wish she could fight better, but can fly so auto win.

[Parrhesia]

This statement confuses me.

She still ferries, I just don't use Rescue much. And are you seriously denying that Florina is a terrible combatant?

[riariadne]

8.5. the flying is good, the combat... isn't at all

[Thor Odinson]

This statement confuses me.

If Florina /can/ fight for shit she gets a 9 or 10. 2 points are docked off from 10 for her shitty fighting abilities, as early flying by itself already warrants the 8.

[Ein]

And are you seriously denying that Florina is a terrible combatant?

I guess. She does just fine in the killing stuff department, kinda dodgy, and adorable.

Then again this is probably for HHM and for low turn counts so yeah. I guess Fiora is better in that case somehow...

[Florete]

Florina has always been fine as a fighter for me. LHM is assumed, so she can level up well there, and quick Lyn support for full atk and crit goes pretty far. By the time she promotes she's just as good as anyone else.

[Thor Odinson]

All of these ranks are assuming LHM->HHM play.

[Ein]

All of these ranks are assuming LHM->HHM play.

If that's the case then I don't see how Florina can be a poor fighter barring RNG screwage.

It's not like keeping her alive and letting kill stuff is hard in the first place.

[Thor Odinson]

Depends on how you play. I play with heavy rescue dropping, so Flo is too busy carrying people to get much hits in at all. I can say that when trained she isn't terribad at it from the days before I started to rescuedrop people like crazy, but with her speed halved and then add on another AS deduction from anything but Slim...yeah nah.

Plus my LHMs are dedicated to Lucius.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[Raven]

Florina has the same Str growth as Rebecca.

I think that's decent.

[Rewjeo]

Early flier, and with help from LHM she can be a competent combatant. 9/10

[General Horace]

early flier 9/10

[Ein]

Depends on how you play. I play with heavy Rescue dropping, so Flo is too busy carrying people to get much hits in at all. I can say that when trained she isn't terribad at it from the days before I started to rescuedrop people like crazy, but with her speed halved and then add on another AS deduction from anything but Slim...yeah nah.

Plus my LHMs are dedicated to Lucius.

Oh. So basically it comes down to play style and an early unit like Florina doesn't get the opportunity to level up since she's busy cutting turn counts like crazy so obviously her offense will be lackluster/abysmal because she'll still be a level 1 Pegasus Knight...?

Any who... You do get an Energy Ring and Angelic Robe in Lyn's mode. If you're planning on using her she would great use of them as would everyone else but that's beside the point.

[Smiley Jim]

Florina is proof that flying is ridiculously OP'd.

You know, I could go on and on about how flying utility can shave off turns, and flying in general, but I'm going to keep this brief. Flying units ignore terrain, which allows Flo to go across terrain that most people cannot cross(peaks and water, I'm looking at you.), and allows her to not get attacked by anything that isn't also a flying unit or is running long range magic or ballistae. Another advantage of flying is that she can do this while carrying someone. Flo has 16 aid unpromoted, which is enough to carry the burliest unit in the game(promoted Oswin), and even after promotion, she is still light enough to carry promoted Hector. The best part is that she needs no training whatsoever to do this.

How about her combat? I'm not gonna lie, it fucking sucks. A 6/0 Florina going into Chapter 16 has 20HP/7str/12spd/5def/6res. On the offense, this gives 11atk/12AS with slim or 14atk/8AS with iron. While she can double cavs with Slim, the damage output isn't awesome anyway(6-10 DPR with WTN). And she really can't use steels to boost her poor str because her con sucks. The same con that allows her to ferry Oswin is also a handicap: Florina loses 4 AS from an iron lance, and loses 9 for trying to use a steel lance, thanks to her poor con. While 55% spd growth is good, 40% growth on a unit with 5 base str is pretty average. Also, her durability sucks. 20HP/5def at 6/0 is about the same as 11/0 Lyn, meaning she gets 2HKO'd by a lot of things. And she has the same durability growths as Rebecca(60HP/15def), which is always 'nice'.

Still, the magnitude of her flying utility before more durable fliers like Heath show up is enough to give her a

9