Rate the Unit, Day 33: Calill

[ZemZem]

Dat Rules (stolen/borrowed from Integrity)

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard Mode+Fixed Mode.

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted. If somebody else said what you want to already, quote them explicitly.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is encouraged, but no more. If you exercise your bias privileges, please do so explicitly.

- Numerical votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Make it easy to calculate for my sake.

- Every ranking phase ends whenever I get out of bed, between 0700 and 0800 EST. Do the math for your timezone, Brits.

- I will insist you do not use the "Not X" reason on any character, where X is another unit. If you do, your vote will be thrown out.

- "Recruits X" or "takes you to X chapter" arguments are explicitly banned. C'mon, people, this shouldn't need to be a rule. That's not gameplay performance.

- Assume that the character in question is being recruited.

- Similar to the "Recruits X" rule, do not use "she brings the sonic sword" or any other justification as an argument.

- BEXP is free to be used in any quantity on any character.

- Rating a unit too low because you think its overrated will make me throw away your vote without mercy public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif.

- I withhold the privilege to tell you your rating is bogus and demand you revise it if it breaks any of the above. I will not throw out votes anonymously, you will be informed and given a chance to revise.

Averages:

Rolf: 1.15

Sothe: 2.03

Brom: 2.32

Shinon: 3.00

Janaff: 3.32

Ulki: 3.59

Devdan: 4.11

Volke : 4.82

Ilyana: 4.98

Soren: 5.15

Rhys: 5.31

Gatrie: 5.46

Mia: 5.71

Muarim: 6.19

Mist: 6.41

Mordecai: 6.55

Makalov: 6.59

Tormod: 6.62

Zihark: 6.65

Lethe: 6.75

Nephenee: 6.79

Stefan: 7.40

Astrid: 7.76

Boyd: 8.29

Ike: 8.57

Tanith: 9.08

Oscar: 9.08

Kieran: 9.23

Jill: 9.31

Marcia: 9.36

Reyson: 9.79

Titania: 9.91

I'm probably gonna get some backlash for Ulki > Janaff, but eh...

She reminds me of Angelica from Rugrats, for some reason. *shrugs* Here's Calill!

[Lord Raven]

6/10

See Tormod, now subtract 2 points for not having 8 move

[Loki Laufeyson]

Calill, so-called First Class mage. lol

Pros:

Prepromote.

Comes with a siege tome.

Ok bases.

Ok base level.

Cons:

Knives wtf.

Can be outclassed. by Soren.

Calill is ok when she shows up. You get her for free so thats cool. She comes with Meteor and that too, is cool. Her innate Nihil sadly doesnt have a lot of uses in this game. Especially since the only time you want that skill is in fights shes not going to be a part of. Her bases are ok but her speed is a little ehh. Her base level is nice too. She does have room to grow but unless you arent training any of the other mages, shes kinda meh. Mostly because she uses knives so that knocks her utility use down a bit. She does have a good fire tome rank but yeah, no staves is ehh On my runs, shes usually outclassed by Soren and/or Ilyana (if im using the latter). So yeah, in terms of stats, shes pretty average. She's kinda worth using if youre going for a transfer run though. (or Largo. )

6/10. 5/10 bias because in this game, i dont care for her character. She got cooler in the sequel though.

[Sasori]

Calill isn't the mage with the best stats, but that doesn't matter. Her speed is good and she still targets resistence. Of course her stats aren't her main selling point. A B in all weapon ranks can let her use all siege tome and I guess she can make use of the higher leveled spells if you don't feel like giving her a forge.

Calill is also the only mage with good bases and she'll never become bad.

7.5 and 0.5 bias point for liking her personality.

8/10

[MacLovin]

Doesn't have fail spd, and has access to all anima seige tomes.

But damn, she uses knives which is fail.

But heck, she's an excellent unit and supports neph.

Some reason, she's got a 40% def growth...

Also, +1 bias due to being my favorite tellius mage.

8/10

[DarthMikey]

Comes with generally nice bases and a balanced 45% growth in all of her offensive stats. Also, as has already been mentioned, she isn't horribly slow (unlike Soren and Ilyana) and doesn't need two tons of BEXP (unlike Tormod). She has some availability issues, but she's fairly usable right from the time you get her, so it's not much of an issue. Also, she has enough STR to resist being weighed down by Fire, which is great.

The one main bad point for her is that she uses knives; she could have had some great staff potential. Luckily she has generally good combat in offensive magic.

7/10

[Shadow Mir]

7/10 (+1 for 8). Nice bases, and able to use all long-range magic without having to put up with the issues the other Mages have.

[AMCC4728]

Can make a decent filler if your mage that you train gets Str and Spd screwed.

7/10

[Ema Skye]

In my opinion, Calill is the best Sage in PoR. Access to all three siege tomes right off the bat is a very large advantage for her. Her growths, while not outstanding, all decent all around the board, and she has the best durability growths among the Sages (50 HP/40 defense what?).

20/2 Soren is pretty comparable to --/6 Calill in terms of average stats. Soren's advantages will be +3 Skill, +3 Res and Staves, while Calill has +1 HP, +5 Str, +5 Luck, +1 Def, and possibly better weapon ranks, and both tie in Magic and Speed.

20/7 Ilyana is close to even to all of --/6 Calill's stats, tying in Str, Mag and Def. 20/7 Ilyana has +1 HP, +3 Skill and +5 Res over Calill's +1 Spe, +1 Luck. The differences are close to meaningless (Magic isn't very strong, Skill and Luck is worthless and 1 HP is hardly worth freaking out about). +1 Speed, however, can be essential to avoid getting doubled or doubling. Ilyana probably doesn't come close to matching Calill's weapon levels, although she will have staffs

20/6 Tormod is also close to base Calill's stats. Tormod has a durability lead (+1 HP, +2.5 Def, +2.1 Res), as well as a +1.1 lead in Speed and hardly worthwhile advantages of +0.2 Skill and +0.1 Magic. Calill's only statistical leads are +0.4 Str and +1.7 Luck, basically worthless. Once again, staffs vs seige tomes plays a large factor.

In the later part of the game, I find healers kinda worthless, since my characters start rocking against this game's mediocre units. By the time Calill joins, we're still facing unpromoted enemies. From Chapter 20 to chapter 25, all enemies, except Swordmasters, Myrmidons, Thieves, a berserker, some cats, and the bosses, have more than 15 attack speed on hard mode! Yeah, they suck... hard. Because of that, I consider Calill's seige tome advantage to be more useful than having lots of stave users, even though she's only around for ~8 chapters.

7.5 / 10 (7.0 with 0.5 bias)

[NTNP]

I'm going to have to say that Calill is probably one of the most useful prepromotes that you get in PoR. She comes in with good enough weapon ranks to use all siege tomes (along with enough stats for her to use it all very well making her have a great utility), good enough stats as others have outlined compared to other characters and enemies and comes completely free and is next to impossible NOT to recruit. She realistically could be one of the best and easiest characters to just sub in for a team as needed without requiring much work in regards to training while still fulfilling her purpose. Sure she would have been much better with staffs, or if she had so and so better stats etc but still easily worth a 7 out of 10.

[Snowy_One]

Ahhh... Calill... How I've run the gambit on you. From hate, to love, to hate again, to acceptence, back to love, and now... Hatccpeove? Anyways...

Calill... is an interesting case, possibly the last of this kind, because her value will depend a lot on how you value various aspects of the game. Someone who values having an earlier join-time will despise her as she comes well into the game while two of the othersages come before chapter 9. Someone who values joining stats will love how she is a ready-to-go sage who doesn't need any work, unlike the other three. Someone who values the sages healing ability will dislike her knives, someone who doesn't care will like her high STR for siege tomes... It would be seriously easy to peg her as either a 4/10 or a 8/10 based just on what you value or don't.

I feel she is a 6/10, but I don't feel right just giving that to her as I'm just splitting the difference. So +1 personal for a 7/10 total.

[aku chi]

[Calill] isn't horribly slow (unlike Soren and Ilyana)

Eh? How is PoR Soren horribly slow?

[Lord Raven]

*slow to build up

possibly?

[BBM]

Eh? How is PoR Soren horribly slow?

His SPD itself isn't bad, but his AS kind of suffers from his terrible STR. He doesn't stop getting weighed down by Elwind until after promotion, he might never be able to use Tornado without an AS loss, and he definitely will never be able to use Blizzard without an AS loss. Of course, this is easily fixed with a forge.

He's still never "horribly slow" though. Slowish, yeah, but better than like Gatrie.

[Caliban of Sycorax]

She rocks.

Siege tomes immediately, can get to Rexbolt faster than Ilyana, has Nihil, and is one of the best footies, behind Boyd, Ike, and possibly Gatrie.

Downside? Knives. lol.

8.75/10, includes a +1 bias because <3 Calill.

[DarthMikey]

Eh? How is PoR Soren horribly slow?

"Horribly" is probably an overstatement, but do you really think you're going to be seeing big AS numbers out of Soren's 40% SPD growth + nearly non-existent STR?

[Hawk King]

PROS:

-good base stats

-high weapon LVs

-requires little to zero resourses

CONS:

-knives

-not as good as the other sages when they are trained

Calill is pretty good. She can be useful right away, and she can use pretty much any tome. Her cons dont matter because she wont need to be healing at all and she doest cost you anything to use her. Chances are that only 1 sage is getting trained so Calill can get thrown in when a 2nd sage is needed.

7.25/10 - It would be nice if she came with a C rank in staves...

[MacLovin]

I love how Anima Users in Tellius are split between 2 kinds.

Early, and slow or Late and Fast or Bastian/shit lvl.

[Samias]

Pros:

+B ranks in all anima magic

+Functional stat spread

+No-fuss recruitment

Cons:

-No staves

-Worth largely dependant on team makeup

-Doesn't really have synergy with her supports

Calill is basically how pre-promotes should be done. If you've trained another sage then they'll probably be better than Calill in their respective element. However, Calill is rocking a B rank in all magic types, plus her stats hold up well for her role. She's easy to recruit and gets to work right away with a siege tome in hand. It's unlikely that any other the other mages will ever be able to use more than one type of siege tome, except *maybe* Tormod, and yet Calill can use all three. Plain and simply awesome utility, even if she'll never be a powerhouse. That said, either Calill is filling holes in your team, or she is largely redundant at this point, depending on who you've trained. 7/10.

[aku chi]

"Horribly" is probably an overstatement, but do you really think you're going to be seeing big AS numbers out of Soren's 40% SPD growth + nearly non-existent STR?

Not only is "horribly" and overstatement, "slow" is a misnomer. Ignoring the fact that Soren could have equipped +Spd bands in his 20 level-ups, a 20/2 Soren matches Calill's base Spd. A 20/11 Soren matches level 14 Calill's Spd. A promoted Soren can wield Fire, Thunder, Elwind and every forge with no AS loss. The only time Calill observes an AS advantage over Soren is with the siege tomes.

[Renall]

Calill makes good prepromote filler with her base stats and decent growths, but that's not what makes her nice. What makes her nice is dem tome ranks; yes, she has Knives and that's not optimal, but raising magic skills in PoR takes approximately fucking forever and a B in every magic type is practically impossible for Soren or Ilyana to have at this point without extensive abuse and a bunch of Arms Scrolls. B is a good metric for the aforementioned siege tomes; Calill pretty much makes the ideal Meteor mage the instant she shows up, and if you only use her to deplete Meteor and bench her she's still way more useful than most units. She's arguably got a better shot at Rexbolt than Ilyana (and certainly Tormod and Soren are never using that thing), and it took her far less work to get to that point (she shows up late decently statted and just has to go from B to S).

Oh yes, and she has existent STR, enough to never have AS loss from any E/D-rank tome. Still takes a hit using siege tomes, but way less of one than Soren will. And she actually has a modest STR growth so she'll naturally gain a couple points in Fixed as she levels. Not sure if Knives are in any way useful to do BEXP shenanigans for STR though, but it really isn't needed.

That said, the Knives pick does suck and will never be useful, and for an offensive unit she does come late and isn't exactly a flawless murder machine. But she's a no-fuss Sage who recruits herself without any B.S. and can actually fill a useful niche (siege tome spamming out of the gate) without needing to be babied or protected much. If she could heal, she'd arguably be too good for a free unit.

7.5/10

[Loki Laufeyson]

Yeah if she only had staves....If she only had staves and good supports...

:/

[ZemZem]

Aw man...

Tallying.