Grandjackal, Blindly Stumbling Around Tear Ring Saga!

[Icon of Sin]

I'm actually fairly surprised you like Kreiss more than Arkis. While I can't say I've used Arkis for a very long time and Kreiss was mostly used in a draft, even as early filler I always liked Kreiss' output better since giving him a light enough weapon may make him double, while Arkis' low power and weapon level were always a big thorn despite the speed lead, which isn't that needed when enemies don't really speed up much.

I'd probably consider Garo the actual "Jeigan" of the game in a weird way. It's a pity that his class bases are so poor (personal really aren't too bad, Skill and Luck aside) and his movement is so low.

Keep in mind that only the chapter 31 version of Zeek has his stats based on yours. Even if you don't use him, I think he ends up with his level 25 averages.

By any chance, what was Raphin's agility lategame and did you have him use swords a lot? If you claim he didn't double enough, you probably should've used lighter weapons.

Nice ideas on Mahter. Probably should've put more efforts into her in the draft run I did. She did pretty good with a Pilum on promotion as it is, but the Thunder Sword sounds like a nice idea. Kreiss needed the Wlv+ more though.

Marj's not too bad early on since his low movement isn't as much of an issue, but starting around the first division he is going to feel rather useless considering both Meriah and Alicia are available.

Norton gets 6 movement on promotion to Iron Knight. 7 in cities. Really, picture him as Great Knight Gilliam with a modified Wrath, more or less. He'd still not be the best mounted unit, but he'd definitely be fine on his own and he wouldn't mind using lighter swords to keep his speed thanks to Life or Death.

Roger would probably lose some steam later on, not unlike Mintz, unless he does possess Life or Death on top of Gale, where he'd still be an offensive powerhouse but should be careful about Poleaxe and their ilk. Statwise, he's not unlike FE6 Marcus, then add some cool skills and take away most of the power FE6 enemies have. He's not exactly good against magic, but a critical Pilum on first strike wouldn't be too bad eh?

Xeno's good but I wouldn't put him this high, considering Shigen is forced and Vega's still quite effective with his own weapon.

Sharon, much like Kate, promote to Arrow Knights. Female only mounted units who use sword and bows. Base stats are similar to Command Knights, AKA Raphin's base class. Not perfect but mount and two weapons aren't too bad.

I wouldn't put Shigen anywhere near Stefan level. He's more or less a second Vega with a different custom sword, one I happen to like less. You would require reviving if you were using a weapon with 50 accuracy and 10 weight on a fragile swordfighter. Sure, his supports are there and he's forced lategame, but I merely see him as a second Vega. One that compensates his lack of durability with cheating death.

Did you promote Samson late to get him Awareness?

I found a fairly decent use for Frau : make her a shopkeeper in Ligria, not of Brahd, along with Thomas.

Sing is basically weak AoE healing (range 2 to 4 that increases with use, hp recovered in single digits) that may add a chance to remove, based on the number of times you sing + supports. Attrom makes the best use for that.

Probably the best way to get Rennie to Elite would be for her to kill flying monsters. Right after she joins, Harpies should be ripe for her to shoot arrows in.

Shirou's indeed unspectacular at best.

It's sad that Jesus plays second banana to Loffaru, but I suppose he's a decent filler if you didn't train many mounted units.

Zach's a bit underwhelming when a MAGE who joins right after him is tanky enough to take on a bunch of enemies, on top his range advantage.

Rina doesn't even deserve Nino. Nino had a bit of power behind her attacks.

I'd like to add that Sennet's probably the best of the four princes for the final bosss by virtue of Life or Death giving him free critical on top of having the strongest might of the quatuor. Getting him some damage from the enemies and/or the lava shouldn't be much of an issue really.

I found the Thunder Shield useful for the Beholders. Considering they shoot powerful lightning at you and may spawn minions, negating a good amount of magic damage sounds like a good idea if you're about to get swarmed.

One skill you forgot to mention is Anti-Evil, essentially a Fighter based skill focused on monsters rather than X terrain. I thought it was a neat idea to have and might be worth the 7000 gold to teach to a few key members of your team. Otherwise, Frontier is the best fighter skill by far, though City is handy to have around and Sea's pretty cool for Holmes.

Glad that you enjoyed the game. More people should.

[grandjackal]

I'm actually fairly surprised you like Kreiss more than Arkis. While I can't say I've used Arkis for a very long time and Kreiss was mostly used in a draft, even as early filler I always liked Kreiss' output better since giving him a light enough weapon may make him double, while Arkis' low power and weapon level were always a big thorn despite the speed lead, which isn't that needed when enemies don't really speed up much.

Well again I haven't really played him, so I'm just kinda theorycrafting there. But, I most certainly did not enjoy my time with Kreiss. The fact Kreiss has to lower himself to using lighter weapons is about as bad as Arkiss not actually being able to use heavier weapons.

A speed lead can be noticeable when you consider that while enemies don't get faster, they get a lot tougher, often times having shields as well. Good weapons on breaking bigger enemies tends to be heavier weapons, to which Arkis has the advantage. The only issue is Arkis actually getting the weapon level to use said heavy weapons.

Imo, they both are kinda bad, but I just hated Kreiss.

Keep in mind that only the chapter 31 version of Zeek has his stats based on yours. Even if you don't use him, I think he ends up with his level 25 averages.

I'm pretty sure his level 25 bases are better than what I saw, which were around the 15s.

By any chance, what was Raphin's agility lategame and did you have him use swords a lot? If you claim he didn't double enough, you probably should've used lighter weapons.

Well, was around 17-18, after having given him an Agi+. I didn't want to use lighter weapons, cause lighter weapons tend to be pixie sticks, especially that late into the game.

Nice ideas on Mahter. Probably should've put more efforts into her in the draft run I did. She did pretty good with a Pilum on promotion as it is, but the Thunder Sword sounds like a nice idea. Kreiss needed the Wlv+ more though.

Funny thing is, promoting her I feel hurt her more than help. Thunder Swords are just better because it pierces defense which is huge cause enemies tend to pack on thick shields late in. Pilums are great if you're already strawnk or you have Charge, to which Mahter kinda isn't and doesn't. Like seriously, 19 magic might is pretty significant when you're 7 move and flying. Most enemies can't survive that.

Marj's not too bad early on since his low movement isn't as much of an issue, but starting around the first division he is going to feel rather useless considering both Meriah and Alicia are available.

Ehh, I don't feel Alicia is much better. Brenthunder's cool, but it's almost unecessary firepower for how early you get it. Only notable way it sets them apart is the rare 1-2 range enemies. Marj's ability to double with things other than a ridiculously superpowered spell allows him faster leveling speed to promote, so he has the benefit of additional move. Enemies might not gain a huge amount of speed, but they aren't so brick slow universally that Alicia can do the same as Marj.

Norton gets 6 movement on promotion to Iron Knight. 7 in cities. Really, picture him as Great Knight Gilliam with a modified Wrath, more or less. He'd still not be the best mounted unit, but he'd definitely be fine on his own and he wouldn't mind using lighter swords to keep his speed thanks to Life or Death.

Ooh. Which case yeah, just get him to 10 and he's kinda cool. Might just see what I can get out of him in that one chapter I mentioned, cause I gave him a Short Sword and fed most of the kills to other people.

Roger would probably lose some steam later on, not unlike Mintz, unless he does possess Life or Death on top of Gale, where he'd still be an offensive powerhouse but should be careful about Poleaxe and their ilk. Statwise, he's not unlike FE6 Marcus, then add some cool skills and take away most of the power FE6 enemies have. He's not exactly good against magic, but a critical Pilum on first strike wouldn't be too bad eh?

Suppose not. I mean, in the least he can hit low health and then can be a pretty brutal snipe hitter. Roger's a rough rider.

Xeno's good but I wouldn't put him this high, considering Shigen is forced and Vega's still quite effective with his own weapon.

Shigen doesn't force you to not use Xeno, and Xeno is not dependent on a single weapon to make him special. It's cool that Vega has his sword, but it doesn't alienate Xeno who is better against things that aren't monsters. As far as Vega's weapon giving him a shield, there are plenty of Shield Swords to go around if you so need it.

Sharon, much like Kate, promote to Arrow Knights. Female only mounted units who use sword and bows. Base stats are similar to Command Knights, AKA Raphin's base class. Not perfect but mount and two weapons aren't too bad.

Issue really is getting her those 4 levels to promote. Outside of Str, her base agi and growths are pretty good so I imagine she can work after promo.

I wouldn't put Shigen anywhere near Stefan level. He's more or less a second Vega with a different custom sword, one I happen to like less. You would require reviving if you were using a weapon with 50 accuracy and 10 weight on a fragile swordfighter. Sure, his supports are there and he's forced lategame, but I merely see him as a second Vega. One that compensates his lack of durability with cheating death.

Well, the idea is to not have it equipped all the time and simply tradequipping him so he can use it more to cheat death than to suck at combat with it. This reduces uses so you can abuse it harder later on where the acc and weight stop being an issue. I find that cheating death is a lot more special than monster slaying, though monster slaying comes in great hand in a few maps (Morse Tower comes to mind).

Did you promote Samson late to get him Awareness?

Yes, and it came fairly quick since he's pretty good at combat anyways before promotion. Samson can afford to wait.

I found a fairly decent use for Frau : make her a shopkeeper in Ligria, not of Brahd, along with Thomas.

Haha, there's a good use. I should have probably done that, though the first encounter at Ligria would be a bit annoying for Thomas to lug his fat ass to the place he needs to go to run the shop.

Sing is basically weak AoE healing (range 2 to 4 that increases with use, hp recovered in single digits) that may add a chance to remove, based on the number of times you sing + supports. Attrom makes the best use for that.

Ahhh, ok. Actually, that sounds pretty good. Sort of the only way you can have some form of team heal. I like that, because I notice there's no fortify/reserve in this game. It's cool how they did that.

Probably the best way to get Rennie to Elite would be for her to kill flying monsters. Right after she joins, Harpies should be ripe for her to shoot arrows in.

That's cool and all, but you could have the summoner dead pretty quick all things considered. She won't have that much to kill, certainly not enough for Elite of all things.

Zach's a bit underwhelming when a MAGE who joins right after him is tanky enough to take on a bunch of enemies, on top his range advantage.

Well no shit, almost no one has 16-18 base defense along with his combat parameters, Rishel is ridiculous. This says nothing about Zach himself though.

I found the Thunder Shield useful for the Beholders. Considering they shoot powerful lightning at you and may spawn minions, negating a good amount of magic damage sounds like a good idea if you're about to get swarmed.

Hm...Completely skipped my mind, that. Will definitely consider that then.

One skill you forgot to mention is Anti-Evil, essentially a Fighter based skill focused on monsters rather than X terrain. I thought it was a neat idea to have and might be worth the 7000 gold to teach to a few key members of your team. Otherwise, Frontier is the best fighter skill by far, though City is handy to have around and Sea's pretty cool for Holmes.

I dunno about it being worth 7K, but it's definitely something cool to have. Samson getting it is a pretty cool thing I suppose. Also if you have the skills to spare, you should just get any and all good Fighter skills you can get. Any +1 move is great to have.

Glad that you enjoyed the game. More people should.

You heard him, folks!

[grandjackal]

In my second playthrough, I find having Narron being promotable at chapter 6 to be "the best", but I'm sure everyone else already knew that.

On a seperate account, Norton. He's usable in chapter 7, if only to help corral the armored front door once you bust through the door. On his own, he can actually get quite a bit of exp there, long as you give him an Estoc. 8 he's there to help against Maerhen's assault though your cavs mostly can do the work there, and then finally in chapter 9 is sort of where he makes or breaks. The issue is if you're going to talk to Narcus here. If you do, then Norton can sit his ass in front of the chokepoint on the beach with an Iron Sword (granted +1 Str though, unless you buy him a Killing Edge which he can totally use), and he can basically hulksmash the cav reinforcements by himself (though the bow knights are pesky, but that's what Mehriah and Sasha are for, along with anyone who has Remove). He can easily reach level 10 here for a promotion.

The issue...is that Ronin's route only has that 1 Knight's Proof from chapter 8 (if I remember correctly) after promoting Narron. His competition could be level 10 by now, but to review I suppose.

10/1 Estelle: 28 HP, 9.4 Str, 10.4 Skl, 10.8 Agi, 8.44 Def, 1.2 Mag, 8.6 Lck, 8 WpLvl, 8 Move, City Fighter

10/1 Kreiss: 32.2 HP, 11.4 Str, 9.4 Skl, 7.6 Agi, 9 Def, 0.4 Mag, 5.6 Lck, 10.4 WpLVl. 7 Move

10/1 Arkiss: 29.8 HP, 9 Str, 10 Skl, 10.4 Agi, 7.76 Def, 0.4 Mag, 5.8 Lck, 8.8 WpLvl, 7 Move

10/1 Norton: 38.5 HP, 10.4 Str, 8.8 Skl, 5.8 Agi, 14.8 Def, 0 Mag, 2.9 Lck, 8.2 Wplvl, 6 Move, City Fighter, Life or Death, Big Shield in 2.

To note their strengths.

Kreiss's weapon level grants him the benefit of Silver Swords and more importantly Pilums which you just got and he would love them dearly. Kreiss and Estelle are not as lucky, and Norton does not get spears. Second most durable, and hits hardest blow for blow which early with Pilums is pretty great, though having 0 AS with them still blows since that's far from universal doubling. The others could probably do the same thing Kreiss does with Hand Lances, only notable difference is that Kreiss does a LOT more damage to things none of them double at range. The others are a million times better at melee though, cause 3 AS with an iron lance is better than 0.

Estelle pretty much overshadows Arkis entirely, since their stats are similar but she wins in just about every other growth save for Wp Lvl (notably, he could have Pilums with a lucky proc, which case Arkis is pretty much the clear victor at this point in time). Outside of getting Pilums sooner though, she has 1 more move and City Fighter, making her pretty excellent in city maps. Indoors she suffers though since she loses her promotion gains, while Commando Knights don't actually lose any stats at all outside of the obvious move. Also, since Raffin is also a Commando Knight, does that mean Kreiss and Arkis can use spears indoors?

Well...Norton is clearly the most durable of them, granting him the ability to go where he pleases. In cities, he's just as mobile as the Commando Knights. He lacks range, and even though swords are light weight, he's still kinda losing to the other guys (Estelle and Arkis can do with an Iron Lance what Norton needs a Killer Edge to do). So, despite his Str lead, if he wants to keep similar offense, he basically ties, ignoring the fact the others have range, Kreiss generally being able to do anything Norton does with even more strength, more stable move, and 2 more speed. Even more is that when Norton dismounts, not only is his movement brought back down to the laughable 3, but he actually LOSES stats, making him worse than if you hadn't promoted him at all since he gains almost nothing from promotion.

Skill-wise, Norton is never dying, and Estelle is really close to the super sweet Life or Death. Arkis will be kinda getting Blazing Wind soon, and though Gale is awesome, Kreiss probably isn't getting it until the second part of the route. Estelle's probably got it best.

Yeah, Norton's probably the worst of them. He's so durable that enemies are probably more keen to ignore them unless they have crit on him. His offense is still worse than the others, and he doesn't really make up for it in any meaningful way. Estelle seems to be the best, seeing as she's just a better Arkis with better skills. WpLvl kinda sucks, and Arkis is better before promotion, but it stops afterwards where he can never really catch up save for Pilums and better indoor combat (where Arkis is probably the best).

If you want an Armor Knight, you're probably better off hoping Billford procs a move stat or two. If you can do that, he looks pretty legit.

10/1 Billford: 37.8 HP, 11.7 Str, 11.6 Skl, 8.7 Agi, 13.6 Def, 0.10 Mag, 5.7 Lck, 14.4 WpLvl

The weapon level is absurdly high for no reason since the only sword that has that high a rank is Rukuud. a weapon he's probably never using anyways unless you got super lucky with move growth. With some time though, he'll definitely look pretty shiny though. Zach would have nothing on a Move Growth if you wanna abuse it.

Hmm...Might as well throw these numbers up too.

10/1 Kate: 28.4 HP, 9 Str, 11.7 Skl, 10 Agi, 5.72 Def, 0.8 Mag, 4 Lck, 10 WpLvl, 7 Move, City Fighter, Continue

10/1 Sharon: 29.3 HP, 9 Str, 11.35 Skl, 11.8 Agi, 7.8 Def, 0.4 Mag, 8 Lck, 10.35 Wplvl, 7 Move, City Fighter, 5 levels from Charge

Well hey, why not use Sharon? She seems pretty good.

[Espinosa]

Sharon has a 15% support with Raffin and isn't that far from promotion, so sure, why not. Just make sure you promote Narron and Sun first. Though, Raffin flies and Sharon does not so they may not be in range.

Aside from that, your ratings are sound enough, though I feel you give some characters a bit too much credit (Samson, Sasha, Racquel, Rishel, Holmes, Xeno, Mehriah) and undervalue others (Vega, Kreiss, Alicia, Garo and Kate).

[grandjackal]

Sharon has a 15% support with Raffin and isn't that far from promotion, so sure, why not. Just make sure you promote Narron and Sun first. Though, Raffin flies and Sharon does not so they may not be in range.

I just noticed that Estelle also supports Raffin, so the instance that the two are there for him, he's suddenly got 60% crit chances with his Needle Spear. It's not perfect, but it's nice.

Aside from that, your ratings are sound enough, though I feel you give some characters a bit too much credit (Samson, Sasha, Racquel, Rishel, Holmes, Xeno, Mehriah) and undervalue others (Vega, Kreiss, Alicia, Garo and Kate).

Sasha and Xeno? Maybe. Sasha is a gigantic pain in the ass to train up, and Xeno while great doesn't necessarily do anything actually important or unique, but I feel Xeno's a unit you could always pick up and have great results, while Sasha is helpful on reducing luck factor in many situations.

The units you mention me undervaluing however, I disagree with you entirely. I feel I was as fair as I could be with them. At best, I might haev been a tad unfair with Alicia, since she doesn't really need resources to basically kill anything she glances at, but the 4 move and leveling speed is painful regardless.

Anyways, now just kinda doing testy test stuff, so form here on, things will be more noteworthy things I found.

One thing I'm trying is to find Ronin kills without killing turns. Chapter 2's a fairly ok point. With a Steel Sword and Leather Shield, he can spend a turn not moving towards the throne to sit on the ramp and ORKO bandit reinforcements. He can only do one turn before he has to get moving again, cause due to recruiting Plum, he only has 1 turn to spare. Still, got him to level 4. Issue is around his 65% acc. I got him to 4, but I imagine you could actually get him to 5 if you hit every shot. However, that's also kills Narron isn't getting, so I was fine with accepting level 4 so that Narron could ALSO get level 4!

Edited February 16, 2013 by grandjackal

[grandjackal]

Up to Chapter 7 again.

Chapter 6 is yet again a great chapter for Ronn to get exp since his Rapier is one of the better weapons to score a kill on the Woodshooter, which gives mondo exp. An Archer along with an Armor Knight, I had Ronin sitting at level 6 walking in.

Shortest turns I could manage were 4-5 there (depends on the boss cause you need to crit, granted Narron has an easier time than most), so Norton costs quite a bit, highly doubting he will ever make up for it. He has that trick in chapter 9, but that can be easily replicated by better units and competence.

Chapter 7 kinda depends on if you're waiting for Roger (which by the time you COULD finish the map, you might as well since everything that can possibly threaten you is dead). If so, then yeah, Ronin can get away with a lot here. If not, he can't afford to waste a single turn sitting and killing something. Not that he'll have a lot in his way for him to do that anyways.

Current levels are Martel at 5, Vega at 6 (gave him the boss kill, forgot I had Farheal cause Raffin was too wounded, though if I were short turning, Raffin would get the kill anyways), Narron at 12 promoted, the cav duo at 6, Estelle at 5 (would be close to 6, if Arkis didn't crit...I never realized how powerful the duo's support is), Raffin at 12 (would be 13 normally, again, bosskill), Sasha at 4. I have the +1 Crit Iron Lance (calling it Soul Lance from now on) up to +9. Got some nice hits in in chapter 4 with Julia, so I didn't waste uses collecting souls on this thing. Was doing the same with chapter 6 with the cavs weakening things for her, as again I was recruiting Norton. Thomas should help me collect a few more with minimal uses in chapter 7...

Weirdest thing happened with my levels though. Arkis got +2 Str and WpLvl, Kreiss got +2 Spd. They're now exactly identical to one another for the most part. Real bizarre.

[grandjackal]

So, for those of you who hit chapter 8, I have some thoughts. Namely on if we're going to be sticking around to get all the treasure, cause under normal circumstances it takes WAAAAAAY too long (clocking like 22 turns because the terrain here is such shit). If we're doing it though, that basically means we will face the zombie reinforcements, and one person alone could be left to soak up all that exp (or share). Some thoughts on who to give a majority to (basically meaning the mummies).

Estelle: As a record, I had her share a bit of zombies with Xeno simply cause she couldn't double them wit a Slim (should have used a sword, now thinking about it...These things skip my mind all the time), and she went from 8 to 13. Had I spoiled her more thoroughly, I could have had her with Life or Death before the route split, promoted no less. 6 levels away from Elite too.

Barts: Faster you get Charge, the better. If you're using him, it helps make up for his meh acc, since on enemy phase it always seems like enemies lose bonuses. Weird thing for the game to do on player phase, but Charge helps Barts a lot. Allows him to be a mighty man for Holmes's route.

Vega: Another contender, seeing as how this could bring him to absurd levels before the route split as well. Brings him a bit closer to Rising Dragon, for what it's worth. Means Julia also could so that she can become proc queen if you so wish. Again, Vega to me strikes me as a unit that doesn't really need exp. He's just a dude who uses Shram and it's helpful.

Marj: Waiting for a mage to promote sucks, as they have 4 move and it's a pain toting them anywhere. This fixes all those problems. Granted you still have to wait for a Saint Proof, but one isn't far off.

Roger: Odd as that sounds, he's only 9 levels away from Life or Death, and this gets him there quicker. Life or Death+Gale tends to fix any meh stats problem.

Xeno: Well, he's a buff-ass growth unit that needs levels to get those buff-ass growths going. I remember a test run getting me somewhere in the range of level 8 leaving when I gave him time among the undead. Sooner he gets to 13, the better, especially with how early in Holmes's route you get a Hero Crest. Check it.

13/1 Xeno: 31.45 HP, 11.45 Str, 13.5 Skl, 13.8 Agi, 7.61 Def, 0.35 Mag, 7.1 Lck, 10.1 Wplvl

Just in time for that Silver Sword too.

That being said...Roger might be the best to give it to, simply because Life or Death+Gale on a Paladin is stupid, and the sooner you get it...

[Icon of Sin]

Have you thought about Runan getting those reinforcements? I know this is a seize map so you're essentially finishing later, but it does make him depend less on other and his output to the team is greater this way. He'll probably be even better off for fighting the final boss this way.

By the way, it takes thirteen levels for Roger to get LoD, not nine. You're either confusing his base level with Mintz or mixing his LoD level with Estelle.

Edited February 18, 2013 by Doga Blockovich

[grandjackal]

Have you thought about Runan getting those reinforcements? I know this is a seize map so you're essentially finishing later, but it does make him depend less on other and his output to the team is greater this way. He'll probably be even better off for fighting the final boss this way.

By the way, it takes thirteen levels for Roger to get LoD, not nine. You're either confusing his base level with Mintz or mixing his LoD level with Estelle.

Woops, mixed it up indeed. Still, sooner the better still.

As for Ronin getting it, I'm doing kinda fine on levels at the moment. He's currently almost 8, which is eons better than what I had him at.

Speaking of which, chapter 8 if you're just going straight through, you can still set up a couple zombie kills for him. 11 turns minimum.

[MacLovin]

Which of the three cavvys would you say is the best investment?

Ester seems to be best, followed by arkiss and then kriess is left way behind due to AS.

[Espinosa]

AS isn't such a big problem in this game when one can switch to a lighter weapon, but Arkis's poor offence and weapon level are a problem.

Estelle is the best of the three due to +1 promoted move and the better skill (Life and Death). But they're all mediocre.

[MacLovin]

WOnder how well Ezekiel does in the long run, he doesn't seem to be a horrible unit. Just kinda outclassed a bit.

[grandjackal]

AS isn't such a big problem in this game when one can switch to a lighter weapon, but Arkis's poor offence and weapon level are a problem.

Estelle is the best of the three due to +1 promoted move and the better skill (Life and Death). But they're all mediocre.

AS isn't that big a problem yeah, but it's a problem Kreiss has, and aleviates the Str issue a bit (unless you decide swords, which case Kreiss is liable of missing since swords have an unusually low acc score). Really, once Arkiss gets 4 WpLvl (not hard), he starts winning outside of Hand Lance use since Arkis can actually double quite a few things with an Iron Lance.

I'd agree that Estelle's the best of them, her promotion does her huge favors. Arkis comes second since most of his issues are resolved pretty fast. Kreiss is like the only one of them I'd call truly mediocre (the others are ok, not great, but ok), cause he's one of the few characters that has actual speed issues.

WOnder how well Ezekiel does in the long run, he doesn't seem to be a horrible unit. Just kinda outclassed a bit.

A base AS of -2 with your lightest weapon I would define as horrible. With a 20% growth on top of it, his offense is pretty much reliant on blazing wind activating. He doesn't really have anything to justify himself being deployed, much less chosen above Narron or Lee (or Lionel).

Speaking of Lionel, I think I'mma choose him this time around.

[BBM]

Well, he needs to be part of your party to get Leteena to stay after her initial recruitment. He also has situational use in being able to one-shot Cavs with the Poleax (if he hits).

[grandjackal]

Leteena is more trouble than she's worth, mounted units are not exactly common in this game.

Edited February 20, 2013 by grandjackal

[BBM]

I've never actually recruited Leteena but I can imagine several places where the Silence Staff might be useful. Not saying that Ezekiel's good, but he's got his uses, and he can use swords and lances after promo. He's mediocre, certainly, and much worse than Narron, Lee, or Lionel, but I wouldn't go so far as to call him horrible. -2 AS sucks, but a lot of enemies have pretty low AS. He can take the Hammer against Knights and Wood Shooters too, though that's even less accurate.

[MacLovin]

Notice how Lionhearts growths are close to Shirous in most catagories?

Kinda finding out that Jesus does have his instant use unlike Rennie or Shirou or Luka.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Inspector Clouseau

[Espinosa]

He also gets to keep bows indoors. I guess that's worth something?

[Icon of Sin]

Rennie shouldn't take that long to get going. Shirou and Luka aren't nearly this lucky.

[Espinosa]

They exist for longer though, Luka especially. Luka faces such competition among the recruits that make his existence unlikely however.

And assume you do give Rennie some kills and promote her, how much will she end up contributing?

[MacLovin]

There are enough hero proofs to promote most of the hero proof using units, but Rennie doesn't seem to be worth it that much since we have Holmes, Sharon[Or Kate], Lionheart, Lothar, maybe Raquel, etc. for bows.

Oh and Rennie has no 1 range which may be inconvenient at times.

[BBM]

Rennie ends up with better stats than all of those people though, which is something. She can also match your mounts in movement if she gets lucky.

[MacLovin]

Stats are nice, but isn't 1 range too?

And 10% movement growth isn't what many would call reliable.

[BBM]

Eh, I'm mainly playing DA. Her MOV growth is not reliable, but that's why I said, if she gets lucky. And going purely by probability, she is likely to proc it at least twice or so. I wouldn't say she's better than Loffaru, Lionheart, or Raquel, but Rennie vs Kate/Sharon is even.

Charge on a bow-using unit is really really good because she basically ORKOs everything that isn't armoured, and she doesn't have to take extra hits for it either. Sharon gets it too, but not right away. And if you don't get Mintz, Rennie and Sharon have very similar availability. Sharon has like +1 STR over Rennie, but that goes away pretty soon because Rennie has a 15% better growth. Sharon has 1-range, but her stats aren't good enough for her to pick up her own kills. So she has to be fed kills. She can face EP combat, but again, she can't ORKO, so not really much point when Narron/Zeek/Raffin/Lee/etc are there. She gets up to 7 MOV on promo, but as I stated earlier, odds are, Rennie is going to catch up to that, and maybe even surpass it, depending on luck/amount of levels she gets. Once Sharon gets Charge, she becomes better, but still rather similar to Rennie, except Rennie's got better stats. Once Sharon gets to a point where she can ORKO at 1-range most enemies, she wins, but eh. And Rennie will gain a level lead once she gets Elite.

Kate vs Rennie is rather similar but worse stats and no Charge, but better availability.

[MacLovin]

Yeah, but you get a zillion Knight/Hero proofs anyways....

Uhhh, I can see the first Knight/Hero proofs going to Narron and BArtz, but then there's a ton more.