Saving Private Rinkah

[Thor Odinson]

There's some interesting stuff here about maximizing her potential as a Berserker. In Birthright I just use Rinkah and Great Knight Silas as frontline tanks (though Silas doubles and kills most enemies with ease anyway). I suppose GK Silas is better in that role as well due to being much faster so that he can often double, as well as mobility, but having two tanks is nice.

Thing about Berserker Rinkah is, it's only a few pts of def lower than Oni Chieftain--but with it comes with greater HP, so I actually built her with both offensive and defensive in mind. This is another reason to not reclass until 20/5--aside from Death Blow, this lets Rinkah build up a considerable amount of defense before swapping over and taking a 20% hit to Def growths, but keeps her bulky enough to be practically unkillable by anything but mages (and berserkers) anyway---which she isn't also immune to in Oni Chieftain. I'd even say that Berserker!Rinkah has a better shot than Oni Chieftain!Rinkah against magic, because Rinkah's res will always be kinda shitty (Dread!Rinkah might actually be kinda okay here but you gotta ask Espinosa for that one) and it's not really a priority stat too boost her on, but Berserker!Rinkah has higher base HP, HP+5, and 20% higher HP growths over Oni Chieftain, so it lets her potentially take an extra tome to the face or so, while not really hurting her physical durability too much.

After all, she also doesn't quite want to get tinked all the time, either. Flame Blood does require having some damage on her, so having enemies do nominal 1-2 damage works in her favor.

With Oni Chieftain her expected HP is in the 30s. With Berserker and Seraph robe, I got it to 54 at 20/17.

As for tanks, Guard Naginata Hinoka is my favorite one since she has reasonably high HP and good stats in both def and res, so I can just make her go whereever.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Thing about Berserker Rinkah is, it's only a few pts of def lower than Oni Chieftain--but with it comes with greater HP, so I actually built her with both offensive and defensive in mind. This is another reason to not reclass until 20/5--aside from Death Blow, this lets Rinkah build up a considerable amount of defense before swapping over and taking a 20% hit to Def growths, but keeps her bulky enough to be practically unkillable by anything but mages (and berserkers) anyway---which she isn't also immune to in Oni Chieftain. I'd even say that Berserker!Rinkah has a better shot than Oni Chieftain!Rinkah against magic, because Rinkah's res will always be kinda shitty (Dread!Rinkah might actually be kinda okay here but you gotta ask Espinosa for that one) and it's not really a priority stat too boost her on, but Berserker!Rinkah has higher base HP, HP+5, and 20% higher HP growths over Oni Chieftain, so it lets her potentially take an extra tome to the face or so, while not really hurting her physical durability too much.

After all, she also doesn't quite want to get tinked all the time, either. Flame Blood does require having some damage on her, so having enemies do nominal 1-2 damage works in her favor.

With Oni Chieftain her expected HP is in the 30s. With Berserker and Seraph robe, I got it to 54 at 20/17.

As for tanks, Guard Naginata Hinoka is my favorite one since she has reasonably high HP and good stats in both def and res, so I can just make her go whereever.

Interesting... I suppose Berseker would then make her better against Magic with the higher HP, which is what gives a tanks a lot of trouble. Of course, for Birthright you'd need Fighter Corrin to do that, for Revelations friending her with Charlotte is fine. I'll have to look into doing that when I finally get to Revelations.

Hinoka with a Guard Naginata is also good defensively, but I use her in an offensive role. Her res does allow her to be a magic tank and she can easily put in that spot where there are more magic than physical enemies in the area. Even with the Guard Naginata, Rinkah's defence is still a lot higher that Hinoka in my file, but Rinkah's res isn't that great. Rinkah is better for those situations where you throw her in a position where she'll be attacked by, say, 3 or more units and just shrug them all off, she can take more of a beating. Though Hinoka is much better offensively and can often double doing significant damage.

I just think the problem with Rinkah is not actually Rinkah herself, but that people apply the wrong criteria to evaluate her. She's a defence focused unit yet so many people just keep talking about her strength when killing units is not her job. She's the equivalent of a Hoshidan Knight. Though I suppose you could really build her for it with that Berserker set up.

[solrocknroll]

Possibly more so because you don't even need to tape Corn to her that way, which frees up Corn to do something else. The principle for earlygame is the same--Boost her out of bad-bases hell with tonics and boosters, and given exp decay she shouldn't be 20/5 yet when Charlotte joins. Tape Charlotte to Rinkah and get Berserker (it's even faster bc you only need an A and not S which saves 2 chapters). Reclass after 20/5 if you don't care about Smithy and 20/6 if you do.

The general idea is fix her bases--which is a universal solution (this is also the same principle for Dread Fighter Rinkah--since that gives her promoted class bases--though I haven't really done it that way personally--I don't just want a usable Rinkah I want a god tier Rinkah), grab the +crit skill, and go maximum crit once you're tanky as fuck on the defense end and start building more offense and bulk on the HP end.

It isn't very fair to Charlotte that you're relegating her to "Rinkah's Berserker source"

charlotte's an amazing character who doesn't exactly deserve that treatment

also Charlotte > Rinkah

[Eriotto]

I'm actually suprise you can get her to this stage she's monster, really i do.
Well whenever game will come to EU i might try this, also try to make other character more usefull as specyfic class but we'll see lol.

[Thor Odinson]

Interesting... I suppose Berseker would then make her better against Magic with the higher HP, which is what gives a tanks a lot of trouble. Of course, for Birthright you'd need Fighter Corrin to do that, for Revelations friending her with Charlotte is fine. I'll have to look into doing that when I finally get to Revelations.

Hinoka with a Guard Naginata is also good defensively, but I use her in an offensive role. Her res does allow her to be a magic tank and she can easily put in that spot where there are more magic than physical enemies in the area. Even with the Guard Naginata, Rinkah's defence is still a lot higher that Hinoka in my file, but Rinkah's res isn't that great. Rinkah is better for those situations where you throw her in a position where she'll be attacked by, say, 3 or more units and just shrug them all off, she can take more of a beating. Though Hinoka is much better offensively and can often double doing significant damage.

I just think the problem with Rinkah is not actually Rinkah herself, but that people apply the wrong criteria to evaluate her. She's a defence focused unit yet so many people just keep talking about her strength when killing units is not her job. She's the equivalent of a Hoshidan Knight. Though I suppose you could really build her for it with that Berserker set up.

Hinoka's for situations like "oh look there's great knights and dark knights/rev knights bunched together, what do I do, oh I know, throw Hinoka at them and win" and Rinkah's for big all-phys groups, which are still common enough in Hoshido to be relevant. Sometimes they come at different sides so I have them each handle a side.

Rinkah does have problems--but most of it's her bases, particularly on Lunatic. I have issues with her personal str being low on account of her being ripped as fuck in her design than anything, though in faster play Offense > Defense and building Rinkah to boost both Offense and Defense ultimately makes her go from servicable to great. The goal of Berserker Rinkah isn't to just make her usable--but rather turn her into a versatile unit who can both kill things really hard and still tank very well. That's also why Ryoma's great (although Ryoma a whole different level of great compared to mostly everyone else)---he removes things dead while not getting hit and he's the most reliable way of dealing with large berserker groups out of how little shits he gives about anything.

It isn't very fair to Charlotte that you're relegating her to "Rinkah's Berserker source"

charlotte's an amazing character who doesn't exactly deserve that treatment

also Charlotte > Rinkah

Fucking rude, this isn't the Charlotte favoritism thread, go away

And also, they benefit from each other just as much. Charlotte wants Death Blow and she has such fat HP that Oni Chieftain's 10% HP wouldn't deter her much. She could do with a bit more defense as well.

[Ayra]

I'm not sure if it's a quirk of the RNG, but I used Rinkah twice (once in on a Japanese, and my current NA playthrough) and in both cases she turned out to be more of a tanky mage than a physical unit.

Here's the stats of my current level 20/10 Rinkah that received absolutely 0 favoritism:

35 HP

19 Str

16 Mag

17 Skill

26 Sped

14 Lck

29 Def

12 Res

26 Speed + 29 Defense is really good: that's more defense than anyone on my team besides Oboro. When you add the Horse God tome, that's 29 speed, 32 defense which is pretty darn good for Hoshido units. Yes, offense-wise she's not very good and her defense against magic is very poor, but her own Seal Resistance seal helps her damage. Plus, I tend to have Orochi hanging around her so the Seal Resistance gets additional use. She's not the best unit I have by any means, but she's been very usable with 0 favoritsm given to her.

[Usana]

I nearly sidelined Rinkah early on. But after she got leveled up a bit she started to do fine. However, I will admit I switched her over to ninja at 10. Given her low damage I really wanted Poison. I also A+'ed her with Oboro to get some spear fighter. She is now GK Rinkah and is one of my most important hold the line units. That said she fails to orko a lot, but that just makes her useful for leveling up lower leveled units(since with poison she quite regularly brings enemies into single digits if not down to 1). And if I need her to one round someone? That is what beast killers, armor slayers/hammers, or Rinkah's super crit club are for. That said. 5 Res and 29 hp. . . Run away from mages. Run away VERY FAST.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Usana

[Ebony]

Okay so

I gotta ask, Thor, how long did it take tog et all of this set up, and on a scale of 1/10 how worth it was it?

[PuffPuff]

Rinka sucks. Just drop her.

Care to expand that thought?

I don't see any reason why to do so when she starts tanking physical units making it easier for your other units to finish the job after she has lured them out! Plus making her a Zerker is recommended for her pretty low HP growth. But...making her into an Exorcist isn't bad either.

[Thor Odinson]

Okay so

I gotta ask, Thor, how long did it take tog et all of this set up, and on a scale of 1/10 how worth it was it?

Honestly not that long and 10/10 worth it if you like Rinkah because seeing 100% crit is hilarious

It's like having a second instadelete button and this one works on armors because Killer Axe x4 crits with how my Rinkah went perfect ohko Generals it was super great

Like, the biggest part is just getting past her offensive bases. I went an extra step and got her Salvage Blow because I wanted Irons from the sky but that bit is honestly not necessary so much as I just wanted to get ridiculous with forges, so a reclass at 20/5 (I think I got here around...chapter 19?20?ish) to Berserker is pretty simple and you should be long married to her before she hits that. I think I hit S rank around...chapter 13? Mostly just with fighting next to each other too since both Corn and Rinkah want to front in this case but sometimes I guard stance them it's pretty situational (I also had to juggle A Kaze with that, that's the hard part)

I guess the liveblogging makes it sound like so much effort but it really was just

buy some tonics

win

oh look a statbooster she'd like and nobody else desperately needs

feed

Hit 20/5 (20/5Blacksmith->20/6 Oni Chieftain if you want Salvage blow, money rains from the sky in Hoshido by that point for you to get another seal, but Death Blow is the real important skill), reclass to zerk

enjoy your 100% critical delete button who beat the hp curve

Like if I pulled this off in Lunatic nogrind while still pumping Ryoma to --/19 I think it's pretty easily doable--actually at some point I was loling at how easy it was--I think 4, 5, 6 were the only real setup chapters and once I hit tonics in 7 she ORKOd the entire map

Ohyeah, don't forget that Flame Blood exists, this is also why Berserker build is so good--it gives Rinkah a lot more leeway to lose HP like, 42/54 is nothing but 16/28 is kinda danger zone (if god forbid she still has 28 by lategame)

Edited February 29, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[Esme]

Care to expand that thought?

I don't see any reason why to do so when she starts tanking physical units making it easier for your other units to finish the job after she has lured them out! Plus making her a Zerker is recommended for her pretty low HP growth. But...making her into an Exorcist isn't bad either.

Oboro and Hinoka can tank enemies way better than her with a Guard Naginata. Hell, even Hinata can do the same, especially with a Nohrian Blade. Azama as a Dread Fighter can also take care of all your clubbing needs, and he actually has some semblance of a STR growth. Rinka could have had one, too, but she decided to take a note from Shigure and paint on her abs instead.

Really, it just takes a lot of work to get her going. It's great once she gets there, I'm sure, but why even bother when you have much better units to choose from.

I guess this doesn't really matter considering this is Birthright we're talking about.

By the way, Exorcist? What? That seems like a horrible choice for Rinka.

[Rapier]

On Normal/Hard, Rinka's just a bad/mediocre unit, but I've been having success with her on Lunatic Birthright, with 0 favoritism. Fixed growths really do wonders to her. She's level 12 and has 13 str, 13 spd and 12-14 def already. Arguably one of my best units so far, and I didn't expect this.

[Espinosa]

Fixed growths could do ANYTHING for her...

[Rapier]

Fixed growths could do ANYTHING for her...

Which ironically makes Lunatic easier than it should be. It's also a walk in the park compared to Nohr Hard/Lunatic, and imo not much harder than Birthright Hard.

[Thor Odinson]

Oboro and Hinoka can tank enemies way better than her with a Guard Naginata. Hell, even Hinata can do the same, especially with a Nohrian Blade. Azama as a Dread Fighter can also take care of all your clubbing needs, and he actually has some semblance of a STR growth. Rinka could have had one, too, but she decided to take a note from Shigure and paint on her abs instead.

Really, it just takes a lot of work to get her going. It's great once she gets there, I'm sure, but why even bother when you have much better units to choose from.

I guess this doesn't really matter considering this is Birthright we're talking about.

By the way, Exorcist? What? That seems like a horrible choice for Rinka.

Tonics are not that much work. Like I mentioned many times, the amount of work I put into Rinka put her above just about everyone else but Ryoma (and Corn after chapter 27 with Blazing Yato, but that's Blazing Yato for you), which isn't the same amount of work just to get her to function--that has a much lower effort threshold. When I do favoritism I'm not satisfied with "good", I'm only satisfied with "the best". This is the same kind of shit I pulled in FE12 Lunatic where I stuffed Navarre with 9 Lunatic boosters and made him Killer Forges and put him into god tier sniper status and Balmung!Lakche vs all FE4 bosses. When I do favoritism, I go for hilarious overkill. It's a lot more than what one needs to just simply use Rinkah.

Why bother? Because some people dare like characters as more than a pile of stats. If someone wants to use my second favorite fates character I'm here to see them through.

Exorcist sound pretty awful with her what, 15% base mag growth and nonexistent base, if you want magic Rinkah just run Oni Chieftain and let Bolt Axe's mt do it for you.

[Esme]

Tonics are not that much work. Like I mentioned many times, the amount of work I put into Rinka put her above just about everyone else but Ryoma (and Corn after chapter 27 with Blazing Yato, but that's Blazing Yato for you), which isn't the same amount of work just to get her to function--that has a much lower effort threshold. When I do favoritism I'm not satisfied with "good", I'm only satisfied with "the best". This is the same kind of shit I pulled in FE12 Lunatic where I stuffed Navarre with 9 Lunatic boosters and made him Killer Forges and put him into god tier sniper status and Balmung!Lakche vs all FE4 bosses. When I do favoritism, I go for hilarious overkill. It's a lot more than what one needs to just simply use Rinkah.

Why bother? Because some people dare like characters as more than a pile of stats. If someone wants to use my second favorite fates character I'm here to see them through.

Exorcist sound pretty awful with her what, 15% base mag growth and nonexistent base, if you want magic Rinkah just run Oni Chieftain and let Bolt Axe's mt do it for you.

Good point. I think I'd like her better if I gave her a really good try. Can't let memes deter us, right?

I'll let those 100% crit rates speak for themselves.

[Thor Odinson]

Tbh I really hate that meme

[Ebony]

Oboro and Hinoka can tank enemies way better than her with a Guard Naginata. Hell, even Hinata can do the same, especially with a Nohrian Blade. Azama as a Dread Fighter can also take care of all your clubbing needs, and he actually has some semblance of a STR growth. Rinka could have had one, too, but she decided to take a note from Shigure and paint on her abs instead.

Really, it just takes a lot of work to get her going. It's great once she gets there, I'm sure, but why even bother when you have much better units to choose from.

I guess this doesn't really matter considering this is Birthright we're talking about.

By the way, Exorcist? What? That seems like a horrible choice for Rinka.

It's Ayanami. Ignore em.

Also I've decided to give Rinkah a try after the show she put on.

Riding the bus home from school, played some FEF. Rinkah down to 1 hp (w/ Oboro pair up) and she got three crits in a row and dodged the main boss.

Thanks Rinkah.

[Shadow Mir]

It's Ayanami. Ignore em.

Also I've decided to give Rinkah a try after the show she put on.

Riding the bus home from school, played some FEF. Rinkah down to 1 hp (w/ Oboro pair up) and she got three crits in a row and dodged the main boss.

Thanks Rinkah.

BOOM HEADSHOT!

Anyways, I personally think Rinkah's better than most people give her credit for.

[NekoKnight]

What is the next best class for Rinka after Berserker? I was thinking of doing a 4-10 Oni, 10-25 Dread Fighter and then switch to Blacksmith for the rest.

[Thor Odinson]

I think Blacksmith is pretty solid (and fwiw I really like it aesthetically). I like Oni Chieftain's Str/Def on principle (Im a sucker for str what can I say) but the hit issues, esp considering a lot of people's complaints, might hurt a bit--though it depends on if you wanna run Bolt Axe or not. Rinkah won't have the mag to run Bolt Axe in Blacksmith even with its high mt (I've tried this, chapter 19 aside it's pretty shit). Maybe sometimes tickle some things, but at that point I'd rather just point my +1 Throwing Club forge at whatever I'm trying to hit.

I mean, my Rinkah went 20/5 as Blacksmith, then did 1 lv of OC before going Berserker, and she still kicked plenty of ass as Blacksmith. I think Blacksmith is the best overall tank option without access to Fighter (Hero might be interesting though, with Fighter in mind--I might try that next time) --Chieftain may have a bit more defense, but it sacrifices a lot more HP and Rinkah's defense is high enough as is--considering she was still one of my best tanks in Berserker, a low defense class.

Dread's also solid and will help her res out so she'll become an overall better tank that way. BS Rinkah is definitely more defensively skewed than Berserker Rinkah. Lancebreaker might be useful too when you get it at 20/15. Those Generals do hit pretty hard.

If you want a bit more offense though and have the cash to spare for an extra seal, considering dipping in a level of Chieftain for Death Blow because I fucking love Death Blow. Run Scarlet's Killer axe with it if Great Club's hitrates are suspect. Scarlet can use other axes anyway since her crit's not reliable.

Anyway I think on paper Oni->Dread->(1 lv Chieftain if you want)->BS sound solid. Tell me how it goes.

You are also totally free to hit up my castle for HP+5/Axefaire now that I went and did Berserker first day for everyone

Edited March 1, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[joshcja]

NGL rinakah is my birthright waifu and is....pretty much the reason I even bought that game. (I'm like oni ok?)

Her early low bases are made up for by that personal skill and her class set is pretty great so I've honestly never had to "save" her. She gets enough exp out of being EP in birthright to cover her bases early enough and scales quickly.

Edited March 1, 2016 by joshcja

[NekoKnight]

I liked the idea of Dread Fighter to Blacksmith because she can practice both swords and axes and continue to use after class changing again. Hopefully I won't be gimping her Defense too much.

[Thor Odinson]

I liked the idea of Dread Fighter to Blacksmith because she can practice both swords and axes and continue to use after class changing again. Hopefully I won't be gimping her Defense too much.

I think if it's just 10-25 It should be fine, esp since Blacksmith has +2 base def on Dread and will gain 10% def growth for 10 levels too. Rinkah's personal def should carry hard enough. Dread's mostly useful to significantly boost her bases. Aggressor's also cool, but that's lv35 and too far endgame and not likely reachable unless you play like me and use her a super heavy-handedly and BS is really significantly tankier than Dread.

I definitely think it sound like an interesting build path and would like to see it in action, esp considering I can't get her Berserker every time given Birthright. Sometimes I want lobster dinner

[Pretty_Handsome]

Rinkah is great.

Have her A+ with Orochi and she'll make a great Oni.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Pretty_Handsome