Why is Donnel so hated?

[Rezzy]

I've used Donnel on Lunatic. He peaks in a mid-grind game. He takes some work to get off the ground, then will be one of your best units until units start hitting caps. He's a good dad for Kjelle or Noire, I still think Gale Force is worth a lower stat point or two in various stats, you've got to pair Donnel off with someone, so it might as well be to one of those to to get Gale Force out of it. You only really notice the lower caps on a 100+ hour grind post-game team, so if you're playing for the main story, he's pretty good.

Aptitude is also a great boon for Donnel's kid. They'll raise practically every stat every level, which will make them your best unit until very late post game, when other units start capping stats.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Rezzy

[Water Mage]

As said, arguing about 1-3 point differences in modifiers is pure nitpicking outside of postgame contexts.

To be fair, I meant to talk about growths too, Donnel's aren't the best for Owain.

[Rezzy]

To be fair, I meant to talk about growths too, Donnel's aren't the best for Owain.

Although factoring in Aptitude gives a +20% growth to everything, which works for pretty much every kid.

[Shadow Mir]

I'm not fond of units that start out this outlandishly bad when you have other units that fill the entire roster. At least with Mozu for instance, Mozu starts with a not completely full roster, so even if she's kind of worse, she can sort of help and by the time you get a completely full roster, she's either better or only slightly below average. Using Donnel requires me to use a character that's not much better .

Donnell basically starts out by having his chapter say "baby him or forget him," and the amount of awesome he displays for doing it is less than... Like everyone in the game.

Speaking of Mozu, she (at least in Conquest) actually has a niche, which is more than can be said of Donnel.

[Avestus]

I didn't use Donnel in awakening's lunatic (though i did use Mozu in Conquest). I want to adress a certain argument regarding trainees that always puzzles me - "they demand a lot more effort". The first thing is that they gain exp a lof faster then other units. So the actual gap is way smaller than it seems. Moreover, if you use a focused small team, you're very likely to face very moderate exp gains for them at some point. The second point is that awakening's lunatic (and here we speak of Donnel specifically) throws horrendous hordes of enemies at you and actually you can easily afford (and sometimes you are made to) to have some non-optimal exp distribution. I made it fine with (ab)using Freddy up to the chapter 22+ in no-grind no-dlc run, which means that throwing exp at Donnel is completely affordable.

I agree that due to that same point (hordes of enemies actively swarming you) it is harder to babysit his initial stages than Mozu's in Conquest. But that is the only problem. "Exp wasting" is not a factor.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Avestus

[Thor Odinson]

It's not just the exp gain, though. It's the fact you have to set up kills specifically for him which can be difficult considering his initial durability is nonexistent and if he whiffs one hit he'll just die. I don't have time to waste boxing in archers when I can just clear the map with...literally everyone else with far less effort. It gets even harder when you'd likely have Avatar being able to pull off ORKO at that point, if not at least another unit too. I remember my Lunatic Sully was able to pull off straight up ORKOs by chapter 5 after pairup, which means there isn't anything Donnel can even use to nab some low hp kill because they're too busy being dead.

Plus, other units do the "high-ass stats eventually" niche better by starting out with much higher bases. Panne's growths are kinda insane even without aptitude, except her bases start solid enough to contribute without being a hindrance and becomes very good after a lv 10 wyvern reclass. Any child unit whose parents are well-levelled also have good bases to work off, at level 10 unpromoted. Stack that with veteran for Morgan and avatar's other child and that's one level per kill given a second unpromoted reclass and they hit green stat territory pretty fast. So Donnel's outclassed even in his own niche.

[Shadow Mir]

It's not just the exp gain, though. It's the fact you have to set up kills specifically for him which can be difficult considering his initial durability is nonexistent and if he whiffs one hit he'll just die. I don't have time to waste boxing in archers when I can just clear the map with...literally everyone else with far less effort. It gets even harder when you'd likely have Avatar being able to pull off ORKO at that point, if not at least another unit too. I remember my Lunatic Sully was able to pull off straight up ORKOs by chapter 5 after pairup, which means there isn't anything Donnel can even use to nab some low hp kill because they're too busy being dead.

Plus, other units do the "high-ass stats eventually" niche better by starting out with much higher bases. Panne's growths are kinda insane even without aptitude, except her bases start solid enough to contribute without being a hindrance and becomes very good after a lv 10 wyvern reclass. Any child unit whose parents are well-levelled also have good bases to work off, at level 10 unpromoted. Stack that with veteran for Morgan and avatar's other child and that's one level per kill given a second unpromoted reclass and they hit green stat territory pretty fast. So Donnel's outclassed even in his own niche.

On top of that, Donnel comes at a bad time - there's no way in hell I'd want to field him in chapter 4, with its small number of unit slots, or chapter 5, which has wyverns.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

He doesn't gain EXP that fast. He's not on some special negative tier like the SS trainees, so he gains EXP at about the same speed as the other characters, but with massively worse bases. He can also only safely get kills off of the Archers in his join chapter (it's possible to milk them for every EXP point by trapping them if they don't have Pass, but no other unit requires this absurd amount of effort). With 4 Str and 2 Skl, he's doing complete garbage for damage and with questionable accuracy. This means that the other units have to very specifically weaken units to get him that killing blow, which pretty much means strategiziing the entire turn around his useless ass, then he's prone to whiffing because any melee targets either have WTA or are just really fast. With 16 HP, 3 Spd and 3 Def, if he whiffs, he dies and even the pair-up boosts from Fred, Kellam or Lon'qu will not save him, since the Barbs will not only one-shot him, but also double him to ensure he's super dead. Even with Kellam and a Woods tiles, Thieves will exactly one-round him and that's only if they don't have Luna+. And enemy stats only go up from there.

[Inference]

The first thing is that they gain exp a lof faster then other units. So the actual gap is way smaller than it seems.

It doesn't matter how quickly he gains EXP when he can't hit or damage most enemies in any of the chapters surrounding his join time. The kill setups required to get him up to par are objectively a waste of time when the alternative is simply rushing through the map with Avatar and their backup and beating the game.

Also consider the fact that every unit before him also has a weapon level lead because two of them are Cavaliers, one is Frederick, and the other is Avatar, the single most powerful unit in the game. Even after the babying, his offense will never catch up because he's forced to start over in Bronzes after reclass.

Finally, you neglect the most important aspect of any unit's offense in this game: the enemy phase. Donnel had better be getting all of that EXP per kill because he is getting one per turn, max, with setup. Avatar is getting several, and everyone else is at least able to get some enemy phase combat in without being one-rounded in an early game full of axes.

So you've trained Donnel, Congratulations. What then? He's still lagging behind Galeforce Avatar and children, and likely has no mount, Nosferatu, or Rescue to contribute to mid or late game. He's useless in every defeat the boss Chapter, and still isn't getting in much EP with his inferior 1-2 range options in route chapters. He doesn't have strong tools for beating the game, period.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Inference

[Roflolxp54]

Everyone keeps bringing up caps.

Caps don't really matter unless you're grinding for Apotheosis/other DLC, so in the main game, growths are much more important.

Base stats and availability are easily just as important in a no-grind context. Donnel's base stats are trash tier in comparison to the rest of the available cast when his paralogue first opens up (especially in Lunatic(+)) and he joins a little too late to be of use unlike Sumia, who's level 1 upon joining in Ch. 3.

If you have DLC to abuse and don't care about going through a no-grind challenge, then you can have fun getting Donnel to ~lv. 13 in his joining paralogue on Lunatic if you know WTF you're doing.

[Augestein]

Speaking of Mozu, she (at least in Conquest) actually has a niche, which is more than can be said of Donnel.

In Revelations, the party is empty when you get her. You have Avatar, Gunter, Servant, and Azura as your only units at this point. The next chapter says you get 4 units after her paralogue. Depending on how that chapter goes, Mozu could be slightly less useful than Gunter with a tonic or 2 in the story. I mean Donnell in Lunatic(+) might actually be worse than WENDY of all people.

[Roflolxp54]

In Revelations, the party is empty when you get her. You have Avatar, Gunter, Servant, and Azura as your only units at this point. The next chapter says you get 4 units after her paralogue. Depending on how that chapter goes, Mozu could be slightly less useful than Gunter with a tonic or 2 in the story. I mean Donnell in Lunatic(+) might actually be worse than WENDY of all people.

There's also Anna, who can join as early as Ch. 7 as a lv. 10 Outlaw if you dropped money for a map full of Berserkers using 1-2 ranged axes/clubs.

[Water Mage]

Although factoring in Aptitude gives a +20% growth to everything, which works for pretty much every kid.

Ah, I forgot.

Another point that Mozu has over Donnel is the fact that she can reclassed the moment she joins, and said class is Archer which is very useful in Fates, and Bows and Yumis have very high Might, so she can a bit of damage.

Yet another thing that Mozu has over Donnel is if you decide to keep her a Villager, she gets to keep her weapon rank, as both of Villager's promotions uses Lances, unlike Donnel, who neither class he can change into uses Lances.

[Moblin Major General]

Ah, I forgot.

Another point that Mozu has over Donnel is the fact that she can reclassed the moment she joins, and said class is Archer which is very useful in Fates, and Bows and Yumis have very high Might, so she can a bit of damage.

Yet another thing that Mozu has over Donnel is if you decide to keep her a Villager, she gets to keep her weapon rank, as both of Villager's promotions uses Lances, unlike Donnel, who neither class he can change into uses Lances.

If only Donnel could've promoted to Wyvern Lord and Great Knight, that would've been awesome. I agree that Donnel stops being really viable past Hard Classic, but in that regard, he shows that he is an Est. However, he is the most useful one aside from Est herself and maybe Nino.

[Rezzy]

Donnel's modifiers really aren't that bad. The worst he has is a -1 in Magic, Skill, Speed, and Res. Magic and Res don't really matter much. The -1 to Speed hurts a bit, but isn't insurmountable, especially when counting inheritance. I'd trade 1 point of speed for Gale Force any day. Other units are better, but I think the power gap between Donnel and the others is insignificant and overstated. There's not really any bad units in Awakening, unless you count the units that are support starved.

[Augestein]

Donnel's modifiers really aren't that bad. The worst he has is a -1 in Magic, Skill, Speed, and Res. Magic and Res don't really matter much. The -1 to Speed hurts a bit, but isn't insurmountable, especially when counting inheritance. I'd trade 1 point of speed for Gale Force any day. Other units are better, but I think the power gap between Donnel and the others is insignificant and overstated. There's not really any bad units in Awakening, unless you count the units that are support starved.

The issue is that it really isn't though. Caps are a strange argument, and they don't really matter much, and I agree that skills are overall more important than caps in that regard for inheritance. However, when it comes to plain unit performance, that's where Donnel's problems rear their ugly head.

The earliest Donnel can be recruited is after chapter 3, so assuming you want to use him, you have to go to him immediately. And Donnel's base stats are garbage. Like, he's a frontliner and he has durability that's comparable to a mage, Miriel. I'm not even kidding. Honestly, he's less durable than she is because she has actual res, and 2 extra hp, and that's also assuming Miriel gains exactly 0 levels from chapter 2 and chapter 3. But to make matters worse, he's got an even bigger problem, offense. 4 strength with 2 skill is miserable, even with that base 11 luck. The enemies he has WTA over are generally the faster enemies meaning that he risks missing against them and then being ORKOed by them in the event of a miss. Miriel, on the other hand, has 5 skill and 6 luck, which, while shaky is better than Donnel. She can attack from 2 range and hit much harder than he can with her base of 6 (8 with her skill) magic. The only other level 1 that's there is to compare is Sumia, and she has better everything than Donnel outside of 3 points of luck.

Even if I count support starved units, Anna at least starts out really good, and has staff usefulness (can be replaced by Libra), and units like Basillio at least have Rally Strength at base and can be an okay Pair Up bot in that regard if someone else has been lagging behind. It's more tan Donnel could ever do.

[kantoorfarina]

The point here is that despite his stats being good later, in terms of overall usefulness Donnel is just bad. The pretty green numbers make the illusion that he's a good unit and he was worth the effort, but overall how useless he is early on and how much effort he took to get to that point when you could be doing just as well had you gave that exp to other units that could have been useful early on and lategame makes it so that using him just isn't worth it.

[Light Strategist]

Donnel is alright, but as everyone has pointed out he does take resources and has lower caps than other units. The only unit that can take Donnel as a father from what I've heard is Kjelle, but even then she does have better fathers (I think).

Vaike for one. Amazing Strength Cap and access to Hero for Sol and Axebreaker can make her a very formidable unit.

[eclipse]

Donnel has two problems:

1. Villager is the only class of his that uses lances, so one he's out of it, he'll be stuck at E ranks.

2. Villager bases are complete and utter ass.

I really like Underdog, and if he manages to get it before he reclasses into anything more useful, he'll have some decent contributions to his name. The problem is getting him to that point (forged Bronze Lances come to mind).

[Baldrick]

Donnel's different to comparable units in earlier games like Wendy and Amelia in that his growths are good enough for him to actually catch up without taking a disproportional amount of EXP.

But he's competing with Panne, who can be self-sufficient before reclassing and can fly after reclassing, so it's not surprising that he's ignored or not recruited at all.

[Rezzy]

Donnel's different to comparable units in earlier games like Wendy and Amelia in that his growths are good enough for him to actually catch up without taking a disproportional amount of EXP.

But he's competing with Panne, who can be self-sufficient before reclassing and can fly after reclassing, so it's not surprising that he's ignored or not recruited at all.

I generally find Donnel's skill set better than Panne's. I find access to Armsthrift invaluable, since I can use Forged Uber weapons without having to worry about replacing them, especially with Donnel's high luck stat. I also like having Sol access, even though many min-maxers find it suboptimal.

[Inference]

There's no way Armsthrift and Sol allows Donnel to compete with Draco Panne, a unit whose overall capabilities would come second only to the Avatar if she had Galeforce access.

[Mikhail Naumov]

Because a lot of Fire Emblem fans are rather hardcore. A vast majority of the time, casual players are the only types who meander about babying the hell out of characters. Most people don't want to constantly use reeking boxes to spawn risen onto the map, then proceed into the skirmish with the character you're babying and then pair him up with one of your best units for the stat boosts, proceeding from there to just grind out one of the easier risen chapter spots OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Then second seals come into play, and it's just a fucking chore. This is essentially arena abuse from the earlier FE games just masked as something different. A lot of hardcore FE fans want to play through the game on harder difficulties, and they pride themselves in doing as little grinding as possible because grinding is time consuming and takes a lot away from the challenge of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone who does this is a casual, there's actually a TON of value (especially on fucking Lunatic and Lunatic+) in reclassing and grinding characters, but Donnel is a poor fucking choice. His stat caps are abysmal and he's a shit father on top of that. It goes back to the same general idea of trainee units in FE8. Excluding maybe Ross since you get him really early on, it's literally pointless (especially since FE8 is the easiest game in the series) to baby characters like this because regardless of how good they turn out there's an abundance of characters you'll already have who are leagues ahead and they are by no means necessary in terms of progressing through the game.

Not to mention having a character with a fucking piece of cookware on his head during battle animations is just a bit stupid, and as a character Donnel is just a perpetuated stereotype of the 'dumb southern farm boy' trope you see in all sorts of TV/Movies/Video Games. Also, his base stats are absolute garbage. He can get some good skills, but due to his low stat caps and how much babying he needs, it's a waste of time when there are characters who take less grinding who can turn out better.



TL;DR - Donnel isn't worth the massive amount of babying and waste of second seals because he has abysmal stat caps and babying isn't exactly fun on top of that. He's just not worth it.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Mikhail Naumov

[Nym]

Actually, if Second seals wouldn't exist and he could promote to another class, Donnel could give Chrom or Ike a run for their money.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Nym

[Mikhail Naumov]

Actually, if Second seals wouldn't exist and he could promote to another class, Donnel could give Chrom or Ike a run for their money.

But they do, and regardless of that Chrom and Ike don't take time consuming about of babysitting to get to a desirable stage. You're essentially going to have to abuse the hell out of pair up and forge the hell out of Bronze Lances if you have any chance in hell of getting him to level 15, at that point he can start going off on his own. One of the worst problems with Donnel is his E rank lance start out, then once he reclasses he's going to lose lances entirely.

Plus Ike is just fucking broken, especially in late game RD. It's hard for me to see Donnel giving Ike a run for his money, Chrom I could maybe see. When Ike showed up in RD I thought he wasn't going to be OP as shit like he wasn't in PoR (older FE games have conditioned me to using really ass Lords, save for maybe FE7 Hector and FE8 Ephraim, then there's Sigurd) but by the time he was well into the Vanguard class he had stats up in the 30's and was one of the best units I had with minimal effort put into him. Aether is just bullshit in FE9/FE10.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Mikhail Naumov