Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War 2017 Tier List - Day 39: The support kids (Corple, Lene, Sharlow and Laylea)

[eclipse]

Merry Christmas to you too~!

So, Lewyn. Wait, WTF is this shit? LEVIN (like the sword in FE11) starts off by being obnoxious, while cleaning up a bandit problem and filling his pockets. He then has to hotfoot it over to recruit Fury, after which he is nowhere near anything of importance (besides the arena). If he can get to any sort of enemy patch, they'll die. Like Ayra, he has to get there first. Unlike Ayra, he picks up some ridiculous tome during the first generation that acts as an "I Win" button.

Have him shack up with a Pursuit mom (well, maybe not Ayra), and his kids will be fine.

6.5/10, with negative bias for bringing my least favorite character, and generally being an unpleasant character

[Koumal8]

Holsety!Levin has the best combat in the entire 1st generation and even if our favourite wind mage is a just a footy, Silesia and Zaxon aren't so far away that he can't contribute, while Ch5 might as well be called "The Levin&Sigurd Show" (all the other units are either busy chasing all the bandits or contribute nothing at all combat-wise): Sigurd has to get the Tyrfing, go back to the home castle, repair it and only then can he head for Lubeck, so Levin has all the time he needs to reach Langobalt. Then you have the desert, so none of the two is faster than the other as far as reaching Phinora is concerned, and then you need (at least in my experience) Levin to stand a chance against Leptor's forces.

To cut a long story short, being a footy is a problem for Levin only before getting Holsety, when he is still a superior fighter to all other footies thanks to 1-2 range, targeting Res and good evasion, so I don't see how he's not worthy of at least a 7/10. His best pairing (Fury) also takes 0 turns to accomplish, so you're not holding either of them back to make them fall in love.

[The Draco Knight]

Holsety!Levin has the best combat in the entire 1st generation and even if our favourite wind mage is a just a footy, Silesia and Zaxon aren't so far away that he can't contribute, while Ch5 might as well be called "The Levin&Sigurd Show" (all the other units are either busy chasing all the bandits or contribute nothing at all combat-wise): Sigurd has to get the Tyrfing, go back to the home castle, repair it and only then can he head for Lubeck, so Levin has all the time he needs to reach Langobalt. Then you have the desert, so none of the two is faster than the other as far as reaching Phinora is concerned, and then you need (at least in my experience) Levin to stand a chance against Leptor's forces.

To cut a long story short, being a footy is a problem for Levin only before getting Holsety, when he is still a superior fighter to all other footies thanks to 1-2 range, targeting Res and good evasion, so I don't see how he's not worthy of at least a 7/10. His best pairing (Fury) also takes 0 turns to accomplish, so you're not holding either of them back to make them fall in love.

Actually, Lewyn/Levin's best pairing is Tailto since Arthur can inherit Forseti and is present from the first chapter of the second generation, not to mention that, after promoting, he even gets a mount.

Anyway, Lewyn is penalized by the (big) problem of being foot-locked and the (less big) problem of lacking pursuit, but he can still be a bit useful thanks to the fac that he has 1-2 range and specializes on Wind Magic, by far the best type of magic. He later gets Forseti, which allows him to dispose of many enemies during the enemy phase(altough he may become so fast that the enemies may not even try to hit him).

5.0/10

6.5/10, with negative bias for bringing my least favorite character, and generally being an unpleasant character

May I ask you if that character is Julia?

I'm just curious.

[eclipse]

May I ask you if that character is Julia?

I'm just curious.

Sylvia. I can't stand what little personality she has. However, I'll expand on this once it's her turn.

(so Sylvia actually followed Levin, but still. They show up at the same time, and they pair far too quickly for my liking)

[Koumal8]

Actually, Lewyn/Levin's best pairing is Tailto since Arthur can inherit Forseti and is present from the first chapter of the second generation, not to mention that, after promoting, he even gets a mount.

I know of the debate on Levin!Sety vs Levin!Arthur and, as someone with the opposite opinion, may I ask you how you can have any Arthur incarnation contribute anything in Ch6? He starts off in the worst place I can possibly think, bandit hunting is up to Fee and he's a foot unit. I understand if you give him the Leg Ring, but isn't it best passed down to Seliph or Leen? (I did once have fun with Elite/Pursuit/Leg Ring on Holsety!Arthur but it's not something I would recommend )

By the way, I'm happy to see Midir got actually one of the higher means (even more than Lachesis!), definitely an underrated unit.

[Valkama]

Can we please not give units credit for what they do as a father unless the credit is for passing gold to their spouse. It doesn't really reflect how good they are as a unit. Furthermore Lewyn isn't even a good dad as all his pairings are very gimmicky and mediocre.

[CappnRob]

Pairing is a key mechanic of FE4 and some units that are underperforming as an individual still make great fathers which both 1: makes it worth fielding them for love points and 2: leveling them so their kids start out better statistically. Its a valid element of evaluating a character if one chooses to do so.

Also what's gimmicky about Levin's pairs? Tiltyu isn't gimmicky, its just OP and broken. Fury is arguably fairly middle of the road (Forsetti is gonna be OP no matter what you do), and Sylvia is gimmicky only in that Corple is Forsetti capable only upon promotion.

Edited December 26, 2016 by CappnRob

[Darrman]

"Furthermore Levin isn't even a good dad cause all his pairings are very gimmicky and mediocre"

>Holsety

>Mediocre

Oh, come on. Seriously?! You call passing down a good weapon mediocre? Gimmicky? Well I guess passing down the Elite Ring to Celice is gimmicky too. Sure, inheritance is gimmicky! Everything is a dumb gimmick! Even if you take Holsety out of the picture our Levin!Sety still has stupid good bases and insane speed even with Lightning/Elwind along with Pursuit/Continue/Critical and Fee still has her +5 strength convo in Ch10 helping her out, along with the same skills as her brother. Holsety is just the cherry on top of an already-great pairing.

[CT075]

i mean, does lakche *really* need ten thousand speed growth to do damage with magic swords?

ayra is much better being paired off with someone like dew, who can give her kids valuable skills like bargain, since the swordtwins have so much trouble clearing the arena

you heard it here first, folks - levin/ayra is the definition of a gimmicky pairing

[Refa]

the swordtwins don't have troubles clearing the arena, ur high bro

Edited December 26, 2016 by Refa

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Pairing Ayra with Dew doesn't make much sense since her children don't get any holy weapons and they can easily clean up the arena to get the required money.
Dew's only useful pairing is Bridget to pass bargain to Faval to repair Ichaival for the half price.

Furthermore Lewyn isn't even a good dad as all his pairings are very gimmicky and mediocre.

> Forseti <

[Valkama]

Edit: It seems I misspoke when I said Lewyn isn't even a good dad. What I meant to say was Lewyn isn't even that good of a dad. My apologies if that changes your views on what I said.

Tailto is Lewyn's only good pairing but it isn't at all game changing and you will notice little to no negative change if you ignore it. You actually might enjoy not having it because it frees up the pursuit ring for others to enjoy. The point of this pairing is to try and develop an indestructible 1-2 range magical mounted unit which is fun in a casual setting but when you actually run the numbers he isn't preforming that much better than an Azel!Arthur and he's using up valuable resources like the pursuit ring to do it. He'll also need gold as Forseti isn't cheap to repair. Other pairings aren't as durable as Lewyn!Arthur but they are often just as strong damage wise and don't require the pursuit ring or much gold at all and their durability isn't bad at all considering gen 2 enemies kinda suck in the damage department. It's still a good pairing for Arthur but it should also be noted that Tinni is garbage in this pairing since when you take Forseti out of the equation, Lewyn is a terrible dad. It should also be noted that other gimmicky pairings like Lex!Arthur and Finn!Arthur can do roughly the same thing along with having a relatively decent Tinni and not requiring the pursuit ring.

Erin isn't a good option and it's only redeeming quality is that there is a conversation for it so you don't have to grind it up. The pairing gives Fee a bad strength growth and a bad magic growth so her combat is shot unless you rig her up and she's arguably one of the best units in Gen 2 if she actually gets a good father. Ced gets Forseti and that's cool but he can't really do much with it. He clears the arena regardless if his dad is Lewyn or Arden. I'd argue Claud, Noish, Jamke, and Lex are all better options than Lewyn since they actually can improve Fee while Ced will still remain roughly the same unit. Claud and Noish are in particular miles above Lewyn as far as Erin pairings go.

I don't think the other pairings even need to be mentioned, they are all bad. Corpul is cute if you're just playing to have fun but like what else is there? He's a one trick pony as a dad.

i mean, does lakche *really* need ten thousand speed growth to do damage with magic swords?

ayra is much better being paired off with someone like dew, who can give her kids valuable skills like bargain, since the swordtwins have so much trouble clearing the arena

you heard it here first, folks - levin/ayra is the definition of a gimmicky pairing

Nice Strawman.

Pairing is a key mechanic of FE4 and some units that are underperforming as an individual still make great fathers which both 1: makes it worth fielding them for love points and 2: leveling them so their kids start out better statistically. Its a valid element of evaluating a character if one chooses to do so.

1. There is unlimited deployment in FE4, no reason not to field everyone.

2. Every unit but Tailto can reach mid twenties on the Arena alone provided you get them the elite ring for a little bit once they've won enough money to afford it.

Most gen 2 pairings actually change the game very little with the only big change being how Aideen is paired. No matter how bad your pairings are you can get by just fine because of how busted the static units are. Because of this I don't think units should really get that much credit for there pairings.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Valkama

[General Horace]

levin!fee is great dude, don't know what you're on about. The strength difference is pretty minor (at the most it's like a 3/4 point difference, and Fee's magic is still good enough to kill stuff with magic swords regardless) and having critical/continue/pursuit unpromoted with more or less exclusive hero lance useage for the first couple maps means her offence is nuts. Endgame Levin!Fee has better strength too since she gets +5 in chapter 10 too. Noish!Fee isn't much better (if at all better) than Levin!Fee and Levin!Sety is undoubtably better (their offence is the same against mooks but Levin!Sety has status staff potential and is far more durable).

Claude!Fee is also pretty terrible too, B staves is largely pointless, but Claude!Sety is pretty good.

All this being said it's pretty absurd that Levin's getting all these ridiculous ratings for a foot unit that's around for half the first generation, and father potential shouldn't really be taken into account for their gen 1 performance.

[FionordeQuester]

l this being said it's pretty absurd that Levin's getting all these ridiculous ratings for a foot unit that's around for half the first generation, and father potential shouldn't really be taken into account for their gen 1 performance.

What do you mean by "ridiculous ratings"? Ridiculously favorable, or ridiculously UNfavorable? Because if it's the latter...not everyone cares about efficiency. I mean, I DO happen to care about efficiency...but I also don't feel like that's a very good criterion for judging a unit. Because then there's no point in giving ratings at all. You don't have "good" or "bad" units; you have units you use, and units you DON'T use.

That's why I only gave Dew a 6/10, despite being one of THE most central units in my AAAA Rank LP; I looked at him from a casual perspective. And if we ARE talking casually...well, it's like you said. Levin "carried you" throughout the entire 1st Generation; I feel that a unit like THAT deserves a pretty high rating, regardles of how good they are at shaving turns.

Edited December 26, 2016 by FionordeQuester

[Koumal8]

Levin!Fee has an average of 9+0.25*28+5 = 21 Str at level 30. Falcon Knight caps Str at 22. If you want to use magic swords, Levin!Fee has an average of 1+0.25*28+7 = 15 Mag at level 30. The cap here is 22.

Not even Azel's Fala blood lets her ram the Mag cap: she reaches 1+0.45x28+7 = 20 Mag at level 30 coupled with 16 Str (same growth as Levin!Fee minus the conversation). I wouldn't say Fee's offence is inferior to that of other physicaldad!Fees.

TLDR; Levin!Fee's offence is still great.

[General Horace]

What do you mean by "ridiculous ratings"? Ridiculously favorable, or ridiculously UNfavorable? Because if it's the latter...not everyone cares about efficiency. I mean, I DO happen to care about efficiency...but I also don't feel like that's a very good criterion for judging a unit. Because then there's no point in giving ratings at all. You don't have "good" or "bad" units; you have units you use, and units you DON'T use.

That's why I only gave Dew a 6/10, despite being one of THE most central units in my AAAA Rank LP; I looked at him from a casual perspective. And if we ARE talking casually...well, it's like you said. Levin "carried you" throughout the entire 1st Generation; I feel that a unit like THAT deserves a pretty high rating, regardles of how good they are at shaving turns.

Even if you don't care about efficiency, Levin's an unreliable combat unit without the pursuit ring, unmounted, and missing for half the generation. I don't see how a unit with any combination of the three, let alone all three can warrant a 10/10 rating. Holsety is good, yes, but it kills like 5? enemies from the moment you get it (in gen 1) that just a basic Elwind would not.

He carried me when I didn't understand anything about the game and I had like three promoted units by chapter 4. Nowadays when I play my entire team except Ardan, Dew and Tiltyu will likely be promoted by this time without much effort. and understand the game a lot better that I don't need to plug along at 6 movement to wait for Levin to catch up to stuff. or even if i'm going at his pace, I have 10 other units that can kill an enemy just as well as he can.

Edited December 26, 2016 by General Horace

[FionordeQuester]

Even if you don't care about efficiency, Levin's an unreliable combat unit without the pursuit ring, unmounted, and missing for half the generation. I don't see how a unit with any combination of the three, let alone all three can warrant a 10/10 rating. Holsety is good, yes, but it kills like 5? enemies from the moment you get it (in gen 1) that just a basic Elwind would not.

The thing is, I would normally completely agree with you in regards to all this. Which is why I know it's going to sound weird when I say...

...

That he's worth every bit of babying that I recommended when I rated him. Again, give him the Bargain Ring, feed him Voltz and his men, get the Elite Ring, feed him Macbeth and his men, get him the Shield Ring, and then get him through the Arena. I don't know if that QUITE gets him to promotion..,but he'll be darn close. And once he DOES promote, he becomes more or less untouchable.

And no, you can't say that about any other units. Melee units don't have any decent 2 Range options outside of the magic swords, Archers are locked to 2 Range, and the other two mages you get simply aren't good enough to be the next FE9 Ragnell!Ike. I mean yeah, Sigurd is awesome...but even he suffers from low Resistance. Levin just straight up dodges ALL attacks, even without Holsety.

So yes, I'm basically saying to baby him, if you're doing a casual playthrough. I know that sounds bad, but...he's like FE9!Marcia. Babying him goes a lot further than it does for most other FE units.

[General Horace]

if you go to that extreme sure, but I don't think i'll be the only person to think it's pretty ridiculous to assume that, if you're doing that just use Lachesis or something.

It's the same as saying "if you feed the entirety of Sonia's map to Nino, she's the best!!1!1!!!!!"

The difference here is there isn't a whole lot of difference in performance of Levin if you just give him the pursuit ring and have him stroll around unpromoted than doing your ridiculous get Levin promoted halfway through chapter 2 theory. Unpromoted Levin can still kill the cross knights or w/e you want him to do in chapter 3 just fine, why not give the elite ring to a more versitile unit like Alec or Fin so they can promote for chapter 3, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a team with Promoted Alec + Level 15 Levin is stronger than a team with Promoted Levin + level 12 Alec or something in chapter 3.

[Refa]

So yes, I'm basically saying to baby him, if you're doing a casual playthrough. I know that sounds bad, but...he's like FE9!Marcia. Babying him goes a lot further than it does for most other FE units.

what no he is not

he doesn't even have mount

pretty dumb logic

[Excellen Browning]

You could also not baby Levin, get him holsety and boom unit that trivializes the rest of the generation. Without all of the extra effort.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Excellen Browning

[FionordeQuester]

if you go to that extreme sure, but I don't think i'll be the only person to think it's pretty ridiculous to assume that, if you're doing that just use Lachesis or something.

It's the same as saying "if you feed the entirety of Sonia's map to Nino, she's the best!!1!1!!!!!"

Not quite; Nino isn't even that good of a unit while promoted. She's decent enough, but...Pent himself is more than strong enough to murder enemies as well as she can, and has much better HP, Defense, CON, and Staff Rank on top of all that. The difference between her and Levin is that he's actually worth the trouble :P

The difference here is there isn't a whole lot of difference in performance of Levin if you just give him the pursuit ring and have him stroll around unpromoted than doing your ridiculous get Levin promoted halfway through chapter 2 theory. Unpromoted Levin can still kill the cross knights or w/e you want him to do in chapter 3 just fine, why not give the elite ring to a more versitile unit like Alec or Fin so they can promote for chapter 3, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a team with Promoted Alec + Level 15 Levin is stronger than a team with Promoted Levin + level 12 Alec or something in chapter 3.

Well, obviously we have a difference in opinion then. But if you're ever curious, just try doing what I suggested for Levin at some point; I think you'll be quite surprised at the end results.

You could also not baby Levin, get him holsety and boom unit that trivializes the rest of the generation. Without all of the extra effort.

Of course; would be a lot faster too! I just found myself pleasantly surprised one day, when I thought to myself "Hmmm...I wonder what Levin would be like if I did a solo with him?". And what do you know? The guy dominated absolutely everything the moment he hit promotion.

Doing that certainly isn't the fastest option...but it sure as heck seems to be the easiest. But like I said, I think it all depends on how much value you put on efficiency.

Edited December 26, 2016 by FionordeQuester

[Yojinbo]

I know of the debate on Levin!Sety vs Levin!Arthur and, as someone with the opposite opinion, may I ask you how you can have any Arthur incarnation contribute anything in Ch6? He starts off in the worst place I can possibly think, bandit hunting is up to Fee and he's a foot unit. I understand if you give him the Leg Ring, but isn't it best passed down to Seliph or Leen? (I did once have fun with Elite/Pursuit/Leg Ring on Holsety!Arthur but it's not something I would recommend )

Arthur can traverse the mountains to the south of his starting point in Ch.6 and directly go for the boss and nuke him with Holsety before anybody else can reach him. I don't know how the AI of the Axe Knight squad before the last castle works though I assume they'd go after him as well.

[ZemZem]

Looks like I need to pair Lewyn/Fury again. I did that pairing in my very first playthrough, but I forgot Forseti and didn't take advantage of the glorious brave lance. :v

Pairing Ayra with Dew doesn't make much sense since her children don't get any holy weapons and they can easily clean up the arena to get the required money.

Dew's only useful pairing is Bridget to pass bargain to Faval to repair Ichaival for the half price.

this is objectively false

Dew/Ayra is a fantastic pairing for her kids (keep in mind they can actually use Sol, too). Them not getting holy weapons is irrelevant, and they're going to be left behind anyway in the long run.

And Faval's going to get left behind, too. And not to mention he doesn't even need Bargain since there's better bows than Yewfelle.

[Yojinbo]

Looks like I need to pair Lewyn/Fury again. I did that pairing in my very first playthrough, but I forgot Forseti and didn't take advantage of the glorious brave lance. :v

Levin x Fury is an awful mismanagement of resources tbh. Passing down Holsety to a unit that's footlocked and effectively joins in Ch.9 when you can have it throughout the whole second generation on a unit that gains a horse is pretty bad.

Especially for a weapon that supposedly makes Levin a '10/10' unit.

[ZemZem]

Levin x Fury is an awful mismanagement of resources tbh. Passing down Holsety to a unit that's footlocked and effectively joins in Ch.9 when you can have it throughout the whole second generation on a unit that gains a horse is pretty bad.

Especially for a weapon that supposedly makes Levin a '10/10' unit.

I prefer Lewyn/Tiltyu myself. Changes Arthur from useless to one of the best units you can get and makes Tinny pretty good, too (+5 MAG conversation in Chapter 10 helps, wew).

Lewyn!Ced is cool, but I always thought he was vastly overrated by the masses. I prefer Fee's capabilities since I prefer her performance over her brother's, and Lewyn helps her out significantly.