What unit is the worst of their class?

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Giving Leonardo BEXP is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. 

Units like Aran, Edward, Micaiah and Jill will cap-ram 2-4 stats well before hitting level 20, or at least soon enough to make decent use of BEXP, making them all ideal for BEXP to fix their most glaring issues(Speed for Aran, Defense for Edward, Micaiah for... Like, half of her stats, and Jill for... I guess whatever she's lacking in in any particular run). Leonardo's much less likely to cap many stats(Res and Skill are most likely) assuming he gets any levels in the first place, to really cap ram anything, meaning you're wasting valuable BEXP that could go towards several other, actually potentially good units, just so Leonardo can simply catch up. To actually make him decent? He needs points speed(Lughnasdh is only going to carry him so far before this becomes a huge problem for him, and he'll struggle heavily until this point), defense, a lot of HP and moderate strength to fix his most glaring issues. Unfortunately, the stat he's most likely to get once he caps skill and res? Luck, the absolute BANE of BEXP. The only reason Micaiah is a BEXP candidate despite her luck eating good level ups is because she's forced throughout the entire game. Leonardo, meanwhile, is flatout detrimental at that point. 

Say what you will about Shinon or Rolf(Both of whom are actually amazing in RD, making Leonard highly redundant on top of just being bad) in PoR, at least they don't potentially take away from better units. 

For what it's worth, a promoted Leo can act as a delete button in part 3 with Beastfoe + Bowgun. I consider that something. Speaking of Edward, I don't consider him the outright worst as far as Myrmidons are concerned (that goes to either Shanam or Marisa), but he's easily down there. Aside from his survivability woes, any investment I make in a futile attempt to make him useful just gets rendered meaningless because whoops, Zihark shows up later.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Slumber said:

Giving Leonardo BEXP is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. 

The BEXP I only meant of PoR Shinon, not Leonardo. Knowing his growth distribution, I knew he'd be bad for that.

 

And you're increasingly showing me that Leonardo I must admit is probably the worse given the tightness of resources and demands the DB faces. I'll concede.

Now that I think about no-grind ingame Virion is also very very very trashy b/c zero enemy phase in one of the heaviest games for this and bad bases, assuming you're willing to snowball with others. But again, using him doesn't take so heavily from the Awakening cast the way using Leonardo does from the DB. Heck RD Astrid who has similarly lacking stats might be better than Leonardo if you consider she doesn't steal as much from others, although her contributions in her forced fights are likely smaller than Leonardo's chip contributions in Part 1.

[Armagon]

6 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Mycen is in a similar pickle. He has Zeke and Mathilda to squabble with and I believe both of those two are better than Mycen by a mile to bring into Duma's dungeon. And that's not even talking about any Villager you might have made a Cavalier (though why would you on Alm's route when you get two perfectly fine ones later?) or even Randall, who you can recruit into Alm's squad if you so desire.

Even then, Mycen isn't that bad. He's just there in case you didn't train up Clive, Mathilda, Zeke, or Randall (if you got the DLC).

[DragonFlames]

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Even then, Mycen isn't that bad. He's just there in case you didn't train up Clive, Mathilda, Zeke, or Randall (if you got the DLC).

I didn't mean to imply that he was. I was just stating that he was in a similar situation to Nomah in that he faces a lot of competition, units who are arguably superior to him, within his group. Those 10 slots for the final dungeon are surprisingly tight.
In that sense, Nomah MIGHT just have a slight edge over him, since at least you have a few all-deploy maps to use him as an emergency healing bot. With Mycen, it's the question "Did I train any of the Cavs I got before this up to a level that can work in the final dungeon?" and "Were they RNG screwed?" If your answer to the first question is yes and your answer to the second is "no", you're probably better off just sticking with your main Cav, is all I'm saying.
I know Mycen is far from the worst Cavalier-related unit in the series. There's plenty of other candidates for that title.

On the topic of the Dawn Brigade: Why bother training any of them up when you get a slew of strong units in their group anyway? You have Volug, Zihark, Jill, Tauroneo and temporarily Nailah and the Black Knight. Who the hell needs Edward, Leonardo, Aran, Nolan, Fiona or Meg when you have arguably the strongest Laguz in your group? You don't even need to have them trained for the infamous 3-13. Just block the exits the enemy can access directly with your stronger, tankier units (Jill, Tauroneo, Volug) and have your scrubs chip away at them from above the ledges with ranged weapons. You can even level up Sothe this way relatively easily. Just get him a bunch of throwing knives. Unless you were dumb enough to give someone on Ike's team Pass, you should be okay even with a barely trained Scrub Brigade.
Though I would agree that neither Edward nor Leonardo are the worst in their respective classes, though Leonardo comes close.
To me, the worst Myrmidon is Radd from Shadow Dragon (underleveled peace of garbage) and the worst Archer has to be Setsuna or PoR Rolf. 

Edited March 21, 2018 by DragonFlames

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

On the topic of the Dawn Brigade: Why bother training any of them up when you get a slew of strong units in their group anyway? You have Volug, Zihark, Jill, Tauroneo and temporarily Nailah and the Black Knight. Who the hell needs Edward, Leonardo, Aran, Nolan, Fiona or Meg when you have arguably the strongest Laguz in your group? You don't even need to have them trained for the infamous 3-13. Just block the exits the enemy can access directly with your stronger, tankier units (Jill, Tauroneo, Volug) and have your scrubs chip away at them from above the ledges with ranged weapons. You can even level up Sothe this way relatively easily. Just get him a bunch of throwing knives. Unless you were dumb enough to give someone on Ike's team Pass, you should be okay even with a barely trained Scrub Brigade.
Though I would agree that neither Edward nor Leonardo are the worst in their respective classes, though Leonardo comes close.

The issue with Volug is that he's a laguz, aka, the biggest losers in the transition from PoR to RD. And honestly, I find Volug starts struggling near the end of part 1. In part 3? Now he has to sit around being useless for several turns like any other non royal laguz, because untransformed laguz are pathetic to the point that "free kill" sums them up. And this is on top of the other problems that are innate to laguz. I do agree that neither Edward nor Leonardo are the worst in their respective classes, but I'd say Edward comes closer than Leo does.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[DragonFlames]

19 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

The issue with Volug is that he's a laguz, aka, the biggest losers in the transition from PoR to RD. And honestly, I find Volug starts struggling near the end of part 1. In part 3? Now he has to sit around being useless for several turns like any other non royal laguz, because untransformed laguz are pathetic to the point that "free kill" sums them up. And this is on top of the other problems that are innate to laguz. I do agree that neither Edward nor Leonardo are the worst in their respective classes, but I'd say Edward comes closer than Leo does.

There is an exploit you can use in order to train Volug up while in human form until he basically becomes a second Nailah. All you need to do is take away Wildheart, give him Paragon, Wrath and Resolve and throw him into the frey in the first DB chapter of Part 3. Keep Micaiah or Laura near in case things get dicey for him.
It's hysterical to watch him kick the crap out of transformed cats and tigers. In human form, he also gets way more EXP than normal, so he levels up fairly quickly. Once he transforms, he's a force to be reckoned with and becomes one of the most dangerous enemies to face in Part 3-Final.
Sure, Nailah is still better than him due to her ability to stay transformed indefinitely, but it's a fun, not to mention easy, way to get him up to snuff, to be sure.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Actually I didn't want to post in this forum anymore, but several comments in this thread really made me want to do it.
 

1. Leonardo is unquestionable mediocre in part 1. However there's absolute no reason not to invest bexp. into him. Since he caps skill and resistance soon enough, his strength and speed can be fixed. Lugnasadh gives +5 SPD, so he needs 15 speed to double the tigers. With a crit they can be ORKO'ed. Another argument for him is that he will be the only real range attack user in part 3 since Micky will be busy with healing. Seriously I'd rather give bexp. to first tier Leonardo than Micaiah because of their uses in part 3.
2. Edward is made of papar, yes. Aside of myrms and maybe soldiers he'll get 2KRO'ed in most cases. Does it mean he's bad? NO! He's still a great Player Phase unit with massive offense and good speed. His only issue is his earlygame where he needs every single Speed point for doubling. Also his affinity doesn't really help him. Sure, Zihark has his bases and earth, but It's not that Edward won't do his job as good as Zihark will be. In the longrun he usually turns even out better than Zihark regarding strength.
3. Gareth is mage-breakfast, but he still can oneshot a spirit in E-4 and E-5. And he also has bloodtide. The worst dragon in FE10 is Kurthnaga because he has the worst buffer and he joins with a terrible base speed. Even generals double and can ORKO him with brave weapons. 

Edited March 21, 2018 by Formersfuser

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

There is an exploit you can use in order to train Volug up while in human form until he basically becomes a second Nailah. All you need to do is take away Wildheart, give him Paragon, Wrath and Resolve and throw him into the frey in the first DB chapter of Part 3. Keep Micaiah or Laura near in case things get dicey for him.
It's hysterical to watch him kick the crap out of transformed cats and tigers. In human form, he also gets way more EXP than normal, so he levels up fairly quickly. Once he transforms, he's a force to be reckoned with and becomes one of the most dangerous enemies to face in Part 3-Final.
Sure, Nailah is still better than him due to her ability to stay transformed indefinitely, but it's a fun, not to mention easy, way to get him up to snuff, to be sure.

If I may be honest... one look at Volug's growth rates, and... *NWI intensifies* Basically, for how huge the risk of having Volug go home in a coffin is, the reward is just too paltry - crap growths everywhere but HP and Luck??? No thank you. Also, Paragon, Wrath, and Resolve all can't fit -they're all 15 capacity, and Volug would only have 30 free capacity. Btw, you mentioned another problem that makes laguz not worthwhile - the catch-22 that they suffer from. They need to fight untransformed to get an exp amount worth noting... but they're so laughably brittle that aside from Mordecai, one round will likely end with them dead or at death's doorstep. They can hold their own transformed, but their exp gain falls to hell and they have to contend with gauge, as well as being easy pickings for ranged fighters. I consider that terrible when most units aren't hindered by an assload of negative factors, another of which is the fact that strike rank goes up slooooooooooowly. As in "snail's pace" would be too kind in describing it.

 

On 3/19/2018 at 4:30 AM, DragonFlames said:

 

I did beat it once already. The final boss fight was hard, but really fun.

  Reveal hidden contents

I got the bad ending the first time through, though. Whoops.

 

Spoiler

So you got the ending where Aluche died, right? Anyway, one of the trophies required that, hence my mentioning needing two runs. I get the feeling that the other ending requires maxing out affection between Aluche and Liliana, and maxing out Aluche and Ruenheid's affection as well. But I'm not 100% sure.

 

49 minutes ago, Formersfuser said:

Edward is made of papar, yes. Aside of myrms and maybe soldiers he'll get 2KRO'ed in most cases. Does it mean he's bad? NO! He's still a great Player Phase unit with massive offense and good speed. His only issue is his earlygame where he needs every single Speed point for doubling. Also his affinity doesn't really help him. Sure, Zihark has his bases and earth, but It's not that Edward won't do his job as good as Zihark will be. In the longrun he usually turns even out better than Zihark regarding strength.

Being a good Player Phase unit isn't exactly a meaningful thing when most of the action happens on the Enemy Phase. So all I see him as is a way to make the already punishing part 1 chapters even harder than they need to be. Or did you forget any death means a date with the Game Over screen in the first 4 chapters?

49 minutes ago, Formersfuser said:

Gareth is mage-breakfast, but he still can oneshot a spirit in E-4 and E-5. And he also has bloodtide. The worst dragon in FE10 is Kurthnaga because he has the worst buffer and he joins with a terrible base speed. Even generals double and can ORKO him with brave weapons. 

Which Blood Tide doesn't even come close to making up for, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and he can only oneshot spirits that aren't on cover tiles - do you earnestly believe they won't attack him from one...???

Edited March 21, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Slumber]

4 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

On the topic of the Dawn Brigade: Why bother training any of them up when you get a slew of strong units in their group anyway? You have Volug, Zihark, Jill, Tauroneo and temporarily Nailah and the Black Knight. Who the hell needs Edward, Leonardo, Aran, Nolan, Fiona or Meg when you have arguably the strongest Laguz in your group? You don't even need to have them trained for the infamous 3-13. Just block the exits the enemy can access directly with your stronger, tankier units (Jill, Tauroneo, Volug) and have your scrubs chip away at them from above the ledges with ranged weapons. You can even level up Sothe this way relatively easily. Just get him a bunch of throwing knives. Unless you were dumb enough to give someone on Ike's team Pass, you should be okay even with a barely trained Scrub Brigade.

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. 

Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. 

The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP,  especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. 

Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). 

Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls. 

1 hour ago, Formersfuser said:

Leonardo is unquestionable mediocre in part 1. However there's absolute no reason not to invest bexp. into him. Since he caps skill and resistance soon enough, his strength and speed can be fixed. Lugnasadh gives +5 SPD, so he needs 15 speed to double the tigers. With a crit they can be ORKO'ed. Another argument for him is that he will be the only real range attack user in part 3 since Micky will be busy with healing. Seriously I'd rather give bexp. to first tier Leonardo than Micaiah because of their uses in part 3.

BEXP is competitive and Leo's luck growth makes him an absolute waste of BEXP. Aran needs speed, he's likely to get it. Edward needs Defense, there's a good chance he'll get it. Micaiah needs speed, defense and HP... Well, she'll probably get two/three, with Luck unfortunately eating one of her three points until tier 3. Leo needs speed, strength, and defense. He's most likely to get luck. He's got bad strength growths, his speed growth is the same as Aran's, only without the cap-ramming, his defense is as high as his speed growth, and his HP is even lower than his luck growth. A typical Leo BEXP level will look like one point of Luck, one point of HP, and one of the other 3. On a typical BEXP level, Leo will gain ONE of the three stats he needs to even be semi-usable. Compared to other candidates who will almost assuredly get the stat they need or most of the stats they need. 

His best usecase, again, is giving him Beastfoe and a crossbow, which will turn him into the ultimate player phase glass cannon against Laguz, a HIGHLY niche role to fill that requires little investment beyond Beastfoe. And even then, I'd probably rather put Beastfoe on a unit that can do work on enemy phase. Probably Aran, since he's the only one tanky enough to deal with multiple Tigers and Cats on enemy phase. 

[Shadow Mir]

22 minutes ago, Slumber said:

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. 

Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. 

The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP,  especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. 

Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). 

Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls. 

BEXP is competitive and Leo's luck growth makes him an absolute waste of BEXP. Aran needs speed, he's likely to get it. Edward needs Defense, there's a good chance he'll get it. Micaiah needs speed, defense and HP... Well, she'll probably get two/three, with Luck unfortunately eating one of her three points until tier 3. Leo needs speed, strength, and defense. He's most likely to get luck. He's got bad strength growths, his speed growth is the same as Aran's, only without the cap-ramming, his defense is as high as his speed growth, and his HP is even lower than his luck growth. A typical Leo BEXP level will look like one point of Luck, one point of HP, and one of the other 3. On a typical BEXP level, Leo will gain ONE of the three stats he needs to even be semi-usable. Compared to other candidates who will almost assuredly get the stat they need or most of the stats they need. 

His best usecase, again, is giving him Beastfoe and a crossbow, which will turn him into the ultimate player phase glass cannon against Laguz, a HIGHLY niche role to fill that requires little investment beyond Beastfoe. And even then, I'd probably rather put Beastfoe on a unit that can do work on enemy phase. Probably Aran, since he's the only one tanky enough to deal with multiple Tigers and Cats on enemy phase. 

I don't see why you're going to bat for Edward when he's not that great in part 3... Zihark has survivability problems then, and Edward is unlikely to be much better off.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Slumber]

13 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I don't see why you're going to bad for Edward when he's not that great in part 3... Zihark has survivability problems then, and Edward is unlikely to be much better off.

I'm not really going to bat for Edward, just pointing him out as somebody who would benefit more from BEXP than Leonardo. 

[bottlegnomes]

34 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic.

Dracos aren't weak to arrows in RD?

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/18/2018 at 1:07 PM, Slumber said:

Zeiss' growths and hard mode bonuses are so insane(As a level 7, unpromoted Wyvern Knight, Zeiss will be giving most of your regular units a run for their money when you recruit him in the late game) that I really can't say he's anywhere near as bad as Altena. 

I disagree - at the end of the day, he's still an underleveled late joiner who gets his ass handed to him no matter what side of the route split you're on unless you gimp a better unit. He's easy pickings for nomads in Sacae, and ballistae in Ilia will ruin his day.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, bottlegnomes said:

Dracos aren't weak to arrows in RD?

Right, just thunder magic. My bad. So she's not quite as susceptible, but she still has her kryptonite, and the Dracos aren't best utilized as the "hang back and help defend" kind of units. They're better when they have a bit more reach. 

[bottlegnomes]

24 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Right, just thunder magic. My bad. So she's not quite as susceptible, but she still has her kryptonite, and the Dracos aren't best utilized as the "hang back and help defend" kind of units. They're better when they have a bit more reach. 

Thunder magic is pretty awful in RD, low hit, low might, and only 2x effective, and Jill's resistance isn't terrible. Sure 3 is low and 10/14/22 caps aren't much, but she's almost guaranteed to hit them with her 45% growth and +2/4 promo bonuses. I agree that she shouldn't go galavanting into a hoard of them, but mages are terrible in RD and especially thunder mages so I personally wouldn't say she's at a huge risk from them once she's past her initial hump.

IMO, the thing that's great about Haar and Jill once she gets some TLC is that they can be both rush ahead and kill the enemies or hang back and protect weaker units quite effectively all without the movement restrictions of their primary competition, cavalry.

[Shadow Mir]

8 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Thunder magic is pretty awful in RD, low hit, low might, and only 2x effective, and Jill's resistance isn't terrible. Sure 3 is low and 10/14/22 caps aren't much, but she's almost guaranteed to hit them with her 45% growth and +2/4 promo bonuses. I agree that she shouldn't go galavanting into a hoard of them, but mages are terrible in RD and especially thunder mages so I personally wouldn't say she's at a huge risk from them once she's past her initial hump.

IMO, the thing that's great about Haar and Jill once she gets some TLC is that they can be both rush ahead and kill the enemies or hang back and protect weaker units quite effectively all without the movement restrictions of their primary competition, cavalry.

Correction: it's 3x effective. Haar has more to worry about than that, though. As for Jill, her terribad bases drag her down.

[Moblin Major General]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I disagree - at the end of the day, he's still an underleveled late joiner who gets his ass handed to him no matter what side of the route split you're on unless you gimp a better unit. He's easy pickings for nomads in Sacae, and ballistae in Ilia will ruin his day.

He can take a hit better than even a trained Shanna and Thea. And he can do work against other Ilia units. Also, he can get kills in his join chapter, too. I don't know what better unit you think he would be gimping, either, as you could easily have everyone in your main party promoted by Chapter 16.

[Ae†her]

Hinata as a Samurai is one of the worst ones I can think of. 35% Spd growth with 40% Skl growth is so bad especially when your Str and Def is pretty mediocre too. His modifiers kill him and his son too who is also set on the path of the Swordmaster.

 

[bottlegnomes]

1 minute ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Correction: it's 3x effective. Haar has more to worry about than that, though. As for Jill, her terribad bases drag her down.

Oh, right forgot they upped it again. Haar's biggest issue from what I remember is his speed, and yeah, Jill definitely needs TLC to get going, but the pay-off has always seemed well worth it in addition to being fairly easy, be possible to 99 plus a bunch of stay boosters of the type she exactly wants and forging being available.

They're not perfect units, but they're certainly pretty solid.

[Shadow Mir]

27 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

He can take a hit better than even a trained Shanna and Thea. And he can do work against other Ilia units. Also, he can get kills in his join chapter, too. I don't know what better unit you think he would be gimping, either, as you could easily have everyone in your main party promoted by Chapter 16.

His sister, for one. Remember what I said about Zeiss and nomads (that being he's as good as dead if one gets to him, and he's got no hope if another gets to him or he eats a critical hit)? There is only one Delphi Shield, meaning trying to make him usable means making her worse. As for his join chapter, I don't see him doing much of anything when by the time I get to him, everything's dead (except for Douglas and the boss, that is). This is also the point where Bolting and status staves become more relevant, and guess what? He does not do well against either. Long story short, he's far more trouble than he's worth.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Aut]

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. 

Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. 

The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP,  especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. 

Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). 

Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls. 

BEXP is competitive and Leo's luck growth makes him an absolute waste of BEXP. Aran needs speed, he's likely to get it. Edward needs Defense, there's a good chance he'll get it. Micaiah needs speed, defense and HP... Well, she'll probably get two/three, with Luck unfortunately eating one of her three points until tier 3. Leo needs speed, strength, and defense. He's most likely to get luck. He's got bad strength growths, his speed growth is the same as Aran's, only without the cap-ramming, his defense is as high as his speed growth, and his HP is even lower than his luck growth. A typical Leo BEXP level will look like one point of Luck, one point of HP, and one of the other 3. On a typical BEXP level, Leo will gain ONE of the three stats he needs to even be semi-usable. Compared to other candidates who will almost assuredly get the stat they need or most of the stats they need. 

His best usecase, again, is giving him Beastfoe and a crossbow, which will turn him into the ultimate player phase glass cannon against Laguz, a HIGHLY niche role to fill that requires little investment beyond Beastfoe. And even then, I'd probably rather put Beastfoe on a unit that can do work on enemy phase. Probably Aran, since he's the only one tanky enough to deal with multiple Tigers and Cats on enemy phase. 

I disagree with a good deal of this.

Jill neither needs to watch out for archers or thunder mages, as one doesn’t have effective damage versus her, and the other doesn’t exist (I think the dawn Brigade fights like one thunder mage). She’s probably the tankiest dawn Brigade member with investment (i.e. Angelic Robe/Dracoshield). 

I really don’t think Aran is at all worth BEXP. His speed growth is complete ass and BEXPing him is somewhat counterproductive as he’s going to be getting a lot of Strength, skill, and defense before he gets like any speed ever. He’s between 8-10 points away for all three of those stats at base. Even with none of the BEXP level ups going to HP (which is probably going to happen at least once) it’s going to take 9 levels at best for him to be likely to get speed with BEXP. That’s really far away, especially since his base combat is unimpressive. Even when he’s promoted, assuming he’s promoted with capped strength, skill, and defense he’s still needs like five levels before BEXP is likely to give him speed. Sure he’s likely to get speed once he caps strength, skill, and defense, but it’s so far away for him and he needs speed as soon as possible.

Edward’s defense growth is his 6th highest growth. It’ll take him a minimum of 11 levels for Defense to be the highest remaining growth he has. Even then, that’s best case scenario. Not to mention that his combat is very dependent on his early levels. Without leveling Strength and Speed early, he’s not really doing hot, and requires a lot of investment in order to make better. Post Promotion it’ll take him a minimum of 8 levels for his defense to be his third highest growth. And that’s being generous with how his level ups go. 

I don’t see why you’d use Micaiah as a good candidate for BEXP, since she takes forever to cap her magic and resistance (13 and 16 levels at best respectively), not to mention luck (30 levels at best), and by the time she’s capped either of those stats her speed, HP, and Defense are probably beyond saving. This is made even worse by the fact that post promotion it takes 9 levels at best to cap magic and resistance (11 luck), meaning that she likely isn’t getting HP, Speed, or Defense for a long while.

I don’t see how Aran is going to deal with the Tigers since they double him if he has 14 speed, and if you’re BEXPing him his growth may as well be zero until he caps some other stats. Considering without stat boosters his speed growth probably isn’t being hit by BEXP until level 17 (assuming no level ups from CEXP, which raises his chance of procing speed but lowers his chance of procing Strength, Skill, or Defense, which he wants capped for consistent speed procs), there’s a very good chance that he’ll be doubled by the Tigers, especially without favoritism. There’s also the fact that Aran’s fairly trash in the tower, with no mount, no 34 speed, and no Axes/Swords, making him one of the worst choices for lategame investment. Not to mention that Aran’s HP with lots of BEXP is likely mediocre. 25 Defense doesn’t seem as high when you have HP in the low thirties (at best) and Tigers have attack in the high 30s/low 40s. 

TL;DR - BEXP is not the end all solution to units with lopsided growths, especially with the dawn brigade since most of them have low enough bases that they won’t cap stats for a while.

[DragonFlames]

23 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

If I may be honest... one look at Volug's growth rates, and... *NWI intensifies* Basically, for how huge the risk of having Volug go home in a coffin is, the reward is just too paltry - crap growths everywhere but HP and Luck??? No thank you. Also, Paragon, Wrath, and Resolve all can't fit -they're all 15 capacity, and Volug would only have 30 free capacity. Btw, you mentioned another problem that makes laguz not worthwhile - the catch-22 that they suffer from. They need to fight untransformed to get an exp amount worth noting... but they're so laughably brittle that aside from Mordecai, one round will likely end with them dead or at death's doorstep. They can hold their own transformed, but their exp gain falls to hell and they have to contend with gauge, as well as being easy pickings for ranged fighters. I consider that terrible when most units aren't hindered by an assload of negative factors, another of which is the fact that strike rank goes up slooooooooooowly. As in "snail's pace" would be too kind in describing it.

I usually don't use laguz much myself if they aren't named Tibarn, Naesala, Caineghis or Nailah, to be honest. I tried that "exploit" once and it worked pretty well, but otherwise, I agree with you. It's still a fun thing to do nonetheless.

23 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

  Reveal hidden contents

So you got the ending where Aluche died, right? Anyway, one of the trophies required that, hence my mentioning needing two runs. I get the feeling that the other ending requires maxing out affection between Aluche and Liliana, and maxing out Aluche and Ruenheid's affection as well. But I'm not 100% sure.

 

Yeah, that's the one I got. I found it pretty fitting, all things considered.

Figures you need to max out affection with these two for the other ending. I was too busy dragging Veruschka all over the place...

22 hours ago, Slumber said:

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. 

Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. 

The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP,  especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. 

Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). 

Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls.

TL;DR The Dawn Brigade sucks. Badly.

[DragonFlames]

1 minute ago, DragonFlames said:

I usually don't use laguz much myself if they aren't named Tibarn, Naesala, Caineghis or Nailah, to be honest. I tried that "exploit" once and it worked pretty well, but otherwise, I agree with you. It's still a fun thing to do nonetheless.

Sorry for the double post, but it won't let me edit my original post for some reason.
I forgot to mention that I remembered wrong: I actually didn't give Wrath to Volug. My mistake.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

On 21.3.2018 at 7:49 PM, Slumber said:

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. 

Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. 

The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP,  especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. 

Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). 

Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls. 

BEXP is competitive and Leo's luck growth makes him an absolute waste of BEXP. Aran needs speed, he's likely to get it. Edward needs Defense, there's a good chance he'll get it. Micaiah needs speed, defense and HP... Well, she'll probably get two/three, with Luck unfortunately eating one of her three points until tier 3. Leo needs speed, strength, and defense. He's most likely to get luck. He's got bad strength growths, his speed growth is the same as Aran's, only without the cap-ramming, his defense is as high as his speed growth, and his HP is even lower than his luck growth. A typical Leo BEXP level will look like one point of Luck, one point of HP, and one of the other 3. On a typical BEXP level, Leo will gain ONE of the three stats he needs to even be semi-usable. Compared to other candidates who will almost assuredly get the stat they need or most of the stats they need. 

His best usecase, again, is giving him Beastfoe and a crossbow, which will turn him into the ultimate player phase glass cannon against Laguz, a HIGHLY niche role to fill that requires little investment beyond Beastfoe. And even then, I'd probably rather put Beastfoe on a unit that can do work on enemy phase. Probably Aran, since he's the only one tanky enough to deal with multiple Tigers and Cats on enemy phase. 

Seriously using bexp in Aran in hard mode is just waste.

However then I also have to correct myself that Leo doesn't even need bexp in part 3 because he's a free chipper unlike Aran.

Aran needs lots of levels to reach 13... better even 15 speed not to get ORKO'ed by anyone.

Since you have great enemy phase units in person of Volug, Jill, Nolan (and maybe Sothe with weaker weapons) and good player phase unit with wind / storm sword wrath Edward, there's absolute no need to invest in Aran.

Imo Leo > Aran in hard mode because of free Lugnasadh and being the only real chipper in part 3.

 

The safest contendor for beastfoe is Jill imo because of canto, so used as player phase unit.

It can also work as a combination of vantage, crossbow and earth support for Nolan in enemy phase.

Aran needs 40 HP, 20 defense and 15 speed to survive two tigers guaranteed which requires tons of bexp levels.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Formersfuser

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Formersfuser said:

Seriously using bexp in Aran in hard mode is just waste.

However then I also have to correct myself that Leo doesn't even need bexp in part 3 because he's a free chipper unlike Aran.

Aran needs lots of levels to reach 13... better even 15 speed not to get ORKO'ed by anyone.

Since you have great enemy phase units in person of Volug, Jill, Nolan (and maybe Sothe with weaker weapons) and good player phase unit with wind / storm sword wrath Edward, there's absolute no need to invest in Aran.

Imo Leo > Aran in hard mode because of free Lugnasadh and being the only real chipper in part 3.

 

The safest contendor for beastfoe is Jill imo because of canto, so used as player phase unit.

It can also work as a combination of vantage, crossbow and earth support for Nolan in enemy phase.

Aran needs 40 HP, 20 defense and 15 speed to survive two tigers guaranteed which requires tons of bexp levels.

I don't see why you're so keen on talking about that BS train wreck that is hard mode...

Disagree on Volug - too much wait for too little defensive ability (because his gargantuan HP is about the only reason why he can take hits in the first place; once he reverts, he's toast, too). Gambling on inaccurate and weak wind edges DQ's Edward from being a "great player Phase unit", as far as I'm concerned. And I don't like the idea of doubling up on units that have the same problems as far as part 3 is concerned.

Vantage is unreliable as all hell. So no, I say Nolan with Beastfoe isn't that good an idea.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia