Mekkah vs 安室 奈美恵

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Now it’s time for some nice sweet cup of REVENGE!

Edited November 10, 2008 by 安室 奈美恵

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Oswin is the juggernaut for being very offensive and defensive at the same time.

First things first, I'd like to show you how useful Oswin is at the beginning at the game. He starts off as a LV. 9 Knight with the following base stats:

HP: 28

STR: 13

SKL: 9

SPD: 5

DEF: 13

RES: 3

LCK: 3

He starts off as a great tank. NOT ONLY THAT, his base Defense is even higher than that of Marcus' making him probably better as a shield. He'll probably receive 3 damage at the most against regular enemies in HHM. He got good STR, enough SKL, and great base RES for a melee unit at LV. 9. He may probably not be able to double attack in the beginning, but he won't get double attacked himself, since HHM enemies probably have around 3 to 8 SPD in HHM. Plus, their CON and weapon weight slow them down as well. He makes a great Merlinus protector in the beginning too. Hell, he doesn’t even need to be babied at all when he can gain easy EXP from guarding Merlinus.

And where does Rath has to offer?

HP: 25

STR: 8

SKL: 9

SPD: 10

DEF: 7

RES: 2

LUK: 5

Terrible joining time on HHM since he joins like half way through the game, and you’ll have so little amount of time to even train him. Training him would be considered babying. Also, being stuck with Bows sucks.

Oswin has good support with Hector, Matthew, and Priscilla and he’s able to support with others such as Serra or Dorcas but you probably don’t really need them anyways. Rath can only support with just 3 characters Lyn, Guy, and Wil…? WTF, for starters Lyn is much better off supporting with Florina, Kent, and maybe Eliwood and Hector. Wil sucks for being an Archer and should not be used. Guy is just fine if he were to support with Matthew to get +5 Attacks and +25 Critical. So there’s no way Rath can ever be supported. It’s probably no wonder why Rath is so none-chatty because he's such a loner and nobody in the team likes him. Lyn get's an ending with Rath because she pity him lol

Edited November 10, 2008 by 安室 奈美恵

[Mekkah]

He starts off as a great tank.

Decent*, but by no means flawless. For one, Oswin harms the EXP rank when he joins.

vs a L3 enemy

21 (Marcus) - 4 non-kill, 4 kill

9 (Oswin) - 8 non-kill, 10 kill

1 ('Wood) - 11 non-kill, 37 kill

9 (Matthew) - 12 non-kill, 23 kill

Non-kill wise, the EXP gap between Oswin and a normal PC is about as big as the gap between him and Marcus. For a kill, he gets 6 more than Marcus, but 20-30 less than regular units.

And you can't really afford to squander EXP, since the rank is hard to begin with. Using Oswin more means you can use other EXP-raping-units like Marcus and Athos less, and those are awesome, and EXP-helping-units like Nino and Heath more, who are worse than your team. Hell, main team members themselves start gaining shitty amounts after a while, so using Oswin more means being able to use those less.

Another problem is that his mobility is shit. 4 mov and worst terrain penalties. Having awesome Def isn't worth much when everyone has to stay behind you (lagging tactics) or goes ahead of you. I'll take Hector or Lowen for tanking jobs even if they have slightly less concrete durability.

He makes a great Merlinus protector in the beginning too.

Hardly. He can't move around quickly, and he does not one round enemies, so he can only take one at a time. When two Pegasi fly over from the forts in Ch14, for example, he can perhaps intercept one, but the other will fly back to the fort to heal himself, costing you like 3-4 turns for your tactics rank. He needs backup even when he stays back. Failure.

And where does Rath has to offer?

Rath offers in Soviet Elibe, where EXP rank helps Nino, Wyverns kill Louise with a bow and Dragons call Nergal.

Anyway, Rath probably rejoins on 8/0 or 9/0, not base level, since he was in Lyn Mode.

Now, Rath is the polar opposite of Oswin in a lot of his ways. One is that he actually _helps_ the EXP rank, and by a lot, too. By this time, I estimate your characters are hanging somewhere between 15/0 and 18/0, or even promoted, depending on how you distributed EXP. The higher level they are, the better Rath's EXP rank hax is.

At this point, enemies are around 7/0, 8/0 or, in some cases, 9/0.

vs a L8 enemy

20/1 PC - 6 non-kill, 6 kill

17/0 PC - 7 non-kill, 7 kill

9/0 Rath - 10 non-kill, 27 kill

For everything you kill with Rath instead of a normal team member, you gain 20 EXP extra. Enough for the difference between Matthew and Marcus killing something early on. Rath killing something two times allows you to kill something with Marcus instead of base Eliwood or Rebecca.

So, if you have to go out of your way to kill something with Rath, that means you compensate for early on, where you otherwise would have had to go out of your way to set up a kill for Rebecca or Eliwood or something.

So Rath's EXP rank helping vs Oswin's EXP rank sucking does a nice job of compensating for any combat win Oswin has up 'till Rath catches up.

Now, Rath also happens to have the best attacking range out of everyone, whereas Oswin has the worst. Oswin has 4 mov, 5 if promoted. Rath comes with 7, and has move again. Oswin gets far harsher terrain penalties, especially once Rath promotes. In addition, Rath attacks from range, can even attack from range 3 with Longbow, whereas for Oswin to do that, he has to fail at accuracy and power with a Javelin. So Rath will often draw first blood, while Oswin is clanking behind the main group trying to keep up. He cannot even use "im a tank keep me up" as an excuse, since PC vulnerability has decreased massively, meaning they can be freely exposed to tons of enemies without worry of death.

You might also have noticed that Oswin lags in the most important stat in the game: Spd. He will have like 7-9 Spd when Rath rejoins, and Rath comes with 10 in Lyn Mode. He grows level faster, and has 50% growth over Oswin's 30%. FE7 enemies may be slow, but not so slow that Oswin ever doubles reliably, other than maybe weighed down unpromoted enemies. Rath will double nearly everything - significantly more than Oswin when he joins already.

For example, in Rath's joining chapter, Wyverns have 7-9 Spd (hey, that's about what Oswin has) and are weighed down by 1 due to Axereaver, and Rath will have 11-12 Spd, so he will double most of them, if not all. Fighters have 8 max and are weighed down to 6. Archers have 8, and are weighed down to 6. The only enemies that Rath doesn't double as reliably are Cavaliers, since those have 8-9 Spd and are not weighed down here, and Nomads with 10-11 Spd and -2 AS (Steel Bow), but he'll still double about half of those. And Rath levels up much faster than enemies do, with a much higher Spd growth (FE7 generics hardly exceed 30% Spd growth).

Skipping to Four Fanged Offense, for example, Rath would double pretty much everything. The fastest enemies on the map are Mercs who lose 1 AS from Steel Swords. They have somewhere between 10 and 13 AS, so again, Rath will probably double about half. Everything else on the map, other than promoted enemies, gets doubled by Rath.

Also, being stuck with Bows sucks.

It has disadvantages such as not being able to counter melee, but it also means that you can shoot behind your own frontline, so you don't have to be exposed as much. Rath will also have double Mt on fliers, and it just so happens to be that you are just being introduced to Wyverns. They are extremely common in all chapters to come, except Ch25, but that map has Pegs instead. And once Rath promotes, he still has the advantages of bows, but no longer the disadvantage, since he can now do melee with swords.

Oswin has good support with Hector, Matthew, and Priscilla and he’s able to support with others such as Serra or Dorcas but you probably don’t really need them anyways

Hector doesn't want him. He gets nothing out of it but defensive parameters, and Hector has zero trouble with that, and neither does Oswin. It just clings two tanks together when you could cover much more ground by spreading them around. Hector prefers to support Florina, who actually needs that defense, and also gives him the most offense he could ever have. He has A Eliwood in the bag, and he'll take B Matthew as well for more offense (he really wants Atk, Crt and Hit more...he lives through everything you throw at him, but doesn't always kill). Hector and Matthew also spend time at 20/0 for a long time together, and so does Eliwood, meaning it's easier to keep the three of them out of combat together, to avoid hurting EXP rank.

Matthew is a useless support partner for Oswin though. 6 mov vs 4 mov won't work out well. Matthew has to sprint to chests nearly all the time, and likes to use his full mov. And again, even if he gets it, Matthew caps out at some point and stops seeing combat there, so he doesn't get much out of it.

Priscilla doesn't get anything out of a support pre-promotion due to lack of combat. Also, she has equal or faster supports with Guy, Raven and Erk, and can also turn to Sain for a support.

Rath has only one viable support with Guy, but that happens to be a very good one. Guy has trouble being full. What if Raven and Erk are in play? Then one of the three has to go without a Priscilla support. Rath solves this by providing Guy with a support, and Priscilla can support Erk and Raven. Matthew's problems as a support partner have been addressed. He may be good for Guy early on, but once his thief duties begin, Guy will hardly ever see the bonuses, and around the time Rath joins, he needs those bonuses around a lot for his I-have-massive-critgimmick to work. Rath also is the only dude who gives him full Avo rather than half, and when you have WTD against lances, you're gonna want all the Avo you can get.

Final point: promotion. Oswin uses a Knight Crest. There's two Knight Crests available before Ch31. There's three good units besides Oswin who want to use a Knight Crest. That means two of them have to use Earth Seals, which come later and are twice as costly, making them more sucky. Lame, isn't it? Oswin has to spend some time at 20/0 if he doesn't want to hinder others from promoting when they want to. Rath, however, uses the best promotion item possible, besides maybe Elysian Whip: Orion's Bolt. You get two of those, and the chance of one of Rebecca/Wil being in play along with Rath is already small as it is, so Rath has no promotion issues at all.

Summary:

Rath helps EXP rank, Oswin hurts it.

Rath has the best mobility and attacking range, Oswin the worst.

Rath has no promotion issues, Oswin has a lot.

Rath doubles reliably, Oswin only doubles really super slow shit.

Rath rapes fliers, Oswin does not.

Rath supports Guy, who wants him too. Oswin supports no one who wants or needs him.

All Oswin has is some earlygame utility, lol.