The Dawn Brigade

[Warrior of Dawn]

Why is it, whenever I go into any RD topic, somone complains about the Dawn Brigade?

I would just like to say that the Dawn Brigade is actually perfectly usable. Yes, they may not have the amount of availability that the Greil Mercenaries have, but to say they have no playtime, and are therefore unusable? That's a bit extreme. Tormod has so little playtime, it hardly matters, but he can still be used. You just have to think more.

The 3 chapters in Part 3 which they have are incredible! If you have a decent (ie: not all-stat screwed) Dawn Brigade, and instantly tell the Partner Units to back off and stay where they are, it's an absolute saughterfest! I mean, the penultimate Part 3 chapter has enough enemies to elevate them from early level-10, tier 2, to almost tier 3, with the exception of Laura. I once got Zihark from a level 5 Swordmaster to a Trueblade on that Map, it's not difficult.

I have a soft spot for the Dawn Brigade, I admit, but if you use BEXP skillfully (Eg. Use it to buff up the experience to that they will Level up on their next attack), make good use of bosses and actually put some effort into them, they turn out as incredible units! By Endgame, Nolan is godly, as is Edward. Leonardo has enough skill to Deadeye a good portion the time. Aran is indestructible (if slow). The only truly "Bad" Unit is Fiona. Meg can be used, if you are prepared to take the rough with the smooth. And Volug may turn awesome, but I haven't been bothered to take him to endgame (so no opinion on Volug).

I don't want to start a debate, I just want to see whether anyone agrees. If somone wants to start a debate, take it to the debating board. And I apolagise for using personal experience, but what's on paper doesn't nessecarily translate to what's on screen.

Please say what your opinion is, what your reason is for believing so, and feel free to poke as much fun at me as you like for using the Dawn Brigade. I'm proud of it.

[Kintenbo]

Well, I do believe Nolan, Edward (in Easy and Normal Mode), Aran, Micaiah, Zihark Tauroneo, and Jill are pretty good, but the rest aren't too exciting. Laura gets the job done, but she doesn't really excell (none of the possible Saints do, really), Meg and Fiona are dreadful, and the Tormodic 3 get screwed over. If you count Nailah and the Black Knight, then they are obviously super amazing. Overall, I like Nolan the best. Axes, cool facial hair, cool personality, and great stats, how can he lose?

The availability thing is indeed a problem, but Bonus Experience helps soften the blow.

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

I hate going through the Fail Brigade in Part 1. Micaiah has no leadership stars, making things hectic. (not to mention in 1-E, Jarod has 3.) Micaiah herself is terrible, and she can't die or else game over. Nolan, Aran, Tauroneo, and Jill make going through P1 and their three chapters of P3 less painful (Volug does too, but after P1, he begins to suck).

[_____]

It is rather disappointing when Micaiah can get one-rounded by Archers with Steel/Long bows.

[Reikken]

Micaiah gets one-rounded by everything except mages. Fortunately, it's very easy to keep her from ever getting attacked by anything ever.

Volug does too, but after P1, he begins to suck

More like the other way around. He starts to suck near the end of part 1 (1-E), but after that, he becomes awesome again.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Reikken

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

It is rather disappointing when Micaiah can get one-rounded by Archers with Steel/Long bows.

That happened to me one time in 1-7. I was doing well until that archer came and owned her poor self. I was pissed because I haven't beaten that chapter on Normal yet at that time.

[Saaji]

For the most part its not hard to make good unit come out of the DB their real problem its rough to raise the majority of them, you must choose who you want to raise and you can get away with about 3 people not including Sothe and Micciah.

Which isn't really anything bad its just compared to rivals they have near end some of them just dont seem worthwhile.

Leo is cool but with the even more badass Shinon whos better then him and Rolf... you could put time into him but its not as worth it as training the other archers is much more worthwhile.

Nolan, Zihark,Aran I would say are the best choices to train... Jill isnt that bad either. Eddie is okay everyone I dont care for really.

[Destiny Hero]

Meh. Nolan's good, Aran can tank great, Fiona murders everything if she's babied to her second class, and Jill can be usable after some babying.

Everyone else sucks, though, and I wouldn't even take a dump on the likes of Leonardo, Ilyana, and Laura.

[Lord Raven]

It takes too much work to get certain members of the brigade to be good (not like Nolan etc, more like Leonardo), which is why they're classed as worse than the others.

And as a whole? They're either extremely bad or pretty decent. There's not really a middle ground when it comes to the Dawn Brigade.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Lord Raven

[Saint Nightroad]

Sothe is okay.

Nolan is beastly.

Edward is good, but Zihark may be a better choice in high difficulties.

Even if I didn't have to, I would still use Micaiah (she's just that cute.)

Jill is okay... atleast until you get Haar.

Volug is good for Part 1.. then becomes horrible.

Aran is okay... but he always turns out speed screwed in my runthroughs.

Zihark is awesome (though in Easy, Edward may be the better choice.)

Tauroneo may not be Gatrie, but he is a good unit... to bad he isn't available much.

Nailah is a white wolf... that makes her awesome regardless of stats (which are needless to say really great.)

Tormod was my favorite sage in PoR... why did they have to make him horrible?

Leonardo?..... more like Failnardo.

Illyana.... why did they have to nerf Zihark's girl?

Meg.... Holy!? What were they thinking!?

This game is biased against Fiona plain and simple (Devdan/Danved is also horrible.... coincidence?)

Vika and Maurim just suck (but so does every other non King and non Heron laguz.)

[Saaji]

Thats more or less correct, Leo Meg,Fiona, Illyana are all sub par units..

I adore Ilyana but her class sucks...she gets screwed over by her caps making her the one of the slowest units in the game...and thunder magic being nerfed doesnt help her... though ive used her in one of my playthroughs with transfer bonus on str magic skill and speed she was quite good until the end because that 31 speed cap blows chunks

Leo is grows awkwardly though with enough time and patience can be made usable because he class is awesome like that... but when you have Rolf and Shinion theres little need to use him...

Meg is in the wrong class.... she'd make a good swordmaster with her weird growths but i dont like her character...

Fiona... she's quite cute and I tried to use her and well her low str and skl makes me sad :( she doesnt ram her strengths fast enough to balance herself out through use of bexp

Tormod's group isnt around enough

Edward can become pretty good but he's effectively outdone by Zihark who may be a little be weaker then him but is a dodge tank after building up a support with someone especially if you support him with another Earth unit. So you could use Edward but I'm quite meh about him..

Volug isnt bad but shouldnt fight too much during Pt1...he makes a decent untrained filler unit in Pt 4 actually so I reckon if you feed him some experience in Pt 3 he can be quite amazing especially with his Earth affinity.

[Saint Nightroad]

I still consider Thunder to be the best form of Anima. Illyana is just such a bad unit that even using it doesn't redeem her (not to mention every other Sage, including Pelleas, with the exception of Micaiah can use Thunder.)

[Florete]

I still consider Thunder to be the best form of Anima. Illyana is just such a bad unit that even using it doesn't redeem her (not to mention every other Sage, including Pelleas, with the exception of Micaiah can use Thunder.)

It has the lowest hit and might. How is that best? It has some crit, but that's hardly reliable.

[Saint Nightroad]

It has the lowest hit and might. How is that best? It has some crit, but that's hardly reliable.

A little less MT isn't that noticeable (the extra crit makes up for it.) I haven't played Hard but unless the Sage in question is Ilyana, then the hit shouldn't be a problem in most cases.

Plus extra damage vs. dragons and wyverns. Thats a great bonus any way you look at it.

IMO Wind is the worst of the three.

[Warrior of Dawn]

Micaiah is a mage. Treat her as one. She is ridiculously fragile at first (What mage isn't?), but I find a Seraph Robe usually solves that :/

Leo is not horrible. He's just a bit slower than the other two. There is little other difference. I tend to think that Rolf is superior to both of them, but Leo > Shinon, because of Shinon's low starting stats considering his level. And Leo comes with a Dragonshield. ^_^

I find Jill is better than Haar too. She doesn't fear Thunder Mages like he does.

Laura has huuuge speed, which means she doesn't get doubled like the other 2 saints do. Also, she has enough Magic Power to deal decent enough damage as a bishop.

Ilyana can't compare to Soren, Magic-wise, but she's worth using simply because of Rexbolt. And her Strength deserves a "WHAT!?"

Meg has amazing Speed, her luck is somewhere in the Ionosphere and her Skill is good too. Give her Adept and she'll Shine. Pavise will come in handy at later levels considering her mysteriously low Defence.

Like I said, Fiona is mostly awful.

Tauroneo can easily be a Marshall just before 3-Endgame. Stand in the centre with a javelin and watch them die~!

Tormod's Group is around too little. A shame - they have some good growths.

I haven't used Zihark that much, though he did very well when I fielded him on 3-13. Might use him some time.

FIRE IS THE GREATEST ANIMA. POOOOOOWEEEEEER.

[Lord Raven]

Micaiah is a mage. Treat her as one. She is ridiculously fragile at first (What mage isn't?), but I find a Seraph Robe usually solves that :/

The fact that you have to compensate for her lack of defense really shows how bad she is.

Leo is not horrible. He's just a bit slower than the other two. There is little other difference. I tend to think that Rolf is superior to both of them, but Leo > Shinon, because of Shinon's low starting stats considering his level. And Leo comes with a Dragonshield.

No, Shinon rapes Leonardo. Shinon's stats are in every way superior, Leonardo's suck. He has no defense, average speed and strength, and starts out INCREDIBLY frail with god-awful ability to grow.

I find Jill is better than Haar too. She doesn't fear Thunder Mages like he does.

No, but Jill fears everything else. Thunder Mages are in the minority of enemies that exist.

Ilyana can't compare to Soren, Magic-wise, but she's worth using simply because of Rexbolt. And her Strength deserves a "WHAT!?"

Not every S rank weapon needs using. She comes in 3-2 behind everyone, and she's not doing too hot in part I either.

Laura has huuuge speed, which means she doesn't get doubled like the other 2 saints do. Also, she has enough Magic Power to deal decent enough damage as a bishop.

Laura's useful in Part I because she's your only healer. You need to keep her heavily protected and abuse her a lot if you want her to become anything more useful than that, and she completely drags behind later on. Not to mention that every attack kills her because of her bases.

Meg has amazing Speed, her luck is somewhere in the Ionosphere and her Skill is good too. Give her Adept and she'll Shine. Pavise will come in handy at later levels considering her mysteriously low Defence.

Bad bases, low movement. Next.

[Reikken]

No, but Jill fears everything else. Thunder Mages are in the minority of enemies that exist.

No... She has good def, decent res, great avoid, and a purely defensive affinity. She doesn't die easily.

[Lord Raven]

My point came out wrong, it was moreso comparing how Jill isn't as good as Haar when it comes to taking hits throughout the game as opposed to her frailty.

[Saint Nightroad]

Shinon is the best of the 3 archers simply because he starts at a great level with good growths and good stats. To consider Leonardo better than Shinon is blasphemy. Even if he had bad stats, he would still win because of his awesome voice acting (a category in which Rolf gets -9000+).

Haar>Jill in pretty much every way. Once he hits class 3, Haar hardly fears Thunder Mages (which are in a minority) anyway.

[Reikken]

My point came out wrong, it was moreso comparing how Jill isn't as good as Haar when it comes to taking hits throughout the game as opposed to her frailty.

I would peg Jill as being more durable since her avoid is so much higher. Well, once the groups all join up. Obviously Jill is easier to kill in part I and III than Haar is in parts II and III. But most of that is because enemies are stronger in general relative to your army in the dawn brigade chapters. And just stronger period for the part III chapters. Do the GMs face hordes of enemies with 40 atk and 150 hit? I think not. And all while under a commander with zero leadership stars...

And Haar also sometimes takes crits, while Jill's pretty much crit immune. Nothing's more annoying than an unexpected critkill.

Edited November 17, 2008 by Reikken

[Herr Wozzeck]

Yeah. I made a lot of mistakes with the Dawn Brigade in my playthrough of RD. I left too many units to Nailah and not enough to the rest of it, so yeah.

I personally found Boyd to be more useful than Nolan, I let Leo and Volug die because I was all 'forget this, I'm not starting this chapter over again', and Eddie was one of my best units in the final chapter. (Eddie + Alondite = Instant win) Micaiah and Sothe turned out to be 'blah' units, but Micaiah had her uses towards the end. Jill, I'll say I honestly never cared too much for her in either game (although she did manage to pwn Lethe in 3-6), and the same goes with Ilyana. Zihark's pretty good, but for the life of me I don't think the RNG liked to cooperate with him. Nailah is pure win, plain and simple. And Tauroneo actually turned out to be a pretty good unit (even if he wasn't in the final chapter).

Actually, interesting observation on the partner units for the Part 3 chapters; if your Dawn Brigade units are massively underlevelled in those annoying chapters, partner unit placement can actually save your hide in those chapters. I remember that the partner units for those chapters were the only reasons I actually managed to survive those chapters (and especially 3-6) without a scratch.

[Florete]

For the record, Meg has pretty good bases for her level. She's just underleveled.

[Kintenbo]

For the record, Meg has pretty good bases for her level. She's just underleveled.

And lacks the growths to take advantage of the high/in the 10's stats.

I forgot to mention Leonardo. He would of been nice if his HP, Speed, and Defense wasn't so bleh. But that's what Shinon's for as far as archers go.

[_____]

Volug actually comes very close to reaching Nailah's stats when he's raised. Just saying.

[Killer Poleax]

They're alright but playtime is definately they're main problem. There isn't enough exp to go around and you have to dump loads of bexp to make them good in part 4. I usually stick to the GMs cause they usually have a level lead on the DB and I don't feel like dumping bexp into them. Though some of them turn out amazing like Nolan, Edward, Zihark, Jill, and Aran but I usually stick to their GM counterparts. I'd like them a lot more if they got more experience in their chapters.