Rate the Unit 2: Vander

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Guidelines:

2.1.) mention the diffculty on which you rate the unit 

2.2.) what classes your unit went through, what skills they had and so on; don´t consider obviously suboptimal builds.

2.3.) no DLC rings, no non-unit DLC bonuses

2.4.) no grinding in skirmishes

2.5.) no rng abuse (no resetting for bond rings)

2.6.) cooking is allowed

2.7.) ratings to be given in the format X/10

2.8.) if it isn´t mentioned above, it´s fair game

2.9.) no "Kagetsu exists and obsoletes Lapis, 0/10", explain your rating

 

 

Unit: Vander   Join-Chapter: 1 Class: Paladin       Lvl HP STR MAG DEX SPD LCK DEF RES BLD Bases 1 40 11 5 10 8 6 10 8 8 T. Bases 16 15 3 3 0 0 3 4 5 1 Growths / 60% 25% 10% 25% 35% 10% 35% 20% 5%   Personal Skill: If unit is adjacent to the Divine Dragon, grants Crit+5 during combat to both of them.                                                 Innate Proficiency: Axe             SP: 500                                           Support Bonus:                                          C Hit+10, Avoid+5                 B Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+5               A Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+10               S Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+20

Tools aqnd mo stats:

Average Stats - Fire Emblem: Engage (FE17) (triangleattack.com)

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

Rating: 5.2

Next unit on Thursday

Edited June 15, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[SnowFire]

Vander comes as an effective level 15 promote, so he's not quite as screwed as pre-promotes in some older FEs...  except he kinda is due to his bad growths.  If you only Second Seal him at L20, then Lvl 20/5 Paladin (Axe) Vander ends up at:
57 HP, 20 Str, 7 Mag, 18 Dex, 20 Spd, 22 Def, 16 Res, 11 Lck, 9 Bld, 6 Move

These stats are completely terrible at endgame except for HP (good) and Defense (average).  Note that the Speed is worse than it looks due to the awful Build; a Silver Axe+3 is weighing him down to 15 Spd.  Definitely a classic-style Jagen.

--

Vander is a "how do you score availability" character since it's not really contested he's good early and awful late.  He's extremely good in Chapters 2 & 3, handy in C4/5/6, and an acceptable hole-filler if you're not planning on building enough Firenese units in C7/C8.  After that he gets really suspect, and after C11 he becomes outright awful.

I think I'm most impressed with C3 Vander.  C2 is a very short map that is basically still the tutorial phase of the game, but C3 is a real map (no Draconic Time Crystal either, so no excuses).  On Hard mode, Alear!Marth can poke the boss Abyme with a Rapier, but on Maddening, she doesn't have any armor weakness at all so the only option is raw stats.  She charges with her crew, too.  She'd be extremely tricky to take down without using Vander as it's scary to have anyone else accept multiple rounds of combat, especially with Abyme + nearly any friend threatening a 2HKO, but Vander will bail you out well and cleanup the situation like a champ.

In C4-C6, Vander's offense starts falling off, but he's still good as enemy bait to lure folks forward & soften 'em up so that real units can take the XP instead.  In C7-C8, his durability starts to fall off too as now he's getting doubled left & right, and his accuracy starts becoming a real issue, but he can still just absorb some blows if you need a slot (and mobility is handy in C8).  It's really hard to justify continuing to use Vander afterward - just use Amber instead if you really want a cavalier.  If for some mad reason you keep using Vander in the back half of the game, enjoy his absolutely miserable Dexterity causing major hit problems and a Build score that means he can't use the heavier weapons without tragic speed hits.  His passive isn't very good either, even if you keep him stapled to Alear - it's a negligible crit boost.

Anyway, some usability is better than none...  how much do I feel like hyping up the genuinely important C3 contribution, and the passable hole-filling role for the rest of the Firene / early Brodia arc?  I guess 4/10 works.  There's an argument for 5/10, but it feels a little meta - it's generally considered that the Elyos / Firene units are for the most part comparatively weak by midgame, so if you already plan on doing a mass benching spree early, then there's no "harm" to letting Vander run wild early as an XP-thief, vaguely similar to letting Volug & Sothe carry the Dawn Brigade if you plan on benching everyone else.  I'm not sure I'd assume this as a "default" playstyle, but it's something in his favor, I guess.

Edited June 12, 2023 by SnowFire

[lenticular]

Vander is another tricky one to rate. We're probably all going to agree on the basics: he's absolutely your best unit at the moment you get him, but if you stick with him, he'll end up as your worst unit in the endgame (excepting massive favouritism). That seems like a wholly uncontroversial thing to say. Any disagreement is going to be over how we translate that into a score.

I think that there's a credible argument to be made that "win the game but you're not allowed to ever use Vander" is a harder challenge run than almost any other "win the game but you're not allowed to ever use $character" would be (except for Alear who is similarly weird to rate, and Seadall who is an easy dancer/10). In a game where a lot of characters feel pretty interchangable, Vander actually offers something that can't be replicated by anyone else. If you want an early-game tank and panic button, you use Vander.

I'll also add that being good for a handful of chapters and then terrible for all other chapters is not actually worse being good for a handful of chapters and then unavailable in other chapters. The worst case for a bad unit is that you don't use them. The best case is that you deploy them as a warm body and they manage to take a hit or be involved in a trade chain or something like that. We should be grading him based on his best possible use case of getting swiftly dropped, and not on a hypothetical case of actually trying to stick with him until end-game.

Snowfire's point is also a good one, about it not being detrimental for him to steal xp if you're planning to drop all the the Elyos and Firene units anyway. And I'll go a step further and say that he's still great if you're just trying to train up a couple of early units and drop the rest. You can use him to easily weaken enemies to set up kills for the units that you're funneling xp onto, leaving them better off than if you use a more balanced playstyle trying to use all units equally.

I have no idea how best to translate all of this into a score out of 10. I'm not sure it's even meaningful to try, since he really isn't competing with other units. Nobody else can do what he does, but he can't do what everyone else does. I'm going to come down on the ultimate fence-sitter's rating of 5/10, though I won't criticise anyone else for rating either way higher or way lower than that.

[BloodRonin]

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

Vander is another tricky one to rate. We're probably all going to agree on the basics: he's absolutely your best unit at the moment you get him, but if you stick with him, he'll end up as your worst unit in the endgame (excepting massive favouritism).

This 100%. 

I'm not sure what else to say about him other than the man's drip is on point. I used him(in a dlc run) just to get that sexy beard blue.

In all seriousness of the post though; I found Vander to only be useful for LTC runs and even then he is replaced fairly early. 

I play exclusively on maddening. I give him a 5/10. The only reason he gets a 5 is because of a lucky crit he got me to finish chapter 3 one turn earlier. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by BloodRonin

[Dark Holy Elf]

I agree with everyone else but I take a slightly more favourable view of Vander overall.

Only real thing I want to add is that... almost all the Really Good units in the game join in Chapter 11-15. Additionally, deployment slots suddenly contract in Chapter 12 compared to Chapter 10-11. If the player has advance knowledge of these two facts, she will plan to drop several units following Chapter 11, probably four or five.

And given that, shouldn't we plan for one of those units to be Vander? Toward the end of Chapter 1-11, other units are starting to pass him if promoted, but unpromoted? That's much more competitive. And the units Vander is competing with for that ninth and tenth deployment slot in Chapter 10-11 won't be promoted; there aren't enough Master Seals for that. And Vander compares favourably to most unpromoted units even at this point. Consider base Vander vs. base Diamant. Vander has +8 HP, +2 res, +2 move, and access to Hand Axe/Revanche; Diamant has +2 str, +5 spd, and better accuracy). Is Diamant better than Vander in this comparison? It depends how you feel about mobility vs. speed; I'd say it's close and hard to say. But my point is, I'm not at all convinced one should drop Vander for someone like Diamant, Amber, or Jade in that role of "unit to use until the end of Chapter 11". Obviously Vander isn't the only unit who might serve this niche (e.g. Framme is very much in the same box), but since there's room for about four or five of them, I would expect him to be an objective pick more often than not.

So in summary, he's your best unit in Chapter 1-3, still has a good case in 4-5, is above average in 6-7, and is respectable-albeit-doomed filler in Chapter 8-11. I think there's too much positive feeling there for him to not get at least an above average score. I'll give Vander 6/10 but agree with everyone else that he's tough to rate.

[Barren]

I think it’s safe to say that I’m going to approach this pretty much the same way everyone else is.

 

The Jaegan of this game Vander, certainly serves a crucial role in the early game of Maddening especially for the first 4 chapters where his starting high HP stat comes into play quite nicely. This allows him to effectively bait in enemies for you without needing immediate healing afterwards provided that the damage he took to begin with isn’t all that high.

 

He starts off as a axe variation of Paladin and will mostly like stay that way for the rest of your play through. It’s unlikely you’ll want to use him beyond chapter 6 because by the time you get to the Brodia arc of this story, his ability to tank a few hits start to ware off as enemies will hit harder from here on then. And you might even be even using Boucheron at that point assuming you’ve been funneling exp into him as a axe user, or even Anna for that matter.

 

His persona ability allows himself and Alear to have a crit + 5 when they are adjacent. Of course that’s nice for Alear, but for Vander it might end up him kill stealing when you didn’t want him to thus making it into wasted exp.

 

If one really wishes to use him, you could turn him into a Hero with B rank in axes and have him use Dual Assist, Warrior if you like chain attack spamming with a long bow, or a Royal Knight with staff utility he can achieve thanks to Sigurd and Micaiah respectively.

 

I’d give him a 6/10. His early game will always be appreciated but like nearly every Jaegan he will start falling off by chapter 7 or so and he’ll just end up as a bench warmer. It’s too bad he couldn’t be like Seth or Titantia. It’s almost like he’s Frederick-lite but on a much smaller scale.

[Alef Zero]

Continuing my fetish need to try make that one character regarded as useless, as strong as possible, I kept using Vander from the start to the very end with varying successs.

At the beginning of the game, he's decent, but mostly for setting up kills. Unfortunately, paladin class is not well suited for him - he would be much better if he started as great knight, like Frederick. Paladin offers above average growths and bonuses in most stats, but that's completely countered by Vander's terrible innate growths. Him gaining more than two stats was a rare sign.

As a great knight, he was decent (but that's more on great knight being actually great in this game, which is awesome after terrible three houses incarnation), that +7 to defence is no laughing matter. Still not as good as say, Jade, but he was able to take some punishment, and deal some dmg. with axes, even with his average strength.

By the endgame I got bored of having half my team great knights, and tried halberdier for pincer attack. Unfortunately, I could rarely position him in such a way to activate it, my army was focusing on mobility (mostly mounted classes with canto). Imagine my disappointment, when I learned that pincer attack activates only if both units are adjacent to enemy, I though just having an ally on the other side of that enemy be enough.

Unfortunately, even with heavy favourism with stat boosters, his stats were low, very low. I gave him two energy drops, and his str. was only 30 by the endgame. With terrible personal skill, low growths and very high internal level, he seems unsalvageable. A real pity.

You could probably try making him royal knight or griffin knight and have him focus on healing and chip dmg. but I hate his outfits in these classes.

Thank you Vander, for defending us. Always

Rating: 3/10 (decent, not good, decent in the beginning, weak to worthless lategame. )