Rate the Unit 23: Bunet

[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: Bunet

Class: Great Knight

                     Lvl   HP  STR MAG DEX SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

Bases:          1      41    15    5        15    9     20    8     13    11

T. Bases:      16    15    6     3         7     4      7     6     10    3

Growths:      /      65    30    10    40    35    45   25   40   10

 

 

Personal Skill: On eating a packed lunch, unit may obtain another of the same item. Trigger %=Lck.

Innate Proficiency: Sword

SP: 1200

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Critical+3
B    Hit+10, Critical+3, Dodge+5
A    Hit+10, Critical+6, Dodge+5
S    Hit+10, Critical+12, Dodge+5

 

Tools and mo stats:

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

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

 

Rating: 2

Next unit on Monday

Edited August 28, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

If this was before the well gave us practically infinite SP Bunet would actually be interesting because he could inherit things like repositioning skills and do random utility so that better units could do other things and not waste their SP, but it doesn't really matter anymore. I'm going to refrain from voting because I don't know how I would rate a unit like this because he might be one of the worst units in the game, but he's not useless when deployed. I guess he might be better on paper than units like Etie or Jade, but they have a little more potential than he does and access to early skills. He also has a personal that probably wouldn't be great even with 100% activation rate because the only synergy it has is with Favorite Food, and he doesn't get early access to that anyway.

[SumG]

Yeah, I just don't get the design of Bunet.  Assuming comparable levels, he's going to have significantly worse defensive stats than a unit like Louis promoted into the same class (let alone into General).  He'll even have worse defensive stats than Jade at a comparable level.  Meanwhile, if you've decided to completely forgo a defensive tank this long, then you might as well wait another couple of chapters until you get Goldmary, who will have similar defensive stats just sitting in Hero, let alone moving into an actual tanking class.

Perhaps this would be OK if he could be a temporary tank when you recruit him, to hold you over until you reach Goldmary, but unfortunately Bunet doesn't really perform well compared to the enemies on maps that show up after he's recruited on Maddening.  He's really hurt by the fact he shows up in the map where promoted enemies start becoming more prevalent.  On top of it he doesn't have any unique class, and his personal ability is really bad.  By the time you can make him a functional tank by giving him Ike, you have much better options on a couple chapters away.

The nicest thing to say about Bunet is that he is good to have when his turn comes up to cook in the Somneil.  He's one of the two units in the game that can get SS ranked meals, which can lead to some very nice temporary stat buffs on occasion, though not in a controllable way.  So I guess that leaves me with giving him an SS/10 (or a 2/10).

[lenticular]

The "don't consider obviously suboptimal builds" part of the guidelines is going to be tricky here, because using Bunet is pretty obviously suboptimal.

Let's compare him to Jade. I gave Jade a score of 3 and she got an average community rating of 3.7. Jade is, I think it's fair to say, not a good unit. If we take our base level Jade and immediately promote her to Great Knight, her stats are very comparable to Bunet's. They have equal strength, speed and res, with magic, dex and def differing only by 1. Bunet's big advantages over Jade are significantly better HP and Luck and the fact that you save yourself a master seal since you don't need to promote him. Meanwhile Jade's big advantage over Bunet is that she arrives 3 levels earlier and 4 ilevels lower. Which means that, should you choose to use her, you've almost certainly leveled her up several times by the time you get Bunet and she gets to inherit from early-game emblems, and she just has better availability. I think she's pretty clearly the superior choice between the two of them. And this is Jade that we're talking about. Once we start comparing him to actually good units, he's even more hopelessly outclassed.

So, with that out of the way, let's see if we can find some sort of silver lining. First, it is worth saying that no matter how bad he is, he's still usable. If you love the guy or if you're forced to use him by a disastrous ironman, then he is absolutely salvagable. Being worse than other units doesn't mean unusable. Beyond that, though, we're clutching at straws a bit. He's a free deploy in his recruitment chapter, and can contribute a little bit there. He does well in the kitchen in the Somniel if you ever get him assigned there (or are willing to scum for it, I guess?). His personal ability theoretically has good synergy with Favorite Food, but actually getting good use of that seems like a lot of effort for not particularly great results.

He's pretty bad. 2/10.

[SnowFire]

20/5 Great Knight Bunet:
61 HP, 25 Str, 7 Mag, 28 Dex, 17 Spd, 36 Def, 16 Res, 23 Lck, 14 Bld, 6 Move

Averageish stats, trash Magic & Speed, below average Resistance, good Def / Build / HP.  Yes.

--

Well, somebody has to have a "bad" stat build I guess.  Even just judged on HP, 61 HP isn't insane or anything, and the strength is notably worse than, say, Louis class-changed to Great Knight.  Just use Louis instead if you want to stack Def, or Goldmary if you want an actual Speed stat.  (And yeah, per lenticular, even this shoddy stat build is better than some true scrubs in the wider series.)

I think Bunet is probably the weakest character on paper with the combination of "bad stats" and also "joining just as the competition for deployment slots significantly ramps up" with Ivy / Kagetsu / Zelkov / Fogado / Pandreo / Merrin all being very solid units. 

The kitchen thing is funny...  has anyone figured out the rules of kitchen deployment?  Is it just "random among alive units?"  If so, then you could argue that deploying Bunet is actually a mild disadvantage on Classic, because you might screw up and get Bunet killed and deny yourself a very low percentage chance of drawing Bunet as cook + the meal being strong actually mattering.  More for giggles there.

There is one thing I'll give Bunet.  If you deploy him and get him Favorite Food, then for the final 5 maps (+ any Paralogues) you do have the chance of multiple FF procs, which is kinda nice.  Most notably, Byleth ult is the strongest in the game, so if you can find some excuse to give him Byleth that's nice - except that he doesn't have tons of synergy with any of the most hyped Byleth picks (Mystical for Thrysus, Covert for Failnaught + a good Instruct, Dragon for a good Instruct, trash Magic means he's not great at wielding Vajra-Mushti or Sword of the Creator).  I guess class change him to a crappy Sniper in such a case?  And you can of course use the same trick to recycle other Ults you want to spam, although Byleth's is really the most important one.  This is pure theorycraft, it's theorycraft for just 5 maps, and it falls on its face if you fail to create a Packed Lunch, but it is SOMETHING that keeps him equivalent with Jade rather than worse than her, I guess, as it's something he can only really do.

Of course, I gave Jade a 2/10, so this isn't that impressive.

Edited August 25, 2023 by SnowFire

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bunet has bad stats and misses Part 1. The best thing you can say about him is if you want a 6 move Reposition bot without spending a seal, and we assume Merrin is already being used, he's your guy? But that's a pretty small niche when you can reclass people to Paladin / other mobile classes very easily. He's unfortunately in this spot where he missed all the earlygame opportunities to contribute and now he's joining at a time where your team is rapidly turning into "your most favoured units from part 1 + new badasses from part 2" and he just can't keep up with any of them.

I feel like post-Well, Jade's ability to inherit Canter (or perhaps even Sword/Lance Power) in addition to her possible role as Chapter 10-11 filler elevates her a bit above Bunet, which leaves Bunet as the worst unit in the game.

2/10

[samthedigital]

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

The kitchen thing is funny...  has anyone figured out the rules of kitchen deployment?  Is it just "random among alive units?"  If so, then you could argue that deploying Bunet is actually a mild disadvantage on Classic, because you might screw up and get Bunet killed and deny yourself a very low percentage chance of drawing Bunet as cook + the meal being strong actually mattering.

Technically speaking you could rest in the Somniel until you draw Bunet. Then you realize that meals don't stack with tonics and the advantage of a good meal is largely diminished even if you wanted to try this sort of tactic. Tonics cost money to be sure, but I'd much rather be a little smarter with my spending than waste time in the Somniel.

[Barren]

Can’t take the heat? Get out of the kitchen! Ooh Bunet. 
 

It would be redundant of me to basically repeat what others have said, to keep it short: he’s only pretty good for his joining chapter as a high defense tank against wolf knights early on. But then once Ike becomes available for let’s say Merrin to combat against them, he becomes obsolete. 
 

Great Knight is not a bad class by any means as allied defense does have nice applications to it. Like Divinely Inspiring with Gentility and maybe even speed/defense +x can always be a nice little combo to hold off enemies. But Bunet does not do well in the long term.

 

2/10 for me. I know it’s shorter than normal fork me, but I personally don’t see any long term potential with him. If anyone wants to use him, be my guest. Just keep your expectations low.