Rate the Unit 28: Seadall

[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: Seadall

Class: Dancer

                     Lvl   HP    STR   MAG   DEX   SPD     DEF    RES   LCK   BLD

Bases:          15    33     12       4         15     16         10       10      11       8

T. Bases:      15     12      7        3          7       8          8         5       6        3

Growths:      /       55     25      15        25     50        25       25     35      10

 

Personal Skill: At start of turn, allies within 2 spaces of unit recover 10% of their max HP.    

Innate Proficiency: Arts

SP: 1500

 

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:

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

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

Rating: 9.57

Next unit on Thursday

Edited September 14, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

10/10 (Maddening, but does difficulty really matter in this case?)

His personal can be annoying I guess? Otherwise he's a dancer; it's basically self evident that he's amazing. It's the case in some games where it can be difficult for the dancer to keep up and stay relevant, but that's not really the case here. We're also spoiled for choice in terms of powerful tools that we can use more than once a turn in Engage. He can help enable warp skips, freeze more enemies with Dreadful Aura, get a goddess dance ready again immediately after someone uses emblem energy, etc; the sky's the limit. I go with Canter and Mentorship. Mentorship doesn't do all that much admittedly, but nothing is particularly useful in the second skill slot.

[Barren]

Ooh spirit of the cards, I call upon thee your powers to read thy fortune. Oh yes its Seadall time. This can be applied to any difficulty really.

 

Dancers are always useful in Fire Emblem and this is no exception. He joins you during chapter 15 with Corrin as an emblem. You can immediately get him to rank 5 with Corrin equipped and get Quality Time. Healing HP while dancing is pretty big in this game despite what some will you. It’s a cheap and effective skill you can inherit off the bat. Soon after when you get Sigurd back he can inherit Canter. Another ability he can get right away. He’s a unit with the least amount of investment needed to be great.

 

You could go for Quality Time/Canter + if you want. If you’re willing to spend bond fragments and skill books that is. There are other abilities if you like, such as avoid + x in particular can be nice so he can be a dodge tank. Remember that his combat and growths do not matter so do whatever you want.

 

10/10 for me. Is anyone really surprised? I ain’t. Use him unless you’re going for some kind of self imposed challenge run.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Barren

[Shadow Mir]

Abstain. I... don't really have much to say about him. Mostly because I passed over him.

[lenticular]

Yeah, pretty easy 10/10 here, let's not bury the lede.

Dancers are pretty much always great, and Seadall is one of the better dancers in the series. Being able to move after dancing with Canter makes it easier to keep him safe. Special dance is pretty standard now but is an advantage over pre-Awakening dancers. You can combine him with a Goddess Dance from Byleth to give your player phase juggernaut 4 actions on a turn. He has the ability to Chain Guard as well as Dance, which only coms up once in a blue moon, but is still pure upside. He's basically the only unit in the game who operates just as well without an Emblem Ring, so he doesn't compete for that important resource. He's just good.

[SumG]

Dancers gonna dance.  Dancer/10 grade.

Dancers are consistently some of the most powerful units in Fire Emblem games, as they simultaneously allow you to get extra actions with your most powerful units, provide flexibility to allow your party to adapt to different situations, and enables strategies that allow you to move dramatically faster than normal (either through units getting multiple movements in a single phase or enabling truly broken Dance/Warp strategies).

The biggest weakness of Dancer tend to be the general squishiness of the unit and the low movement dancers tend to have.  While the first problem is still a concern, in Engage Seadall can pick up Canter which makes his movement significantly better than pretty much any dancer in Fire Emblem history.  So even among dancers, some of the most powerful units in Fire Emblem, Seadall is strong.

Beyond that, Seadall even gets bonus utility.  His personal skill allows for some incidental healing.  He can also pick up Quality Time to further supplement that healing capability.  It doesn't sound like much initially, but it's possible for Seadall to heal 20 HP to a single unit on any given turn cycle, and he can easily heal 40-50 HP in a single turn across the entire party in the right conditions.  And he does this without even needing to sacrifice the ability to dance on those turns.  That's fantastic extra utility for what is already one of the most useful units in the game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Seadall is the best unit in Engage, and I think it's very clear that this is true. Sure, dancers are always good, but has any dancer ever inarguably been the best unit in the game before? Emblem rings make a big difference here (which are part of the reason he's so good, there's nothing analogous in previous games). You only have so many really good ones, so Seadall not even remotely needing one is a huge boon. Beyond that... he can canter (might as well be a free skill for him, he starts with the SP for it), he can take a hit if you need him to for some reason, he can dance for engaged characters who are typically more effective and also increases your uses of dominant tools like Dreadful Aura and AOE staff use.

The only negative things to say about him is he can't dance for four people (well without Byleth. Don't give him Byleth) and I guess his availability could be better. But he is the obvious no-brainer "use him, your team will be measurably worse if you don't" unit in Engage.

[Florete]

I'm not interested in giving ratings, but I've got to say I don't really get why Seadall gets so much more praise than other dancers throughout the series. No one ever considered Ninian, Tethys, Olivia, or Azura the best units in their games. Why is Seadall so special? Sure, he can get Canter and that's nice, but it's not that big of a deal. Unlike the others, Seadall also is not technically the only source of dance in his game, since you get Emblem Byleth around the same time, making him less impactful.

I think Dancers are always a worthy addition to a team and a priority to deploy, but I can't see a single-target dancer as some "perfect" unit because your other unit's first actions on a turn are almost always more important than their subsequent actions (unless you really know what you're doing with warp-skipping or whatever). Seadall also doesn't do anything on enemy phase, and yes, I know someone will mention that his support indirectly helps your enemy phase, but that's not always going to be the case, and ultimately he's not the unit making your enemy phases work.

[Alogeo]

He is a dancer. So obviusly a strong char on any difficulty. But he join mid game so i will give a 9.5/10. 

Regarding the skill canter Is really strong. While the other slot Is free for amy defensive/supporting idea you have.

28 minutes ago, Florete said:

can't see a single-target dancer as some "perfect" unit because your other unit's first actions on a turn are almost always more important than their subsequent actions

Since this game has a lot of kill the boss objective, giving 2 action to a unit that can destroy a healt bar in 1 action (some quadding eirika build for example) is pretty powerful of you want to play fast in my opinion.

The idea of rushing the boss is always helped by the power of using your strongest unit more than once.

[Samu_77]

9/10 Maddening 

Aside from the obvious "this unit is amazing because they are a dancer" I think he has several qualities that elevates him beyond most other dancers in the series.

1. His durability: unlike others such as Elphin or Olivia, Seadall actually has decent durability that can let you get away with him taking a hit on enemy phase, especially coupled with Shielding Art and his relatively decent speed that makes him hard to double. Obviously you aren't going to send into a swarm of enemies, but I find even on Maddening he's good for one hit, which can make a big difference.

2. His movement: In most other games your dancer is going to have 5 movement, this is true for Seadall as well but it's also important to remember that your base units have a maximum of 6 movement, and so it's harder for Seadall to fall behind compared to someone like Tethys being unable to keep up with Seth, this means you can be dancing your strong units even more.

3. Canter: self explanatory, can either keep him out of danger or keeps him closer to the head of the pack to get more value, one thing of note is that it also helps his personal skill with healing people.

4. Boss revival crystals: While in most FE games you might only need one person to kill that boss, in this game you need multiple, and being able to refresh your best unit for this is incredibly valuable. This can also be used with things like Draconic hex to nerd any boss -8 to all stats before using everyone else to pounce on him.

5. Chain Guard: admittedly not a selling point but it can be nice to have if there's one particularly strong attack coming your way or possibly trying to block 2 with another Qi Adept

6. Weapon Type: Again this isn't something that's immensely helpful, as you can't break bosses in Maddening and generally Seadall shouldn't be on the Front Lines or you could just delete the enemy with something stronger, but it can be a nice benefit especially if you want to give him -5 damage with Leif's Sync Skill or you just want to break some random mage or Thief

 

7. Functionality with Emblems: unlike almost every other unit in this game who can immensely benefit from having an Emblem equipped, Seadalls lack of needing one due to his primary role being one that doesn't utilize them, this means he can function at more or less max capacity without one which helps you distribute them amongst your others. This isn't necessarily a point in his favor because how a player distributes these Emblems prioritizes different units anyways, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

None of these are revolutionary on its own, but put all of this together and you have one of the best Dancers in the franchise. 

 

So why is he not 10/10? Because he's not a perfect unit, outside if the noticeable availability issue, he still has weaknesses. He's not charging into the middle of an enemy storm with 8 movement, 1-2 ranging all of them while not risking crit and charging up to the boss the next turn and 1-rounding. He will help another character do those things but he will not, nor will he be doing it for half of the game at all. You would, however, be a fool not to deploy him in any kind of playthrough that isn't a challenge run that specifically excludes him.

[Bartozio]

9/10 Maddening.

I think most post before mine outline pretty well why Seadall is amazing, so I'm not gonna go into it too much here. I do agree that dancers are amazing, but I don't really consider Seadall a 10/10 unit.

My main "issue" with him is that all of the truly broken/amazing strategies you can pull with him rely on there already being a broken/amazing unit on the field. Giving your best player phase nuke a second (or even 3rd or 4rd) turn is amazing, but it requires you to actually have an amazing player phase nuke in the first place. So in the end Seadall doesn't get sole credit for those plays.

The main argument I can think of that bypasses that logic is having him dance for the Corrin or Micaiah users, since neither of those put any real requirements on their users stats. Even there though, Seadall is just making broken things more broken, not turning something mundane into a broken tool for you to use.

If you could actually make him an amazing (or honestly even just a good) enemy phaser in his dancer class he'd be a 10/10 no questions asked, but that remains a 3 houses thing it seems.

Still an amazing unit that will always improve your team, just one that will never be the absolute star of the team.

[samthedigital]

7 hours ago, Florete said:

I'm not interested in giving ratings, but I've got to say I don't really get why Seadall gets so much more praise than other dancers throughout the series. No one ever considered Ninian, Tethys, Olivia, or Azura the best units in their games. Why is Seadall so special? Sure, he can get Canter and that's nice, but it's not that big of a deal. Unlike the others, Seadall also is not technically the only source of dance in his game, since you get Emblem Byleth around the same time, making him less impactful.

To be sure I don't consider him to be the best unit in the game, but it seems that a lot of people on serenes in particular attribute a unit's success to emblems rather than the units themselves, and a lot of Seadall's power comes from refreshing emblem specific actions. If we're having a series wide discussion that's also part of it, but some dancers just have a hard time keeping pace with the game's carry. I guess there's also FE7 that has a lot of defend maps where the action economy doesn't matter as much.

Quote

I think Dancers are always a worthy addition to a team and a priority to deploy, but I can't see a single-target dancer as some "perfect" unit because your other unit's first actions on a turn are almost always more important than their subsequent actions (unless you really know what you're doing with warp-skipping or whatever). Seadall also doesn't do anything on enemy phase, and yes, I know someone will mention that his support indirectly helps your enemy phase, but that's not always going to be the case, and ultimately he's not the unit making your enemy phases work.

I am going to make an educated guess and say that most people play without realizing just how broken Bonded Shield is and don't warp skip. That along with what I mentioned above has influenced ratings at least somewhat.

Edited September 12, 2023 by samthedigital

[Dark Holy Elf]

10 hours ago, Florete said:

I'm not interested in giving ratings, but I've got to say I don't really get why Seadall gets so much more praise than other dancers throughout the series. No one ever considered Ninian, Tethys, Olivia, or Azura the best units in their games. Why is Seadall so special? Sure, he can get Canter and that's nice, but it's not that big of a deal. Unlike the others, Seadall also is not technically the only source of dance in his game, since you get Emblem Byleth around the same time, making him less impactful.

Compared to most of those characters, the big thing is concentration of resources. Aside from exp I guess (which falls off quickly if you try to focus it), GBA units don't really compete over that much with each other. Choosing to bench Ninian will still lower your total gain of exp, of course, but having done it, it's not a huge difference.

By comparison, Engage introduces emblems which are a massively important resource and there are only so many to go around. Seadall adding one to your "number of emblem unit turns" is a big deal, even moreso when it's actually "number of engaged unit turns" which can be even more valuable.

Another factor is that the non-dancer unit curve in Engage is pretty narrow. Tethys can't be the best unit in SS because Seth exists. But no nobody in Engage is anywhere near Seth-level good. Whoever the best non-dancer is (I'd say it's Ivy?), they have flaws and/or aren't that amazing without being given some major resources. So Seadall ends up at the top of his own game's rankings both because he's somewhat better than a Tethys (due to the previous paragraph) but also because he doesn't compete with a Seth.

I do think some of the four-unit dancers have a case to be better than Seadall. The big one I might suggest is Lene/Laylea. Like Engage, no other unit is crazy dominant in FE4 gen 2 (unlike gen 1, which has Sigurd) and obviously four-person dance is a big deal. But there are valid reasons to prefer Seadall even then.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Florete said:

I'm not interested in giving ratings, but I've got to say I don't really get why Seadall gets so much more praise than other dancers throughout the series. No one ever considered Ninian, Tethys, Olivia, or Azura the best units in their games. Why is Seadall so special? Sure, he can get Canter and that's nice, but it's not that big of a deal. Unlike the others, Seadall also is not technically the only source of dance in his game, since you get Emblem Byleth around the same time, making him less impactful.

I think Dancers are always a worthy addition to a team and a priority to deploy, but I can't see a single-target dancer as some "perfect" unit because your other unit's first actions on a turn are almost always more important than their subsequent actions (unless you really know what you're doing with warp-skipping or whatever). Seadall also doesn't do anything on enemy phase, and yes, I know someone will mention that his support indirectly helps your enemy phase, but that's not always going to be the case, and ultimately he's not the unit making your enemy phases work.

Same. If anything,  Seadall has the misfortune of being replaceable. Radiant Dawn is the only other game with more than one dancer unit, but it always made them mutually exclusive. 

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Same. If anything,  Seadall has the misfortune of being replaceable. Radiant Dawn is the only other game with more than one dancer unit, but it always made them mutually exclusive. 

Even units like Seth are replaceable, so I'm not sure what you're getting at with your argument. He's not replaceable in an LTC or maximum efficiency context, but Seadall isn't replaceable in that context either.

[SnowFire]

Lvl. 40 Seadall:

48 HP, 21 Str, 8 Mag, 23 Dex, 32 Spd, 19 Def, 21 Res, 25 Lck, 11 Bld, 5 Move
Main thing to note is that the durability stats aren't really THAT bad.  Awakening and Fates balanced their dancers who could attack around being incredibly frail, but Seadall is just a bit below average.  32 Spd helps for avoiding doubles, as does having a Shielding Art on for +5 Defense (since Who Cares about Seadall's offense).

--

For a variety of reasons, Seadall is exceptionally good In Engage, the clear MVP.  I think others have already covered most of them, but I'll just repeat the part about "you can Dance Engaged allies" and also "Byleth exists."  In a game where different units will be temporarily more powerful as the map proceeds, the power of a Dance command increases.  Byleth already has the best ultimate in the game, and if you can somehow refresh Seadall with it via Canter shenanigans or just good positioning, it's even more OP, a synergy that doesn't usually exist for good and proper reason.

Meanwhile, as noted above, he's not a tank but he's not "dies if someone looks angrily in his direction" like Olivia or Azura.

My highest score elsewhere was 8/10, but I'm willing to offer the rare fractional score of 9.5/10 here.  Benching him is one of the biggest ways to increase challenge (yes, I left him on the bench in my Hard playthrough to spice things up) and no character comes close in impact.  That said, he doesn't quite hit 10/10, but mostly because 10/10 requires something ludicrous for me.  Technically, his availability is a bit off being a 2nd-half joiner, and he won't really deal damage on enemy phase counterattacks? Weak complaints, though.