Rate the Unit, Day 23: Astrid

[PKL]

Dat Rules (stolen/borrowed from Integrity)

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard Mode+Fixed Mode.

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted. If somebody else said what you want to already, quote them explicitly.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is encouraged, but no more. If you exercise your bias privileges, please do so explicitly.

- Numerical votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Make it easy to calculate for my sake.

- Every ranking phase ends whenever I get out of bed, between 0700 and 0800 EST. Do the math for your timezone, Brits.

- I will insist you do not use the "Not X" reason on any character, where X is another unit. If you do, your vote will be thrown out.

- "Recruits X" or "takes you to X chapter" arguments are explicitly banned. C'mon, people, this shouldn't need to be a rule. That's not gameplay performance.

- Assume that the character in question is being recruited.

- Similar to the "Recruits X" rule, do not use "she brings a Knight Ward to the team" as an argument.

- BEXP is free to be used in any quantity on any character.

- Rating a unit too low because you think its overrated will make me throw away your vote without mercy public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif.

- I withhold the privilege to tell you your rating is bogus and demand you revise it if it breaks any of the above. I will not throw out votes anonymously, you will be informed and given a chance to revise.

Averages:

Rolf: 1.154

Sothe: 2.03

Brom: 2.32

Shinon: 3

Volke : 4.824

Ilyana: 4.98

Soren: 5.152

Rhys: 5.315

Gatrie: 5.463

Mia: 5.708

Mist: 6.413

Mordecai: 6.547

Zihark: 6.65

Lethe: 6.75

Nephenee: 6.79

Boyd: 8.293

Ike: 8.567

Oscar: 9.075

Kieran: 9.231

Jill: 9.31

Marcia: 9.36

Titania: 9.91

[Ciarre]

"she brings a Knight Ward to the team"

[Loki Laufeyson]

Astrid of House Damiell of Begnion. Entered the knighthood to escape an arranged marriage with Lord of the Assholes noble life.

Pros:

Paragon for easy leveling.

Nice growths.

Horsie.

Comes with the Knight Ward.

Cons:

Bad base level.

Bow lock until promotion.

Doesnt have that great of supoort options.

When you meet Astrid, the question you must ask: To train or not to train? She appears at level 1 bow knight. This looks like its gonna hurt and that theres a pretty shitty unit on our hands. However, she comes with Paragon which makes leveling her a piece of cake really. Shes gonna get like 50 exp every time she simply hits something for a good while. Plus it doesnt cost as much BEXP to get her close to promotion. But is the player willing to do this? Why not? Paladins are broken in this game and Astrid is no exception. Her Knight Ward helps her in her early levels for speed and defense. After promotion, she could make use of a Paladin Band to gain HP and strength. Im rather fond of giving Astrid lances when she promotes. Axes are pretty cool too. But she might need a forge of one of those. Astrid has bow lock for a while and that kinda sucks but yeah, Paragon + Potshotting + BEXP = a useable unit. Shes pretty good here i think but probably could be a challenge to keep alive in hard mode. She doesnt support with any really good units though so that kinda hurts. She supports with Makalov but...well...hes Makalov...

I find her a decent replacement for Titania (but not perfect) and very useable.

6.5/10. 7/10 bias because i am fond of Astrid. Especially in this game.

[ZemZem]

Astrid comes REALLY underleveled, but she levels up REALLY fast, due to her Paragon skill. Her bases are low, since she comes at level 1, but her growths will help her out a ton; 40% STR, 55% SKILL, and 50% SPD are pretty awesome, though she could get STR screwed. Her HP growth is 45% and her DEF growth is 30%, so she's pretty fragile starting out.

She's bow-locked for a while, but when she promotes, she has access to either swords, lances, or axes. Her combat will seriously improve by then. Titania, Oscar, and Kieran are definitely better, but she's still a great unit. And she has the Knight Ward!

6.5/10, +.5 bias since she's attractive. 7/10

Edited April 21, 2012 by ZM456

[Lord Raven]

6.5/10, she gets like 32 EXP for chips and she takes like 25 BEXP/level up at base level, and she doesn't take 100 BEXP to level up until promotion. She's very close to free to raise, and she doesn't disappoint. She just comes so damn late.

[Non-Existent Member]

Joins at a low level with low base stats but she levels up fast, thanks to her Elite skill. So she shouldn't be tough to train.

Her Knight Ward helps her alot, it gives 2+ in Defense and Res and 30% speed growth. With that, she'll most likely to cap her speed before reaching level 20.

After she promotes, she can either pick Lance, Sword, or Axe for her to use.

9/10

[Excellen Browning]

Is 2-range locked and has subpar stats but has paragon, a horse(and especially canto) and decent growths. she grows fast and well because of this and by the time she hits promotion she also gets 1 range and is overall a good paladin. Supports suck though. One of the few people I'd consider spending an arms scroll or two on.

5/10

Edited April 21, 2012 by Daigoji Excellen

[XiSrOn]

Pro:

Good Growths

Paragon

Mount

Gets to use Axes post-promotion

Con:

Needs a large BEXP dump to become truly useful (1-> 20/1)

Awful bases/Level 1

Late join

6.5/10+1 = 7.5

1 bias since Paragon is a very interesting skill and I like her support conversations with Malakov and Gatrie

I find after about chapter 20 she's better than Titania and is a very useful Paladin. She'll never top Oscar and Kieran, but she will often be your 3rd best paladin in the late game for a reasonably-sized. one-time investment and an axe forge.

[Shadow Mir]

8/10 (7+1 for bias). Joins at a low level, but grows especially fast due to Paragon, and is an overall worthy investment if you want a good bow user. Too bad her supports are eh.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[Silent Mercenary]

Pros:

+PARAGON! It's her prime selling point and is what saves up BExp and squeezes the CExp out of enemies (almost a full level up out of every non-boss/raven enemy on her start chapter, which I think is a full one on Easy Mode)

+A horse

+Good growths

~Low level is both good and bad, since it gives her lots of space to grow

Cons:

-1 for bad bases, so she'll need a Forge since you get her

-.25 extra for bad HP/defense throughout the game, which make her hard to train at the start and even the Knight Ward can't help much

-.5 for low level at midgame, though it also goes in her favor (and yours, Bexp-wise)

-1 bow lock until promotion, although Canto re-moving helps

-.25 for the Hit giving part of her Wind affinity

-.5 for bad support options

+.5 for horse/movility

+1 for Paragon

+.25 bias because of appearance, being brave enough to escape, and in my current run, is beating Makalov&Kieran in the same level at everything but HP right now, though CEMN except in biases

8.25/10

[PuffPuff]

Astrid is AWESOME! Plain and simple. Only bad news is that she is hard to recruit in the Hard Mode. But DLV has showed a demonstration of an easy way to recruit her in the HM. One of the only two characters in the game to ever get Paragon(Elite). She probably deserves a bias point from me for having the ability to break this game in half later and looking like Aira. And u can view some convos in RD that u won't see otherwise if Astrid gets an A support with Makalov in this game and using the bonus disk transfer.

Astrid is a royal knight of Crimea, and former knight in the serivce of Begnion. But Makalov did a good job brainwashing the most polite, mannerly, and most trusted knight of Crimea in RD. She should support with him (Am I the only one who likes using Makalov other than Swords Are Shiney? (from FEPlanet) As Wind and Thunder might be a good combination. Once she gets done leveling up. Easier said than done. Because u will end up overusing her than any other character in the game. She is THAT unstoppable. Best to give her Mag Swords for her becoming more broken when she gets enough Mag for the Wind/Rune Swords. An Arms scroll can start this off. She is worthy of having one of them. Until she gets enough, use Pure Waters to up her power for those swords. Oookay. Time to rate her.

Bonus pic for being broken as fuck in this game.

NM

10/10 Without bias would be the same!

HM

9.9/10 Without bias would be the same!

DLV's demonstration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa0kU-kj1xA&list=PL6FA20B23ACB1D195&index=28&feature=plpp_video

Edited April 22, 2012 by リンダ

[Shadow Mir]

Astrid is AWESOME! Plain and simple. Only bad news is that she is hard to recruit in the Hard Mode. But DLV has showed a demonstration of an easy way to recruit her in the HM. One of the only two characters in the game to ever get Paragon(Elite). She probably deserves a bias point from me for having the ability to break this game in half later and looking like Aira. And u can view some convos in RD that u won't see otherwise if Astrid gets an A support with Makalov in this game and using the bonus disk transfer.

Astrid is a royal knight of Crimea, and former knight in the serivce of Begnion. But Makalov did a good job brainwashing the most polite, mannerly, and most trusted knight of Crimea in RD. She should support with him (Am I the only one who likes using Makalov other than Swords Are Shiney? (from FEPlanet) As Wind and Thunder might be a good combination. Once she gets done leveling up. Easier said than done. Because u will end up overusing her than any other character in the game. She is THAT unstoppable. Best to give her Mag Swords for her becoming more broken when she gets enough Mag for the Wind/Rune Swords. An Arms scroll can start this off. She is worthy of having one of them. Until she gets enough, use Pure Waters to up her power for those swords. Oookay. Time to rate her.

On how to recruit her in HM: That's old news by now, I'm sure.

On the bonus convos: I'm not even sure those exist...

On Astrid with a magic sword (or any of the magic weapons for that matter): Don't kid yourself. Also, that's assuming you can even get her to B rank before the end of the game, and I can EASILY think of better uses for Arms Scrolls than to help Astrid use a magic weapon (which she won't do much good with anyhow).

[CrashGordon94]

Also, Pure Waters only raise Magic power in FE5.

[Epic Fail]

Let's be honest here, Astrid is a bow-locked level 1 unit coming in chapter 13. Sure, she has Paragon, which means that level deficit won't be around for long, but she's still bow-locked until promotion. Having a horse means that she can hit and run with no real risk, but so can Oscar, Titania, Kieran, Marcia and Jill and, to a lesser extent, Makalov, who joins the next chapter (well, not with no risk, but you know what I mean). Not to mention that Marcia and Jill can, y'know, FLY. What she brings to the table can be done better by any of the five units I just mentioned, though having another horsie around never hurts (apart from the obligatory desert chapter).

6.75/10, TL;DR, she has potential, but not much more than the other mounts.

[Frosty]

She joins underleveled; but Paragon saves her from obscurity. I mean... She gains like 33 exp per chip and a level up or almost a level up if she secures a kill!

Oh, sure she has Bowlock; but has high MOV and Canto to make up for it. Also, she's your best Bow-lock unit in the game; eat that Rolf and Shinon!

Next up, once she promotes! She has a lot of options! Swords can make her annoying to Axe-users, but 1-range locked though; Lances if you want to dispose those annoying swordmasters; but the best option usually lies in Axes; since that mitigates her STR by having ATK go up to the level of skyrocketing!

Your call between Lances or Axes if you want more 2-range attack options. *cough*Javelins and Hand Axes*cough* Despite of that... She'll be forever good in Bows; and it's fun to hit and run things!

Overall? You get an underleveled unit with an excellent return after feeding kills; just remember to slap on a STR band on her to solve her STR-screwage issues.

7.0

But after bias powers!

8.0

Edited April 22, 2012 by Biological Abomination

[I don't play for turns]

I haven't done too much with her, but I get the general idea. She comes mid-game with awful bases and is under-leveld, but that allows her to take advantage of her growth rates. Paragon means she's easy to train, but she can also die quickly if she is left out in the open. On normal mode, she's outstanding. Her skill, luck, speed, and resistance will usually be good to great, and her strength and HP usually won't be too bad, but she lacks defense, even with the knight ward.

Normal mode:

7.5/10

Hard mode:

6/10

No bias. I forgot to mention that she's bow-locked until promotion, but axes after promotion make her damage capacity much higher, and canto helps her hit and run until she gets good.

Edited April 22, 2012 by I don't play for turns

[MacLovin]

Well, she's a Mount.

-Paragon

-Best Bow user

-Mount

-Becomes a Pally god.

9/10, she doesn't get 10/10 because she comes a wee bit late and doesn't have 1 range.

[Lord Raven]

Also, Pure Waters only raise Magic power in FE5.

And by extension, Magic Defense, because they were the same stat in FE5.

[Hawk King]

PROS:

-high movement

-canto

-paragon

CONS:

-low starting level

-bow lock until promotion

-need a little bit of Bexp to get going

Astrid is pretty good. She needs a good amount of Bexp to get going, but she can stretch Bexp father than anyone else. With a pacifism clear of Chapter 15 you will have more than enough Bexp for Astrid. She only needs 800-1000(ish?) to go from base level to promotion, and with a few Knight Ward LV ups she will double enemies for her entire existence. After she promotes, she will statistically surpass Titania, and eventually take her place.

7.75/10 - Astrid is the 3rd best pally for the last 1/3rd of the game, and it never hurts to have alot of them.

[Renall]

A ranged-locked Paladin candidate with potential (and Paragon). Bit of an annoyance to recruit, bit of a pain to level since she's not getting much enemy phase action, and after that... well, you just see how she turned out I guess. On Fixed, she's a little worse than Kieran in most areas other than RES at equivalent levels, though if she is able to outlevel him via Paragon that might help her. Kieran ain't bad, so that says good things about her. If you're planning to mount up and roll the game, she's easy enough to get up to the level of Titania/Oscar/Kieran I suppose. Certainly easier to get to that point than Makalov, and she'll still have Axes post-promotion if you want them.

Hard to say. No question she can be quite good and has something in her definite favor in terms of the exp savings she can get, but she's still not quite as good out of the box. Still, if Marcia and Jill can take some BEXP I don't see why Astrid also couldn't to help her out, especially since she gets it at bargain rates. She may need that on HM, since on NM it should be no trouble to just let her plink her way to promotion. But that won't fly on harder modes.

7/10

[Snowy_One]

Astrid is a late-joining paladin who starts off horribly underleveled and with bows and ends up below-average for a paladin. Buuuuut... She has Paragon. That one skill alone is her salvation as it makes her almost guaranteed to be at or above the party level after only a few chapters and, quite possibly, the first character in the game to reach 20/20. As such she will have above-average stats for most of the game and be a dominating force once she promotes (which likely won't be long). She had great weapon-typing as well, either the best or second-best combination depending on how you see it, and she is lovely with a great personality.

And yet she pairs with MAKALOV?! What?

Anyways... 9 (8+1 personallity)/10 overall. Would be higher, but weak time after joining, below-average stats at endgame, and weak support list.

[Refa]

Name     HP    STR   MAG   SKL   SPD   LCK   DEF   RES
Astrid   42.10 23.20 11.60 26.00 27.00 18.20 19.40 15.50
Titania  48.20 20.55 08.75 24.40 23.50 19.55 18.60 15.55
Oscar    48.80 24.20 10.20 26.00 25.20 15.80 22.60 13.80
Kieran   49.20 26.00 07.05 25.50 24.80 14.75 22.80 12.10
Makalov  50.40 26.00 08.35 22.05 26.50 15.25 25.05 10.80
Geoffrey 48.85 22.50 11.25 21.95 23.95 13.80 25.05 13.05

Astrid has below average HP and DEF. However she's middle of the road STR, almost the best luck, and has the best of the other 4 stats. How is she below average, try again.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Refa

[RNG Princess]

Astrid is easy to train thanks to Paragon+Knight ward. I give her 9/10 ^^'

[Agro]

9/10 - slow start but shit-easy to train up and then you give her a steel axe forge and it's like WHAAAAAAA