Integ's gon' rank the characters!

[Jaybee]

*sigh*

Do I have to repeat myself again? He isn't that much better when he's only useful for Phantoms and has an E rank in staves, he is easily outranked and classed by other magic users, he is also not too useful in his joining chapter using Phantoms, they get killed by everything, they don't even serve as good decoys with the many enemies in that map. You can just have Duessel tank and destroy those cavvies that get weighted down by their Steel Lances/Swords, Ephraim destroys them too with Reginleif.

He could actually be useful if you take your time to baby him, but these type of characters usually get low scores, especially if they come at his joining time.

I just lost a pretty damn big post, so I'll summarise.

C15: Phantoms lure, Duessel kills. Or Duessel takes 3 turns to reach the enemy. More efficiency when Knoll is promoted.

C17: Phantoms cross water, hack away at Heroes. Frees up fliers.

C18: Phantoms get stoned/shadowshotted. Saves your own units.

C19: Phantoms lure, others kill.

C20: Phantoms lure, others kill.

Issue on promotion items...

Hero Crest: One gor Gerik, one for Joshua.

Knight Crest: One for Franz, one for Kyle. Forde only gets on Eph route.

Elysian Whip: ONe for Vanessa, one for Cormag. Tana might want one.

Orion's Bolt: Sell.

Guiding Ring: One for Lute, one for Artur, one for Moulder.

And you have enough money to buy from the secret shop anyway.

E staves...

Knoll can at least use Heal, other staffs except for Physic, Mend, Fortify are rather worthless.

[Anouleth]

Knoll can at least use Heal, other staffs except for Physic, Mend, Fortify are rather worthless.

Warp? Rescue? Even Unlock in C15, maybe Torch in C19, Restore on many maps with Sleep/Berserk staffers or Gorgons, Ward on many maps due to high numbers of magic users.

If anything, it benefits everyone else more as this is the one case where they get as much experience as Syrene. Everyone gets 50 EXP per egg.

Syrene will reach them first. This is Defeat Enemy, so unless you want to suggest Syrene sits there and does nothing just so you can give the EXP to people who don't really need it in the first place, there's no reason for her not to kill as many eggs as she can.

[Integrity]

Knoll can at least use Heal, other staffs except for Physic, Mend, Fortify are rather worthless.

Warp is a key component in most of my Demon King-killing strategies. Being able to get a free hit with one person before he summons his minions, knowing he won't counter the next turn? yesplz.

Syrene will reach them first. This is Defeat Enemy, so unless you want to suggest Syrene sits there and does nothing just so you can give the EXP to people who don't really need it in the first place, there's no reason for her not to kill as many eggs as she can.

I was going to respond scathingly to this and state that OBVIOUSLY we have Tana and Vanessa and Cormag and then I stopped myself and thought about the C18 map and realized that no, there is room for four fliers to get all the eggs. I've been totally forgetting one of the corners this whole time. So, uh...yeah. Nevermind.

As an aside, to some above post, remember that MK is precisely ONE movement over Sage/Druid, so you aren't gaining much at all for C20. IIRC MK is slowed more by forests, too, and can't cross/hide in mountains, but at least he can vulnerary then run?

Early morning update!

L'ARACHEL

The beautiful princess of peerless beauty! And she's a troubadour! Everybody including me loves troubadours! L'Arachel MUST get a high score!

Actually, L'Arachel isn't a bad unit at all, despite the sarcasm that may or may not have been dripping from the above. The downside to poor L'Arachel is she joins late, in a party where you already have two+ healers, and unlike FEjustabouteverythingelse, she doesn't even have a unique class to promote to like Priscilla does. Valkyrie and Mage Knight actually end up precisely the same, average - the ONLY difference is that Valk gives +1 RES on promotion, but she ought to hit her cap anyway. Natasha can promote to a Valkyrie, and you get her much earlier - and if you badly need a MK, Lute can fill that niche and by the time you get L'Arachel it's not inconceivable for Lute to have already promoted. So, as with many so far, L'Arachel doesn't do much that everybody else doesn't.

However, unlike many above, L'Arachel actually turns out well. I don't mean Ewan's "well", I mean actually better than most in her class. L'Arachel is better than Natasha in every way except join time, and she can't access Slayer. Assuming MK for both, L'Arachel even destroys that paragon of magery, Lute, in almost every stat. sage!Lute only has a little extra MAG on MK!L'Arachel to compensate for ...nothing, really. L'Arachel's ONLY downside, really, is that she joins halfway through the game, and leveling healers is already a slog. Everything's peachy if you use her to heal every 1hp scratch and get her to a respectable level.

Unfortunately, since there has to be a downside, L'Arachel suffers in the supports department. Her only respectably fast support is with Dozla (see above for thoughts on Dozla). She has a moderately fast one with Ephraim that starts low, but she's among the worst in Ephraim's support list for him to gun for. Healer utility, combined with slow supports, means that L'Arachel would be lucky to pull a C with anybody except Dozla before the end of the game. Natasha, at least, has a quick-but-not-great support to build with Joshua, and Lute has a fast Artur support she can build. Either one of those can have a C before L'Arachel even joins - Lute might even have a B - which helps bridge the stat gap a little bit. Adding on to that, Natasha sure as hell isn't going to be a pathetic level 3 at that point, so she'll be quite a bit closer to promotion. Accepting an early promo with L'Arachel extends her usefulness, but it gimps her relative to her competition.

As such, since she's < Lute and Natasha unless you get her to 20/1 - which won't be very quick -, but she's still a healer and she has a very respectable post-promotion game (if you can promote her to Valk before Chapter 18, she can have a ball on the gorgons), I'm going to go with a 7.0.

For valor beyond the call of duty, I'm giving the victory to my opposition here and barely budging to drop L'Arachel to a 6.5

EDIT: L'Arachel's actually a 4.5 lol. How silly I was.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Integrity

[Anouleth]

Warp is a key component in most of my Demon King-killing strategies. Being able to get a free hit with one person before he summons his minions, knowing he won't counter the next turn? yesplz.

Warp is also vital for fast completions of many later chapters. Of course, none of the characters reviewed so far are likely to have access to Warp, and I doubt that anyone other than Moulder/Natasha/Saleh/L'arachel would be able to use it, but it's something worth keeping in mind when we get to them.

I was going to respond scathingly to this and state that OBVIOUSLY we have Tana and Vanessa and Cormag and then I stopped myself and thought about the C18 map and realized that no, there is room for four fliers to get all the eggs. I've been totally forgetting one of the corners this whole time. So, uh...yeah. Nevermind.

We won't be necessarily using Tana and Vanessa and Cormag, either, especially on Eir. Route where Cormy joins late. In such a case, we would definitely want to bring Syrene. In fact, I'd bring her anyway, since there are enough eggs that we want as many hands as possible.

So anyway, L'arachel. I think you're underselling her supports a little bit - L'arachel/Ephraim is a perfectly decent support, since Fire/Light gives full ATK and CRIT bonuses and a little bit of defense and avoid. L'arachel would probably be able to snag B Eirika as well.

[Integrity]

L'Arachel is definitely not snagging B Eirika and anything Ephraim. She's going to have to live with one or the other, depending on which route you take.

The problem with L'Arachel/Ephraim is it's 5+3, starting in either chapter 12 or 15. If Ephraim wants a Light support, he can go with Eirika at a 30+4 that starts in chapter 15. Ephraim could also support Forde for another, faster-than-L'Arachel full crit and full attack support. Eirika can go with a tremendously fast Seth support for full ATK and DEF but not crit, or go with the earlier and slightly faster Forde, again, for the same crit/ATK.

The problem is, her supports are neither remarkably fast nor remarkably good for the partners involved. She didn't get hit too hard for it, though. Think she ought to move up, or?

EDIT: I suppose I *AM* forgetting that you can have an A and a B. I've played enough RD now I'm starting to think the GBA games are limited to one partner apiece. >>

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Jaybee]

Warp? Rescue? Even Unlock in C15, maybe Torch in C19, Restore on many maps with Sleep/Berserk staffers or Gorgons, Ward on many maps due to high numbers of magic users.

Ehh, I never used any of those except for Torch in C11 Eph and C19.

Warp is a key component in most of my Demon King-killing strategies. Being able to get a free hit with one person before he summons his minions, knowing he won't counter the next turn? yesplz.

... You do know that Eph can reach him on the first turn, and that on turn 2 you just need to kill one minion before letting everyone charge, right?

Also, I wouldn't say that L'Arachel gets a 7.0. Sure, mounted healers are fun and all, but she kinda comes late when you've already got Moulder and Natasha healers, possibly Lute as well. Though I guess she can reach anyone faster than them. Also, she's got a low starting level, so it takes quite some time to even get her to 10/1.

[Integrity]

... You do know that Eph can reach him on the first turn, and that on turn 2 you just need to kill one minion before letting everyone charge, right?

Also, I wouldn't say that L'Arachel gets a 7.0. Sure, mounted healers are fun and all, but she kinda comes late when you've already got Moulder and Natasha healers, possibly Lute as well. Though I guess she can reach anyone faster than them. Also, she's got a low starting level, so it takes quite some time to even get her to 10/1.

Sure, Eph can reach Formortiis on turn 1. With Warp, Ephraim can reach him and then say Joshua can also reach him. Or Ephraim can run in, attack, and have Tethys warped next to him and attack again with a little Physic help. Point is, Morty is guaranteed not to attack on the following turn, meaning that extra attack can be the difference between a two-turn kill and a RNG-proof two-turn kill. It's not essential, but it certainly ain't worthless.

L'Arachel...I think she deserves a 7.0 minimum. She joins low, and levels kinda slow, but she also has a grand promoted game if she gets there. If we're blowing everything on her, one Physic staff gives her just over three levels in 15 turns if you get her to B Staves. A Staves? Warp is 85 XP per SHOT - and you get five of them. Blow four (totaling over three levels in four turns) and you still have one to drop on Morty. Don't care about Warping to Morty? That's five shots of 85 XP in as many turns. Even just Healing every turn nets her 11 XP per turn, giving her an average level per mission - more in longer ones like C14, 15, and 16.

It's not difficult to envision her 20/1 before C18, when she can kill the closer eggs for a few levels, then roflstomp the Gorgons if you went Valk for even more.

EDIT: "Everything" = all those "rather worthless" staves. Physic is useful, but both Secret Shops have it so why not? Sell that Orion's Bolt and that's one extra Physic with no Silver Card.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Tables]

7/10 is crazy. By the time she promotes... which will be a while, even if you promote her at level 10, all the other magic users will be far better than her. In effect, her only benefit is getting +2 move to heal before promotion with (or is it +1?). It's nice, but not that great.

As for stave wasting, why should L'arachel get all them, when I could give them to Moulder and get him to awesome levels? Any healer can and should do that if L'arachel does it too.

Just to drill the point in, here's expected L'arachel levels at the start of chapters, being generous:

Ch 12: 3/0

Ch 13: 6/0

Ch 14: 9/0

Ch 15: 12/0

Ch 16: 15/0

Ch 17: 18/0

Ch 18: 20/1

Ch 19: 20/3

Ch 20: 20/5

Endgame: 20/7

L'arachels period of suck is just about joining up to chapter 19, then she gets 1-2 good chapters. How is that worth 7/10?

[Integrity]

"Stave wasting" is questionable with regards to the Physic staves, since they're her best source of levels and the 14 Secret Shop has as many as you can afford. Warp is a point, but you can Hammerne it for maximum fun. Anyway, here goes:

I'll pretend I'm using two healers. For the sake of now, let's say I'm using Moulder and L'Arachel, and going Eirika's route. If I've been abusing Moulder for max XP (heal every possible point of damage possible with a Heal staff, break the Torch staff in C11 when he's got nothing to heal, dance for him with Tethys to get more done faster), it's not unreasonable to assume Moulder's 15+ by the time L'Arachel is recruited. In that case, by the time we even see a Physic staff, let alone Hammerne or Warp, Moulder will have already promoted and have no need of the sticks, since he'll be farming his XP with his phat-ass nuking skills. I'll assume for this that, when we left C11, L'Arachel in tow, Moulder was 15/--.

At this point, we have Tethys firmly under our belts and Moulder is able to heal two per turn, or L'Arachel is if necessary. L'Arachel will probably only gain two levels in C12, and I tend not to deploy her even for C13 due to fear of the ballistae against an under-leveled Troubie, so Moulder gets all the staff XP there too. Thus, by the time we enter C14, L'Arachel is our healer as Moulder has probably promoted. I'm going to assume she made it to C Staves and is level 5 now, because those seem convenient numbers for my arguments.

C14 throw us a Secret Shop for us to grab...let's say a Physic staff and a Barrier. That's roughly 6k gold, so L'Arachel takes the cost of the Orion's Bolt. C14 also throws us the Hammerne - if you're willing to blow the Hammerne, it helps my argument. I'll make a separate statement after this for if you're conserving the Hammerne even though I *never* do. So we can assume L'Arachel gets three more levels over the course of C14, putting her at 8 - that's, give or take, 27 heals of any amount. Given Tethys and the fact that we'll probably take 15 turns to grab the loot and Secret Shop, I'd say that's the outside of reason. This is also enough to raise L'Arachel to B Staves, incidentally.

C15 comes around, and there's plenty of healing to be done and plenty of turns to abuse all I want, since I'm grabbing the desert treasure. At 22 XP per Physic, I'll assume I used them all since L'Arachel is sadly gimped for MOV in the desert. 15x22 is three more levels, putting her at 11. Attack Caellach and nab the Warp from the desert, and one can start warping units about + dancing for maximum fun. 85 XP per warp four times, then one 40 XP Hammerne charge to refresh the thing, is three levels in two and a half turns with a dancer buddy. Assuming I bleed both sticks dry, we're looking at a ridiculous 17+ levels in as many turns. I haven't even delved into using the 17-xp-per-shot Barrier I budgeted for.

Point I'm trying to make is, if we're using Fox Moulder then by the time we have access to my abusive staves, Moulder is promoted and doesn't need them, because he's busy owning bitches with his books. The staves themselves aren't especially useful, and Warp and Hammerne come for free anyway. Natasha may not be promoted by the time we get to C15 if we're using her as the exclusive healer before L'Arachel, but she'll be rather close. You don't need to use two healers - and you don't have the space to - before L'Arachel comes along anyway, so either Moulder or Natasha is getting left behind.

Incidentally, even if you presume an early promote, L'Arachel at 10/1 is still a decent unit if you get her set before the desert, and promoting her to Valkyrie in particular gives her a slight XP boost to get to bigger levels faster, but I don't see that as necessary.

EDIT: Since I have a feeling that's the weak link, the only justification I have for the money spent on the sticks is what else are you using money on in SS? I've got the money to fit that purchase into a normal game and keep on trucking like nothing's going on, almost every time.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Tables]

Moulder is perfectly happy to use Psychic staves to gain levels quicker. He's primarily a healer and healing is what he's going to be doing, unless he's needed to fight, so of course Moulder wants those staves. He gets half as much experience, but he doesn't care, and it's only fair he should get as many uses as L'arachel.

Secondly, getting that many heals over those chapters is insane. There just aren't enough allies to heal, unless your team is made of failures.

Now, money (you said I would, and I will). Lets assume there is enough money to blow like that. Is it still worth it? L'arachel is costing us about 20 levels of experience in staves, which I could give to Natasha/Moulder who would already be stronger, and get even stronger from it, rather than bringing another unit up to their standard. Alternatively, there isn't enough money to buy *everything*, in which case training L'arachel, in addition to the above exp costs of the staves, is denying someone weapons/elixirs/whatever they could have bought, making her a detriment to the team.

With her massive EXP cost, I'm expecting every other mage will rank higher than 7, especially Moulder and Natasha. After all, they help heal for about 15-20 chapters, compared to L'arachel who grinds for 4, doing little to help, then actually helps for about 5 chapters (using your numbers, which I'd say are generous anyway)

[Integrity]

Actually, yes, the remaining mages are all above L'Arachel. Using that logic, I can see a point to demoting L'Arachel to 6.5 or *maybe* 6, now.

My point with Moulder is he gets half XP for staves, sure, but once he gains combat capabilities his primary source of XP is going to become killing, because there's always a shitty lowby like L'Arachel or Natasha who can bum the healing tasks. Once Moulder promotes, he's getting half XP and quite frankly WAY overhealing - counting the half XP, Moulder healing with a Physic is going to give him 11XP - he could get more by going out and wtfpwning some bitch.. Same goes for Lute, Artur, Natasha, and even Saleh. On that, do you want me to split these magic staff uses between promoted Moulder and L'Arachel, or shall I give promoted Lute her share too? There's a line to be drawn, here, and I think promoting L'Arachel is the best use of the sticks.

As for the sheer amount of heals in those chapters, they're (14, 15, 16) long chapters. We aren't taking 2700 damage in total, all we need is for units to get HIT 27 times and healed. Hell, a unit leveling and gaining a slick +1 to health is contributing a heal, remember. With Tethys along, L'Arachel can grab all the heals. 25 is easy to see in C14 alone, unless your team is made of overleveled gods who are ALL No Damage!/missed.

The funds, the point is made. I cede it. On the other hand, looking back through my numbers, the Barrier staff was totally unnecessary. With that taken into account, L'Arachel has used up a 4k Physic staff, a free Warp, and a free Hammerne - neither of which had overmuch use anyway. Considering the benefits, I'd say she's worth it.

[Anouleth]

Moulder is perfectly happy to use Psychic staves to gain levels quicker. He's primarily a healer and healing is what he's going to be doing, unless he's needed to fight, so of course Moulder wants those staves. He gets half as much experience, but he doesn't care, and it's only fair he should get as many uses as L'arachel.

This isn't Communist FE. The player doesn't have to do what's fair, only what's efficient. I'd much rather have a 20/01 L'arachel and a 20/05 Moulder than say, a 20/07 Moulder and a level 16 L'arachel.

Now, money (you said I would, and I will). Lets assume there is enough money to blow like that. Is it still worth it? L'arachel is costing us about 20 levels of experience in staves, which I could give to Natasha/Moulder who would already be stronger, and get even stronger from it, rather than bringing another unit up to their standard. Alternatively, there isn't enough money to buy *everything*, in which case training L'arachel, in addition to the above exp costs of the staves, is denying someone weapons/elixirs/whatever they could have bought, making her a detriment to the team.

Wait, what? Either we buy her the staves and she takes the gold cost (irrelevant, we have tons of money), or we give her the powerful staves we get throughout the gain and she takes the cost of taking them away from Natasha or Moulder (we won't be using both, there isn't enough healing exp available in earlygame to train both). It's impossible for her to take both prices, and either price is one I don't really mind paying for a filler magic user.

[Tables]

I was listing two scenarios.

If the money in the game is so large that you can buy anything and everything you want, then... in fact, in that case, there's no reason not to, but unfortunately there is a limit to gold in the game. Because of that, any money spent means less money to equip others with what they need, meaning L'arachel is getting favouritism at the cost of other people. After all, if any other mage was given those staves to train, they'd still have and then keep their level lead over L'arachel. Sure, L'arachel could promote by chapter 16, but in that time, I could have 20/10 Moulder by spamming Psychic, Warp, Hammerne and everything. And what's better, a 20/3 Moulder and a 20/1 L'arachel, where both are somewhat fragile, or just 20/10 Moulder, strong enough to fight on his own and heal anything from very long range.

But besides that, L'arachel isn't helping the team a whole lot until she promotes - she's healing and wasting Tethys time (speaking of which, why is Tethys dedicated to L'arachel? That makes no sense, she could be doing something far more useful like, I dunno, helping people fight?), but your already trained healer could have done that anyway (so as said, she's also sucking exp away from them). And when she's wasting Warps and Hammernes, she needs someone to help her, wasting a deployment slot as well as, again, exp that could have gone to others. I'll make the point again, and more explicit this time: Someone who is not helping the team for about half of her time available should not be getting a good rating.

[Junkhead]

L'Arachel is better than Natasha in every way except join time, and she can't access Slayer.

That's actually enough reason to make Natasha better, she shows up six chapters prior L'Arachel's appearance, in fact, she's already useable by the start of Chapter 5 and comes with a healing staff, it's pretty handy to have TWO healers so early, you can divide your group on Chapter 5 and take sides.

I don't think she would be around promotion by the time you get L'Arachel...(assuming that is lvl 15-20), but she should be pretty well-leveled by now, she only needs twenty turns to get a C support with Joshua, she doesn't get too benefited by it, although Joshua doesn't mind +1 atk and some accuracy, thanks to that, he could wield a Steel Sword for the cost of only 2 AS. Not bad.

As such, since she's < Lute and Natasha unless you get her to 20/1 - which won't be very quick -, but she's still a healer and she has a very respectable post-promotion game (if you can promote her to Valk before Chapter 18, she can have a ball on the gorgons), I'm going to go with a 7.0.

Healing when unnecesary doesn't make unit better, that is just favoritism, she also comes at level three, don't expect to get her to a decent promoting level in at least seven chapters unless you include favoritism and tower abuse, both of those shouldn't even be viable when rating a character. Think of it, she needs to get 700 Exp to get 'til level ten, but if you promote her at that level she won't turn out as "well" as she should be, she would be pretty mediocre. Sorry, this is just what the others have said...oh well.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Soul

[Integrity]

Healing when unnecessary? That's the only way to get a healer to any level anytime ever, dude. If we're only healing when strictly necessary, my scenario would involve a 8 Moulder instead of a 20 Moulder. And is it really favoritism to allocate resources that nobody else is using to quickly better a unit? The only other candidate at this point for Warp/Hammerne abuse would be the other of Natasha/Moulder, and L'Arachel benefits more than either of them.

Also, WRT to the top of your post, Natasha is going higher than L'Arachel. Statistically, level-for-level, L'Arachel is MUCH better than Natasha, but Natasha has more time to gather those levels - hence, L'Arachel > Natasha in all ways except join time.

EDIT: BB: Tethys doesn't have terribly much to do in 14 and 15, being as they're primarily enemy-phase chapters. Additionally, which are we looking at? Either I can get those 27 mandated heals in one map, or L'Arachel doesn't have any healing to do and can spam Warp to level faster in the downtime.

The difference between spamming the sticks on Moulder and spamming them on L'Arachel is Moulder has something better to do. Additionally, as said above, 20/10 Moulder isn't going to be as much better than 20/3 Moulder as 20/1 L'Arachel will be from 9/-- L'Arachel. L'Arachel also has nothing to do but heal, so in the lulls when nobody's damaged, why not hit up the useless staves? Moulder can go shoot things in the off-time.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Anouleth]

Sure, L'arachel could promote by chapter 16, but in that time, I could have 20/10 Moulder by spamming Psychic, Warp, Hammerne and everything. And what's better, a 20/3 Moulder and a 20/1 L'arachel, where both are somewhat fragile, or just 20/10 Moulder, strong enough to fight on his own and heal anything from very long range.

20/3 Moulder and 20/1 L'arachel can warp two characters to kill Riev, while one might fail, can together with Tethys warp 2 characters to kill Morva and Eirika to Seize and can heal multiple characters. All that extra 7 levels does for Moulder is make him a little bit faster and more durable.

Someone who is not helping the team for about half of her time available should not be getting a good rating.

I say she is helping the team. If Moulder is already promoted, her healing instead of him frees him up to attack.

[Tables]

But why should she be healing? Why can't I deploy Saleh to do the healing for me? Or one of my other mages? Her magic is low compared to them, so they can actually be beneficial, and when there' no healing, they can take potshots at enemies. It's a rare case that you have enough enemies to fight at once that Moulder needs to attack, yet there is also healing to be done. Even if she can do that, Saleh certainly does it better that L'arachel ever will, but Saleh is rated lower than L'arachel. Why's that? If Saleh did exactly what L'arachel is doing now, he'd end up at --/10 and be awesome, and since Saleh is mediocre at the moment, why not? Who's better, 20/1 L'arachel (costing a Guiding Ring too, remember), or 20/10 Saleh?

Also, I'm bored of this debate being all over the place. If someone (Integ preferably) wants to debate L'arachel against Saleh (either route), I'd be happy to take it up in the relevant location.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Black Bomb

[Integrity]

Give me a place, I'll be there. My debating skills are far from refined, though, if you hadn't noticed, so I'll probably melt without support :P

I'll be writing up the next one now, at any rate.

EDIT: To at least recognize the prowess of my opposition, L'Arachel will be dropping a scant notch to 6.5.

MARISA

I've been looking forward to this, I'll have y'all know.

Marisa is quite bad. First, she joins late in whichever chapter you get her in, and she starts as an enemy. Due to her mediocre-at-best for her level stats and being underleveled, she's also a PAIN in the ASS to recruit on either route. Ephraim's route, she's flanked by skeletons who are faster than Ewan - who's the only method of recruiting her. Thus, on Ephraim's route, the only way to reliably recruit Marisa is to lure the Skeletons and Marisa with Seth or an equivalent unit without a weapon - because a counterattack WILL end her - and then grab the recruitment conversation with Ewan and probably have to rescue them both to boot. On Eirika's route she come as an unremarkable enemy in a horde of other unremarkable enemies, and you have to recruit her with Gerik - who she will, in turn, try her best to attack and die to. The saving grace on Eirika's route is you're given Innes at the same time, who Marisa cannot possibly kill. The anti-saving grace on Eirika's route is recruiting her automatically spawns about 10 extra mounted units and fliers - though this can be easily construed as a good thing.

On top of this, Marisa joins at level 5. Right, the level where Joshua joined us a quarter of the game ago. Now we're out of AxeMan territory and into monsters - who, if they're wielding any weapons for Marisa to weapon triangle against, are probably using Lances except that one dude in C12 Eirika. Ephraim's route is even worse for her, because she shows up at the same level in chapter 12 instead of 10, giving Joshua more like a THIRD of the game on her in levels, and no fast way to farm them like L'Arachel or even the Trainees.

Does Marisa grow, at least? Well, not really. sm!Marisa is inferior to Joshua in every way except Luck, because Marisa's higher SPD growth is offset by the shared cap which Joshua hits anyway. assassin!Marisa is actually not all that bad, even managing to match Colm in several stats (most notably trouncing him in SKL). On the other hand, Colm's been around LONGER than Josh, and assassin!Josh beats Marisa anyway so there's that. At least somebody like L'Arachel can eventually grow to outstrip her competition - Marisa? Never.

Her supports aren't much to speak of. She can get a quick and dirty one with Gerik for some stats (only DEF and CritEvade match), and there's a decent one with Joshua that's less useful, but all-in-all she's not a prime support candidate. Incidentally, I'm not enamored of the Ice affinity anyway, so that's hurting her a bit.

So what's Marisa give us, at all? She comes with a Shamshir, which is quite nice for Colm or Joshua. Beyond that, she's squishy, underleveled, and doesn't really grow into anything remarkable.

She's CRIMINALLY good-looking, however.

10.0

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Junkhead]

Healing when unnecessary? That's the only way to get a healer to any level anytime ever, dude. If we're only healing when strictly necessary, my scenario would involve a 8 Moulder instead of a 20 Moulder.

But we're talking about an underleveled unit who you're going to be wasting lots of staves (She even starts with a D rank...) just to level up, and to make her as great as you rated her you HAVE to get her to lvl 20/1, her healing shouldn't be getting that high because, as others said, there are many others who can do that and even more, and heck, the MKs start with a D rank in staves, Saleh with a C, both are easily better, and MKs also have nice mobility. Units that come this late, require favoritism to be "great" and babying don't really qualify this high.

I am sorry Integ, but I really think you overrated L'Arachel here, I think she should go down and Saleh should go up, he's not doing so bad despite lacking supports (Something L'Arachel ALSO does).

I dunno, but I think even Syrene could go a little higher...she isn't useless, her base Sword rank comes pretty much in handy for a Killing Edge without AS loss and she doesn't exactly require babying, you can leave her for rescuing in her joining chapter and raise her in the NEXT where she gains easy enough EXP to level up easily, and once again, I repeat myself:

It's not like Cormag, Vanessa or Tana need it when they are already stronger than her and strong enough in relation to endgame enemies. And who says you can't share the EXP? (Tana could be promoted but low leveled maybe...?)

[Integrity]

Ordinarily I'd agree, but what I keep sticking on is that little bit of favoritism, which nobody else really wants anyway, gives us promoted L'Arachel, who surpasses many other units in usefulness. If L'Arachel came at her 20/1 Valkyrie stats, she'd be high-grade material, easily, even compared to the other Mages in the game. If she came any earlier, she'd be an 8+ easily, imho.

The ONLY difficulty is the first 20 levels, and I don't see why we can't allocate resources to her that nobody else wants. If she turned out shitty anyway like Syrene or Marisa does, I'd see the light, but she doesn't.

As we're talking about "unnecessary healing" and "healing just to level" - that's how healers ARE. Again, if you don't heal every scratch from 2 to F, Moulder would end the game something on the order of level 13. Healing with (insert promo here)Lute instead of L'Arachel? Why? Say a unit's taken 20 damage, Lute's going to heal 35 and L'Arachel's going to heal 18, I'll just do it with L'Arachel and use Lute for something else.

EDIT: I see the point in Syrene being able to gain levels, but she doesn't really *do* anything with them. Taking Syrene the extra mile and getting her --/8 makes her better, but not much. We're still looking at a mediocre unit at best.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Junkhead]

Think of it, how are all healers like that? Moulder's healing become more necesary earlygame when your units are weaker, by the time L'Arachel arrives you have quite a few promoted units.

It's not efficent to waste funds on a unit that COULD turn out great but comes pretty underleveled, "the first 20 levels", that's actually saying much, it's no joke, you have to get your units get or make them level (to gain HP) on purpose just to waste your time centered on an only character who will have to wait lots of time just to be good. Why do you need better units than the ones you have? The four Sages/Mage Knights are already great enough to oneround most enemies, it's all you need, not like L'Arachel will do better when the others are actually killing things.

Notice why Nino is so low on tiers and ratings? Well, she comes later than L'Arachel, but unlike her, it can be somewhat easier to get her EXP, she actually feeds your EXP rank as well as she gets more EXP per kill, L'Arachel will be getting 11 EXP per heal (Or some more depending on the staves she uses), but why would you even have her fielded when she isn't exactly a reliable dodger at base level, she is also pretty fragile. "What if"s don't get a unit high, it's just an speculation of what would happen.

I hope you really ARE joiking with Marisa...you pointed out all her downs and goods, her goods aren't GREAT.

It makes me wonder if this is some sort of fanservice contest. No offense.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Soul

[Lilmik11]

Uuuh?How the hell can Marisa get a 10 with her stats?!

[Integrity]

I hope you really ARE joiking with Marisa...you pointed out all her downs and goods, her goods aren't GREAT.

It makes me wonder if this is some sort of fanservice contest. No offense.

None taken. Marisa is getting an unconditional 10 and that's that, despite having no real upshot to using her. You say her goods aren't great (I SAY THEY ARE LOL IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN), I say her goods aren't even really *there*. Marisa is there as pure fanservice, yes. Everything else I've posted has been srs business.

I don't think we have to "try" to get units hurt every turn to fuel my requirements. How many turns honestly go by when no units level +HP and no units take a single point of damage? WRT Nino, Nino isn't low on tier lists for the same reason L'Arachel is, she's low for the same reason Ewan is. She's late, underleveled, and has to get dirty and level via chip damage.

Besides this, I'm going to put down the L'Arachel debacle. I want to get my debate done with Black Bomb and see if he can change my stance. I'm looking rather forward to it.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Integrity

[Rewjeo]

L'arachel... got 1.5 more than Saleh... and 4.5 more than Knoll... who also scored lower than Syrene and Ewan... Rennac and Dozla got the same score... What?

I give up on Knoll and Syrene and Ewan, but L'arachel and Saleh I'll take a stab at. 20/8 Saleh has 54 MT with Excalibur. 20/1 L'arachel with Elfire has 26.5. He has 33.5 10.8 and 15.45 as his defensive stats. She has 28.65 9.55 and 18.5. This is at endgame. He's more durable and has better offense than her when he's at his worst compared to her. Not to mention all the previous time when he's been so substantially better than her that it's hilarious. And she gets +1.5 compared to him?

[Junkhead]

I feel sas this is all about the pretty girls and the awesome guys like Saleh score lower only because the are men...kinda like brick walls, but still pretty much more helpful.

And I think Syrene should go up to a four or five, just like before...she isn't useless you know.