Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War 2017 Tier List - Day 39: The support kids (Corple, Lene, Sharlow and Laylea)

[General Horace]

Leaf is great, once he promotes.  The rescue staff is way more useful in gen 2 and he makes great use of it, and his offence is top notch.  He still has to dwaddle through a chapter or two of unpromoted life though.  9/10.

[Peppy]

Leif has gotta get through 20 levels of swordlock and footlock before becoming best rescue bot. Takes quite a bit of effort to get going.

5/10

[Excellen Browning]

3 hours ago, General Horace said:

Leaf is great, once he promotes.  The rescue staff is way more useful in gen 2 and he makes great use of it, and his offence is top notch.  He still has to dwaddle through a chapter or two of unpromoted life though.  9/10.

I wouldn't call Leafs offense top notch when the top notch combat in his generation is limited to holy weapon users Imo. I dont see leaf offing the stronger bosses, anyway.

1 hour ago, Peppy said:

Leif has gotta get through 20 levels of swordlock and footlock before becoming best rescue bot. Takes quite a bit of effort to get going.

5/10

Leif can easily be promoted by the start of chapter 8 and doing so doesn't even require any sort of going out of your way or sacrifice, just a bit of planning

[General Horace]

He has access to every non holy, non light magic weapon in the game, and has pursuit, continue and critical, with the highest mounted caps.  What boss (other than Julius, Alvis, and maybe Areone) does he have issues with?  He'll easily kill the generic bosses on most of the castles + others like Ishtar.

Edited January 19, 2017 by General Horace

[Ansem]

9.5/10

slow start, but a money dump, elite ring + hero sword purchase + C8s civillians(if he needs) should get him promoted. 

[ZemZem]

Leif is fantastic. Can promote in the chapter after he joins to instantly become your best combat unit. Rescue shenanigans helps a fuckton. Basically he's a better Lachesis, and she was already very good.

9/10

[Shin]

He requires a hefty investment to get going, but the final result is amazing. High mobility, good stats and skills and access to most staves and weapons really make Leaf useful for the end of the game. If you're able to send him back home and work hard on him, you can minimise the time he spends unpromoted.

9/10 - It's not quite as easy to pile stuff onto him as Celice, but the end result is arguably better.

[Yojinbo]

Leaf's a great bosskiller.

He can actually ORKO Arion with a Magic Ring and a Tornado Tome. He just needs to proc Continue once [at odds close to 50% for each hit] and Arion will fall as long as Leaf procs +Mag at least one time while leveling up. He's one of the few units in the game that can ORKO him.

Performance against Julius should be a non-issue because berserk strats exist to trivialize him.

So basically Leaf does extremely well against all the tough bosses except Alvis who only a few units can even touch anyway.

[Inference]

I can't justify anything lower than a full 10 for what Leif does. In my opinion, all of him, Sigurd, and Seliph are the absolute best at what they do in this game, which is killing, seizing, or helping seize. Basically, these are units that flat out win by themselves. Rescuing Seliph over to the next boss/castle while able to kill anything that tries to stop him is well beyond any other unit's utility in this game besides the ones I would also give tens. To be clear, he does have a couple of notable flaws: no innate Pursuit (mitigated by his mom being one of the best users of Pursuit Ring in Gen 1), low move to start with (promotes next chapter anyway, and proceeds to win the game).

So yeah. 9-move Rescue with fantastic offense and durability. Absolutely no one else can do that. That's a perfect score in my book.

[Yojinbo]

Oh yeah, as far as ratings are concerned I'll give Leaf 9/10.

[Jugdral Defender]

Just popping in to say: Perfect score for Leaf. Or 11/10 works. I'm serious. :)

Also side note but I give Ethlin the Knight Ring to pass down to him so he can do hit and runs while defending Lenster Castle with Fin while Nanna heals. Also for hit and runs in general, then I pawn it off when he promotes and he uses that money to stock up on weapons along with his arena money.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Jugdral Defender

[CT075]

9/10 for doing basically everything what a legend

 

only flaw is that he is not literally seliph

Edited January 22, 2017 by CT075

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Leaf is the true lord of Gen. 2 for me.

His earlygame is rougher than Seliph's, not only because of the lacking of pursuit. (joins a bit later and has issues with knights in chapter 7)

His potential is better than Seliph's because he turns into the best class in the game, master knight.

Leif doesn't get a broken weapon at the end unlike Seliph, but class- and statwise he beats Seliph. 

9 / 10

[Yojinbo]

Leaf actually has access to a whole bunch of broken stuff [50+ kill Hero Sword/Lance, Magic Swords, Rescue Staff] and pretty much undisputable monopoly on a ton of amazing/borderline broken stuff like the Hero Axe, Hero/Killer Bow and Tornado Tome.

[Slumber]

8/10

He's a phenomenal endgame unit, but his early levels are slow going, and he shows up at a point where he's more of a detriment than anything. If it was just him after promotion, he'd be a solid 9.5 or even a 10, but his pre-promoted self drags his rating down.

[FionordeQuester]

On 1/19/2017 at 3:12 PM, Excellen Browning said:

Leif can easily be promoted by the start of chapter 8 and doing so doesn't even require any sort of going out of your way or sacrifice, just a bit of planning

How exactly does one accomplish that, anyway?  Him promoting by Chapter 8 with "just a bit of planning"?  I'm struggling with whether to give him an 8/10 or a 9/10, so this may be the difference maker.

[OliKad]

I really should update this topic more often. Curse my laziness for that :P
*ahem* The great Leafy-boy got a splendid 8.73/10 after the 20 votes casted into his direction. I'm sure that Leonster as a whole is proud of him! :)

Okay, now it is time to talk about the edgy Black Knight of the game. He's not called Batman, but rather is the mighty Ares! :D

 

Class: Cavalier (Level 7)
Holy Blood: Major Hezul
Personal Skills: Continue, Pursuit, Vantage

Class Skills: None
Stats:
40 HP (130%)
13 Strength (90%)
4 Magic (5%)
12 Skill (20%)
13 Speed (30%)
12 Defense (40%)
4 Resistance (30%)
6 Luck (50%)

My thoughts: As you probably knew already, he's the son of the infamous Eldigan, and well, he sure as hell lives up to his name! He joins your army after the whole Lene/Laylea incident, and with probably everything that you could ask for on a unit: multiple weapon types, a godly poney, The Pursuit skill, another useful skill (Continue), pretty good bases and, most importantly, a legendary weapon! Yes, Ares will inherit the Demon Blade of his father, the Mystletainn. At first, you might think that this weapon has some really odd stat bonuses, with +20 Skill and +10 Res, but here's the kicker: this weapon has the innate Critical skill. And with a freakin +20 in Skill, expect this madman to do a LOT of critical hits! :D
Furthermore, Ares has some good all-around growth rates in all areas (even if a low-ish 20% in Skill isn't great, but it barely matters), and while his promotion to a Paladin is balanced but not spectacular due to its sort of weak gains, it does give him a great bonus in Res, which thanks to his legenadary ''Missiletainn'', makes him probably the best Mage killer before Celice gets his Tyrfing, and even then, he's still great at this job once that point happens.
So yeah, what more could you want? He doubles super reliably, has multiple cool skills, has a odd but awesome holy weapon, a horse and great bases and growths! I mean, I guess he could've come a bit earlier?

Eh, whatever, Ares deserves a 9.5/10 in my book. He's just pretty amazing! :D

[FionordeQuester]

THIS RANKING IS FOR LEAF; I'LL HAVE ARES'S RATING UP LATER.  SPEAKING OF WHICH, THE LINK TO LEAF'S CURRENT RATING SAYS IT'S FOR ARES; THAT'S A TYPO YOU'LL WANT TO FIX  !

 

You know...one of the things I'm realizing as I go through these is; I actually do NOT know these units as well as I do the Gen 1 units.  I can't remember the last time I HAVEN'T just blasted through Gen 2 with Celice (with some occasional help from Sety/Arthur, Ares, and Leaf); the only time I can ever remember doing otherwise is on my very first playthrough of this game.  So, I'm having to theorycraft a lot more on these units than I did on the Gen 1 units.  So if there are any ratings I give that are glaringly wrong, please forgive me; I'm more than open to changing them.

 

That said, here's my opinion on Leaf.  He's a very impressive unit...but I've never found him to be THAT impressive.  He does have slightly better stat caps than Celice, yes.  He DOES have an instant A Rank in every weapon type except Light and Dark, that's all true.  And his growths are really good...that is never to be denied.   And yet, I just could never find anything that only HE could do; inspite of ALL of that amazing stuff he has post-promotion...I could never figure out anything he could do that was truly unique.  I mean ok, he can wield that Rescue Staff like nobody's business...but that only really matters in Efficiency runs.  Otherwise, that's really not that big of a deal.

 

As for the other stuff...well, here are the arguments as I understand them...and then here are the counter arguments...

 

-------------------------

Argument #1: This guy is a REALLY awesome combat unit!

Counter-Argument #1: Ok...so is Shanan, Holsety!Arthur/Sety, Celice, Ares, and Althena; and Celice and Holsety!Arthur/Sety STILL end up better than him!  Besides, the enemies don't actually start getting hard till Chapter 10; the rest of the game up to that point is a one-sided Celice stomp against everyone you come across.  The only players who won't have haxed Celice to the max are new players; and if they don't know how to utilize Celice's full potential, they're not going to know how to use Leaf's.

 

Argument #2: This guy can use every staff in the game!

Counter-Argument #2: Yeah, that's pretty cool...but I could've always just used Sety/Hawk or any of my other many, many staff users.

 

Argument #3: The guy's super good at killing bosses!

Counter-Argument #3: Yep...and so are Shanan, Holsety!Arthur, Celice, and Ares.  And I don't have to BABY any of those guys like I do with Leaf.

 

Argument #4: The guy has ample time to train on Armours in Chapter 7, and plenty of Gold to get from the villages!

Counter-Argument #4: He does...but said Armours are only at Level 5.  And while there is indeed a lot of Gold, it's still not enough to allow him to afford the Elite Ring.  The only way I found to getting him to get him an early promotion is to give him a 100 Kill weapon and grind him off of Jabarro's men.  But even then, there's no way for me to guarantee his survival.  I'm relying on RNG to go my way.

 

Argument #5: The guy has almost-exclusive access to tools, like Tornado, that almost no one else is ever gonna use!

Counter-Argument #5: He does...but Holy Weapon users like Holsety!Arthur have LITERAL exclusive access to tools that are even better than that.  And again, no investment is required for them.

-------------------------

So basically, my problem with Leaf is this.  You CAN get a really good unit out of him if you're willing to put up with his "locked to swords, stuck at Level 1, and no-horse" nature...but he's still superfluous (at least in non-Efficiency settings).  All of the really important jobs are already covered by units that don't require any of the investment he does.  

 

Besides that, I've found using him to be outright...frustrating, at times.  I HAVE to have either passed down the Return Staff to Nanna, or passed down the Return Ring to Leaf; otherwise, I have to wait a while before I can even get them to any of my Chapter 7 castles.  And if I want to promote Leaf at Chapter 8...I also can't easily do THAT unless I have said Return Ring or Return Staff.  Otherwise, I have to manually walk him all the way down to where the main castle is.  These aren't crippling issues, but I still feel like I have to work around his starting positions more than I do most of the other units in this game.

 

So in conclusion, I feel like giving him an 8/10.  The guy is perhaps the greatest Est unit the franchise has ever seen...but he's still an Est unit all the same.  And he's an Est unit in a game where a good chunk of his buddies are broken from start to finish, no investment needed.

 

Edited January 23, 2017 by FionordeQuester

[Slumber]

To make this short and sweet: 9/10

Phenomenal unit on his own, and my only problem with him is that he doesn't get the customization that most of the other children get, which just makes him slightly less satisfying to build up.

[Valkama]

31 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Besides that, I've found using him to be outright...frustrating, at times.  I HAVE to have either passed down the Return Staff to Nanna, or passed down the Return Ring to Leaf; otherwise, I have to wait a while before I can even get them to any of my Chapter 7 castles.  And if I want to promote Leaf at Chapter 8...I also can't easily do THAT unless I have said Return Ring or Return Staff.  Otherwise, I have to manually walk him all the way down to where the main castle is.  These aren't crippling issues, but I still feel like I have to work around his starting positions more than I do most of the other units in this game.

 

You can also have Lana Rescue him. It should be mentioned that there really isn't that good of a reason to put too much effort into promoting Leif for chapter 8 if you didn't pass down the rescue staff. The one thing though that you seem to not be taking into account as much as I think you should is how useful A rank staff on a horse is. He can fix up the movement problems of foot units and in general help you get around maps much more quickly, he leads every charge so the redundancy argument really doesn't work with him because there is no reason not to bring him with you. It's less that other units make him redundant and more of he makes other units redundant.

With that aside Ares is pretty cool. He can actually damage Arvis with decent hit which is something not many units can say. His high damage output makes him one of the few units not falling off by endgame so 8/10 seems fitting.

[FionordeQuester]

Well now, here's Ares; named after the God of War!  And...it's a pretty fitting name! 13 STR, 12 SKL, 13 SPD, and 12 DEF are very solid base stats for a Level 7, and his growths are pretty good too!  He's basically got Sigurd's growths, except he's given up -30% Skill in return for +20% HP, 40% STR, +10% LCK, and +25% RES...not a bad trade!

 

But you know what's REALLY cool about Ares?  The Mistoltein...boy is it cool.  It's as useful as the Balmung, but in a different way; instead of emphasizing Speed, it emphasizes Res.  So while Shanan is a fast and speedy beatstick, Ares is a magic resistant beatstick!  Even Alvis can't kill THIS guy in one hit!  And Ambush is also very neat if you give the guy a 100 Kill Hero Sword and throw him into a mosh-pit of all 1 Range guys.

 

Of course...he's still not QUITE as good as Celice.  He's got most of Celice's RES, but he doesn't have Celice's MAG; he can't use 2 Range magic swords the way Celice can.  So he, unfortunately, comes up somewhat lacking in the area of versatility.  Not TOO lacking though; he's still got a horse!  So all in all, he's an even better crutch unit than Oifaye!  Guy can EASILY kill Ishtor, Jabarro, and both iterations of Blume; and they're the only mandatory bosses with any amount of difficulty to them till Chapter 10.  Everyone else who comes before that chapter is either easily dispatched, or easily skipped.

 

9/10

 

Quote

You can also have Lana Rescue him. It should be mentioned that there really isn't that good of a reason to put too much effort into promoting Leif for chapter 8 if you didn't pass down the rescue staff. The one thing though that you seem to not be taking into account as much as I think you should is how useful A rank staff on a horse is. He can fix up the movement problems of foot units and in general help you get around maps much more quickly, he leads every charge so the redundancy argument really doesn't work with him because there is no reason not to bring him with you. It's less that other units make him redundant and more of he makes other units redundant.

Hmm...you know what, you have a point.  My first instinct was to point out that movement issues aren't as much of a concern in a casual run as they are in an efficiency run...but then I remember the last part of the Final Chapter.  There are a metric ton of really nasty bosses in that last stretch of the game, and it is REALLY convenient being able to run right past them with Rescue!Leaf + Leen.  Just look at the following GIFs I made here once...

http://lpix.org/2190531/Fancy Dancer Trick 1.gif

http://lpix.org/2190538/Dancer Fancy Trick 2.gif

No one else in the game can do that.  And now that I think about it...Leaf actually DOESN'T require that much investment.  Promoting him is only a hassle if you're trying to do it before Chapter 10.  But if you're content with just letting Celice solo Chapters 6-9...then Leaf's promotion is just fine.  Just give him a good enough weapon for Chapter 7 & 8's Arena, then plop on an Elite Ring for Chapter 9 & 10's Arenas, and whammo!  You got yourself a Master Knight!

So yeah, I'll give Leaf a 9/10 instead.  Thank you Valkama!  And thank you so much for being gracious about it  !

 

Edited January 23, 2017 by FionordeQuester

[Slumber]

9 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

NOTE: I also think I made a mistake in giving Oifaye a 9/10 ranking.  How about bumping him down to 8/10?  Aless essentially does the same job, but has actual potential...so why have Oifaye on the same level as him?

Oifaye carries the team in the early chapters of part 2 when everyone is still low leveled and relatively weak. He may not be an uber unit, but his early game usefulness can't be ignored.

Ares may get better stats and a holy weapon later on in part 2, but so does potentially nearly every other child.

When they're at their most useful, Ares is a big fish in a lake of big fishes. Oifaye is a respectable sized fish in a lake of small fishes.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Slumber

[FionordeQuester]

Just now, Slumber said:

Oifaye carries the team in the early chapters of part 2. He may not be an uber unit, but his early game usefulness can't be ignored.

Ares may get better stats and a holy weapon later on in part 2, but so does potentially nearly every other child.

When they're at their most useful, Ares is a big fish in a lake of big fishes. Oifaye is a respectable sized fish in a lake of small fishes.

Hmm...yeah, that's a good point.  And Oifaye's still a pretty decent unit even after Chapter 7.  So ok!  I'll still have him at 9/10!

[General Horace]

Aless is pretty good, holy weapon, mount, good skills (he even has ambush for some reason).  Can dodge status staves pretty well.  His caps are kinda weak, but they're still good enough.  Once he promotes he can even use magic swords off a decent magic stat.  That being said, he joins a little late.  I'll still give him an 8.5 since he starts strong and remains strong till the end.

[qwernst]

Ares will always cap Strength, but due to his class, it's pretty low. Thank goodness to strength rings and his sword's critical skill. His Resistance growth is really good for a physical unit in this game, and helps him become a mage killer for your army. Especially against those that have the name, Ishtar. He moves Oifey over in reliability near the endgame. 9/10