Lene v. Laylea

[Dandy Druid]

For the longest time, people have argued about which dancer is more optimal in the second generation of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. The 2nd Generation dancer is a spunky, yet cynical young woman who's in a relationship with Aless, son of the Lionheart, Eldigan. She's responsible for opening Aless' eyes about the differences between duty and emotion, and how one must remove emotion in order to fulfill their duties. Despite her mature advice, she can also be rather playful, teasing Celice upon their first meeting as he gushed over his first time meeting a dancer. Despite her limited screen time, the 2nd gen. dancer is a dynamic character, showing many sides to her personality, and shows that she's a bit more mature than the other girls in the army. Depending on whether you paired up Sylvia or not determine which dancer you get. If Sylvia is paired with any of the Generation 1 males, you'll get Lene, if paired with the Grim Reaper, you get Laylea. Their only noticeable personality differences is that Lene has some deep-seeded abandonment issues, and because of that, is very family-oriented (or desires a family). Meanwhile, Laylea is more romantic. Design-wise, Lene is given more of a "pretty girl/fresh beauty" vibe meanwhile Laylea has more a sexy/sulty feel to her.

Here's Lene. Lene has green hair like her mother, and probably the most inconsistent character design in the game. Seriously, her in-game and Cipher art depict her wearing pink, but the old trading card series (OG Cipher) depicts her wearing orange and purple. Dancers don't promote, so maybe she kept getting new outifts, idk. Regardless, let's talk about her pros. She has minor Blaggi blood, which will give her a nice resistance boost as well, so if leveled, she may be able to take hits from siege magic better than some of your other units. Lene comes with the Miracle skill, which increases her chances of survival on the battlefield and the arena. Depending on her father, she may also have some more additional skills and some growth/stat bonuses to help her out. Because of this, Lene is able to get far better stats than Laylea. A common argument against this is that stats don't matter for a dancer, because they don't need them to dance. This isn't necessarily true. They matter, but not much, so I wouldn't give this pro of Lene's much weight over Laylea. A dancer needs good defense-oriented stats to increase her survivability, such as Defense, Resistance, Speed, HP, and Luck. You don't want to put dancers in the fray, but mistakes happen, and Lene has a better chance of surviving than Laylea, as she'll usually have higher bases in all of these stats (except Speed). Because of her minor Blaggi blood giving her a decent resistance growth (the lowest it can be is 42%, which is over doubled Laylea's) and her access to the Defense sword, Lene isn't too squishy (but not rock solid, she will take at least 2 hits though, 3 if Miracle procs). Her biggest advantage over Laylea is her inheritance; Lene can theoretically be recruited with everything she needs: Defense Sword, Leg Ring, and Knight Ring. It's arguable that the Leg Ring is better given to Celice at the beginning of the generation and sold to Lene later. If so, Lene will have an easier time to raise money for it (although I was able to get it on Laylea at the start of Ch. 8 anyways). Now here are some good fathers that give Lene some edge over Laylea in terms of skills and stats:

• Arden (gives her really nice defense, if paired with the the Defense sword, will make her a lot harder to kill)
• Lex (gives her Paragon, which will allow her to level up significantly faster. However, becomes less useful in the Final Chapter. Stat-wise, is an improved Arden!Lene. Great if you want to make a dancer a combatant)
• Dew (gives her Bargain, which allows her to buy things, like rings! at a significantly cheaper price.)
• Chulainn (gives her B rank in swords, which gains her access to the Hero Sword. She also has Luna to help her get through the enemies' defenses. Has the highest HP growth and base out of all Lenes, and is another good choice for a combat dancer. Phina would be proud.)
• Lewyn (gives her great speed and she's decent with the Wind Sword. Also gives her the best characterization out of the bunch due to their Ch. 10 convo.)
• Claude (capitalizes on her great resistance- a high base and a terrific growth rate. Barrier Sword who? Also, she has Major Blaggi blood, one of the only Gen 2 females to have it actually.)

Now time for Laylea. Since she's a substitute, Laylea doesn't benefit from holy blood or inheritance, thus, she will have a harder time surviving the battlefield and gaining the items she needs to optimize her potential as a unit. For money, although she will have a harder time to raise it in comparison to her counterpart, this isn't a big issue. If recruited early enough in Ch. 7, Laylea can theoretically fall in love with Ares, who has no problem gaining money, and be money dumped. I was also able to raise enough money for her by the start of Ch. 8 simply by putting her in both arenas at that point (7 and 8) and the money she received from seized castle bonuses. She also has access to the barrier sword via a secret event, which will allow her to keep up with most Lenes in resistance. As for survival stats, the only thing Laylea excels more in is speed, so giving her a speed ring to increase her chance of dodging is recommended. She also has a strangely high strength growth rate (50%!), more than her combative contemporaries, so theoretically, she can become a decent fighter for Ch.7 through 10 if you dance abuse her. Although if she gets hit, it doesn't look too good, so be careful when entering her in the fray. Plus, she can never wield the Hero Sword. She Her main pro that she has over Lene is Charisma, a skill Lene will never be able to have, which gives a bonus to allies within 3 squares. The common argument for this is that she's put in danger by doing this, however, she can be safely put in the 3rd line of your formation and be able to support the frontliners. However, I will admit this skill is situational. In a run where Laylea and Sharlow are the only subs in a holy army, this skill isn't as important, as you already have 2 other units with this skill, and they have better survivability and horses as well. Plus, holy kids in general, if given favorable parents, really don't need the bonus too much because they're already powerful without it. The skill only really becomes useful at the end when against the Deadlords and Julius, because any problem before that can just be Holsety'd/Balmung'd/Mystletainn'd/etc. Charisma is much more useful in a sub only run, because the subs aren't as OP. A real challenging playthrough would be to pair Sylvia up with someone like Alec, because Lene can't give any bonuses nor fight, and there's no Berserk staff shenanigans. (so basically, choose a father that's not in the bulleted list or Azelle). Laylea's viability significantly increases in a sub run; Lene's viability would as well if she was in a sub army, but not as much as Laylea.

Verdict

Now this is where you ask, Dandy, so which one is better? And here's the answer- it's situational. Because of their skills, who's better is decided on what kind of run you're doing. Lene is better in an efficiency/ranked run, especially if her father is Lex. Lene is a lot easier to grind/level up to meet the experience requirement for higher ranks, as she'll have better balanced stats and growths to do so. Giving her Paragon makes this even easier. So for ranked runs, Lene is your girl. For more challenging or relaxed runs, i.e. sub runs or casual play, Laylea may be a better choice. Ultimately it can also come down to aesthetics. Do you like the fresh beauty of Lene, or the sultry dance of the mysterious Laylea?

But wait Dandy! This verdict sounds like a cop out. 

Fine, fine, I'll say one- Laylea because she has a more useful brother. (Sharlow's berzerk staff >>> any iteration of Corple except Lewyn!Corple)

[Refa]

It's obviously Leen.  Inheritance w/Leen is more valuable than Charisma on a 6 move unit and the incredibly situationally useful Berserk staff.

[Flee Fleet!]

So we're comparing the daughter of a thot with some random thot, huh....

 

Anyways, I prefer Leen, for pretty much the same reasons as Refa, and because I like her appearance more than Laylea's or Sylvia's.

 

Also, I never used the Berserk Staff, so I can't really compare Corple and Sharlow and thus, cannot use such a factor to determine which dancer is better.

 

But in the end, both are support units: no need to use them for anything else.

[Dandy Druid]

14 hours ago, Refa said:

It's obviously Leen.  Inheritance w/Leen is more valuable than Charisma on a 6 move unit and the incredibly situationally useful Berserk staff.

 

14 hours ago, Flee Fleet! said:

Also, I never used the Berserk Staff, so I can't really compare Corple and Sharlow and thus, cannot use such a factor to determine which dancer is better.

Yeah I'm aware of the Berserk staff being situational. I'm just heavily biased for its shenanigans. Anyway, Sharlow's main strength is Paragon, which is something only Lex!Corple can get, but he'll be magically screwed. The last paragraph was for more or less a "joke" answer, because it's more of an outside factor.

Lene and Laylea are still awesome. And seeing people's reactions (also posted this on Reddit) looks like Lene reigns supreme.

[Flee Fleet!]

4 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Lene reigns supreme.

good, the non thot dancer wins

But like you said, both Leen  and Laylea are awesome, and it would be nice to know more of their interactions with others in an FE4 remake.

[Refa]

4 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Lene and Laylea are still awesome. And seeing people's reactions (also posted this on Reddit) looks like Lene reigns supreme.

Yeah, I don't think the difference in their usefulness is very much.  Also, I like Laylea and Sharlow more...

[Mareeta776]

I always use Leen more than Laylea mainly because I really like pairing her with Leaf. If you ask me, Leen and Laylea can both serve there intended purposes--giving units an extra turn-- equally. I find that Leen has more story connections (due to be Sylvia's daughter) and you can use her inheritance as a way of passing on rings and the like. It's hard to say which one is definitively better because it really just depends on your personal play style.

Also as far as Sharlow goes, I find the Berserk staff to useful only to Berserk Arion and make it easier to fight him. (Sleep staff can obtain the same result though) As such, I don't see to much of a difference between him and Corple.

[Dandy Druid]

9 hours ago, Fala~of~Velthomer said:

Also as far as Sharlow goes, I find the Berserk staff to useful only to Berserk Arion and make it easier to fight him. (Sleep staff can obtain the same result though) As such, I don't see to much of a difference between him and Corple.

Sharlow's main advantage over Corple as far as I know is that he has Paragon, which Corple needs to buy from the shop (elite ring) or have Lex as a father (but suffer from bad magic). My real verdict is pretty much use whichever dancer you want, because they're strengths are tailored for different types of playthroughs (ranked/LTC run vs sub run). I do like Leen more for story reasons, like you said. Especially if Lewyn is her father. I also feel like she's a little bit stronger character-wise as well.

[Mega Koopa]

Laylea is much better because you also get the chad Sharlow instead of the virgin Corple, Laylea herself also has the Charisma skill. Inheritance hardly matters, she's a utility unit so combat potential doesn't matter.  If there's any items you want to give to her, just have Ares (or anyone else)  give her money and have her buy the item of your choice.

[blueasian]

On 2/16/2018 at 9:31 PM, Mega Koopa X said:

Laylea is much better because you also get the chad Sharlow instead of the virgin Corple, Laylea herself also has the Charisma skill. Inheritance hardly matters, she's a utility unit so combat potential doesn't matter.  If there's any items you want to give to her, just have Ares (or anyone else)  give her money and have her buy the item of your choice.

Charisma barely matters when the people she dances don't benefit from it when they move away in the same turn. Inheritance matters quite a bit for Leen as you can shove a bunch of useless items on Leen which she can sell to buy the Knight + Leg Ring from Seliph instead of waiting for Patty to get enough gold to dump. Although the main thing for Leen is her ability to reach the RES benchmark later in the game to dodge Sleep staves which Laylea cannot reach with the Barrier Ring. Other than that they are both basically the same (dancers).

[Dandy Druid]

On 2/16/2018 at 6:31 PM, Mega Koopa X said:

Laylea is much better because you also get the chad Sharlow instead of the virgin Corple, Laylea herself also has the Charisma skill. Inheritance hardly matters, she's a utility unit so combat potential doesn't matter.  If there's any items you want to give to her, just have Ares (or anyone else)  give her money and have her buy the item of your choice.

Charisma is only really useful in a Sub Run. Holy Kids don't need her bonus to be awesome. Combat potential doesn't matter, but survival potential does, and Lene is a lot harder to kill than Laylea thanks to Miracle + potentially great defensive stats.

2 hours ago, blueasian said:

Charisma barely matters when the people she dances don't benefit from it when they move away in the same turn. Inheritance matters quite a bit for Leen as you can shove a bunch of useless items on Leen which she can sell to buy the Knight + Leg Ring from Seliph instead of waiting for Patty to get enough gold to dump. Although the main thing for Leen is her ability to reach the RES benchmark later in the game to dodge Sleep staves which Laylea cannot reach with the Barrier Ring. Other than that they are both basically the same (dancers).

Pretty much that. I will say Charisma does matter in a Sub Run, where the player is more likely to utilize more "turtling" tactics because the subs are way better united than divided. Meanwhile the holy kids can afford to be separated.

[Gregster101]

I know this is months old, but I figured I'd weigh in anyway.

Me personally, I don't agree with the general mindset that Laylea's better than Lene. While Charm is definitely a nice skill, compared to Delmud and Nanna, Laylea shouldn't be anywhere near combat. Lene, on the other hand, can potentially come with the Leg and Knight rings right when you get her. Sure, Laylea can get the gold she needs to buy the rings with the help of a lover and a thief, but this takes longer. In addition, you get two super busted res swords anyway in the form of the Myssletain and the Tyrfring, so not getting the res sword isn't really a big loss.

As for Corple and Sharlow...neither of them are good units, so I don't care how well either of them turn out. I never had a need for the Berserk staff either.