Rate the Unit, Day 92: Brave Ephraim & Brave Veronica

[eclipse]

18 hours ago, The Priest said:

That was a tiny bit late, huh?
*proceeds to hide under a rock*

Interesting to note: Katarina scored almost an entire point above Tharja despite having the same offensive stat spread.

Katarina has additional utility in the form of ploys, so it's not that surprising.

Ahem. . .

Gray - He's Alfonse with 7 more speed and 2 less defense.  That leaves him in a mediocre speed tier, and decently bulky, but not ridiculously so.  He can grab Darting Blow for 35/38 numbers, but even then, that's not outstanding.  I wish those extra stat points weren't shoved into his bulk, because it's not high enough for him to tank effectively.  Can be threatening, but needs some creativity behind it.  Zanbato's a fun niche, though.  5.5/10

Saber - I guess he's supposed to be some kind of mixed tank with Aegis, Shield Pulse, Deflect Magic, and 32 defense, but it just ends up falling flat on its face.  31/33 isn't winning him any competitions, since he's not on a horse.  He makes decent use of Fury?  Man, I like this guy, but his stat spread. . .fine, 5/10, with some bias.

[Shiki]

Gray: 5.25
Saber: 4.64

Mathilda, Legendary Knight

Spoiler

Max. Stats:
32/35/39
25/29/32
29/32/35
21/24/27
31/34/37

Base Skills:

Ridersbane+
Rally Res
( - )

( - )
Cancel Affinity
Hone Atk

Delthea, Free Spirit

Spoiler

Max. Stats:
30/33/36
33/36/39
31/34/37
10/13/17
28/31/34

Base Skills:

Dark Aura ( At start of turn, if adjacent allies use sword, axe, lance, or dragonstone, grants Atk+6 to those allies for 1 turn. )
( - )
Miracle

Death Blow
( - )
Drive Atk

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by The Priest

[Silverly]

Mathilda: Oh boy. What have they done to you? She’s essentially a worse Peri, with one less speed and WAY worse attack, surprisingly. What does Mathilda have that Peri doesn’t? Four more resistance! Woohoo! Even for a res tank, she’s still pretty outclassed by the likes of Fjorm, Est, and almost any armor with a refined Berkut Lance. Don’t even get me started with comparing her to other lance cavaliers (tl;dr use Peri or anyone not named Jagen). Even with buffs, she remains a poor unit overall. 3/10

Delthea: This little cutie is not to be underestimated. She’s standard glass cannon mage with excellent attack, decent speed, solid resistance but abysmal HP and defense. Her Dark Aura tome is quite useful for buffing support, giving a handy +6 to anyone wielding a physical weapon or a dragonstone. It’s quite similar to to the then-unreleased Attack Tactics, except the conditions are a bit less specific and easier to pull off. She’s just a sliver slower than Linde, so she falls behind her as a bladetome unit, but honestly she doesn’t really need one. Delthea is a great addition to a team. Just never let her get hit by anything physical. 8/10

[Alexmender]

Mathilda. Her stats focuses on Spd and Res while being low everywhere else. Mathilda is...not great. Her niche is to be a mage tank but she'll have a hard time surviving mages with her middling Spd and low Hp, her Def is pathetic so she should not even bother trying to take physical hits and her low Atk just makes it even worse. She's just a slightly better Jagen without the old fart penalty. She'll work ok as a magic sponge against the slower mages but outside of that there's not a lot she can do, while her Res is good enough for abusing Ploys someone like Peri does a better job thanks to having more Atk and Spd than her. Poor Mathilda, she was so cool in Echoes but it seems she couldn't get the same treatment in Heroes.

Rating: 2.5/10

Delthea. Just like I said in my Mae rating, Delthea is basically the min-maxed version. High Atk, above average Spd (it used to be high but the speed creep is unforgiving), above average Res and pathetic Hp/Def. Delthea's job is to hit hard and she has little issues doing this. Her Prf tome Dark Aura allows her to take the role of an offensive support just like Linde or she can go witht the generic Blade tome build, either way this allows Delthea to have some flexibility in how one wishes to use her. She may not be in the Linde/Ishtar tier but that doesn't mean that Delthea isn't great. Regardless, Delthea is one unit you should not take lightly or she'll cause a ton of pain to your team.

Rating: 8/10

[DehNutCase]

Mathilda:

Spoiler

 

BST: 35/29/32/24/34

Mathilda... has a very uncomfortable spread. Middling speed, poor bulk, low Atk all combine to produce a unit that's difficult to use offensively and defensively.

High Res would normally point to a dragon slayer, if her Atk wasn't so low that she'd do 0 damage per hit.

Her kit options are quite limited because of her spread:

You have to give her a refine---it's too important to fix her bulk before anything else---there's no point having speed if you get OHKOd on the counter. This means no brave weapon builds.

Defensively her stats, even after refine, aren't reliable enough to counter-kill or even just face-tank, that means things like QR DC are right out.

That is, Mathilda should probably only ever run offensive or supportive sets.

 

First, in terms of support Mathilda is top tier:

Because of the way I rate things, a horse with no skills except reposition and 1 point in all stats would still rate at least a 3.5. Reposition is just way too strong of a support skill as long as your teammates aren't potatoes.

Yes, if you run 3 potatoes like that your last unit better be a 10/10 unit to carry arena matches (I'm making 20 points the point where an arena team becomes 'viable'), but that's merely annoying rather than impossible. A CC -Blade Reinhardt build, for example, should be able to carry 5 wins even if the rest of his team are level 1 reposition & Hone/Fort Cavalry grunts. Not very reliably, mind, but that's what you get for running a 20 point team rather than a 35 point team.

 

Horse buff Acess, 3 move Reposition, 3 move Drive/Spur usage all combine to mean that, once a Hagoita, Kadomatsu, or Blessed Bouquet equivalent for lances comes along, she can easily pick one of them up to solidify her role as a mobile buff battery that only enters combat when she's going to crush it. (Baiting dragons on a defense tile, for example. She should probably be running Moonbow or Luna for this purpose, to actually deal damage to the dragon hitting her.)

 

In terms of Offensive Sets:

Mathilda, due to her stat spread, will only ever be a mediocre offensive unit. But even mediocre is good enough if your opponent happened to be a fragile team, so things like Killer Lance, Heavy Blade (S-Seal), Galeforce would still be workable as a build. Just... not nearly as good as, say, Cordelia doing it.

 

In terms of a supportive buffer, I rate Mathilda either 7/10 or 8/10, 3 move reposition and 3 move drive/spur placement means that she easily sets up an overbuffed enemy-phase sweeper to function as well as enable hit and run strategies for player phase units, because 3 move reposition is quite strong for avoiding enemy-phase combats.

 

In terms of an offensive unit, Mathilda would only make a 6/10, and that's entirely based on the fact that, even IF you focus all her skill slots on offenses, her assist slot is still going to be reposition, and her C slot is still probably going to be Hone/Fort Cavalry. She'll sweep teams once in a blue moon, but for most runs she'll be acting as a buffer regardless of the heavy investment into her offenses.

 

...At least she's still better than the foot-locked swords from yesterday.

 

Delthea:
 

Spoiler

BST: 33/36/34/13/31

Nicely min-maxed stats offensively and defensively gives Delthea a clear role as an all-out-offensive tome unit who occasionally counter-kills red tomes. Her 31 res means that it's feasible for her to run ploys in the S or C slot, but I would much rather leave that to fliers or horses who can more easily afford the positioning costs.

Her tome and starting C-slot also gives her a slight supporting ability by buffing melee units, but, honestly, it's best to just trade Dark Aura for a -Blade to solidify her role as a speedy, hard hitting nuke.

 

Note: Desperation is very much a anti-mage skill on Delthea, anyone else who counter-attacks her will OHKO, thanks to 33/13 physical bulk. With this in mind, Dull Ranged is a far more useful B-slot for most purposes, barring the weird case where the only person who can hit mages on your team is Delthea.

Overall, I rate Delthea around a 7/10. A nicely min-maxed offensive tomer who, unfortunately, fails to provide anything special in terms of team support. Reliance on -blade tome means that she takes quite a bit of support in terms of team composition---even if, quite often, you can have her OHKOing without support in a particular arena battle---which is reflected in her score.

 

All-out-offense tome user is quite a useful niche, but it's very, very difficult to break into the 9/10 or 10/10 range without stepping in multiple niches at once. To take Reinhardt as an example, even when he's built to be all out offensive he still has access to Cavalry Buffs and 3 move reposition to fulfill a supportive role. Being foot-locked is just a nightmare.

 

Edit:

@The Priest

I don't know why, but your spoiler tags are empty for me. The Mathilda and Delthea ones, I mean.

Edited July 2, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Hilda]

Mathilda is rather meh and Delthea is woah, well until recently when Ishtar dethroned her. Although she has some support buffs going on

[Shiki]

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

I don't know why, but your spoiler tags are empty for me. The Mathilda and Delthea ones, I mean.

That's because they are empty. For some time now I barely make it to the start of a round so I have to do this more-often-than-not at the phone. I usually edit them in later.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Mathilda - Mathilda's got more going for her than Sully and Jagen. The offensive spread dares to be a few points shy of what could be expected of this class. Ploy utility is quite good, the problem is that Peri also has it, rendering Mathilda uncompetitive. 3 out of 10. Watch the movie instead.

Delthea - Dark Aura is far from the viability of today's personal weapons. It's main draw on release was being able to buff +6 attack to any movement type so long as its a melee attacker. But now tactics skills exist and are all around better as long as your team is varied enough in its composition. Thankfully Delthea can always fall back on her blarblade degree if she needs to support the family. 36 attack is still top of the line for her class. She's also got some ploy utility, but if that interests you then your blue tome of choice would be Lute who's tome comes with speed ploy and bumps her speed one point higher than Delthea's. As a straight blade mage, Delthea can get the job done. But Lute and Ishtar will score higher while having more sensible personal weapons. 6.5 out of 10.

Past ratings 

Spoiler

1. Alfonse - 3
2. Marth - 7
3. Sharena - 3
4. Jagen - 1
5. Anna - 4.5
6. Barst - 3
7. Cain - 4
8. Draug - 7.5
9. Gordin - 5
10. Jeorge - 5.5
11. Abel - 5.5
12. Linde - 9
13. Minerva - Abstain
14. Merric - 3.5
15. Maria - 6
16. Wrys - 3.5
17. Ceada - Abstain
18. Ogma - 4
19. Catria - 4
20. Est - 6
21. Sheena - 6.5
22. Cecilia - 4
23. Clarine - 6.5
24. Matthew - 4
25. Palla - 2.5
26. Roy -7
27. Gwendolyn - 7.5
28. Shanna - 4.5
29. Bartre - 7
30. Fae - 7.5
31. Serra - 4
32. Lissa - 2
33. Y!Tiki - 8
34. Lilina - 7
35. Florina - 1.5
36. M!Robin - 3.5
37. Hector - 8
38. Raven - 8.5
39. Gaius - 4 
40. Virion - 3.5
41. Raigh - 1.5
42. Sophia - 3.5
43. Sully -2.5
44. Cordelia -7
45. Hawkeye - 5.5
46. Nino - 8
47. Felicia - 6.5
48. Jakob - 1
49. Fir - 4
50. Eliwood - 5.5
51. Donnel - 3.5
52. Nowi - 8.5
53. Frederick - 6.5
54. Cherche - 7.5
55. Saizo - 4
56. Kagero - 4.5
57. Lyn - 7
58. Chrom - 5
59. F!Corrin - 7
60. Azura - 6.5
61. Gunter - 3
62. Camilla - 5.5
63. Azama - 6.5
64. Setsuna - 3.5
65. Stahl - 2.5
66. Lonqu - 3
67. Hinoka - 7.5
68. Oboro - 2.5
69. Beruka - 6
70. Arthur - 2
71. Takumi - 5.5
72. Sakura - 3
73. Olivia - 7
74. Henry - 2
75. Subaki - 4.5
76. Peri - 6.5
77. Niles - 1.5
78. Elise - 7.5
79. Tharja - 5
80. A!Tiki - 8
81. Odin - 1 
82. Effie - 7.5
83. Lucina - 7
84. M!Corrin - 6
85. Ryoma - 5.5
86. Hinata - 4.5
87. Hana - 5.5
88. Laslow - 3
89. Selena - 2
90. Leo - 2
91. Eirika - 5
92. Seliph - 5.5
93. Ephraim - 7
94. Julia - 6
95. Eldigan - Abstain
96. Sanaki - 6.5
97. Reinhardt - 8
98. Olwen - 5.5
99. Lachesis - 3
100. Klein - 4
101. Karel - 6.5
102. Ninian - 7
103. Lucius - 4.5
104. Rebecca - 2.5
105. Priscilla - 4
106. Jaffar - 3.5
107. Alm - 9
108. Lukas - 7.5
109. Clair - 7
110. Faye - 5.5
111. Ike - 6
112. Titania - 3.5
113. Soren - 4
114. Mist - 2.5
115. Celica - 7
116. Mae - 6.5
117. Boey - 3.5
118. Genny - 6
119. Luke - 3.5
120. Katarina - 5.5
121. Athena - 3.5
122. Roderick - 6
123. Gray - 5
124. Saber - 3
125. Mathilda - 3
126. Delthea - 6.5

Ratings I would change in retrospect: Gordin would be a 2.5 and Jeorge a 4, Cain would be a 3, Cecilia would be a 3.5. Linde would be 7. And I'd drop Matthew and Saizo to 3.5. Beruka would be a 7. Caeda I'd rate a 5.5 now that I've been using her at 5 star. And Leo I'd bump up to a 3.

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Glennstavos

[kirauza343]

Mathilda: Oh Mathilda, what did Heroes do to you? You were soooo good in Echoes. I want to like her here, I really do. She can be a decent mage killer and can handle fighting dragons decently well (well, she can't really damage them but she can survive?), but the cavalry bst hurts there, her attack isn't great, and her speed really needs to be higher. She's a good color for it at least thanks to Berkut's Lance, but she really needs support to get kills and blue cavaliers aren't exactly a rare breed. Rating: 4.5/10

Delthea: Her offensive spread is very similar to Linde, getting an extra point of attack at the cost of two points of speed (though arguably a worse trade). The biggest problem with Delthea is that Linde can do everything she can and then some now that Linde can use Delthea's prf plus the refined version of her own while being not quite as fragile. Delthea is still a fantastic blue tome user with her default weapon or a bladetome, but her stats put her just slightly below Linde for me. Since I gave Linde an 8, that puts Delthea right at 7.5/10

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Mathilda: Like Saber, Mathilda is very disappointing. She's effectively outclassed by the likes of Abel, Roderick, Oscar, and others. Her attack, HP, and defense are pretty low, and there are better mage tanks than her. She doesn't have any help in her native weapons and skills so she'll need a lot of inheritance, but others are available at the same star rarities as her and are less expensive to build. 3/10

Delthea: Delthea is one of the top blue infantry mages in the game, but I feel like she's been knocked down a peg since Ishtar came into the game. She'll serve you well, but she also has pitiful defense and HP, so you have to be EXTREMELY careful with her. 6/10

[Xenomata]

Mathilda

Spoiler

Generally I don't want to be too negative about a unit if I don't think they deserve it, and Mathilda does at least remain true to her Gaiden/Echoes depiction. Unfortunately, most of what Mathilda was good and bad at in Echoes doesn't translate to Heroes very well, because her only "good" stats here are her Speed and Resistance, while everything else got shafted. Her Attack took the least of it, being only below-average, but her HP and Defense are horrendous for her unit type.

Her base kit has two notable skills to look at, with Ridersbane being the Lance equivalent of Horseslaying weaponry when none existed previously, and Cancel Affinity reverses the effects of Triangle Adept and Gem Weapons if Mathilda was at a disadvantage. The rest of her kit is kinda bland, with Rally Resistance and Hone Attack.

Make an example of Mages and Manaketes with Mathilda's high Resistance with a DC Berkut's Lance set, or work off of the Ridersbane and turn her into a Horse killer. Her Attack is not the best, but it does at least remain high enough that she can still dual both these targets effectively. Her Resistance being as high as it is also means she can trigger Ploys on a number of targets, helping to fix her damage output by making the enemy less bulky.

Failing Mathilda is her ability to take hits from melee combatants, and her HP doesn't really permit her many chances to take enough hits in combat before she may inevitably go down. She is lucky she isn't ranged, or else she'd be taking a lot of damage from Manaketes to. Bows will also prove a problem, since many of the most powerful bows are the Brave Bow, hitting her twice and killing her, or the Firesweep Bow, hitting her without her retaliation and dying. Mathilda has few answers for them, and they are usually able to outpace her average Speed, so they double her anyways.

A decent unit, is what Mathilda is. It is a shame that she was hit badly in the transition from Gaiden/Echoes to Heroes, but there really wasn't much they could have done to translate her Skill and Luck growths, and her Attack remains around average at least.

Rating: 5/10 Mathilda has enough tools at her disposal to cripple the enemy and strike with decently powerful blows, but her Defense and HP combine to make her completely incapable of doing anything to melee and bow enemies attacking her. Her Ridersbane at least lets her take on horses on the cheap, and her Res is high enough in tandem with Berkut's Lance to take on mages, but keep an eye on those melee and bow enemies.

 

Delthea

Spoiler

And here we have the unit who was translated so accurately from Gaiden/Echoes, it's a little scary. Delthea has great Attack and Speed, decent Resistance, and Defense so bad that it can be the lowest possible in the game. Hp is also bad, but that's to be expected.

Death Blow is a strong skill for her to be packing by default, but can be replaced with other skills later. Miracle can also be replaced, but may still find use if you don't need Delthea to be doing more damage than she already does. Drive Attack is the rarest of the four Drive skills, and is worth keeping on Delthea no matter what you do with her.

Dark Aura grants no direct combat buffs for Delthea besides might equal to a forged Silver Tome+, but does have strong buffing abilities in +6 attack for all Melee weaponry. It's a great buff, and can enable a melee unit to get more kills than they could have with just a Hone Attack.

Keeping the Dark Aura is worth doing, but boosting Delthea's combat ability in exchange for her supportive ability is fine to, and she has options. Blarblade is the easy option, Fresh Bouquet gets her speed up to eagle, and working with Blarowl and her decent Res lets her become a more enemy phase tank.

The bad is simple. Her Defense and HP are so low that any kind of Melee or Breath hit WILL kill her, without exception. Her Resistance could also stand to be better, given how low her HP is.

Then again, Delthea isn't meant to be taking hits in the first place. She is meant to be dealing out hits, and THAT she does in perfect spades.

Rating: 8/10 Delthea has great offensive stats in favor of no Defense, and having Dark Aura lets her give some of those great offensive stats to melee allies. Coming with the rare Drive Atk is also nice. Overall, while she can't do anything to fix her melee/manakete problems, she is still a powerful unit who can enable powerful melee allies.

[LordFrigid]

Mathilda

• Magically bulky stat line, featuring good Res, ok Spd, and low Atk and Def.
  • She has some Brave Lance capability against red (strong) and blue (passable) foes hit by Def Ploy when Hone Cavalry is active, though she runs into trouble against Def-stacking or fast foes. She can also run a Shell Lance/Ploy set (with similar results to the Brave Lance set), which helps patch up her lower offenses, but cannot deal with the fastest of reds.
  • She can run a Berkut's Lance+ (Def)/DC set on defense, which has strong red and mediocre blue matchups with full cav buffs.
• As a cavalry unit, she can provide a cavalry field/combat buff for her allies. She has the capability to run stat ploys with her good Res.

Overall, I give her 6 for combat (strong red, passable blue offense matchups, but dependent on buffs and ploys), and 1.5 for support (cavalry field/combat buffs, ploy capability), for a total rating of 6/10.

I need to finally implement that "Apply Ploys if applicable" feature so I'm not just setting a blanket debuff on enemies...

Delthea

• Offense-focused stat line, with high Atk, good Spd, decent Res, and very poor Def.
  • Dark Aura (+6 Atk field buff to adjacent melee weapon allies at the beginning of the turn) is a powerful support option.
  • Very strong red, ok blue matchups on offense. Blue matchups become passable when she is in Desperation range. She can also run Blárblade, forgoing Dark Aura's buff power for increased punch of her own (very strong red, strong blue matchups, but buff-dependent).
  • Poor defensive matchups, due to her very low Def stat. She can take a mage hit in a pinch.
• She has some stat ploy capability with her decent Res stat. Dark Aura is a great buff support option if used.

Overall, I give her 8.5 for combat (very strong red, strong blue matchups that are sustainable and buff-dependent, on offense with a Blárblade+ set when in Desperation range), and 1 for support (basic field/combat buff, some stat ploy capability), for a total rating of 8/10.

Dark Aura is definitely a solid option, but my rating system rewards the combat potential of Blárblade more than Dark Aura's support capabilities.

~

Scoring method:

Spoiler

Units are evaluated based on both their combat performance and their team support capabilities (i.e. their whole contribution to a team).

• Combat performance is judged by matchups, especially against enemies that are at triangle disadvantage or neutral to the unit. Performance against more relevant meta threats is more valuable than performance against units that are rarely seen. Triangle Adept sets are not considered, though they might be noted. Scale of 0 to 10.
  • Sustainability and filling a useful niche are given small bonuses, when applicable.
  • I will look at least one PP-focused and one EP-focused skill set for each unit, but only evaluate based on performance for whichever phase I deem the unit to be stronger on.
• Support capabilities are decided by how much support a unit can provide (without horribly compromising their combat capabilities), and how valuable I feel that support is. Scale of 0 to 3.
• At the end, the combat and support scores will be weighted (with a heavy focus on combat performance), combined, and rounded to the nearest .5 to obtain the total rating. Dancers and Singers will get +1 point to their total rating (not to exceed 10), because I value Dance/Sing utility highly.

This method of evaluation essentially compares each unit to a hypothetical "god unit" who is stellar at everything, instead of each unit to each other.

All my ratings.

[eclipse]

Mathilda - What are you doing with that attack stat?  She's basically a faster Jagen with a little more oomph.  And while Res-stacking means that Distant Counter is a viable A skill, she's not going to be doing much other than baiting/ploys.  I guess her native lance works, or a Slaying Lance+.  For everyone that gave Rody crap, I expect lower scores for Mathilda.  Her sky-high Res does not excuse her offensive stats.  4/10

Delthea - She is THE Blue Tome Nuke out of all Blue Tome Nukes (best Spd for her sky-high Atk), who wouldn't mind running Swift Sparrow over he native Death Blow.  She collapses the minute a physical attacker/dragon looks at her, but her high Res also makes her a decent ploy bot/mage bait.  Plus, she gives out that super-sweet Atk bonus to melee units.  She really wants to run Desperation, but whether or not she can survive a hit can be a little iffy.  If she ever goes into that range, she'll be unstoppable.  9/10

[Troykv]

I wonder what kind of skills Mathilda would ended up using if IS give to her a Personal Weapon.

[Usana]

Given that both of these have been in my barracks as 5* since early on when I had only a handful of fives I actually have some practical experience with them.

 

Mathilda- I want to like her. I do. But no. I even got her at +ATK so she actually has a semi-usable attack stat. But even before speed creeping she was just a bit slow to get her doubles in. Particularly since red swords are some of the fastest units around. Weak defense further complicates this. No native DC means builds are horrifically expensive to make a mage counter. And low HP combined with her not great speed makes her a relatively poor mage check since she can't easily KO on the player phase due to lack of doubling. In the end she only rarely sees use in AA when her ridersbane is useful. And even then she sometimes falls short. 3/10. As interesting as her DC build may be, it is far too expensive for what you get.

Delthea- Constantly sees use over Linde in my barracks. But that is admittedly because a Neutral Linde vs a +SPD Delthea comes out in Del's favor slightly. In the end though Linde will have 1 more ATK+SPD than Delthea assuming similar boons/banes. And more importantly with spd creeping up Delthea is no longer in a great spd tier(though she isn't middling either) whereas Linde is still fine. Delthea basically needs to be +SPD to compete at the highest levels. Lute meanwhile edges her out in the ploy department.  So as much as a staple as she has been for me, I can say that in general there is a blue mage somewhere who can out perform her. But if you want a Blade tome who can also ploy and/or take a magic hit if needed, then Delthea would be your pick. Of the 30+ RES blue mages she has the most min-maxed stat line. Plus her tome+drive atk does open up some possibilities and can be quite helpful for clearing quests where you have to get an under developed unit to kill a lvl 40.  I will say 8/10. In days past I would have thrown her a 9, but she is slowly falling behind.

[Frosty]

Mathilda

Hmmm.... Actually, I think Mathilda's not bad at all. Sure, worse Peri but at least I can work around her statline.

Usually, she's associated with the expensive DC+Berkut's Lance build to capitalize around her titanic RES stat. For those who can't afford that and want to use Mathilda, you can utilize her Ridersbane+ with DEF Ploy 3 seal combo to leave a dent or outright KO some Horse units (watch out for Frederick though; but she laughs at Titania due to Cancel Affinity). If you're cheeky like me, slap on a Firesweep Lance+ then let her rip with Cavalry buffs. Suggested boons for Mathilda are either +SPD/-DEF or +ATK/-DEF for offensive-oriented builds while she's looking for a +RES boon if you want to use Berkut's Lance+.

She's not the best Blue Lance cavalier here but for me, I don't think she's the worst; and she has served me quite well in my Cavalry teams.

7.5

Delthea

Basically a stronger Linde with added utility of granting +6 ATK via Dark Aura. Just keep her away from physicals and she'll do alright.

7.5

Edited July 3, 2018 by Frosty

[Shiki]

@DehNutCase I didn't notice earlier but you can only give 1 score and it should be highlighted properly. In case of your Mathilda score I just took the average between your 2 scores (which resulted in a 7).

Mathilda: 4.40
Delthea: 7.59

Sonya, Vengeful Mage

Spoiler

Max. Stats:
33/36/40
30/33/36
28/31/34
12/15/19
29/32/35

Base Skills:

Dark Excalibur ( Deals +10 damage when Special triggers. )
( - )
Moonbow

Mirror Strike
( - )
Res Ploy

Leon, True of Heart

Spoiler

Max. Stats:
35/39/42
31/34/37
27/30/33
26/30/33
12/15/19

Base Skills:

Slaying Bow+
( - )
Ignis

Speed+
Guard
( - )

 

Edited July 5, 2018 by The Priest

[Xenomata]

Sonya

Spoiler

Surprisingly average for a Green Mage. 33/31 attack and speed is certainly usable, but it's not amazing compared to certain other Green mages. 32 Res is also usable, but still not amazing. Good for Ploys at least. Her HP is below average, but not terrible. Her Defense is terrible.

Mirror Strike does not affect the trigger of Res Ploy, but the two still work decently well with Sonya's statspread. Moonbow also works well with the tome she has, Dark Excalibur, which boosts Special Damage by 10.

Getting her Speed up would be ideal, since she wants to be able to get as many strong attacks in as possible, something her average Speed needs a boost doing. Speed Ploy can help matters, and any speed boosting A passive is ideal, though Swift Sparrow boosts her the most without hurting her Res.

Many of her weak points are in how average she is as a Green Mage, not necessarily exemplifying the unit type, but not being the Odin of it either. Sonya also suffers the common mage problem: no Defense, and low enough HP that one melee/bow/manakete hit will kill her no exception.

I don't want to be harsh on a unit I've never used, but Sonya just doesn't feel like the amazing unit I was expecting. Not bad, she can be deadly if you don't pay close attention.

Rating: 6.5/10 Sonya has an average enough statline for a Green Mage to work wonders with her default Dark Excalibur. Complicating matters is her average speed, though the right ploys can fix this. Of course, her Defense sucks, but then grass is green and Everyday Life of Heroes Kiran is a terrible tactician.

 

Leon

Spoiler

Leon is odd. Not bad, odd. His statline would be better fit for being an average Melee unit, with flat 30 Speed and Defense (though a potential superbane in Defense), barely below-average HP that means he can't really work with Infantry Pulse or Panic Ploy, and Resistance so utterly bad that it's a perfect representation of what most units in Echoes are like in that department.

The reason I find Leon interesting has nothing to do with his base kit, though it does have some notable items. Slaying Bow is the upgrade to the Killer Bow so needed, and speeds up the trigger of Ignis for some pretty sick damage. Guard means the enemy can't charge their special against Leon, and Speed +3 is useless replace it even with just Fury 3.

What I find interesting is Leon's Attack stat, which is the second highest of all bows, and the downright highest of all bows in the standard summoning pool, at 34 (37 with attack bane), which gives him a pretty powerful Brave Bow set. While he doesn't have the oppressive statline of Cordelia or access to Cavalry buffs like Roy, he can still get triggered by Attack Tactics (which is now easier to get thanks to Legault) and reach 56 power with one Death Blow charged attack.

His base kit has enough going for it that he can keep everything except Speed +3 and still get good results, but I recommend replacing Guard with Swordbreaker on a Brave set.

Now for the bads... well, Leon's Resistance, as mentioned above, sucks and there is no reason to expect anything good if you want to give him a Guard Bow, because he has the Defense to take on bows and not much else. If he gets attacked by a mage, the most meta ones usually outspeed him anyways, so he'd dead no matter what.

Still, I recommend at least looking Leon over and seeing if it's worth giving him some investment. I may like his Brave Bow potential enough to have built him around it myself, but he still has decent enough Speed to work with some other bows. But just remember that he has the strongest Brave Bow potential among those in the regular summoning pool...

Rating: 7.5/10 Leon has some fairly balanced stats in everything except Resistance, but he is still able to run with speed stacking with some other bows, or with a Brave Bow for a Brave set available outside the Special summoning pools. It's pretty nasty if you can get him Attack boosted.

If Valbar ever gets released, and you DON'T ally support Leon with him, then you officially have revealed yourself as a soulless robot.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Xenomata

[Ice Dragon]

I see so many comparisons between Mathilda and Jagen, and pretty much every single one of them is wrong. Jagen trades 2 Atk for 2 HP, 1 Def, and 1 Res, which is a good trade for their stat line, but the real kicker is that his entire veteran penalty went to Spd, which is exactly the stat he wants to dump, allowing him to safely run a -Spd nature instead of another stat and run a single-turn Glacies instead of Iceberg. And being a pure enemy-phase unit, Jagen is completely unaffected by the existence of trenches. Jagen is the better of the two.

[eclipse]

Sonya - Well, she trolled me as -Res, so bleh.  Personal rant aside, her default kit screams "bully other mages on PP".  33 Atk is decent, but that 31 Spd isn't.  She can also bait thanks to her excellent Res, and charge up Dark Excalibur that way.  IMO I'd rather slap Brazen Atk/Spd and QR on her, and make her somewhat competent on both phases.  She's not bad, but she's horribly outclassed by Soren (same Atk tier, better weapon) and a bunch of other mages more suited for offense.  6.5/10

Leon - 10/10, easy.

Ahem.

He has the highest Atk out of the regular archer pool (Cordelia/Jakob beat him, but they're seasonals).  His speed is weirdly middling, and it matches his defense.  +Atk is an instant candidate for a Brave Bow. . .but he needs a lot of help to reach certain ORKO benchmarks, whether it be buffs or summoner support (I have bad memories from Takumi's GHB).  +Def can attempt to cheese things with a Guard Bow.  +Spd can attempt to Firesweep, but I feel like he'd need a lot of help to reliably double.  Brave Bow builds really don't like armors, and in high-level arena, Leon's a no-go.  In other words, take Virion, give him more Atk, and make him fall in love with a guy who will never return the favor.  7.5/10 (with some bias)

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, The Priest said:

@DehNutCase I didn't notice earlier but you can only give 1 score and it should be highlighted properly. In case of your Mathilda score I just took the average between your 2 scores (which resulted in a 7).

Should I be bolding the scores, then? I'll do that in the future.

[Silverly]

Sonya: She’s a fun mage to use, in my opinion, but does that translate to good? Well, her attack and resistance are up to snuff, while her physical bulk is just as poor as our previous mage Delthea. Her speed is... odd, at least for a mage. It’s the exact same as Ike’s, which means it’s pretty middling. While it hurts her performance,  she does have a handy tool in her weapon Dark Excalibur. It gives a Wo Dao effect that is great for giving burst damage and possible ORKO potential. With her high resistance, she can also use ploys very effectively (her base kit even comes with one). That being said, her overall play is very reliant on special procs and debuffs, which means her matchups can be inconsistent and unreliable. However, she’s still a good unit in my book, and it does feel good to let off a well-timed Moonbow. 7/10

Leon: Two words: better Gordin. He’s got good attack and defense, eh but not awful speed, and laughable resistance. He can run a defensive set with CC fairly decently, but you’ll need to run QR3 and plan your matchups well. For a more offensive one, he can always go for a Brave Bow, but those are starting to get phase out, while he doesn’t make the best use of the Firesweep bow due to his low speed. He’s alright, I used more last year than now. I think he’s one of the better bow users, but he gets outshined by Innes and Bride Cordelia. 6.5/10

[DehNutCase]

Sonya:

BST: 36/33/31/15/32

Good color, min-maxed defensive spread, and that's really all there is to it. Dark Excalibur has nothing on -blade in terms of adding damage, and her offenses aren't quite good enough to be worth running over the likes of Nino. (Especially now that we have flier Nino, who gets superior mobility and better access to buffs.)

Over all around the level of Delthea, or 7/10, it would be a bit lower, because her spread isn't min-maxed to Delthea's level, but she happens to be green, meaning she counter kills Reinhardt a bit more reliably than most.

 

Leon:

BST: 39/34/30/30/15

I mean, he's comparable to Takumi with a Brave Bow, and that does count for something. Would probably be better than Takumi with a Close Counter set as well, but why would you bother with archer CC sets when you can run -blade CC sets?

The strength of colorless is consistency, because they can perform about as well versus any color. Which is also their weakness, because a high Def tank would wall an archer regardless of color. (Other than green Lyn, of course.)

 

Overall... if tomes didn't have Reinhardt, I would put archers around the level of mages, because -blade for brave weapons is a more or less fair trade. Add that to the fact that the only thing ranged units can't do---Galeforce---is best done by physical units (Galeforce dragons, lul), and I'd say archers as a unit type is strictly worse than mages as a unit type.

But not much worse.

6.5/10

 

[Alexmender]

Sonya. She has a semi-offensive spread with a focus on Atk/Res. Sonya is interesting, she absolutely falls short of Nino in terms of pure offense so there's no case in using her with the basic Blade tome build outside of favoritism but luckily she doesn't need to thanks to her Prf tome Dark Excalibur which has the Wo Dao effect and with her high Res she's able to use Ploys effectively. The main issue Sonya has is her below average Spd, which practically forces her to use a +Spd nature if she wishes to be competitive, otherwise she'll have a hard time thanks to her relatively average stats. Her tome also needs a refinement because in this day and age having only 1 effect in a Prf isn't cutting it anymore, but Sonya is still pretty strong.

Rating: 6.5/10

Leon. His stats focus on Atk and Def while still having decent Spd and dumping Res completely. Leon has one job and he does it well, tank and kill physical units. This makes him one of the better candidates for CC as it makes him able to fight the myriad of non-dragon melee units. If one wishes to over-specialize one can use a Guard Bow+Bowbreaker build to make him an anti-bow unit (although this build does nothing against the ever popular Firesweep bow so it's not something I'd recommend, but it does nicely against Brave Bow+). He also has the Atk to use the Brave Bow+. His Spd is a bit wasted these days, before it worked wonderfully as a defensive stat to let him avoid doubles but nowadays the speed creep means that he's slow and his Spd points just makes him less min-maxed than he should. Still, Leon a decent tanky archer and will do tons of work when invested in.

Rating: 6.5//10

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sonya - Her res ties with Julia for second highest of her class, allowing for good ploy utility. Her stats are otherwise unremarkable. Her personal weapon is simply a wo dao tome with a +atk refinement. Her choice of special then probably won't be iceberg as it's slower than moonbow. 4.5 out of 10. Hurry up and give her a refinement so that Merric has yet another personal weapon to choose from. 

Leon - Now we're talking. Leon packs great brave damage which was the meta for archers on his release. I'm not a fan of slaying bows, personally. I think 2 range units shouldn't have to wait for procs for meaningful damage and Leon's defense is barely high enough for considering bonfire over a similar special. Plus if he's not packing a brave bow, then he'll be obliterated by mage counterattacks even when they don't double. He may not be relevant, but I find Leon brings a lot more to the table than any archer before him. 6 out of 10. That's not to say he can really touch any archer that came afterward, however.

Past Ratings

Spoiler

1. Alfonse - 3
2. Marth - 7
3. Sharena - 3
4. Jagen - 1
5. Anna - 4.5
6. Barst - 3
7. Cain - 4
8. Draug - 7.5
9. Gordin - 5
10. Jeorge - 5.5
11. Abel - 5.5
12. Linde - 9
13. Minerva - Abstain
14. Merric - 3.5
15. Maria - 6
16. Wrys - 3.5
17. Ceada - Abstain
18. Ogma - 4
19. Catria - 4
20. Est - 6
21. Sheena - 6.5
22. Cecilia - 4
23. Clarine - 6.5
24. Matthew - 4
25. Palla - 2.5
26. Roy -7
27. Gwendolyn - 7.5
28. Shanna - 4.5
29. Bartre - 7
30. Fae - 7.5
31. Serra - 4
32. Lissa - 2
33. Y!Tiki - 8
34. Lilina - 7
35. Florina - 1.5
36. M!Robin - 3.5
37. Hector - 8
38. Raven - 8.5
39. Gaius - 4 
40. Virion - 3.5
41. Raigh - 1.5
42. Sophia - 3.5
43. Sully -2.5
44. Cordelia -7
45. Hawkeye - 5.5
46. Nino - 8
47. Felicia - 6.5
48. Jakob - 1
49. Fir - 4
50. Eliwood - 5.5
51. Donnel - 3.5
52. Nowi - 8.5
53. Frederick - 6.5
54. Cherche - 7.5
55. Saizo - 4
56. Kagero - 4.5
57. Lyn - 7
58. Chrom - 5
59. F!Corrin - 7
60. Azura - 6.5
61. Gunter - 3
62. Camilla - 5.5
63. Azama - 6.5
64. Setsuna - 3.5
65. Stahl - 2.5
66. Lonqu - 3
67. Hinoka - 7.5
68. Oboro - 2.5
69. Beruka - 6
70. Arthur - 2
71. Takumi - 5.5
72. Sakura - 3
73. Olivia - 7
74. Henry - 2
75. Subaki - 4.5
76. Peri - 6.5
77. Niles - 1.5
78. Elise - 7.5
79. Tharja - 5
80. A!Tiki - 8
81. Odin - 1 
82. Effie - 7.5
83. Lucina - 7
84. M!Corrin - 6
85. Ryoma - 5.5
86. Hinata - 4.5
87. Hana - 5.5
88. Laslow - 3
89. Selena - 2
90. Leo - 2
91. Eirika - 5
92. Seliph - 5.5
93. Ephraim - 7
94. Julia - 6
95. Eldigan - Abstain
96. Sanaki - 6.5
97. Reinhardt - 8
98. Olwen - 5.5
99. Lachesis - 3
100. Klein - 4
101. Karel - 6.5
102. Ninian - 7
103. Lucius - 4.5
104. Rebecca - 2.5
105. Priscilla - 4
106. Jaffar - 3.5
107. Alm - 9
108. Lukas - 7.5
109. Clair - 7
110. Faye - 5.5
111. Ike - 6
112. Titania - 3.5
113. Soren - 4
114. Mist - 2.5
115. Celica - 7
116. Mae - 6.5
117. Boey - 3.5
118. Genny - 6
119. Luke - 3.5
120. Katarina - 5.5
121. Athena - 3.5
122. Roderick - 6
123. Gray - 5
124. Saber - 3
125. Mathilda - 3
126. Delthea - 6.5
127. Sonya - 4.5
128. Leon - 6

Ratings I would change in retrospect: Gordin would be a 2.5 and Jeorge a 4, Cain would be a 3, Cecilia would be a 3.5. Linde would be 7. And I'd drop Matthew and Saizo to 3.5. Beruka would be a 7. Caeda I'd rate a 5.5 now that I've been using her at 5 star. And Leo I'd bump up to a 3.