Rate the Unit, Day 9: Mia

[PKL]

Dat Rules (borrowed/stolen from Integrity)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Assume that the character in question is being recruited.

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

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

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

Averages:

Shinon: 3

Soren: 5.152

Rhys: 5.315

Gatrie: 5.463

Boyd: 8.293

Ike: 8.567

Oscar: 9.075

Titania: 9.91

So, Rhys is apparently better than Soren...>_>

[Frosty]

Mama Mia is the first myrmidon you'll get...

She dodges and doubles alright; but her start is shaky and she blocks not Axes; but Lances in her face; and pray that STR of her grows or otherwise she'll have MEH combat.

6.0

[I.M. Gei]

6/10, here's some pretty great justification for the score.

All this talk about PoR made me want to play it again, so I blew the dust off of my disc this weekend. I figured it would be a good idea to look at Mia's performance in a real playthrough, as opposed to a transfer run, to see if the reality matched my memories. Is she really as bad as people keep asserting? Is my run slowed down by using her? Does the BEXP needlessly pauper the army? Etc. I started a run with the idea of playing Mia efficiently, in Fixed mode, so that she didn't get RNG-blessed or anything.

Preliminary results? All of you who say that Mia is a drag on the party are out of your fucking trees. Do you have any idea how to play this game at all? Jesus Christ, I thought this game was easy when I was doing transfer runs that delibrately used crappy characters and hoarded BEXP/stat-ups until Endgame... when I am playing efficiently, with an eye towards winning, it's not just easy, it's a non-stop steamroll curb-stomp.

I'll give an example. In Chapter 7, Mia is basically dead weight. I had her kill the archer that spawned chasing her, and then I just used her for opening chests and maybe killing some scrub-bag that Titania missed by 2 HP if I had nothing better to do at the time. This is an 11-turn chapter for BEXP purposes, and I was running out of shit to kill on turn 7-8.

Come next chapter, I get access to Base and I decide to put the BEXP theory to the test. Let's level-up Mia and make her good. So, I took my copious amounts of BEXP (I got max for every chapter, naturally, since my cat could beat this game), and spread it out amongst Mia, Boyd, and Oscar so that all three of them were level 10 at the end. This left me with 918 BEXP, which admittedly is quite a bit left of the ~1500+, and I could have spent it right there, but I want to save some for Ilyana (since I am going to use her) and other up-and-coming units.

Well, it didn't matter anyway, I raped that chapter so hard that on Turn 8 (the last turn) I had nothing left to kill. At all. Everything was dead. Two random idiots that spawned on the last possible turn, a soldier and a myrm in the east, used their actions to suicide into Boyd on Enemy Phase. Here's some of what those poor bastards were up against:

- Boyd, level 10. 13mt forged Iron Axe, 12 STR, 10 SPD. Boyd was ORKO'ing Armors in this chapter. ARMORS. Would more levels would have made a difference here? Not likely!

- Oscar, level 10. Steel/Iron lances, Short Spear/Jav, 9 STR, 11 SPD. Not a ORKO'ing maniac, but doubles tons of shit and does good damage via Canto-bombing and 2-ranging.

- Titania, level 5. Steel/Iron axes, Hand Axe. 14 STR, 16 SPD. Those who know how to play the game know that you give Titania the boss kills (not that it takes any effort, since she stares at a boss and it dies), so this amped-up Titania is ORKO'ing tons of shit with just plain Hand Axes.

- Mia, level 10. Iron/Steel swords, Armorslayer. 9 STR, 15 SPD. Well holy shit, look what happens when you're not sandbagging Mia by not fixing her level. Now she's doing double 10's on Armors in this level with the slayer, aka 3HKO aka 2RKO aka better than Ike with a Regal.

Chapter 8 pwned. Chapter 9 found me sending Mia, Ilyana (who got some BEXP'ed levels to double a few things), Mist, Rolf, and Titania (to catch the bandit) down on the sand. Destruction happened, nothing with and axe could hurt Mia, and Ilyana's 2-range plus occasional potshot chips from Rolf made this a leisurely stroll on the beach. Got both houses saved, and even pwned the pirate reinforcements. The rest of the army had no problems plowing through to the Sieze square.

Chapter 10. I didn't Metal Gear Solid this one, I blazed through it like a herd of bulls left loose in a china shop (I wanted the treasure and master seal). Mia's contributions here included fighting the reinforcements that back-door you when the alarm sounds, as well as smashing apart the Armors at the exit. As with Chapter 7, I found myself 4 turns from the BEXP limit with really nothing left to kill and nobody left to rescue.

Chapter 11. All of my primary combatants, Mia included, are at least level 14-15 at this point. I deploy both Lethe/Mordy (slots to spare), and carefully position them so that Zihark doesn't waste KE uses (success!). Mia is doing a little bit less than normal in this chapter since she can't keep up with Tits and crew (who are charging toward the Arrive with Ike in tow), so I put her with Boyd/Ilyana and they clean up slow-movers and reinforcements. Z/Mordy/Lethe take care of the items/enemies on the north side.

Chapter 12. I top off the rest of Mia's level, bringing her to 17 (she is a touch ahead of others at this point, who are 16ish). I pass out more BEXP to even it up. I still have over 1100 fucking BEXP left over at this point, but I'd feel like a tool for spending it since I'm already raping the shit out of everything. I could give some to Zihark, who is getting badly beaten by Mia at this point (2 STR behind, 4 SPD behind, 5 LCK behind, 2 DEF behind, 2 HP behind, 4 RES behind, and Mia has C Rhys by this point for +1 mt/ +5 HIT), but there's no point in using two Myrms for this playthrough (another time, big Z). Anyway, you already know how this story turns out: Mia rapes the shit out of this chapter because she's doubling for like 20 damage a pop with the Laguzslayer, aka instant ORKO on every Raven in the chapter.

Chapter 13. Mia is level 18 now, she's probably going to promote to Swordmaster by the time that Chapter 15 is over, just in time for the VAGUE KATTI. I wonder if I will even bother with Wrath at this point. I mean, it's not even fair to the enemies.

Do I even need to keep fucking going? When does Mia magically start slowing down my team, exactly? Can someone help me out, here? Should I maybe start the game over and start doing retarded shit like having Soren tank and Volke be my primary damage dealer? Maybe I should BEXP dump Rolf or Mist so that I can't raise anyone else? Maybe I should kill off half my team? Maybe everyone needs iron weapons? Speaking of which, I didn't even give Mia a forge yet.

People who say that Mia is a piece of shit, help me out, here. I'm not really good at playing inefficiently and/or making stupid resource allocation decisions.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Black★Rock Shooter

[Elieson]

At least she knows not to block axes with her face.

I hate her personality. But I like her combat. it's a bit slow to start, but in fix'd mode, it's a steady increase.

6, like the rest.

[ZemZem]

Mia, why the heck do you think it's a good idea to appear when the game starts throwing lances at you?

She has decent combat and good bases, and her growths are great. Her 50% HP growth could cause problems if she's unlucky, and her DEF isn't amazing.

5/10, +1 bias for hotness. 6/10.

[MacLovin]

Well, she comes at a bad time, and while she does double everything-she still 2-3RKOes everything.

She relies on her str to keep up and on forges.

But, she's not bad, but not the best. Her early help is nice though.

+1 bias

7/10.

Inb4 Ether rating her 10/10

[Renall]

Can't stand fast-but-weak Myrmidons and Mia is pretty much the avatar of that type of character. She doubles, but she won't kill right away, and her join time is definitely very awkward. You either keep up on her and risk things or you neglect her and have to catch her up. BExp exists, of course, but it doesn't always fix the problems. And on Fixed Mode, her STR problem is quite a bit harder to fix.

With levels, forges, adjusting her stats, and BExp, she can be fine as an offensive unit. But I'd hesitate to say great.

6/10

[Anouleth]

Hey look it's a dude who doesn't 2HKO with mediocre durability and move in a game where you have tons of units who do ORKO with good durability and tons of move!

3/10

[PuffPuff]

Well...to say about her, she only will get perfect with a Seraph Robe in the beginning since it'll take awhile for her to get good dodge. Int the Normal Mode though, she probably won't need it! You also shouldn't switch Vantage to Astra either. Since she needs all the counters that she can muster.

So....

7/10

Edited April 4, 2012 by リンダ

[Hawk King]

Rhys beat out Soren? Thats crappy. It is all because of the negative biases toward him...

On topic, Mia!

PROS-

She is a quality non-mounted unit. She shows up early, and has plenty of time to grow ahead of the other Swordmasters. With her respectable 30% MAG growth, she is one of very few units who could potentially take advantage of the Sonic Sword. Once she promotes becomes more powerful, her innate Vantage will begin to help her more.

CONS-

She doesnt have enough durability to take the front lines. She is stuck with swords, so she doesnt have a whole lot of 1-2 range options. Nothing special for her in the form of supports.

6.5/10 - She fills a role for you team, but the lack of 1-2 range weapons holds her back from being great.

[BrightBow]

Well, she is rather lackluster.

Mia is a melee fighter made of wet tissues and with those growths it's not going to change anytime soon. And she has no access to ranged weapons or canto to move out of harms way.

Thankfully she has enough Spd to double but this is lance country. I must have used her on pretty much every run I did and she never did anything of note. She always felt like Ike with more Spd then needed and less attack power then what I would like to have. I tried once using forged slim swords with gamble. That one didn't work out either. And to top it off her support options aren't particularly fancy.

I would regard her as one of the worser units. Not Rolf bad, but not really worth it either way.

3.5/10 - She is definitely below average.

-1 bias because I think her characterization doesn't quite work.

Initially she appears to be a spirited fighting maniac, sorta like Sakura from Street Fighter Alpha with less panty shots though part of this is because she isn't wearing any pants to begin with.

Females in Fire Emblem really seem to hate pants for some reason. I find pants very comfortable but p.e.m.n. I guess. Maybe long socks and miniskirts really are the way to move on the battlefield. What do I know?

Legwear aside, as it turns in her Largo-support she is actually only trying so hard because people belittled her abilities because she is a woman.

So her enthusiasm never was actually genuine?

Either way I have trouble trouble to buy that such an attitute even exist in Beorc countrys, honestly. We see quite a few females in high ranking positions.

Titania is a former member of the Royal Knights, the elite of Crimean knights and personal guard of the royal family. Petrine is one of the Four Riders of Daein. Sigrun is the leader of the Holy guard and they are all important characters.

There is no lack of high ranking, respected, plot-important and powerful female characters among the Beroc.

And nobody in the game implies some sort of attitude, that woman don't belong on the battlefield or any other double standard among gender I can think of. All of this makes her words hard to believe.

It could exist and it would fit together with the themes of the game but unlike, let's say, the racism against the Laguz we don't see it. As it stands there by itself it just feels awkward.

It only occurs in that one support. And considering that Calill isn't very domestic either, Largo's attitude feels forced as well. Also, Mia acting like a bully doesn't do her any favors in my eyes.

She would probably work better if she was just a spirited fighting fanatic with questionable sanity. As it stands she appears to me more like a strawman feminist with questionable sanity.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[I.M. Gei]

Well, she is rather lackluster.

Mia is a melee fighter made of wet tissues and with those growths it's not going to change anytime soon. And she has no access to ranged weapons or canto to move out of harms way.

Thankfully she has enough Spd to double but this is lance country. I must have used her on pretty much every run I did and she never did anything of note. She always felt like Ike with more Spd then needed and less attack power then what I would like to have. I tried once using forged slim swords with gamble. That one didn't work out either. And to top it off her support options aren't particularly fancy.

I would regard her as one of the worser units. Not Rolf bad, but not really worth it either way.

3.5/10 - She is definitely below average.

-1 bias because I think her characterization doesn't quite work.

Initially she appears to be a spirited fighting maniac, sorta like Sakura from Street Fighter Alpha with less panty shots though part of this is because she isn't wearing any pants to begin with.

Females in Fire Emblem really seem to hate pants for some reason. I find pants very comfortable but p.e.m.n. I guess. Maybe long socks and miniskirts really are the way to move on the battlefield. What do I know?

Legwear aside, as it turns in her Largo-support she is actually only trying so hard because people belittled her abilities because she is a woman.

So her enthusiasm never was actually genuine?

Either way I have trouble trouble to buy that such an attitute even exist in Beorc countrys, honestly. We see quite a few females in high ranking positions.

Titania is a former member of the Royal Knights, the elite of Crimean knights and personal guard of the royal family. Petrine is one of the Four Riders of Daein. Sigrun is the leader of the Holy guard and they are all important characters.

There is no lack of high ranking, respected, plot-important and powerful female characters among the Beroc.

And nobody in the game implies some sort of attitude, that woman don't belong on the battlefield or any other double standard among gender I can think of. All of this makes her words hard to believe.

It could exist and it would fit together with the themes of the game but unlike, let's say, the racism against the Laguz we don't see it. As it stands there by itself it just feels awkward.

It only occurs in that one support. And considering that Calill isn't very domestic either, Largo's attitude feels forced as well. Also, Mia acting like a bully doesn't do her any favors in my eyes.

She would probably work better if she was just a spirited fighting fanatic with questionable sanity. As it stands she appears to me more like a strawman feminist with questionable sanity.

4 levels BEXP in the base. 9 STR/15 SPD=she 2RKOs ARMORS with the Armorslayer (for a point of reference that's better than Ike with the Regal Sword). How is that lackluster...?

P.S. I quoted the post I was referring to if you feel like reading it.

[BrightBow]

4 levels BEXP in the base. 9 STR/15 SPD=she 2RKOs ARMORS with the Armorslayer (for a point of reference that's better than Ike with the Regal Sword). How is that lackluster...?

P.S. I quoted the post I was referring to if you feel like reading it.

That part mentions Ike with regal but Interceptor didn't say what level he is for that example. I would guess that Ike does better with the Regal sword then Mia if you give him 4 levels bxp.

Personally I care more about a units survival ability then offense anyway. Especially in that chapter.

Also I didn't say Mia was bad. (At least I don't think I did. I should probably look up the word lackluster.)

I gave her 4.5 before bias. That's slightly below average. She is not bad bad but there are more units better then her then those who are worse.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[I.M. Gei]

That part mentions Ike with regal but Interceptor didn't say what level he is for that example. I guess that Ike does better with the Regal sword then Mia if you give him 5 levels bxp.

Personally I care more about a units survival ability then offense anyway. Especially in that chapter.

no, if you give Ike "5 levels bxp" he does more or less the same: doubling and 3HKOing=2RKOing. Ike will need 25 MT with the Regal Sword to 2RKO=that's about 11 STR, or a level 12 Ike--when he starts the game at level 1.

It's really not that hard to keep her alive in that chapter unless you're incompetent, you know? She's not getting 2HKO'd by anything, even at base, and you have plenty of opportunities to heal her so she can keep on rolling through armors.

And yes, she's definitely merely "good" at best; however, she's far better than you give her credit for.There's also the fact that she can promote earlier than Ike can (e.g.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Black★Rock Shooter

[Lord Raven]

5.5/10 because I gave Soren a 5/10 and Boyd a 7.5/10 so I felt this is appropriate; she's swordlocked and nothing special overall even if some of her early weaknesses aren't *that* bad. She's just another unit in a game filled with some mounts that kill the game in two, and having Swords doesn't help.

EDIT: I will be rating units pretty low overall in this game overall.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Mercenary Raven

[BrightBow]

no, if you give Ike "5 levels bxp" he does more or less the same: doubling and 3HKOing=2RKOing. Ike will need 25 MT with the Regal Sword to 2RKO=that's about 11 STR, or a level 12 Ike--when he starts the game at level 1.

It's really not that hard to keep her alive in that chapter unless you're incompetent, you know? She's not getting 2HKO'd by anything, even at base, and you have plenty of opportunities to heal her so she can keep on rolling through armors.

And yes, she's definitely merely "good" at best; however, she's far better than you give her credit for.There's also the fact that she can promote earlier than Ike can (e.g.

You have to take into consideration that the reason my vote is so low is because of personal bias. Without it her vote is only slightly below average. I try to vote in a way where 5/10 means average and not: "Garbage you should never use."

Also with enemies coming from 3 directions and Rhys being the only healer, there are not that many opportunities to heal. The enemy also deploys a lot of ranged units and the mounted opponents can also throw out a lot of attacks a turn if you are not careful.

Again: 4.5 (-1 bias for reasons unrelated to gameplay or personal playstyle) is not a bad rating. Rolf isn't the only one who should get votes below average.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Ether]

Improves constantly from her base, which in of itself isn't that bad. With BEXP to level 10, she does as well as you would want her to, managing to 2RKO at worst and having enough durability to block a choke point.

She is probably the best unit to send to deal with the beach in the next chapter, though if you want her to tackle the lower end of the map, her Mov doesn't really hinder her because Ike needs to hang back for Marcia anyway.

By chapter 11, the first Killing Edge is available, and if Mia has been leveled sufficiently, she will be superior to Zihark when he joins. Combined with Vantage, the Killing Edge not only boosts her offence, but her survivability as well.

In Ch12 she is the practically the only unit to concievably double Ravens with the LaguzSlayer. Zihark can make it, but it requires a lot more Exp than Mia, with less time. And soon she promotes, for more chance at Critblicks.

And the future is even better to her. Rhys support builds for more Mt, she gets Wrath, which is stupid combined with vantage and essentially makes her CoD at any given time negligible. Hell, Vague Katti or a Killing Edge literally guarantee a Vantage Critkill with Wrath active. And since swordlock is apparently ever so terrible, there is no real need for anyone else to use these weapons. This carries on for the rest of the game, with Wrath!Mia ORKOing easily upwards of 90% of the time even if she fails to do it naturally, and rarely if ever actually taking a hit from a non-ranged enemy.

And it's not like she can't use the Sonic Sword either, for what uses it has. So long as she 4HKO's, she has no issues killing whatever attacks her. Hell, even if it's only a 6HKO, she will still eviscerate her opponents in a single round over 50% of the time. Her Atk with the Sonic Sword may be fairly low, but it is sufficient when she crits on most attacks.

And so on and so forth. Interceptor has already gone in depth with this, as BRS quoted earlier. 8/10 +1 Bias = 9/10

[Narga_Rocks]

Have I argued enough for Mia that I don't need to justify a 6/10 + 1 bias = 7/10? Or do I need to go dig up some old posts of mine to paste here?

Just look at that post by Interceptor, seriously.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Narga_Rocks

[Loki Laufeyson]

So, Rhys is apparently better than Soren...>_>

Mia, the most annoying thing ever the myrmidon who constantly seeks her rival.

Pros:

Quick.

First myrm.

Innate Vantage.

Cons:

Pretty squishy at first.

No strength Mia is what they call her.

really annoying.

Yeah i hate her. A lot. At least in the sequel, she shapes up to pretty damn spammy. Here? Not as much. That innate Vantage is pretty awesome though. Because she gets high crit, things may die. Because Vantage is that broken in this game. Mia's strength really sucks though. Zihark pretty much does the same thing she does only better in my opinion. Shes not a lousy unit here, just not great. If you get lucky, she might crit junk after promotion. I honestly very rarely find a place for her on my teams. Its less to do with the fact i hate her than the fact that meh...

5/10. 2/10 bias because ZOMG SHE ANNOYS ME!

[Integrity]

Have I argued enough for Mia that I don't need to justify a 6/10 + 1 bias = 7/10? Or do I need to go dig up some old posts of mine to paste here?

Just look at that post by Interceptor, seriously.

This works for my vote, too, please.

[Sunwoo]

Mia's all right, I suppose. I almost never bother raising her, but I have used her to her fullest so I think I can rate her.

Mia starts off ... bad. Just ... bad. She begins with an iron sword and a slim sword, in a chapter with lance users, armors, and a sage boss. (At least she recruits herself, though.) She has 21 base HP and 7 base defense, but her dodge against the lance enemies here is rather poor. She has to be shielded in her beginning chapter, or else she will die. At this point, Titania is still destroying everything. Boyd and Oscar should have gained enough levels to be more solid. Soren isn't very good this chapter either, but at least he can tank mages and attack at range. Honestly, Mia has a bad first start.

But! She shows up one chapter before the base and BEXP become available. You can give her enough BEXP so that she becomes a little bit better and able to soak up some hits. But there are still quite a bit of lance enemies in chapter 8, her next chapter. She will not have enough strength to 1RKO most enemies (unless you give her pretty much all your BEXP or BEXP abuse, I'm assuming neither), and her durability and dodge are still nowhere near reliable.

If you continue to raise her and give her BEXP, though, she picks up a little bit in chapter 9, and slowly starts to improve. She'll eventually start to be reliable in dodging hits as well. She definitely has potential. But her start is so rough and she comes in at a time when Boyd, Oscar, and Titania can just kill everything in the chapter (with some healing) and Ike and Soren can just help clean up stuff that doesn't die or is in the way. Mia needs either BEXP or babying to make her usable after her rough start. However, she doesn't contribute anything special. She's just another combat unit.

5/10. Yes, this is the same score I gave Soren.

[Anouleth]

4 levels BEXP in the base. 9 STR/15 SPD=she 2RKOs ARMORS with the Armorslayer (for a point of reference that's better than Ike with the Regal Sword). How is that lackluster...?

How likely is Mia to proc that 9 strength? Because it seems to me that her chance is only 50/50. You didn't forgive those kinds of odds from Edward, that's for sure.

Improves constantly from her base, which in of itself isn't that bad.

Actually, her base is bad. Even Narga and Int will admit that she is bad initially. She needs BEXP to get anywhere, they even admit it.

Also, all units in the game improve constantly... and most of them improve at a faster pace than Mia does.

[I.M. Gei]

How likely is Mia to proc that 9 strength? Because it seems to me that her chance is only 50/50. You didn't forgive those kinds of odds from Edward, that's for sure.

Actually, her base is bad. Even Narga and Int will admit that she is bad initially. She needs BEXP to get anywhere, they even admit it.

Also, all units in the game improve constantly... and most of them improve at a faster pace than Mia does.

Isn't there BEXP, and a ton of it, the chapter right after she joins to get her going? Eddy didn't have the luxury of fixed mode to help ensure that he procs the stats he needed.

[Anouleth]

Isn't there BEXP, and a ton of it, the chapter right after she joins to get her going?

What does this have to do with what I was saying?

Eddy didn't have the luxury of fixed mode to help ensure that he procs the stats he needed.

I did not notice this was in Fixed Mode.

[I.M. Gei]

Dat Rules (borrowed/stolen from Integrity)

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

just for reference