Rate the Unit, Day 36: Ray

[Integrity]

Dat Rules

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard 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.

- Characters should be rated for their performance on all possible routes (A/B / Sacae/Ilia) but should not be penalized for routes they physically cannot exist on (z.B Juno in Sacae).

- "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.

- 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

WENDY!: 0.19

Bors: 1.14

Barth: 2.07

Wolt: 2.16

Ward: 2.61

Dorothy: 3.17

Lilina: 3.53

Merlinus: 3.53

Roy: 3.54

Geese: 3.70

Treck: 4.66

Oujay: 4.80

Fir: 5.08

Lot: 5.40

Gonzales: 5.45

Sue: 5.64

Ellen: 5.73

Lugh: 5.98

Bartre: 6.00

Noah: 6.13

Chad: 6.42

Klein: 6.53

Astohl: 7.17

Saul: 7.18

Echidna: 7.27

Shin: 7.42

Zealot: 7.56

Clarine: 7.78

Tate: 7.89

Dieck: 7.94

Thany: 8.01

Alan: 8.52

Lance: 8.59

Marcus: 8.77

Lalam: 8.78

Elphin: 9.00

Rutger: 9.61

have ats, and actually turn out this time the echidna day was embarrassing

[MacLovin]

Ray.

Well, lesseee.

-Guiding ring compt., but he's not bad.

-Fatal flaw of getting wieghed down by several dark tomes.

-However, he is a bit bulky and can nosferutank!

Ima going to give him a 4.5/10

[Biabarr]

5/10

Of the dark magic users in this game he has to be my favorite, considering one comes at level 1 ready to die while the other also dies if any physical attacks hit her (so she is essentially restricted to healing in my games). Ray's main problems are mobility and the fact that tomes are way too heavy for him. But if you want a dark magic user, I feel as if he is your best choice.

[Colonel M]

Niime can definitely survive an attack after an Angelic Robe or two. That, and Nosferatu on her rocks. But staves are the name of the game.

Ray just doesn't seem to cut it. Maybe if he came with HM bonuses he could be good... But he's too bloody average and his base Spd of 10 is pathetic. E Staves also sucks.

3/10.

[Sasori]

6.5/10

Ray is the most durable druid in the game.....not a big acomplishment since Sofiya is fail and Niime is a bit on the frail side. Offensively he's not that good thanks to the fact that he get weighed down by a lot of tomes and his speed is only decent. Still his magic is high and dark tomes are powerfull, so he can deal some heavy damage.

Nosferatou tanking is good, but not always that reliable.

All in all he's the second best choice for a druid. Niime has that amazing staff rank and dont have to be trained, but there are far worse options then using Ray.

Edit: forgot to mention I gave him one bias point since he was speed blessed in my previous playtrough.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Sasori

[ZemZem]

6.5/10

Ray is the most durable druid in the game.....not a big acomplishment since Sofiya is fail and Niime is a bit on the frail side. Offensively he's not that good thanks to the fact that he get weighed down by a lot of tomes and his speed is only decent. Still his magic is high and dark tomes are powerfull, so he can deal some heavy damage.

Nosferatou tanking is good, but not always that reliable.

All in all he's the second best choice for a druid. Niime has that amazing staff rank and dont have to be trained, but there are far worse options then using Ray.

What I was thinking, only my score is a 5.5/10.

[Elieson]

Expected slow Shaman/Druid, who is ready for insta promo(not a bad thing), but faces competition fron Niimi mainly.

He can take a hit or 2 at least.

4

His mugshot makes him look diabolical.

[Renall]

A merely okay character, which says a lot for Dark Magic users in the series as that tends to be their MO. He needs to be promoted and his staff ranking will leave something to be desired. His SPD needs work, but at least he has an existent growth in it. Still, he's not bad... just not all that good either.

5/10

[Thor Odinson]

Maybe if he came with HM bonuses he could be good...

Somebody turned on Ray's HM bonuses once. It was something fairly ridiculous. He would be pretty damn good, then.

Anyway, Ray isn't too bad per se, he's certainly usable. He doesn't double for a pretty long time, though, thanks to his low base, but at least dark magic doesn't suck as badly as in the other GBA games weight-wise. Still, at base, Flux weighs him down by 1 and Nosferatu by 2. This isn't a big deal if he had an actual speed stat, except he has 10 speed and now he has 9/8 AS. He can hit a thing for a good amount of damage, but he just really doesn't stand out at all. He's also in competition for a Guiding Ring, which is even more contested than that Hero Crest. E Staves is pretty meh, as well. Overall a meh unit. 3.5/10.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[Ansem]

What are his HM stats anyways?

[Thor Odinson]

His HM stats as is is the same as his NM's. With the bonuses, IDK as Rey I can't operate Nightmare on this computer

[DarthMikey]

I genuinely like Ray, if only because of his evil smile. He's your only Dark magic user for 7 chapters for Ilia and 8 chapters for Sacae (Sophia may as well not exist), and he fills that role fine, whether Niime is better or not.

He hits RES, and a MAG base of 12 and 45% growth does that effectively enough. His SKL has a slow start but gets going fine with a growth of 55%. But a notable problem for him is SPD. He already loses 1 AS to Flux and 2 AS to Nosferatu; not big deals, but a loss is a loss; and his base is 9, and his growth is 40%. Sometimes he gets blessed and doubles most everything, but most of the time this equates to below-average AS that can get you praying for a crit when he just barely doesn't have enough power to OHKO a fast enemy. To be fair, this isn't as big an issue as it would be with the other two magic types, since Dark magic are the axes of the magic triangle, except Ray has enough SKL that he can use them with a nice level of accuracy.

Another thing of note, however, are his defenses. He has a 55% growth in HP; it's not good for your HP growth to be even with your SKL growth. His bases in LCK and DEF are 6 and 5 respectively, and he has a 15% growth in both. This does not get you places. Of course in RES he has 10 base/35% growth, but what do you expect? He's a magic user. I know he's almost always behind the front lines and so isn't in much danger of a physical hit, but if he ever gets ninja'd by a Javelin or Steel Bow with a good hit rate, don't expect him to live.

While he takes up a Ring, he comes at LV12 and can promote immediately if Lugh/Clarine haven't stolen your first one yet, giving him some better base stats to work with. In particular, he has a promo gain of +4 in MAG, which offers what is essentially a base of 16. Talk about giving physical enemies a headache. He has his pros and cons, but overall he's fairly solid.

6/10 + 1 bias point = 7/10

Edited April 8, 2012 by Cosmic_Harold

[BBM]

I think the reason Echidna got so few votes is because you couldn't even see that the thread was about rating Echidna until you went onto the Sword of Seals forum. On all the other threads, Rate the Unit, Day X: Y was visible in the snippet of the title that you could see from the main forum.

Anyways, Ray. He's the best user of Dark Magic in the game. Unfortunately, he isn't the best Dark Magic user, because Niime's staff contributions > whatever Ray does with Dark Magic. Dark Magic isn't as heavy in this game as it is in some others, but all the mages also have lower con. So his Speed isn't great to begin with, and the loss in AS means, IIRC, he gets ORKOed in his starting chapter by the Merc reinforcements, and his cruddy durability means he can even get OHKOed by some of the Fighters. Now, he doesn't ever need to get attacked by these guys, but it's just shitty when you are a combat unit who can get ORKOed on your starting chapter by unpromoted enemies.

Seriously, I've never understood why they didn't give him HM bonuses. 2.5/10 + 1 bias because he did get super blessed this one time I tried him out on NM. He capped MAG, SKL, and SPD.

[dondon151]

another shitty mage 2/10

[Elieson]

I think the reason Echidna got so few votes is because you couldn't even see that the thread was about rating Echidna until you went onto the Sword of Seals forum. On all the other threads, Rate the Unit, Day X: Y was visible in the snippet of the title that you could see from the main forum.

This, Integ. This.

[bottlegnomes]

Somebody turned on Ray's HM bonuses once. It was something fairly ridiculous. He would be pretty damn good, then.

Assuming he gets the same 9 level bonus as Cath in that chapter, his stats would be HP 27.5 Mag 16.5 Skill 11.88 Spd 11.7 Luck 7.8 Def 5.9 Res 13.33

Now I haven't actually gotten this far in FE6 HM, but I wouldn't really call those stats ridiculous. They'd be nice, and make him better, but I don't think they'd make him anything amazing. Then again, that's for people who know what they're talking about to decide. Now Hugh

Anyway, as said, I haven't gotten that far in the game in HM, so I can't say how useful he his.

[Thor Odinson]

Hugh was insane. I don't remember much though, I could've gotten them mixed up for all I cares since I saw both screens at the same time, but that was a while ago.

[Raven]

Meh, I tried using him, but he isn't really able to fend for himself unless you waste a promotion item on him, and even then he isn't that great.

35%.

[Titamon]

2/10

Bad Speed, questionable accuracy, and Nosfera-tanking isn't very reliable. He has a nice support with Lugh but it's really not enough to make you field him. Besides, Lugh is pretty 'meh' himself

[Duff Ostrich]

Suddenly Easter happens and I forget my obligation to give a low score to a video game character!

Ray can autopromote, but E staves and not-quite-as-bad stats don't really justify it. He's cool, just like every other Dark Mage in the series not named Sophia, but he's really unambiguously bad.

2.5

[Integrity]

and ray beats echidna for low voter turnout

NICE ONE, RAY

Tallying.

[Elieson]

Hey, tally draug

[Anouleth]

Ray just doesn't seem to cut it. Maybe if he came with HM bonuses he could be good... But he's too bloody average and his base Spd of 10 is pathetic. E Staves also sucks.

Ray's base speed is 9, and he's slowed down by his weapon so it's really 8.

[Colonel M]

Ray's base speed is 9, and he's slowed down by his weapon so it's really 8.

Oh geez, and I was going off memory. That's even worse. >_<