Board 8 > Rating Every Fire Emblem Character: Day 7 - Ayra, Sue, Ross, Henry, Xander

(+) Yeah! (+)

Everything subject to change for now.

Stuff:
- Ratings 1-10, no decimals. If you include a decimal, I will round down.
- We will do two ratings for each character character (CH) & unit (UN). They will be separate lists and you do not have to rate for both lists. Character rating is for design, personality, aesthetics, story, etc. and unit rating for everything gameplay related. If you only submit one rating and dont specify which, it will default to the character rating.
- You are free to rate any characters from past days or change your rating.
- Nominations for future characters are accepted. This does not guarantee your noms will be up for rating the next day but they will be moved up the queue for sooner rather than later.
- You obviously do not have to rate everything, just the ones you want.
- No regular schedule (e.g. Day 2 will not necessarily come ~24 hours after Day 1)

Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lne8OQTQ7CwA5UXfzbD-Gsl34JuhamCU9oUgW85JC9w

Past Days:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xdaRcNoKXPEjPNuA8-lRIZtVEQXI-qOJyqO3HZgdC6A

CH:
1. Soren 8.583
2. Hector 8.333
3. Joshua 8.308
4. Nino 7.727
5. Sigurd 7.700
6. Marth 7.444
7. Innes 7.222
8. Lyn 7.125
9. Takumi 7.000
10. Leon 7.000
11. Hilda 6.900
12. Mercedes 6.833
13. Nanna 6.800
14. Caeda 6.778
15. Leif (5) 6.750
16. Florina 6.375
17. Micaiah 6.286
18. Lugh 6.125
19. Eliwood 6.067
20. Robin (F) 6.000
21. Cordelia 5.929
22. Panne 5.900
23. Roy 5.846
24. Astrid 5.500
25. Robin (M) 5.556
26. Marcus 5.273
27. Ricken 4.400
28. Peri 3.000

UN:
1. Sigurd 10.000
2. Robin 9.889
3. Caeda 9.222
4. Marcus 9.000
5. Florina 8.500
6. Hector 8.235
7. Cordelia 7.917
8. Hilda 7.800
9. Nanna 7.750
10. Leon 7.600
11. Soren 7.545
12. Mercedes 7.167
13. Leif (5) 7.000
14. Joshua 7.000
15. Takumi 7.000
16. Panne 6.700
17. Astrid 6.625
18. Lugh 6.375
19. Lyn 5.722
20. Micaiah 5.667
21. Marth 5.400
22. Eliwood 5.294
23. Innes 5.222
24. Peri 4.778
25. Ricken 4.300
26. Roy 3.833
27. Nino 3.455

Day 7: Ayra, Sue, Ross, Henry, Xander

Ayra (4)

Myrmidon -> Swordmaster
Stats / Growths:
Lv: 4
HP: 32 / 70
STR/MAG: 11/0 | 30/5
SKL: 16 / 60
SPD: 17 / 30
LCK: 3 / 20
DEF: 7 / 20
RES: 1 / 5
MOV: 6

Sue (6)

Nomad -> Nomadic Trooper
Stats / Growths:
Lv: 1
HP: 18 / 55
STR: 5 / 30
SKL: 7 / 55
SPD: 8 / 65
LCK: 4 / 50
DEF: 5 / 10
RES: 0 / 15
CON: 5
AID: 15
MOV: 7

Ross (8)

Journeyman -> Fighter/Pirate -> Hero/Warrior/Berserker
Stats / Growths:
Lv: 1
HP: 15 / 70
STR: 5 / 50
SKL: 2 / 35
SPD: 3 / 30
LCK: 8 / 40
DEF: 3 / 25
RES: 0 / 20
CON: 8
AID: 7
MOV: 4

Henry (Awakening)

Dark Mage -> Sorcerer/Dark Knight, etc.
Stats / Growths:
Lv: 12
HP: 28 / 95
STR/MAG: 6/13 | 40/50
SKL: 14 / 60
SPD: 8 / 55
LCK: 10 / 40
DEF: 12 / 50
RES: 5 / 30
MOV: 5

Xander (Fates)

Paladin
Stats / Growths:
Lv: 4
HP: 38 / 55
STR/MAG: 23/4 | 65/5
SKL: 18 / 50
SPD: 15 / 45
LCK: 20 / 75
DEF: 23+4 / 50
RES: 11 / 25
MOV: 8

Form:
Ayra CH
Sue CH
Ross CH
Henry CH
Xander CH

Ayra UN
Sue UN
Ross UN
Henry UN
Xander UN

Ayra CH 8
Sue CH 6
Ross CH 6
Henry CH 6
Xander CH 2

Ayra UN 6
Sue UN 4
Ross UN 7
Henry UN 7
Xander UN 9

Ayra's an interesting one. Her combat is utterly insane, with Astra, pursuit, and adept. However, she's in a game with huge maps and she doesn't have a mount, so she'll always be lagging behind. So even though she's a great combat unit, the most you'll get out of it is one of the few gen 1 units who can consistently clear the arena. Ayra and her daughter are the only female myrms who actually live up to the hype, and even then they're not that great because of the game they're in.

Sue joins underleveled with bad bases, and she's bowlocked until promotion. Shin pretty much eclipses her, especially on hard mode. And you don't want to use them both because then you go to Sacae, and Sacae sucks.

Ross is the one trainee who is actually usable without massive grinding due to his early join. Even so, he doesn't turn out that much better than the rest of your units, due to his low growths. Garm can fix his low speed, and his strength will usually be great. It's just a matter if he's worth the investment over some of your other units.

Henry is basically a slower, tankier Tharja. That's not really the worst thing when Nosferatu is so good in Awakening. His late join time hurts, but he can still contribute a bit.

Xander's great. Only reason he doesn't get a 10 is for his somewhat low availability. Having one of the few good 1-2 range options in Fates is great. His biggest problem is his lowish speed, but you can somewhat fix that with pairups.

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I don't see any reason to split character ratings for different games, and that goes for 9/10 but also 1/3/11/12 and 6/7. I know that personally I'll just rate them the same in pretty much every instance.

Ayra CH 8
Sue CH 6
Ross CH 6
Henry CH 6
Xander CH 2

Ayra UN 7
Sue UN 5
Ross UN 3
Henry UN 6
Xander UN 9

Ayra's just plain cool. She's a fierce warrior in a way that FE rarely lets women be, and ends up one of the most memorable FE4 characters because of it. She's pretty damn tough in gameplay too. Unfortunately she is sword infantry in Horse Emblem, and it's a big problem but really her only one. Once she actually reaches an enemy she just turns them into ribbons.

Sue is fairly plain but inoffensive, I'm okay with her. Being bow-locked isn't great but if you're going to be, nomad is a great class to have for it. I think I'd rather use Shin though.

I like Ross but he's a straight up garbo unit, probably slightly more usable than Amelia and Ewan just because he joins early. But really, if you use him it's for the sheer joy of it, not because he's actually good. Character-wise he's fine, I don't like him as much as the other kids in FE8 though. He has a good dynamic with his dad and unlike almost every other case in FE it doesn't end in tragedy.

Henry is definitely an Awakening character, and his requisite gimmick is dark humor, mostly in the form of shitty puns. It's hard to hate, but it definitely feels out of place. As a unit he's fine, I think I'd use him over most other mages in Awakening.

Xander is hot trash and probably the most inconsistently written character in the whole series. Not only is he completely different in each of the Fates games, he's even inconsistent within each game, depending on if you're reading the main story or the supports. Hard to argue with him as a unit though. He's not as dominant as Ryoma and arguably Camilla is better too, but he definitely stands out as an absurdly powerful prepromo nonetheless.

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Ayra CH 8
Sue CH 6
Ross CH 7
Henry CH 10
Xander CH 5

Ayra UN 6
Sue UN 7
Ross UN 6
Henry UN 6
Xander UN 9
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Ross defending time: compared to almost every other trainee in the series (besides Gaiden/Echoes villagers obviously), he's a significant step up. He joins early enough that the enemies are still weak enough to contribute, he starts with a 1-2 weapon light enough that he can actually use it, and most importantly he has a unique niche not invalidated by units you already have: his Pirate class's ability to waterwalk, which is useful in quite a few maps like 8 or 9-Eirika. He's not a good unit by any means, but he has a unique niche and isn't impossible to train, and he definitely shouldn't get below a 5.
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Ayra CH 6
Sue CH 5
Ross CH 5
Henry CH 7
Xander CH 4

Ayra is alright, Henry is fairly funny. Xander is a mostly good character who gets the occasional moment where he just kills your brain. Sue and Ross are unremarkable. I guess Sue has a somewhat annoying way of speaking but unless you support grind you'll never even see it so who cares...?

Ayra UN 3
Sue UN 4
Ross UN 3
Henry UN 6
Xander UN 9

Ayra is overhyped to the extreme, foot lock in Genealogy is not just bad, it's disastrously bad (I will stand by there not being a single combat focused footlock unit in FE4 who deserves higher than a 5/10, and that might be generous), and even beyond that Ayra isn't actually special. She doesn't kill without Astra, which may not be too bad on paper (most units don't ORKO reliably and her odds are better than most) but when you only get to see a tiny amount of combat that lack of reliability is crippling...and she really sees so little combat because her durability is quite bad. Even when she gets places, you can't put her in range of very much, rarely even 2 enemies at a time unless they're the kind of scrubs most combat units can take 3+ of. She's not just a foot unit, she's a foot unit who is only mediocre when she does get to do stuff.

Sue is almost decent thanks to the multiple horse-favouring maps following her join time, the fact that chapter 8 and 8x are good training grounds for a unit like her without slowing you down and she's needed in chapter 9 anyway. Her bases are too bad for her to be a good unit though despite her horse, and it sucks that you can't use her alongside Shin without risking the Sacae route. Speaking of bad bases, Ross is at least semi-functional (unlike Amelia and Ewan) to begin with and can do some fun water walk stuff in chapter 7, but outside that he's just a worse or higher investment (depending on whether it's early or late) version of everyone else (it takes a distressingly long time for him to actually catch up to his not-very-fast father in speed too). Henry is an Awakening character and dark mage has nice skills so he can get a solid ranking but he's not one of the handful of people that matter. Xander on the other hand is a monster whose availability is basically his only serious problem.

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Ayra CH 6
Sue CH 6
Ross CH 8
Henry CH 5
Xander CH 3

Ayra UN 5
Sue UN 7
Ross UN 6
Henry UN 7
Xander UN 8

It really is true that not having a horse automatically makes a unit kind of crappy in FE4. Arya does have strong combat, but I would often leave her in the base anyway because there was no point in moving her every turn when every enemy would be dead by the time she reached them. What value their is to her character comes more from having interesting events around her than being compelling on her own.

Sue has high movement, the ability to help with trade and rescue chains via canto, and a good speed stat. Bow-users are a little better than usual in FE6 because the higher enemy stats favor focusing on strong enemies with multiple units rather than mowing everything down with javelins on enemy phase like you do in FE7 and 8. Effective damage from weapons like silver and brave bows are also helpful in the late game when enemy wyvern riders are plentiful.

Ross' hatchet and early join time help him get off the ground, and his promotion to pirate gives him a unique niche that means he's even used on highly optimized LTC runs. The endgame stats of FE8 trainees definitely aren't impressive enough to justify training them up from their wimpy start point, and apart from his access to Berserker he's effectively an inferior Garcia for this reason. I've always found him likable as a character, though.

Starting out as a Dark Mage is good news for Henry since it lets him exploit things like Vengeance and Nosferatu right away. Like everyone else in Awakening, his overall stat spread is quite good. Joining later than most first generation units is a slight downside though. He's no exception to the gimmick-centered characterization of Awakening but his gimmick is alright at least.

Xander is much less dominant than a character like Sigurd, Caineghis, or even Ryoma. On lunatic, there are bright bow adventures on his join map that can reliably KO him in one round. Still, he should consistently be one of the player's best combat units and having a strong 1-2 range personal weapon is a big plus in a game where Javelins inherently slow you down by 5 and can't double. He's definitely let down by Fates' abysmal writing.

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Kenri posted...

I know that personally I'll just rate them the same in pretty much every instance.

i was thinking that this might be the case for a handful of people. we'll probably go opt-in for multiple with single ratings being default

Sue CH 7
Ross CH 6
Henry CH 7
Xander CH 4

Sue UN 7
Ross UN 7
Henry UN 5
Xander UN 9

Surprised Ross is getting such low ratings. It's not that hard to train him up because he comes with a hatchet and then he becomes a berserker and blows up everything. :shrug: Sue on the other hand can certainly be hard to use but I love the nomad animations so I'm biased.

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Hatchet isn't Ross exclusive and +25 hit at 2 range on a guy with actual stats is not something to take lightly. It's not about whether it's easy or hard to train someone so much as whether it's even worth it in the first place. Training bad units is rarely hard - you just turtle and feed them everything. Simple and boring. Everyone can be given that kind of special treatment to look good.

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Henry makes me laugh

Henry CH - 6

The only other person who can use the hatchet before chapter 10 is Garcia (or one of the cavs if you make them a Great Knight, but why would you do that?), and he has weapon triangle over most of the enemies before then, plus a solid skill base and high con, so he's better off with hand axes. Likewise, most of the earlygame enemies being either lance users or monsters (or both) means that it isn't that hard to get Ross off the ground, especially with his increased experience gain.

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Ross CH 4
Ross UN 7

Wow ouch at most votes here. Henry/Xander exposure is a little low for me to go into what they're like in personality, and Ayra's just a no for me to talk about. Then Sue is just someone I actually haven't really ever used due to wishes to go through Ilia my first time going through FE6 and I've yet to go that far into FE6.

So all I can talk about is Ross. And, his personality after a few times through is just a kid who wants to fight and respects his dad. Nothing that special. His unit is pretty good, being the only playable character that can access the Pirate unit he occupies his own niche like Hb was mentioning. He'll be that class before you get Dozla and typically will out scale that Berserker. Hero/Warrior there are better and his Journeyman 3 is just not worth losing what you can get out of the Pirate line.

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is it wrong for me to give Xander points for his Heroes Summer variant?

whatever

Xander CH - 8
Xander UN - 9