Wyler (Shackled Power)
I usually don’t like trainees. More often than not, they are a liability to train and the payoff is just an above average combat unit, and by the time they pop off, I already have so many other strong trained units that the trainee isn’t remarkable. Shackled Power’s trainee Wyler is no different in many ways from the classic flunky trainee that just isn’t worth it, yet despite this he ended up being one of my favorite units in the game and I was very glad I took the effort to train him. So what makes him special? When I recruited him in ch9, glance he looks like a guy with bad bases and good but not good enough growths. He actually used to be worse than this; when I started my run he had only 2 base luck. Thankfully this was buffed to 8 making him more reliable early.
A fair point of comparison is Hute, an armor knight who joined back in the very first chapter. Hute’s bases and growths look quite similar to Wyler’s and his worse (but not terrible) skill and luck are easily fixable with cheap buyable secret books and goddess icons. So why would I use Wyler when I’ve got Hute and plenty of other solid trained units?
Turns out I used him because he “looks funny.” Now something important for Wyler is his join time. You recruit him partway through chapter 9, which is a long fog map notorious for having the hardest boss in the game. The boss is a paladin on a throne with high stats all around, equipped with a spear and brave sword, and to top it off he’s immune to effective damage. He actually has a battle conversation with Wyler, though Wyler has no business fighting him without rigging a kill.
Anyway it’s a massive pain to kill him reliably and it’s likely a several turn ordeal. This also means you have plenty of time to farm experience on Wyler! Unfortunately his combat here is quite bad; he dies in two hits, gets doubled when using anything heavier than an iron, and has iffy hitrates even with the slim lance he joins with. However, there is a silver lining: this generic lieutenant (bow/bomb promoted class), who I believe is the first promoted generic enemy in the game.
Obviously if this guy attacks Wyler he’s just gonna kill him. However, since he doesn’t have a melee weapon, it’s very easy to set up chip and kill exp for Wyler, which can give him over an entire levelup alone. Aside from this guy, there are a few generics that Wyler can safely attack without risking death like the sword cavaliers and guerillas (unpromoted lieutenants), so between all of these I got him to level 5 by the end of this map. By this point he still sucks and is still a total liability, but he at least isn’t risking getting doubled as much and has slightly better accuracy. But fortunately for Wyler, the next chapter is a defend map that cannot be ended early. This means it’s a perfect opportunity to train him, and Nello, the new paladin you get on this map, is pretty good at setting up kills for him. After this, the next few maps aren’t particularly great for him, but he at least grew out of being a liability and into a real contributor a lot faster than I expected him to. I promoted him at level 20 (he is a trainee after all), which he reached in chapter 16.
Now this is a real unit. Gone is the flunky who needed to be fed kills, replaced with a killing machine. Of course, I have several other similarly powerful combat units at this point, so what is it that makes him more than just another infantry combat unit? His class, halberdier, is one of three promoted mono-weapon classes that have +25 crit, the others being swordmaster and berserker. On top of this, he supports Prosel and Nello, the lord and the arguable best unit in the game respectively. An A+B support with these two results in a nice +12 crit. Late game Shackled Power enemies have enough bulk that it is often difficult for even your strongest units to defeat them in one round without effective weapons or critical hits. Also enemies in this game tend to have very low luck making crits more reliable than usual. Anyone can fish for crits with a killer weapon and/or supports and you even have access to a killer light tome for 1-2 ranged crits, but Wyler has a unique combination of properties that make him shine: high offense stats, 1-2 range, high crit rate, and bulk. While there are good units in the other two +25 crit classes, none of them can replicate both his bulk and crit rate. Unlike what you’d expect from a trainee soldier with good growths, by lategame an invested Wyler is by far the best unit in the game at 1-2 range enemy phase combat due to being able to reliably survive and crit often. Armed with the humble javelin, he can mow down hordes of both melee and ranged enemies on enemy phase without risking death.
In case you’re thinking “wow this unit seems crazy,” he is still far from infallible. He is ultimately a lancelocked infantry unit which means his movement is poor, his weapon options are limited, and he is vulnerable to effective damage from the lanceslayer sword. Furthermore, despite all these green numbers, his resistance stat is notably terrible and his speed cap is low enough that he will not be able to double several enemy types by endgame, especially if his weapon weighs him down. In the end, he excels at his role, but he will never do anything outside of it. He won’t obsolete anyone else because all he wants to do is throw javelins and occasionally kill something with an effective weapon or killer lance on player phase. Players who leave his level 2 self on the bench will not miss him, and once they beat the game, they won’t think “man I really wish I used Wyler,” but for those who put in the time and effort to train him, he’s a very rewarding unit to use.
