Just to be clear, I can accept the charm from Mercer in chapter 9 and still decline him in chapter 15 to potentially recruit him?
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Thatâs right, as long as your are on Maddening difficulty. You will have a special scene with Mercer after declining the item, and he shows up again after Ch18. He will cost 3000 gold (I think) to recruit. His equipment might be worth more than that, so good deal even if he hits the bench.
Roxie is one of the best candidates for the early Robe (assuming you plan to use her), and she can be a really amazing unit like you said. Her and Joseph are pretty much the only options for mid game mages and availability is very valuable. Even though Roxie is great, Liang is basically a swiss army knife of a unit, and getting him earlier is good too. Hard decision.
Odd. Thatâs unfortunate. Not sure why that would have happened. El-tomes also donât offer 2 weapon exp. Joseph might not be a great unit in a no shops run. There just really arenât too many wind tomes to pick up from enemies or chests. Heâd pretty much have to rely on dark tomes.
It actually worked out quite well, with some opportunity cost. I used one hammerne charge on Elwind, that brought Joseph to A rank and Tornado. Then I used one more charge on Tornado and that brought him to S rank and Excalibur. And that really was the best use of those hammerne charges in the midgame, because Joseph was a really valuable mage and turned out great. I first thought of making him a Dark Griffon to have more weapons available to him and flying would be really good too. But then I would have had to choose between wind or dark S rank and miss out on staves. Though in hindsight staff E rank wasnât all that useful or needed and Dark Griffon wouldâve been the better option.
Especially because my Sterling turned out pretty bad. I was unlucky with his growths, but his late availabilty made matters even worse. I gave him two Dracoshields to make him somewhat tanky and be able to expose him a lot and when his growths faltered I even gave him a valuable Speedwing despite his 60% growth. I really had to baby him for quite some time, but eventually he became decent. And I learned on this run not to depend solely on Flux, Ruin despite its very low hit worked very well for me. Unfortunately despite heavy combat exposure Sterling fell a tiny bit short on reaching dark S rank, but thatâs okay. He certainly wasnât no Roxie though.
But overall I had an easier time than my first run. On the one hand because of game knowledge and on the other because now I experienced for the first time the male power units. Boone, Myles and Silvan were insanely strong and put everyone else to shame. Joseph and Atticus turned out pretty great, and the biggest surprise was Eamon, who I had to baby really hard but turned out as one of the best in the end.
My top five male kills:
5. Joseph 74
4. Eamon 96
3. Silvan 138
2. Myles 148
- Boone 178
Now I have started my maddening run and I am pleasantly suprised by the small changes in item drops/locations and some added enemies or weaponry, instead of just stat buffing the enemies. Feels fresh and so far very manageable.
Shining Bow doesnât give weapon exp, is that a bug or intended?
I would say Roxie typically a stronger unit than Sterling from my experience assuming she rejoins at her earlier time. Though, Sterling has some things going for him. His speed is one thing, but it sounds like he got unlucky on rng level ups. I think Sterling promotion options are overall better than Roxieâs too.
Yes. Silvan, Boone, Joseph, and Myles are really great units. I hear about those four a lot. @Tycho, you are probably the first person I have heard to lump Eamon in with the male power units. Typically I find and hear that Wise is strictly better than Eamon in almost every way, and he even joins a little earlier.
I designed Eamon to not have great bases, but he can have a good payout if you use him. His endgame can be very impressive too as you mentioned. Heâs kind of like a mid-game Est archetype character, and honestly, Eamon is a lot of fun to use.
Nice for having Atticus as an honorable mention male powerhouse. Atticus is so much more than just a thief, and he has really great combat potential.
Yeah, that would be a minor bug. I will update this when I next release an update with more supports. Thanks for pointing this out.
Yes, usually Wise should be strictly better than Eamon. And for most of the game he was better, I just gave Eamon a lot of favoritism and careful training because I wanted to try to use him and he fit in my support chain. And then Wise got rng screwed and I guess Eamon got blessed or his good growths just finally got noticeable. The significant differences in the end were, Eamon had 8 more skill and 5 more speed than Wise, plus Halberdier crit bonus. In the end Eamon earned the privilege of wielding Dorado instead of Wise.
I got to chapter 17x today. I really liked the option of recruiting alternate or new characters, potentially tough decisions. Iâm pretty certain thereâs no way to save everyone, right? I rescued the new unit Danika and Caspian, I properly trained him this run, thereâs no way Iâm giving up on him. The chapter felt like a noticeable jump in difficulty, but well designed. Those reinforcement shamans with Dolldrums were evil though!
Reporting one bug: I had recruited and deployed Tanya and when Wanda got squashed Tanya disappeared. She was still on the unit list and my turns didnât autoend, but she was nowhere on the map, disappeared together with Wanda. Luckily, on the next chapter Tanya reappeared, with all her equipment. Noticeably, I also deployed Shilo and he didnât disappear when Riley got squashed. Maybe it was because Tanya had a text box regarding Wandaâs death? It wasnât gamebreaking but certainly inconvenient.
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I think you are the second person I have heard that has encountered Ch17x, so I havenât heard too much about that one. Correct, there is no way to save everyone. Not every chapter gets a happy ending, and I did enjoy Tynanâs addition and his ties to Astoria. More of his backstory is explained in Shiloh x Robâs support actually.
Those Doldrum shamans are annoying! They only spawn when you enter the area around the boss, but you canât ignore them. Itâs a Gaiden, totally optional map, so I needed to be a little evil for those that want that challenge.
Weird! I took a look at the event, and what you describe sound impossible based on the logic. Though, nothing is impossible with Rom Hacking weirdness. I am assuming the text box you experienced read: âA lady should never have to leave the world in such a barbaric manor.â
The same logic is used for the Riley/Shiloh logic too, so strange that one works and one doesnât. I will try some play testing around this case. I have another trick that should prevent this from ever happening, but I want to reproduce on my end first.
I much appreciate you bringing this to my attention though. 17x is one crazy complicated chapter from an event perspective as it accounts for all decisions made in the game and 12 different versions of that chapter can be encountered - same map, just different dialogue.
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I just fixed the issue that you encountered on Ch17x and have an immediate patch for it: FE_LonelyMirror_FullGame_v2_07. Shining Bow is also giving weapon exp too.
I actually was able to reproduce with Riley/Shiloh too as long as Shiloh is in the cell and Riley was on the map. Still, such a strange bug that one.
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Good choice, that makes me happy.
What did you think about the boss on that map?
@caladrius I just wanted to confirm that the patch worked for me, 17x ended properly this time around.
@caladrius
Thank you for the quick hotfix and for implementing such a technically complex chapter! Your game already had very varied and interesting chapter objectives and 17x certainly upheld this innovative theme.
@PixelHenkie
Character wise I didnât have a strong opinion on Tynan, he simply didnât have enough developement for me to care much. He worked as a purely evil and sadistic character but unlike Astoria or Devante he didnât seem to have any redeeming qualities and his motivations also were hazy to me. I liked his scene with Astoria though.
Gameplay wise I liked him and this chapter a lot and I struggled quite a bit, his siege tome was scary. This chapter already has pretty strong enemies and, as usual with this game, lots of reinforcements. I was still cleaning up some reinforcements and my healers could barely keep up and many of my units were damaged, when I triggered the Doldrums Shaman reinforcements. I had to take them out fast but many of my damaged units couldnât take a siege tome hit. And Noelle was oneshot even at full hp! I was heavily using Liang on this playthrough and he was a great mage killer on this chapter, but when it came to the boss I had to realize that he did next to no damage even with a Killer Bow and even with his siege tome equipped Tynan was quite dodgy. In the end I had to hope for a Killer Lance crit or hope Tynan would miss next turn and I got the crit.
In hindsight a slower approach wouldâve been much safer, waiting out the reinforcements and possibly even safely depleting his siege tome before engaging. But then again, his siege tome weighs him down and he canât counter, so thatâs a real advantage. Training and deploying a strong light magic user probably also would help. Interestingly, I noticed the secret shop in this chapter is selling Aura, that would be fun to use against the boss, though highly unlikely to have someone with light A at this point. I may try this next run 
I also encountered chapter 18x this run. Fog chapters are always scary the first time through, but ultimately I didnât have too much difficulty with this chapter. I had bought a Wing Spear early in the 17x secret shop and early promoted Kurtis and that helped a lot here. I also really liked that Danika had story integration in this chapter and got an item for it. Let me just appreciate for a moment how obscurely hidden this specific content is: first you have to fulfill the requirements for 17x (which means maddening only, right?), then you have to choose Danika over the other units, you have to find Mercer again (which to me was the hard part) and you have to actually decline his offer (which to me is the unintuitive part) and then you also have to actually deploy Danika, though she strongly hints at being relevant to the chapter. Wow! I really like such obscure content which probably not many players will see. Though locking it behind maddening I find a bit restrictive. Also, a second Boots as a reward, nice!
Is there a secret shop in 18x?
As for the two new units, Iâm currently close to the end of my maddening run:
Danika: I really tried to use her, gave her supports, even gave her a Dracoshield (which I regret). Her Def and Res are really bad, which may be acceptable on a bow user, but on my run she also totally failed speed and eventually I had to bench her because she was mostly a liability. Strength was actually her highest stat. I want to try her again in a future run, see if I can make her work. Does she have low speed growth or was I just unlucky?
Mercer: He started kind of weak, which is fitting due his inexperience as a merceâary . But his personal weapon is godly and made training him a breeze. I turned him into a swordmaster with full crit supports, itâs awesome. His speed is kinda mediocre, especially for a swordmaster, but that doesnât matter much when he crits everything to death in one hit. Sometimes with very strong enemies he actually gets doubled, but he gets 5 Def from his supports, I like to give him the Sun Charm, he got one Dracoshield with 17 Def now, yeah heâs good. Oh, I also used Hammerne on his 50 use Merciless sword, so worth it! Obviously Myles is still the better swordmaster, but Mercer is more fun.
@caladrius
Would you mind releasing Danikaâs and Mercerâs growths?
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Hey! I just wanted to say that Iâve been quite enjoying your hack. Iâve played up to chapter 15, and for the most part, itâs been a blast.
I have, however, ran into a bug. Winifred apparently joins in chapter 15 without any other requirements listed in the PDF. However, while the dialogue reflects this, she just⌠isnât there. Sheâs nowhere to be seen as a unit. I believe the reason might be that Caspian is dead in my run. Perhaps the alternate event is bugged and doesnât make Winifred rejoin. Either way, if you could please look into it, Iâd appreciate it.
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Hi @SaintRubenio. Sorry, that you encountered this particular issue, but I must thank you for bringing it to my attention. That scene was a little rough, and I saw opportunity to fix the problem and make the dialog a lot better. I have created a patch has fixed the problem: FE_LonelyMirror_FullGame_v2_08. It is available now.
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Great to hear about your experience, @Tycho.
Yup, you summarized the condition for triggering Danikaâs scene with Elder Marge nicely. The extra Forest Bow is nice too. There are a lot of strange conditions like this that I did in the game. Some presumably missed scenes include visiting Liangâs mother with Liang in Ch21, visiting the Inn with Silvan in Ch21, and special dialog when Astoria attacks Shiloh.
Excellent to hear that you were able to secure the boots on 18x. I thought saving all the villagers was going to be a tricky mission; though there are a couple of mostly safe spots you can drop the villagers if your fliers have a free turn.
There is no secret shop in 18x, but if you think about it, the base shop in 18x is pretty great. It is really the only other place in the game to acquire more hatchets, so buying one or two is always nice.
I have updated the Recruitment Guide and Growth Rate guide to include the information about Danika and Mercer.
@Tycho, this is the first experience I am hearing about Danika and Mercer as units. I think your assessments are pretty accurate.
- Danikaâs levels should be focused on offensive stats, so it makes sense for her to have high power. You may have been unlucky with her speed. Her speed growth is only 40% though, so it can be very inconsistent. She is not slow, but not fast.
- Yes, Mercer has a really great personal weapon, and he can snowball into an amazing unit if you give him the chance thanks to stellar growths. His bases are pretty good for his level too, but he does have a bit of an awkward join time and may require feeding him kills. It doesnât take too long to get him going, and his personal weapon will carry him to the end game.
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Well, Iâm glad I was patient and waited a bit. Thanks a lot for the fix! Itâs still a lilâ bit weird (Winifredâs name is green on the prepscreen, but she wasnât properly force-deployed, I had to manually bench someone and select her, and only then I couldnât de-select her), but maybe thatâs just because of the pre-existing save. And hey, at least now I can actually use her haha. I donât know if Iâll keep her in the team long-term, but now I can nab Wise without much hassle.
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My guess is that could be caused by having a pre-exiting save slot - especially if you saved the game from the preparation screen. You should be okay if you were able to manually add her. I hope it works.
Yes, having Winifred will allow you to recruit Wise on Ch15; though, he joins on the next map if you leave him be. It is game over if Wise falls in battle though.
I did save in the prepscreen, so it was probably that, yeah. I was still able to deploy her, though it did glitch the formation out a little bit, rendering me unable to move Wyatt. Still, nothing too problematic.
Oh, by the way, while Iâm here, Iâve been meaning to ask - did you change the gameâs RNG to 1 RN? I know it sounds like the typical person raging at the RNG, but I swear, Iâve played a bunch of GBAFE hacks, and I havenât ever missed hitrates in the 80s as consistently as in this one. Probably just my luck, but I wanted to make sure.
No, I didnât change anything with the RNG. My guess would be some bad luck there.
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Thank you for updating the guides! Oh wow, I think my Mercer got speed screwed and def blessed.
I finished my maddening run, the difficulty was just right, tough and excellently balanced. I made matters even more difficult by still doing a shopless run, with the exception of allowing one purchase from each secret shop. This was the first time I familiarized myself with all the secret shops and I found it delightful to find Dreamcatch and Hammerne in there 
I didnât buy any Dreamcatch (I needed weapons) but I may play around with that in a future run. The extra Hammerne I did buy and really needed it, by the end of chapter 30 most of my S rank weapons were nearly depleted.
I also used a team of mostly units I hadnât used much before and those were mostly lower tier units in my opinion, with special emphasis on making both armor knights work. Iâll give you a detailed analysis of my team in the next post.
I noticed three very small bugs, nothing that absolutely needs fixing:
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Florete doesnât give weapon exp, at least not at range, maybe not at all. Kinda like the Light Brand in vanilla I think. My Parvati burned through 90 uses of Floretes and still was only slightly at C rank, which felt a bit jarring.
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Leahâs kill count doesnât reset from the prologue, thus skewing her displayed kills in her favor.
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In the end credits when your chapter turn counts are displayed, chapter 20 is missing and thus the displayed turncount is wrong. I guess this might have to do with chapter 20 effectively being two chapters at once?
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Benji, Ranger, 33 kills:
He was useful in chapters 14 and 15 with all the wyverns. I early promoted him to Ranger so he could use swords, but in the midgame I had a serious shortage in bows and swords and soon I benched him for most of the game. His stats were pretty ok but the early promotion hurt him. And he didnât manage to get any supports, which made his low luck a real liability. Still, I find his growths intriguing and I want to use him again in my next run.
Irina, 34 kills:
By far the latest joiner on my team. When I looked at her stats I thought, âoh my god, how am I supposed to use her, she gets oneshot by almost everythingâ. Her durability is unsalvagable and with her low con she loses significant speed with every tome. But I invested a speedwing and secret book in her and as a purely player phase unit she actually pulled her weight. Unlike my last Sterling, she had no problems reaching S rank in good time and I was pleasantly reminded what a great tome Mnemosyne is. She also did great damage to Dracbolla without even facing a counter. And she capped skill.
Danika, Silver Knight, 35 kills:
She had good str, skl and luck for midgame, but she never exceeded 13 speed and has atrocious defensive parameters considering her bases and growths. I want to try her again though in my next run.
Shilo, Bishop, 38 kills:
This was my second time using him. I staff grinded him more excessively in early game this time, because last time he didnât even reach light C to use Seraphim. His biggest problem is his low speed, he was among my slowest units next to Danika and Brett. But I got him to C this time, Seraphim did good work, he was an important support buddy to Rob and his magic was exactly on par for some nice warp/rescue strats in chapter 30. In the end he got a crazy amount of levels by using 7 hammerne charges and he became quite tanky, though his speed was stuck at only 14.
Kurtis, Falcoknight, 40 kills:
I feel Kurtis has a really bad start due to his low strength base and growth. Without effective weapons he canât do much. Which is why I bought him an additional Wing Spear and early promoted him. His stats except for speed were pretty bad all game but the Wing Spear is just that good. I only brought him to monster chapters and he was very useful there.
Boone, 41 kills:
I have this weird thing that I donât like very strong main characters who turn out great everytime and carry the team, which I suspect is true for Boone. This is certainly not a critique, just a strange personal preferance. So I restricted Boone to only ever use his personal weapons and as a result he naturally turned out quite weak and didnât hog all the spotlights, with only 13/5 levels. He was still durable enough to not be a liability though.
Brett, Fire Sage, 51 kills:
Despite a lot of levels he left prologue with only 8 speed and when he rejoined he was terrible, I almost gave up on him. I had given him a body ring so he could more effectively use those heavier fire tomes, but that didnât even matter with his hopeless speed. At least he was more durable than Irina and in time he worked as a player phase unit or healer, but I was not happy with his performance. But apparently he pulled his weight with 51 kills.
Grant, General, 68 kills:
Ah, the other horribly slow unit from prologue. This run I had planned to heavily favor armor knights and make them work and it mostly did. Grant got to level 15 in prologue, he got a Dreamcatch, a Boots and two speedwings! When he rejoined he was still pretty bad but soon after when I promoted him he was at least decent and could do some jobs well. Later he put the Brave Lance to good use and especially among monsters there were a surprising amount of slow enemies he could naturally double with his 14/15 speed. His defense was of course good, but not as good as I wouldâve hoped with his 60% growth. In the end he got to 26 def, which still hurt when he got doubled. He was inferior to Rob in almost every regard (except skill) but at least I made him usable and somewhat useful.
Mercer, Swordmaster, 96 kills:
He was one of the last units to promote after chapter 25, I leveled him all the way to 20, but even unpromoted he was very usable with his nice sword. He was my only unit with sword S and he had full crit supports, with Tubalcain and some luck he could accomplish things no one else could. Like OHKO Devante in chapter 31, granted with only 50 hit and 50 crit, but he succeeded. Seeing his growths I think he got speed screwed with only 19, which was his only real flaw. But he capped str and got slightly def blessed and he was one point short of capping hp of all things. With Ward he could take a double attack from Devante if he had too.
Parvati, Trickster, 110 kills, 5th place:
This is the second time I used her and the second time she made top five. She was one of the first units to promote, this time to Trickster and she had great stats for midgame. I grinded her to sword C, which was a bit painful but didnât take long. Then I gave her a Florete (and later a second Florete) and she just cleaned house. Her highlight was chapter 21, where I put her in a forest right in the middle of town and in two turns she killed everything. She had such high evasion that even lances could barely touch her. Unfortunately her later levels were pretty bad and by lategame she could barely fight effectively with only 15 skill and she was relegated to healing and support duty. But her midgame performance earned her fifth place.
Rob, Great Knight, 137 kills, 4th place:
He was second place for the whole game until in the last chapter he got caught up in a three-way tie and came up fourth place. As an armor knight Rob got favoured with a Dreamcatch, a Secret Book for his abysmal skill growth and a Dracoshield so he could do his job better and boost his only 40% def growth. His early game was terrible and I had to carefully baby him but when he finally promoted he instantly became first selfsufficient and then actually great. Unlike Grant his def was impeccable, capping at 28 and using a 3 def support with Shilo. He wasnât afraid of even the toughest enemies and I really appreciated his defense more than I wouldâve thought. His other stats except for skill and res were also really good, he capped speed in the final chapter, was one point short of capping luck hilariously, his strength was good enough especially with Dorado and even his low skill was never an issue, I guess luck helped offset that. He got res screwed unfortunately despite 30% growth, but mage-killing wasnât his job anyway. He was much better than I wouldâve expected.
Tanya, Scholar, 138 kills, shared 2nd place:
She had a bit of a slow and frail start but quickly became one of my most powerful offensive units. Her magic and skill growths almost guarantee that she will cap those stats, which she did rather early. I find Scholar to be a great class, especially in a basic shopless run, otherwise I had no one else to use wind tomes. And having options and control over the magic triangle made her a very effective magekiller as well. She got a Boots to offset the Scholar move penalty. I bought her an early Thoron and later a second one and in lategame she got to use Excalibur and Rexbolt. And I discovered the awesomeness of the Ocean Rune which I had dismissed in earlier runs. Her only drawback was her low con which her passable speed couldnât quite offset, sometimes I had to specifically give her runes to not get doubled. But otherwise she was the most devastating offensive unit on my team.
Liang, Adventurer, 138 kills, shared 2nd place:
I kinda have a love/hate relationship with Liang. Granted, he is very versatile and can fulfill multiple roles but he doesnât really excell at any role, or so I though at least. I used him primarly as a combat unit and he did work very well, albeit at the price of three Energy Drops and even then his strength was always just barely good enough. But admitedly he was invaluable against mages and fliers, he capped speed and had great res very early on and Atalanta is a great S rank weapon which I used Hammerne on twice. He was much better than I thought he would be, even though he sat at 17 str most of the lategame, only in endgame did he get several lucky str levelups which finally boosted him to 21 str. He was the only one who could double Dracbolla.
Caspian, Hero, 151 kills, 1st place:
He was a very well-rounded unit with res his only bad stat and my only Axe S user with Lorgmor and Brave Axe. Though he did lack a bit of con as a Hero, but Liang was burning through all my bows, so Warrior seemed pointless, but he ended up not really needing swords. Actually Caspian didnât really stand out and feel like my first place unit, Rob, Tanya and Liang felt more crucial and satisfying in their roles. But Caspian was kinda always there and always reliable and suprisingly, slow and steady, he earned first place, with no stats capped.
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Yes, it does sound like your Mercer got speed screwed and def blessed. Mercer is not that slow. I actually think Mercer is a decent option for a Dreamcatch too, because he is made available right after you get one. I havenât tried it yet though.
Florete should be granting 1 wexp when used⌠at least directly. It is possible that indirect uses of Florete do not give wexp; though, I havenât played around with this scenario to confirm. I am aware of the other bugs you brought up. Leah is the only unit that shares the same slot from part 1 to part 2 of the game. Fixing that one would require a lot of rework with IDs, and I am afraid other problems could arise. I also think Chapter 25 is being skipped on the credits page. I have no idea why a couple of chapters are just skipped. Not entirely sure how to fix that one either. I would like to if I can. 
Thanks for sharing. 
I can find it difficult to determine who the âlower tierâ characters are in The Lonely Mirror. I think any character can be good, and itâs up to the play to build a team to their liking. I have used everyone at least once through my play testing.
I think Liang is sometimes overlooked and actually offers a lot as a character. I also think Shiloh can be very valuable and can have a strong endgame if you get Seraphim with him. Benji is not as bad as people think, but seems to get sidelined for Winifred, Liang, or Caden for fair reasons. Parvati is great depending on how she is used. As for Danika and Mercer, the jury is still out. They certainly do join at awkward times and on Maddening difficulty only. Theyâre probably lower tier like you wrote. Danika feels like Rath in what to expect. Mercer is just a fun time.
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Yes, it probably concerns the indirect uses, that would also explain the little bit of weapon exp I got. On player phase I always attacked indirectly with the Florete.
I think youâre right, the cast is well balanced but with characters still feeling very different from each other. The other day I took a look at the tiermaker but decided to wait with it because thereâre still some units I havenât used enough to form an opinion on. And I didnât mean to say that I consider all units on my last team low tier. Parvati and especially Tanya are certainly good; Caspian, Rob, Mercer and Liang surprised me and Iâd consider them somewhere medium; Kurtis and Shilo I would consider bad from a stats perspective, but they certainly have their useful niches with class-unique weaponry, high level staff utility or high-move flying utility; the only units I would tier to low at the moment are Irina, Brett and Grant, but even they worked alright on my team, but considerably worse than some comparable units. Iâm still unsure about Benji and Danika.
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