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 didn’t 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, „oh my god, how am I supposed to use her, she gets oneshot by almost everything“. 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 didn’t 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 can’t 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 don’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t 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 would’ve 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t afraid of even the toughest enemies and I really appreciated his defense more than I would’ve 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 wasn’t his job anyway. He was much better than I would’ve 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 couldn’t 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 doesn’t 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 didn’t 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.