# 19 - Duessel

                     Well well. First we start out with Oifaye's mustache, now we move forward towards Duessel's beard. THE FACIAL HAIR IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE!

           Anyway, Duessel has some awesome things going for him besides dat manly beard. For starters he gets triple A rank in swords, lances and axes. Oh he also starts out with the entire weapon triangle in the palm of his hand. He also gets 17 base defense. 17 BASE DEFENSE?! Paladin Franz doesn't get that on average until 20 / 18 on average (http://serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/characters/average-stats/franz/paladin/) keep in mind that by the time Franz gets to that point Duessel will have surely gotten way more defense so yeah Duessel's a mounted tank. Duessel's base resistance is also equal to Paladin Franz's 20 / 17 average resistance. Yeah Duessel's a tank. He also comes with a base 17 strength which just screams WOW! Combine that base 17 strength with silver weapons and that damage output is awesome.

              Oh Duessel is weak against anti-horse / anti-armor weaponry eh? Well here's a little table I picked up from serenesforest.net that shows how much damage these weapons do (this table doesn't take Duessel's defense and avoid into account nor does it take the enemy's stats into account either):

Armorslayer: 4, 33 HIT
Zanbato: -2, 38 HIT
Horseslayer: 1, 23 HIT
Heavy Spear: 7, 23 HIT
Hammer: 10, 8 HIT

(http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=30833&page=2 from "Rewjeo")\

             ^ Now the enemy stats could differ and vary but these numbers aren't really that frightening and if you were to combine them with the lolsy "Hard mode" stats of the enemies from Sacred Stones this probably wouldn't even be that big a deal.

         

           Duessel does have a few drawbacks though:

• He wishes he could have more availability on Eirika's route. He shows up earlier in Ephraim's route (he joins you in Chapter 10 of Ephraim's route and in Chapter 15 in Eirika's route) so there's that so this isn't the biggest issue in the world. However, you do have to keep in mind that in a Top 20 list like this he's competing against a lot of other cavaliers who have even better availability than him so even if joining on Chapter 10 were considered good it just wouldn't be considered good enough comparatively speaking.

• 6 movement bites. Granted, this can be easily fixed with Swiftsoles / Boots, but there are other units who want those boots too.

•  Duessel, like Hector, has a huge constitution so while it's fantastic when it comes to wielding weapons it prevents him from being part of a rescue chain (I imagine this won't matter to a good number of people reading this, but to those who do this sort of thing this is a rather annoying negative to have and it's one that the other cavaliers don't share so this is a problem for Duessel) 

                 Before I end I'll leave you with this quote:

                                        "Duessel is manly. Hes Sean Connery on a horse." Enough said.

(Loki Laufeyson: "http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=30833&page=2")