# 3 - Marcia (Path of Radiance)

             So if Karin was the least anticipated candidate on this list then Marcia's Path of Radiance version was easily the most anticipated character on this list. When you start to take a look at her parameters and all the positives that she has going for her, you start to see that all the praise that she gets is warranted and easily justified. Heck, even Ronaldo Villanueva considers her to be the eighth greatest unit in the Fire Emblem series. So why is Marcia praised so much?

                Well, like the vast majority of Pegasus Knights on this list she joins your army early, which is always a plus. Her base stats aren't the best though. 20 HP, 8 strength and 8 defense is nothing to brag about. However, as Mekkah points out, Path of Radiance is the best game to start out bad in (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=10#entry1798082). Why? Because bonus experience exists. Marcia's levels can be raised super early in the game, resulting in her getting really strong really fast. Because she's a flying unit, and can therefore get to the enemies first, she's objectively one of your best candidates for this. As Ronaldo Villanueva puts it "her offensive growths of 40% Str, 50% Skl, 55% Spd are really good, allowing her to reach high offensive stats after a BEXP investment". Marcia also has a couple of advantages over the GBA Pegasi too. Because Path of Radiance calculates attack speed based off of the strength of a unit, rather than constitution, Marcia doesn't suffer ridiculous attack speed losses from wielding a non Slim lance so she is free to use whatever weapon she pleases. Also, forges exist. This increases Marcia's damage output immensely, letting her avoid another issue that plagued Florina. Ronaldo put things in perspective when he said that at Lv20/1, Marcia's 28 Atk, 20 AS with an Iron Lance forge pretty much ORKOs everything until Chapter 16, but by then Steel Lance forges are available which make her ORKO everything until Chapter 20.

Mr. Cotton Candy for brains is screwed.

                One really huge advantage that comes with flying is that a unit can easily ignore terrain that all the other units in your army are forced to deal with. Path of Radiance has a lot of maps with terrain so this becomes a huge advantage for Marcia.

Chapter 11: Villages block your path. If only we had a unit who could fly over them. Oh wait....

Chapter 12: Ha. Ha. Ha. Your entire army is stuck on a really small ship while Marcia can fly all over the place and murder all the birds for you. Jill may have joined you, but Marcia's most likely going to be higher leveled at this point, and definitely won't get double attacked by the ravens unlike Jill at this point.

Chapter 13: Multiple ships attached to each other by bridges? Screw that nonsense. Marcia can just fly over and wreck everyone.

Chapter 15: The game's desert map. Ha. Ha. Ha. Marcia is one of the few units with unhindered movement. Get rekt laguz scrubs. She's your best candidate to beating this level quickly. Also,
Offensively, Marcia Lv20/3 has 41 effective Atk, 21 AS with the Laguz Lance. This means that Marcia is one of the few units that can fly across Chapter 15 and ORKO Muarim (45 HP, 14 Def, 17 AS) in Turn 2.

 Chapter 17 - 4: Oh there's a mage with Meteor? Let me go shank him in the face for you. Also, Marcia can reach Mario, I mean Oliver, sooner than most of your army normally would be able to. 

Chapter 19: Ronaldo says it all: In Chapter 19, Homasa has defenses of 37 HP, 11 Def, 20 AS. Marcia Lv20/8 with a forged Steel Lance has 33 Atk, 24 AS. She 2HKOs, and is one of the few units that can either double-attack Homasa or reach him in Turn 2 without taking risks to deal with Naesala. She is the only one that does both of them.

Chapter 20: There are mountains she can fly over to get to the boss early. If nothing else, she can at least go murderface on the ballistic tome mages.  

Chapter 21: Marcia can fly over that little body of water in the left side of the map and can really reduce the number of turns in that map. 

Chapter 23: Marcia laughs as she's one of the few characters that isn't affected by all those annoying pot-holes. Also, she can fly over those little walls too which is really nice. You get the Full Guard in Chapter 16, so Marcia doesn't care about ballistae. 

          
            I could keep going, but you got the point a long time ago. Also, Savior exists in this game. Savior for those of you who don't know is a skill that negates penalties to a character when they're rescuing a unit. Sure, it comes late, but think of all the things you could do with it. Mekkah summed up Marcia well when he said, Marcia really has everything the "chicks with wings" group has going for them, except her combat is so easy to make good that it's laughable. Good combat, high move, availability, and flying are really the core things that make a unit good (not in any particular order), and Marcia pretty much has all of them. (Again, from the same link posted above. So yeah, Marcia is a monster in Path of Radiance.

(Here is the link to Ronaldo Villanueva's post about Marcia that I quoted multiple times: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ronaldo-villanueva/top-15-unidades-de-fire-emblem-de-todos-los-tiempos-parte-1/851371554904958 

                   Obviously it is still in Spanish so major kudos and props to Sagit Heim for translating that massive wall of text for me. I greatly appreciate it. Also to Ronaldo Villanueva: Why haven't you translated the rest of your list? Your analyses are freaking amazing and our group would benefit so much if you were to post them. Seriously guys, his Top 15 Greatest Fire Emblem Units list is AMAZING and very informative.