The Best Wyvern Rider in the Series - Haar (Radiant Dawn)

                      

          

                      Here he is. The entirely predictable # 1 candidate. The greatest Wyvern Rider in the series (in multiple ways): Haar. Haar is an amazing unit in Radiant Dawn and quite frankly he got one of the greatest upgrades in unit performance from Path of Radiance to Radiant Dawn. In Path of Radiance you could definitely choose not to use him without there being any impact on the team (I don’t think I’ve ever used Haar in PoR), by contrast not using Haar in Radiant Dawn is either a mistake or a self-imposed challenge. Either way, Haar is WAY too good in Radiant Dawn to not ignore and I’m here to celebrate his awesomeness. I suppose I should explain why Haar beats Camilla on this list:                                  

1. Weaknesses:  To put my Fire Emblem spin on Jon Bernthal’s Punisher from Daredevil Season 2: “When thunder mages put Haar down he gets back up. When archers put Camilla down she stays down.” Haar’s “weakness” to thunder magic is a trivial non-issue.

                                    Thunder mages are pretty rare among the enemy ranks in Radiant Dawn and when they do show up he has a number of different ways of dealing with them. He has Nullify, he can simply dodge them (which is a viable strategy in RD since the RNG isn’t anywhere near as likely to screw you over like it does in Conquest) or he can 1 RKO them with a myriad of different weapons. Or he can take a hit. That works too. His physical durability is plenty good enough to help him survive hordes of enemy units with physical weapons even after getting hit by a Thunder Mage. You could give him a Goddess Icon too to avoid getting critted by such mages. Worst case scenario: Like Camilla you could have Haar move out of the way. It’s not like he’s forced to fight them.

                                     By contrast Camilla always fears the bow. I’ve already explained this in my Camilla post yesterday so I won’t spend too much time belaboring this point, but Camilla can’t really do all that much against bows and if she does get hit, chances are she’s going to die in a single hit (or in a single Dual Strike since enemies LOVE doing that).  

2. Durability: They’re both exceptionally durable, but Camilla’s durability can be undermined via Hidden Weapon stat debuffs, the Enfeeble and Hexing Rod staves, and Seals. Haar never has to face this problem so he can fly into the midst of enemies and is more likely to survive (at least for a significantly higher portion of his game).

3. Haar’s the more dominant one in his game: Haar seems to outclass his competition in Radiant Dawn more than Camilla outclasses hers. Nobody really reaches Haar’s level in Radiant Dawn. Camilla has to share a tier with Corrin and Xander. Again, it’s a rather minor flaw, but it is something to say that Haar’s contributions stand out more than Camilla’s.

                       As you can see, the difference between Haar and Camilla’s usefulness isn’t really that big. They’re both exceptionally powerful and they’re both the best units in their games. Haar manages to reign victorious but they’re both awesome units and you should use them both in their respective games. :P

                       Haar in Radiant Dawn is the embodiment of what a powerful Wyvern Rider is designed to be. He’s an uber tank that can take any hit from any physical attack that comes his way, his strength is massive enough to let him tear virtually anything apart, his growths are sufficient enough to keep him on top (70 % strength and skill growths combined with a 65 % defense growth is just awesome) and should his speed start to falter you could always feed him a Speedwing or extra bonus experience. His Mastery Skill, Stun, is basically a critical hit that can also paralyze enemy units. 

                      Haar’s amazing starts from the moment he first joins you. This is in the prologue to Part 2 of Radiant Dawn. Here Elincia doesn’t have Amiti and Marcia’s no longer as powerful as she once was back in Path of Radiance. As Elincia, Marcia and Nealuchi struggle to fight off the Dracoknights Haar swoops in to save the day. None of the Dracoknights do significant damage to him and he wrecks them all pretty hard. The next level Haar is available in is in the Part 2 Endgame where he trivializes the entire level by swooping in on Ludveck and smashing the douchebag’s skull in with a hammer. This generally takes between 1 - 2 turns to complete.

                         Mekkah pretty much sums up Haar’s performance for this rest of the game so rather than retread what he’s already written I’ll just let him do the talking:

                         “Haar decides he might as well join up with the Greil Mercenaries in 3-2 after probably killing Ludveck in 2-E in a matter of 1-2 turns, and proceeds to show everyone what consequences a powerful flier at this point of the game has. The map layout and objectives for the upcoming chapters all greatly favor Haar. In 3-2, he can fly over to the boss in 2 turns and get rid of him with I believe just a Stun or critical proc. In 3-3, you basically have to seize several points of the map (though "putting things on fire" sounds cooler), and who is better at that than a flier that can get anywhere on the map in a moment's notice? In 3-4, Ranulf and Ike both need to reach the top of the mountain. Haar can carry one of them while the other makes their way up there the hard way. 3-5, Haar's best friend Reyson joins the fray, and together they can Canto-destroy the entire map, starting us off with a nice 1-turn. 3-6, Haar can fly into the swamp to kill all the laguz with ea-...oh, he is taking a nap in that one. My bad.

3-7 is boring but Haar can contribute anyways if you want Ike to get to the Black Knight ASAP. 3-8 and 3-10 he's just a high move unit that greatly assists the rout, 3-11 he can carry Ike to the seize point, 3-13 you should be glad you don't have to fight him, 3-E he's useful but not as turbo amazing. Part 4 has a lot more terrain to fly over, most notably the desert.” (Source: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29384&page=16#entry1808204) 

                       So in short, Haar is awesomeness incarnate. Not only is he the best Wyvern Rider in the series he is definitely in the “Top 10 Best Units of the Entire Fire Emblem Series” list. Fantastic unit, fantastic eyepatch, great personality and fantastic design. It’s impossible to not like Haar.

Best Wyvern Riders List # 2 - Camilla (Fates: Conquest)

                                   

                                        Hey guys I figured out why Camilla has such ridiculous over-sized breasts. No, it’s not for the fan-service, that’s just silly. Intelligent Systems would NEVER create fan-servicey characters. They’re much too noble for that. Camilla’s boobs store her strength. That’s why she’s so powerful, her boobs store her strength. That, and she can use them to distract male enemies so that while they’re fixated on her rack she can hack their heads off with her axe. I can imagine Camilla in some Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest Abridged version saying “My boobs give me super strength”.

                                         Okay, all jokes aside Camilla is a really good Wyvern Knight / Malig Knight / Unit that rides on a Wyvern and kills things. Camilla is one of the few Wyvern Riders on this list to have amazing availability, which is arguably her biggest advantage over Miledy. Not only that, but Camilla starts, continues and ends on an amazing note. When she first joins you in Chapter 10 enemies deal either 0 damage or single digit damage and that’s including combined damage from dual strikes. Meanwhile, she’s usually 1 Round KO’ing these schmucks with her Steel Axe. Generally speaking you could have Camilla defend one side of Chapter 10 on her own and she’ll do just fine. Her flying utility also means that she can be wherever you want her to be, which comes in handy.

                                        There are other levels of Conquest that she can cheese too. Chapter 19 (a.k.a the stupid furry chapter where you fight nothing but foxes) can be easily cheesed by her if you reclass her into a Wyvern Rider and get her up to D rank lances where she can use the Beast Killer on the entire map. It’s also possible to beat Chapter 21 in 4 turns with just Camilla and Corrin. I know, because I’ve done it. Her flying utility is also greatly appreciated in the last two Endgame chapters of Conquest where the main strategy of those levels is to bum-rush enemy units and blitz toward the boss. I’m sure I may be forgetting other levels that she can turn into a joke but pointing out further examples only reinforces my point.

                                        Camilla also has a pretty great skill pool. Her personal skill, Rose’s Thorns, gives her allies + 3 damage to their attacks and in turn they receive 1 less damage. This is a pretty great skill overall. She also joins with Strength + 2 and Lunge. At level 5 of Malig Knight she will get Savage Blow which deals some nice area-of-effect damage to nearby enemy units, At Level 15 she’ll have access to Trample, which means that she’ll deal 5 extra damage to non-mounted enemies (which constitute the vast majority of them). As a Wyvern Lord she’ll have access to Rally Defense and Swordbreaker which are both great skills to have. Camilla also has access to the Dark Mage class which means that she also has access to the Vengeance and Bowbreaker skills which again are very good skills to have. So as you can see, Camilla’s got a great skill pool going for her.

                                      Camilla’s growths are also pretty darn good for a Fates character:

HP - 40 % (50 % as a Wyvern Lord)

Strength - 50 % (65 % as either a Wyvern Lord or a Malig Knight)

Magic - 25 % (40 % as a Malig Knight)

Skill - 50 % (60 - 65 % as a Wyvern Lord or a Malig Knight)

Speed - 55 % (65 % as a Wyvern Lord or a Malig Knight)

Luck - 25 % (30 % as either class)

Defense - 35 % (55 % as a Wyvern Lord, 45 % as a Malig Knight)

Resistance - 45 % (60 % as a Malig Knight)

                             A 40 % HP growth is around average for Fates HP growths, 50 % strength is much higher than the strength growths of the cast, she has the second highest speed growth of the Conquest characters and she has a better resistance growth than Nyx. Combine great growths with great base stats and you’ve got a powerful unit. 

                           Now you may be asking what Camilla’s flaws are. They are:

1. Bow weakness: Despite mentioning earlier that she has access to Bowbreaker this is still an issue for her. For starters, Bowbreaker doesn’t get rid of her weakness to bows, it just makes them less accurate, which is mitigated by the fact that Fates has a notorious RNG so even if bows have a 40 % accuracy on Camilla she could feasibly get hit. Also, this strategy requires us to reclass Camilla to a Dark Mage, where she loses out on what makes her special. We would also have to reclass Camilla back into being a Wyvern Lord so we’re spending 4k on getting Camilla a skill that might solve her issues, even though it doesn’t solve them completely.

2. Her durability has it’s limits: Camilla exists in a game where many of the enemies have stat debuffs of some kind. Whether it’s the Enfeeble staff, Hidden Weapons or the Seal skills, durability only goes so far in this game. In addition to that the AI makes it so that enemies won’t attack you if they can’t damage you (the exception here are the ninjas who have ridiculous skills like Poison Fang or Grisly Wound in addition to stat debuff weapons). This means that it is possible to say that there is such a thing as too much defense.
   
   

                          Outside of that there aren’t a whole lot of flaws with Camilla’s performance. It’s all fun and games to laugh at her ridiculous, fan-servicey design but even I have to give props to her amazing combat-performance. She’s a fantastic unit, which is why she is # 2.

Best Wyvern Riders List # 3 - Miledy (Binding Blade)

                     

                   Like I mentioned before, red-heads make powerful Wyvern Riders and Miledy is a shining example of that. Miledy joins you right off the bat as an excellent unit. She even gets Hard Mode bonuses despite joining the player as a blue unit. Here are Miledy’s base stats on Hard Mode:

HP: 38

Strength: 17

Skill: 15

Speed: 13

Luck: 8

Defense: 16

Resistance: 4

Con: 9

Move: 7

C rank lances

                              She’s two points away from capping HP, 3 points away from capping strength and 4 points away from capping defense. She also joins with a C rank in lances which basically means that she can use the Killer Lance. What’s even better is that like Cormag Miledy joins you at Level 10, which means that she can be promoted instantly. She also has good enough growths to keep her great. Let’s take a look at them:

HP - 75 %
Strength - 50 %
Skill - 50 %

Speed - 45 %

Luck - 25 %

Defense - 20 %

Resistance - 5 %

                         Her HP, Strength and Skill growths are great and her speed growth is still pretty good. Her defense growth is pretty bad but fortunately her base defense and promotion gains compensate for this. She’s your best candidate for the Delphi shield which means that arrows deal trivial amounts of damage (if they even deal damage at all) letting her trivialize the Sacae route.  You could argue that she needs a Speedwing, but since she’s your best candidate for it we can pretty much assume that she’s going to get it. 

                         

                       Ronaldo Villanueva gave an amazing analysis of Miledy’s combat parameters which I would like to quote. All credit and kudos go to him for his amazing reddit post:

                         “The next best units in terms of offense, Allen Lv15/1, Deke Lv18/1 and Rutger Lv17/1, can't match the same damage output. Allen has 23 Atk, 14 AS with an Iron Axe, Deke has 24 Atk, 16 AS with an Iron Axe, and Rutger has 24 Atk, 21 AS with a Killing Edge, while Milady has 27 Atk, 13 AS with a Killer Lance. In terms of defense, none of them can even reach her. Rutger (41 HP, 12 Def), Deke (42 HP, 13 Def) and Allen (36 HP, 12 Def) are still less durable in practical terms. Rutger is 4RKOd, Deke is 5RKOd, Allen is 4 RKO'd by Cavaliers with 22 Atk. Meanwhile Milady is 7 RKO’d by them. The Wyvern Knights 3RKO Rutger, 4 RKO Deke, 3RKO Allen and 4 RKO Milady, so she is still really good against them.

                         For example, Milady Lv10/1 has 29 Atk, 15 AS, 37% Critical with a Killer Lance. This means that she always ORKOs Cavaliers from Chapter 15, while she has 60.31% chance of ORKOing anything she doesn't kill naturally, like Wyvern Knights with 41 HP, 14 Def... which is a big deal considering that most units have serious issues to reach the ORKO, even with Killer weaponry. The player can give Milady two Speedwings if he wants her to reach 19 AS immediately and double-attack Mercenaries from Chapter 14 with 15 AS, so that she jumps instantly to omg-its-a-bird-its-a-plane level of performance.

On the other hand, Milady Lv10/1 with 44 HP, 18 Def is 5RKOd by Wyvern Knights with 27 Atk, 8 RKO'd by Cavaliers with 24 Atk, and 15RKOd by Mercenaries with 21 Atk. In fact, if you go through Sacae, Milady Lv10/1 is pretty much undefeatable with the Delphi Shield at hand, since the nomads and myrmidons aren't stronger than 18 Atk there. Too great.

But even if you dislike promoting someone early, she's still amazing. It was mentioned before that she performs great at base parameters, and even if she starts out in promotion range, she happens to be underleveled as well, so she will gain levels very quickly and without risk if you decide to train her while being unpromoted. Thankfully, her growths are also phenomenal as well. Her offensive growths of 50% Str, 45% Spd make sure that her offense stay high during... pretty much the rest of the game, while 75% HP, 20% Def make sure that her durability stays skyhigh. Milady Lv17 is very doable for Chapter 15 on a slower playthrough, and she performs as good as her Lv10/1 equivalent.

                 If you do that, Milady becomes even more powerful, with 52 HP, 22 Str, 21 Skl, 20 Spd, 10 Lck, 20 Def, 7 Res at Lv20/1. At this point, even without the Delphi Shield (which nullifies her vulnerability against arrows), she is 7RKOd by 28 effective Atk from the Nomads in Sacae. She's obviously invincible with the Delphi Shield. If you happen to give her a Speedwing, she reaches 27 Atk, 22 AS with an Iron Sword, which allows her to ORKO Nomads with 37 HP, 7 Def, 18 AS. Yep, with an Iron Sword, and it is probably your best bet against them alongside your Swordmasters since the enemies in Sacae have such a high avoid that Milady's 127% hit with the Iron Sword is needed for reliability.”

(Source: “Xator Nova”: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/34q9hp/character_discussion_fe6_milady/) 

                 There’s far more to that quote, but I basically wanted to take some of the best portions and further demonstrate why she’s so godly.

                            The only real downside to her is that she joins in Chapter 13, which is half-way through the game. She’s just not around long enough to break the entire game into little pieces. When she is there though, she completely roflstomps the entire game.

           

Best Wyvern Riders List # 4 - Jill (The Tellius Games)

                               

                                  Red-heads may make terrible lords, but when they’re wyvern knights they’re awesome! Behold Jill Fizzart! Jill is one of the few Tellius characters who’s awesome in both Tellius games. In fact, she performs really well in both of them that I decided to talk about both her Path of Radiance version AND her Radiant Dawn version. They’re similar enough in terms of usefulness that they’d both get # 4 on this list.

                             So let’s talk about PoR Jill first. She joins you with base stats that leave room to be desired. Her 9 speed needs a lot of work and the ravens in her join chapter all double-attack her. Thankfully she has a Laguzguard which keeps her from dying. Path of Radiance is one of the best game in the series to be an underleveled unit on. Bonus Experience and forges exist, which let underleveled units get good relatively fast. Jill’s flying also really comes in handy given the number of levels in Path of Radiance that have terrain on them. Let’s take a look shall we?

• Her join chapter: Any non-flier unit is stuck on the ship and has to wait for the ravens to attack them. Fliers have a field day here.

• The next chapter - The ship chapter (Chapter 13): Jill can fly over the gap between boats, kill ravens and can move freely here.

• Chapter 17-4: There’s an annoying meteor mage that Jill can get to easily. What once was a nuisance is now a non-issue. She also can get to the boss easier.

• Chapter 19: There are hills that she can fly over, letting her kill things that most other units can’t get to.

• Chapter 20: She can fly over the mountain wall thing. This is immensely helpful if you want to beat the level quickly.

• Chapter 21: Jill can fly over the water that separates one side from the other.

• Chapter 23: Jill can fly over pot-holes sparing you grief. She can also fly over the little walls.

• Chapter 24: It’s a pretty big map and you’re going to want to help Geoffrey and co. out as soon as possible. Guess who’s one of the first units that can get to him?

• Chapter 25: Mountainous area with a kill boss objective. Hm, guess who can fly over said mountains?

• Chapter 28: Jill can fly over the bits of forest. 
  
  
  
  
  

                         So you get the point. Jill’s flying utility is immensely valuable throughout most of Path of Radiance. Her base speed may not be the best, but her base strength and defense are, which is a really great boon for her. Once Jill promotes she will get axes after promotion making her a mini Titania on wings. While Jill may need a bonus experience dump she will get good and she’s totally worth the investment in resources put into her. Unfortunately for Jill Marcia exists who can do everything Jill can except earlier and better. Still, Jill is pretty amazing in Path of Radiance and she’s a major asset to the team.

                                Radiant Dawn Jill: So Jill’s bases are slightly better here than they were in Path of Radiance. The only problem is that availability is so jumbled that she’ll only have so many levels to make a contribution on. Jill joins the Dawn Brigade who all desperately need her. Most of the units in the Dawn Brigade aren’t very good so they can use all the help they can get. Also, transfer bonuses are a thing in Radiant Dawn. In my opinion here is the order of best Jill to worst Jill:

Transfer!Jill > PoR Jill > Non-transfer Jill.

                               “Jill is the only flying unit in the Dawn Brigade and like her Path of Radiance counterpart, she may need an investment in resources in order to get good. A forge here, some bonus experience there, Jill will need whatever the player can give her. Also, Jill has the advantage of being in an OP class in Radiant Dawn. I mean seriously Dracoknights aren’t even affected by bows in this game in addition to flying, using axes and being durable. Sure thunder mages can deal damage to them but thankfully they’re so few and far in between, and so fragile, that they’re a total non-issue for someone like Jill. Here’s a great quote about Jill that I came across:

There are only 2 units in the entire DB that don't have issues in Part 1, they are BK and Sothe. The laguz lack 2 range or availability, characters are prone to Rng screwage and most have tough time surviving, even Zihark. Jill's selling point her flight, and unlike Vika she stays. She'll need a robe and can use other boosts effectively. Has good caps, high move, and after some training she works out very well throughout the game. Sothe's potential stops at the end of part 1, his 22 str cap being ineffective for Part 3. So the player needs a main fighter and she's one of the best candidates. Zihark’s poor experience gain and durability are inferior to what Jill offers. Volug only needs strike so Nolan and Jill are the best choices for BEXP + forges and training. I consider her Haar-lite.

Axes are incredibly cheap so a max MT forge with hit bonus would serve her nicely and not costly at all ^^' and she's entitled to the Brave Axe, Nolan has Tarvos.” (“RNG Princess” here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=31917) 

                       So yeah, Radiant Dawn Jill may need some investment in resources too, but she’s a worthwhile investment in them and she’ll annihilate enemy units. In Radiant Dawn Jill is Haar-lite. Having her start out with axes works to her advantage even more since axes are usually considered to be the best weapon type in Radiant Dawn. To repeat what the quote above said, Jill gets dibs on the Brave Axe and what also makes her special here is that she can take more than two hits. That's actually pretty rare among Dawn Brigade units which in turn helps to make her all the more special.

                        So to wrap things up Jill is a fantastic unit in both games and it would be in the player’s best interest to give this awesome character resources, because in return she will rock with them.                                        

Best Wyvern Riders List # 5 - Cormag (Sacred Stones)

                        So unlike Panne, Cormag seems to be a character that most people thought would be on this list. They were right to think so. Cormag is a very solid unit in a very easy game. For the sake of time I will be talking about how Cormag performs on Ephraim’s route since he seems to perform better there anyway.

                       Like Dean Cormag starts out with way better offensive and defensive parameters than your Pegasus Knights who have been with your army for nearly the entire time (in the case of Vanessa). Here are some interesting facts and figures about his combat performance:

                       “14 str at base is way higher than what either Vanessa or Tana are going to have before promotion(for starters, Vanessa needs to be 20/1 to match Cormag's str base, at which point Cormag will have 22), and has a 55% growth and 27 cap just to overkill it. To give an idea on how good his base is, 9/0 Vanessa would need silver to match Cormag's atk with Iron, and 9/0 Tana would need the same to match his atk with Killer, and I highly doubt Nessie can use silvers by C10 anyway(Tana sure as hell is not. lol D lances in C9)

                         Defensively, he's about on par with 9/0 Gilliam, minus the part where Gilliam is going to be more around ~Lv13. 30HP/12def allows him to get 3HKO'd at worst by either of his DK compatriots, and is 6HKO'd or better from the reinforcement cavs in his joining map. It also allows him to swallow a hit from one of the fleets, and STILL have enough to take 1-2 more hits. As for growths, 85% HP is good, but 25% growth is pretty low for his class, though it's still better than the pegs(Vanessa needs to be 20/1 to match his def base for starters, at which point he has 43HP/17 Def.).” (Smiley Jim: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=30795&page=2)

                               Another really cool thing about Cormag is that he can promote upon recruitment. Heck, the man joins you with his own promotion item at a level where he can instantly promote. Upon promotion Cormag could have access to Pierce, which is the Sacred Stones version of Luna. It’s icing on the cake, I know, but it’s still a nice bonus. As you may have gleaned from the previous quote Cormag has some pretty nice base stats overall.

                             Cormag’s not without his issues though. His base speed could be better and like a good chunk of the wyverns on this list Cormag wishes that he could have joined earlier. His resistance also isn’t very good so keep him away from enemy magic users. He’s a tad underleveled, but this isn’t as big of an issue since he’ll have plenty of access to experience in this game.