Berwick Saga Character Guide - Flawed But Still Useable Part 2

 Before I continue with the "flawed, but useful" category, I'd like to remind you that these characters are still useable, and that there are benefits to having them in your army.

Daoud

Pros

• High Damage Output: Daoud has access to "Pulverize" which doubles his Strength. This lets him deal ridiculous amounts of damage. He also has "Battle Cry" which buffs his accuracy and damage. "Battle Cry" stacks up to 6 times, which means that he can progressively get more powerful. 

• Immune to Crippling: In Berwick Saga, crippling means that your character can't attack, counterattack, use items, or heal. Their movement is usually very limited too. It's a nasty status effect. Daoud is immune to that, which is really helpful.

• Availability: Daoud joins in Chapter 4 for free. If all the NPCs in Chapter 4 survive and escape, he'll permanently join you. That's a fairly easy recruitment requirement and you don't have to worry about paying money to get him to join.

Cons

• Low Movement: He's got Armor Knight levels of movement, which means that you'll be dragging him around the battlefield. To add insult to injury, his skills only activate when he doesn't move, which makes it even harder for him to move across the battlefield. This means that he's useless for time-sensitive missions.

• Accuracy Problems: His starting axe rank isn't very good, which means that he'll have problems hitting enemies. He can also be a pain to promote because of that.

Conclusion: "Daoud is a mediocre unit. Though not lacking in positive qualities, his strengths are somewhat dulled by his numerous flaws, and it can often be difficult to justify granting him a deployment slot. He has a few moments of glory should one choose to put the time in him, but can safely be benched without missing much."

(Source: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Daoud#Overall)

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Esteban

Pros

• Awesome Endgame Skills: Estoban eventually gets Aim and Pursuit (yes, this game has a skill called Pursuit). Aim buffs his accuracy and Pursuit gives him an extra attack if his Attack Speed is 5 or more than his enemy's. Unlike Holy War, your characters can double attack without Pursuit, so this skill manages to be great without being over-centralizing like it was in Holy War.

• Has increased vision in Fog of War maps.

• If Estoban attacks an enemy on a forest tile with a bow, he has a special skill that can negate their avoid bonuses.

• Terrain Bonuses: Like your thieves, Estoban can become invisible in certain terrain tiles. He has another skill that gives him extra avoid when he's on those tiles. 

• Good Availability: Joins at the end of Chapter 3. He's also fairly easy to permanently recruit.

Cons

• Poor Base Stats for his join time.

• Low Base Level that prevents him from using good bows for a while.

• Low Base Knife Rank + Low Knife Growth = Borderline useless with his secondary weapon.

Conclusion: Estoban is easily the worst bow user in the game, and his promotion benefits don't make up for his horrible start.

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Marcel

Pros

• Shieldfaire: If he has a shield equipped, he will most likely activate it which will let him block a huge number of hits.

• Guard: Marcel has the same skill as Ward and Sherpa, meaning that he can block hits for adjacent allies. 

• He joins your group for free.

• He gets a good prf rank sword called the Zweihander.

Cons

• 3 Movement: Even in Berwick Saga, 3 movement is still pretty bad. 

• Large Shields have low durability, meaning that whenever Marcel blocks a hit, his shields are likely to break. In addition to having low durability, large shields are expensive and in low quantity at shops. As a result, it gets expensive having to replace his shields.

Conclusion:  Marcel's your other armored knight. His awful movement makes him a plan in the butt to use, but there are times when you need a tank like him.

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Burroughs

Pros

• High Range: Burroughs is your ballista user, so naturally he can hit enemies from afar. 

• Good Skills: Has Armsthrift, Battle Cry, Hurry, and Aim. Aim increases his accuracy. Armsthrift reduces his weapon uses. Hurry increases his movement at the cost of his turn. Battle Cry improves his accuracy and damage output.

• Joins you for free.

Cons

• Low Movement: Burroughs has 2 movement, and even with the skill Hurry, his movement will be 3. That's awful.

• Wonky "Turn" feature: In order for Ballista to fire on enemies, they have to be facing the right direction. Even if enemies are the appropriate distance away, Burroughs might not be able to fire on them. 

• He can't attack after moving. 

• Poor Availability: Burroughs doesn't join your group until after Chapter 8. That's over halfway through the game, by which point most of the cast will either have joined you, or will at least be hirable.

Conclusion: Burroughs is a gimmicky character. He's fun for killing hard to reach enemies, but there aren't that many times where that's useful. 

Tactical Edge Review Part 1 (Prologue - Chapter 7)

 

It's been a little over a week since my friend Guy McAulay made a game called "Tactical Edge" on SRPG Studio and released it for everyone to play. I was intrigued by what he said about it, so I wanted to play this game and share my thoughts. Like most Fire Emblem games that I've played, I started on a lower difficulty setting in order to acclimate myself to how this game plays. This review will be based on my playthrough on Normal Mode. Also, as of the time of this writing, I have only played up to Chapter 7.

Pros

Capture

 This game has the capture system from Thracia 776! YAY! The fact that most of your units can do it too makes it even better. Capturing, for those who don't know, is basically when you reduce an enemy's HP to 0 and you get to take the enemy's weapons and items. It's one of my all-time favorite mechanics. It makes acquiring resources super fun! This game has that mechanic and it's every bit as fun in this game as it is in Thracia 776! 

Steal is ridiculously OP....and I love it! 

As you'd expect of a strategy RPG like this, you get a thief in your army who has the ability to steal weapons and items. In this game, the "Steal" skill is capable of stealing just about every weapon in the game....including the main weapon of what's supposed to be a frightening boss in this game.

Meet Vernicht, the Black Knight of this game. He shows up in Chapter 3 as a means of disincentivizing turtling on the part of the player. His stats are really high so you can't just fight him off. For the sake of kicks and giggles, I decided to try something: I had my thief try to steal his almighty Master Sword....AND IT WORKED! Helena, the thief of this game, can steal Vernicht's Master Sword! He no longer poses a threat to your characters on that chapter once you do that.

 Like the picture above shows, that's his only weapon. (The reason why he has a bow is because I stole so many weapons that I had to switch one weapon in my inventory with the Master Sword in his inventory) The Steal skill can essentially trivialize every enemy in this game so far. Any enemy that has only one weapon can be neutralized by Helena since she can steal their weapons. 

Replace the word "party" with Guy. 

We're gonna file this under the category of "this is a feature, not a bug." To be fair, I rarely steal with thieves because of how limited it is in most Fire Emblem titles. I do love the idea of a thief neutralizing enemies via Steal. It's kind of creative, and it actually made me want to steal stuff with my thief.

Skills

I like the fact that the Jagen of this game has Wary Fighter. His stats can be fairly high, without being game-breaking. Karl is much better designed than most Jagens in the series:

Come to think of it, this game has several skills that I recognize from Fates. Wary Fighter is one of them. This skill is another example:

^ Hmmmmm. A skill that heals the healer as well as the other person. That's Live to Serve.

    ^ A skill that increases agility when the user initiates combat? That's definitely a Fates skill. To be fair, Fates isn't the only game that has those skills. All the same, it's still fun to see these skills in this game since I like Wary Fighter, Live to Serve, and these "Blow" skills. Overall, it's nice to see skills in this game as they add a little bit of spice to the game.

Chapter 3

The best designed map in this game that I've played so far is Chapter 3. It's a map with a timed objective where the amount of turns actually requires you to play fast. Generally speaking, Fire Emblem is pretty lenient with its time limits. This is the first time where I actually felt pressure by the turn limit itself. This map did a fantastic job putting the pressure on the player. It also forced me to pay attention to which enemies had which weapons at a given time. It was awesome!

Difficulty & Unit Viability

Even though I'm playing on Normal Difficulty, I still feel like I have to pay attention. Enemies are powerful enough to force me to turn my brain on and I have to use actual strategy. That's a good thing. I'm also pleased by what I've seen of the unit viability so far. It feels like most of the cast is useable, and that you can get some use out of them.

Holy Multi Attacks Batman!

^ Remember how I mentioned that I stole Vernicht's Master Sword? Well, I gave it to Marie and this is what happens. This game lets you attack multiple times, and the number of attacks can get downright insane! 

So here's how Guy explained his attack speed formula: "It's + 3 to double, and for every 3 over that you have, you get another attack."

It's busted, but I love it.

The Drawbacks

The 0 % Growths

This part of the game will most likely turn some people off. I've been reading other people's reviews to see what they've said, and so far it would appear to me that a lot of people already don't like this aspect of the game. It's sad to say, but I totally get where they're coming from. 

Not gaining a single point from level-ups will feel demoralizing to a significant chunk of the fanbase. Lots of people love seeing certain units grow into powerhouses, and this game will deprive them of that. To be fair, there is some sense of progression in this game: Skills and promotion bonuses. Characters get certain skills when they hit a certain level, and promotion bonuses are great. The thing is that these things are few and far in-between. Most level-ups feel demoralizing and hollow. 

There's another point that I've seen raised about this element of the game that I agree with and it's this:

"But right now, the battles are all feeling a little identical to me. I don't feel like my characters are making progress, they're just...the same weaklings they were in chapter one, so why bother levelling up at all? This might be addressed later in the game, but you need to hook people in the first few chapters. And by the end of chapter three, I was getting fatigued because I didn't feel like my time was being rewarded."

Source: The Dandy Gentleman - https://itch.io/t/1571960/first-impressions

I've always been curious about how 0% growths work whenever I've seen veterans of the series do these kinds of playthroughs. This game scratched that itch. Now that I'm playing a 0 % growths game, I can confidently say that I have no desire to play a 0 % growths hack of a currently existing Fire Emblem game.

Maps

Chapter 3 is the only map that I've truly loved so far. It's the only map where there was a turtle disincentive. Some maps like chapters 4, 5, & 7, arguably encourage turtling in several different ways. Chapter 4 is a rout map with an easy choke point, Chapter 5 has big waves of enemies that charge at you, and Chapter 7 has an easy chokepoint and enemies that charge you. I restarted Chapter 7 several times because rushing forward got punished. I'm crossing my fingers hoping that some of the maps in the future try to get me to play faster. 

Conclusion

So far I'm having a decent time. There's enough here to make me pay attention, and it's a game made with a lot of love. If you're reading this and haven't played the game yet, I would recommend doing so. I'm curious to see what lies in store, and even when it's busted, I am having fun. That being said, the 0 % growths aspect really does hold this game down. Still, it's worth checking out, and I am looking forward to what this game has in store:

P.S: Here's the link to Guy's site -

 https://greenbrigand.itch.io/tactical-edge-innate-power?fbclid=IwAR1qoMOIJlT7lTY_wODl7A-MNmNBx-3gIlVX8yf2tTui23sb27Adqk9tq78

Berwick Saga Character Guide: Flawed, but Still Useable

 This next section of the character guide for Berwick Saga will consist of characters whose flaws are a bit more numerous than the previous tiers, but who are still useable. One of the strengths of this game is that virtually everyone here can be used and can contribute in some way. So let's begin:

Alvina

Pros

- Prf Rank Brave Lance.

- Shieldfaire gives her bulk whenever she has a shield equipped.

- Has Adept, which means that she gets to attack consecutively.

- The Mercy skill is helpful for capturing enemies.

- Joins with a horse that gives her extra movement. Her movement is high, even for a Paladin.

- Joins the player for free.

Cons

- Poor Availability: Joins after Chapter 10, which is very late. You only get to use her for less than half the game.

- Questionable Hit Rates: Sure she has a prf rank brave lance, but it's unlikely that every hit will land. 

Conclusion: Alvina is a solid filler unit. If you haven't trained a mounted unit, then she'll act as a solid replacement. She's easy to use, and doesn't disappoint. 

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Faye

Pros

Great Skill Set

- Adept: Gets to attack consecutively and will frequently activate this skill.

- Sunder: This skill boosts her critical hit rate, and is a command skill. This combos well with swords that increase her crit rate.

- Parry: Sacrifices weapon uses to dodge a hit from a non-magical weapon. 

- Iaido: Every time she dodges a hit she can counterattack with an increased critical hit rate and accuracy.

Great Promotion Perks

After Faye promotes, she gets Astra. Astra is the same in this game as it is in other Fire Emblem games: She gets to attack 5 times in a row. The difference here is that it's a command skill with a 7 turn cooldown. Faye is the only character in the game who gets access to Astra. Nobody else gets Astra, not even Volo. She also gets access to blades, which will increase her ability to deal damage. 

Recruiting Her Means That You Get to Recruit Faramir

Remember this guy back in A tier?

The only way to permanently recruit Faramir is to permanently recruit Faye first. Once she joins your army, Faramir will join pretty soon after her. Considering how powerful and useful he is, that's a pretty compelling reason to use Faye. 

Good Prf Rank Weapons

Faye joins with exclusive access to a weapon called the Cutlass. It's a weapon that gives her decent accuracy, and boosts her critical hit rate. It also gives her an extra consecutive attack. Later on in the game she'll have access to a powerful sword called Vitra, which can negate the damage reducing effect of Chaos's sword. Chaos is a powerful endgame boss who can be annoying to kill if you don't have a specific strategy to take him down. Faye + Vitra is one way to take Chaos down (at least in theory). 

Great Availability + Decent Promotion

Faye joins the player at Chapter 2, so you have plenty of time to use her. She's not that hard to promote either. Her weapon rank growth is 90 %, so it's not hard for her sword rank to improve.

Cons

Poor Base Stats

Faye's base stats leave a lot of room to be desired. 4 base strength is pretty bad, even for a game with deflated stats. Faye has to rely a lot on her Cutlass in order to get kills during the early portions of the game. Her base defense of 1 is even worse. Faye is a fragile unit, and will always be fragile throughout the game. Her sword rank growth is great, but her base sword rank is low which means that her accuracy might be shaky at first if she's using a sword that isn't the Cutlass.

She'll Still Have Issues Killing Chaos, Even With the Vitra

Didn't you just get done saying that Faye can kill Chaos with her endgame Prf rank sword? Yes I did, but it's not the strategy most players use to kill Chaos. FE Wiki summarizes this better than I could:

"It is worth noting that if you do permanently recruit her, she's forced in Endgame where she can obtain the Divine Sword Vritra which has 16 might, 8 precision and +18% crit, along with negating the effect of Chaos's Divine Sword Vajra. She can, however, still struggle to kill Chaos because of her reliance on her shakey strength growth - at base strength plus her promotion gains, she deals 1 damage per hit, 3 with the Giant's Brace equipped. If this is a problem in your mind and don't quite know how to handle Chaos otherwise (Dean with Wrath, Ouro with Deathmatch and Grimhild, etc), it might be worth to throw the Strength Potion her way just so she starts doing significant damage."

Source

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Faye_(Berwick_Saga)#Overall

The most reliable strategy to kill Chaos is Volo + Powerful Sword + Miracle Charm + Deathmatch. Faye's strength is so low that she'll still need help dealing actual damage to Chaos. That's really sad.

She Eats Through Weapon Uses

Faye's skillset makes her quickly burn weapon uses. Adept, Parry, and Astra all take up weapon uses to use. Keep in mind that her low strength means that she may not even kill her target, which will require her to burn through more weapon uses. This can get expensive if you're not careful.

Conclusion: If Berwick Saga were played by more people, I get the feeling that Faye would be a divisive character when it comes to unit discussions. She's a growth unit that starts weak, but eventually gets stronger after promotion. There are plenty of players who like raising units like Faye, and will feel satisfied watching her get powerful after putting effort into using her. 

Other players who prefer speed and efficiency will not like using Faye. She does require effort and babying to use, and units like her rarely ever make it very far on tier lists for that reason. I'll end my writing on her with this little blurb from FE Wiki: "Just like with almost all Berwick Saga units, use her if you like her, as at the end of the day there are no truly unusable units in the game."

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Adel

Pros

- Vantage: Adel is the only character in the game who gets access to Vantage. If his Attack Speed is higher than the enemy's attack speed, he gets to attack them first even if they initiated combat. Remember that in Berwick Saga, combat normally ends once damage gets dealt. This means that Adel can aggro enemies and prevent them from doing anything to him.

- Great Availability, and Joins for Free: Adel is a member of the first group of characters that you get in the first chapter of the game. If you're going to use him, then you get to use him for the entire game. He also joins for free, so you don't have to spend money hiring him.

- Access to a Horse: Higher movement is a plus, even if it's not as big of a deal in this game.

- Supporter: Adel and Leon have a skill called Supporter, which boosts each other's hit rates when they're within 3 spaces of each other.

- Shieldfaire and Lances after Promotion: Once Adel gets to Level 7, he gets Shieldfaire. This increases his rate of using shields whenever he gets attacked. This skill improves his durability. After he promotes he gets access to lances, which are a weapon type that increase the amount of damage that he does for every hex that he moves. Lances deal a lot of damage, so that's a neat plus.

Cons

- Lol at Promoting This Guy: Here's what FE Wiki has to say about Adel's promotion:

"However he probably isn't even reaching promotion. The requirement for his promotion is 30 spear and 20 small shield. While his small shield requirement isn't too hard to hit, as he has an 80% growth for it, the 30 spear requirement is nearly unreachable with his 4 base and 30% growth. To put things in perspective, Elbert has huge problems promoting with the same growth and nearly the same base, the difference is he only requires a 20 spear rank." 

Source: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Adel#Overview

I can confirm that Elbert is a pain in the butt to recruit. His promotion is easier than Adel's which makes me shudder at the thought of using Adel.

- Vantage gets less useful as the game goes on: Vantage only works if the following conditions are met:

1) Adel's Attack Speed is higher than the enemy attacking him.

2) Adel actually hits the enemy attacking him.

3) Adel actually deals damage to the enemy attacking him.

The thing about Berwick Saga is that the enemies get significantly stronger over the course of the game. Some of them will have higher attack speed than he will, which means that Adel won't get to activate Vantage. Others will be so bulky that Adel won't be able to do any damage to them at all. And finally, Adel's low spear rank will mean that he'll have trouble actually hitting the enemy. It's disappointing to think about, but as cool as Vantage is, it won't help you for forever.

- Accuracy Problems: Adel's accuracy gets worse as time goes on. His low spear rank and low spear rank growth make it difficult for him to hit enemies. After a while, he pretty much has to have Leon nearby for a chance to actually hit enemies.

Conclusion: Adel starts the game as an appealing unit to use, but gets worse over time. Every positive that he has going for him depreciates over the course of the game. If you want to use Adel, then you should also use Leon. Those characters have the skill Supporter, which boosts each other's hit rates when they're within 3 spaces of each other. 

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Ruby

Pros

- Promoting Her Will Result in Permanently Recruiting Clifford: Clifford is one of the best units in the game. If you want him to permanently recruit him, you have to promote Ruby. Honestly, this is the biggest reason why anyone actually uses her.

- Paragon: She gets more experience every time she kills an enemy. Yay! 

- Gets Adept at Level 17: Even if it takes a while for her to get, she will eventually be able to attack consecutively. Hooray!

- Great Availability: Ruby joins the player on a side quest before Chapter 2. If you're planning on using her, you get to use her for virtually the entire game.

- High weapon rank growths: If you're trying to promote Ruby, you have to get her weapon ranks up to a certain point. The only way for that to happen is for her weapon ranks to increase via growths. Ruby has great growths in each weapon rank. This also means that her accuracy will improve over time.

- Axebane: Whenever an axe wielding enemy attacks Ruby, she gets the chance to force that enemy to re-roll and forces their accuracy to have at most a 33 % chance to hit. Basically, Ruby is untouchable when facing off against axe wielding enemies. 

- Access to a Horse: Higher movement is a plus.

Cons

Poor Start

"Although her base stats are on par with those of Reese, Leon, and Adel, her starting weapon skills are horrible and she lacks an excellent starting skill that they have; Ruby's strength is rather low, both in base and in growth, which can cause her to run into damage issues throughout the game." 

Source: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Ruby#Overview

She's a Hassle to Promote

Ruby's sword and spear ranks aren't a problem, but getting her shield rank to 20 is a pain in the butt. Axebane, but dodging axe-wielding enemies makes it harder for her shield rank to increase, which makes it harder for her to promote. 

Conclusion

Every Fire Emblem game has to have that one unit whose base stats are poor, but their growths are high. Ruby is that character for Berwick Saga. You could argue that other characters fit that title, like Faye or Enid, but this is definitely true for Ruby.

Realistically speaking, the main reason why people use her is so that they can permanently recruit Clifford. Even if you promote Ruby, she doesn't really stand out from all the other mounted units in this game. Heck, Alvina can pretty much do everything that Ruby can do, but requires no effort to use. My recommendation is to bench Ruby immediately after Clifford joins your group. Even as a casual, I found using Ruby to be an exercise in frustration.

Berwick Saga Character Guide B Tier Part 2

 Some quick things before beginning

1) I placed Sylvis (your sniper) in A tier based off of someone's suggestion. I agree that she's a great unit and that she deserves more recognition.

2) I placed Axel above the mages due to how useful his utility is over their utility. 

3) Back when I was writing about Arthur I mentioned that he was the only character in the game who had Armsthrift. This is not true. There's a character in this tier who has Armsthrift, and another character in the game who also has Armsthrift.

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Czene & Sedy

Czene and Sedy are the thieves in this game. As you'd expect of a thief, they can open doors and chests. They also have skills that let them steal items from enemies. Czene has Mug, a skill that gives her a % chance to steal enemy items. Sedy has Steal, which is a command skill that lets him steal non-equipped enemy items. Steal can only be used 5 times per map, so keep that in mind. Even with that limitation, Steal is a better skill than Mug.

Both thieves have a skill called Search, which lets them find hidden items and treasures all throughout the map.

Czene gets a horse after promotion, which is super helpful when trying to unlock doors in faster playthroughs. You read that right. There's a thief in this game that gets a horse. Czene has Watch, which lets her detect hidden enemies. This is useful later on when enemy crossbow users and assassins hide from the player and can potentially jump out of nowhere and attack you.

Sedy has a unique skill called Evasion, which boosts his avoid for several turns. He also has Provoke, which lets him redirect enemies over to him. Sedy also has the Hide skill, which lets him remain invisible from enemies.

Czene joins the player for free, while Sedy has to be paid in order to be recruited. There are arguments that can be made over which thief is better than the other. At the end of the day, you should use at least one of them since their thief utility really helps out at many points in the game.

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Chris / Christine 

Note about the name: In the game, her name is translated as "Christine", but in the wiki she's referred to as "Chris". Because we already have a controversial character named Kris, I'm going to refer to this character as "Christine". Now then...

Christine is a weird character that could only exist in Berwick Saga. She's a mounted crossbow user with a skill that lets her trade horses with allies. I realize that this sounds strange and might need an explanation. Horses in Berwick Saga have HP. When the rider takes damage, the horse takes that same damage too. If a horse's HP drops to 0 it permanently dies. New horses can be bought from a stable in the base preparation menu, but the best ones are pretty expensive. 

This is where Christine's skill "Horse Swap" comes into play. Christine lets you trade an ally's horse with hers. That way if her horse has more HP, she can give it to an ally which will let them maintain an offense oriented momentum. Horse Swap combines with another skill of hers called Horse-Lover. This lets her recover the HP of the horse she's riding by 20 at the end of each chapter. Horse HP almost never recovers in this game. The only other way is to have your mounted unit eat a certain food at the Kingfisher Pavilion. The second method isn't very reliable because that food rarely shows up, so Horse-Lover is the main way that horse HP recovers in this game.

Christine also comes with the skills "Aim" and "Armsthrift". Aim gives her next attack + 30 % accuracy in exchange for movement. That's super helpful in a game with an infuriating RNG. Armsthrift lets her use her weapons for a longer period of time since she uses up less uses for them overall. 

There two more important facts about Christine: She joins your army in the first chapter of the game, meaning that you get to use her all game long. She also joins your army for free, saving the player a lot of gold in the process. Crossbows are powerful weapons in this game, so her combat can be pretty good if she's given the right equipment.

Overall: Christine's a weird character, but she has her uses. I personally never mind myself using her for very long, but feel free to give a shot and see if you like using her or not.

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Izerna

There's not a lot to say about Izerna so I'll make this quick: She's a healer who joins you in the first chapter for free. She heals....and that's about it. After promotion she gets access to an orb called "Rehabilitate" which cures allies with the cripple status. That's really helpful given how punitive the cripple status is. She'll also get access to an orb called "Holy" which lets her attack first in combat, but can't kill. Before ending this, it is important to know that she has 3 movement for some reason.

Overall: From a gameplay point of view, Izerna is one-dimensional. She heals...and that's it. Owen's a better healer, but there are chapters where you'll want to use more than one healer. If that's the case, then Izerna will work as an adequate backup healer.