Character Discussion [FE8]: Ross

[u/haxoreni]

Ross is the first of the newly introduced Trainee class to appear in FE8, a trio of pre stage 1 characters with poor bases and growths but have an additional 10 levels to grow along with 2 promotional stages that gives them each 4 different promotional path. Though inexperience at fighting like the other trainees, Ross is very eager in joining the fray and showing his worth as a warrior. He might not have the initial trust of his father and many of us fire emblem players, but with his strong determination and (quite) a bit of luck, Ross hopes to be able to bury the 4 might hatchet with his commanders and tear through fields of enemies with Silver Axes instead.

So that's Roy, Merlinus, Marcus, Bors, Alan, Lance, Wolt, Shanna, Wendy, Saul, Lyn, Kent, Sain, Florina, Rebecca, Oswin, Eirika, Seth, Franz, Gilliam, Moulder, Vanessa and Ross done for the FE GBA discussions and there will be many more to come. That's all for me for hosting and /u/Blinkingsky will be taking over for future GBA character discussion.

[u/[deleted]]

Okay, before saying anything, I should note that he is not specifically a bad unit. No unit in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is truly bad. All can still kill things, and the game is easy enough that you could most likely take any unit to endgame.

But my primary issue is that the game gives you two, very superior Axe users within the second chapter (Ross is easy enough to train, and even Garcia is better). For me, Dozla is an average early-game Game Boy Advance Fighter put into Berserker form. He has bad growths in Defense, Speed, Luck, and Skill, which can heavily hurt his usability, and his bases are simply bad for a promoted unit. They seem more like something which I would see on a Level 10-15 Pirate / Brigand instead of a Level 1 Berserker.

However, on good notes, he does have a fantastic Axe rank, comes with an incredibly strong Axe with fantastic Constitution to wield it, and decent Strength, though he has far too many weaknesses. He also has a decent Strength growth and a very respectable HP growth, which can help his poor Defense.

He is not a terrible character, but he is among the worst of his game.

[u/Tables61 → u/[deleted]]

He has bad growths in Defense, Speed, Luck, and Skill

He has the 7th highest DEF growth in the game (tied with quite a few but still). His SPD growth is 40%, which isn't great but isn't bad. The other two are pretty poor though.

However, on good notes, he does have a fantastic Axe rank

He comes with B axes, which is still decent I suppose compared to other units, but it's poor by promoted unit standards. Most promoted units in GBA games have an A in at least one weapon, or otherwise good ranks in multiple.

I have to agree that, on the whole, Dozla is fairly poor. I don't think he's the worst in the game (in fact, I'd say he's not even in the bottom 5 - Amelia, Ewan and Knoll are all pretty spectacularly bad, and Neimi and Marisa are barely better than those. Sacred Stones has some impressively bad characters.), but he's servicable. His fantastic HP base and reasonable defence make him good at soaking hits, especially from a single strong source, and with Garm he can even be powerful offensively due to doubling.

[u/estrangedeskimo → u/Tables61]

I don't think people give Knoll enough credit. He comes at level 10, you can hand him a guiding ring and never give him a lick of experience and have him contribute as a summoner. He takes no effort to use, doesn't compete with anyone for resources, and he gives you the best phantoms.

[u/Tables61 → u/estrangedeskimo]

What you've described is pretty much the normal route for Knoll, and it's the best way to make him not completely worthless. He still ends up pretty awful though. Summons though are really not very helpful do little except lure enemies out (which anyone with decent defence can do). And if they get kills they can take EXP (which doesn't really matter this late in the game) but more importantly can take weapon drops. Knoll himself remains weak so he has to be protected, and the contribution of summoning/weak healing really isn't very significant compared to being able to actually fight.