You know, on higher difficulties of the game, where it's next to impossible to grind on Risen battles, Bonus Teams can really come in handy. You can fight opponents around your level, and whether it's to sweep the entire field clear of foes in three turns and deprive the party of experience, or to be sacrifices that draw the enemy away from your main squad, new characters can come in handy. But, it can be hard to choose which characters to fight and recruit. For example, Nino from the Fire Emblem set is a weak mage and she seems like an easy fight, but though most characters are accompanied by nine people with similar classes at a similar level, Nino is accompanied by three powerful promoted units that are meant to remind players of the GBA game about the three powerful members of the Black Fang that protected her. On the other hand, Nyna from Shadow Dragon is a promoted unit, but only has a Rating of 78. So, if you have the cash to recruit a powerful foe (possibly gained from The Golden Gaffe, a DLC mission, though you may as well train your own units up using EXPonential Growth if you're really struggling), which characters are the best to hire? And if you just want to get a lot of Renown really fast for the bonuses, which characters are the easiest to defeat?
As I've probably mentioned before, making lists is something I do often. And I've decided to take the list of characters currently available in my Avatar Logbook and make it presentable to my online audience. I have never used these characters in battle, so what you will see is the default ranking for every character I've battled in my two files (mostly my first; Yukari's only battled two so far, the first of which was featured in the previous installment). As in the game itself, the characters at the top of the list are the most expensive/powerful, and the characters at the bottom are the least. I have also listed the Bonus Team that the character can be retrieved from, though different versions of some characters can be recruited in DLC missions. I could have just listed those characters as 'DLC' and declined including the Team that the original version is in, but some people might desire to compare the two versions. I have declined to list all of a unit's skills, even though some of them have skills from classes they cannot possibly become, because...well, it would take a fair bit of time to type out, and you can always cross-reference this list with the ones on the Serenes Forest website if you're really curious. Finally, to see somebody's Rating (the sum of the unit's key stats) in the game, you must click on the 'FULL' button. This toggles between a mere summary of the character's abilities and a look at all of a unit's current statistics (including things like Hit % and the experience points they have), and its default setting is turned on.
...Oh, wait a second; there's one more thing that I forgot to mention earlier. There are three special classes in the game, two of which are only available with the right DLC. 'Lodestar' is the one that is not limited by DLC, but is the default class of DLC Marth in addition to "Shadow Dragon" Prince Marth and "Mystery of the Emblem" King Marth. 'Lodestar' is limited to those three characters, and while it's similar to Chrom's Lord class, it has a level cap of 30 and cannot promote into a second-tier class. 'Dread Fighter' is the default class of DLC Alm, and every time you clear the DLC mission you recruited Alm in, you receive an item that lets any male unit class change into a Dread Fighter. 'Bride' is the other DLC-required class, but it is not listed below, due to the fact that I've been slacking off when it comes to playing all of the DLC that I've acquired. More data on Dread Fighters and Brides will be included if I actually get one or the other during my liveblogged play through.
With all of that out of the way, here's every character I've entered into my Logbook. If you wanted to recruit these characters, the actual fights (why pay for them when you can get them for free AND earn Renown?) might be slightly more or less challenging than you would expect, such as the Nino fight I've already mentioned. But I think that this is a decent guideline to follow, and when there's over a hundred characters currently available to challenge and recruit, a guideline could come in handy.
- L'Arachel - Sacred Stones - Lv. 18 War Cleric - Rating: 172 - Cost: 31200
- Hector - Fire Emblem - Lv. 20 General - Rating: 170 - Cost: 31000
- Ogma - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 15 Hero - Rating: 159 - Cost: 28400
- Tiki - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 25 Manakete - Rating: 128 - Cost: 28000
- Innes - Sacred Stones - Lv. 12 Sniper - Rating: 155 - Cost: 26000
- Leif - Thracia 776 (JP) (DLC Version) - Lv. 1 Trickster - Rating: 148 - Cost:25600
- Clive - Mystery of the Emblem (JP) - Lv. 9 Paladin - Rating: 149 - Cost: 25600
- Marisa - Sacred Stones - Lv. 5 Swordmaster - Rating: 154 - Cost: 25200
- Titania - Path of Radiance - Lv. 6 Great Knight - Rating: 142 - Cost: 24600
- Karel - Fire Emblem - Lv. 8 Swordsmaster - Rating: 145 - Cost: 23400
- Elincia - Path of Radiance - Lv. 11 Falcon Knight - Rating: 144 - Cost: 22800
- Minerva - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 9 Wyvern Lord - Rating: 132 - Cost: 22000
- Sanaki - Radiant Dawn - Lv. 5 Sage - Rating: 127 - Cost: 21800
- Alm - Gaiden (JP) (DLC Version) - Lv. 21 Dread Fighter - Rating: 139 - Cost: 20600
- Nephenee - Radiant Dawn - Lv. 18 Knight - Rating: 113 - Cost: 20400
- Merric - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 19 Mage - Rating: 93 - Cost: 18000
- Brom - Radiant Dawn - Lv. 14 Knight - Rating: 102 - Cost: 17400
- Moulder - Sacred Stones - Lv. 14 Priest - Rating: 75 - Cost: 14800
- Zihark - Path of Radiance - Lv. 19 Myrmidon - Rating: 88 - Cost: 14800
- Linde - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 14 Mage - Rating: 78 - Cost: 14400
- Soren - Path of Radiance - Lv. 12 Mage - Rating: 76 - Cost: 13800
- Lute - Sacred Stones - Lv. 17 Mage - Rating: 74 - Cost: 13600
- Serra - Fire Emblem - Lv. 14 Cleric - Rating: 78 - Cost: 13200
- Micaiah - Radiant Dawn (DLC Version) - Lv. 12 Dark Mage - Rating: 70 - Cost: 12600
- Caeda - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 10 Pegasus Knight - Rating: 85 - Cost: 12400
- Matthew - Fire Emblem - Lv. 17 Thief - Rating: 66 - Cost: 12000
- Nino - Fire Emblem - Lv. 10 Mage - Rating: 65 - Cost: 11600
- Nyna - Shadow Dragon - Lv. 1 Sage - Rating: 78 - Cost: 11600
- Mia - Path of Radiance - Lv. 14 Myrmidon - Rating: 72 - Cost: 10800
- Boey - Gaiden (JP) - Lv. 11 Mage - Rating: 55 - Cost: 9200
- Leonardo - Radiant Dawn - Lv. 7 Archer - Rating: 58 - Cost: 8400
- Roy - Binding Blade (DLC Version) - Lv. 11 Mercenary - Rating: 51 - Cost: 7400
- Amelia - Sacred Stones - Lv. 7 Knight - Rating: 57 - Cost: 6600
- Fee - Genealogy / Holy War: G2 (JP) - Lv. 4 Pegasus Knight - Rating: 56 - Cost: 6400
- Pr. Marth - Shadow Dragon (DLC Version) - Lv. 8 Lodestar - Rating: 54 - Cost: 6200
- Nanna - Thracia 776 (JP) - Lv. 3 Troubador - Rating: 41 - Cost: 5800
- Edward - Radiant Dawn - Lv. 4 Myrmidon - Rating: 47 - Cost: 5200
- Florina - Fire Emblem - Lv. 3 Pegasus Knight - Rating: 50 - Cost: 5000
- Eirika - Sacred Stones - Lv. 5 Myrmidon - Rating: 44 - Cost: 4600
- Mist - Path of Radiance - Lv. 1 Cleric - Rating: 33 - Cost: 4000
And that's everybody I've logged thus far. Sure, the Logbook can store up to 99 characters (including Tacticians you've made) and I've only filled up slightly more than half of the space, but it could still come in handy. If I add more characters to the Logbook while training Yukari's army or by just clearing DLC, I will edit this page and add them to the list. Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day!
