You know why Atlas might be a tad underrated?

He's level 10, means ready for promotion. He can be whatever the hell he wants, and what strikes out to me is Mercenary.

30 HP, 14 Str, 8 Skill, 10 Speed, 4 Luck, 5 Def, 4 Res

Level 9 Sever
26 HP, 10-11 Str, 10 skill, 11 Speed, 7 Luck, 9 Def, 6 Res

Honestly, hard to sweep under the radar, aside from the fact that Sever's close to promotion. For just showing up, that's rather hard core.

...A thought just occured. These growths seem weird, and yet class growths are seperate...Do we add them to get the real growths?

EDIT: Woops, misread Defense as the luck base, Sever would only have 7 Def, not 9.

Yeah, and Sever can early promote, of which defensively still ,the difference is 2 Def and Res. While Sever has 4 more speed, Atlas is STILL hitting a fuckload harder on the things both double. Sever practically has to wait to tier 3 to get the ninja attack base to compare to Atlas offensively at this point in time.

Which reminds me, thanks to the constantly high speed base of merc route, Atlas's speed growth means as much to him as it does to Sever.

My understanding is that Saber is as high as he is for chapter 2 reasons. He's extremely critical for getting through the boat sections, whereas Atlas has no similar period of being nigh-required. Saber's usefulness cools off pretty quickly though, and by the time Atlas is beating him, he's not so hot any more.

I could easily see Saber down, but I'd still have trouble seeing Atlas>Saber.

I'm aware of this, which is what makes this a general comparison rather than saying that Atlas>Sever. I just wanted to show that Atlas isn't exactly god awful, at least not bottom tier.

Example, what makes Jessie so special in comparison to the guy who starts off with an Str base that's just 1 off the third freaking tier base?

As for Sever, you do raise a good point in how he slows down. Both will need to be pulled up by the speed bonuses of promotion, but at least with that in mind, Atlas will basically always be beating Sever offensively upon arrival aside from where Sever is at the next tier, where Atlas would not be.

Jesse needs to drop anyway, having comparable availability to Est is NOT a good thing. He can at least stand to go below Dean, who joins only slightly later with far better bases.