Round 2 Voting

I realized today that nominating the same guys over again is going to get tiresome, so at least for now we'll stick with the people that didn't make it to the #1 spot. When we have like ~4 left I guess we can renominate...but if you think it should be done earlier just yell at me on IRC and we'll have another nomination round.

So, here you go.

Raven
Priscilla
Serra
Oswin
Hector
Ninian/Nils
Matthew

Some slight in-depth talk about each of them.

Raven
Raven probably has the best offense in the game overall, essentially ORKOing (or close to it) from the bat and only getting better with his like 10 str/15 spd bases and 55%/45% growths in each. His durability is less amazing, but still quite acceptable (the only people out of the above that beat him are Oswin and Hector), though he can sometimes get critted, and he has no 1-2 range until promotion gives him Hand Axes.

Priscilla
Priscilla is a mounted healer, and one of your two only earlygame ones. It takes a long time to get her to promotion, and then her combat isn't worth writing home about until she gets Thunder, but at least it's done with perpetual 1~2 range. High level staves are clutch in certain chapters. Her main problem is obviously durability, and lack of enemy phase before promotion.

Serra
A lot like Priscilla, only with a higher level making her promotion more flexible, some more availability, and no mount. Oh, and Light magic.

Oswin
Oswin has hands down the best durability when he joins, and he's only surpassed at that when you take into account mobility or resistance. An earlygame lifesaver for sure, and later on he can still tink enemies. His weakness is of course mobility and speed, which poses a severe problem for him in comparisons if the other side can survive just fine, or if healing them after an enemy phase is not a detriment, since it means he's getting much less action.

Hector
Hector starts a bit shaky hit-wise, but soon enough he's about as tanky as Oswin, except he's armed with the lethal Wolf Beil. He's also a free unit slot on every chapter, which is nice since some chapters have too few slots even if your team is reasonably small. His main problem is a late promotion capping him out at 20/--, and some AS issues.

Ninian/Nils
Dancer, hax, etc. Can also make a unit invincible with Nini's Grace for a turn, which allows someone like Lucius to have a non-risky enemy phase. Main problem, besides no enemy phase, is lack of availability: only available from Ch21 and on, and then also absent from Sands of Time.

Matthew
He makes a great earlygame fighter since he's one of the few that doubles, and after that thief utility begins. Chests, stolen items (Silver Card!), fog of war, it's all for him. Until Ch20, he has the sole claim to all this, and after that he only faces competition from Legault, though there's often work for both.

Raven. In fact, I would've voted him #1 but the topic is already locked.

Raven

Matthew.

Actually I'm going for Raven after the discussion on IRC.

Oswin, once again.

Raven's pretty tempting, though. Perhaps he'll get #3 or something. *shrug*

Oswin.

A common issue with Armor Knights is that they get destroyed by the axe flood that starts every game. Not only does Oswin's high base Level and Defense completely negate this, but in FE7 the axe flood gets replaced by a Cavalier Flood for the most part, and mages are sparse. This means that Oswin is pretty much never going to even be within threat range of being taken down no matter what you do with him.

High starting level means that Oswin is probably going to be the first member of your team to promote, and since you get a Knight Crest relatively early on, Oswin can lay claim to it. Once promoted, Oswin stops falling behind MOV-wise, and is generally (lol) going to be your most durable unit for a long time.

On top of that, he's got some growths that other AKs would kill for. The 30% Speed combined with the general mediocrity of opposing Speed in this game means that not only do most enemies not double him, but he is actually capable of doubling slower enemies. 20/1 Oswin has 11 Speed, which is notable in such a slow game. On top of that, check out his defensive growths. 90% HP / 55% Def / 30% Res. While Oswin isn't going to be tanking stuff like Genesis or the flood of promoted magic users in Cog of Destiny, Oswin's massive HP growth and decent Resistance means that he'll still be able to shrug off magical attacks like nobody's business.

I also have to bring up Oswin's excellent early game. High base level makes the axe flood uninteresting, and once it turns into the cav flood Oswin just roflstomps everything enemy-related on the map. On top of this, his inability to double means that he can weaken large portions of the enemy army, allowing the rest of your underleveled peons to follow through and clean up. This results in a generally stronger army, with less units in harm's way but the same amount of experience.

MOV issues don't count against him either, because he can be Rescued and dropped by some of your mounted units. Florina, Sain, and Kent can all pick up and drop Oswin during the time that you would need to do so (early on), and Florina is notable because there are a couple maps where airdropping Oswin deep can result in being able to secure an out of the way position fast.

There's no doubt that when compared to units like Raven that he gets hit hard on offense, but the fact that the big red machine can just stomp forward like some kind of ungodly Terminator regardless of what's standing in his way is top-notch. Raven's obviously better when he can manage to survive, but relying on the shaky dodge of Raven's mediocre luck and the 2-RN system means that Oswin's guaranteed power and survivability sets him a cut above the rest of the cast.

Raven.

Priscilla.

I'm going with Raven here. He is just that much better at offense throughout the game pretty much. Defense, Oswin does win, but Raven has no real durability issues, especially not after he promotes, but Oswin is pretty borderline doubling even after promoting and getting +3 spd. And then his mobility is ass compared to Raven, and he can't be ferried around.

Raven

Oswin

Oswin. I very rarely hear myself saying "boy I wish I had another person who could one-round", but you'll hear me say "boy I wish I had another tank" a lot. Oswin's strengths simply fall in higher demand than Raven's.

Raven.

Raven

Hector

Oswin.

ok fixed

Raven:
1. vykan
2. bblade
3. colonel
4. dondon
5. mekkah
6. IOS
7. Red Fox
8. Ether
9. Fishin
10. jumpluff

Oswin:
1. Allan Aokage
2. SDS
3. Brighton
4. cheetah

Matthew:
1. chaosninji

Pris:
1. rody

Hector:
1. CATS

I voted Raven too.

I flip-flopped like every other politician. Blame NObamasnow.

Raven.

Raven

Raven it is.