"Crack" pairing discussion

[Sara Jaye]

What's the most random pairing you ever did for a completely shallow reason and ended up working out better than you would've imagined?

I did Azel/Lachesis because I felt guilty leaving Azel unpaired, and I love it to pieces now because Nanna is more effective as a mobile healer thanks to the Fala blood. I also did the lesser-known Azel/Fury, and Fee gained so much magic I had her use the Wind Sword more than any other weapon. And finally, Lex/Bridget was totally random but it was very useful for Patty, who usually takes ages to level up.

[Zeraine]

I will have to agree with you on Azel/Lachesis. The fact that Delmudd can still fight, and Nanna can actually heal more than a boo boo makes it quite interesting.

I also did Holyn/Bridget and I loved the results.
Patty with B rank swords (she can use the hero sword she gives Celice), Moonstrike (makes her a great fighter), and Odo blood to go with all that skill for using Moonstrike more often. But when doing this pairing I felt that Faval would be left out however I was wrong. High hp (almost if not maxed), and a lot of skill (ichival has one of the lowest hits of all the holy weapons and it doesn't not provide a skill boost) makes him benefit as well.

Also my newfound favorite pairing for Aideen, Finn/Aideen
I noticed that Finn has a big luck growth and thought that Ulir blood would mix well with it. Both kids will have Prayer + high luck growths which helps out Rana if you screw up a strategy and now she's getting surrounded.
I felt that Lester was very usable with high stats all around (but you lack the hero bow until chapter 8 or so.) Rana becomes the same as every non-mage father rana, except that in Chapter 7, Finn has a talk with Rana which gives her +5 Magic!

I try to stray away from Predestined pairings, and it's usually good results (except Holyn/Lachesis).

[Sara Jaye]

I will have to agree with you on Azel/Lachesis. The fact that Delmudd can still fight, and Nanna can actually heal more than a boo boo makes it quite interesting.

I also did Holyn/Bridget and I loved the results.
Patty with B rank swords (she can use the hero sword she gives Celice), Moonstrike (makes her a great fighter), and Odo blood to go with all that skill for using Moonstrike more often. But when doing this pairing I felt that Faval would be left out however I was wrong. High hp (almost if not maxed), and a lot of skill (ichival has one of the lowest hits of all the holy weapons and it doesn't not provide a skill boost) makes him benefit as well.

Also my newfound favorite pairing for Aideen, Finn/Aideen
I noticed that Finn has a big luck growth and thought that Ulir blood would mix well with it. Both kids will have Prayer + high luck growths which helps out Rana if you screw up a strategy and now she's getting surrounded.
I felt that Lester was very usable with high stats all around (but you lack the hero bow until chapter 8 or so.) Rana becomes the same as every non-mage father rana, except that in Chapter 7, Finn has a talk with Rana which gives her +5 Magic!

I try to stray away from Predestined pairings, and it's usually good results (except Holyn/Lachesis).

YES on Holin/Bridget. I actually ship it as a pairing now, despite the lack of in-game interaction.

And Finn/Edain worked out pretty well for me, too. I actually like all of Finn's "canon" pairings, he may not be THE best unit in the game despite being good, but he offers some nice growth and the all-important Pursuit.

[Zeraine]

YES on Holin/Bridget. I actually ship it as a pairing now, despite the lack of in-game interaction.

And Finn/Edain worked out pretty well for me, too. I actually like all of Finn's "canon" pairings, he may not be THE best unit in the game despite being good, but he offers some nice growth and the all-important Pursuit.

Finn/Edain is the only pairing I like for Fin just because of Prayer + high luck + Rana's free magic boost + A still good lester.
What are Finn's "canon" pairings? I know Lachesis/Finn and I guess now is Finn/Edain...

[Sara Jaye]

Finn/Edain is the only pairing I like for Fin just because of Prayer + high luck + Rana's free magic boost + A still good lester.
What are Finn's "canon" pairings? I know Lachesis/Finn and I guess now is Finn/Edain...

By "canon" I mean pairings where he gets a talk with his daughter aka where you'd know he had kids in the second gen by means other than the fortune teller. Those pairings are LAchesis, Edain and Ayra.

[St. Pius X]

The first time I did ClaudexFury. I think Levin was taken by Sylvia or something and I felt the need to pair her before the 1st gen ended. Needless to say, I think the pairing is awesome. Capped Resistance for the win.

[Sir GTF]

All those listed so far are pretty standard to this community anyway.

Lachesis's kids need Pursuit to be halfway decent, but otherwise never have to worry about one of the most important stats, Str.  Even with Azel's barely existent Str contributions, they still have at least 50% Str.  Azel makes up for that with the Minor Fala, which is more helpful to Nanna than Delmud, but still both being able to use a Magic Sword competently is convenient.  The other major perk is his high Spd- the only important flaw is the terrible Skl, which only hurts Nanna because it's kinda impossible for Delmud to have really bad Skl when he gets +9 on promotion.  The pairing is effective, though the boost to Nanna's Magic in my eyes is overrated.

Briggid/Holyn to my knowledge was never considered crack.  Many aside from myself recommend that as a usual.  Faval is more or less completely fine no matter what you do (aside from giving him a magic father) because he has a class based Pursuit and a 40 might holy weapon that negates most of its own weight.  He's a beast by that alone, anything he gets from his spawning is merely extra, like the highest possible HP growth in this case.  Therefore, you're free to cater to Patty more because she bloody needs it.  Holyn does that marvelously because he can not only pass swords to her, he can pass more of them since his Minor Odo will kick her rank as a Thief up to a B.  Her crappy stats will pick up once she gets some levels and she's a bit more capable of that now since she can inherit the first Hero Sword (honestly, Lakche, Skasaher, and Celice need to inherit it like a hole in the head) and will have Moonlight Hit. 

Same with Claude/Fury, another standard recommended, especially to people who prefer Arthur with Holsety.  The differences between Levin!Fee and Claude!Fee statistically are minor, a bit more Mag and Res, but that's not such a big deal.  The bigger value is the rank up in staff- she can now use Libro, so there should now almost never be a person out of range for healing.  Sety there are definitely differences but Claude's version has it's perks.  It's the only person aside from Corple who can use the Valkyrie Staff, and the insanely high MDef, a stat rare throughout the entire game.  Dodging Yotsmung was never a reliable gamble, you want to go into that battle expecting to take the hit- Claude!Sety's pretty much the only guy who can shrug off a Yotsmung and still be able to take another one without dying.  Sure he doesn't have access to a holy weapon, but Lightning is a good substitute- lighter than Thunder weapons, just as strong as any other B rank spell with the accuracy of the C ranks, and it holds an advantage against the main elements with a neutral against Dark.  The deal sealer is that thanks to Fury, the kids are more than fine with skills even with Claude being unable to give anything.

A real crack pairing in my eyes is Noishe/Fury.  Before you start screaming about Sety sucking, I won't say he can never suck, but he's sufficient in this case.  His Spd and Skl'll be fine even though they will be a bit lower than what most are used to due to Noishe not excelling there, Fury's contributions kick the rates up to acceptable growths.  His Mag will not grow much beyond his base, but he's got Lightning and a ridiculously strong skill set- Pursuit, Continue, Charge, and Berserk.  Magic hits very hard in general since MDef barely exists in the game, and this Sety makes up for the lower Mag with sheer quantity of attacks and a rather frequent amount of criticals.  If the Mag is still annoyingly too low for you- then toss him a Magic Ring, you got hardly anybody who puts them to great use anyway. 

Moving on to Fee, she's actually a decent fighter now.  The two most popular options for Fury reduce Fee to a filler or utility role.  She's not great in Str, and as a result- at fighting, and pretty much needs a Hero Lance to kill well; but Finn becomes dead weight without it.  With Noishe, she'll have a lot more Str and Def than she would with Claude or Levin with an insignificant difference in HP to Levin (a lead over Claude).  The differences in Spd and Skl are either in her favor or ultimately insignificant compared to Claude- she won't cap Spd lightning fast like she would with Levin, but she'll still average around 28-29ish Spd which is still more than most classes are capable of.  Remember now, she's also got Pursuit, Continue, Berserk, and Charge.  Yeah, she's a beast when armed well and you can even toss her the Silver Lance (after promotion) since she has so many multi-hitting skills and there's no weight difference between them; Finn can reclaim his Hero Lance and remain sorta useful.

[Sara Jaye]

All those listed so far are pretty standard to this community anyway.

Lachesis's kids need Pursuit to be halfway decent, but otherwise never have to worry about one of the most important stats, Str.  Even with Azel's barely existent Str contributions, they still have at least 50% Str.  Azel makes up for that with the Minor Fala, which is more helpful to Nanna than Delmud, but still both being able to use a Magic Sword competently is convenient.  The other major perk is his high Spd- the only important flaw is the terrible Skl, which only hurts Nanna because it's kinda impossible for Delmud to have really bad Skl when he gets +9 on promotion.  The pairing is effective, though the boost to Nanna's Magic in my eyes is overrated.

Briggid/Holyn to my knowledge was never considered crack.  Many aside from myself recommend that as a usual.  Faval is more or less completely fine no matter what you do (aside from giving him a magic father) because he has a class based Pursuit and a 40 might holy weapon that negates most of its own weight.  He's a beast by that alone, anything he gets from his spawning is merely extra, like the highest possible HP growth in this case.  Therefore, you're free to cater to Patty more because she bloody needs it.  Holyn does that marvelously because he can not only pass swords to her, he can pass more of then since his Minor Odo will kick her rank up to a B as a Thief.  Her crappy stats will pick up once she gets some levels and she's a bit more capable of that now since she can inherit the first Hero Sword (honestly, Lakche, Skasaher, and Celice need to inherit it like a hole in the head) and will have Moonlight Hit. 

Same with Claude/Fury, another standard recommended, especially to people who prefer Arthur with Holsety.  The differences between Levin!Fee and Claude!Fee statistically are minor, a bit more Mag and Res, but that's not such a big deal.  The bigger value is the rank up in staff- she can now use Libro, so there should now almost never be a person out of range for healing.  Sety there are definitely differences but Claude's version has it's perks.  It's the only person aside from Corple who can use the Valkyrie Staff, and the insanely high MDef, a stat rare throughout the entire game.  Dodging Yotsmung was never a reliable gamble, you want to go into that battle expecting to take the hit- Claude!Sety's pretty much the only guy who can shrug off a Yotsmung and still be able to take another one without dying.  Sure he doesn't have access to a holy weapon, but Lightning is a good substitute- lighter than Thunder weapons, just as strong as any other B rank spell with the accuracy of the C ranks, and it holds an advantage against the main elements with a neutral against Dark.  The deal sealer is that thanks to Fury, the kids are more than fine with skills even with Claude being unable to give anything.

A real crack pairing in my eyes is Noishe/Fury.  Before you start screaming about Sety sucking, I won't say he can never suck, but he's sufficient in this case.  His Spd and Skl'll be fine even though they will be a bit lower than what most are used to due to Noishe not excelling there, Fury's contributions kick the rates up to acceptable growths.  His Mag will not grow much beyond his base, but he's got Lightning and a ridiculously strong skill set- Pursuit, Continue, Charge, and Berserk.  Magic hits very hard in general since MDef barely exists in the game, and this Sety makes up for the lower Mag with sheer quantity of attacks and a rather frequent amount of criticals.  If the Mag is still annoyingly to low for you- then toss him a Magic Ring, you got hardly anybody who puts them to great use anyway. 

Moving on to Fee, she's actually a decent fighter now.  The two most popular options for Fury reduce Fee to a filler or utility role.  She's not great in Str at fighting and pretty much needs a Hero Lance to do it well and Finn becomes dead weight without it.  With Noishe, she'll have a lot more Str and Def than she would with Claude or Levin with an insignificant difference in HP to Levin (a lead over Claude).  The differences in Spd and Skl are either in her favor or ultimately insignificant compared to Claude- she won't cap Spd lightning fast like she would with Levin, but she'll still average around 28-29ish Spd which is still more than most classes are capable of.  Remember now, she's also got Pursuit, Continue, Berserk, and Charge.  Yeah, she's a beast when armed well and you can even toss her the Silver Lance (after promotion) since she has so many multi-hitting skills and there's no weight difference between them; Finn can reclaim his Hero Lance and remain sorta useful.

Well, by crack I mean non-predestined, lol. The predestined pairings are always reccomended and so are the occasional non-predestined (Deu/Bridget, for one).

Noish/Fury is actually predestined too, and I actually love that one. Sety might not be AS amazing as he would be with a mage!dad, but he's still pretty damn good. And Fee was fucking amazing.

Claude/Fury is great, a friend reccomended it to me on my first playthrough. I actually like it better for stats because Fee + Libro staff = a fucking lifesaver, man. Master knight!Leaf is better as a physical attacker than a healer, and I'm not gonna pair Lachesis with Claude and sacrifice Delmud for Nanna with a B in staves.

[St. Pius X]

All those listed so far are pretty standard to this community anyway.

Lachesis's kids need Pursuit to be halfway decent, but otherwise never have to worry about one of the most important stats, Str.  Even with Azel's barely existent Str contributions, they still have at least 50% Str.  Azel makes up for that with the Minor Fala, which is more helpful to Nanna than Delmud, but still both being able to use a Magic Sword competently is convenient.  The other major perk is his high Spd- the only important flaw is the terrible Skl, which only hurts Nanna because it's kinda impossible for Delmud to have really bad Skl when he gets +9 on promotion.  The pairing is effective, though the boost to Nanna's Magic in my eyes is overrated.

Briggid/Holyn to my knowledge was never considered crack.  Many aside from myself recommend that as a usual.  Faval is more or less completely fine no matter what you do (aside from giving him a magic father) because he has a class based Pursuit and a 40 might holy weapon that negates most of its own weight.  He's a beast by that alone, anything he gets from his spawning is merely extra, like the highest possible HP growth in this case.  Therefore, you're free to cater to Patty more because she bloody needs it.  Holyn does that marvelously because he can not only pass swords to her, he can pass more of them since his Minor Odo will kick her rank as a Thief up to a B.  Her crappy stats will pick up once she gets some levels and she's a bit more capable of that now since she can inherit the first Hero Sword (honestly, Lakche, Skasaher, and Celice need to inherit it like a hole in the head) and will have Moonlight Hit. 

Same with Claude/Fury, another standard recommended, especially to people who prefer Arthur with Holsety.  The differences between Levin!Fee and Claude!Fee statistically are minor, a bit more Mag and Res, but that's not such a big deal.  The bigger value is the rank up in staff- she can now use Libro, so there should now almost never be a person out of range for healing.  Sety there are definitely differences but Claude's version has it's perks.  It's the only person aside from Corple who can use the Valkyrie Staff, and the insanely high MDef, a stat rare throughout the entire game.  Dodging Yotsmung was never a reliable gamble, you want to go into that battle expecting to take the hit- Claude!Sety's pretty much the only guy who can shrug off a Yotsmung and still be able to take another one without dying.  Sure he doesn't have access to a holy weapon, but Lightning is a good substitute- lighter than Thunder weapons, just as strong as any other B rank spell with the accuracy of the C ranks, and it holds an advantage against the main elements with a neutral against Dark.  The deal sealer is that thanks to Fury, the kids are more than fine with skills even with Claude being unable to give anything.

A real crack pairing in my eyes is Noishe/Fury.  Before you start screaming about Sety sucking, I won't say he can never suck, but he's sufficient in this case.  His Spd and Skl'll be fine even though they will be a bit lower than what most are used to due to Noishe not excelling there, Fury's contributions kick the rates up to acceptable growths.  His Mag will not grow much beyond his base, but he's got Lightning and a ridiculously strong skill set- Pursuit, Continue, Charge, and Berserk.  Magic hits very hard in general since MDef barely exists in the game, and this Sety makes up for the lower Mag with sheer quantity of attacks and a rather frequent amount of criticals.  If the Mag is still annoyingly too low for you- then toss him a Magic Ring, you got hardly anybody who puts them to great use anyway. 

Moving on to Fee, she's actually a decent fighter now.  The two most popular options for Fury reduce Fee to a filler or utility role.  She's not great in Str, and as a result- at fighting, and pretty much needs a Hero Lance to kill well; but Finn becomes dead weight without it.  With Noishe, she'll have a lot more Str and Def than she would with Claude or Levin with an insignificant difference in HP to Levin (a lead over Claude).  The differences in Spd and Skl are either in her favor or ultimately insignificant compared to Claude- she won't cap Spd lightning fast like she would with Levin, but she'll still average around 28-29ish Spd which is still more than most classes are capable of.  Remember now, she's also got Pursuit, Continue, Berserk, and Charge.  Yeah, she's a beast when armed well and you can even toss her the Silver Lance (after promotion) since she has so many multi-hitting skills and there's no weight difference between them; Finn can reclaim his Hero Lance and remain sorta useful.

Well, since I was a newb at the time who had usual case of  the "if it's not Levin, it won't be good" mentality at the time(so my expectations were relatively low) and the reason for doing it was an 'emergency' pair for Fury, which I think was shallow enough, it's still an answer to the original question.

[theshim is the shimiest shim of all the shims that ever shim]

Levin is only recommended so strongly for Fury because that takes the most advantage of the Sage's ridiculous caps(straight 30s in Magic, Skill and Speed?  Hells yes).  Azel will leave a gaping hole in Skill and Claude's not much better there.  And neither will pass down any skills to either child.

If you want truly strange pairings, I can suggest one:
Fury/Ardan.  Fee ends up similar to the Noish pairing, but with worse skills.  Slightly higher Hp and Strength, and almost everything else is worse.  I don't even want to talk about Sety...

[Sara Jaye]

Levin is only recommended so strongly for Fury because that takes the most advantage of the Sage's ridiculous caps(straight 30s in Magic, Skill and Speed?  Hells yes).  Azel will leave a gaping hole in Skill and Claude's not much better there.  And neither will pass down any skills to either child.

If you want truly strange pairings, I can suggest one:
Fury/Ardan.  Fee ends up similar to the Noish pairing, but with worse skills.  Slightly higher Hp and Strength, and almost everything else is worse.  I don't even want to talk about Sety...

The skill issue and the problem with fire magic being so heavy was a big concern with Fury/Azel for me, but in the end Sety was fast enough for it not to be an issue.

And I've done Fury/Arden a couple times. Fee is basically a dragon knight, lol. Sety wasn't too bad, though. Not as good as he was with Levin/Claude/Azel as his father, but he could hold his own.

[Zeraine]

That's what I figured "crack" pairing was...
In any case
My first playthrough I got Ardan/Sylvia It's what I get for abusing the bosses with him
Sylvia gets a decent boost in defence.
As for corple....he's not terrible. The blagi blood from Sylvia gives him a mag growth of 25%... and he gets 5 upon promotion.

[Sara Jaye]

That's what I figured "crack" pairing was...
In any case
My first playthrough I got Ardan/Sylvia It's what I get for abusing the bosses with him
Sylvia gets a decent boost in defence.
As for corple....he's not terrible. The blagi blood from Sylvia gives him a mag growth of 25%... and he gets 5 upon promotion.

LOL, Arden/Sylvia. I actually want to try that one out sometime if only for the amusing mental images.

[St. Pius X]

I've done Ardan/Sylvia for the Ambush+Sleep Sword gimmick in the arena for Leen. It'stedious, but it works.
-----

Levin is only recommended so strongly for Fury because that takes the most advantage of the Sage's ridiculous caps(straight 30s in Magic, Skill and Speed?  Hells yes).  Azel will leave a gaping hole in Skill and Claude's not much better there.  And neither will pass down any skills to either child.

If you want truly strange pairings, I can suggest one:
Fury/Ardan.  Fee ends up similar to the Noish pairing, but with worse skills.  Slightly higher Hp and Strength, and almost everything else is worse.  I don't even want to talk about Sety...

What makes Levin better is Holsety. The Sage's skill cap is 27 and Sety avereages 27.5 in Magic with Levin as the dad. Sety can still use Elwind or Lightning and have approximately 120 to 130 hit in the game with Azel or Claude as his dad while still getting ~29 Magic and Speed.

[Mekkah]

Lex/Brigid is one of my favourite pairings ever. Faval is obviously awesome like always, no real sweat there, except he grows super fast with Elite. It's Patty shows major improvement, since she makes use of both Ambush and Elite. Elite allows her to promote much, much earlier to get that damn Pursuit skill in there as well as a humongous promotion bonus. Ambush has no real use on the field, but in the arena, it makes for a killer combination with the Sleep Sword (which she actually comes with, so no need to save up to buy it). Basically, if Patty ever loses in the arena fighting normally (which happens often before promotion, if not all the time), send her back in again with Sleep Sword. With Ambush and her HP reduced to 1, she will attack first, and have some kind of shot at hitting and putting the opponent to sleep. If she doesn't, just try again and again until it works. Once the enemy sleeps, she will just take them out, even if it takes her 1 dmg at 35% hit or something ridiculous like that to do so (speed up toggle on emulators please, then go make some coffee...Great Shield dudes take ages).

The same can be done with Ardan, except he has no Elite and generally worse stats to contribute. Any child who can use a sword can abuse Sleep Sword/Ambush, and Aless and Hannibal can do it as well (they have natural Ambush), but no one gets as much out of it as Patty. I sometimes do the same with Leen, except she'd usually get Ardan with her because I prefer to pair Lex with kids who actually work with Elite.

For the rest, there's Holyn/Fury which is kind of lame in most regards, except for Fee's ability to use something ridiculous like the Silver Blade right off the bat. I prefer using the many skills of Noish or even Jamka or the Hero Sword to ensure one rounds with her though.

Fin/Lachesis is a very good pairing imo...not really as canonial in FE4 as it is in FE5. It's like Beowulf/Lachesis, except Fin offers more Luk (and slightly less of other stats), Prayer instead of Charge (a winning trade imo) and that lovely +5 Str for Nanna when Fin talks to her in Ch7. I don't like Azel/Lachesis at all. As GTS said, the magic boost to Nanna is overrated. I also find that the kids would rather just use physical weapons (which they're actually good at), and give those magic swords to people who really need it for 1-2 range.

Levin/Lachesis is very unheard of, and while I never really tried it, I like the idea. You just need to whack a Pursuit Ring on Delmud, which is lame, but Nanna is fine since she usually heals anyway. Great Spd on both kids even before promotion, and two multi-hit skills to stack with Delmud's Pursuit Ring. Thanks to Hezul blood, they can take the Str hit. Yes, you waste Holsety, but these pairings are for if you're on crack, right?

[Sir GTF]

Fin/Lachesis is a very good pairing imo...not really as canonial in FE4 as it is in FE5. It's like Beowulf/Lachesis, except Fin offers more Luk (and slightly less of other stats), Prayer instead of Charge (a winning trade imo) and that lovely +5 Str for Nanna when Fin talks to her in Ch7. I don't like Azel/Lachesis at all. As GTS said, the magic boost to Nanna is overrated. I also find that the kids would rather just use physical weapons (which they're actually good at), and give those magic swords to people who really need it for 1-2 range.

Ignoring you typo'd my name...it's +5 Speed.  Finn gives Nanna +5 Spd, which is a stat she generally needs more of because she has to rely on Lachesis's shitty base growth- both Beowulf and Finn leave her mediocre in Spd (35%) so +5 is a huge and much appreciated boost to her.  It's the reason why I prefer Finn to Beowulf in this case- Prayer vs Charge is meaningless to me and Delmud will be fine no matter what since I can always just have Celice, Skasaher, and Lakche inherit some swords for him.  The deal breaker for me is the free Spd Finn gives Nanna because Nanna is more or less identical between the two potential fathers aside from better Luk from Finn.  Nanna ends up nearly identical between the two otherwise, with Finn she'll have higher Luk, with Beowulf she'll have a couple points more HP, everything else is the same- Beowulf technically offers a 5% Str lead, but these are Hezul kids we're talking about, they nearly always cap their Str.

[Mekkah]

Ignoring you typo'd my name...

Sorry, some other dude I know is called GTS. e_e Looks like I made the same mistake about Nanna again, too.

Yeah, I agree Fin>Beowulf for Delmud/Nanna. I also find Fin much, much easier to train than Beowulf: when Fin joins, people don't one round much of anything, so Fin can easily steal kills and use a calculated Prayer himself to get up to par, and then gets a pretty much personal weapon in Ch2 to kill as many enemies as he wants with. Beowulf joins pretty underleveled and weak with worse 1-2 range. I find it much easier to get Fin to L22 or so than Beowulf before their respective ending times.

[Swordsalmon]

I've found DewxFury a pretty fun pair. Phee gets really nice stats from Dew, and Sety benefits from Bargain, so he can be a decent Staff user while being cost-efficient.

[Sara Jaye]

Sorry, some other dude I know is called GTS. e_e Looks like I made the same mistake about Nanna again, too.

Yeah, I agree Fin>Beowulf for Delmud/Nanna. I also find Fin much, much easier to train than Beowulf: when Fin joins, people don't one round much of anything, so Fin can easily steal kills and use a calculated Prayer himself to get up to par, and then gets a pretty much personal weapon in Ch2 to kill as many enemies as he wants with. Beowulf joins pretty underleveled and weak with worse 1-2 range. I find it much easier to get Fin to L22 or so than Beowulf before their respective ending times.

Pretty much agreed. Finn is a little harder in the beginning because he's a lance user in a field of axe users...he CAN steal kills, but at that point people generally want to divvy up the EXP. Still, even with that even the lance disadvantage doesn't hurt him too badly, his hit rate's at least 90.

My main problem with Beowulf has always been his terrible dodge rate. After promotion he makes a fine unit, but it's hard to get him there. I do like him as a father for Ayra's kids, though, he contributes some nice stats and Ayra's speed balances out the dodge rate issue.

[Mekkah]

Beowulf/Ayra seems like an infinitely worse version of Noish/Ayra or Jamka/Ayra to me. Pursuit is wasted as both kids have it no matter what, and both of these contribute an extra skill in addition to Charge (Critical and Continue respectively, though Lakche gets Continue when she promotes anyway). In my opinion the only good thing about Beowulf as a father is that he gives Pursuit and lets kids inherit swords.

I liked Dew/Ayra kind of. Sun Sword is kind of useless, but Bargain allows them to have Elite in the arena (buying Elite Ring then selling it), allowing them to grow almost as fast as when Lex is their father. They're filthy rich, so they should usually be able to afford it. And Lakche can give any money she now has leftover to Johan/Shannan.

Mostly useful in ranked playthroughs though, where you want EXP from the actual chapters to go to units that really need those level-ups. So the more these two get out of the arena's, the better.