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Best: Jaffar.
Worst: Ricard (since I haven't gotten Cath in FE6 before, nor have I seen her in action, I'm not voting for her.)

No more quote tower for now, then (and I love a good debate/discussion too, rare as they are. Not very many people have enough in-depth knowledge of the series to keep one up effectively. Really, it's good to see you active around these parts again)

Yeah, Lara would suck at stealing due to her horrible Build stat… but that just emphasizes that she isn't very good as part of the Thief tree. And you can steal any item that weighs less than a character's build, regardless of the Build of the enemy wielding it so long as your speed is greater than said enemy. Thieves can be very effective at crippling a lot of mages as a result, but without any luck in her level ups, Lara would only be able to steal Wind tomes (meanwhile, Rifis is stealing Fire tomes off the first mages you even encounter as soon as Chapter 3). So really, I'd argue her poor Build contributes to her being the potential worst Thief rather than best. The ability to use Lockpicks as a Dancer is swell, but in terms of defining the function of a Thief, is less impressive considering door and chest keys exist which everyone can use to accomplish the same things. That she is poor at actually stealing things to begin with begs the question of why she should be considered the best Thief (in the game, let alone the series). Yeah, most people don't do rank runs so they don't make those sorts of decisions. And Matthew and Legault both make fine Assassins (although, really, what's the point when Jaffar exists and has probably much higher strength to boot…)

Just a note: neither Dew NOR Patty are entitled to the Wind Sword, since it can certainly be better used by other units. Dew gets it for you, but it's not like he can't sell it. If the goal is to attack from a distance, why not just dump her with the crappy (by comparison) Flame Sword? Oh, and Dew can theoretically take Ethlin's Light Sword as early as chapter 2 even before he gets the Wind Sword (it's not like she'll need it where she's going) if attacking from a distance is the main concern.

(That's how my patch looks, too. I don't think there's a complete patch in existence)

Her BLD still hasn't surpassed Rifis OR Pihn - it's merely come to match that of Rifis's STARTING BLD)

You say it like she's the only one favoritism can be applied to. Why not let Rifis carry around the Neir scroll, or give him a Body Ring for that matter - he has a higher BLD growth rate to begin with so it'll increase that much faster (you've got her holding three scrolls and gave her the Elite Manual - it's not like you couldn't do that for other characters to make them just as fierce)? And you just pointed out why it would be better to have her as a Dancer: she can refresh those super fabulous units like Othin and Halvan. The need to boost someone a hefty 78 levels is what becomes unnecessary when she can simply refresh those super-fabulous units (and it allows you to give more people scrolls to hold on to).

I guess it depends on how you see Dancers in the series: fabulous support or in the way.

And concerning the Light Sword, it should hardly influences Leaf's ability to kill things in Ch 7 (it's not like his Magic stat is going to allow him to plow through things, even if he is attacking Resistance from a distance). If anything you'd want him getting hit from fighting up close so Nanna can get some healing in. And since you don't get the Light Sword until the chapter after obtaining Dew, it won't affect his output in that chapter at all. It can be arranged where it hardly affects the turn count and reduces no one's efficiency at all, actually, since Ethlin will be rushing forward to Lachesis's Castle with all your other mounted units, can sell it there, and Dew can purchase it as he crosses that point later since he's on foot. And yes, Ethlin passes her stuff to Leaf.

Rifis gets supported by Safy which gives him support from one person... the same number of supports Rifis and Lara get. And by the way, I think Lara is fabulous, don't get me wrong. But primarily as a Dancer, and as a Dancer, I count her as a Dancer rather than a Thief, despite her Thief utility as a Dancer.

Call it gutsy, but I leave Dew behind while Aideen runs off so he can start collecting gold on either the village or the forest spaces. With careful placing, and hardly any luck, you need not worry about the Captains. They keep going forward past Dew if there isn't a spot open to attack him and if I recall correctly. Can't recall exactly but it's totally doable without endangering his life. Stick him in the forested area and he can sort of move towards everyone else WITH the bandits. And I guess this is just me, but I don't much care for leveling thieves in FE4. They're primary purpose to me is to get gold for everyone else. If they get injured in the process (something for which the danger should always be calculated beforehand, of course)... fabulous! Aideen has to get opportunities to level up SOMEHOW. Patty levels up more easily with the convenience of the Sleep Sword, definitely, but I'd rather feed Shanan exp. Because he's boss (and even at level 30, without a horse or a Holy Weapon, Patty will never be as boss)

I guess so. The way I see Dancers is they can function like a duplicate of your strongest unit with the bonus of not being another fighter taking from the sometimes limited pool of exp available. And in the games where they can refresh multiple members, it's getting WAY more for your buck to the point that there's no reason NOT to use that that can challenge that big a bonus. That's almost like increasing the number of units you can take for a chapter. Plus they let you accomplish things that would otherwise never be possible in a single turn. Only have one unit who can work that warp staff you want to abuse? Dancer! Need to reach a potential unit to recruit without risking any of your units getting in combat with them? Dancer! Want to pick up the pace of opening chests or doors or any other such thing with only one available Thief, or heal more units than you have healers in the space of a single turn? Dancer~Dancer~Dancer! Granted, they're generally more fragile than most, but that's why you have other units covering them (and you could always have a Dancer refresh someone to better position themselves to defend her).

Oh, I'd be CRAZY not to use the arenas in FE4. Much more balanced thanks to their limits, yeah. Plus I love looking at that little star units get when they finish it.

I can take your word for it. that makes categorizing her class quite difficult, now, since she's literally the hybrid between a Thief and Dancer. Still, I'd go with Dancer since she's the only unit in the game capable of dancing. Either way, she's quite fabulous, although I'd still argue not the best in the series, either as a Dancer OR Thief.

I love how easily abused scrolls are ;3

I'm just going to quote Mekkah, considered by many to be one of the best FE debaters in existence (not that that means much here - FEF has such a completely different culture concerning FE):

"Now, sometimes when someone posts a thread about 'who should I use', people recommend using Lara 'because she can promote three times'. I'd like to take this opportunity to show you why this is technically true, but such insanely dumb advice.

First, her promotion to dancer _reduces_ her stats. So while it is displayed as a promotion, it's technically downgrading her. And the best part is, if you promote her to Thief Fighter, then to Dancer, her stats will be reduced by exactly as much as she gained by going Thief Fighter. So what did you just gain? A bunch of extra leveling room...so a bit of extra hp and skl, since Spd and Luk were likely already capped or near that. And even some stat like Str which you religiously trained up with scrolls and all might end up getting to 0 again, just the same she'd have if you didn't level her at all. And the worst part is, you wasted a Knight Proof on that when you could have made someone better. Her second (third) promotion is also stupid, because it just turns her into an inferior version of Lifis/Parn, whereas if you kept her what she was you could've used her dancing utility. And you used another Knight Proof on that. I'm not even going to get into the amount of EXP you'd pump into Lara if you actually wanted to promote her this often."

It seems like he's trashing her, but the quote comes from a larger statement which recognizes her as a good unit for her utility rather than fighting prowess. And when you consider how many 0s she has with her starting stats... it's not cute.

It would be, but that requires a LOT of crusader scrolls. Which a LOT of other people want to use, too. And as she'll be wanting to use multiple scrolls at a time (since there are quite a few areas she'll need to be abused in), that means less space in her inventory which is kind of counterproductive to being a thief. You can trade scrolls around, sure, but the trading around is more likely than not less than completely ideal.

Pahn is considered better because he comes with Sun Sword and has a super-fabulous PCC of 5 (highest possible, highly desirable; Lara has a PCC of 1).Those things combined with Ambush make him perfectly durable and gives him an offense that stats of 20 across the board aren't even necessarily comparable with. Plus, he doesn't require a Knight Proof. Those are things no amount of scroll abuse will ever be able to make up for (and it's not like he can't be abused himself). He also has FIVE movement stars. That's another action for him 25% of the time! Absolutely delicious.

Also, making level comparisons when Lara needs how many levels exactly to be that Level 1 Thief Fighter with capped Skl/Spd/Luck herself (it's not happening during her first Thief Fighter promotion) is unrealistic. For her to even get so many leveling opportunities requires that she only begin her leveling as a Dancer right when you get Pahn. And amusingly enough, he'll always have the higher Speed at that point in the game thanks to that -7 Spd drop.