The Final Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn Character Guide!

[@armourslayer8942]

Character timestamps: ~ Part 4 description ~ 1:35 ~ No brainer ~ 3:43 Jill (and Haar) 3:43 Laguz royals (Nailah, Ike, Tibarn, and Naesala) 5:17 Nailah 6:26 The Herons (Rafiel, Leanne and Reyson) 7:34 Haar 8:54 Ike 9:34 Tatiana 10:57 Flying Laguz (Naesala and Tibarn) 12:26 Caineghis and Giffca 13:49 ~ Good (no investment) ~ 14:56 Janaff and Ulki 15:11 Skrimir 17:07 ~ Good (investment) ~ 18:04 Edward 19:04 Nolan 20:01 Volug 21:18 Zihark 22:18 Elincia 22:56 Nephenee 24:21 Rolf 24:55 Boyd 26:08 Oscar 26:44 Shinon? Who's Shinon? Gatrie 27:38 Mia 28:14 Tanith 28:54 ~ Utility/Filler ~ 29:36 Micaiah 30:12 Leonardo 30:59 Laura 31:35 Sothe 31:41 Tauroneo 33:04 Marcia 33:27 Nealuchi 33:42 Lucia 33:47 Kieran 34:18 Rhys 34:44 Ranulf 35:01 Sigrun 35:18 Sanaki 35:39 Stefan 37:04 Oliver 37:56 Bastian 38:51 Volke 39:12 Curthnaga 40:23 Ena 41:33 Renning 42:35 Nasir 43:14 Spoiler Man 44:16 ~ High Effort ~ 45:02 Ilyana 45:54 Aran 45:58 Meg and Fiona 46:13 Tormod, Muarim and Vika 46:28 Brom, Heather, Mordecai, Lethe 46:32 Geoffrey 46:38 Heather 47:01 Brom 47:05 Mordecai 47:11 Lethe 47:20 Astrid 47:25 Makalov 47:27 Dandev 47:29 Calill 47:38 Soren and Mist 47:57 Lire 48:04 Kyza 48:06 Pelleas 48:08 ~ Don't forget me! ~ 49:17 Black Knight 49:20

[@baqirparkinson411]

yes

[@ZackYXW]

Seeing the Black Knight down there in "Don't Forget Me." I can only think of the Ardainian Soldiers in Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

[@HonkHonkGoose776]

im glad im not the only one

[@ChromeBirb]

"Let's show 'em a thing or three" -Begnion soldier seconds before getting hit by eclipse

[@darklight6921]

mekkah has been playing smash or waifublade.

[@Mr96POP]

The Black Knight in a heavy Scottish accent: “Think you can take me?!”

[@JdotSweapA]

"Ink Yi Ken Taik Meh!? MON THEN!!"

[@marcusmajarra]

"You're done!" - Ardainian Black Knight

[@GensoBees]

I like these character guides. I've already played tellius, but I always give these a watch before playing the older games. They're especially helpful with some of the jank/poorly explained mechanics those games have. I recently started Thracia and that guide is a great help!

[@sielklavar]

I enjoy taking Volug and Zihark to endgame with full support. While there are definitely more efficient options for endgame their double earth affinity makes them super dodgey

[@Thunder_Mage]

Many people pronounce niche as "nitch" but I'd say "neesh" is equally if not more correct.

[@aBlackMage]

Nitch is American/Canadian English and Neesh is British English AFAIK. And since British English is more prevalent in Europe, I think that's gonna be the norm there, too. (At least I learnt it as Neesh and I'm from Austria) I think the original French word is pronounced (close to) Neesh as well, so technically that would indeed be the "correct" one, not that it matters.

[@DaniDoyle]

Nitch is wrong af. Neesh is correct

[@lughemblem]

Neesh is technically correct, but enough people use nitch that it could be considered a correct pronunciation at this point. Language isn't static.

[@ChromeBirb]

Nitch has been the right way to pronounce the word throughout the years. Since English often feels like it goes out of its way to *not* make sense, neesh is on brand.

[@marcusmajarra]

As a fluent francophone, hearing it pronounced "nitch" makes me want to cringe very hard. Then again, US English tends to mutilate the pronunciation a lot of foreign words. You'd think they would first want to borrow the original pronunciation and translate it to print using English language rules, but they did the exact opposite: they borrowed the French spelling and tried to imagine what it might sound like if pronounced in English. The actual pronunciation in French is somewhere between "nish" and "neesh".

[@infinitepasta]

Black Knight using the Padraig catchphrase from xenoblade 2

[@GonzoMD1993_]

Love these guides, they're super useful. I've played RD several times already but watching this guide was still fun. Recently I picked up Shadow Dragon for the first time and your guide helped me a lot. I know it was meant for H5, but it still gave me a really good idea of what each unit was and what I could expect of them even in normal mode.

[@Neon1two]

I will say that for the most part, these character guides are very useful. I don't really use them too much since I like to play using whatever characters I want. However, it is nice to know which units are useful and which may require some work.

[@darklight6921]

haar should have his own tier. sleep tier. cuz u can sleep while he solo's the map

[@jonprime]

I’ve always been frustrated that there are so many forced units you have to take into the tower, and so many units you’d have to be a fool not to take, so you end up having to pick like 6 units from the whole game that will be the most useful while you have to bring ena whose magic will cap while her strength barely gets anything

[@nah4467]

I did not like Sothe being required the most either give him some use or I am benching him for Volke with Gamble

[@jonprime]

@@nah4467 if sothe’s strength capped at like 32 I would be happy with him. But no. He’s still just a child. Very fun with adept + cancel, but getting lethality on the last hit of a round is just tragic.

[@anaven27]

The single thing that stands out on this list to me is Heather in High Effort instead of Utility/Filler. While obviously she lacks the Jagen-esque combat Sothe offers, she is important for some of the stealables in the GM's maps and a couple of hidden treasures in Part 2 (Discipline and an Arms Scroll iirc). High Effort may imply she's not worth deploying outside of some indulgent unit investment, but that isn't really the case.

[@The_Evening_Sun]

Yeah I agree, her with a unit with disarm was how I made extra cash and got some extra copies of the more rare or wonky weapons.

[@bfbbturambar2369]

This guide is specifically for part 4 and endgame, so her part 2 utility doesn’t matter

[@anaven27]

@@bfbbturambar2369 You still kinda would want to bring her for 4-4 then.

[@bfbbturambar2369]

@@anaven27 She does have some utility on that map for opening doors and chests but she isn't really necessary with the amount of door keys and chest keys you have. 4-4 actually has door keys in the shop and 2 chest keys from bargains, plus another chest key from an enemy drop. She doesn't do much to help with routing the enemy and she is liable to die on enemy phase if you don't plan around keeping her safe. She is a decent deploy but only for one chapter and it is fairly easy to work around not bringing her; the rest of part 4 she's practically useless so I think high effort is still accurate

[@linkedheart5653]

@@bfbbturambar2369 As much as I want to disagree you're absolutely not wrong. She's amazing utility in the chapters she's in but by Part 4 she's only useful for Ike's chapters and even then you're bound to have the unlock staff at that point so she isn't really necessary. Again, great utility when you get her but not worth putting any effort in during the final part since you can't really bring her to the tower without being redundant with Sothe/Volke

[@tostisgood]

I like the way you labeled the tiers here. Anyone in Radiant Dawn can become good; it’s just how much you’re willing to invest in them and make other units go without some resources.

[@vanguard2960]

This is really solid. like this way of organizing part 4 a lot cause it's A TON to think about! Agree with how almost every character is placed. Maybe a few in "High Effort" actually belong in "Utility/ Filler" like Geoffrey, Calill, Danved, and maybe Pelleas, Soren and Mist. Actually I think my take on Mist is just whichever category Rhys is in, she should also be in. the fact that they're equally easy to promote given Mist's free promo item letting you promo her at the start of part 4 at just level 10 and that giving her a horse makes her at least equal to Rhys imo

[@nah4467]

eeeeeh, it's a bit too late for it though imo. I think she should've gotten away with a Master Crown rather than a unique item to her that sucks and comes too late. Florete needs to be fixed to do MAGIC damage and she needs avoid which is why when I use her I used her with Ike support which was a lot more unique dialogue than I thought there would be

[@vanguard2960]

@@nah4467 I'm not arguing that she's a spectacular character by any means. Just think her and Rhys belong in the same category

[@sig757]

Mist also loses the ability to climb ledges when she promotes

[@ZirexNorcruin]

hey mekkah, I actually started path of radiance after you made that guide and finished radiant dawn a bit before you streamed the last part. Honestly these guides were helpful as in they helped me made a "balanced" team around some people who needed investment while having characters that would help them if needed. Had fun playing both games blind, only looking up how to recruit and RD hidden items BTW, started using nephenee because I saw her in your PoR guide and I must say she was really fun to use for both games. I believe you also said Tanith was fun, which I agree to, sad to see her limited availability

[@roda_]

Now i realized that i used mainly high effort unit for endgame

[@deppresio]

Nothing wrong with that! That might be the most fun way to play, actually

[@HonkHonkGoose776]

thats ok

[@darklight6921]

@@deppresio not with vika. she is awful. and i loved using fiona and astrid in endgame.

[@deppresio]

@@darklight6921 I mean, if you have fun using Vika, then no real reason not to. Especially on easy mode where you have so much extra bexp. But yeah, obviously she's terrible.

[@darklight6921]

@@deppresio oh. i never take easy into account. anything works there. probably.

[@VanguardJohnson]

True. Who plays radiant down without Haar? I think 2E would be so hard.

[@GonzoMD1993_]

I mean, you could just turtle the crap out of 2E by blocking chokepoints and spam end turn, but that doesn't seem very fun xd You'd also miss out on secondary objectives like stealing the Dracoshield. Haar is just such a good and fun unit to use, you really do have to go out of your way to not use him.

[@thereaIitsybitsyspider]

Without Haar, 2E is Brom Emblem

[@darkshot4424]

My first fire emblem game was radiant dawn, and I actually couldn't figure out how to recruit haar, and just thought oh he would join later... It took me til the dawn brigade swamp battle against the laguz to realize that I made a major mistake, though I did somehow beat elincias Gambit with out anyone dying, but I will never do that chapter without haar again

[@PowerliftingAndPhysics]

Ilyana really should be in the "Good (Investment)" tier. There just aren't that many characters she's competing with for experience in P1: Nolan, Micaiah, and Jill being the ones that come to mind as none of the other DB members are really worth investing in besides this group, so it's unfair to call her "High Effort", and she's one of the few beorc characters who actually have a use in the endgame, namely as a staffbot who can also clear dragons.

[@Elemonator]

I’m a huge fan of having Marshalls, but they absolutely fall off on the last 2 chapters because all the enemies use magical attacks. Also, the best use I have found for Oscar is to support him with Ike. During the black knight fight, the magical wall doesn’t prevent their support, so you can add an additional 45 avoid to be having him near by.

[@Saltyoven]

You ever think of doing a path of radiance tier list based on how good they are to transfer over to radiant dawn?

[@MetaDash]

Rafiel goes with Ike because he's married to Nailah. :)

[@pauliuskvedaras9559]

Yup, guess we'll just forget about Shinon huh

[@ulyssespeterson6821]

I never understood the Jill hype. I tried and tried to make her work and she never became worth the investment.

[@therealstaples1160]

I will always take Geoffrey into endgame.

[@xHeigoux]

I guess everyone has some guilty pleasure units. I went all in on Edward cause we share our names. Took adept off zihark for my boy and edward turns into a part 4 monster. Also while it's been a while since I've played radiant dawn, I remember Ilyana being absolutely amazing. I guess I just love thunder magic and she 1 rounded the dragon boss in the tower.

[@therealstaples1160]

@@xHeigoux so true. I think one of the great things about BEXP is that any unit can be really good as long as you put some investment into them.

[@SharurFoF]

Marcia is definitely Good (Investment) for part 4. If you train her, she'll be just as good or better than Sigrun and Tanith. And for that matter, I think if you have Master Crowns for them (which is very possible), Sigrun and Tanith can both be Good (No Investment). Obviously not as good as who you have in that tier already, and you can argue that a Master Crown is investment of course, though hardly the kind of investment needed to make some of the other characters in Good (Investment) viable.

[@zackzaktm2758]

I agree. Any character that reaches 34 speed or more should be good with investment for endgame to double.

[@Shazam1998]

I think Soren is a tad too low honestly. I think he`s not all that difficult to train and he caps some stuff fairly quickly,even after only a couple of levels he starts to do quite consistent damage in my opinion.

[@thebagelboy9622]

Good choice of music

[@ussgordoncaptain]

Jill should be in good[investment] since you had to invest in her a ton in part 1 and part 3. (and she's super overrated in general maybe I'll make a really complicated post later about how overrated jill is but jill doesn't hit benchmarks a lot of the time) Any cav should be high effort since part 4 maps are just so bad to cavs, 4-1 and 4-P are nice to cavs, but 4-2 4-3 and 4-4 make cavs life pain and agony. (oscar filler) Mist/Soren are great staffers better than laura almost certainly and if we follow your guide we are missing a staffer for Ike's crew. Soren can get A staffs before part 4, and Mist can use the rescue staff well as well. IDK who else is using rescue on the team other than mist/soren in your opinion. overall pretty good list, I personally dislike some of the units (mostly nolan/boyd/edward/nephenee) but that's mostly the pace I play at rather than real disagreement

[@nah4467]

I agree tbh I think she is incredible but she's not that great especially when she is missing on the most important map in part 1 oof

[@stuckinabucket6873]

I dont know why but i can never get my Jill or Nolan to be as good as everyone says they are neither of them consistently doubles enemies and in Jills case even when she does its not enough damage to kill.

[@summerwinter89]

feed her drops. my nolan always sucks

[@mitchellepstein9956]

Stefan is a no brainer cause he is the best tellius character

[@Guinness2496]

Is this golden sun music?

[@wokaloka3089]

If you feel confident, try a character guide for Conquest or Three Houses.

[@darklight6921]

i cant believe mekkah made a xenoblade/waifublade reference

[@shafta2010]

funny list i usually dont use the top 2 tiers because they are toooooo op except Jill cos she needs to be trained up

[@iansinclair2028]

As far as meg goes endgame/part 4 goes, fairly solid, she cannot double many things in the tower but is probably the marshall who will most relably hit the Marshal res cap of 30 (her res cap is 32) and as a sword marshal, she has a speed cap of 32, she can not get doubled and aside from spoiler man, with white tide support can double spirits and the final boss Astrid has a really rough start but naturally having paragon means she can use para blossom (one of 2 beorc who can and the other is pretty hard to use), getting her up to lv. 10 isn't too hard before the great bridge chapter and can benefit massively, she is the only double bow user with canto, her speed cap is 35, just enough with white tide support to double ashera's shields with 3 less points of strength at cap compared to the marksmen, solid choice for using the double bow. With that said i can understand why she is generally not looked upon favorably as most people forgo training the crimean royal knights for Bexp, i don't because i like getting all the hidden items on that map, but i will say i do understand why people do not use her. Illyana is kinda strange as if you can get her 20/1 she turns out pretty good and has exclusive use of rexbolt, and once she becomes an thunder sage issues do start to allieviate a good amount as she has access to fire magic, plus with arms scrolls getting her to SS thunder magic isn't a great issue plus the game gives you a free thoron tome around the end of part 3/begining of part 4. High investment yes, payoff is pretty okay and with capped magic, speed and defense, (and night tide support hillariously) rexbolt does 29 damage to deghinsea without dying to him, with a dancer and some help she can kill him very easily. This is from practice and my experience where i did a beorc only units going into the tower on hard mode and used a team of sigrun(filler for the tenth spot) tanith, nolan, edward, soren, illyana, calil, elincia, astrid, and lucia (who turned out quite well, did not really have to Bexp her to cap strength)

[@Wistfulness89]

Name of the first track?

[@psolemn4934]

"Main Menu" from Golden Sun: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4PRd2aOpsadeqM

[@codester269]

One thing to note about Renning is that he can use the Amiti if you don't want to bring Elincia or just want her to staffbot

[@zswords]

Jill> Bulk. ???? She's got the stats and growths of Baby's First Peg Knight? Too weak to deal damage even with her axe and not accurate enough to hit with it while being paper thin because her only stat is SPEEEEEED? ... I guess if one values fliers as heavily as you seem to she is the next best runner up after Haar if you filter out Laguz... It really does seem to be just me who feels Jill is not amazing in RD, so maybe I just had a cursed disc or something that refused to let her be good, but she always struggled for me. :/ ...I'd also swap Leo and Aran, but fresh DB units are very volatile due to the high exp competition and massive room for RNG shenanigans. Aran at least reliably gets what he's meant to get and be your best Armor with free Boots. Er, Boot. *shrug*

[@MarceloKatayama]

Except Jill is in a game where you can't get a 0 stat level up and has BEXP which means a guaranteed 3 stat level up. Coupled with her high growths in areas like speed it makes her very susceptible to cap speed. Capping stats means different stat increases for every capped stat. This means that as soon as she caps speed, she's suddenly a lot more likely to cap defense and strength. A base Jill that has been BEXPed to 20/20/20 will cap nearly every single stat. It's not about your disc being cursed, it's about being smart with the investment you give to her.

[@zswords]

@@MarceloKatayama That sounds like quite a lot of hoops you need to hop through to get a good unit compared to most of the rest on the same tier, Haar comes with endgame worthy stats like a Laguz Royal, and Ike is, Ike. Overall, that description sounds like 'Good (Investment)' which I would agree with, she excels with investment, but you actually need to invest in her because she doesn't come ready to go nor keep up with it. Though, due to the mechanics you just listed being in RD this applies to nearly every unit in the game with solid availability as well.

[@MarceloKatayama]

@@zswords No, it does not. THis is because the list of factors favours Jill and Haar in particular. First of all, they are fliers, and the tankiests of them all, so they have the easiest time getting experiences. Second, they come battle-ready, so they can begin gaining experience as soon as you get them. Third, Jill will easily be stronger than Nolan by the time he joins, whilst also having Flight. Nolan is the best of the early dawn brigade units, not counting Sothe and Volug, so relatively speaking, Jill's bases are quite good. Fourth, as the only flier in the dawn brigade until Vika joins, Jill easily is the best user of the stat boosters (again, she doesn't NEED them, she's still good without them) making her a slightly less potent volug with flight. Fifth, her stats are already somewhat high for a tier 1, which will only make her a lot more invincible once she reaches tier 2, and tier 3 Jill is one of the most powerful units for part 4, and can last well into the tower by using Nasir's white pool thanks to her reasonably good stat caps. You don't really NEED to invest heavily into her, as you can just deploy her on every map and she will still turn out good enough for part 3, where she will be one of your tankier units, until you get to part 4 and starts destroying everything in tier 3.

[@heritage106]

Um, Reyson all the way. Not even a question

[@frankreberto9637]

Do we have a legitimate rom for radiant dawn/path of radiance...? I had the games when I was younger and never beat it and always wanted to replay but finding an actual copy is IMPOSSIBLE and I’m not trying to get a major virus from a tainted rom

[@aBlackMage]

I can't link to it directly (YT won't let me), but I can personally vouch for Vimm being safe. I get most of my GCN/Wii ISOs there and have never had any issues.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

Viruses aren't as big of a deal in emulation as some people seem to think. You can get basically everything safely on r/roms or Vimm's lair.

[@RealRamaladni]

I think this is the character guide I disagree most with (that good investment tier...)

[@Vosseey]

Sorry, but we all know that Oliver is our lord and savior. NO BRAINER tier :)

[@thereaIitsybitsyspider]

I would put Laura in high effort because the likelihood that she has kept up with other potential staff users is really low due to dawn brigade starving you for exp.

[@gameboyn64]

She is in utility because she can contribute in non combat roles without much investment. A teir 1 level 10 Laura is arguably more useful to field than most teir 2 units

[@nah4467]

@@gameboyn64 I'd say otherwise tbh I say she is pretty much impossible to keep alive sometimes, A Micaiah with Wrath+vantage can intimidate enemies into not going for her or even pass a turn I found

[@gameboyn64]

@@nah4467 what are you doing that's getting her killed?

[@Patrick-Mckinney]

Soren deserved better