I think ilyana is a pretyt cool guy,

[Anamnesis]

seh has 255 growth rates and doesn't afraid of anything.
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb76 ... e2-6-1.png
I did it, myself. trucha signed the iso, found the data, replaced, resigned, packed, burned, and played. Oh, damn, I'm good.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Pretty cool girl, you mean? ;p

I think she's good without doing that. She was my main mage in Path of Radiance, and is the same in Radiant Dawn.

[Soren]

Soren to Nikkou: ...Idiocy...

[Mitera Nikkou]

Not really. While her magic may not reach the pinnacle that Soren's does (which isn't much of a difference), the only real problem that I had with her, was her speed. But if you can bolster that, her strength (for carrying heavier books, and thus avoiding less speed penalties) and physical defense are usually better. Other than that you can argue that, when all is said and done, they're basically the same. I just prefer the lady. And for the second game, she carried over her bond with Mia, and Mia is awesome, so... I have Soren lag behind with Boyd.

[Titania]

Curse you Soren, Nikkou's right, you can suck!

[Helel]

Stop cheating Uraj.

[Mitera Nikkou]

I can't really blame him for doing it. Radiant Dawn can be a nightmare on many levels, and character growth is one of them. For instance, there are a lot of characters that you don't get to use a lot, yet you can still use them in the last chapter. If you really like that character, but don't see any sensible way to do the nigh impossible task of leveling them up enough (at the expense of the levels of those you'll be using most often until the final chapter), I'd condone doing that. Especially with Laguz units, no matter how frequently they're around... And maybe add something so they stay in their transformed state without stat penalty. ;p (All of the Laguz units, save for the head honchos, who are at near-maximum levels when you get them, really, really, really got the short end of the stick in this game.)

[Helel]

I can't really blame him for doing it. Radiant Dawn can be a nightmare on many levels, and character growth is one of them. For instance, there are a lot of characters that you don't get to use a lot, yet you can still use them in the last chapter. If you really like that character, but don't see any sensible way to do the nigh impossible task of leveling them up enough (at the expense of the levels of those you'll be using most often until the final chapter), I'd condone doing that. Especially with Laguz units, no matter how frequently they're around... And maybe add something so they stay in their transformed state without stat penalty. ;p (All of the Laguz units, save for the head honchos, who are at near-maximum levels when you get them, really, really, really got the short end of the stick in this game.)

The game is easy enough if you know the right tricks with them. Namely, for certain characters when they begin to cap out certain stats, you basically HAVE to use bonus exp, no matter how little you have, to help max out stats, or avoid several worthless level ups. Ending missions with near level ups helps this a lot as well.

Also, transferring save files from Path or Radiance helped me out sooooo much. As if the peoples from Ike's Mercenaries weren't insanely awesome as is, I maxed out a bunch of them, and several of them were one manning a couple of levels, almost. It's nasty.

Granted, a lot of other people kinda got the short end of the stick, yeah. But I haven't had any trouble maxing out critical stats regardless, for important characters. And Olivi Grass is a godsend to those Laguz that you use a lot, to keep them transformed for basically for the duration of a chapter. Which for me, is generally around ten turns in length, tops, so yeah.

[Mitera Nikkou]

That is if they start capping out certain stats. Micaiah's team, or at least in my case, couldn't even be saved by bonus experience, they were that bad. I do my best to end chapters with characters nigh on the brink of a level, especially in Path of Radiance (because you can abuse the bonus experience so much more), but it just didn't help in that instance. I was immensely happy once I finally got control of Ike's company.

I think Ike's insanely awesome mercenaries made up for the Hell in the first part. Not that some parts didn't offer a challenge, mind you. And they did toss in some of the Hell that is Micaiah in part 3, too, so... It wasn't all sunshine. What I wonder is if anyone, besides myself, uses Mist as a front-liner. I gave her and Ike A support, outfitted her with good equipment and did my best to give her good stats, and she can get right into the think of things, even without Ike.

Olivi grass, to me, isn't a godsend. For one, if you can't find enough, they can really eat into your savings. And for another, since Laguz gain experience more slowly, you really need to get them involved in the fighting. But that drains their transformation bar quickly, and so you have to waste turns using Olivi grass instead of taking full advantage of what they have to offer, tactically. The few opportunities that I got to use one freely (other than Volug), all I could really do was try to set them somewhere to draw an enemy or two. Which isn't the best strategy when you have a certain amount of turns to accomplish a goal, since the humans will just race ahead of them, what with having no fears of losing half of their stats and becoming sitting ducks (another unwelcome change to the Laguz in this game). I just couldn't find much use for any of them before the fourth chapter, except for Ranulf, who was handy from time to time.

[Helel]

Ranulf and Skrimir were both great, for me, with some coddling and prodding with bexp, and the right use of skills. Paragon is a great skill for leveling up laguz, and since you HAVE to use certain laguz a lot, it's worth babying them to turn them into true beasts.

Regardless, I have used Mist as a front runner and she did awesomely for me. Once she upgraded into a Valkyrie, even moreso. Seriously, mastery abilities are SO good in this game.

Actually, there are few people that don't become utter monsters once they've hit third tier, really. I love it.

However, I will note there's some people that I refuse to level up because they stink soooooooo much.

And they're mainly Fiona and Meg. They arrive and are so incredibly under leveled, and I found it easier to just leave them behind so Micaiah's group would get more exp, and gain more levels. Oh, and their abilities stunk at the get go as well.

But yeah, unless you know the trick about bexp (in that they only raise three skills for any level up- which is a boon when you get higher up, and the things with higher growths have capped out- Micaiah is notorious for this in her magic, luck and resistance), they're kinda worthless at first, in my opinion. Cause the things with higher growths will be the only things to improve at all anyways. Which kills your other growths, no matter how sad. So it's a double edged sword. So I usually just pick people I didn't like for each group and just not use them, while focusing on certain individuals- it's been hit and miss thus far, but once I figure out how it works, I think I'll be able to raise people from the beginning, catering only a certain number in each group for amazing awesomeness. There's also a bunch of random hidden items that you can find on many, many levels which helps things out as well.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Most of the time I come across people that say how she's not good for anything but healing, but she's a good melee fighter, too. She's good at dodging, and an A support with Ike adds 20+ to that. I gave her shade and Ike provoke so I could move and use her in ideal ways. I also gave her counter, so that can pile additional damage onto the enemy since her defense is low (even when maxed). And she's generous with her master ability, so, short of some fluke, I really don't have to worry about her.

I tried to use Meg, because I really needed characters with defense, to take the brunt of the stronger enemies. She became nothing more than a liability for me, and she had some lucky escapes with death, so I eventually had to pull her even though I really wanted more characters to handle the advantage of number and stats that the enemies had on me.

I can't really see using Fiona, anyway; seeing as you only get to use her a few times. But she does have that one skill that heals the character at the beginning of each turn, according to how high their magic stat is. If I remember correctly (it has been a while for me), I think I took that skill from her and gave it to someone else. It can come in handy.

[Helel]

Yeah, I removed skills from people that I knew I wasn't going to use and layered it onto other people. Especially paragon. I loved Astrid in Path of Radiance, but by god, what did they do to her in this game? I can't bring myself to use her effectively in this game, so I removed paragon from her, and use it to level other people up more quickly. There's like three or four paragons floating around helping level my people up, so that speeds things up a lot, especially the laguz. :O

[Mitera Nikkou]

Yeah, I was very disappointed with what they did with Astrid. She had a defense nigh on thirty, and all of her other stats were good, in Path of Radiance. She was actually one of my tanks, because the enemies couldn't take much out of her, if they could even hit her. But, yeah, there's not much to be done with her in Radiant Dawn... You don't get to use her much, too.

I was almost upset about Marcia, and how few chances I got to use her, but I managed to level her up into the third tier before chapter four, so all was good.

I can't remember who I gave all of the paragons to. I know that I put one on Ilyana, and another on Heather, but I'm unsure about the rest. (I think Geoffrey has one, but I couldn't remove it from him).

[Helel]

I've used Paragon on at LEAST ten different people to help them get to third tier, since most people became monsters, regardless of their stats, once they were third tier. At least for a while. Mastery skills are awesome.

Also, I heard Nihil is another important skill for killing main antagonists later on, so I've put it on Micaiah and Ike, since I figure those two will be killing baddies as a one two punch the likes of which no one has ever seen in the end of the game. That and I'd rather not have mastery abilities from enemies one shotting my main characters.

[Anamnesis]

You know, in my day, we used only 1 RN for hit, and consistently missed 10 times in a row with 99% hits.
Whippersnappers.
That said, I'm not cheating, I'm LEARNING. There's a difference, you know.
...
Well, not much of one, but it's there.