Masked marth would be on the bottom of my priority list. It takes a lot of grinding to give her enough sp and even then, she's outshined by many other red swords.
Nowi is awesome and the IV is pretty good, but I found her to be extremely boring.
Nino has the perfect IV, she's super strong with all the blue units everywhere and is also really fun to play, so I would recommend her.
Masked marth/lucina is pretty high up there for best sword users :o
She is the best user of a renewal healer build where she can dish out nice damage as well, so if you're needing a red unit I suggest her there for that niche if that's personally what you're looking for.
Lucina for renewal (best for the niche)
Xander for horse teams
Zaphiel for armor teams
Ryoma for vantage
Ike for QR
they fill DIFFERENT niches BUT if you need just a sword for the sake of having a sword in which case a fully build ryoma would likely be best, but they have different uses so its alot easier to use them each in different situations.
Nowi is nice though personally I was never fond of dragon units.
I didn't say that she's not good, but the amount of time and other heroes that you have to commit to her is pretty high. It depends on what the OP has as other red sword options. If he already has a Ryoma/Ike or even someone like Zephiel or Xander, I wouldn't put her too high on the promotion list, since he has a perfect IV Nino and a good Nowi..you gotta consider it in that context.
I didn't diagree or anything guts as you kinda took what I said out of context.... .-.
just saying she is pretty good even with even bane/boons. they fill DIFFERENT niches and yeah its hard to decide if you need just a sword for the sake of having a sword in which case a fully build ryoma would likely be best, but they have different uses so its alot easier to use them each in different situations.
Lastly I disgree with you there, I don't think is much time if you plan ahead what you need to get and whats the easiest way.
In my opinion Nowi should be promoted.
In general she costs less to build up and will work perfectly well on her own. Where as Nino although more powerfull on offense requires a lot more support and work.
And Nowi can take a few hits and dish'em out just as hard both close and afar.
Just my 2 cents.
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