B!Ephraim vs B!Hector

well, I have both, Eph is neutral and Hector is +hp -def... both are amazing units but I like Eph more bc of his higher atk and the skill special fighter that works amazingly with his weapon Garm. Garm gives him +1 cooldown in both player and enemy phase which is amazing, PLUS giving him guard which prevents enemies from charging his specials, thanks to this I have been able to kill Zelgius bc Black Luna does not activate. All u need is to give Eph any visible buff or Armored boots seal or use the Armor march skill.

Hector is amazing too, he already has distant counter but with the +4 in atk and def. His weapon gives him quick ripose 4 and he comes with bold fighter so its amazing. But Hector does not get the special fighter bonuses of guard and +1 cooldown in both fases(only player phase bc of his bold fighter), and even if u gave special fighter to Hector you would loose the bold fighter effect so nop.

All u need to do is give Ephraim distant counter and done.

So, in conclusion, Eph is better bc he can make a great use of special fighter thanks to his weapon Garm
Hector could do it as well but only in the enemy phase.
So I prefer Ephraim personally but HECTOR IS CRAZY AMAZING TOO.
+atk Eph has 60 atk by the way...
hope this helped!

look how he destroys a 64 atk Grima omg he is brokeeen

They are different colours, which already poses some issues for comparing the two. An armour team probably wants both of them.

Similarities:
- both have some weakness in their res. It's not bad, but it could use some work, which is not uncommon for armours.
- both will dual phase without the QR seal and ignis you on either phase.
- both are 5* exclusive and won't demote anytime soon, so they are orb-expensive (as opposed to feather expensive, which is the case for 3*-4* units)
- both are very good fodder. B.Hector has bold fighter; B.Ephraim has close def, special fighter, and armour march

Differences:
- as pointed out before, colour, but what makes this especially significant is that B.Hector doesn't have that much competition (he is easy to prefer over Effie or Gwendolyn and generally better than Hardin except his res is a bit weaker), B.Ephraim has to compete with about 7-8 really strong green armours, and I think he actually comes out on top. In some ways he is definitely top; some other green armours might have certain advantages over him.
- The guard effect on B.Ephraim is a winner for me. He's just so much safer than B.Hector because of it.
- B.Ephraim probably has an easier time with res. For those that care, his superboon is there (whereas B.Hector has it in def), and red mages are less common. If he keeps his spd, he might also block doubles from dragons that don't invest in their spd, whereas most people are going to dump spd on B.Hector, meaning he's going to get doubled by dragons. Even if he doesn't dump his spd, Nowi is often going to double him - merge advantage, possibility of a spd refine or boon IV, some buff on Nowi's team, etc.
- B.Hector comes with DC, which is significant if you don't have unlimited DC fodder.
- For those that care about arena score, B.Hector has a 350SP A-skill.
- for those debating how to use their free pick, there are three other considerations I recommend:
1. I don't recommend pulling on the CYL2 banner whatsoever because having four focus units and no shared colour means you will pay more orbs than if the unit reappears on another 3%/3% banner with only three focus units. If you go with my recommendation (or anti-recommendation, as it were), then you might like to take for your free pick the unit that you need most during these months before these units reappear on banners with better orb costs.
2. B.Ephraim has balanced enough of a statline that all boons are good (HP being probably the worst and spd probably second-worst unless you want to get doubled for aether, then spd is the worst boon), which means it's actually hard to get a bad IV. In contrast, I would say +spd is significantly worse on B.Hector than on B.Ephraim (+HP is also relatively unhelpful), so unless you specifically want to dump spd on B.Ephraim, it's harder to get a bad IV on B.Ephraim than on B.Hector, which means being open to different IVs through regular summoning is a bit less risky, so it might be slightly better to accept neutral on B.Hector. However, if you're picky about the superboon, I don't think you're better one way or the other. There are approximately 2 IVs that would suit you, and getting one of them is about as easy as getting the unit to +10.
3. Pulling a focus green is always less expensive than pulling a focus blue, all other things being equal. So if you take a free B.Hector and pull for B.Ephraim, chances are you'll spend less orbs than if you take a free B.Ephraim and pull for B.Hector. (Obviously, this won't be true for everybody; there is a thing called variance.)

Honestly, I feel like Hector is slightly better than Ephraim, but both of them are insanely overpowered units and are more than serviceable in their roles. I have a slight bias for Ephraim though since I like his design and character a bit more (though the skirt(?) does look a bit silly on him compared to Fado), but Hector is also great.

Pros for choosing Ephraim:
- Defensive wall and offensive nuke
- His weapon has amazing synergy with mixed/tactic teams
- Inherent armored march makes him useful for armored teams too
- Makes great use of armored boots
- Special fighter helps his bulk in combat with its guard effect.

Cons:
- Needs distant counter or death blow to reach his full potential
- Requires support (buffs/armored boots or armored march) to make use of his weapon's effect
- His speed serves little to no purpose and makes his statspread a bit less min-maxed than it could've been, but it /might/ help avoid a few doubles in some situations

Pros for choosing Hector:
- Defensive wall and offensive nuke
- Weapon guarantees doubles on enemy phase
- Weapon has great synergy with Ostian Counter, making his enemy phase even better
- Comes with bold fighter which gives him a devastating player phase
- Statspread is allocated well

Cons:
- Weapon has HP threshold
- Less flexible for team-building than Ephraim due to his mobility and lack of armored march

Comparisons:
- Ephraim is well suited for both armored and mixed/tactic teams, while Hector shines best on an armored team with ward armor buffs.
- Hector's stats are better allocated than Ephraim's by a slight margin (+2 HP, -1 ATK, -5 SPD, +2 DEF/RES)
- Ephraim has a slightly better player phase and is more versatile with his A-slot skill choice (distant counter or death/sturdy blow is ideal)

So I'd say Hector has the slight edge over Ephraim and will excel both in arena and content clearing, but Ephraim's team-flexibility gives him a unique niche that's fully worth considering over Hector as well.

To answer your first question, I'd pass on Hector but smash Ephraim. For the second question I think Hector is better for carrying you and Ephraim is a good support. I already have Hardin in my armor emblem so I get more mileage out of Ephraim who surpasses Amelia.

I would say that Ephraim got some more love than Hector.

Hector directly powercreeps any lance armor including Hardin thanks to his weapon and Ostian Counter.

You could say that Ephraim has more competition among the Hector tier of axe armors, and that legendary Hector can keep on par with him, but Garm + Special counter is the most broken pair of skills in the game, granting you guard (which is a very understimated B skil), doubles and cooldown reduction in a monster atk unit. It is going to be very hard to kill him just with pure attack.