speed and little bit more resist, and control over IV, also heavier in BST weight. lots of reasons :P Xander tries to "measure" up to Ike and does better mainly in horse teams whereas Ike is all-purpose.
not bad, but aether and quick riposte answers a lot more :P and swordbreaker lets him deal with speedy sword units more. u want funny, how about heavy blade on a character with hauteclere + flier buffs :O
Here I was thinking I could get an Ike to easily survive more than two confrontations... now that I think about it, QR/Aether might be the better option regardless but having a -DEF Ike is hard to deal with.