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Lance Fliers - Group Ratings - Episode #2

For me second episode of group ratings, I will be taking a look at the flying beauties of the sky (and Valter).
Unlike the lance cavaliers, there are a lot of unique weapons here, making it less clear cut who's better.

I will be rating the units from the 3-4* pool, comparing them to eachother. If unit X has good stats, but unit Y has the same but better, it'll hurt the rating of unit x.

Do note that this is general use, I'm not taking arena scoring too much into account.

I will give each unit a paragraph of my take on them, with a rating, budget and a description of their prefered role.
Also I will state the weapon I think is best suited.

[] = Grail unit
{} = Base weapon
* = edited
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4* Pool

-Shigure
Starting off strong with Shigure, he is the speediest of this group with a respectable atk stat. His defences are unimpressive, but not rock bottom. Shigure's gen 2 bst clearly shines.
Still, I wouldn't say he makes for a good duelist. There are better options for that. Full throttle offence is the way to go.
Still, going for offence with a weapon like slaying or harmonic lance + desperation can make him a bit more flexible

Role: Offence
Rating 4/5
Budget: Medium
Weapon: Firesweep - Brave Lance - Slaying lance - {Harmonic Lance}
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3* Pool

-Catria
Catria and her sister are the newest additions to the refine club. With one of the strongest effects in the game, she's a monster if used right. If.
Catria benefits greatly from both effects. Her allround statline doesn't have any really weakness, and with the whitewing effect, she really shines.
Her biggest strengths are taking hits, shooting a lot of specials and quad attacks. All of this combined.
Sounds great, but it comes with a price. Not only is she only usable on flier emblem, you need to get her in range of 2 fliers. This isn't too bad, but it is restricting. And without the effects, Catria is just a alright unit with a 16 mt slaying lance.
Still one of the best allround picks for flier emblem.

Role: Mixed Duelist/Special bomber
Rating 4/5
Budget: Medium-high
Weapon: {Whitewing Lance}

-Clair*
Going from an impressive refine, to one somewhat lackluster.
Clair is not a horrible unit, her niche is that she has effectiveness against armors and horses. She also has great speed and good res, but a bit lackluster atk and def. They do have superboons, but you can't boost both.
She will need to make use out of skills like desperation after the first fight, which will make enemy phase imposible and hitting iceberg harder.
It can work though, and red armors will die easily. But Est might be the better pick of the two

Role: Anti armor and horse/ Ploy support
Rating 3/5
Budget: Medium-high
Weapon: {Rhomphaia}

-Cordelia
The OG offence lance flier. She still soars high with her 35/35 offences. Comparing her offences with Shigure, she trades a bit of speed for a bit of atk. I would say that this makes her somewhat less suited for Brave lance quads, but there's not much difference between the two as firesweep users.
One downside of Cordelia is her defence, it's pretty clear where the lower BST hits. Unlike Shigure, just use Cordelia for pure offence.
I will still rate her lower overal, but you won't feel much differences in the firesweep build.

Role: Offence
Rating 3.5/5
Budget: Medium
Weapon: Firesweep Lance

-Est
The youngest whitewing joins the fiesta with great atk and fine res. Her spd is enough to avoid doubles, but not worth building on too much. Though her physical bulk is kinda aweful.
Most things said about the whitewing problems with Catria apply to Est as well, but her role is more anti armor focussing on using the brave effect.
Having a 16 mt brave weapon + 3 atk from the effect and 35 base atk. Est erases a lot of units. And that's before concidering the armor effeciveness. She's capable of erasing red and blue armor units, and greens still have to be careful.
That aside, she's great for battling dragons with her res and using ploys.
Being inflexible and squishy physicly keeps her from being top tier though.

Role: Anti-armor/dragon duelist/ploy support.
Rating 4/5
Budget: Medium-high
Weapon: {Whitewing Spear}

-Florina
The former Jagen of the sky, Florina has since been promoted. Only to be one-upped a refine batch later.
Still, her refine is great for her stats. Florina reaches allround workable stats in the enemy phase, stacking on enemy phase stats can make her quite tanky. Her IV's are key, being able to boost her atk, spd or def (my personal favorite). With Hp being an easy choice for a bane
Her high res also works well for fighting dragons and ploys, though her weapon isn't suited for DC.
She has armor effectiveness, but that's a bit of a bonus. She's an enemy phase bait first, and an armor killer second.
Still, any armored dragon fears her.
Compared to Est, she trades in the insane damage and mixed phase for ease of use and and overall bulk.
She rates lower overal, but there will be situations Florina can shine where Est cannot.

Role: Mixed bait/Armor counter/Ploy support
Rating 3.5/5
Budget: Medium-high
Weapon: {Florina's Lance}

-Shanna
One of the simpelest refines, on a simple unit.
Shanna works allround, with not clear weakness and a focus on shooting specials.
A fine unit for filling a spot in your flier team, but she won't surprise you with any big tricks.

Role: Special focussed duelist
Rating 3/5
Budget: Medium
Weapon: {Shanna's lance}

-Subaki
QR2 fodder.
Well, there's more to him. He seems forgettable and only pulled for his fodder, but he has quite the wierd statline.
Highest def and great speed, at the cost of bad atk and lackluster res.
Don't underestimate this guy, especially since there really isn't any lance flier that can fill his role.
Speed. That is a big difference between him and other tanky characters. Not getting doubled means less damage, especially from specials. And with refines and the right skills, Subaki can bait in physical unit like a pro.
Still, he won't deal a lot of damage. He'll need a skill like ignis to supply him that. He does have a superboon in atk, but overall he'll never reach the enemy phase damage of some other units.
Subaki isn't top tier, but with a unique role that works well for him, he should get a little more attention.
If only there was a safeguard lance.

Role: Tank
Rating 3/5
Budget: Medium-high
Weapon: Slaying Lance - Reprisal lance - Tannenboom!
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Grail units

-[Valter]
Finally the only free lance flier, Valter. Also the only dragon rider, and it shows.
Great def, with workable offences boosted by his spear. At the cost of having bad res.
A lot of him is decided by his lance, at top health Valter can be a great bulky unit, but the chips add up fast with the damage he takes from the attacks. So to make full use out of him, you need to have a plan. Either an easy way to heal him or a way to make use out of the damage.
His slaying effect is always handy though, making sure those bonfires are frequent.
Sadly Valter can't reach the levels of offence of his peers, especially being lesser in his speed.
Still, the dual roles allows for flexibility in a fight no other flier in this group has. He and Shanna are probably the least situational of the bunch. Any phase, any team. They'll likely have something to do.
He's not the best of em, but when certain seals will be released (most notably brazen atk/spd) he will rise in use.

Role: Physical Duelist
Rating 3.5/5
Budget: Low - Medium
Weapon: {Cursed Lance}
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Overal rankings
Shigure - Catria - Est (4/5)
Cordelia - Florina - [Valter] (3,5/5)
Shanna - Subaki - Clair* (3/5)
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Answers

The Clair review seems kinda wrong. With fury she can take onehit which is all she needs for desperation. And the flashing blade on her refine lets her apply Iceberg on the first instance of combat. With her anti-armor and cavalry stuff, she can also tank magic and ploy. She really is just blue Caeda and I would say Caeda is probably 3.5 on this list.

As for the others I think there is a huge gap between Est and Catria between the other blue fliers if you dont consider restrictions. Shanna is probably about as good as Florina or better. Florina can wall now well but that's about it. Valter it's better to just run another lance. So he ends up as more of a dedicated physical dueler. which is decent but not very impressive. Subaki is yikes. So my order would go

4.5 Est, Catria
4 Shigure Cordelia
3.5 Shanna, Clair
3. Florina, Valter
2-2.5 Subaki

The thing is, Flashing blade really can't do that. Flashing blade without cd reduction only nets the iceberg after getting one hit in and one hit back. Or in a second fight.
With Desperation, the CD will go from 3>1>0 but not an activation in the fight.

And going for anti magic will likely mean DC. Which curbs her dueling potential. But the power of fighting dragons and ploys might bump her up to 3/5 for me.

'if you don't consider restrictons'
That there is my problem with them, and what keeps them from rising above an alread great 4/5

Don't forget Florina's anti armor effect, supurb res, and thus ploy potential. And overall, great stats in the enemy phase.
Shanna has great allround potential, but she'll never be a good wall or offence monster.

Valter run another lance? You should take that Cursed lance too lightly. 18 mt slayer with 2 spd. The 4 recoil sucks, but it can be used to his advantage. Brazens give a lot of stats after all.

'Subaki is yikes' ?

Thats the order you need flashing blade to work. You hit, get hit, and then you are more likely guaranteed to win after that fight because you get iceberg. Then after that you get desperation so you are better off for taking people down. And to be a Res tank you dont need DC. You would bait and then counterattack with whomever you want, or dont and just use them to get desperation. She hits 37 Res from memory so ploy city will save you a lot.

I agree on Florina but she ends up still dropping a lot of kills and even surviving because she needs just a little extra push. She serves well but is limited to how many times she can tank even against blue armors. She was one I overhyped on release but still a good refine. Shanna just has better stts to go offensive with which makes her decent. Not much to do with her and she's kinda boring but it's effective.

As for Valter, yeah I would if I built one. Unless brazen is really the thing you want to do. But then you really have to rely on buffs because he still wont double. And if you go for brazens QR is out of the question. I'd probably go for Slaying +Def to duel or Barkuts to try to meme out mixed tank with Atk/Res Brazen. The 4 damage probably doesnt make too much of a difference because he can survive a single hit. But overall its nothing special but he has decent physical duelist stats.

Subaki has 29 Atk with a boon without a refine that will help that out. And if he goes that route you have to dedicate so you give up fighting regular people. Worst blue flier hands down.

Alright, I will bump her up to 3/5.
Still think she has her issues, especially against infantry and other fliers. 37 with fury is indeed enough for ploys. Though she can't bait mages unless she's high in health.

Subaki is the only real option for a pure tank. 35 def with 35 speed is great. Getting skills to boost that defence ain't so bad of an idea.
Sure he needs ignis and his team for damage.
But you gotta remember, Valter and Subaki are the only two non-green fliers with more than 30 def on base. And on top of that, Subaki is able to avoid doubles from speedy sword units.

>She really is just blue Caeda and I would say Caeda is probably 3.5 on this list.

You're right but:

>I will be rating the units from the 3-4* pool, comparing them to each other.

Look at the 3-4* red fliers: Caeda, Palla, Aversa. That's it.
Whereas there are so many good blue fliers you could use, including ones like Est who kills armours better than Clair does. Red Caeda is going to be rated higher than blue Caeda.

Thx, this is a good explaination of the issue.

Why is that relevant? Your comment would only effect red Caeda's placement. Im not talking about her placement Im talking about her blue counterpart. If I say Caeda made blue (Clair) would place 3.5 on this list her red color is irrelevant.

The point is that 'Blue' Caeda would simply be lower than 'Red' Caeda.

The whole point of this ranking is matching units up to units in the same catagory. So somone with less competition will score higher.

For clarity, I'd rate Caeda 3.5/5 and Clair 3/5

I'll have to disagree on Claire; she's basically blue Sheeda. She can tear Zelgius and H!Myrrh apart

While I will admit that Clair's the one I'm least sure about, I do feel Florina and especially Est do the job better.