Part 90: Leo
Leo
Dark Knight (HS: Troubadour)
A+ Support Classes: Odin (Samurai), Niles (Outlaw), Xander (Cavalier)
Personal Skill: Pragmatic (+3 damage dealt to and -1 damage taken from enemies with less than max HP at the start of combat)
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 40% (55)
STR: 25% (45)
MAG: 55% (65)
SKL: 35% (40)
SPD: 45% (50)
LCK: 45% (50)
DEF: 30% (45)
RES: 45% (50)
Here's Leo, the second last Nohrian royal... and the worst one, arguably. Althought "worst Nohrian royal" is a statement you should read in the same way you would "poorest billionaire". He's still a great unit. And if you want my controversial opinion, I think he's a better unit than Takumi...
First of all, did you know that Leo's got the exact same growth total as Camilla? They're both tied for the third best growths in Conquest, second only to Mozu and Odin. That's not quite as impressive when you know they've both got a 25% growth in an offensive stat they don't really use, but it's still neat. Statwise Leo's an incredibly powerful and decently bulky magical attacker who's speed kind of hovers around the "could double with a speed-boosting support partner" area. He'll hit incredibly hard with his high magic and 10 might personal tome, and with support from a good partner he'll be able to double a decent amount of enemies. He absolutely blows Odin out the water with his raw damage, and while he won't be as fast as Nyx he'll be much better at doing her job without dying.
Brynhildr might be the worst of the 4 royal weapons, but it's still great in its own right. 10 mt and 80 hit makes it only slightly weaker than Ragnarok (the tome equivalent of a silver weapon), except instead of coming with a bunch of drawbacks it instead boosts Leo's crit avoid and can be used by him at any rank. It also has the fairly situational ability to lower magical damage, but it happens so rarely that it's more of a "nice when it happens" kind of thing instead of anything you should ever rely on. Pragmatic is also fairly underwhelming as far as royal personal skills go, but even if it's a little situational it's still a big boost that's not too hard to activate. It doesn't entirely synergise with Leo's main use as an enemy phase tank, but there will absolutely be situations in which he needs to pick off a weakened enemy.
Dark Knight's not the only class Leo can use. On one hand it does give him a large amount of movement and it is the source of most of his bulk (a reclassed Leo will be quite a bit more fragile), but on the other hand Leo has nearly no use at all for his sword rank - his attack is way worse than his magic and a Levin Sword only has 1 might over Brynhildr while also being too high for his base sword rank to use. There might be situations in which he wants to hit an enemy with a sword to avoid Countermagic or a super high resistance stat, but those will be extremely rare. Sorcerer Leo can Nosferatu tank mostly better than Odin can, trading accuracy for power and speed. He can also A+ support Odin to grab the Samurai class from him to learn Vantage. Strategist Leo trades bulk for speed and power, and trades his mostly useless sword access for staves, something he can make use of even at E rank. It's not a bad option if you need an extra healer but it will tank his bulk significantly, and unlike Sorcerer he can't make up for it with Nosferatu.
Otherwise Leo is kind of like Camilla in that he'll start off OP and slowly get worse as the rest of your units catch up. His bulk will go from "good" to "adequate", and his speed will become more and more of an issue as enemies get faster. But at the end of the day he's a great magical attacker who only needs a fast support partner to do well, and he's a fine replacement for Odin if he's starting to fall off... which he probably is.
Pros
- Great base stats for his join time, earns EXP faster than other units of his level
- Can activate dragon veins, has a cool personal tome that his almost as hard as Ragnarok or a Thunder tome with many forges
- Great tanking ability for a 1-2 range unit, especially when given the Horse Spirit from Ophelia's paralogue
- Can Nosferatu tank well with a single reclass and grab Vantage from Odin with some effort
- Is like the one unit who can reclass into Troubadour that might actually want to
- Has a cool son who can work as a 0 effort staffbot or potentially a great magical attacker
Cons
- Reliant on a support partner to double consistently
- Stats become less impressive as you progress through the game, lacks any standout attributes in the lategame besides magic
- Joins late less time for supports blah blah blah I'm saying this about everyone now
My Rating: Better than Takumi!!!