You like Sully because she makes unique tactical contributions to your army. I like Sully cause she’s a stone butch who is mean to me in a nice way. We are not the same.
In Awakening, not being able to kill everyone in one-round combat can actually be a bit of a boon in the early game since if you aren't grinding in the overworld, EXP can be a bit of a premium if you're trying to get it *safely* and this is another super good boon about Sully. The fact that she will get to doubling benchmarks much faster than a majority of your army while also being bulky means that she's really good at creating choke-points, but her low early-game strength means that she will often not kill a lot of these enemies if you're being careful. There's a lot of units up until Chapter 10 that can struggle to find good opportunities to catch-up after that point and being able to siphon EXP from Awakening's early game enemies can salvage anyone you want to turn into a project for mid-game. Once you get to Chapter 10, enemies will be in excess enough for this to be a bit of an issue and will also be strong enough to be mildly threatening for untrained units to safely risk fighting alone. (For example: An untrained Lon'qu with about average levels can usually hold off the Wyvern brigade in Chapter 9, but will be at great risk versus the stronger Axe-wielding enemies in Chapter 11.) "Speed is the most important stat" is a bit of a meme in Fire Emblem, but it also exists because to a large extent it's always somewhat true. No one in Awakening is fast enough to consistently double without Pair-ups, but Sully is consistently leveling Speed enough that she will do so eventually while also being nowhere near as squishy as the units who come with guaranteed doubling. (Lon'qu, Cordelia, and Sumia) That she's got so many advantages in the early game just enables her to blow Stahl out of the water means that she's got almost no competition to warrant NOT training her. (Hell, you can give her Robin's Bronze Sword in Chapter 2 and she can fight off the Risen in that chapter stupidly easy on the fort.) There's also something to be said about her writing. I won't go over it a bunch in a comments section, but Sully has gotta low-key be one of Fire Emblem's best written females in the franchise. A majority of her supports are top-tier, her characterization is one of the most consistent among the cast, and a lot of her relationships are shockingly well-written. (Seriously, her romantic supports with Chrom are like a heart attack of sweetness.) I love her a bunch, easily a Top 10 Unit of all time in my book. ...I just hate that her romantic supports with Robin are some of the *worst* in the entire game lmao.
This video is an automatic win. I remember people used to criticize Awakening for “anime” characters with exaggerated quirks. But the quality of Awakening’s characters is definitely underrated. I love Sully, too.
Can’t wait to watch this one, Sully is my second favorite Awakening character and one of my favorite characters in the entire series! Really glad she’s given the spotlight here when most of the fanbase doesn’t really care about her
Sully was also my first S-support of my first ever fire emblem run so she will always have a special place in my heart. I’m glad to have watched this video which gives her a fair analysis as a unit, which is a point I’ve been arguing for a while.
It's so funny how she goes under the radar mostly because early-game training in Awakening is usually seen as pointless. I usually agree that a lot of Awakening's early-game units all feel like unfortunate "Project Units" that don't really stand out all that much, but Sully is so immediately able to stand out if you look closely at what she has to offer that I really don't think she qualifies. Seriously, she's absurdly good.
I never S Supported her, but hers WAS the first Confession I heard, in previews, and it was the first time I knew Awakening's dub would be genuinely GREAT. Which I wasn't expecting, given at the time Nintendo's only other good dub was Kid Icarus Uprising.
I'd say my favorite Christmas "cavalier" is Mae from SoV, which admittedly has a lot to do with her personality and voice acting ("Sure, I'm still hyper. Let's go!"), but I also like how she starts with Thunder, as well as her high offensive potential. My second favorite is Kaze from Fates, mainly because I love using ninjas.
I like Mae a ton! I think it's good that they've branched out to making the Christmas units not be cavaliers all the time. Tradition is all good, but after 13 games some variety has been nice haha.
Mae is great! Her dynamic with Celica's crew is really fun and I find her way more reliable than Boey at turning out good... Poor Boey, he's pretty alright at holding the line early with a leather shield but his speed and str growth is so shaky he keeps failing to really shine for me.
My favourite part of sully's supports are the ones she has with vaike. It starts silly, but it highlights a bit of vaike's youth and reasons for joining the shepherds before it goes into a deep dive about Sully's motivations as a knight in training. Sully's line of "I'll fight for the Shepherds until I've damn EARNED the title of knight!" still lights a fire in me, just as it does Vaike in their A support.
In my first Awakening run, back when I had no experience with FE whatsoever, Sully auto-married Chrom. That’s always the thing I remember most about her, which is kinda doing her a disservice tbh. Also hell yeah for for showcasing different strats than ‘overlevel exactly one unit and sprint through every level with them and prepromotes’
This video makes me so happy. Big sully defender here. She really is chroms best pair up (besides robin). And I'm always a lover of high speed. Easily in the top 10 awakening units!
I never played lunatic because of how stupid it is in awakening, but i always thought sully was underrated as a unit. She is, in my opinion, one of the best early game characters to train up. I also strongly believe sully is the best mom for lucina sure she doesn't give gale force but i still bekieve it's impossible to get galeforce on anyone besides robin without favoritism and she gives the bedt dtets to lucina (it also helps that she has the best romance support with chrom)
Sully is my favorite pairing for Chrom from almost every stand point. Several fast physical sweepers for units, a great support line for Chrom (which is usually kinda bad or alright), and Kjell and Lucina being super jock-brained siblings is pretty funny. The only downside is Kjell's support for her father (which is supposed to be comedic, but I specifically don't like that joke and that's the whole support), but that's not even a Sully issue. Also I just love her design, she's so cool.
Ok I actually always hated Sully but just on my last playthrough I got a blessed Sully with so many good levels ups that she stayed with me to endgame and even pivoted to Wyvern Lord. So now I have an appreciation 😂
Everywhere I go I see Stahl slander... For lunatic mode, especially for combat, there's a pretty clear case for Stahl>Sully. You bring up that Sully has a 2 speed and 10% growth lead over Stahl, but that is really her only relevant lead for the entire game over him, from a combat perspective. I think the point about having 6 speed is kinda overplayed. It's a little annoying, but Stahl literally needs 1 speed to not get doubled by C2 soldiers- he can fix that within a level, or just take Sully if he really needs to EP them for whatever reason. Realistically, I don't think Stahl or Sully are going to be fighting a lot of soldiers in C2 anyway. I struggle to see a reason to not just use Vaike or Fred or Robin to clear them. This isn't an argument to say "just vaike solo lmao", but base Vaike is always going to be there and he's always going to have way way way better combat vs the soldiers that come by anyway. You might want to feed the soldiers to either Sully or Stahl, but in that case, their speed doesn't really matter because you're going in for the last hit anyway. By the end of chapter 3, Stahl's speed issue is a lot less relevant because you have 2 new speed pairs and enemies don't tend to get much faster anyway. They tend to stay around 11 speed- this is a value that neither Stahl nor Sully is naturally doubling anyway, so the speed lead doesn't matter all that much (when you have a dedicated speed pairup it can help with hitting benchmarks though). I did find the example of chapter 6 a bit odd, because enemies are really slow in that map- when given the same Panne pairup, Stahl will also double the same enemies. Fighters have 9 speed, and the Dark Mages have 7, so Stahl needs 10 speed unboosted for fighters and 8 for DMs. Level 10 Stahl will have that, or if he misses it, Lon'Qu gives an extra point of speed on top of that, so level 8 averages enough. This is why having a small speed lead really doesn't mean a lot outside of the very early chapters, because enemies don't care if you are 4 speed lower or 4 speed higher than them. Until you are 5 speed lower or higher, the combat is functionally the same, so you can have units that are as much as 8 speed apart from each other performing the same in combat, and the gap is nowhere near that large between these two. This is not true for bulk and damage though. Bulk especially. Sully's base damage is not good, but it will fix itself eventually with the killer lance and dualstrikes (although I do think allowing the glass sword for Sully is opening pandoras box a bit). However, Sully won't be able to catch up with Stahl's bulk. He's leading 2 points in HP and a point in Def, and a 10 and 15% growth in both those stats. And unlike having more strength, which is eventually obsoleted by the enemy dying to you anyway, having more bulk is always good, because you take less and less damage and thus can do more and more. The lead might sound small, but over the course of the entire game, you may gain 50 or so levels on your main carry. That's as much as 5 HP and 7-8 extra def for Stahl. Yeah lategame awakening units are good, but are you really going to say that 8 HP saved per enemy in like a 20 enemy EP doesn't matter? This also matters for earlier sections too. Def is the best stat to snowball because the more you get, the more you can use it due to you living longer, so differences of just 3 or 4 Def can mean significant changes to how many combats you can take. You can technically get a level in C1 as mentioned, but I feel like stripping exp away from Chrom/Fred or Robin before C2 is not a very good idea. Getting a level for Sully here is not going to meaningfully change how she performs in C2 to the point she can do anything new for you, wheras Fred getting A lances or +1 speed or strength, or Chrom or Robin getting +speed can make a giant difference as to how easy that map is. It's a risk you're taking that takes a while to pay off when the end of C2, C3, C4 and P1 are easy maps to train in anyway. Stahl also has the advantage of swords being better than lances for the earlygame. There's loads of barbarians and wyverns that you want WTA against, and being able to do that with an iron weapon instead of a bronze weapon is a pretty big deal. Having to bronze sword enemies with 7 base strength is a notable disadvantage to using an iron sword off of 8 base strength. Sure, Sully might be able to use lances to make up some of the mt difference, but now she faces severe weapon penalties that only get worse as their ranks grow. Also Stahl's worse lance rank never ends up mattering because Fred is so much better with the javelin than anyone else and the only time they become buyable is post C7- more than enough time for Stahl to organically build lance rank to D. What this means is that outside of some specific situations such as doubling barbarians early in P1, Stahl is going to beat out Sully in combat across awakening. Having better bulk and damage is better than having a slight speed lead, in most cases. Heck, even in the cases where Sully can take a speedier pairup to double something, Stahl can always just whip out C Kellam for a +6 Def boost and become insanely bulky. (Man is out here getting 5 hit KOed on a 20% hr in C5 by axes). Sully can do this, but it will always be worse as she sacrifices bulk for a small bit of avoid and consistency hitting some double thresholds. Speaking of Def being better than small amounts of speed, GK>Paladin. GK gains +8 HP and +7 Def on promo. This is unit-warpingly broken compared to Paladin's already good +7HP and +3 Def. I disagree that Sully can't afford to lose a point of speed to GK. She has a 60% growth, Chrom as a pairup partner, 2 speedwings available and speed tonics. Your Sully in C9, for example, even if you reduce her speed by 3 points to compensate for being in GK over Paladin, she still doubles everything with a speed tonic and Stahl pairup. I will say that GK's bulk is overkill for that point in the game, but you can use Paladin as an earlier class, pick up the good skills and use the Res to take out Gangrel, then switch to GK for the better bulk and access to axes for WT control and the hammer. Don't worry about your Res- you have aegis at this point as well as pure water/ward, talismans, Res pairups and Rally Res when Maribellle hits promoted level 5. There was probably something else I meant to write but i accidentally refreshed the page and YT wiped my entire comment so this is my second attempt at typing it up. Merry Christmas Lizard
In the many years I've browsed Awakening conversations this has always been the sticking point with Stahl. Even people who I've seen prefer him over Sully tend to admit that she usually ends up better than him.
Yeah, Sully is a better combat carry but Stahl is a great husband for most of the cast and generally a better pair up bot. Granted of course don't think Sully is a good option compared to someone like Panne, but she works well enough. Sully having Kjelle as a daughter also doesn't do her any favors.
I do like Sully, I like to pair her with Chrom. Frankly the Lucina confession is hilariously in character for Sully, swinging a weapon around with enough fury to decapitate mountains. Though I will try Vaike next time as that could be very fun (Granted Vaike is always one of my early investment units as if I'm able to get him to level 10 fighter then second seal to barbarian he's now speedy, hits like a siege weapon, and has enough HP to tank anything that does hit him.) Something silly I like to do with Kjelle is pass down Astra from Sully and due to her high Skill, she'll proc it more often than you'd think. Strangely both of their final classes ended up being Paladin because having all-rounder stats with 8 movement, high skill, and a few proc skills makes the game fun for me.
Gonna bite the bullet on this one. Stahl is my favorite christmas cav for several reasons. One, his tactical niche in the army may be served at the very start, but not by the time he has several levels under his belt. Two, his defense and strength growths being what they are create a rock solid unit who I find is a really good option for pair ups and mainline use. Along with that, under Great Knight, he gets access to Luna and Dual Guard+, both of which i find to be insanely useful. You might ask now, why him instead of Frederick, when that chiseled god of a man starts as a Great Knight? Because Stahl’s stats, in most cases, if you leveled them up at the same rate would be *better* than Fred’s. Fred falls off. Stahl remains, if you invest in him, a bulky unit with the movement to get around and help support other units via pair up and with attacks to endgame. My bias for Great Knights is clear, but his tactical advantages can’t be understated. Sorry for the thesis lol.
Honestly. I also personaly prefer Stahl thanks to him basically becoming another Frederick. And another Frederick, even at the endgame, is still really great. And also, because I like using underrated units. The pair-up bonuses to Great Knight are really good for any character with enough speed, gives a lot of strenght, defense and even a movement. And becomes real versatile with his big weapon access after some training with Discipline. And even if Stahl start to fall off. Just like Frederick, you can simply use him as a support/backpack unit, especially with Dual Guard+. He's real good supporting units like Cordelia, Panne, Cherch, Robin, heck Sully too. And if wanted to make him even tankier, pair him up with a general like Kellam. If want to beef Stahl up, you can reclass him to Swordmaster for Swordfaire or Sniper for Bowfaire and giving him more speed. Or make him a bow knight so that he has both Swordfaire and Bowfaire. So yeah, Sully and Stahl are pretty good after some training, like with most characters in Awakening. Just the early chapters which doesn't help them in the slighest. Although to be honest, anyone but Frederick and a cracked up Robin struggles at the first chapters.
In my first playthrough sully accidentally S ranked chrom and became lucinas mom when the forced story chapter came around. So i felt obligated to deploy her throughout the rest of the game
When i first played Gay Awakening, i S-Support Sully and used her as a Wyvern Lord, which was really fun. I think i Second-Sealed her on Chapter 13? and she did really well. Strength +2 really helps her because she tends to get Strength-Screwed for me. To be fair, i played on Normal (generally not a person that plays on harder difficulties). I appreciate more Sully appreciation, shes def my favorite Christmas Cav too
I think when people say that the FE13 Christmas cavs are bad they’re mostly talking about Stahl, since a lot of people find him more memorable (and not for good reasons). People do the same thing with FE8’s Kyle and Forde, mostly talking about how bad Forde is while paying Kyle no mind since he’s kinda forgettable
The irony of Queen's Lance being immediately taken away from Donnel, and then given to Sully over Stahl is crazy. Donnel and Stahl love aside, I liked seeing Sully in action, with specific ways of incorporating her into strats! This is the non-Chrobin solo content the people crave.
Awakening is immune to the way the rest of the series is analyzed imo because its actually fantastically balanced (Robin excluded) while retaining and emphasizing unit identity. None of the GBA games are and only Thracia really comes to mind for the kaga era.
Since the vast majority of Awakening playthroughs are not done on Lunatic/Lunatic+, I find it jarring that so much of your discussion of the character -- as well as the game -- presumes those difficulties and discusses those qualities as if they're universal.
I believe part of it is that on lower difficulties, you can kind of get away with lesser/non-optimal strats, and most people seeking to optimize will be doing so on higher difficulties in 2nd+ playthroughs. And then, if you're still having trouble with Normal/Hard difficulties, taking tips from Lunatic-based strats works, because they tend to be "optimal" for most levels of difficulty. Lunatic+ doesn't apply because of the additional skills only available in it. That's about how I had it explained to me once.
@@RobTenken I think it’s fair to discuss units based on the highest difficulty, since that’s where differences between units are most notable. If a unit performs well on Lunatic, they almost certainly will perform well on Hard or below.
There's very little to discuss on awakening hard and below because enemy stats are so low. Like basically every unit can just immediately start soloing the game from base, so it's essentially impossible to say anything about anything. No hate to people who play hard mode, it's fun for some things, but there is no real functional difference between really any early unit on that mode, outside of things like Sumia and Miriel still having no EP or Donnel still being bad. I actually really respect the lizard for this video even though I disagree with the conclusion of it. There are clear points made and examples given. There are genuine strengths and weaknesses of Sully that are mentioned in comparison to other units and a reasonable argument is made as to why or how you may want to use her in your next playthrough. Analyzing on lunatic mode allows this to be possible, whereas analyzing on hard and below only really allows for the sort of "oh sully is going to kinda be faster than stahl and less bulky so give her some dracoshields now lets talk about apothesosis" style of content that never really goes anywhere.
This common reply of "units are more homogenous on lower difficulties" has been a mantra in the community for several years now, popularized by Mekkah. It doesn't provide a compelling argument. For some games, the value offered by a given unit will be fundamentally different -- but it's not a simple matter of exaggerated strengths. It's that various thresholds bury or elevate individual units. And add the fact that Awakening's higher difficulties are ... well, basically unfun for many players because they radically narrow the possibility space and force reliance on Fred / Crobin ... and you'll really only talk to a small subset of players about a small set of viable units. The insistence on discussing highest difficulty settings as if they accurately reflect unit viability across playthroughs is not a positive for the community. Discussing only top difficulty performance and positives fails to account for unit impact, fun factor, etc., in most playthroughs for most players. Saying, "oh, but anyone is viable in lower difficulties" is only a way to opt out of conversation, and fails to acknowledge that unit differences and performance remain relevant even if most units can technically be viable. The video is good. The presumption that all conversation should assume that highest difficulty and "efficient play" are universal goals ... that's not so good.
@@RobTenken You're arguing about the wrong game. I have had this view on awakening for a long time, as have many others. Units ARE dramatically more homogenous on awakening hard than on lunatic. They just are. The bar for combat is dropped to such an extent that you will see essentially zero difference between Sully and Stahl. If you want to argue that there is a difference then, well, prove it. You're saying that it is really important because there are thresholds that completely change units. Show them. What are the specific thresholds? Furthermore, awakening lunatic is not a restrictive difficulty at all. Every single unit is viable and you are not reliant on "Chrobin" at any point in the game (in fact, it is people preaching to others to rely on them that makes the game harder). Also, when you mention that this is a "small subset of players" only talking about lunatic, you need to make up your mind on what your opinion is. Does everyone mistakenly talk about lunatic when they shouldn't, or is lunatic a rarely talked about mode that no one thinks of? These are two mutually exclusive opinions that you are holding here. Yes, lunatic does get more discussion, but that's because there are actual THINGS to discuss in lunatic as opposed to hard. So people who enjoy analyzing the game will talk more about lunatic. Analysis is fun and you're basically saying that people should do something that they find less fun because you prefer playing on hard. Like, if it bothers you so much, why not be the change you want to see and do your own hard mode analysis? "Lunatic mode is not fun" is your subjective opinion, not a fact.
I only play awakening with the gay hack so Sully is even better since the women make the babies in Awakening basically every man is an unfavorable unit in the early game [great for me who wants to use the women anyway] and Sully is fantastic, her daughter is strong, she joins right at the start and has a ton of great partners with. She's really fun and I enjoyed her on my last awakening run however long ago.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
You like Sully because she makes unique tactical contributions to your army. I like Sully cause she’s a stone butch who is mean to me in a nice way. We are not the same.
I can like her for two reasons!
Sully's characterization is her "Foul mouth" but due to the game's rating it mostly just amounts to her saying "arse".
In Awakening, not being able to kill everyone in one-round combat can actually be a bit of a boon in the early game since if you aren't grinding in the overworld, EXP can be a bit of a premium if you're trying to get it *safely* and this is another super good boon about Sully.
The fact that she will get to doubling benchmarks much faster than a majority of your army while also being bulky means that she's really good at creating choke-points, but her low early-game strength means that she will often not kill a lot of these enemies if you're being careful. There's a lot of units up until Chapter 10 that can struggle to find good opportunities to catch-up after that point and being able to siphon EXP from Awakening's early game enemies can salvage anyone you want to turn into a project for mid-game. Once you get to Chapter 10, enemies will be in excess enough for this to be a bit of an issue and will also be strong enough to be mildly threatening for untrained units to safely risk fighting alone. (For example: An untrained Lon'qu with about average levels can usually hold off the Wyvern brigade in Chapter 9, but will be at great risk versus the stronger Axe-wielding enemies in Chapter 11.)
"Speed is the most important stat" is a bit of a meme in Fire Emblem, but it also exists because to a large extent it's always somewhat true. No one in Awakening is fast enough to consistently double without Pair-ups, but Sully is consistently leveling Speed enough that she will do so eventually while also being nowhere near as squishy as the units who come with guaranteed doubling. (Lon'qu, Cordelia, and Sumia) That she's got so many advantages in the early game just enables her to blow Stahl out of the water means that she's got almost no competition to warrant NOT training her. (Hell, you can give her Robin's Bronze Sword in Chapter 2 and she can fight off the Risen in that chapter stupidly easy on the fort.)
There's also something to be said about her writing. I won't go over it a bunch in a comments section, but Sully has gotta low-key be one of Fire Emblem's best written females in the franchise. A majority of her supports are top-tier, her characterization is one of the most consistent among the cast, and a lot of her relationships are shockingly well-written. (Seriously, her romantic supports with Chrom are like a heart attack of sweetness.) I love her a bunch, easily a Top 10 Unit of all time in my book.
...I just hate that her romantic supports with Robin are some of the *worst* in the entire game lmao.
This video is an automatic win.
I remember people used to criticize Awakening for “anime” characters with exaggerated quirks.
But the quality of Awakening’s characters is definitely underrated. I love Sully, too.
Can’t wait to watch this one, Sully is my second favorite Awakening character and one of my favorite characters in the entire series! Really glad she’s given the spotlight here when most of the fanbase doesn’t really care about her
Sully just feels great to play. Absolutely love her, my favourite awakening character.
Thank you for making my bias even stronger! :)
Thanks!
Sully was also my first S-support of my first ever fire emblem run so she will always have a special place in my heart. I’m glad to have watched this video which gives her a fair analysis as a unit, which is a point I’ve been arguing for a while.
It's so funny how she goes under the radar mostly because early-game training in Awakening is usually seen as pointless. I usually agree that a lot of Awakening's early-game units all feel like unfortunate "Project Units" that don't really stand out all that much, but Sully is so immediately able to stand out if you look closely at what she has to offer that I really don't think she qualifies. Seriously, she's absurdly good.
I never S Supported her, but hers WAS the first Confession I heard, in previews, and it was the first time I knew Awakening's dub would be genuinely GREAT. Which I wasn't expecting, given at the time Nintendo's only other good dub was Kid Icarus Uprising.
I'd say my favorite Christmas "cavalier" is Mae from SoV, which admittedly has a lot to do with her personality and voice acting ("Sure, I'm still hyper. Let's go!"), but I also like how she starts with Thunder, as well as her high offensive potential. My second favorite is Kaze from Fates, mainly because I love using ninjas.
I like Mae a ton! I think it's good that they've branched out to making the Christmas units not be cavaliers all the time. Tradition is all good, but after 13 games some variety has been nice haha.
Mae is great! Her dynamic with Celica's crew is really fun and I find her way more reliable than Boey at turning out good... Poor Boey, he's pretty alright at holding the line early with a leather shield but his speed and str growth is so shaky he keeps failing to really shine for me.
My favourite part of sully's supports are the ones she has with vaike. It starts silly, but it highlights a bit of vaike's youth and reasons for joining the shepherds before it goes into a deep dive about Sully's motivations as a knight in training.
Sully's line of "I'll fight for the Shepherds until I've damn EARNED the title of knight!" still lights a fire in me, just as it does Vaike in their A support.
I haven't played Awakening in a long time, probably 10+ years. I'll have to keep all this in mind if I ever do play it again. Great, video as always!
In my first Awakening run, back when I had no experience with FE whatsoever, Sully auto-married Chrom. That’s always the thing I remember most about her, which is kinda doing her a disservice tbh.
Also hell yeah for for showcasing different strats than ‘overlevel exactly one unit and sprint through every level with them and prepromotes’
This video makes me so happy. Big sully defender here. She really is chroms best pair up (besides robin). And I'm always a lover of high speed. Easily in the top 10 awakening units!
I never played lunatic because of how stupid it is in awakening, but i always thought sully was underrated as a unit. She is, in my opinion, one of the best early game characters to train up. I also strongly believe sully is the best mom for lucina sure she doesn't give gale force but i still bekieve it's impossible to get galeforce on anyone besides robin without favoritism and she gives the bedt dtets to lucina (it also helps that she has the best romance support with chrom)
Sully is based and so are the chads that S Ranked her.
Sully is my favorite pairing for Chrom from almost every stand point. Several fast physical sweepers for units, a great support line for Chrom (which is usually kinda bad or alright), and Kjell and Lucina being super jock-brained siblings is pretty funny. The only downside is Kjell's support for her father (which is supposed to be comedic, but I specifically don't like that joke and that's the whole support), but that's not even a Sully issue. Also I just love her design, she's so cool.
Ok I actually always hated Sully but just on my last playthrough I got a blessed Sully with so many good levels ups that she stayed with me to endgame and even pivoted to Wyvern Lord. So now I have an appreciation 😂
HELL YEA SULLY VIDEO
I'm glad another Sully fan here. She's my Awakening wife
my QUEEN, i believe in tomboy supremacy
additionally, she's just cool, she could kill me twice
I do really love ALL ActualLizard videos!!!! ❤
Everywhere I go I see Stahl slander...
For lunatic mode, especially for combat, there's a pretty clear case for Stahl>Sully.
You bring up that Sully has a 2 speed and 10% growth lead over Stahl, but that is really her only relevant lead for the entire game over him, from a combat perspective. I think the point about having 6 speed is kinda overplayed. It's a little annoying, but Stahl literally needs 1 speed to not get doubled by C2 soldiers- he can fix that within a level, or just take Sully if he really needs to EP them for whatever reason.
Realistically, I don't think Stahl or Sully are going to be fighting a lot of soldiers in C2 anyway. I struggle to see a reason to not just use Vaike or Fred or Robin to clear them. This isn't an argument to say "just vaike solo lmao", but base Vaike is always going to be there and he's always going to have way way way better combat vs the soldiers that come by anyway. You might want to feed the soldiers to either Sully or Stahl, but in that case, their speed doesn't really matter because you're going in for the last hit anyway.
By the end of chapter 3, Stahl's speed issue is a lot less relevant because you have 2 new speed pairs and enemies don't tend to get much faster anyway. They tend to stay around 11 speed- this is a value that neither Stahl nor Sully is naturally doubling anyway, so the speed lead doesn't matter all that much (when you have a dedicated speed pairup it can help with hitting benchmarks though). I did find the example of chapter 6 a bit odd, because enemies are really slow in that map- when given the same Panne pairup, Stahl will also double the same enemies. Fighters have 9 speed, and the Dark Mages have 7, so Stahl needs 10 speed unboosted for fighters and 8 for DMs. Level 10 Stahl will have that, or if he misses it, Lon'Qu gives an extra point of speed on top of that, so level 8 averages enough.
This is why having a small speed lead really doesn't mean a lot outside of the very early chapters, because enemies don't care if you are 4 speed lower or 4 speed higher than them. Until you are 5 speed lower or higher, the combat is functionally the same, so you can have units that are as much as 8 speed apart from each other performing the same in combat, and the gap is nowhere near that large between these two.
This is not true for bulk and damage though. Bulk especially. Sully's base damage is not good, but it will fix itself eventually with the killer lance and dualstrikes (although I do think allowing the glass sword for Sully is opening pandoras box a bit). However, Sully won't be able to catch up with Stahl's bulk. He's leading 2 points in HP and a point in Def, and a 10 and 15% growth in both those stats. And unlike having more strength, which is eventually obsoleted by the enemy dying to you anyway, having more bulk is always good, because you take less and less damage and thus can do more and more.
The lead might sound small, but over the course of the entire game, you may gain 50 or so levels on your main carry. That's as much as 5 HP and 7-8 extra def for Stahl. Yeah lategame awakening units are good, but are you really going to say that 8 HP saved per enemy in like a 20 enemy EP doesn't matter? This also matters for earlier sections too. Def is the best stat to snowball because the more you get, the more you can use it due to you living longer, so differences of just 3 or 4 Def can mean significant changes to how many combats you can take.
You can technically get a level in C1 as mentioned, but I feel like stripping exp away from Chrom/Fred or Robin before C2 is not a very good idea. Getting a level for Sully here is not going to meaningfully change how she performs in C2 to the point she can do anything new for you, wheras Fred getting A lances or +1 speed or strength, or Chrom or Robin getting +speed can make a giant difference as to how easy that map is. It's a risk you're taking that takes a while to pay off when the end of C2, C3, C4 and P1 are easy maps to train in anyway.
Stahl also has the advantage of swords being better than lances for the earlygame. There's loads of barbarians and wyverns that you want WTA against, and being able to do that with an iron weapon instead of a bronze weapon is a pretty big deal. Having to bronze sword enemies with 7 base strength is a notable disadvantage to using an iron sword off of 8 base strength. Sure, Sully might be able to use lances to make up some of the mt difference, but now she faces severe weapon penalties that only get worse as their ranks grow. Also Stahl's worse lance rank never ends up mattering because Fred is so much better with the javelin than anyone else and the only time they become buyable is post C7- more than enough time for Stahl to organically build lance rank to D.
What this means is that outside of some specific situations such as doubling barbarians early in P1, Stahl is going to beat out Sully in combat across awakening. Having better bulk and damage is better than having a slight speed lead, in most cases. Heck, even in the cases where Sully can take a speedier pairup to double something, Stahl can always just whip out C Kellam for a +6 Def boost and become insanely bulky. (Man is out here getting 5 hit KOed on a 20% hr in C5 by axes). Sully can do this, but it will always be worse as she sacrifices bulk for a small bit of avoid and consistency hitting some double thresholds.
Speaking of Def being better than small amounts of speed, GK>Paladin. GK gains +8 HP and +7 Def on promo. This is unit-warpingly broken compared to Paladin's already good +7HP and +3 Def. I disagree that Sully can't afford to lose a point of speed to GK. She has a 60% growth, Chrom as a pairup partner, 2 speedwings available and speed tonics. Your Sully in C9, for example, even if you reduce her speed by 3 points to compensate for being in GK over Paladin, she still doubles everything with a speed tonic and Stahl pairup.
I will say that GK's bulk is overkill for that point in the game, but you can use Paladin as an earlier class, pick up the good skills and use the Res to take out Gangrel, then switch to GK for the better bulk and access to axes for WT control and the hammer. Don't worry about your Res- you have aegis at this point as well as pure water/ward, talismans, Res pairups and Rally Res when Maribellle hits promoted level 5.
There was probably something else I meant to write but i accidentally refreshed the page and YT wiped my entire comment so this is my second attempt at typing it up.
Merry Christmas Lizard
comrades in sully love
She's the goat
I like using Sully and Stahl. Their paired ending is great.
I like Stahl more as a character (he's cute) but Sully always performs better for me
In the many years I've browsed Awakening conversations this has always been the sticking point with Stahl. Even people who I've seen prefer him over Sully tend to admit that she usually ends up better than him.
Yeah, Sully is a better combat carry but Stahl is a great husband for most of the cast and generally a better pair up bot. Granted of course don't think Sully is a good option compared to someone like Panne, but she works well enough. Sully having Kjelle as a daughter also doesn't do her any favors.
I do like Sully, I like to pair her with Chrom. Frankly the Lucina confession is hilariously in character for Sully, swinging a weapon around with enough fury to decapitate mountains. Though I will try Vaike next time as that could be very fun (Granted Vaike is always one of my early investment units as if I'm able to get him to level 10 fighter then second seal to barbarian he's now speedy, hits like a siege weapon, and has enough HP to tank anything that does hit him.)
Something silly I like to do with Kjelle is pass down Astra from Sully and due to her high Skill, she'll proc it more often than you'd think.
Strangely both of their final classes ended up being Paladin because having all-rounder stats with 8 movement, high skill, and a few proc skills makes the game fun for me.
Gonna bite the bullet on this one. Stahl is my favorite christmas cav for several reasons.
One, his tactical niche in the army may be served at the very start, but not by the time he has several levels under his belt. Two, his defense and strength growths being what they are create a rock solid unit who I find is a really good option for pair ups and mainline use. Along with that, under Great Knight, he gets access to Luna and Dual Guard+, both of which i find to be insanely useful.
You might ask now, why him instead of Frederick, when that chiseled god of a man starts as a Great Knight?
Because Stahl’s stats, in most cases, if you leveled them up at the same rate would be *better* than Fred’s. Fred falls off.
Stahl remains, if you invest in him, a bulky unit with the movement to get around and help support other units via pair up and with attacks to endgame. My bias for Great Knights is clear, but his tactical advantages can’t be understated. Sorry for the thesis lol.
Honestly. I also personaly prefer Stahl thanks to him basically becoming another Frederick. And another Frederick, even at the endgame, is still really great. And also, because I like using underrated units.
The pair-up bonuses to Great Knight are really good for any character with enough speed, gives a lot of strenght, defense and even a movement. And becomes real versatile with his big weapon access after some training with Discipline.
And even if Stahl start to fall off. Just like Frederick, you can simply use him as a support/backpack unit, especially with Dual Guard+. He's real good supporting units like Cordelia, Panne, Cherch, Robin, heck Sully too. And if wanted to make him even tankier, pair him up with a general like Kellam.
If want to beef Stahl up, you can reclass him to Swordmaster for Swordfaire or Sniper for Bowfaire and giving him more speed. Or make him a bow knight so that he has both Swordfaire and Bowfaire.
So yeah, Sully and Stahl are pretty good after some training, like with most characters in Awakening. Just the early chapters which doesn't help them in the slighest. Although to be honest, anyone but Frederick and a cracked up Robin struggles at the first chapters.
Counterpoint: Lonqu pairup for stupidly funny speed
In my first playthrough sully accidentally S ranked chrom and became lucinas mom when the forced story chapter came around. So i felt obligated to deploy her throughout the rest of the game
When i first played Gay Awakening, i S-Support Sully and used her as a Wyvern Lord, which was really fun. I think i Second-Sealed her on Chapter 13? and she did really well. Strength +2 really helps her because she tends to get Strength-Screwed for me. To be fair, i played on Normal (generally not a person that plays on harder difficulties). I appreciate more Sully appreciation, shes def my favorite Christmas Cav too
I also married Sully in my first playthrough of Fire Emblem Awakening. I'm glad to know she's a good unit gameplaywise.
From stole Sully from me. I will never forgive him for that…
So I married Lucina for revenge
A second Chrom who can marry Chrom is obviously good
I think when people say that the FE13 Christmas cavs are bad they’re mostly talking about Stahl, since a lot of people find him more memorable (and not for good reasons). People do the same thing with FE8’s Kyle and Forde, mostly talking about how bad Forde is while paying Kyle no mind since he’s kinda forgettable
None of these are bad
The irony of Queen's Lance being immediately taken away from Donnel, and then given to Sully over Stahl is crazy.
Donnel and Stahl love aside, I liked seeing Sully in action, with specific ways of incorporating her into strats! This is the non-Chrobin solo content the people crave.
Awakening is immune to the way the rest of the series is analyzed imo because its actually fantastically balanced (Robin excluded) while retaining and emphasizing unit identity. None of the GBA games are and only Thracia really comes to mind for the kaga era.
FE fans are still doing this dumb thing when they have to compare units as if the game allows you to only use one unit lol
Since the vast majority of Awakening playthroughs are not done on Lunatic/Lunatic+, I find it jarring that so much of your discussion of the character -- as well as the game -- presumes those difficulties and discusses those qualities as if they're universal.
I believe part of it is that on lower difficulties, you can kind of get away with lesser/non-optimal strats, and most people seeking to optimize will be doing so on higher difficulties in 2nd+ playthroughs. And then, if you're still having trouble with Normal/Hard difficulties, taking tips from Lunatic-based strats works, because they tend to be "optimal" for most levels of difficulty. Lunatic+ doesn't apply because of the additional skills only available in it.
That's about how I had it explained to me once.
@@RobTenken I think it’s fair to discuss units based on the highest difficulty, since that’s where differences between units are most notable. If a unit performs well on Lunatic, they almost certainly will perform well on Hard or below.
There's very little to discuss on awakening hard and below because enemy stats are so low. Like basically every unit can just immediately start soloing the game from base, so it's essentially impossible to say anything about anything.
No hate to people who play hard mode, it's fun for some things, but there is no real functional difference between really any early unit on that mode, outside of things like Sumia and Miriel still having no EP or Donnel still being bad.
I actually really respect the lizard for this video even though I disagree with the conclusion of it. There are clear points made and examples given. There are genuine strengths and weaknesses of Sully that are mentioned in comparison to other units and a reasonable argument is made as to why or how you may want to use her in your next playthrough.
Analyzing on lunatic mode allows this to be possible, whereas analyzing on hard and below only really allows for the sort of "oh sully is going to kinda be faster than stahl and less bulky so give her some dracoshields now lets talk about apothesosis" style of content that never really goes anywhere.
This common reply of "units are more homogenous on lower difficulties" has been a mantra in the community for several years now, popularized by Mekkah. It doesn't provide a compelling argument. For some games, the value offered by a given unit will be fundamentally different -- but it's not a simple matter of exaggerated strengths. It's that various thresholds bury or elevate individual units. And add the fact that Awakening's higher difficulties are ... well, basically unfun for many players because they radically narrow the possibility space and force reliance on Fred / Crobin ... and you'll really only talk to a small subset of players about a small set of viable units.
The insistence on discussing highest difficulty settings as if they accurately reflect unit viability across playthroughs is not a positive for the community. Discussing only top difficulty performance and positives fails to account for unit impact, fun factor, etc., in most playthroughs for most players. Saying, "oh, but anyone is viable in lower difficulties" is only a way to opt out of conversation, and fails to acknowledge that unit differences and performance remain relevant even if most units can technically be viable.
The video is good. The presumption that all conversation should assume that highest difficulty and "efficient play" are universal goals ... that's not so good.
@@RobTenken You're arguing about the wrong game. I have had this view on awakening for a long time, as have many others.
Units ARE dramatically more homogenous on awakening hard than on lunatic. They just are. The bar for combat is dropped to such an extent that you will see essentially zero difference between Sully and Stahl.
If you want to argue that there is a difference then, well, prove it. You're saying that it is really important because there are thresholds that completely change units. Show them. What are the specific thresholds?
Furthermore, awakening lunatic is not a restrictive difficulty at all. Every single unit is viable and you are not reliant on "Chrobin" at any point in the game (in fact, it is people preaching to others to rely on them that makes the game harder).
Also, when you mention that this is a "small subset of players" only talking about lunatic, you need to make up your mind on what your opinion is. Does everyone mistakenly talk about lunatic when they shouldn't, or is lunatic a rarely talked about mode that no one thinks of? These are two mutually exclusive opinions that you are holding here.
Yes, lunatic does get more discussion, but that's because there are actual THINGS to discuss in lunatic as opposed to hard. So people who enjoy analyzing the game will talk more about lunatic. Analysis is fun and you're basically saying that people should do something that they find less fun because you prefer playing on hard. Like, if it bothers you so much, why not be the change you want to see and do your own hard mode analysis?
"Lunatic mode is not fun" is your subjective opinion, not a fact.
toilet bowl
@@CardboardBlueMage hell yeah 🗿
It's just that her armor is so goofy to me i can't like the design, but the head is fine
If it weren't for sumia she'd be my choice for lucina mum....
Too bad panne isn't option
”First” 🧚🏽♀️
👑
Why not use great knight sully?
stahl :(
I only play awakening with the gay hack so Sully is even better since the women make the babies in Awakening basically every man is an unfavorable unit in the early game [great for me who wants to use the women anyway] and Sully is fantastic, her daughter is strong, she joins right at the start and has a ton of great partners with. She's really fun and I enjoyed her on my last awakening run however long ago.