VP: Covenant of the Plume- C Ending. Final boss wasn't that bad... but then again, I got on the C path quite early and ended up with the guy you can sacrifice for a "null physicals for 3 turns" skill.
No story comments for now, plan to get all three endings first. But do plan to post my characters for each, since I'm going to actually do replays rather than just using save files.
Cheripha- She's good early on before you have other characters, not just due to lack of competition but because you can get an excellent early game bow. After that... well, her attacks have a horrible quirk of immediately losing energy, and there's enough lag between them that it gets pretty annoying. Also, due to being small hits and endgame bows being low on power, she starts sucking for damage in the late going. Lived to the final battle (no, I dunno why really.) Light, obvious reasons.
Lockswell- Mage. Mages are pretty good in this game, although you need the SC-capable staves for them to really shine. Or at least Lockswell does, Firestorm is great due to Ifrit Caress but is held back by being one hit without the SC capability. Died for no empirically explicable reason in C2-final. Silence looked better on paper than it ended up being <.< Middle? Heal can't be spammed but it's still VP Heal, damage seems like it should be solid enough.
Heugoe- Lancers are pretty badass really. He seems average for one, but anyway. Either I missed a lategame bow or my pathing didn't allow for one, but either way he felt like he suffered in C5 for that reason. Still great on the energy front, and his skills chain in a fairly intuitive way. Lived to the final battle. Should be Middle.
Mireille- Meh. You don't really need two swordsmen. Filler for C2 then went away. Died for no empirically explicable reason somewhere in C5. Halving HP is a pretty neat trick, not really practical since it's OPB but neat. I suspect Light, could be wrong on how bad storebought swords/damage curve blah blah.
Mischka- Never used. Died for no empirically explicable reason in the first battle of C3. Freeze that only works on monsters is... kinda useless for story battles, but very nice for sidequests. N/A.
Lieselotte- Mage. As mentioned, mages are good. By C3 and onward there are just great staves everywhere and Ifrit Caress is awesome and yeah, lynchpin of the party. Until she died for no empirically explicable reason somewheres in C5. It's 3 turns of magic immunity, this was a must-have for future playthroughs. Middle. No heal, but Reflect Sorcery should be useful for spoiling purposes to make up the lack.
Reinhilde- Another archer. She beat out Cheripha on strength, which had some noticable benefits, but her attacks were even worse on the energy loss front. I basically ended up just mashing her and Cheripha's buttons and hoped it added up to over 50 energy. Died for no empirically explicable reason in the final battle of C5. Poison would probably be better if random non-mages didn't have Normalize, but it's still neat since, y'know, lowering enemy HP makes Sin harvesting a little easier. Granted, didn't matter to me but in theory! Light.
Auguste- Didn't use. Died for no empirically explicable reason in the Artolian tournament. Fury of the Aesir is just freakin' awesome, even a boss with 60k HP couldn't withstand 3 rounds of raw offense, which is what nulling their damage allows for. N/A.
Wylfred v1- Definitely the best character in terms of attack timing and energy issues for me. but since, as you may have noticed, I primarily used a lancer and a mix of mages and archers, his range felt pretty limiting. Nothing proper Dash usage couldn't fix though, and a LOT of the sin prizes are swords (since, y'know, the game assumes your using at least Wyl) so he was always good on the damage front. High Heavy I think, with this skillset? Solid damage, choice of immunity, some status to play with... but given how VPDS counts turns 3 turns is only two attacks for Wyl, so unless the damage curve is far lower than I expect he can't really stave off death long enough to kill truly durable opponents either.
C Boss Lenneth Valkyrie- Godlike. Uh yeah, I found it easy... because I was immune to damage for three turns during which I could focus my attack. Due to how VPDS works this is like getting four turns in a row in VP1, since I was just nulling out the counters. And even then, took all three of those turns to hack through 60k HP. Granted, I had only three characters, but that would probably only have sped things up within turn 3. The damage, naturally, was overkill (bosses in this game kinda... auto-SC, and a final is obviously no exception). Not so good as her cameo forms, but otherwise feels overall superior to previous forms? Full status immunity is a great boon.
