SRWK Unit evaluations:
I misjudged the number of deployments you got on the final map, ended up having to drop a few people. In hindsight it's probably for the best that I messed up all the secrets besides Heine who sucks, as I dunno where I'd find the room to even use them.
-Solverius Rex/Regina (Levrias + Selverius)
Levrias was a really unimpressive Banpresto Original for the first half of the game. Its stats weren't much different from an MP Huckebein aside from the combo attacks with the other originals, but building up the 130 will needed to actually use the combo attack wasn't easy early on when the game didn't go crazy with reinforcements. The lack of Focus on Mist was really annoying as well, he didn't feel suited for piloting a real. The other two originals were pure subs, with repair+resupply for providing regen and a shield for support defense but nothing better than 2500 power in terms of weapons. Then it eventually gets a new finisher and a lambda-driver like damaging boosting skill (Crystal Heart) and becomes a nice offensive unit, though still requiring some watching defensively.
Solverius on the other hand made up for those 20-odd stages and then some. Rex is the best chain attacker in the game along with Dann; get Crystal Heart skill up and feed Mist two chain attack chips and it can trivially kill six grunts per turn. Great boss damage as well, and having Focus/Accelerate/Alert on a subpilot was quite nice. Defense was not that great from what I saw, but that was fine since it could dodge well. Regina had repair/resupply and a MAP, but lacked the damage boosting version of Crystal Heart so it was less useful, IMO. The MAP had the same AoE as (Strike) Freedom's but not the same damage, it was more of a group softener than a mass cleaner so I generally preferred using Rex instead. The -10 will effect on the MAP was nice, at least.
-Mazinger Z + Boss Borot
Mazinger was rather unimpressive until it got the upgrade, at which point it became solid. Good defense+S rank in ground, and Mazin Power raised its damage to acceptable levels while making the defense really nice. Never a great grunt smasher though, and Daisharin Rocket Punch being non-P was meh for bosses. Ended up dropping it on the last map due to running out of space.
-Godannar Twin Drive (Godannar + Go Okusaer)
Godannar's all about pure beatdown power. It has no fancy systems whatsoever and little in the way of range, but somehow it ended up just murderous offensively by endgame, doing 9-10K as a chain attacker despite only modest power. Combining meant it was a bit slower to build up will later on, but two pilots worth of combat spirits was nice given the SP limits mentioned above.
-Gaiking (+ Serpent)
Gaiking is probably the best all-around unit of the stuff you get really early on, not to mention the only super with a completely free weapon. Then it just keeps a series of progressively stronger, more expensive finishers. Kept it paired with the Serpent for most of the game for much needed EN regen and the best of the first set of Gaiking combo attacks, but when Lee moved over to Vulking I noticed Daiya had finally picked up a level of chain naturally and tried running him solo with an Aster Panel equipped for EN regen. Daiya's a good enough pilot to make that work even with moderately powered C weapons.
As for Gaiking Great, it has hands down the best stats of any PC unit in the game, but it guzzles more EN than the entire state of California. Not a single non-EN chugging attack and a whopping 144 EN for its ultimate AFTER EN save, meaning it'd run out insanely fast if you tried to use it for anything besides one shot of huge damage against a boss.
-Vulking
-Raiking
They combine with Gaiking to form Gaiking the Great, but are pretty good on their own. Figuring out how to use them best was a bit of a conundrum, though. A lot of people like to pair them with mid-tier units that can work solo. Thing is, both have really nice range 1 C weapons and... little to nothing else in the way of C weapons. Not ideal for situational PU usage! What I ended up doing was having all three *kings run around solo for chaining grunts, then combine them the turn before fighting the boss. Decombine and have Raiking/Vulking use their ranged ultimates, then combine back for Face Open the Great and probably use up the last of Great's energy.
-New Jeeg + Big Shooter (new)
-Old Jeeg + Big Shooter (old)
The Jeegs are really badass here, perhaps to makeup for A3 Jeeg. Bronze Bell power is hax (+25% damage dealt, -25% damage received, +10% evade), they both have an S rank in ground, and they have lots of strong attacks. Old Jeeg inheriting upgrades from the new one is one of the few really abusable cases of inheritence in the game. The Shooters provide much needed Accel and Mach Drill, which is ammo based and terrifically damaging. Breaks through support defend too, making them the only things that can do so easily while partnered up. Double Spin Storm is terrific, and then Koutetsushin Jeeg comes along and is stronger than every other attack in the game. Even before factoring in Bronze Bell Power.
-King Gainer
Easily sets the gold standard for evasion in K, although diminishing returns keeps that in check somewhat. S Size, S rank in air, really high base mobility, and Oversense let it dodge damn near everything. Movement is great as well, but the weapons are only moderately powerful. He ended up being used mainly as a grunt-softener with his early chain levels, leaving the kills to stronger but less durable units.
-Dann of Thursday
Really damned badass. Van's high skill stat makes Counter and Sword Cut activate really often, and I fed him a bunch of +skill parts just for overkill. It would often go through maps completely untouched by grunts, and even if Counter failed it took hits just fine. One of the best chain attackers in the game, though you need to feed him skill parts to really take advantage of it. Weapons are solid from the get-go, and later on it gets an S rank in ground, more finishers, Overflow... yeah. Easily one of the best units in the game.
-Murasame/Hayate/Mugen Liger + Lanstag Break
S rank in ground made the Liger quite efficient at dodging from the get-go, but its weapons were kinda middling so I paired it up with Lanstag for EN regen + Support Attack. Ruuji only gets L1 chain naturally off middling C weapons so I opted to keep it paired up all the way through the end. Mainly ended up using Hayate Liger form for the higher movement, ability to hit air, and DoubleImage. Mugen Liger isn't nearly as bad as I'd heard, but not really as useful as Hayate. The Liger Change Attack was nice, though, and sealed its status as a one man Getter.
Re Mii's Lanstag is on the incredibly short list of resupply units who can support attack worth a damn in terms of damage, which just makes it all the more frustrating that the second Lanstag you get later on is a repair unit instead. There are quite a few solid repair mechs, but lategame I'm much more likely to sacrifice chain attacks for EN regen than HP regen, given some of the game's EN hogs.
-Dangaioh + Sirius II
Dangaioh's selling point is having 4 pilots without sacrificing any attack power or durability, unlike say, J Combattler/Voltes. Sadly Strike and Valor are only on one pilot, but having Alert/Accel/Snipe/Gain/Luck/Guts on subs was still nice. It had Mazinger-level EN issues though, so it really needed a resupply unit for regen. I didn't have anywhere else to really put the second Sirius, so it worked here. Getting HP regen as well didn't hurt, certainly.
-Strike Freedom
Jesus Yamato really lived up to his name in this game. SEED mode's +25% damage modifier made Strike Freedom's already strong weapon payload absolutely brutal, and even the middling beam rifle could OHKO grunts after getting will up. Only one shot of the MAP, but it could dish out 5 digit damage without Valor, making it great for earning cash and clearing out a whole field worth of annoying enemies. The combination attacks made it one of the best boss killers to boot. Toss in innate 25% EN regen built and an S rank that shifts from Air to space as appropriate and you have one of best PCs in the game.
Range-oriented pilots much rarer than melee-oriented ones in this game, so Kira has comparatively fewer competition for +range and Gunfight parts. The latter especially, as many of the worthwhile range-oriented pilots (Maya, Ray, Gain, etc.) have natural Gunfight in this game. I saved all my Gunfight parts for about 15 maps, saw every single RR main to that point use a melee finisher and just dumped all my Gunfight parts on Kira, making him all the better as a pilot.
-Infinite Justice
It had the same 25% EN regen and combo attacks as Strike Freedom, but Infinite Justice was flat out worse elsewhere. Much more limited ranged options, no MAP, and a melee/range split on weapons diverting Athrun's twink potential. A stronger P weapon is the only advantage over SF, but I mainly used chain attacks if I wanted a P weapon anyhow. Still a good unit though, just not top tier.
-Destiny
Arondight was my first really good chain weapon, since I didn't get a chain skill chip for Van until after the Destiny units joined up. Shinn had good movement and could pretty much kill whatever squad he wanted from the start of the map, and the same regen as SF/IJ meant no EN issues ever. Pretty clearly better than Athrun but not up to Jesus Yamato's level. Also, the dynamic kill on Full Open Combination is hilarious.
-Akatsuki (Cagalli)
Only unit I swapped pilots on, SEED mode made Cagalli a much better pilot than Mwu. Akatsuki was quite potent in space maps, but the Flight Pack version was kinda disappointing; a 4000 power finisher is middling, even if it is cheap, and after that it has nothing besides the generic beam rifle and beam sabre. SEED mode salvages its value somewhat by making them above average C weapons, at least. It does get an S rank no matter what like Strike Freedom at least, which is nice.
-Eternal
This one really caught me by surprised. I'm used to the Eternal being total suckage, but here it could OHKO a lot of grunts, had tons of durability, and could repair and resupply with the built in double regen as a bonus. Lacus had Bless and Cheer and was actually competent as a pilot for once. Throw in the combo attacks with SF/IJ, which don't actually take any EN from the Eternal since it doesn't initiate, and I ended up deploying it on every single map.
-Fei-Yen
I tried out Temjin and Hatter and found them kinda underwhelming, but Fei-Yen was pretty good. Emotional Mode makes her the only one of the trio to have a natural S rank, and it's not hard to trigger 140 will on a solo unit. Against grunts she can either snipe from range (Hit&Away helps here, luckily there's not many people who want it) or use her C attacks to soften groups. A bit weak against bosses, but Luck and (really late) Hope have uses at least.
-Mark Sein
Really solid all-around real, although it doesn't quite stand out a whole lot against non-Festums. Good C weapon, solid ranged attack for counterattacks, and Shangri-La as a default BGM is quite excellent.
-Mark Seiben + Mark Acht
Toomi Maya's one of the best snipers in the game with natural Hit&Away and lots of Gunfight. Mark Sieben's C weapon is short ranged and wimpy though, so I opted for a partner instead for support attack to snipe at whatever grunt isn't getting support defended. The Mark Acht is perfect for that, with weapon ranges that match Seiben's perfectly but much less movement.
-Mark Drei + Diana A
Well I had three parts of Cross Dock, so I figured might as well toss in the fourth, since I needed someone to babysit Sayaka and feed her exp. Problem is that Cross Dock costs a whopping 120x4 EN from units that have 230ish EN maxed out, which really ruins the point of a strong four-unit combination attack. It did the babysitting part just fine at least, so I don't regret using the Mark Drei. Bit of a waste of Kanon's chain attacking skills (every single weapon is C in her version of Drei), but I wouldn't deploy her at all otherwise so eh.
-El Dora Soul
The single tankiest unit in the game, with S-rank in Ground and El Dora Block shaving 1000 damage off everything and four pilots worth of SP. It even picked up Valor on a second pilot later on, unlike Dangaioh. The cheap spammable -10 will C weapon was also quite nice and helped save me from quite a few boss MAP attacks. Mediocre boss damage was its only significant drawback.
Tragically it lost Infierno y Cielo when it joined permanently, but Mexican Gaogaigar was still managed to be the awesomest unit in the game, as the burning passion of the four geezers smashed evil in the face.
-Stargazer + Celleblader
Stargazer is the best non-Eternal repair mech in the game, with tons of durability and two pilots. Offensively it was stronger than I expected; it won't do much to bosses, but the attacks are chainable and spammable. Sadly I didn't have the deployment space to really take advantage of Volte Luminaire being 3950 1-2 C as I was running out of deployment slots.
Celleblader kinda sucks, but it's necessary for Godannar Triple Drive, a 7000+ base power finisher for Godannar, so somebody had to lug it around. Stargazer worked well enough for that with its massive durability. At least Celleblader has enough durability to take a few stray enemy chain attacks, whereas stuff like Sirius II and the shooters have gotten blown away before when I got careless.
-Rainbow Jerk Wind
I used it just because I liked Kotona Elegance. <_< Really mobile healer with S rank in air eventually, but not much damage. Benched for the final map for stuff with actual firepower.
-Temjin a8 Vystein
Really damned badass on stats, with SSSS rank for terrains unlike the 747 Temjin model. Much stronger weapons, too. Then again, when you join with a grand total of three stages (auto-deployed for two of them!) remaining you better as hell have killer stats.
-Daiku Maryu
Solid battleship, even better if you don't deploy Gaiking but that's not worth it ever. Tons of durability - DoubleImage on a battleship is just hilarious, and some sort of barrier on the vollution mode was helpful. Dragon Cutter being a solid post-movement weapon made it more usable than the average battleship, and the pilot got natural chain attack just in time for enemy support defend spamming, too. Couldn't do all that much damage against the really durable lategame bosses, though, where it was largely reduced to being a meatshield - at least it was good at that, and kept some pressure off my frail support units.
-Archangel
Raw durability's comparable to Daiku, but it had almost no post-movement options for weapons and was much more EN dependent for damage so I didn't bother to use it. Kinda wish I could've deployed the Eternal in its slot instead, but oh well.
Kill leaders right before the final map were Van (240), Kira (215), and Shinn (137). Think Mist passed Shinn on the last map due to massive chain attack spamming, but I don't feel like checking right now. The stat boosts for aces tended to result in the strongest units getting further ahead of the field unless you specifically farmed kills for a certain character. There were quite a few characters I would've liked to use but ran out of space (or space terrain parts) for, but that's what replays are for.
