So on another forum I was on the subject of spells in FE3H came up and I made the offhand comment that if I were to rank all the offensive spells in the game in usefulness, Aura would probably be at the bottom. Which got my brain thinking: what if I did rank all the game's attack spells?
Of course, such a ranking depends on your criteria, seeing as spells have different availability. Here are the principles I adopted:
-I'm not rating the spells based on who gets them: e.g. I won't say "Miasma is better than Wind because Lysithea is a better mage than anyone who learns Wind", even though it means that I likely actually use Miasma more than Wind.
-I am considering spells at their most common rank for accession. In the case of a tie (which applies to Luna at C/B and Dark Spikes at B/A), I'll pretend they're learned at their midpoint.
-I am rating spells based on how much I like to see them on a unit's spell list.
The last part is vague, but I realized a method which gave results I was happy with: when comparing two spells (call them #1 and #2), I would compare the following:
-Considering units who learn spell #1 but not #2, would I trade #1 for #2?
-Vice versa: would I trade spell #2 for #1?
-Considering units who learn BOTH spells, which one would I rather drop from their list, if forced to?
-Finally, considering units who learn neither spell, which one would I rather add to the list? This last one is probably the case I considered the least.
Note that for all these thought experiments, I considered spells learned at their average rank, as per above. When considering Thoron vs. Bolting, I'm talking about "learning Thoron at C" versus "learning Bolting at A".
As an addendum to the thought experiments, I only considered swaps that were actually possible according to the conventions the game has for when spells are learned. In particular:
-Everyone gets one of Fire, Thunder, Wind, Blizzard, or Miasma at D reason. So when considering a character "losing" a D rank spell in the experiments above, I would assume they still end up with a D rank spell, just the worst one (spoilers: the worst one is Blizzard). You can argue this means I've underrated D rank spells as a whole.
-Nobody learns two spells at the same time, so when considering a character getting a new spell at a certain rank, I'd implicitly either push their old spell at that rank back by half a rank (e.g. from A to A+), replace their old spell, or push the new spell back half a rank, whichever was most beneficial for the comparison.
Finally, do note that I am not ranking non-offensive faith spells at all, at least for now. Attack spells only.
Useful references:
https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/weapons-and-items/black-dark-magic/https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/weapons-and-items/white-magic/https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/learned-spells/The List10 is the best, 0 is the worst. If two spells are at the same tier it means I did not end up conclusively feeling that one spell was better than another; spells are not ordered within tiers. The gaps between tiers are likely not equal.
10: Mire at D+, Thoron at C, Meteor at A, Bolting at A
9: Death at B
8: Banshee at C, Luna at C/B, Dark Spikes at B/A
7: Ragnarok at A, Excalibur at A, Hades at A
6: Wind at D, Agnea's Arrow at A+
5: Fire at D, Cutting Gale at C
4: Thunder at D, Miasma at D, Bolganone at C, Sagittae at C
3: Swarm at D+, Seraphim at B
2: Nosferatu at D+, Abraxas at A, Fimbulvetr at A
1: Blizzard at D
0: Aura at A
10: Mire at D+, Thoron at C, Meteor at A, Bolting at AThoron is crazy. How crazy? Well, here's the thing: if you reduced its range from 1-3 to 1-2 (a massive nerf), it... still has the highest power of any C rank spell. It's less accurate than the rest but the point is even with this massive nerf it's competitive! The 1-3 range just makes it one of the absolute best spells in the game. You can target things you otherwise couldn't, and you get a better linked attack radius too (more on that in a moment). All on a spell which is powerful for its rank and not bad on accuracy.
Compared to Thoron, Mire is gained one battle earlier (the difference between D+ and C), is less powerful (by 6) and less accurate (by 5), but lowers defence by 5. Granted, you need to land two followup physical hits on the target before the defence lowering makes up for the low power, so the advantage only really comes up against monsters. It also has a lot of uses, but is dark magic so can't benefit from Black Tomefaire (Warlock, Dark Flier). Would characters trade for Thoron for Mire, or would Hubert trade Mire for Thoron? I think it's pretty close to a push. Both rule.
Meteor and Bolting are the other top spells. The ability to strike at range 10 is bonkers. Boss killing, ballista sniping, aggroing any formation you want, the possibilities go on. For some unearthly reason Meteor even strikes an area of effect, making it easy to finish off the neighbouring targets with weak attacks like Curved Shot. And there's an argument that casting these isn't even as powerful as their linked effect. Granted, it's only as good as your support list, but handing out +7 or +10 hit (more than that for gambits) to all your friends just by equipping it is pretty great. Excellent on a dancer, good on everyone else. Far and away superior to any other spell gained at A rank or beyond.
Of the two, Meteor is more accurate (by 15) and hits a splash, but Bolting has more power (by 2) and can be used twice as often. I don't have a strong opinion on which is better.
I have trouble comparing the siege tomes and the 3-range spells. Would Marianne etc. trade Thoron at C for Meteor/Bolting at A? Would Constance/Manuela trade Bolting A for Thoron C? I'm unsure. It's a question of early power versus later power. Interestingly I find myself thinking that Manuela should make that trade for sure, because she has trouble reaching A reason, while Constance... maybe not? So it depends. As such, all four of these spells get the top rank.
9: Death at B3 range is really good! But getting it B instead of C is obviously worse. On top of that, Death is kinda worse than Thoron anyway: -3 power, -5 hit, +2 weight... all for +10 crit? Yeah crit isn't nearly that important on spells (note: this is not the least time I will say this). That said this is still a great spell to have. Lysithea not having it (or Mire) is a major downer; I'd trade her B rank spell for it in a heartbeat. And that says something, because I'd say Lysithea already has the best B rank spell that *isn't* named Death!
One interesting thing is that one 3 range spell devalues another: for Hubert, getting Death is not very important, because he already has Mire (he would rather have learned Dark Spikes or Luna). Similarly, Dorothea or Marianne wouldn't be very interested in trading their B rank spells for Death, even though I don't rate their B rank spells as highly. But since the large majority of mages don't have Thoron or Mire, I'm inclined to rank Death highly, because it's a game-changer for Hapi and it would be for anyone else for whom it were their first 3-range spell.
8: Banshee at C, Luna at C/B, Dark Spikes at B/ALuna's effect, ignoring resistance, is completely unique. In practice, this means it has a might of "Target's Rsl + 1". On Maddening this tends to be a pretty big number, making it comparable to "power" spells such as Ragnarok. Compared to other power spells it has low hit (65) and low weight (but this doesn't help much since you can't double with it). It has 2 uses, the same as Hades/Agnea's Arrow. The real question is, how does it stack up in terms of power?
Well, at C rank, Lysithea (and hypothetically, other units with Reason boons) can conceivably have it in Chapter 3 (at B rank, e.g. Edelgard, you're waiting longer). It's honestly a pretty weak spell in Chapter 3; average Rsl is about 5 here, giving it a might of 6... which is actually worse than any other C rank spell, on top of its fewer uses and bad hit. This actually just further emphasizes that Luna deserves comparison with power spells, since while those aren't gained until A rank, Luna arguably doesn't start coming into its own until around the point of the game you're getting A rank spells.
By midgame (Chapter 10-16, or 10-14 CF), average enemy res is into the mid teens, so during this stage, Luna is pretty comparable to the power spells. In the last few stages (Chapter 17-22, or 16-18 CF), enemy average res climbs into the twenties, which is ahead of all of them.
Of course, comparing to average Res honestly undersells Luna. This is because low-res enemies can be killed by other spells very well, but high-res enemies? Luna can do far more. No other magic does significant damage to falcon knights, infantry mages, or bosses like Cornelia, Rhea, and Nemesis.
So overall I'm pretty comfortable saying it beats out all the power spells. Lysithea would sooner give up Hades than Luna. Would she sooner give up Dark Spikes? Tough call. Dark Spikes is gained early enough to have a power edge for a while, has +15 hit, and outperforms on cavalry forever (which helps make up for Luna's other wins). I think Luna (at any rank) is better than Dark Spikes at A, but probably worse at B? Since I'm rating by average accession time, I'm willing to give them an equal score.
The last spell I've grouped in here is Banshee, another dark spell. Banshee is a pretty generic C rank spell (better than average power, worse than average hit and weight)... except that like Thoron, it has a very cool extra effect. In its case, it reduces enemy move by 5. For most targets this reduces move to zero and frequently just lets you ignore the enemy for a turn which is quite potent. Hubert has both Banshee and Dark Spikes, and I'd certainly sooner give up Dark Spikes on him... but to be fair that's because his Dark Spikes is gained later, at A - if he had it at B my decision might be reversed. Would Hapi give up Banshee for Luna and/or Dark Spikes? I dunno; that's a tough call. Almost certainly, if she didn't have Hades... which makes me think Banshee is slightly worse than the other two spells I put in this group, but only slightly.
7: Ragnarok at A, Excalibur at A, Hades at AAnd now we get to the rest of the power spells. Ragnarok is the middle child. Compared to it, Dark Spikes has -2 might but hits weakness on cavalry. Excalibur has +20 hit, but -4 might, and hits weakness on fliers. Hades has -15 hit, but +3 might.
I'd say power trumps hit in all these cases (it's easy to find a battalion which trades power for hit at a 1:5 ratio, the relevant gap), which would lead to Hades > Ragnarok > Excalibur, but some things complicate this. In Hades's case, it's a dark spell, so there during Advanced tier it takes a power hit compared to Ragnarok if you go Warlock or Dark Flier; it also has one less use. And in Excalibur's case, it hits weakness on fliers, so while it will miss some kills due to lower power (which enemies depends on point of the game), it gains some by killing fliers. I tend not to value flier-killing quite as highly because they're already easily killed by archers, but it's still worth mentioning.
Excalibur vs. Dark Spikes is also worth drawing attention to. Both high-rank, high-power spells strike a weakness. Excalibur has +20 hit and isn't a dark tome, Dark Spikes has +2 power (so +6 against a weakness). I tend to value cavalry weakness more than flying weakness because there are cavalry bosses who lack protection, and because the other anti-cavalry options are range 1 (i.e. Knightkneeler, Spear of Assal), while the other anti-flying options (bows) are long range. And then of course there's the fact that Dark Spikes is sometimes gained before A, so yeah, I'm comfortable saying that Dark Spikes is better.
In conclusion I think this tier is roughly equal: all worse than Dark Spikes and Luna, but all better than some other power spells still to come!
6: Agnea's Arrow at A+Agnea's Arrow is another power spell, and it's worse than most of the rest, simply because it's gained later. It's got +1 power and -10 hit on Ragnarok (one less use as well) which was already probably a losing trade, but the accession time really makes the difference. Heck, Lorenz gets both this and Ragnarok, and since Ragnarok is a tier earlier, there's no question which one he values more. And while Constance and Dorothea certainly appreciate Agnea in their arsenal, but they'd rather have its power earlier.
That said, Agnea is still good! I think it's comparable to Wind, and that's a good thing. I'll say more on Wind in the section about basic spells, but for now, some quick thought experiments: would Dorothea or Constance give up Agnea for Wind? Lategame power vs. earlygame accuracy... for Constance I think the answer is no (Fire's not much worse than Wind), but for Dorothea maybe yes? Conversely, giving up Wind for Agnea... well, Linhardt or Flayn would do it in an instant, because they have Fire, while Annette... maybe. In all cases, +5 damage vs. Excalibur is enough to attract notice at those midgame one-shots. On the other hand, Lorenz would happily trade Agnea for Wind, since he already has Ragnarok, and +10 hit early matters more than +1 power late.
For the next two sections, I'm going to split the spells by type, rather than rank.
6: Wind at D
5: Fire at D
4: Thunder at D, Miasma at DMost mages get one of these at D. They're kinda balanced against each other. Compared to Wind, Fire trades 1 weight and 10 hit for 1 power. Thunder makes the same trade compared to Fire. Miasma almost makes the same trade compared to Thunder, but mercifully for it, it doesn't lose accuracy.
On the whole I think Wind > Fire > Thunder is an easy call to make. The power differences do matter - Thunder vs. Wind is often the difference between needing a finisher hit from steel vs. a finisher hit from iron, and there are a few foes like Chapter 1 Dedue (for the Eagles/Deer) where you really want every bit of magical oomph you can get. But 10 hit alone is surely close to outweighing 1 power (worth noting that iron sword vs. iron lance is 1 power vs. 8-9 hit at low levels), and the weight certainly matters. Since this will be the character's lightest spell with a couple exceptions; its weight will be the limit on them doubling.
Miasma vs. Thunder is harder to call. Since Miasma doesn't lose hit, 1 power vs. 1 weight is a comparison which IMO favours Miasma in the earlygame, but favours Thunder later when you're just using the spells to try to double armours anyway most likely. And of course if you're in Advanced tier and don't have Valkyrie access, Miasma suddenly loses power by a lot.
As a side note, Wind even has 10 crit (Thunder has 5, the other two zero). You can't really do crit builds with mages (outside zany double Wrath setups, I suppose) but it's a nice bonus on an already solid spell.
5: Cutting Gale at C
4: Bolganone at C, Sagittae at CThese spells are similar; they're the baseline C rank spells. You want to have one of them: they represent a +5 power increase, give or take, over your previous spells. But these three aren't very exciting past that. Almost everyone has a C rank spell (either these, or the similar-but-better Banshee or Thoron), though Anna and Lysithea buck the trend (Lysithea with Luna, which is quite different; Anna just has nothing!).
Interestingly, they're actually quite accurate, averaging 90 hit (a few characters, like Dorothea and Marianne, even have one as their highest-hit spell). Sagittae sits in the middle (though it does have a strangely high use count at 10); Cutting Gale has +5 hit, +5 crit, and -1 weight, while Bolganone has +1 power, -5 hit, -5 crit. I'd say Cutting Gale's a touch better than the other two, but only a touch.
Comparing them to basic spells is hard. Most people have one of each, so the question becomes... would I rather trade my basic spell for Blizzard, or lose my C rank spell entirely? The former gives you bad accuracy for a couple chapters and in some cases a game-spanning AS hit, the latter gives you power woes for several chapters. I think the answer depends a lot on which spell we're talking about (Wind to Blizzard is 30 hit, ouch) and what spell you get at B rank or beyond. Of course, characters with two D rank spells wouldn't mind losing one, and characters who have two C rank spells (which could include Thoron) don't mind losing one too much either.
On the whole I think I value Wind>Blizzard too much for any of these spells to trump, and otherwise I find it hard to call. Hence my decision to put Cutting Gale (the better C spell) with Fire, and Bolganone/Sagittae with Thunder/Miasma... though this also implies the gap between my 5 and 4 tiers is very small.
3: Swarm at D+, Seraphim at BSwarm vs. Mire is depressing. Both D+ dark spells. Same hit, a similar debuff effect (Swarm's is speed instead of defence). Swarm gets to win weight/power by 1, Mire gets to win range by 1. This is hilariously unequal.
Swarm mostly shows up and manages to be slightly lighter than Miasma, which is nice, but also weaker and has Blizzard-level accuracy. The speed debuff is only very rarely useful (mostly against monsters). I'm pretty confident saying it's worse than Miasma; Lysithea and Hapi would much sooner give up Swarm then be stuck at 70 hit until C or even B rank. But it's not much worse because it always maintains its niche use against monsters. Just... most units would only give up an already redundant spell to get it.
Seraphim is the first faith spell on this list, and they play by different rules. First of all, the thing to know is that Faith Prowess does not boost hit as much as Reason Prowess (it boosts evade more, but this is only rarely useful because faith spells are so heavy). The gap ranges from 4 points at D+ to 10 points at A+. Additionally, because there are so few offensive faith spells, it becomes reasonable to not set Faith Prowess at all and save yourself a skill slot, at which point the hit gap versus Reason instead varies from 11 (D+) to 20 (A+).
Seraphim has 75 hit, but if you consider the math posted above its actual effective hit is in the 60's at best, i.e. not good. Fortunately its only real use is targeting monsters who usually (not always) have terrible evasion, and hitting them with 24 power. It's honestly not an amazing damage move even against them since it has trouble doubling, but it does cut through barriers nicely (particularly noteworthy since with Caduceus/Thyrsus it makes a great opener to begin a chain of uncounterable barrier-breaking attacks)... unless the barrier in question is an anti-magic one. Still, this is a pretty cool niche. Would mages trade Nosferatu for it? ... yeah, probably, in most cases. Would they trade a non-garbage D rank spell (even Miasma or Thunder) for it? Probably not. I'm inclined to say it's comparable to Swarm: it's overall better (but different) at its monster niche, but doesn't have Swarm's slight earlygame utiity, and requires investing into a faith tree which some would rather not bother.
2: Nosferatu at D+, Abraxas at A, Fimbulvetr at AFimbulvetr has 12 might and 65 hit. What were they thinking? As a reminder, Ragnarok is 15/80, Hades is 80/65, Agnea is 16/70. Yes, Fimbulvetr has crit, but good luck doubling anything with this (except maybe the slowest of armours, who you'd kill without a crit), and it's hard to get excited about a 15% higher chance of maybe killing something on your non-doubling chip damage.
It's worse than Agnea. Constance manages to get Fimbulvetr at B (unlike the A rank it is for everyone else) and Agnea at A+ and I'm pretty sure I still care about Agnea more (though at that point it's at least competitive). Dorothea would rather have Agnea too, the extra power is worth the wait. Lorenz wouldn't care either way. Looking at things from the other side... would people with Fimbulvetr trade it for Agnea? Interestingly, people with Fimbulvetr are usually neutral in Reason, so it would be a rather long wait for the added power. So it's actually close in those cases. But there's no case I'm willing to say Fimbulvetr is definitely better, unlike Agnea. And if you're looking to add a power spell to someone's resume, like Linhardt or Annette, they'd certainly prefer Agnea by a lot, +5 power over Excalibur has a major niche would Fimbulvetr can't really fill with its +1.
Marianne and Ingrid would trade Fimbulvetr for Fire, and Constance would rather keep Fire than Fimbulvetr, I think.
What about Thunder/Miasma? This seems more promising, but... honestly, nobody with these would trade them for Fimbulvetr, since they basically all already have a high-power spell of some sort at that rank which outclasses Fimbulvetr. Even Mercedes, who barely cares about Thunder, wouldn't make this trade. What about Seraphim? Would Marianne give up her A rank spell for Seraphim? She... loses 3 peak damage against humans (god, Fimbulvetr only beats Thoron by 3, depressing), but gains 12 damage against monsters, and breaks their barriers, and gets this spell earlier. Yikes? Seraphim feels more important to Ingrid than Fimbulvetr does too. Okay. I think I can convincingly say Fimbulvetr is the worst spell considered yet.
Let's talk about another underwhelming power spell.
Abraxas has 14 might, 90 hit (but really, compared to Reason spells you should hit it by 10-20 points or so), and is heavy with 2 uses. It's best described as worse Ragnarok. Now of course, worse Ragnarok is still useful enough, as Agnea's Arrow proved. If it were a Reason spell with 75 hit gained at A, I would consider it comparable enough to Agnea's Arrow, maybe even a bit better: lose 2 power, but get it earlier. Unfortunately, it's not a reason spell, it's an A rank faith spell. This is bad.
See, the thing is, almost everyone slinging spells wants to go to A reason and beyond, with S being the real goal. Reason Prowess has a strong effect on accuracy (up to 20 hit), and most offensive spells are reason spells. So pushing this up leads to both more accuracy and new spells, and pushing it to S gives a very nice bonus of +1 range. It's safe to say anyone training seriously in magic classes is likely to reach at least A reason, barring the odd hybrid build which sacrifices reason for weaponry (think Holy Knight Bernadetta or maybe Dark Knight Sylvain). On the other hand, because there are no great offensive faith spells, few people want to raise faith ranks just for Prowess. And if you learn Aura at A, there's a guarantee your last useful spell otherwise was at B, so that's a big extra investment for this. To top it off, unless you do go Holy Knight, there's a shortage of classes which boost white tomes: Warlock, Dark Flier, and Valkyrie all buff black spells, but not this. Gremory at least evens the playing field.
For all these reasons, Constance would far rather give up Abraxas than Agnea's Arrow, and Dorothea would not think of trading the reason A+ spell for the faith A spell. The comparison is not close.
Would Annette rather give up Abraxas or Wind? Joke question, I've never gotten Abraxas with her even though it's nominally her strongest spell, it's just too out of the way since she's faith neutral and learns nothing else past C. Would Lysithea rather give up Abraxas or Miasma? Again, silly question, she gets virtually nothing from Abraxas due to already having other power spells. Would anyone trade their non-Blizzard D rank spell for Abraxas? Honestly I'm having trouble seeing it. Maybe Linhardt but since he wouldn't want to delay Warp he wouldn't get this until A+, which is... ugh. So probably not him, even.
What about Abraxas vs. Seraphim? As faith spells they're easier to compare. And Seraphim feels like it wins this competition; while Abraxas does offer power for some, it's power that many people already have in other ways, and very late. Seraphim being earlier with a clear niche at monster-fighting gives it the edge.
What about Abraxas vs. Fimbulvetr? Now we're finally talking. Abraxas has more hit (under any assumptions about reason vs. faith), more power (unless Black Tomefaire enters play), but is more out of the way for most. Do I think this balances? Actually... yeah, roughly. These are our two power spells that aren't very good but fill a niche because any power spell is better than none. Which one is better will depend somewhat on the unit; Marianne would probably prefer Abraxas, but Constance would likely get more out of even an A rank Fimbulvetr than Abraxas. Annette gets very little out of either. Rarely do I feel they'd be too far apart.
To bridge to the next section, how about Abraxas vs. Nosferatu? I think some units might reasonably give up Nosferatu for Abraxas, just to have more uses of a power spell, or a power spell at all. But... certainly not everyone, Nosferatu does have a little niche of its own, and you get it almost for free, while Abraxas requires going out of your way. I'm fine with these two on the same tier.
Finally, let's talk about Nosferatu. Everyone gets this, but very few care about it much. 1 might obviously sucks, 8 weight sucks, 80 hit... is okay. Notably, earlygame is where faith spells suffer least for hit, the gap between Thunder at D+ and Nosferatu at D+ is just 4 hit. So if your D rank spell is Blizzard, Nosferatu is actually your most accurate spell for a bit! (Sorry, Marianne.) Anyway, Nosferatu's niche is that if its crappy stats are good enough to get the job done, you can heal yourself with it, either on player phase or potentially enemy phase if you're feeling spicy. And while this is definitely a niche I have made use of, I feel like it's probably a smaller niche than Swarm has... Swarm being obtained at the same rank, and having similarly poor stats (a bit less hit, better power/weight). but debuffing a monster's speed probably comes up more than the self-heal? You could argue me, but that's my kneejerk. I think Lysithea and Hapi would rather give up Nosferatu than Swarm, and plenty of units would trade Nosferatu for Swarm. Not everyone: notably Marianne and Linhardt start with this and nothing else, so it's a bit better for them. But overall, I think this is where this goes. This is one I could easily be argued on.
1: Blizzard at DBlizzard is the worst reason spell.
My assumptions for these ratings is "everyone has a D rank spell". As such, Blizzard gets no credit for being better than an empty slot. And it's the worst D rank spell by a lot, so nobody actually wants it. Everyone with it as their solitary D rank spell would rather have another D rank spell instead.
Let's compare Blizzard to Thunder, which is already one of the weaker D rank spells otherwise. Blizzard's numbers? -1 power, -10 hit, +10 crit. As I've noted previously, crit isn't very useful on spells. Blizzard is heavier AND less powerful than the average D rank spell, and also has the lowest hit by far. All for... 5 more crit than Wind? Yeah who cares.
Shamir and Bernadetta are the only characters who learn this as well as another D rank spell. Would they rather have Blizzard, or... almost anything else? Especially for Bernie, who currently lacks a spell above 80 hit, almost anything else would be better. For Shamir, maybe you could sell me on Blizzard for a second C rank spell being a losing trade. Maybe.
0: Aura at AIf you've ever had the joy of watching Roderigue get attacked by bandits in Felix's paralogue, seeing him get doubled while having 50-some displayed hit on them in return, you may have an idea how bad Aura is.
Aura tries its best to make the other offensive faith spells look good. Compared to Abraxas it has -2 power and -20 hit. Gross. It's the least accurate spell in the game, fullstop. Compared to Fimbulvetr, it has +5 listed hit (so anywhere from -3 to -15 in reality), equal power, and... even 5 less critical, which is sad since crit might be the one thing Aura has to try to have a niche. Plus it's a faith spell, which as mentioned is a bad thing.
How about Aura vs. Blizzard? Again, Shamir and Bernadetta are the only characters who have a use for Blizzard using my assumptions (that everyone must get one D rank spell, and that Blizzard is clearly the worst). Would they trade Blizzard for Aura? ... honestly, I don't think so. The slight critfishing niche Blizzard has against slow monsters beats Aura trying to do the same with 5 more crit but 8 more weight, I think, and more to the point they just get Aura way earlier; Shamir won't ever train faith to A (bane). It's closer for Bernie but I think the answer is the same.
What about everyone else? What if we make them an offer: you get Blizzard at D+ in addition to your other spells, or you get Aura either at A, or a half-rank after your existing A rank spell (since nobody is trading their existing A rank faith spell for this). ... again, I think some characters *might* get a little value out of Blizzard for its tiny crit-fishing niche, while basically nobody is grabbing Aura. You could make a slight case for someone like Linhardt, but... on average, I think no.
So there you go!
