Time to return to guides and analyses! Honestly, I havent felt that motivated to do these recently, mainly do to school stuff and time constraints, but yay for finals being over! I basically have all the time in the world now, and my first return to form is for none other than the Princess of Frelia. I honestly didn't know who to tackle next, so I did consult the one I simp for, Alucia for ideas. Needless to say I like the idea and we're doing her.
Damn it guys, no, I didn't mean it like that-
*Ahem*... anyways, I've actually wanted to talk about her for a while now, but not sure when or how to address her. But here we are! I can't think of any kind of preamble, so let's just get started.
As stated before, Tana is the Princess of Frelia and sister to the stoic prince Innes. She is noticeably naïve, wanting people to see her as a grown adult rather than a child unable to defend herself. To prove so, she trained under the Pegasus Knights Syrene and Vanessa, and runs away to eventually whichever lord of Renais the player wishes to follow, although the circumstances following that may be a little different. She has a kind and sociable air about her, allowing to talk and make friends with just about everyone, including the Flashing Crimson herself, Marisa.
Tana s at the beginning of Eirika's Chapter 9 or saved during the course of Ephraim's chapter 9 as a level 4 Pegasus Knight with the following base stats: 20 HP, 7 Str, 9 Skill, 13 Spd, 8 Luck, 6 Def, and 7 Res. For the time she s you, she will be considerably underleveled, and using her will be quite difficult, especially as a fair amount of units are using axes during her chapter, or is completely unequipped until you rescue her. Her bases are strong enough to use, however, and there are enough units on the map that she can kill for easy EXP, and being a lower level means faster growth for the time being. If you're looking for a pegasus to use, and/or Vanessa isn't panning out for you, Tana is very much your girl, having much stronger growths in the areas that matter for a Pegasus Knight with better HP, Str, Spd, and even Def and Luck over Vanessa. Her Skill takes a significant hit in of growth, but 40% is still fairly reliable, and she's unlikely to miss against anyone who isn't a axe. Her growths are still fairly weak in both Def and Res, however, so do exercise caution if her growth in these stats are slow in your own playthrough.
Tana in Heroes is quite similar, having one of the better Atk stats for a pegasus knight upon her release, and still maintaining excellent Spd with iffy defensive stats, and okay HP.
While talking about raw stats, she's not that worth discussing anymore, since better units exist now, or older units got the perfect refinement to redeem them (Cordelia kind of comes to mind). Since Lance fliers are a dime a dozen nowadays, her competition is stiff to begin with, and can rarely outpace a lot of her more recent competition, though lord knows she tries. Luckily, her stats aren't awful, and she can still pull her own weight, with her offensive spread still being pretty solid for a gen 1 flier, easy access to the Lofty Blossoms for that purpose, and even her defenses don't suck thanks to access to superboons in HP, Def, and Res.
Her skills are a bit hit and miss, but she's worth discussing.
Her A skill in Spd/Def 2 is hardly worth mentioning, but her introduction of the Guidance skill was greatly appreciated, allowing even slow ass armored units to work on some cross map shenanigans, and made favorable on mixed teams for this skill alone. Moonbow is great since her Atk is still kinda low, but where she truly shines is her weapon. At base, Vidofnir has the following effect: gain +7 Def if sword/axe/lance foe initiates combat. Not bad, but her refine allows her to add dragons and beasts to the mix, while also adding +7 Res to the effect making her a fairly solid mixed melee tank. The special effect refinement also synergizes deathly well with Guidance and Aerobatics, where she gains +4 Atk and Spd while close to infantry and armored allies. With either or both skills, she will be getting the effects fairly often, and melee combat will become her forte without question. Her bulk is still fairly weak, however, so its best to make sure she has a Def or Res superboon before you try that route.
How does she stack up when built?
Delicate? Surely you jest!
Starting out strong with a defensive set, this build is intended to build upon her arguably amazing refine, and make her hard to kill. Tana will still struggle against most green units, but blues and especially reds will start to find difficulty attempting to kill her without ive , as Dull Close will make some good virtually useless. Her Special, B, and S slots are oddly flexible in this state, however, so if you feel the need, try testing out other stuff like Renewal, Chill skills, Steady Posture seal, Bonfire, the works. If you're running more infantry than armors or no armors at all, Atk Smoke or either Atk/Def or Spd/Def Oath would work nicely on her.
Prince Ephraim? Where!?
Pretty atypical for any offensive unit, but don't fix what isn't broke, right? The build is just your standard player phase build, which can work on just about anyone else, but her better BST and spread compared to other units does make her arguably surperior in this field, at least compared to other gen 1 fliers and arguably others like Thea. Since Tana has a solid defensive spread, she can pull of the more easily accessible Shell Lance and tank a couple more hits than usual player phase, and increases survivability rates if she fails to finish off the enemy in a single round. Once again, her Special is flexible here, as is her Assist, since she she isn't the tank anymore.
Our Bonds Give This... Fork(?) Strength!
I really wanted to play with the idea of a dual phase Tana using her refine, which would still be very much applicable here, but I figured the Gilt Fork would be far more fun for one reason in particular: nulls debuffs for the Def. Stacked with Atk/Spd Bond 4, THREE stats are completely unaffected while in combat, and she can raise them by a fair amount. With the aid of Aerobatics on a mixed team or Flier Formation on a flier team, she can easily mobilize around the map and still be side by side with allies frequently enough to almost ALWAYS activate her the Bond effects. Keep in mind that she gets +12 Atk/Def, +10 Spd, and +5 Res, the first three being completely unaffected by debuffs while in combat. It will become extremely difficult for any red unit to kill her, and most blue and colorless units will struggle to take her down. Vidofnir is still applicable here, as her defenses will shoot through the roof on enemy phase, and her Spd will be better overall, although debuffs on Def will still be in effect, and the defensive stuff is not dual phase like Gilt Fork is. The weapon of choice is all dependent on what you need or want from her.
I'll You... On The Front Lines! (Cake Served)
Truth be told, I didn't want to be repetitive with my builds so I tried something a little different. The First Bite+ once refines allows her and nearby allies to gain +5 to Def and Res, so why don't we build upon this aspect? Build up her Spd for Windsweep and negate counters, add the Atk Smoke skill to make bulk much less of an issue, have Chill Spd in play to make things a little easier against faster units for both Windsweep and Tana's allies, and Harsh Command+ acts as the perfect solution for easy if attacking is not an option. Spd/Def Form helps for Windsweep as well, but its also perfect for helping her tank enemy phase in tandem with the First Bite and Atk Smoke. It alone is a great option if other units can't make it to the front lines on time, but its imperative you do something before things get worse.
Despite being one of the older lance fliers in the game, Tana is surpringly capable of holding her own in combat, between her pretty solid stat spread, and arguably amazing refinement. She's by no means an amazing, but if you have a Tana just lying around, i do recommend trying to take her for a spin. I personally plan to use the first and Fork builds myself because they seem like so much fun.
Okay, I'm out. Time to be lazy for another week or so.
Comments (15)
She's kinda meh in FE8, considering you get her so close to getting Cormag, who is basically just better because Wyverns are basically better.
That is technically true, although depending on the path and difficulty, its a pain in the ass to recruit him to begin with, not to mention that even a mild amount of training makes Tana fairly competent, and usually doesn't have a hard time comparing to him outside of Def. Hell, she can arguably outclass him by the time you can recruit him on Ephraim's path unless you DESPERATELY don't want to use Tana or are going for low turn count runs. Or you can be me, and use both anyways. 🤷♂
I also have a soft spot for Tana over Cormag, so slight bias.
Reply to: Kima Sujuru
I'm currently doing a let's play of FE8 on my channel and I'm probably gonna use both since Tana is better than Vanessa and the only other pegasus-based Flier is Syrene who is uhhh, literally the last unit you get so yeah.