I never managed to use any of the royal laguz other than Tibarn, and possibly Nailah. Here I've played with some characters for a long time, and you want me to just change them out for some ludicrously powerful half-beast at the end?

Not happening.

Horse poop. He's at par or better than Nailah in everything except for Skill and Defense, and he tops out Strength, Speed, and Resistance much higher than her at lower levels. Add in Canto and the ability to fly and he's a self-contained powerhouse.

It's not fair to compare everyone to Tibarn or Caneighis.

Technically, Kurth is also a royal laguz. He becomes a royal laguz, at least.

Thus, there are four other playable ones, and Naesala is stronger than one.

Hey! Ulki and Janaff aren't bad. They're most definitely useable. Their superior movement makes up for their lack of constantly being able to fight.

And they fight for a long time for non-royals. Ulki in particular is nice with his extra dodge.

True enough i suppose. It just threw me for a loop because Dragons were much harder to deal with overall in PoR, but by the time you face them in RD, you're more than strong enough. At the time, it didn't seem fair at all to give the dragons one more advantage when they had pretty much every other statistical possibility going for them except Speed.

Hmmm edward might be a bit too troublesome to train effeciently in hard mode, take nolan instead from the dawn brigade. He has very good gains,he is powerful and has the nihil skill which is very usefull against the dragon king and ashera plus his element is earth which is the best in the game. If you like  myrmidons take mia and give her alondite or/and zihark which also has the excellent earth affinity, pair them and they will avoid everything and tear apart enemies in the process since they activate criticals and astrum regularly.

The laguz royals are all great so you can't go wrong there and the others your thinking about like elincia shinon haar nephnee are all great so no problems there. Also consider gatrie if you like generals and boyd for pure power is good too.

For herons reyson is good but i prefare rafiel since he can vigor 4 characters straight away without having to transform, just stick tormod's celerity skill on him and you will be good to go ;)

Thanks for advice everyone, my roster is updated as shown below

Ike, Micaiah, Sothe, Sanaki, Kurthnaga, Ena - forced

Kurth and Ena will mostly be there as spectators, Ike, Micaiah and Sothe will hopefully be maxed out of everything they care about, Should hopefully be able to get Sanaki pretty decent

I'll give Edward as much exp as I can without Micaiah and Sothe running short, if Edward is high enough level I'll use him, if not I'll use Mia.

Haar of course

Titania gets picked over Jill, 

Titania

| | Base | Max | Class | Stat | Growth % | Stats | Avg. Stats | Caps | ---------|----------|-------|------------|-------|------------------------------ HP | 60% | 36 | 53.8 | 60 | STR | 60% | 25 | * 34 | 34 | MAG | 15% | 10 | 17.4 | 20 | SKL | 55% | 22 | * 35 | 35 | SPD | 50% | 21 | * 33 | 33 | LUCK | 40% | 19 | 28.2 | 30 | DEF | 20% | 20 | 27.6 | 28 | RES | 30% | 14 | 24.9 | 26 |
Jill ---------.----------.-------.------------.-------.------------------------------ | | Base | Max | Class | Stat | Growth % | Stats | Avg. Stats | Caps | ---------|----------|-------|------------|-------|------------------------------ HP | 50% | 24 | 52 | 55 | STR | 45% | 11 | * 35 | 35 | MAG | 15% | 1 | * 10 | 10 | SKL | 45% | 12 | 34.8 | 38 | SPD | 65% | 15 | * 35 | 35 | LUCK | 60% | 14 | * 35 | 35 | DEF | 35% | 13 | 33.4 | 36 | RES | 45% | 3 | * 22 | 22 |

Sure, Jill has better stats for a hit and runner, and can fly, that = better, right? The thing I love about Titania, is that she doesn't need to stay near to a healer - give her imbue and she heals 17 a turn, and Sol will heal a lot. Triple damage and heals unit equal to damage done >> triple damage and stun - no-one survives the triple damage so the stun is meaningless. Jill has to stay near a healer, Titania doesn't, which means the two characters aren't even going to be filling the same roles.

Tibarn, Caineghis, no comment

Shinon, so you say Rolf is better? Hmm, brb, gamefaqs

Rolf

| | Base | Max | Class | Stat | Growth % | Stats | Avg. Stats | Caps | ---------|----------|-------|------------|-------|------------------------------ HP | 85% | 32 | * 60 | 60 | STR | 75% | 17 | * 36 | 36 | MAG | 10% | 3 | 10.8 | 15 | SKL | 45% | 20 | 39.1 | 40 | SPD | 45% | 19 | * 34 | 34 | LUCK | 35% | 13 | 26.3 | 30 | DEF | 35% | 13 | 28.3 | 32 | RES | 20% | 9 | 20.6 | 25 |

Shinon

---------.----------.-------.------------.-------.------------------------------ | | Base | Max | Class | Stat | Growth % | Stats | Avg. Stats | Caps | ---------|----------|-------|------------|-------|------------------------------ HP | 50% | 43 | 58.5 | 60 | STR | 40% | 21 | 33.4 | 36 | MAG | 15% | 7 | 14.9 | 15 | SKL | 70% | 28 | * 40 | 40 | SPD | 65% | 24 | * 34 | 34 | LUCK | 30% | 15 | 22.8 | 30 | DEF | 45% | 20 | * 32 | 32 | RES | 20% | 14 | 23.2 | 25 | Hmm, more damage but slightly easier to kill, a lot harder to level up though, and leveling up archers is a pain cos they suck when underleveled

Nailah, stays

Elincia, stays, For a healer, movement range and canto > magic skill - if I give her good staves she'll heal people to full anyway. And she is hard to kill and can do damage too - well she could in normal mode at least

Nephenee, replace with Gatrie

Naesala, I liked him, sure he would get his tail feathers handed to him by Tibarn, but who wouldn't? I don't remember many archers in the final section

Skrimir - replace with Soren, I suppose I should give mages a chance to do something other than heal

and Reyson because I'm only taking Royal Laguz (and Ena/Kurth part the time but they wont be fighting anyway) so I can just keep him doped up on Laguz gems

So I think I'm decided on everything except my trueblade and my sniper. I'll try to raise Edward as fast as I can, if it's not enough I'll use Mia. Trying to level Gatrie, Ike, Mia, Rolf, Soren and Titania all from the Greil Mercenaries sounds beyond me, so if I'm using Mia I'll use Shinon, if I'm using Edward I'll use Rolf as well

The main reason this game is so good(and replayable) is that it gives the player all sorts of interesting choices to make. You picked a very solid team scottie and its very important to know who you want to bring in endgame right from the start so you can plan ahead on which characters get the kills. I suggest to hold off using bonus XP as much as you can so you get more stat ups(bonus XP gives always 3 ) so you can save the bonus XP when you see that your characters are capping their stats and you will be able to get stats in those areas where the characters have slow growth(example; ike resistance to magic). That of course is if your not doing it already ;) Good luck with those random criticals hehe...

The team i always use is this(no royals i prefare beorc)

The forced characters;

IKE (a beast with aether earth affinity, pair with titania, keeps all his skills plus gets miracle from his cute sister)

MICAIAH ( save the purge scroll and bomb from distance after yune blessing multiple physic rods, pairs with sanaki, skills usually paragons as she has to catch up)

SOTHE (pretty much useless just give him paragon to catch up and level up as much as you can before forced promotion (paragon) that or just ignore him, he usually gets stillness from volke and his weapons.

SANAKI ( save and give her all blizzard and meteor scrolls for endgame save one shot for yune blessing,pairs with micaiah, paragon skill to catch up)

KURTHNAGA ( very usefull and powerful if leveled up with BXP to level 30 then give him IRE with satori sign, earth affinity pair with ena, gets paragon if one is available)

ENA (useless even if leveled up so just pair with kurth strip her of useful skills and put on him and hope she doesn't die too quickly(very likey)

My choice characters;

NOLAN (powerful with fast gains earth element, pair with zihark both earth nothing will hit them, automatically gets nihil doesn't need much else apart from paragon to catch up later and he gets there very quickly)

ZIHARK (best dawn brigade character imho, pair with nolan earth affinity, give him vantage and wrath after leveling him with paragon and watch in delight as him and nolan rip through enemies without getting hit,ever)

TITANIA ( great from start to end lacks a bit of power but oh well, front row character pairs with front row main man ike, give her imbue and with sol almost never needs healing)

MIA ( Quick deadly much easier to level up then edward, pairs with shinon , gets wrath and adept, awesome)

SHINON ( Simply godly and much easier to level then rolf, pairs with mia , gets nihil and daunt , he can also hit from 4 spaces when promoted which means he does't get countered , what more do you need? )    

HAAR ( fantastic fliying tank from start through most of the game in the end lacks speed gains so use speedwings, gets adept to counter this weekness which he activates quite often, pairs with nephenee)

NEPHENEE  ( Death with a lance, needs a bit of nurturing at first but once promoted hmmm yummy, pairs with haar, gets vantage and the other imbue, very likely to cap most stats but worth giving her extras if shes doesn't get quite there)

GATRIE ( A tank nuff said, pairs with boyd , doesn't need much help with skills but i do give him boots for extra movement, usually save the brave axe for him so he can double in the end, activates luna regularly so no probs)

BOYD ( Power tons of HP , pairs with above tank, usually gets renewal skill for replenishment when he gets hit and whatever useful left over skills i have)

ELINCIA (  The best healer in the game that can handle herself in combat very well with amiti, pairs with rafiel , remove mercy immidiately and stick pavise on her with a miracle just for compliment, gets fortify, restore and physic staffs for endgame)

Heron;

RAFIEL ( he is weak with only 5 movement and no canto? yes so what, he can vigor 4 characters right from the start, repeat 4! In endgame that means twice healing for elincia twice long distance bombing for sanaki micaiah plus twice whatever other character you want! The movement problem can be solved by sticking celerty on him and he will be far off the front line for canto to matter, you can do the same thing with reyson (laguz gem) you might argue but i'll take the extra couple of turns of damage and healing and save gems for kurth )

Sorry for the long post but i just had to do it :p

All this character talk. I just pick the characters I like the best (which for some reason seem to be the low-def, underleveled guys) and stick with them. In Radiant Dawn, every character turns out good. Who you have for endgame isn't really all that important.