I am also the type that doesn't let anyone die. I find only the early levels are hard. For example, on path of radiance, in level 9 i believe, where you have the two beastmen who aren't ye tin your party but are isntead allied characters, and your assaulting the castle, there are 3 items to be had from houses in the top left. Traversing the sand and getting the items, before the bandits destroy them, was super annoying for me.

Even worse, i had to keep just about all my units moving forward at the time, because the allied laguz were going to kill the enemies and steal experience.

Even worse, because it was early in the game, i only used about 4 characters out of all the ones i had. I don't use anyone that i wont bring into the final level, to conserve experience.

But later in the game, once the characters you choose are all leveled up and strong, you can afford mistakes.

Yes Meg is patently useless, but its the hallmark of true fire-emblemdom to leave no man, or peasant-girl who wandered off to go fight for no apparent reason, behind.

@ i'm sneaky. At that point, Titania is still well capable of soloing everything if she wants to (even at higher difficulties). I always just sent her off into the sand on her own to clean that out and kill the pirates. Its harder to do the rest of the chapter without her, but more rewarding, because then Titania isn't kill-stealing from everyone.

sadly, that is starting to happen to me

even so, i'll never let any of my team members die, that's just the way i am

Oh yeah, that's what i do too. I've only ever seen the Game Over screen once (on the mission where you have to defend Sanaki's quarters on the ships in PoR, i wasn't aware that the crows would try to get to the defend point too, since the crows weren't there to do that), but all the time i've spent on many a chapter had to do with losing characters. Usually not the weak characters, either, just some of the guys with less defense, but still strong enough to be frontliners. Boyd especially.

Meg and Fiona are useless, no contest. Still, I always play to bring all my soldiers back home. It wouldn't feel right if I didn't play this way.

Meg and Fiona are useless, no contest. Still, I always play to bring all my soldiers back home. It wouldn't feel right if I didn't play this way.

Oh no he didn't

*longer response to come later, got to go now*

Average Stats at max level according to http://www.gamefaqs.com/wii/932999-fire-emblem-radiant-dawn/faqs/50649

Zihark
Hp Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
53.8 31.6 13.6 40 40 25.4 24 24

Meg
Hp Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
60 34.25 13.25 32 32 30 34.25 32

Barely significant advantage in str is very much overcome by the fact that Zihark will strike twice, meg probably wont, meaning Zihark does a lot more damage. Also, his skills will activate more often so he does even more damage

Decent advantage in Hp, Def, Res is more than overcome by Zihark's lower chance of being hit, and if he is given Vantage and adept then he has a pretty good chance of killing the enemy before they get to attack, even on the enemy's turn, thus Zihark is actually harder to kill than Meg, assuming you give both of them good skills.

Meg's stat total is alright, but the stats are badly distributed. She has too much luck - Zihark has enough that the crit chance against him from a none killer weapon should be 0, and Meg has either too much speed or not enough. If she's going to do damage she would want more so that she gets 2 hits, if she is just going to soak up damage then she doesn't need as much as she has, it could be lower and enemies still wouldn't get 2 hits against her.

And I find if you want the character to absorb attacks, it's better to have really high defense OR really high speed. Having decent of both leads to more damage due to how the hit chance and damage scale.

I've finished both on hard with no deaths, so it's definitely do-able.

Path of Radiance on hard with no deaths isn't really a major issue. You shouldn't have too much trouble with that. Play defensively, and your resets should be in the 1-digit amount.

Radiant Dawn is a whole other situation. Part 1 isn't a lot harder than on normal, as your enemies won't crit you a lot. Part 2 can be a bit of a pain. 2-f and the one were Geoffrey is your lord are going to be your two main issues. On 2-f, just sit uber-defensive and don't bother using the royal guard. On the Geoffrey as lord one, either let your allies just run in and die, or have them sit in defensive.

Part 3 is a pain. It's going to be harder than part 4. Your enemies have a high critrate and you're going to have a lot of characters who cannot survive a crit. Expect to have a reset a chapter at least here.

Part 4 isn't actually that hard. It's back to a part 2 difficulty. Your only real issue is the one where you recruit Tormod. I just ended up holing myself up in one of the rooms with a treasure chest, with Ike and someone else swapping turns on guarding the door.

It's a hell of a lot of fun, and it's mighty hard. Remember to stick to using characters with high def and high health. Mages are also incredibly valuable, both for their staves and for the fact that they're going to be your hardest hitters (save the Laguz royals) by the end of the game. Speedy low-damage classes with low def(like Myrmidons) are going to be rather useless. I used Mia because I like the character, but she never really did a lot.

As for Meg vs Zihark. Meg wins by a long shot. If you manage to level her up, that is. It's a lot of work to start off with, but I'd say it's worth it. The Dawn Brigade really needs characters with def in part 3.

Zihark can't survive a crit from anything. That makes him pretty much completely useless by part 3, as mostly everyone has a small percentage chance to crit him, even with his luck. Using Zihark is fine in easy/normal, but he's downright bad at hard.

Scottie, I have no idea where you get the idea that Zihark has a lot more avoid than Meg at level 20/20/20. Meg's at 94% and Zihark is at 105%. Sure, there's a difference, but it doesn't make up for the def and res differences.

Essentially, Zihark wins on offence, but he's still not going to be a damage dealer. Zihark doesn't do any job well, whereas Meg's at least a good defensive character.

He's done well for me in hard mode so far, but now I'm feeling less confident about chapter 4

That's still a decent difference in terms of avoid. And the main reason why he is harder to kill is the vantage - Zihark has a 40% chance of striking first (more if you use the skill up items on him) and if he does, he will almost certainly kill the enemy, if given adept and crit+x skills. So essentially vantage multiplies the amount of damage he takes by 0.6. For Meg, the chance of vantage is 32% and she is unlikely to kill the enemy, even if she does have adpet and crit because her skill is lower, so vantage wouldn't really make her harder to kill at all.

That said, it could be that in chapter 4 in hard mode Zihark is no longer capable of killing people with vantage before they hit him, in which case he would suddenly become much easier to kill.