@rol

Zihark sucks too, maybe I should start sacrificing him too

EDIT: to back up my claim

As you can see for the highest level, Zihark doesn't cap his strength, while Edward and Mia both have capped strength. Now, since you don't really play a lot of rounds at 20/20/20 this doesn't really mean a lot. What does mean a lot is that Edward and Mia have max strength at like 20/20/12. The same goes for defense. Not only is Ziharks lower, but Edward and Mia reach 24 def 8-12 levels earlier.

Speed & skill are even among the three, and Edward is weak with/against magic which if you are concerned about that you might as well use Mia, who is slightly on the weaker side (max strength 50), but still more than capable.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is the only game EVER to have me so seriously intimidated by it's Hard setting.

Like others have said, it's tough, but definitely doable. I kept everyone alive, even the (to me) useless Meg. At the time I get her, it seems as though an enemy can sneeze and kill her. I found babying characters to work better in Path; you know something's wrong when I send Rolf out to be a frontliner. (I knew I'd love him when in my first game, on normal and I didn't try to keep everyone alive, an unwounded Shinon attacked him and missed, followed by Rolf getting 2 crits, splating Shinon. And when his defense is only 1 point below Gatrie... {My Gatrie got crap level ups.} )

I always made part III dawn brigade harder than i should have, mostly because i always stole Jill from them so she could get on the fast track with the Greil Mercenaries, leaving them down one of their strongest units.

I beat PoR on hard without losing anyone on hard but I beat RD on normal without losing anyone. Right now I am loving Sacred Stones (I finally found a copy).

In the dictionary definition for "meatshield" there is a picture of Meg's fat ass :D

^^ lolol, i just saw a picture of her... omg, why would they design a character to look like that? did they want us to use her as a tank/meatshield only?

(btw, i didn't play Path, only Dawn + the handheld versions)

What is this Meg vs. Zihark stuff?

What's Meg's support element, again?

That is the one thing i've heard from serious FE-heads, that a Zihark-Axe guy (damned if i don't remember his name, the dawn brigade's axe user) combination is quite untouchable because they both have Earth element.

It's true. Zihark and Nolan - or Zihark and Volug, or Nolan and Volug (you can make Volug usable) is th best combo that the Dawn Brigade has. Looking at raw stats only tells half the story. Meg can't be as good as Zihark because Zihark is Earth Element.

That's the only reason to use Zihark over Edward (who is way better than Mia, you guys).