Weekly Unit Spotlight: Annika

The spotlight for this week is on Annika, the healer with passion and fire! Her character description is as follows:​

A HEALER WHOSE MOTHER IS FROM A FOREIGN LAND, SHE IS OUTGOING AND COMPASSIONATE. SHE SOMETIMES CAN GET CAUGHT UP IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE, AND WILL SAY OR DO THINGS THAT ARE OUT OF HER CHARACTER. SHE HAS A SECRET TEMPER, BUT TRIES TO REMAIN CALM THROUGH PRAYERS TO THE GODDESS ANCIA, WHO SHE PARTIALLY WAS NAMED AFTER.

Annika is the army's only cleric, which would be an issue if you didn't receive Schall, a troubadour you recruit only a chapter ahead of Annika, and Harley, who is recruited in Chapter 9. As a cleric, Annika has no means to defend herself, and she has fragile defensive stats, along with low HP. She also has serious competition as a healer, as Harley and Schall can both counterattack and absorb damage better than Annika. However, Annika has a few advantages over them:

• Her magic growth: Annika's magic growth is actually the highest in the game, at 80%. This growth is drastically higher than Schall and Harley's 50% and 45%, respectively, making Annika the superior healer.
• Peppy: Annika's personal skill, Peppy, allows adjacent units to heal 20% more, and not just from her staff uses. Vunleraries, regenerative skills, HP stealing spells like Nosferatu, all of them are affected, meaning Annika is excellent support for those who need quick healing, even if her turn is already over.
• Promotion: Because of Annika's monstrous magic growth, she has high potential as a Sage. Her magic growth becomes 90%, which is devastatingly high.
• Reclass: If you don't feel the need for another healer or Annika has fallen behind and needs experience faster, Annika's reclass option, dark mage, suits her very well. Because it is an offensive magic class, she can go on the offense instead of serving a supportive role.
• Evasion: Annika has nice speed and good luck as well, making her evasive.

Now, saying these things, Annika has some glaring flaws that need to be addressed:

• Strength: Because weapon weight is factored similarly to the Tellius series, it's harder to double enemies and evade when the tome you hold is a higher weight than your strength. Annika is plagued by a strength growth of 0% unless boosted by class growths, making it extremely difficult for a promoted Annika to lug around tomes and not be doubled often.
•  Bulk: Annika has mediocre bulk. An HP growth of 30%, a defense growth of 20%, and a resistance growth of 55% as a cleric means she must be constantly guarded, because she can be dispatched quite easily. The other two healers of the game have better HP and defense, but lower resistance.
• Can't Go Into Combat: As a cleric, Annika's high growths are counterbalanced by how difficult it is to raise her to promotion level. Annika cannot gain high amounts of experience from defeating a foe because she can't participate in combat. This also distinguishes her from the other two base healing classes of the game, which are capable of initiating combat and counterattacking.
• Promotion Competition: Sages are powerful units, but even with Annika's nuclear magic, it's debatable if she's even worth the seal in comparison to Gwenivere, who has an 85% magic growth and a higher weapon rank in tomes (despite her very late join time and low bases), or Tyken, who has lower magic, but has more weapon experience, more mixed bulk, and higher skill.

Annika is a unit you get at the same time as Taren, Tenn, and Tyken, and because of her loyalty to the army, you may feel the obligation to keep her away from the bench. If you do, be aware that she, like most fragile healers, can make or break your strategy, and cannot be relied on to take hits.

Quick Note: I will post three other unit spotlights all today, but normally, Unit Spotlight will be weekly. The three protagonists should have spotlight pages, so I'm going to get on that.