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Rinkah
Oni Savage (HS: Ninja)
A+ Support Partners: Orochi (Diviner), Kagero (Ninja), Oboro (Spear Fighter)
Personal Skill: Fiery Blood (+4 damage dealt when unit is not at full HP)
Pair-Up Bonuses (C B A S): Def Spd Str Spd+Def
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 20% (40)
STR: 25% (45)
MAG: 15% (25)
SKL: 50% (50)
SPD: 45% (55)
LCK: 35% (35)
DEF: 45% (65)
RES: 20% (20)

Here she is, the much maligned Rinkah. Is an E rank in clubs rather prohibitive for your only axe user until Chapter 14? Maybe. Is an 8 strength base and 25% base strength growth bad for a unit with visible abs and large biceps? Kind of. Are Rinkah's growths completely contrary to the typical Oni Savage, despite her being the only one you can obtain without reclassing in the entire game? Yeah...

Thankfully Rinkah manages to carve out a niche for herself by having a combination of both speed and physical bulk, something rather rare in Birthright. A 65% effective defense growth is very high even for a game like Fates in which units tend to have high growths across the board, and in Birthright the enemies you face will be weaker than those you would be seeing in other routes. While a base speed of 8 isn't particularly great, the huge number of units in classes that provide speed boosts as support partners make it likely you'll have at least one unit spare to attach themsleves to Rinkah in the early chapters to give her a leg up until her high nautral speed growth kicks in. Rinkah's 20 base health and 40% growth aren't particularly inspiring, but compared to the rest of the cast she's hardly unique in not having very much HP. She'll still most likely be one of your bulkiest units by comparison. Her underwhelming strength growth and early reliance on her Bronze Club are offset somewhat by her great personal which boosts her attack output by 4 so long as she's taken any amount of damage. If you're struggling to weaken Rinkah to activate her personal you can always buy a HP tonic each chapter to guarantee she won't be at full HP, but as front line unit she shouldn't have to worry too much about going out of her way to take damage. And if she is having difficulty taking damage then you have a godlike tank on your side and shouldn't be worrying anyway.

Much like the Fighter class in Conquest, the Oni class is great for the pair-up bonuses it provides. Rinkah will reward whoever she's paired with +4 strength and +2 defense, something which will help just about anyone but will be most appreciated by fast 1-2 range attackers such as Ninjas. Rinkah's personal pair-up bonuses are also great, granting further strength defense and speed to whoever she's paired with. Death Blow's not a bad skill for her spouse or children to pick up either, and Shove is great for positioning if you can remember that it exists. The only real downside to Rinkah as a wife is that her children will be a little weak offensively, but they will also inherit her great defense and speed. Subaki's daughter Caeldori has a personal skill that allows her to benefit from significantly lower offenses than her opponent's, so Subaki's not a bad partner for her.

Rinkah's biggest problem is probably how terrible her start is. As an attacker she's outshined by both Corrin and Kaze in the prologue chapters, so unless you're deliberately feeding her kills she'll most likely be stuck serving as a support partner for one or both of them. Her E rank in clubs is terrible, and clubs themselves are easily the worst of the Hoshidan weapons, being noticeably weaker than axes for the almost entirely irrelevant bonus of +5% crit. Grinding out her weapon rank as soon as possible is the key to making her useful if you do want to use her. There is an unfortunately babysitting period required to make Rinkah good and if her growths fail to kick in to save her from her underwhelming bases then she might be stuck as a support partner forever.

Oni Chieftain is probably her best class, it's stronger and bulkier than Blacksmith as well as giving Rinkah a big boost to her magic. E rank tomes aren't likely to help a unit with as mediocre magic as her, but the boost does help her become devastating with the Bolt Axe - reliable 1-2 range is very handy on a fast and bulky unit in a route full of weak and slow enemies, especially with a support partner like Orochi or Hayato to help her. Otherwise Blacksmith's not a bad choice if she's going purely physical and needs the extra speed and accuracy, but even then it's not always the best choice. Ninja is unfortunately a terrible fit for Rinkah and shouldn't really be considered unless she's got some initial strength procs to coast off of, her base strength will be terrible and an effective growth of 30% will not make it any better. Stealing the Diviner class from Orochi could work as a gimmick, although its terrible class bases would cut into her bulk. Spear Fighter Rinkah from Oboro might also work and will have some nice skills to offer, but isn't really an improvement on her default class.

Pros

Cons

My Thoughts: Should have had a blue oni counterpart unit, maybe a sibling?