Its funny how we all chase Yuyu and/or Bernice instat of the Plats or Black haha.
I would be fine with Dahlia, she looks like an awesome mage killer better then princesses on this task (since many mages have mr), but Garania (the plat i got) is just as fine as her in her own role i heared.
I also own, now that i finaly got bernice, pretty much every usefull (and not usefull) gold besides Yuyu or maybe Vincent and Monica. Cause during my last pulls i got 8 golds. Thanks to me being lucky enough to have pulled sherry when going for jerome/marr on my last spree along the golds i can pretty much call her the queen of golds (even though she also boosts my few silvers too of course :P). It always makes me a little sad when i look at Event units and i know they dont get boosted by her haha.
I have to take that into Account too when looking at the question of vanilla kerry or max cr Emilia (4/5) since my Kerry gets boosted by Sherry but Emilia doesnt, making her soo much better outside of skill use.
Btw what u are forgetting is that Emilia is a lot stronger then Elaine on max cc due to her Affection Bonus. She ends up at 30+ more atk and over 220 more hp with an 10 times better skill. And awakening makes her clear out of elaines leauge for same UP. So comparing her to Kerry makes more sense.
Kerry Actualy has same base ATK as Emilia at max cc thanks to Affection, same HP and 30 more Def the only stat she beats Emilia at. Emilia though whos skill is up sooner and lasts longer boosts also her defence and her attack by far more then vanilla kerrys. I did throw my little Emilia at 47 none cc at phalanx, her skill realy gets up fast and when its active she can even duel the red armors not even being cced (even though not very effectiv but valks arent supposed to be effective against armors).
Awakening changes things cause Kerry gains 35% more ATK but also loses out on ATK speed, u shouldnt forget that, her dps is noticable lower than that of a valk with same ATK then her as she attacks slower. In situations where she just has to one shot things and that not too fast it makes her superior and thats more or less the reason why i consider her because valks are supposed to one hit trash and generate up all on thier own. HP are the same and Defence might be 40 higher but Emilias Awakening Passive makes pretty much up for having 40 less defence and even works on magic damage. Its just more rng based but it WILL proc. It just doesnt help her in ramping up UP. Emilia with her skill and passive looks to be made more to duell then to ramp up. But of course she could also ramp up easy once her skill is up. With kerry and Emilia skill up thier atk should be around the same max aw. Higher for Kerry if her skill level is increased. Still not higher DPS though as her attack is slower then Emilias so she still wins outside of one shotting. A lot less tanky too. Less UP on Emilias side too but idk if that plays a big role in this case.
Thats why i pretty much dont know who i want. The AWed better ramper or the skill monster that can be turned into a duelist? Tough decision as i have no time to rise both atm. If just someone had them both AWed and could already give experience about whos better in practice lol. I dont even know how huge the attack speed decrese for AW Kerry is in practice.