CyberNinja

Course the difference comes in that between the batalion wrath and his personal, he's working with 70 crit on enemy phase from ch.1, 95 with his first killing edge, 100 by wo dao, etc. He also has 45 offensive crit by the first killing edge too.

Well I do owe you a review since you responded to me. Note that much of this may be colored by my own philosophy regarding these types of threads. Regarding Alphonse: Assuming he's meant to be a student type character, his bases are in total more than the average of all playable units, the highest of the non-lord students and in fact almost on par with lord characters - judging by numbers alone and not where they are - and every stat barring luck is equal to or higher than the average student's. So his statline is basically a better Anna and tanky like Dedue without his weakness. His growth rates are equal in totality to Byleth and Ingrid's but he has a much higher str growth than ingrid and more magic growth than Byleth. While his spd growth isn't exceptional, he's as fast as Petra so while his very middling growths can cause him to flip, he's basically Byleth with even more balanced stats so I'd say he's likely stronger than the average student by stats alone. Since Adjutants don't appear until later in the game and his bonus comes from not having one, I see little reason why he'd get one and thus his passive will likely end up active far longer than Felix's so He'll be doubling Petra and most other students easily, since he'll be specializing in gauntlets that's probably a quad. With characters specialized in multiple weapons, they usually have only one at D rank with the other at E+, since he has two at D rank, he has far more weapon xp than Byleth, a Lord type character. Since he also has a movement type proficiency (note: Ingrid has two at D) he has some of the highest total starting weapon xp. The most reason spells anyone has is 5, this character has them beat at 7 including the highest dmg black magic, one of the best dark magics, and an enemy only spell. Since the spell targets every character on the map, should Alphonse get his magic high enough he could nearly one-turn a route map. Of course that is only theoretical, the spell is low damage and low hit, doesn't target flyers, ect. Dark Spikes is likely never going to come online barring NG+. Since Alphonse gets all the combat faith spells, his spell list in total feels a little bloated. For his dependent abilities he gets two for authority of which his has no boon in (normal) but they are both battalion skills which was unheard of until Jeritza dropped (who is meant to be OP) and is the vantage-wrath combo that makes Dimitri one of the best enemy phase characters in the game and who was previously the only one with this combo. For combat arts he has 5 unique combat arts in one skill group (brawling) usually a skill group gets only two unique combat arts. It is also missing one of the generic combat arts (fading blow) which I wouldn't mention had rushing blow not been there. He gets mighty blow at D+ when every other character gets it at A, he also gets a class locked combat art to use in any class he wishes, a three hit combo, this and one-two means that Alphonse is not limited by his speed if that ever becomes an issue which it isn’t likely to because he has higher bases than Byleth and the same growth. He also starts with E+ in faith despite it being a hidden talent and thus meant to start at E. (note I am guilty for giving Walhart an E+ in Authority, that should be Blank i.e. an E) All in all I would consider Alphonse to be an oddly built character. I’m not quite sure about the reasoning behind the choice of spells but with quake I would assume it to be similar to the large scale destruction Alphonse and Elric can cause when they warp the environment with their Alchemy. In my opinion I’d cut down on the amount of combat arts to two unique one’s you’d like to give him. For the spells he could do best with a few unique to him, as it stands if he somehow acquired them all his spell list would look unwieldy and many of the spells are likely superfluous. Regarding Lust: Since she’s based off monster mechanics and has extremely high dex and spd for a monster, she’ll likely be doubling everyone at that level since I’m expecting the avg unit to be below her, they’re not even in advanced classes yet. Since she’s going to double and deal full damage, anyone with less than 56 (68 since deathblow) hp is going to die, since they can’t dodge, it’s inevitable. Since she has 30 charm it's going to be basically impossible to hit her with gambits which are the only way to fight her without dying. Since she has only one square if anyone manages an armor break she’ll be stunned instantly. What does this mean? She’s an RNG boss, if you can dump enough gambits to get a lucky hit, she dies that turn when everyone dumps on her, if you run out of units before the stun wears out she’ll kill any character in the game in one round. Basically not a very fun boss, at least at the level range you’re expected to fight her. For context, her personal is basically a stronger version of a personal skill of a final boss in this very game, and you want people to fight her at level 20. Regarding Gluttony: Gluttony by contrast will have less chance of hitting you (assuming he’s using Unarmed as a weapon) than Black Beast Miklan and won’t do much more damage than Miklan’s beast form either. What you are calling combat arts I assume you mean staggering blows which are basically beast gambits. It’s interesting that he gets an immunity to range while prepping it but the level range he’s placed at, I’d expect him to go down rather easily for most players since gambits will land easily and many units should easily dodgetank normal combat with him. So while Lust has no weaknesses, gluttony really doesn’t have strengths. Regarding Wrath: I’m not sure if his passive could be implemented given the game mechanics but assuming it could, it’s fine. It’s basically free hawkeye and some weird inverse ability of hawkeye. His skill ranks reflect him well and his statline is fine. He’s not much of a threat, more tedious than anything since he also has counterattack and most units specializing in 2+ range aren’t known for tanking 2 30 str hits plus whichever sword flavored death he’s wielding. Regarding Pride: Gonna range from no issue to just rage inducing depending on students recruited. Not many Dark users since if you aren’t Black Eagles there’s… Lysithea and… Lysithea. We’ll have DLC character soon to fix that. For Faith Damage Black Eagles gets: Byleth and Edeglard (not likely) Blue Lions has Dimtri and Annette (not Likely) Sylvain and Ingrid (low-mid chance), Golden Deer has Lysithea and Marriane. Since all of these are limited it isn’t looking good for actually being able to damage this character unless you’re Lysithea and Hubert, so Blue Lions are SOL. Kind of annoying that his speed is so high but since his charm is so low any gambit even if it does no damage will stun him so the physical guys still have something they can do. Beyond that it's just spamming Seraphim since for those who have it, hopefully someone was gunning for mage sylvain and Ingrid or they can’t win if they’re going purist route. So for balance I generally wouldn’t consider planning a fight around being winnable by 3 characters only. Thematically I don’t even really remember how Pride died in Brotherhood though I remember how he got caged so I don’t have much of an opinion there. I’d ask if this is why Alphonse had such an odd mix of abilities but this came afterwards. Note: If its any faith spell, at least every mage has Nosferatu. Regarding Elric: Same thoughts as on Alphonse, for the most part. The Personal is extremely OP if paired with the bloat of healing items (i.e prayer ring) in place ingame, assuming Elric isn’t attacked too many times after he’s already been “killed”; If you dodge-tank build him, he literally can’t die. Given his extreme high base speed (3 more than Petra) and high growth (5 less than Petra) I don’t really see him getting hit and people will convert him to a flying unit to… its three houses they’ll convert him into a flyer for any reason. I think the automail passive is best Regarding Sloth: Basically a weaker beastdedue. Could be considered an early giant demonic beast but rather easily shut down. Like Gluttony, oddly weak compared to how strong Lust and Wrath are. Kind of odd none of your beasts used any of the standard beast barriers or were divided on what abilities they got at what health level so I’m assuming generic or none?. Regardless, those are my thoughts. I’m not really doing the number crunch and I'm mostly guessing at the expected strength/level the player should be at when they fight them. My philosophy towards these these of threads will differ drastically from others so you should keep that in mind once you’ve finished this.

Thank you, I wasn't really focused on balance so much as I was on ensuring he was portrayed accurately within the system using the rules/precedent set by other units. Edit: Walhart is Edelgard but a dude. It is also his personal from both Awakening and heroes, I've made no changes and there is precedent for ones personal to be a combination of two abilities seen in the lords and (admittedly an NPC) Jeralt. Edit: To elaborate, he has Grani's shield in Heroes and his conquest skill in awakening is a combination of Cavalry/Armor effect Null. Since I hold a philosophy that I should use actual game assets as much as possible in these threads, it seemed best to just use the Effect Null skill and rename it conquest, since it is basically Walhart's Conquest skill. Renaming an existing skill as a personal has precedence since Ashe's skill lockpick is literally just locktouch. Admittedly Walhart is getting a boss only skill as a passive... but he is a playable boss in the vein of the Death Knight, and Mercedes gets his passive as an item. And Petra is a princess, yet she is flagged as a commoner because she is a foreigner. Edit: To be clear, I made Walhart under the assumption he'd be a foreigner to Fodlan. I made him young so that I could write him up like he was a student since that has more depth and is a bit more fun than just drawing up his stats as a boss and slapping a relative level that his threat would be. Charm correlates with natural charisma and authority boons are only given to characters noted for their tactics or exceptional leadership capabilities. Walmart will state in support with Robin that he doesn't care much for strategy and will simply will-to-power is way to victory. Despite this he still conquered a continent and was ruling over fanatical soldiers. Hence the high charm but no authority boon or bane. Walharts unique class was essentially a modified great knight with a unique ability to ignore armor and cavalry weaknesses. It was good in all weapons since it could use all three. Walhart had two regalia, an axe and sword so I chose him to have a boon in both. Since he canonically is a great knight he had to have boons in riding and armor. The hidden talent in flying is due to the fact that his alt class line was the Wyvern line. Since he was notable in all weapons but lances it was best to give him boons in swords and axes with axes as the primary since wolfberg features in his art. I couldn't give him a strength in flying because while Ingrid starts both cavalry and flying in D rank, no character has three movement skills at D rank and all boons in movement skills start minimally in D rank. It is something Walhart has a talent in since it's part of his canon class line but not a focus of his and thus a hidden talent. Edit: In short, I focused on boons that help him along his native class paths or correlate to weapons he actually used, since I am limited to 5 boon or 4 boons and one hidden. I had little desire to give him authority (and dump a bunch of related abilities on him) when referencing his alternate class path fit better. The reason spells were chosen because they are closest to being the generic spells, he has Luna instead of ragnarok because it's a reference to the awakening luna skill which he has as a boss. I didn't give him an monster killing skills because he was not notable for any strengths against dragon type enemies and his crusade against Grima was more or less doomed to fail regardless. I didn't give him a crest because I don't recall if he was explicit in being a descendant of all and Celica and regardless the bloodline would have likely dried up (and there isn't much in the way of crest abilities that reference walharts skill set). his faith bane was a reference to his atheism and that he had no magic class in awakening. In hindsight I should have added a reason bane as he is a foreigner. This would tie into his poor magic so the player gets that they really shouldn't make him a mage and that his easily available class lines fit his awakening line. Everything I put in was for a specific purpose. Thank you, sincerely, for your review. Edit: Edits made. May add more as thoughts come.

Can you elaborate on this? "Show don't tell" is more a literary term than game/cinema and even then isn't used properly as a general critique. So I'm kind of confused by what you mean here.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your opinion of the character I put In (Walhart). I mostly tried to keep his strengths and weaknesses accurate to what he was actually capable of. Actually I believe characters only get non generic combat arts if they actually have a strength in that weapon. Even characters with hidden talents only get the one unique combat art. Same thing with authority: those with a weakness get basically nothing, those with neutral get one ability and a battalion ability and those with a strength are loaded with abilities.

Walhart (young)

Yes because you made the claim. So protagonist? There's a lot to unpack here so first: is the favor undue, and why? No we should not because we are not mind readers and you are not using the correct terminology for what you are talking about. If we cannot agree on meaning of the words we use we cannot even try to comprehend on another's arguments. At best I can only assume you are parroting a tired trope about FE without actually having an argument to back it up because you are safe in the assumption that everyone will simply agree in some form of herd mentality or something since as you said we should already know and you shouldn't have to justify your statement. Rude.

Are you trying to be offended now? 🤔 Regardless I agree that I don't actually have that high of an opinion of Stlvain because of his backstory and greater character depth. He's much better written no doubt but he's also the sort of person I really don't care for, especially the self pitying and victimization aspect when he himself acts as a predator on people far below him in power.

So is Suzaku Dimitri or Byleth in this scenario?

You know except all Kingdom Nobility are trained from birth to fight and the Alliance constantly have skirmishes with one another such that Lorenz can be reasonably expected to hold off a siege on his on lands while still in school. Every unit your recruit is replace with a NATION General, i.e. The average student is by the time skip equivalent to a general for that faction in a series where the leaders are also usually the most powerful fighters. All in all there is not a single student character who can be considered explicitly weaker than the average soldier unless the game has explicitly stated they are weaker than the average soldier. Even Dorothea and her opera troupe are trained combatants, Manuela managed as a combat instructor, Dorothea was a trained fighter and mage, the opera company is a recruits le battalion. Weaker is relative to the fact you have literal super humans running around and even the crestless have their peak of physical humanity like Raphael and Dedue.

That is because Byleth is affiliated with the Church of Seiros and so the units have Church of Seiros colors. If you equip a battalion on Ashe while in the Black Eagles during White Clouds, he'll still have Blue Lion color wearing soldiers with him because his affiliation is still the Kingdom. After the timeskip his (and Byleth's) affiliation will change to what route you are on so if you choose Silver Snow all your student's affiliation will change to (resistance army) and all battalion units for all students will use Byleth's Black/purple/Orange color scheme.

Make Cavalry only strong on the Charge (i.e. player phase) so that they can easily overwhelm infantry on the player phase but are quickly disposed of on the enemy phase. Armored Knights by contrast would be good on the enemy phase, effectively negating the bonuses of a cavalry charge but being a poor offensive choice. Infantry wouldn't have any weakness on player or enemy phase but wouldn't have a particular strength either. How can this be done? By wrapping the stance and -blow skills into the movement class or class skills. Armored Knights would have armored stance and similar abilities giving them boosted armor or negating doubling when waiting or attacked on enemy phase. These skills would be locked to the cavalry and armored classes respectively and wouldn't be able to be given to other classes. Because Cavalry will be weaker than enemy infantry (using class mods) and reliant on their -blow (renamed charge) skills for effectiveness, canto will be used to move them to safety rather than simply pushing further forwards. Armored units will maintain many of their classic weaknesses but have their movement buffed to infantry standards, they won't be good for attacking enemies but will instead be used to wait and bait enemies, they'll also have a skill to make them more likely to be attacked (like Shinon's provoke). Infantry will be defined by the weapons they specialize in and unlike the previous classes, they will maintain their -faire and -breaker skills creating a sort rock-paper-scissors effect for infantry v. infantry battles. Flyers will naturally just have to lose Canto completely but gain pass as their movement type specific ability. This will give Flyers the most flexible threat range but they'll have the same enemy phase weakness of cavalry without their ability to escape the threat zone. This will ensure the necessity of proper placement or movement combat arts to make the best use of them. Endgame infantry should have the Assassin/Grapplers ability to ignore terrain penalties making them more like flyers in that their unimpeded by terrain but still limited by impassable terrain. This gives each movement type an area of expertise and uniqueness that's lacking currently (classes are becoming just statblocks of varying effectiveness, not feeling unique) You could also bring back the rescue command (usable by Cav and Flyers only) which can only target infantry and armors allowing the flyers and cav to fit a secondary role as troop transports again (at the cost of inflicting a stat penalty on the cav/flyer).

Hubert accomplished dark mage and noted for the greatest variety of spells used by an enemy character, accounting all appearances he uses almost every dark magic and uses every siege spell under the sun and is an accomplished tactician spy and assassin, by the wording of op minimally a 7 out of 10 likely an 8. Dedue 8/10 the guy holds the feat for managing to infiltrate and fight his way solo to Edelgards throne room when she brought the majority of her elite forces into the palace and when conditionally the only force Byleth is bringing is a ragtag militia and the knights of Seiros. Going off that the amount of resistance he'd have to face solo would have been immense. Lorenz relatively fearless but canonically an accomplished mage and warrior so minimally a 6 but I'd consider most students a 6 minimally a 5 so likely closer to a 7. Jeralt 6:/10 Alois ending has him outshine Jeralt in every way as captain. Jeralt has the fear of dying the first time he saved Rhea and getting some of that crest sippy in return. Basically he's legendary because he's got a major crest 1st gen in an era where crests are dying out and as a result just generally has an experience and power advantage over the opposition. Skilled and experienced but past his prime and mostly held up by those gifts of Rhea than anything else, can be outshone by those with a fraction of the power and experience.

You know I figured it'd be self evident when you have a cutscenes showing a non beating heart, Edelgard reacting to that lack of beating and the emphasis on the disappearance of the crest stone to all indicate that the heart was not beating until after that moment. There are specific events when Byleths heart beats briefly and it usually is due to a major emotional turning event symbolizing him making a real human/personal choice or it results In him passing out.

Ok, meta one possibly English only. "An Innevitable Encounter" an encounter between a lord and bandits... in a Fire Emblem game: truly inevitable.

You are weirdly obsessed with sex, you know that right?

Might seem self evident but: For non-crest Bearers, their physique correlates with their stats. Dedue and Raphael are the strongest, slowest characters without a crest and have the highest HP cap in the game. They are also the physically biggest. Ignatz is weak and frail, he is also of a slight build and small physically. For crest bearers their capabilities follow what their crest is, with characters like Byleth and Edelgard having very balanced stats while Dimitri is a physical powerhouse, having high spd strength and hp. In fact, Dimitri is basically a spear wielding warmaster. Secondly: Turns out the Adrestian nobles might be right that magic is more of a thing for nobles only. Note that all nobility are from crest bearing bloodlines even if they might not necessarily bear a crest themselves. All pure crestless characters either lack strong capabilities in magic: having lower avg growths, final stats, bases, or a weakness in Faith or Reason, or just bad or limited spells. Of the Crestless characters that are strong mages (Hubert, Dorothea) both come from noble lines, Dorothea being a bastard, and Hubert not only comes from Vestra; he is a dark mage. Furthermore, the Adrestian Empire which has the most crest bearers thanks to the very giving Cethleann, Cichol, ect. It is also the country with a noted specialty in mages in lore if not gameplay. So it turns out humans might not have actually been all that great at magic and either developed Dark Magic to compensate or gained their capabilities from harvesting the Nabateans crests.

Might as well cover this first when we compare capability: Ernest: Given its effect is identical to Windsweep's effect (and Anna's higher avg spd growth) we can see that those bearing this crest tend towards having higher/super speed. Cichol Bearers of this crest tend to be quite talented in various weapons as both Seteth and Ferdinand are shown to master the weapon triangle. Bearers tend to be very physically capable, having good strength speed and dex in both growth and caps. They tend to favor offensive stats compared to defensive and lack in defensive qualities. Altogether showing themselves able to avoid damage and dish it out but less capable in tanking it. This fits in with their crest power, enabling them to use superior technique to avoid counterattacks. In effect, Cichol bearers drill themselves to perfection, making up a lack of direct power for flawless technique. Seiros: We can see that the effect is 5 bonus damage on combat arts, showing an increase in average strength or technique. To find more of what powers this crest, we look to Rhea: She has average growths and final stats, she has abnormally high growths in Charm and an abnormally high cap in charm, much like Byleth and Edelgard who are noted as exceptionally oddly charismatic. So we can see that more of the effect of this crest is in enhancing the leadership and charisma, giving them an aura of power than it is in actually turning them into a physical powerhouse. Gloucester In gameplay we can see the effect as a boost of 5 to damage much like the Fraeldarius Crest is for normal attacks. We can also see it as responsible for Lysithea's abnormally strong magic, her speed and dex being due to her charon crest and her weak physical stats due to the experimentation damaging her body. We can also see that despite his over wise physical cavalry focus, Lorenz has the equal capacity to be a mage due to his crest but to a lesser extent being only a minor crest bearer. By comparison we can see the Cethleann Crest as the faith equivalent, also boosting healing to an exceptional degree, we also see in Flayn powerful magic growth and near immunity to magic, a hidden capacity for offensive reason magic and as an enemy we can see her becoming a powerful combatant using the strongest offensive faith magic in the game. Support conversations between Linhardt add Ferdinand show that the Crests can have a great deal of effect on the personality of the bearer and how they react to other crest bearers. Riegen Mostly here for comparison's sake, we can see that the effect of Claude's crest allows a seeming vampiric effect and correlates to his high dex and speed growth and caps. I'll return to this later when I cover the crest of flames but do recall that Claude is noted for surviving a harsh life in Almyra and taking a forceful backhand from Nemesis who himself is a physical powerhouse. Crest of Flames The effect of this crest is essentially the combination of Gloucester, Fraeldarius, Seiros, Riegen, Cichol, and Ernest. It can emulate the effect of any of those previous crests except in any situation, usually it just allows the user to heal vampirically. Regarding the last effect, it is noted that Nemesis survived most likely due to his Crest of Flames and Edelgard doesn't show the physical degeneration to the same degree as Lysithea due to the experimentation. Thus the nosferatu effect of the crest (and thus Riegen) is likely more representative of the endurance boosting effects of the crest, what allows them to shrug off wounds. Of the 4 known bearers, 2 are strong hybrid fighters, having high capacity in magic and strength. Nemesis notably favors physical strength and Sothis her magical capability. Of the human bearers they are all shown to have very balanced stats though notably Edelgard has an overall edge on her teacher, likely due to her dual crest nature. Notably both Sothis and Byleth are the only ones with 99 max charm, Seiros comes close with 97 and Edelgard trails behind with 85. As far as growths go, Seiros and Sothis lead, followed by Edelgard with Byleth far behind them. Again this suggests Edelgard's charisma comes primarily from her Seiros crest while Byleth's comes from being the progenitor god. The crest of flames likely enhances one's charisma as all bearers are noted as highly charismatic, even Byleth whose otherwise emotionless exterior was found disturbing. However despite bearing a major crest in flames and minor in Seiros, Edelgard still can't compare to the Charisma of Seiros or Sothis, and cannot match the potential of Byleth. Blaiddyd Comparatively, despite bearing only the minor Crest, we can see that Dimitri has an abnormal strength. The effect of this crest is doubling the total dmg and uses for combat arts, allowing Dimitri his famous 999 damage crits thanks to x6 damage. This effect is shown to be more than gameplay because Dimitri is completely incapable of actually controlling his strength and easily breaks even the best forged equipment when training. Blaiddyd stands as one of the few crest abilities not mimicked by the Crest of Flames, the other being Indech and Lamine/Dominic. The crest of Flames certainly stands above the rest, showing strong average tier growths in all stats, having no weaknesses (Byleth specifically noted to have no weaknesses) unlike other Crests. So that is why Blaiddyd stands as such a fascinating crest: it not only stands as unique compared to the Crest of Flames, its effect arguably outshines many of the others in what it intends to do. Since it doubles the total damage of the attack, no one can compare to the damage output of this crest. Despite being only a bearer of a minor crest, Dimitri dwarfs all others in physical strength and yet he is also one of the fastest characters (growth + cap) and yet he also has some of the highest HP (growth and Cap) and yet he also has extremely strong defenses. Alongside his personal, he is nearly untouchable and even then was noted for shrugging off mortal wounds and slaughtering elite troops with his bare hands as a teenager. His only weakness is his terrible resistance and nonexistent magic, another interesting thing to note... On using gameplay/stats as justification: The game notably shows that it prefers to set stats and growth to actually represent the character rather than be purely balanced. Non crest Bearers Raphael and Dedue have the highest HP caps in the game and are notably the tallest and bulkiest characters. Petra is the fastest and has a wirey muscle build, Ignatz is physically weak and has a very slight frame and small body. All non crest bearers has their stats, growths, and caps reflected in their physique. Crest bearers like Felix and Hilda do not, instead the crest bearers stats are reflected in the Crest they bear and whether that crest is minor or major. Edelgard has two crests, in having her power fully unlocked she gains the "dual crest" power, enabling her to take two actions a phase. Her relic enables her to have a galeforce like effect that is very similar to her dual crest power despite lacking the crest her weapon is actually geared for, Marriane despite having this crest cannot use this relic power. Thus storywise it is likely that the effect is more representative of her dual crest power than the relic itself. To add to this, Claude's relic effect essentially allows him the feat he pulls in the cutscene where he fights Nemesis, and Dimitri's is simply a reflection of raw physical might: gaining effectiveness against everything just like the "war masters strike." So, in conclusion: in a one-on-one duel, Dimitri is far FAR stronger than Edelgard and indeed this does transfer favorably to slaughtering hordes of enemies in the wave assaults that insane Dimitri favors (again reflected in his Battalion Wrath, Battalion Vantage unique set up). Edelgard, however is able to simply grind down her enemies (shown by Battalion vantage and renewal) and how her set up allows her to ignore lesser magic and physical attacks (her unique class being a fortress knight without a magic weakness) and ruthlessly brutalize these enemies in turn. @omegaxis1 I am by no means undermining her capabilities, she absolutely would have a greater effect in mass battles than Dimitri, simply because her overwhelming power is more suited to slaughtering many weaker enemies kind of like a saturation bombing. Dimitri is comparatively far stronger in one-on-one duels and is -yes- far physically stronger than even Edelgard but that is all he is, a physical powerhouse with no magical ability and no real way to fight multiple enemies except personally murdering each one, allowing him to be overwhelmed by sufficient numbers. So again, Edelgard is a conventional explosive, Dimitri is a shaped charge. Anyway I should probably drop this since we are past discussing the lords.

Dimitri lives long past what he should be able to after suffering numerous fatal wounds, all his deaths involve being overwhelmed by numbers such as ambushed by cavalry and impaled numerous times before going down, in CF when he should be long past dead he is able to have words with Edelgard and only dies when decapitated. Powerscaling is a shitty way to properly measure power especially when any feats by Edelgard is hampered by the fact that she has a literal god backing her in those scenes. Dimitri is absolutely a more dangerous fighter. That said if I were to use Total War Three Kingdoms as a way to describe them, Dimitri is a Champion/vanguard, Edelgard is more of a Sentinel/vanguard, and Claude is a clear Commander/strategist. One is a pure meat blender, the other just outlasts everyone, and Claude is better for how he tricks and uses others than as a pure combatant.

Nah man, it was pretty subtle 😉 Incidentally and completely unrelated, is it trendy to make yourself look as neurotic as possible on the internet? Asking for a friend.

Incidentally, if you consider all dialogue, then Bernie had otherwise spent the last 5 years of the war hiding in her home until she was literally conscripted by Edelgard to be the bait for the burning fort strategy, she's 5 years out of experience being made to fight on the frontlines against two battlehardened armies. No wonder she's terrified.

I can't say there's really been a game that's made me all that emotional in a long time, and that trend will continue it seems. That said, I did get a slight guilt seeing former students die, might have been better if one of the requirements wasn't basically having no investment in them though. Well first I did CF and had accidentally recruited the only Golden Deer you fight and accidentally spared Claude. Killing Hilda made me feel bad, she was also the only Golden Deer I thought died (poor Marianne, in hindsight). Flayn and Seteth survived without me really trying, Flayn made me feel like maybe I was the bad guy. As for Blue Lions, I hadn't interacted with any except Felix who I recruited kinda last minute without trying for him. (I had forgotten about recruiting until Ignatz mentioned his jealousy about not getting to see the tomb, I hit recruit out of curiosity. I thought he was an autorecruit for the level.) So I pretty much made him murder all of his friends and his own father. Some may recall I made a thread about that. Now I avoided spoilers but there was one trailer that showed Dimitri's psycho smirk when he loses it on Edelgard, I thought originally he went crazy due to captivity and this trailer scene plus Felix had me convinced he was secretly Caligula, so I actually hated the guy when it came to fight him and easily bought Hubert and Edelgard's propaganda. So basically it took until Edelgard was moments away from decapitating the guy before I really started to question if I was the baddies. My second playthrough in Verdant Wind was pretty painful, I only recruited the Knights of Seiros and Felix so I had to kill all the Black Eagles who I had grown rather fond of (I'd reset a few times as I was kinda bad at the game and learning, so I had a lot of time invested in these guys). Special highlights go to Ferdinand, Bernie, Dorothea.. ok all of them, it was rather odd to go from accidentally having all these characters at pending S rank by timeskip to murdering them all. I still feel a little dirty I can't save Hubert. Ironically the only one that fell flat was Edelgard because that seen did not fit at all. Azure Moon I recruited Lys, but all the other Golden Deer hurt (well, Lorenz survived) particularly Raphael and Ignatz. Edelgards death I felt bad not for her but Dimitri, took Azure Moon for me to start liking the guy, but it did it. Silver Snow I felt bad for Dimitri's maybe death, bit confused on that one. The Reunion scene with Edelgard helped actually make me feel kinda bad she died and her cut off confession actually had some weight to it - considering I kept choosing the "don't want to fight" dialogue choices since the timeskip. I can't really do Crimson Flower now, the body count isn't really worth it when the changes more or less happen in all routes anyway.

Basically agree excepting on the degree of unwillingness that you paint Edelgard's actions with. Certainly she had little choice but to start the war, but she is just like the other Nobility in that she holds dreams of reunifying Fodlan. So She was always going to bury Claude and Dimitri even if the Agarthans let her go. I don't consider it much of a debate on the inevitability of war so much as I debate the degree of altruism of Edelgard.

Original Japanese ending translated since there's some evidence that the context is missing in the official dub. The original suggests that the kingdom and the church disappeared from history with the heavy implication of it being written out of history. Makes sense since the monks that appear around in CF state explicitly of their loss of faith and in other routes of persecution by Edelgard thus we realize the intent was that the church was brought to an end. You have to realize that Edelgard has already been established as a character that the player cannot take for her word, being a known liar in all routes. Even if she states she has nothing against the faith, her railing against Sothis and the gods in all routes including CF implies the opposite. In fact it is the loss of her faith that informs her decisions, she is lashing out because she was not saved. Only if Ferdinand survives the war since his support conversation reveals she actually had no plan to implement any new system to replace the nobility or to facilitate upwards mobility of the classes.