Dark Holy Elf

Sure, in the same sense that Arundel is an 'imperial character'. We both know what is actually being debated here, though. It can't be the only explanation when I've already provided another one. Edelgard doesn't have full control of her relationship with Arundel at that point; it's entirely reasonable that Metodey's there on Thales' orders, not Edelgard's own. It'd be naive to think Thales didn't have a major hand in the mission; why is it hard to believe that he'd have one of his own in a commanding position? Of the two, who do you think is more likely to be interested in acquiring Crest stones? I don't believe anything ever links Edelgard or Hubert to them directly; you can't say the same of Thales. (e.g. CF Chapter 17, where Hubert sees a Crest stone being used and his first guess is that it's Thales' work, before concluding it's something simpler.) So that he could do Thales' dirty work under the mantle of the Imperial Army, of course. You don't see how this benefits Thales? Arundel's a big deal in the Empire, but ultimately the military answers to the Minister of Military Affairs and the Emperor, not him. Having one of his loyalists installed as a commander is good sense. And yes, you're damn right it'd be unpopular with the military themselves. Nothing in the game contradicts this; in fact the fact that Bergleiz dislikes Arundel would seem to support it. You think that because you're set on this theory that Metodey is just an ordinary imperial soldier. if your theory were correct, then I agree it would make zero sense to use Metodey there... and yet the writers chose to, despite having the option of Pallardo for the role. By contrast, if my theory is correct, then the writers' decision to use Metodey there makes perfect sense: they're providing more breadcrumbs that he's an Agarthan toady, not an ordinary imperial soldier. Again, I will restate: if the writers thought of Metodey the way you do - that he's a normal imperial soldier - his role in CS and Hopes would have been totally different. Why is that, if he's not tied to the Agarthans? Surely Edelgard needs soldiers just as badly in Hopes as in Houses.

Which makes him a mercenary, right? At best you're proving he's leading a double life as a soldier and mercenary. By the way, most armies don't allow you to do this, and I'd assume the imperial army is no different. Surely his actions in Cindered Shadows would be grounds for a dishonourable discharge. Yet Metodey is remarkably unafraid of that. Why? Sure, he's about to say "all will know I am the Empire's new general" or something like that. Because Thales is gonna appoint him as one. If he were already a normal imperial soldier, the line wouldn't make sense, honestly. His excitement about it suggests that whatever "Empire's..." position he holds is one that either he does not hold yet, or is not public yet. There is something special planned for him, at least he thinks so. "He must have been" is pretty weak. It's also possible he was never an imperial soldier until Thales plopped him into the position sometime in the few months between Chapter 3 of Scarlet Blaze and Chapter 11 of White Clouds. For the second part... what do you expect him to say? "I'm a mercenary hired by Volkhard von Arundel and answer only to him, and my job is to bring the Crest stones to him against the wishes of the Emperor if necessary"? Of course he's going to act the part of an Imperial soldier. If this were his only appearance, I agree that Occam's razor would suggest he is one, but literally every other appearance he has points to him being something else. If the point of him was to be a normal imperial soldier, why not show him in your camp in Scarlet Blaze, or as a boss during Part 1 of Golden Wildfire, working under Ferdinand? Why have him appear in Cindered Shadows at all? He's clearly not one, no matter how much you wish he were. But Metodey being over-the-top evil is inconsistent with how Edelgard's other loyal followers are characterized. Consider Randolph and Ladislava (as well as Hubert and any other unrecruited Eagles). The characterization of all these characters (i.e. Ladisalva/Randolph sympathetic, Metodey not) is quite consistent across routes, not just Crimson Flower. I agree that this characterization seems to not make sense... until you realize it's because the point is that he's not one of Edelgard's at all. And both Cindered Shadows and Hopes back this up. This is a tangent, but hard disagree on this one! Alois worships the ground Jeralt walks on, and is willing to join Jeralt's kid against Rhea based on Houses, just out of loyalty to the man. Alois joining Jeralt's Mercenaries in a timeline where Jeralt both lives and stays away from the Church is incredibly logical to me. If they'd wanted him to be more loyal to Rhea than Jeralt, it would have been trivial to make him like Catherine and not be recruitable on CF.

That looks like it's from the Fire Emblem wiki. If you'd literally just let your eyes scan down to the line below, you'd see this: "My employer", not "the military" or "the Empire". He's a mercenary. Or at best some strange special ops agent getting special pay from someone in the Empire, rather than through Military Affairs. Such as, perhaps, the regent. Also present in Cindered Shadows is this line, which from context is referring to Metodey: What context do you think this Abyss dweller has seen Metodey in before? If he was wearing the uniform of an Imperial soldier, I'd imagine the speaker would have mentioned that; it's an important detail! By omission, we can assume that Metodey did his town-slaughtering as a mercenary/bandit. One last thing from Cindered Shadows: it's possible to have Edelgard fight Metodey. If you do, Metodey recognizes her and laughs. A regular Imperial soldier in this situation would either explain himself or surrender/flee rather than fight the heir to the throne, surely. His reaction suggests that he feels zero loyalty to her, either because they're completely disconnected (which they're not) or because he feels he has the protection of someone above her. As for "he was just following orders"... well, whose orders? Mercenaries follow orders for coin. I don't think that line rules out his employer being Thales even the slightest bit. I'll let you dig up the line if so; I don't recall this. Regardless, let's suppose you're right. If he was an Imperial soldier originally, why would he have been kicked out in Hopes, but not in Houses? The key difference is that Arundel and Aegir no longer hold power in the Empire. This leaves me to conclude that the most likely explanation is that he had a tie to one of them. Arundel seems more likely to me, given that he's seen specifically advancing the slitherer agenda in this appearance, and that'd be a strange coincidence.

Path of Radiance: A lot of class features conspire to make them really good. Bow weakness is only 2x in this game, and the wind weakness might as well not exist given the low might of such tomes. There's a lot of terrain for fliers to ignore, but very little that grants much evade (never more than 10?). Combat canter rules, of course. But on top of that, both fliers have great stats: high speed and nothing else bad, and lances are a solid weapon in this game. I don't think Marcia is the best unit in the game but there's a case for it, and Tanith is real great too. Shadow Dragon/New Mystery: I normally abstain on these games because I haven't played either in close to a decade. Still, in my four playthroughs of the games I consistently found Pegasus Knight to be one of the greatest classes, and was basically always at or near the reclass limit for them. Particularly in New Mystery, it felt like there was a lot of maps which rewarded them. And of course one of them wields the Wing Spear. Blazing Blade: Florina might be the best unit in the game not named Marcus, and Fiora is certainly very solid too. They have good combat, good supports, and obviously the mobility rules; lots of maps where it helps. Only 2x bow weakness is also very nice; they can fly off on their own and tank their weakness pretty easily. Sacred Stones: Vanessa might be the best unit in the game not named Seth, and Tana is certainly very solid too. They have good combat, good supports, and obviously the mobility rules; lots of map where it helps. 3x bow weakness, though, and Syrene is fairly dire although I'm not inclined to count that too strongly. Wyvern Knight is a better promotion than Pegasus which helps the units a bit, but I dunno if I feel like giving Pegasus Knight credit for that! Three Houses: Odd case. Pegasus Knight is bonkers, Falcon Knight is good in theory but outclassed in practice. As others have mentioned, Pegasus Knight is the best intermediate class and I don't think it's that close. One of two classes with 6+ move, good speed, avoid+10, canter, dismount to basically negate any weaknesses the class might have. On top of that it gives a great mastery skill, dodging a problem which Cavalier has. The class is so good it has a niche in Advanced tier (Wyvern doesn't get Avo+10), but... it's not a great option then outside one particular hyper-specialized build. Falcon Knight is mostly inferior to Wyvern Lord for a few reasons, though (one of which is that many pegasi like to go Wyvern Rider so they get axe training anyway). The other weakness the class has is its limited battalions; in particular you only have one until Chapter 8 so you can't just spam the class without drawbacks until then. Genealogy: Flight is good but they are a bit shaky on stats. Fee can have a pretty kill skillset and they do make good use of various weapons. Fates: Pegasus Knights are solid but well-enough balanced here, their stats are clearly worse than Spear Master for instance. They have good skills and sometimes the mobility is real good. Staves are also neat. Awakening: Similar to the above, but a bit worse. The pegasus knights have solid combat but the combination of ambush spawns with stupidly overforged weapons mean they run the risk of being one-shotted later. They have good skills and sometimes the mobility is real good. Radiant Dawn: The pegasus knights are still good but they all have availability woes, none of them have super stats, and the crossbow weakness is pretty nasty. On the other hand they do have canto. The availability alone makes this one of their weaker outings, but they're still useful! Binding Blade: Compared to the other GBA games the combat is pretty clearly weaker; Shanna is decent but the strength is shaky and Thea's stats are quite dire in NM, though competent in HM; lances are also weaker in that game. 3x bow weakness too. They're still very useful, but this is definitely one of their weaker outings.

Yeah Metodey is a mercenary, not an Imperial soldier; as mentioned some of his appearances have him actively fighting the Empire (e.g. Scarlet Blaze Chapter 12). It's interesting to wonder what he's doing there in Chapter 11. Is Edelgard so hard-up for mercenaries that she chose one with such a bad reputation? We can't rule it out, but I think on balance it's more likely that he's Thales's goon. This was true even before Hopes showed him working for the Slitherers specifically. The first part is very true. And honestly her war crime count is pretty low in CF too, outside the one big one. I'm not sure I'd consider her insane in either route, as much as... filled with (self-)righteous fury. I do feel she behaves pretty similarly when opposed: I could quote lines like "Edelgard von Hresvelg will suffer a death beyond her greatest imagining" and leave all but most dedicated fans guessing whether it's from Houses or Hopes. Completely agree with your second paragraph and the rest of your post.

Can you cite what lines you are thinking of? Regardless, Rhea did control Fodlan, and see vikingsfan92 for the relevant point about Nemesis. There have been some pretty awful freedom fighters in our world, too! Strongly disagree there; she's not even on AM at all, and frankly she's woefully under-utilized even on "her" route. Regardless, White Clouds + CF + the little bit at the end of VW/SS is the source of her characterization, and personally I find it quite consistent. Since you obviously disagree, what does she do in CF that you find inconsistent with her characterization elsewhere, and why do you find it inconsistent? (And I'll remind you that her characterization elsewhere includes her executing people in anger when she feels they are defying her. So for me, I can't help but view everything she does in CF as flowing naturally from what she did in White Clouds + the opening video.) I mean Rhea spends every war phase locked in a cell, which tends to reduce one's ability to commit crimes during said war. Rhea is committing plenty of things I would consider to be crimes before then, though, such as executing Christophe for a crime she knows he did not commit. She's not a paragon of virtue on any route. I also think you're comically exaggerating Edelgard's war crime count; hers is not the faction which threatens torture, uses false surrenders, or calls for mass execution of captured soldiers, even on non-CF. I'll grant you demonic beasts, though it's pretty unclear exactly what the nature of the ones you face as enemies in non-CF are, i.e. how were they made and who is responsible. It'd be all guesswork on both our parts, and I suspect our guesses will line up with our pre-existing opinions on the characters. That said: neither the player's faction nor the highly sympathetic characters who fight in the Imperial faction (e.g Dorothea, Caspar, etc.) pay them any mind, so I'm not inclined to weight them very heavily for this conversation either.

Yep, this. Wilhelm characterizes it as something based on far more mundane concerns than the tale of good vs. evil that propaganda would have it be. And he was an enemy of Nemesis. For this reason, I think his account, while still far from perfect (people do occasionally have self-serving reasons to speak well of their enemies), is probably more trustworthy than anything else we get in the game. Crimson Flower doesn't say "Nemesis was a good guy" and it certainly doesn't paint Rhea as "evil for the sake of it". The game obviously wants you to find every non-Agarthan significant player in the game to be morally grey at worst, and that certainly includes Rhea. Even using purely CF she's a tragic figure who has the respect of characters who are painted sympathetically like Flayn, Seteth (mostly), and Dimitri. And her most heinous act is one borne out of desperation and feelings of betrayal rather than malice.

I think this is definitely fair to bring up, but for me personally, I only ever play on Classic Mode, and I just don't really have a great sense of how my playstyle and priorities would change on Casual. So my comments/ratings will continue to assume Classic, not out of any argument for the mode's superiority but because it's all I feel qualified to talk about. I've had it happen so obviously that colours my views. That said as someone who likes dodgetanks in GBA, I don't really find the Binding Blade dancers that great at it... they join with 31 avo but only level up relatively slowly, so this doesn't improve that fast, and I personally find them impractical to build supports for (though I'll acknowledge if you draw out maps, you can do it if you want). And while, sure, a steel axe will probably have 25-30 displayed hit and will usually miss, it will also probably one-hit-kill and I don't really like the idea of banking on an ~85% chance to not die. I really never found any time I wanted to use my dancer to draw hits in that game.

One interesting thing about dancers is that they have relatively low move, but they make such good use of move boosts (since it effectively amounts to a move boost for whoever they dance for, too) that I tend to assume they will receive them. 1. Genealogy of the Holy War: Being able to refresh four units is very good. The only knock on them is that 6 move isn't very good in this game, but the Leg Ring is +3 so that fixes that. Pretty good availability, especially in gen 2. 2. Engage: Seadall can only refresh one, but the concentration of power due to emblems and his free access to canter make him exceptionally good anyway. 3. Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn: Like Sylvia/Lene/Laylea, Rafiel has four-person refresh, which is very good, although he pays for it with even lower base move and being made of paper. The other two dancers can refresh less (though Reyson can reach four if you give up a turn or two to use items). Throw in availability concerns in a blender and I have a hard time separating these two games, but they're around here. 4. Three Houses: Unlike FE4 and Tellius, it's only a one-person dance. Unlike Engage, they don't have canter... sure, I always give them Fetters of Dromi, but that means someone else isn't using it, which is obviously a negative. But beyond that, extremely good. Still, they have more move than the average dancer, and potentially ridiculous durability by dancer standards... sword avoid +20 can lead to some big avoid numbers, letting them draw in dangerous foes without using an action. They can also provide linked attacks which is very nice. 5. Fates: Azura can only refresh one unit, and doesn't have canter. But she has great availability, and her dance shenanigans feel particularly useful in this game, due to Shelter and the lack of other movement options. She really enables some strategies you otherwise don't have. 6. Blazing Blade: While it's similar enough to Sacred Stones, with about half a game's availability and one-person refresh, the access to rings is a nice little boon. +10 def/res can make someone a super-tank for one turn, like a better Impregnable Wall. 7. Sacred Stones: Your bog standard, generic dancer. Can take one hit in a pinch, dances for one person, nothing shiny but certainly effective. 8. Binding Blade: So one thing worth emphasizing is that dancers have low durability, but it usually doesn't matter much due to their role. When does it matter? The games with ambush spawns. In these games, unless you memorize all ambush spawns (which is not how I'd rate things), you run the risk of getting your dancer killed, and the dancers in this game are absolutely squishy enough for that to be a risk. Not too often, and they are certainly worth deploying, but it's still a negative that the games above don't have. 9. Awakening: Agree with others that this is the pretty clear low point for dancers, and the only one I sometimes bench even when playing "optimally". The ambush spawn thing I mentioned in BB returns with an absolute vengeance here.

Thief movement is nice, but on the vast majority of maps, +2 move is better (only Chapter 14 has enough terrain in Azure Moon to tilt this). And +2 move and canter? That's definitely significantly better IMO. If you're using Battalion Vantage+Wrath, then Grappler's combat is far worse than Paladin's for Dimitri. Killing in one crit is what matters, and Grappler doesn't have -faire on a killer weapon with more than 3 might. Even if you're not using this build, Paladin Dimitri isn't failing to kill anything unless he's strength-screwed. Brave Lance off his strength is monstrous, and of course there's Atrocity. Grappler does have slightly higher avoid, I'll grant you that; I just don't think it's nearly enough weighed against all Paladin's other advantages. Dimitri has to be a Lord in Chapter 13 making class debates moot for him there, but if he could be a wyvern, that'd surely be his best class there. Being a flier lets you easily move where you need and avoid enemies you aren't ready for yet. There's a reason Verdant Wind has the easiest version of that map by all accounts.

It's Dimitri's best Advanced class by a fair bit, aside from Wyvern, but AM has limited flying battalions. It's also a strong consideration for Seteth (same as Ferdinand/Sylvain), Hubert and Lorenz (Frozen Lance one-shots for much of Advanced tier, particularly in Hubert's case), and Dedue/Bernadetta (particularly if you're a bigger fan of Vengeance in this tier than I am). 8 move + can use ground battalions is pretty nice, and while its effect on speed is unfortunate, there are a bunch of 3H characters who don't really care about speed. It is a bad class for speed-focused units like Petra or Catherine, certainly, but I'd still rank it an above average class within its tier. Among physical classes, only the fliers and bow classes are ahead IMO. Cavalier would be similar, its only real problem is that you often just want mastery skills from Intermediate. Cav absolutely crushes e.g. Brigand or Mercenary if you've already got the masteries you want and are just waiting for 20, though. Anyway, here we go: 1. Path of Radiance: Yeah, not much question here. Titania is the best unit in the game, Oscar/Kieran are top five. Super canter, knight ward, choosing your weapon on promo (E axes are really good in this game thanks to forgeable steel and hand axes being E), there's a lot to like about this class. 2. The GBA games: Honestly they're close enough that I'm gonna talk about them together. 8 move, javelins (or hand axes in Blazing's case, but they're functionally similar), two weapons before promotion, non-combat canter and great rescue capabilities. Just an all-around stellar class. For specifics, Seth is more dominant than any other Paladin, but Forde and Kyle are a bit underwhelming by the standards of Christmas Cavs. Marcus6 isn't quite as dominant as Marcus7/Seth, but Zealot and Percival are great followups and Alance are two of the best units all game long. I don't feel like adjudicating the difference. 3. Genealogy of the Holy War: The game is Horse Emblem, but honestly I still think they managed to balance the class a bit better. Paladins are usually clearly worse statistically than their infantry competition (compare Alec and Ayra), at least. Still better units of course. Ares is really good but not Marcus7/Seth/Titania good. Sigurd I'm counting as a lord instead of a paladin. As mentioned above, considering Sigurd one alone would likely move this class up notably. 4. Fates: Cavalier gets Elbow Room, +3 damage which is almost always active, and Shelter, which is extremely valuable in a number of situations. Plus Xander's really good, y'know? The lower overall stats in some key areas mean they aren't as dominant as in the above games, but they're still very good 5. Three Houses: Certainly a less impressive showing by the standards of games with combat canter. But combat canter still rules. I strongly disagree that Stride devalues cavalry; in my mind it increases the value of canter, since +5 move on a brigand is often just overkill move, but +5 move on a cavalier can not only reach almost anything, but get to where you need to be after. 6. Radiant Dawn: Titania is still good, and the rest at least have canter though none are super-impressive statistically. As a class the ledges and indoor penalties really do rein in their mobility. Frankly they all have problems as units outside Titania and Oscar. 7. Awakening: While similar to Fates at base, the lack of Elbow Room or Shelter makes them notably worse. The units who start in the class aren't bad (understatement in the case of Frederick, if he counts) and I've certainly even reclassed others to get here (particularly Chrom), so it's probably still an above average class overall, but it doesn't stand out nearly as much without canter or key skills. 8. Echoes: They're solid enough. They have move, and lance access means Ridersbane which is handy (though two other classes have this too). Nothing wonderful past that, but there is a case they're actually a below average class this time! 9. Engage: Only +1 move over infantry, no innate canter, only one weapon. They're not trash but I confidently feel they're a below average class in this game, the only game I feel that way about.

Honestly I think Engage has one of my favourite Maddening modes in the series, I associate almost all of them as having at least one change I strongly dislike (e.g. reinforcements which act immediately) but I have no complaints here. Personally I think bosses immuning their weakness is a good thing if you're going to make weaknesses as impactful as 3x might, and them being immune to break is just outright good because otherwise they'd be braindead easy to cheese. Engage Maddening has some of the most fun bosses in the series IMO, they're still not super tough but they're enjoyable and frequently a good test, at least until some of the emblem nonsense spins out of control in the second half of the game.

Lindon is decent. You might have space for him and "has a competent magic stat" is a good place to be for a filler unit, especially with the synergy staff proficiency has with some classes. He doesn't really do anything to stand out, though. I guess you can try to build around his crit since that's his unique perk, but unfortunately magic options just don't have much crit in this game, and physical Lindon has the same bases as Rosado, three levels and two and a half maps (realistically more) later with worse growths across the board, so no thanks. But he can do any magic build competently. 5/10.

Requiring full HP is not an onerous requirement (certainly less onerous than requiring low HP, but people can and do make that work without too much difficulty), but honestly Snowfire's response is better than anything I would have formulated. Hero is generally considered pretty good. If you disagree then sure, knock the class down a bit and that might knock Goldmary down a point because she loses one possible build, but it's still very valid to shift her to other classes like Great Knight (if maxing her defence), Warrior, or Wyvern, so it's not a huge loss for the purpose of this thread. It's been some time so correct me if I'm wrong, but in virtually every ranking of the emblems I've seen (both on Serenes and elsewhere), Roy is in the bottom half, and he's commonly in the bottom third (along with Marth, Celica, and Leif). Roy is still good, it's just that many other emblems are even better. So in relative terms I would consider Roy to be one of the less-demanded emblems.

Missed Rosado. He's probably a 4/10, just kinda iffy bases and even if you want to run him as wyvern he really wants a reclass. Now, to be fair, lots of people want a reclass, but for someone marginal like him (joining after a lot of people with better combat) it does hurt a bit. 6/10 for Goldmary, could maybe be argued slightly higher. She's generally okay (str/spd are kinda average) but has two notable advantages. One, Hero is pretty cool, and she gets Brave Assist almost immediately, no seals required. The other is that she's probably the most durable unit in the game, both due to her free +20 avoid against most enemies and her game-best defence. Of course anyone can be durable with Ike, so there's only so far I'm willing to hype this, but I still have good memories of my first run where I didn't notice an Entrap chain in Chapter 25 and Goldmary just tanked/dodged everything Maddening could throw at her, that was fun. She works well with lower-demanded emblems like Marth or Roy to raise her offence, since her durability won't need help.

Personally I find healing quite useful. I'm sure you can adapt your playstyle to not needing it, but conversely I can adapt (have adapted?) my playstyle to rarely if ever needing certain tools that you value - that's just the nature of 3H, it's a beautifully flexible game. To elaborate on my view: negating damage with a gambit takes an action, so unless you can negate quite a bit of damage, it's not coming out ahead of healing in terms of action economy. Additionally, setting a damage-negating gambit requires giving up another useful gambit option, and often giving up stats as well, and the move can only be used at range 1. Meanwhile, units with access to healing have access to it without any loss of stats or other options, and can use it at range 10+. Tactically, healing allows you to react to, instead of predict, enemy actions, and this is useful both in terms of ease of play and general flexibility. Let's say there's an archer who you don't plan to kill this turn who will be able to attack at least one of your units on enemy phase. If you target a unit with Impregnable Wall, enemies will ignore them if they have other options, so the only strategy is to have the wall'd unit be the only one (without Stealth) in the archer's range. By comparison, if you just heal after the archer attacks, you can leave as many units in range of that archer as you want (provided none of them can be killed in one hit). Impregnable Wall is an option, but it eliminates counterattack damage; healing afterwards does not have this drawback. I generally find it very useful to bait in enemies with units who can survive them and counter, since it draws enemies to bad positions, lets me kill some with counters, and those I don't kill will be weakened and easily killed by flexible options (including weaker damage sources like spells and Curved Shot) next turn. In addition to its enemy phase applications, healing's also nice for using on units who kill via doubling (who tend to take counters at least sometimes) and topping up Ferdinand/Dimitri. Magical units with access to Physic rate significantly higher than comparable units who don't (I just averaged 'em up, it's over a 1.5-point gap between their averages and that's with me being nice and not counting Lorenz or Anna toward Team No-Physic), with only Lysithea really bucking this trend and only because she brings so much else to the table. It's obvious a lot of people value it as a spell option. That's certainly fair. Having 7-8 move and flight really limits how bad a unit can be. And I'll happily concede your build is better than the one I did back when I tried it last - I went through Wyvern Rider and honestly, I think that's part of why I was less impressed, because as a Wyvern Rider she still has no faith access and she often isn't able to kill armours at range. Bolt Axe is 15 weight, Wyvern Rider is 17 speed + 20ish str = 6 AS = not doubling much, while Wyvern Lord gets that nice base speed boost and will be at least 24 + 25ish str = 14 AS, which has a much easier time combined with any subsequent levels and bullheads, etc. Valkyrie's just a better place to be in Advanced, because Wind can actually double even with the class's bad speed. It also helps the build's struggles with accuracy.

Compared to most of those characters, the big thing is concentration of resources. Aside from exp I guess (which falls off quickly if you try to focus it), GBA units don't really compete over that much with each other. Choosing to bench Ninian will still lower your total gain of exp, of course, but having done it, it's not a huge difference. By comparison, Engage introduces emblems which are a massively important resource and there are only so many to go around. Seadall adding one to your "number of emblem unit turns" is a big deal, even moreso when it's actually "number of engaged unit turns" which can be even more valuable. Another factor is that the non-dancer unit curve in Engage is pretty narrow. Tethys can't be the best unit in SS because Seth exists. But no nobody in Engage is anywhere near Seth-level good. Whoever the best non-dancer is (I'd say it's Ivy?), they have flaws and/or aren't that amazing without being given some major resources. So Seadall ends up at the top of his own game's rankings both because he's somewhat better than a Tethys (due to the previous paragraph) but also because he doesn't compete with a Seth. I do think some of the four-unit dancers have a case to be better than Seadall. The big one I might suggest is Lene/Laylea. Like Engage, no other unit is crazy dominant in FE4 gen 2 (unlike gen 1, which has Sigurd) and obviously four-person dance is a big deal. But there are valid reasons to prefer Seadall even then.

Seadall is the best unit in Engage, and I think it's very clear that this is true. Sure, dancers are always good, but has any dancer ever inarguably been the best unit in the game before? Emblem rings make a big difference here (which are part of the reason he's so good, there's nothing analogous in previous games). You only have so many really good ones, so Seadall not even remotely needing one is a huge boon. Beyond that... he can canter (might as well be a free skill for him, he starts with the SP for it), he can take a hit if you need him to for some reason, he can dance for engaged characters who are typically more effective and also increases your uses of dominant tools like Dreadful Aura and AOE staff use. The only negative things to say about him is he can't dance for four people (well without Byleth. Don't give him Byleth) and I guess his availability could be better. But he is the obvious no-brainer "use him, your team will be measurably worse if you don't" unit in Engage.

I'm not surprised, myself. Marianne impressing players more than Annette is common, though admittedly the gap is closer considering Azure Moon only. Marianne doesn't do quite as much damage, true, but she still one-shots the large majority of enemies for much of the game, and unlike Wyvern Annette she has access to Physic, which the original poster cited as a significant point in her favour (I would agree). She can also use Caduceus or Thyrsus to raise her attack and threat range (the original poster said those staves were on other units by default, but trading is still possible). Finally, she has better accuracy by a significant amount - her combat arts have hit bonuses, her weapons are more accurate, she has Uncanny Blow as per the original poster's notes, and she has access to ground battalions. I know you got around the accuracy point with your own build which goes through Valkyrie, but that does make Annette's build quite expensive, since you'll need both good flying and good riding ranks (as well as the otherwise useless C lances for Annette). In general I fall somewhere between you and Mir on this one (if closer to you); I definitely agree with you that Gremory/Warlock Annette is a waste of her talents; she does not have the ranged options to do well in a 4-5 move class, nor does she have spells which benefit a lot from double uses like Lysithea does. On the other hand I found Wyvern Annette an interesting but ultimately middling build when I tried it. I feel Dark Knight is probably the happy medium, here; she'd have almost the same damage (higher magic offsetting loss of Axefaire), doesn't monopolize Nuvelle Fliers (and can use various ground battalions), can heal, and is lighter on training due to no required flying rank (and Valkyrie will naturally work toward Dark Knight's riding). (Also, to with regards to your last quoted sentence: while not many magic units can one-shot enemies on AM endgame, quite a number can two-shot them with Magic Bow Hunter's Volley or Aura Knuckles, both builds I found more impressive than Wyvern Annette myself. In the case of Sniper I find the range flexibility very useful, in the case of War Cleric the unit maintains spell access. Granted, Wyvern does have more move and canter so I can certainly see room for argument.)

Missed a rating for Merrin, so I'll do it here I suppose. Merrin's good, able to do any physical build well. The comparison with Kagetsu is an obvious one to make given their similar join times and stat builds; Merrin gives up 2 strength and 2 defence in exchange for a better personal (in no small part because it helps her teammates who might need it more than her). This is probably a losing trade? But not by enough to change the score. 8/10. (This is a Merrin rating, do not count this for this thread.) Hortensia I find very difficult to rate and I might just abstain. She's the best at what she does, but on my replay when I didn't use her I found that there are definitely advantages to not having a pure staff-user. Is it better to have Hortensia with +1 range and saving you the odd staff use, or is it better to use a unit with good combat who can also use staves (and Micaiah means this could be almost anyone)... a team with multiple such units is better set up for turns where all you need is combat while still being able to handle heavy staff use if needed. To be fair Hortensia does have a shadow of combat herself thanks to flight and speed even if she tends to be short of one-rounding much of anything thanks to iffy magic and a max B in tomes. I think she probably belongs on the "best" team, but it's less of a slam-dunk compared to what I expected from my first playthrough.

Congrats. For what it's worth the horror stories about needing the whole team to down an enemy definitely aren't correct; even in the earlygame on NG, regular enemies should never ever need more than three attacks to kill and honestly two is usually possible if the second hit is Tempest Lance or a similarly powerful attack. If you ever try NG you might want to take a look at suggested earlygame investments for characters, but it's totally fair if you don't want to! Wyvern Lord Byleth is absolutely capable of ORKOs, in fact. Level 40 Wyvern Lord Byleth has around 38 str and 31 spd. Str+2, Death Blow, Axefaire, their personal, and Cichol Wyverns or Galatea Pegasus yield 60 base attack. 73 with Brave Axe+, 77 with Silver+, 111 with Axe of Zoltan hitting weakness. This can one-round every enemy on Azure Moon endgame (either by doubling or by a brave) except the demonic beasts and the two War Masters who have battalions, which are very difficult enemies to ORKO generally. The only caveat is that Darting Blow or another source of speed is needed to double the mages / snipers / mortal savants (but you can kill all of those with brave even if you miss the double). This is without any strength boosters, Dimitri link, or a Flayn adjutant for +3. Earlier maps have easier thresholds to reach (and cooking as well). Wyvern Lord is definitely Byleth's best class IMO. You don't get crit but Byleth shouldn't need crits to kill things, +2 move and flight on War Master are just too much. The only reason to consider a non-wyvern class for Byleth if you're optimizing is because you have too many other physical fliers already and the battalion situation is dire, and admittedly Azure Moon is the route this is most likely to be the case on. Yeah I hate them too. At this point I've played 3H enough times that I've memorized a lot of them, and divine pulse does help make them not as time-wasting as they are in, e.g., a blind and non-savestate playthrough of Binding Blade, but they're still frustrating design wise. Yeah I dunno what's up with Great Knight. It would have been a mediocre class with standard A/B+/C requires of most other master mounted classes, but they went for A/B+/B+ which is brutal. I think Mortal Savant has a use on maddening, but it's very much a "for units who benefit from sword magical combat arts but still want to use magic" which is a pretty short list (Lysithea, Dorothea, Marianne, Constance headline it). And even then it's a lateral choice, not an optimum one It's absolutely a trap class for units like Felix and Yuri whom you might think it's "intended" for. But then, most sword classes are kinda trap classes; I would consider Swordmaster possibly even worse than all the ones you listed, myself.

Interesting that you group Cyril as an adult; I personally thought he was incredibly kid-coded. He looks significantly smaller than any other male character pre-timeskip, and he's blunt and kinda socially unaware in a way kids often are. Interestingly, Lysithea and Cyril are shipped together relatively often by the fanbase (I think it's each character's most popular one? It's certainly Cyril's), and I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened to the two most obviously "kid-coded" characters. Though it's worth emphasizing, of course, that even in the real world people are varied; I've certainly taught 15-year-olds who look older than the average 18-year old. Or who act more mature. Or, in rarer cases, both. So with that in mind there's certainly no character age in 3H I consider to be unrealistic (with obvious magical exceptions like Rhea and Jeralt). Edelgard calls Petra "incredibly smart" in her introductions of the students to Byleth during Chapter 1. She's meant to be extremely competent at both martial and intellectual skills for her age, and I think players sometimes underestimate her a bit because of her weak grasp of Fodlan language. She brags a bit less than Lysithea perhaps, but I wouldn't exactly call her humble either; just look at her supports with Edelgard, Hubert, or Claude for examples of the fact that she knows she's good. If so it's incorrect, Flayn is 151 cm (relatively short) while Edelgard is 158 (slightly below average). That said dress, demeanor, and body shape all count for a lot when considering if a character looks like a child - nobody would ever mistake Edelgard or the even shorter Hilda as children, while thinking Flayn is a child at first glance seems reasonable to me. Yeah I think to varying degrees those characters you mention all come across as younger due to their personalities and in some cases design. Caspar in particular "acts" the youngest of any character IMO, though I definitely buy him as 16-17. FE3H at least is one of the more benign cases of it in the series. Cyril is the youngest character in the cast, and he's 20 by the time the game ends (Lysithea is 21). So it definitely manages to avoid the skeeviness of pairing certain young characters which Awakening and Fates both had.

I feel like Byleth is one of those game-warping emblems who can easily turn a unit into "instruct / Goddess Dance a lot". Obviously it's nice to have that on a unit who can otherwise contribute, because instruct isn't a useful action all the time (you simply don't always need hit extra stat benchmarks it enables). But most units can contribute otherwise. Just take your typical archer; with minimal investment they'll be able to kill fliers very easily, so if you slap Byleth on an archer they'll have access to instruct, Goddess Dance, and flier-murder as needed. This already sounds like a pretty good unit to me. Obviously it isn't the only use of Byleth - sages and dragons offer stiff competition in particular - but I would definitely consider it good. Also it definitely should be emphasized that if engaging is that important to a unit, they aren't going to be plinking daggers/arrows to build engage meter; they're gonna be grabbing emblem energy.

So I want to talk about how I used Panette on my first playthrough. I saw a monstrous strength stat and mediocre speed and said "you know, I bet if I stacked speed on her via Lyn she'd be really good". I was correct, Panette could double and 2HKO basically everything in the game, with surprisingly better hit than I'm used to from her archetype. Against particularly bulky foes I could try for crits which she's unusually good at too. Anyway she was great, easily one of the best physical units in the game. Like there's a case she's better than any competing Kagetsu build. And here's the thing: by all accounts, this is not the best use of Panette. Because Lyn is a huge boost for anyone, but Panette can also do incredible things with Ike or Leif if you build around crit instead of speed, so arguably it's a better use of your resources to do just that. Anyway she's very good. I'm trying to avoid giving many very high scores for this game and ultimately "very good physical combat" is relatively replaceable in this game (on my replay I did not use Panette and certainly built a Merrin and Kagetsu who killed things just as well). So I'll put her in what is now a three-way tie for best physical unit in Engage and give her 8/10.

Timerra's... okay. Her stat build isn't too great and she misses part 1. If you're using her, chances are it's to use Sandstorm, which is a neat ability because, combined with crit rate and Timerra's natural speed, it can give you at least moderately reliable RNG kills. It's better than Luna because (a) its damage is way higher and (b) Timerra is faster than Alcryst so she doubles/quads more easily. SumG's analysis is a good illustration of what Timerra can do. Perhaps the major thing I want to bring up is that the comparison between Timerra and other builds doesn't acknowledge the unique perks those other builds are bringing. Wyvern Knight has 6 move and can fly. Warrior is a backup unit with bows, which means both boosted damage against fliers and 3-range chain attacks. Hero has Brave Assist, so even if your Hero is a bit behind Timerra on direct offence, s/he will make up for it with better support of others. And all these classes have two weapon types which makes them less likely to be broken on enemy phase. Basically, despite its potential for good offence, Picket has similar woes to Swordmaster or Halberdier or Berserker, which are generally not recommended as class choices for most units in this game. (Halberdier is probably the best comparison, since like Picket it has a situational boost to offence.) Racket of Solm is a cool personal. Lowering enemy crit over such a large area is sneaky good IMO. Would be even better if the game lacked the draconic time crystal. It's interesting that some people find Timerra underwhelming on her starting map; maybe it's because I handed her a lighter lance immediately (c'mon, we've all seen characters join with too-heavy steel weapons in GBA and immediately grabbed them something lighter, right?) but I felt she was very good on her starting map, mostly because Ike is great. She can straight-up tank a brave axe from the bandit boss with it, something which nobody else on my team was close to. This isn't really a general comment on Timerra though because as soon as that map ends you can move Ike elsewhere if you choose, and even getting her extra exp on that map isn't terribly useful because you want to get her to Picket 5 ASAP and you have to wait for the map to end to promote her and get started on that anyway. 5/10. Definitely in that zone of "she'll be fine if you want to use her, but you won't really miss her if you don't". Kinda weird how badly her retainers outclass her but, to be fair, that says more about her retainers. That's a story for another day though.