LoneRecon400

Fun fact, you can make a chapter 25 Ryoma deal only 1 damage to a base Gunter and have hik three round him with a Brass Naginata, which with shelter dancing means you can make a base Gunter defeat Ryoma in one turn. As for how: Ryoma in that chapter has 54 Atk, 86 Avoid, and 55 HP / 23 Def. Base Gunther has 20 Def. By giving him a Wyvern Corrin Pair up, that's 25 with supportive. Rally Defense boosts that 29, and by using aura skills such as Lilly's poise, Rose's Thorns, Inspiration, and Demoiselle, that boosts it to 37 def. Add on a tonic and meal boosts it to 41 def. Using a brass naginata effectively increases it to 47 Def when considering weapon triangle. Finally, add on 3x Draco Shield and that'll total 53 Def. In terms of attack, Gunther has a base 17 strength. The pair up give him 22 Attack, while the Aura skills give him effectively 28 Attack. Elbow room, WTA, and Brass Naginata give him 36 Attack. Adding meals and tonic boost that to 40, while a steel shuriken debuffs effectively totals that to 42 Attack, enough to three round ryoma. In terms of hit, Gunther has a base of 136 Hit with Corrin. Adding on WTA, 2x adjacency bonus, and Heart Seeker equals 179 Hit. Adding on tonics and special dance, that's 189 Hit. Ryoma would have no chance to crit thanks +15 dodge from a bronze weapon and Pair up, so the only way he'd have a chance would be procing Rend Heaven 3 times in a row. And you could just heal him inbetween rounds, so there would be zero chance of death. If a base Gunther can do it, there should have no problems having someone like Xander or Camilla take him down on a playthrough with growths. To tie it back to the topic, Berserkers would actually be really useful aganist Ryoma with S Axes and the Dual Club, as that'd means they deal and take +4 / -8 damage from WTA him on top of getting +40 Hit and Avoid. Being able to one shot sword master with a dual club both in and out of Attack stance is pretty good niche I dont see being pulled up often in that chapter.

There are some things that are obvious to limit low manning, such as exp ceilings, but here's the ones I think are worth discussing: 1. Making Enemies hit hard, but not durable One of the main reasons why Low manning is successful is because juggernauts have the capability of one rounding more enemies on EP than most of the team can take down on PP. A good way of fixing that is by doing the above. FE12 is a good example of this, as Kris is one of the best units in the series, yet even they struggle to take on more than 2-3 enemies on Lunatic due to how hard the enemies hit. Not only does this prevent one man army situations, Enemies having relatively low defense also allows other units to one round enemies with a moderate amount of investment, rather than something like FE6 where even the best units struggle to one round without crits. 2. Give lower end units niches and ways to better themselves Earlygame units do not scale well compared to other units in a lot of games, such as with Radiant Dawn or Engage. This is typically the result of enemies scaling to the point where only through substantial amounts of investment are earlygame units like Edward or Alfred actually able to one round. The best way to fix this is by giving them relevant niches or ways to grow themselves better, which can be done a multitude of ways. You could go the weapon route, where you give a special weapon, but Edward shows why that's not a great option. It's better to go with the more interesting skill route, such as with paragon that expires once they hit a certain level or utility skill only they get such as Chain Guard or a Guaranteed doubling skill that halves defense. There's plenty of interesting options to be had here. 3. Design Maps maps to prevent it Most of the time the biggest thing that enables Juggernauting is just map design. Enemies need to be dangerous and / or cover each other ranges to really prevent low manning, which for a lot of fire emblems just isn't the case. Easy solutions to that would be to add enemies with defense penetrating attacks for certain units or a freeze staff that exclusively targets your strongest units. Also, Warp Staff has to go, at least on the hardest difficulties. The thing allows you to skip way too much combat with it. Tl;DR: Play Berwick Saga. It really shows how removing enemy phase really spices the gameplay and removes any thought of lowmanning.

How are you expected to gain four levels from silencer? Are you stacking supports or using a killer edge exclusively or something? Because else wise I'm not seeing how you gaining that much exp from >10% proc rate.

Average Effie's at 15/7 has got: HP 33.25 | Str 27.00 | Mag 0.00 | Skl 16.20 | Spd 16.25 | Lck 18.70 | Def 22.25 | Res 9.50 (Steel Shurikens speed debuffs doesn't decrease avoid, but they do innately lower avoid by 5.) That gives Effie 113 base Hit with Javelin, or 73 base Hit against Master Ninjas. That is low, but you can boost that to acceptable levels. Adding on Skill and Luk tonics boost that to 78 Hit. You can also bring Benny (Though Gunther and Xander also work) along for this chapter to block choke points since Ninjas won't attack him and instead focus on Effie, raising her hit to effectively 90 while next to him for +2.5 hit adjacency bonus. Add on 2 more adjacency supports and you can hit 95 hit, while inspiring song can bring that up to 99. So you can make the hit rates can be as good as you want them to be. The Terrain on this map is very beneficial for Effie because there's a lot of points where you can force ninjas to attack exclusively at two range through using either the dragon vein or a High Defense units. So you can filter out the regular enemies from the Ninja and get rid of the hardest enemies on the map pretty consistently on enemy phase. There is no chance of a Kaze dying in Chapter 20. A 15/11 Master Ninja Kaze would be able to tank every hit even if they did land. He averages: HP 32.60 | Str 18.20 | Mag 0.00 | Skl 24.40 | Spd 32.60 | Lck 10.20 | Def 12.00 | Res 26.50 Kaze is facing off against 165 (with 13 extra damage from Luna) raw magic damage from 5 mages and 93 Physical Damage from 3 falcos. With a Wyvern Pair up, defense tonic, Cooking, and terrain, he has effectively 19 Def and 29 Res. 165 - 29*5 = 20 magic Damage while 93 - 19*3 = 36 Damage. Keep in mind he's blocking every other attack with the shield gauge, so half of that damage just goes right out the window on top of the really crappy hit rates. Here's a practical demonstration of this. You could even boost his survivablity with Rallies and face no chance of death even with Luna. I would ask you how you expect to kill Hayoto on turn 1 with Attack Stance, but you made your intention not to continue clear, so I'll stop here. I will say though, this has been a fun discussion.

Are we really going to neglect to mention the other half other cast that does need investment to double? Half those units aren't even capable of one rounding without a pair up, and some units like Nyx and Peri don't even regularly double with steel weapons that they need to use to one round without forges. But clearly, I'm just promoting units like Xander and Leo too early. When did I ever imply anything even related to LTC? I raise Mozu up on the regular. That should should tell you how much I LTC. Doubling is generally better than ohkoing. It builds up more Shield gauge, relies less on using relatively low hit weapons like Steel, and scales much better than one shoting. The only case where one shoting preferable is in the presence of ranged enemies without a good 1-2 range option, which tend to be on the flimsy side. You make it sound it like there's a trade off between Effie one shoting and doubling or that she can't muscle through debuffs. On the chapters where that matters, you can easily have her one shot enemies even with debuffs. Take Chapter 17 for instance. A 15/7 GK Effie averages 27 Strength. Combined with a zerker pair up and forged javelin, that's enough to reach the 48 atk benchmark on one shotting the Chapter 17 Master ninjas even accounting for the Steel Shuriken Debuff. And you could replace the forge with Rally Strength if you really dislike forging. You could even have her one shot the dreaded Chapter 25 Ninjas on Enemy Phase, since Silver Shuriken doesn't debuff Strength. How the heck is Enemy Phase in Conquest bad? Those chapters you listed are some where Guard Stance shine the most. Those chapters encourage dispatching enemies proactively with gimmicks like Saizo, Illusions and the wind, which is what Guard Stance excels at. It allows units to reach the benchmark required to one round while making them substantially bulkier, allowing them to clear out sections of enemies by themselves. Take Chapter 20 for instance. Hayato is pretty scary with his Hexing Rod, and the wind makes it easy for units to end up in his range by accident. He's guarded by 3 Falco knights, 4 Onmyoji's, a Paired up Spearfighter for attack stance, and himself having Luna. Yet, Guard Stance is capable of making flimsy units like Kaze capable of taking all those units out pretty handily on turn 1, making the map much more approachable. If you think Enemy Phase is bad in Conquest, you really need to reevaluate it's potential.

Some things I feel worth sharing: Roy is definitely being underrated here. At max bond he gives +6 Str and can easily add on +2-3 in Str and Speed while engaged, which can really make a huge difference for a unit. He also has really good Synergy with Max Hold out, Unyielding ++, and Wrath. That guarantees 2-3 hits worth of survivability for a Wrath unit every turn. That's afford them the niche of being able to be place in attacking distance of ranged enemies without concern. I also think Ike's tanking capabilities are being a little understated. At max bond he effectively gives +12 Def. Combine that with Def +3, +2 from a tonic, and Ragnell, that's +22 Def on top of a 50% damage reduction. That's enough defense for enemy endgame snipers with silver bows to do mediocre damage aganist flyers. Combining that natural bulk with innate Wrath can be a rather asine combination in the right circumstance. Leif is the weakest ring, but he does have a use on a warrior. The thing about adaptability is that it doesn't care what weapon your using as long as you're using the right weapon type. So if you never raise his bond, you never have to worry about switching off your forged axe for any of his weapons. Him giving +10 Crit on backup units is useful for the Killer Axe. Celica has some really good Synergy with some skills. Echo, for example, can be used to activate Chain attacks twice against a enemy rather than once. It also can be used to apply draconic hex on two different enemies a turn, provided you're willing to inherit it. Holy Stance ++ can also be useful in taking down corrupted wyrms since they'll do some massive recoil damage to themselves. Probably need an HP tonic for that one though. Erika Is actually very good offensive wise. Her skills are plus Attack rather than any stats, meaning they bypass any defense. While engaged, it's not uncommon to deal +10 damage on the enemy that you otherwise would not have done damage to. Marth can be very good when combined with effective weapons. Even things like forged hammers have a hard time killing Great Knights, but with marth you can afford to slap on a Ike engraving on them and actually be able to one round them with a break. Lucina gives a 100% protection rate with Bonded Shield as a Qi adept. That alone is really good, since it can lead to nutty stuff like this The Fire Emblem also needs to be mentioned. As a Divine Dragon, their gauge can instantly be refilled as long as they they can quad with arts. That may sound intimidating, but it works on generals with +atk skills. Flashing fist is also a viable option with some Speed stacking. Being able to give +8 Spd and Def on top of a rally spectrum for all other stats on a good combat unit for 4 turns is already pretty great, but passively just handing +30 Hit and Avoid is extremely helpful with hitting dodgey enemies in the lategame and increasing the reliability of your own units.

No, Effie can double mid speed enemies like Spear Masters, Master of Arms, Blacksmiths, Basaras, Kinshi Knights, Heroes, Berserkers and Faceless. But of course, if you're not going to give her the readily available resources to do so she wouldn't be able to. Not many units in Conquest can regularly double without those things. It's not like Effie is the only recipient of these resources either. Every unit should get a good pair up that helps their stats, tonics to reach benchmarks for the map, and rallies later on to be able to one round easily. It's not like i'm saying she should be eating every speedwing or having Azura dance for her every turn for special dance. It's just the basic assumption of what every unit should get. How is it babying to feed a unit kills? Babying would imply you need to set up kills for them using other units. That Kinshi was able one round the majority of enemies on the map. That's not babying, that's just called being a useful unit who can move on to help the entire team without a drop of exp afterwards. It's not her like her Strength goes away if you don't give her a Strength Pair up. She can still one shot a decent chunk of enemies without one. And I don't understand how you can say Strength / Magic don't fall off with Attack Stance. Attack Stance is just straight up inferior to guard stance in most cases. Attack Stance does nothing to help with stats, does not build shield gauge, does not block enemy attack stance, can have shaky hit rates on the non supporting units (especially with brave weapons), and is difficult to utilize on Enemy Phase. The only thing Attack Stance really useful for is the accuracy bonus, which is more of a nice to have than anything actually necessary.

Some thoughts: Alear: While not great out of box, they can actually snowball pretty hard with Marth in the beginning. Get them to Bond 10 after Chapter 5 and they can use Mercurius for double EXP gain, which provides quite the notable bump in EXP gain. Makes them capable of getting Cantor faster than anyone else to better use their personal. And yeah, Engage + is the way to go with them. It effectively provides +8 Spd and Def with +4 to all the other stats after a kill on top of just passively providing +30 Hit and Avoid to every unit. It can be worth not even giving them a ring since engage + replaces the ring you're wearing. Diamant: I'd say the power you're seeing is more from Ike rather than Diamant. Ike just makes anyone incredible, as effectively giving +12 Def on top of a 50% damage reduction is already amazing. But adding a way to gain an additional +5 Def, naturally giving +4 Str, all on top of Wrath and Reposition? That's just insane. It was enough for Merrin on the first playthrough to have near 40 Defense while maintaining the speed to double the majority of enemies and had near 100 Crit rates on enemies. Who you put Emblems on makes a huge difference which is why... Ivy: ... You were not impressed with Ivy. People who praise her combat potential typically either give her Olwen or leave Lyn on her. Lyn is actually not bad choice, since her magic is good enough to one round the majority of enemies in the game, but it is a pretty in demand ring. Her Hit rates can be pretty easily fixed with engravings like Lief. Failing that you could always rely on Bond forger in the lategame. Kagatsu: It is indeed not worth putting Lyn on him. He really wants something that gives him strength so that he can cleanly one round in the lategame. Ike and Roy are a pretty good fit for him instead. Fogado: There's no reason to keep him in his personal class since it only gives him 13 Strength. Promoting him to warrior gives him 19 base Strength and 18 Speed, which is higher strength than what Kagatsu has while having the same speed growth at 70%. He can still use the Radiant Bow as well, as a maxed Ike Engraved Radiant Bow has a massive 81 Might. That's enough to one shot all but endgame Griffons even with 7 base magic. Pandreo: Yeah, his combat is pretty slept on since it doesn't look too impressive at base and requires losing staves to really utilize. He's probably the best combat mage in the game though. Panette: There's really no salvaging her speed since she starts slows and doesn't have a good growth. But having the highest Strength in the game gives her the opportunity to make good with brave weapons or utilizing Wrath + Vantage. Halberdier is also a really good option for her Merrin: A good way of using her would be to focus on being an Axe Wolf Knight. She has 9 build at base and 21 base speed, which lets her use a Lyn Engraved Killer Axe for only -1 Speed. That makes up for her low strength pretty well while still retaining a good 1-2 range option. Goldmary: I could see such a setup working well. But I gotta ask, was she able to double the really fast things like Heroes or Griffins in your experience? I'm unsure if she could or not. Saphir: One setup you could've tried is using her with Ike as a Halberdier. She can inherit Axe power +2 at base. Combine that with Urvan, she can swing around a 25 might weapon that requires nothing to forge and doesn't require any levels to hit 53 Atk.

+5 Caldablog requires 50 Silver, which is probably more than half the Silver that you get throughout entirety of the game. Even if you did have that much silver laying around, it'd be more conductive to spread around multiple forges rather than just one weapon that isn't even that good. It is unreasonable to forge it to that level. Accuracy is a non issue in the late game with the amount of ways it's adjustable, even ignoring Engravings. The Ch 24 Boss has the highest Avoid in the game for a boss at 134 Avoid. That may sound like a lot until you realize that +30 Avoid is coming from terrain. Hit them with a Corrin's Torrential Roar and that causes them to lose 70 Avoid. Add on Bond Forger, and that effectively drops their avoid to 34 Avoid. Accuracy is never concern that isn't fixable in the lategame. Crit Engravings should be reserved for Killer Weapons exclusively. With Wrath, it is feasible to hit near 100 crit rates on enemies, which is far stronger than just having higher might. Even without Wrath, the difference of +30 Crit from an actual Killer Weapon is quite noticeable and is pretty consistent on a Lyn Ring user. Getting to capped build is very unreasonable on most units, even with excessive grinding. Using Alear as an example, even after a 100 Levels in Swordmaster, they still wouldn't be able to reach to be able to their 12 build cap. And there are no places where you can grind for those kinda of levels in the main game. So no, there is no use cases where Caladbolg is anything more than a slighter stronger silver sword. Something much simpler like a +5 Steel Axe would be much better than it, considering it has 19 Might, 75 Hit, and 10 Weight while costing 45 less silver. Of course, Swordmasters couldn't use the thing. But I think that says a lot about the quality of the class.

The regular S Rank Sword ain't even anything special in this game. A +5 Steel Sword is 15 might and 6 weight, while the S Rank Sword has 15 might and 12 weight and is ridiculously expensive to forge. Like it costs 15 silver just to get it at 18 might at +3. That is pretty far worth it.

It provides +1 Mov and Strength in exchange -2 Def over Thief. It's a winning trade, though admittedly only a marginal one. On Maddening though, Wolf Knight becomes a lot more useful since it'll actually allow units to use terrain unlike Covert Units. Maddening enemies don't attack units if they have 0 hit, so covert bonuses aren't really that great becuase of it. And with enemies running 140-170 Hit in the lategame, being able to add +30 avoid while getting enemies to attack is pretty useful.

Asides from the obvious like putting Lyn, Corrin, and Eirika on killer weapons or wrath user: Michiah is best used on a Smash weapon on a dodgetank so that unit combat doesn't have to eat a counter when initiating and has a good weapon for enemy phase. Roy should go on to a hammer. Enemy generals get exponential bulkier to the point where most physical weapons weapons will deal 0 damage, so having a good weapon for them is quite useful. Ike should go on to a brave bow to help shore up their might since they're very weak otherwise and it's pretty hard to double fliers. Going from 12 to 21 effective might is a pretty big difference.

Here's some Maddening stats if you want to see them. Overall its been a smooth ride thus far. Only the Chapter 5 boss has been really noticeable, and he can be taken out with emblem skills pretty easily

Here's a practical demonstration of the offense of a hybrid grapple, while here are the dodge rates. (Didn't have Mocking Bird on hand, so had to change the battalions between the two. Still gives a good enough impression.) While it depends on the unit, some units don't even need the magic staff to one round. The hit rates also tend to be decent due to magic hit formula.

Those paladin in Chapter 12 have 49 hp and 24 defense. An level 24 Catherine War Monk Catherine averages around ~28 Strength. Adding +24 Atk (Death B., Empire Knights, fist faire, nimble combo, silver gauntlets), she has no trouble in being able to one round every generic on the map even without Nuvelle or the Relic. It's only really after ch 16 where every enemy is promoted do Fist users really need to start hitting more than two hits. I've gotten that setup completed by Chapter 14. Of course, it's heavily dependent on how many paralogues are completed and whether you do aux battles. I don't use aux battles, but I do pad out the number of battles by using Impregnable Wall and have placing units right in the middle of groups of enemies . It's not that difficult for units to keep up with magic damage even without a +7 mag atk battalion. It only takes 6 points of attack from the bishop class base (15) to be able to one round Warmasters with Aura Gauntlets and Mocking Bird. Those are some of the bulkiest enemies in the game that most units struggle to one round even with brave arts, yet they crumple pretty easily in the face of brave magic attacks. The thing about Grappler compared to Snipers is that they're not completely dependent on a singular weapon. Aura Gauntlets are really an off weapon that is for getting rid of fortress knights and very bulky late game enemies. Most of the time they're content using steel gauntlets.

At level 30 going from monk -> mage -> 15 archer -> Sniper, Mercedes averages 25 Magic. That's a pretty far cry from the 31 she needs to hit, even with an Annette support. Hubert, in comparison, averages only 28 Magic. And the paladins in CF are even bulkier, requiring 75 atk to one shot in chapter 14. Keep in mind he has around the same Magic as Lysithea does. It's just unfeasible for Magic Bow Snipers to one shot promoted enemies. Unless they're a flier, enemy HP is just too massive for that.

You don't need to have high speed to dodge tank. You can hit 90 avoid with mocking bird just off of base stats alone. It's not going to have amazing enemy phase combat, but having some is better than having none. There's not really point where regular magic bow units without HV are one rounding enemies that grapplers are not. Like you bring up ch 14 paladins, but a magic bow sniper would need 70 atk to one shot them without Hunter's Volley. That's well beyond the range of any Sniper, combat art or no. Grapplers can also master the class much faster since they can get involved in more than one player phase action a turn. A Hybrid grappler may cost most investment, but it's a lot more flexible in what it is able to do unlike magic bow Snipers, who only offer overkill player phase combat and are extremely reliant on getting lucky with arcane crystals to actually be of use.

I'd argue grapplers are more flexible with their positioning than snipers, since they can easily be built for dodgetanking so they don't have to really worry about being placed the range of even multiple enemies. You could just buy Aura Gauntlets from the pagan stature. Would not need to waste arcane crystals forging it or having to wait A+ Professor Ranking that way. The rank maybe steeper, but magic bow snipers are even worse off as they're pretty gimped until they master Hunter's Volley. Meanwhile grapplers are one rounding pretty consistently once they pick up deathblow and only really need Aura Gauntlets for fortress knights and very bulky endgame enemies. I'd argue the opposite actually. Range setups tend to be inferior to 1 range setups simply becuase they require more investment, often fail to one round in the late game, and have no enemy phase to speak of. Having the capability of being able to engage more than enemy on player phase is more valuable than overkill offense.

It's actually a lot lower than that. Those War Masters have 75 hp and 18 res, so you only need 43 attack to one round them. With Aura Gauntlets Might (2), FiF (3), Fiendish Blow (9), Leicester Dicers (16), Fistfaire (21), Magic Staff (24), and Mag +2 (26). That only makes them need 17 magic which they can get from certifying as a bishop. Yuri could even afford not to pick Mag +2 with his personal. While they also might not be able one round mortal savant with Aura Gauntlets, they can do so with using regular silver ones. Adding 28 attack (Faire, fif, Str +2, Death B., Dicer, Silver Gaunt, personal) they'd only 30 Str to one round 63 hp and 36 def, which they do reach on average at level 40. Overall, using Aura Gauntlets on a Grappler gives you an even better performance than a Magic bow sniper since they don't even have to have high magic or heavily reliant on a CA to pull off being a hybrid. Brawl Avoid +20 is also a good excuse to level faith, so it's not even that much of an ask. It's only needing Fiendish Blow that really holds back this setup.

As a fan of Conquest, here's how I look at these complaints: 1: Having less characters matters less when you have more customizable units. Take Effie for example. She can go through the usual route of one shotting things as a Great Knight, but she could instead go Maid after getting Sol from marrying Arthur to make her very durable on enemy phase with 1-2 range, or she could friendship Mozu to become a kinshi to deal with maps with a lot of terrain. How you choose to use a unit matters more than what units you choose to use. 2: I feel like this a result from playing maps too passively. Playing aggressively on maps makes the game a lot more engaging, as you really have to think ahead in terms of positioning for things like shelter dancing and makes you worry about reaching one rounding benchmarks. Ninja cave is a good example of this, as if you play slow, the map takes forever and makes it easy for you to lose out on Saizo. But if you play aggressively and find out ways of how to one round them, you can easily breeze through the map without having to worry about Saizo or Poison Strike. 3: Children can be disregarded without much loss. While they can become quite powerful, they tend to be only a nice bonus more than anything else. 4: The skill system requires being proactive about the enemy you are engaging, which already happen with the harder fire emblems due to stat variation. Most skills don't matter if you one round the enemy. RNG also doesn't matter that much as there's always a way to make enemies less threatening. Like Kaden in Ch 19 on Lunatic has 18 crit, so with a Bronze weapon and a pair up, a unit only needs 6 Luck to get a 0 Crit rate from them. Or you could've instead stacked enough defense to survive taking a Crit, stack enough speed where his only attack gets blocked by the dual gauage, or attack him at range with hunters knife, etc. I think the core of the issues you're having is trying to play without resetting at all, which results a lot of defensive play. I'd say try the game by approaching it with an aggressive strategy in mind for each map and see if it works out. Here's a good example of this.

Been playing through Conquest again, figured I might as well show an example of how getting Rally Speed in Chapter 19 works in practice.

Promoted 15/1 GK Effie averages 22 Strength and 13 Spd. With a Steel Lance, her personal, and C Lances, she reaches 36 atk. With a Speed Pair up, that's enough to one round the paired up Knights and Wyvern Riders in Ch 13, even considering weapon triangle disadvantage with the latter. By Chapter 22 she can rely on Rally Speed, so she can get a +Str Pair up instead of just a straight speed one. An average 15/12 GK Effie averages 31 Str and 19 Spd, so with a Berserker Pair up, Rally Speed, and Speed tonic, she reaches 54 Atk and 29 Spd with a Steel Lance. That's enough to one round the Paired Oni chieftains, who are substantially bulkier than anything on the map. (And she wouldn't even need the tonic if you allowed cooking.) So no, an early promoted Effie does not require Strength Tonics to be capable of one rounding all game long. I dont understand why you'd complain how Effie can't double some of the fastest enemies in conquest when it doesn't even benefit her. She can simply opt to one shot ninjas and kitsune instead, which is a lot more useful than just having overkill Speed. What investment? A Heart Seal is really the only thing of value lost, and an infinite amount of them become available 2 chapters later. The easiest way of beating that chapter has always been just setting up a juggernaught and having them solo sections of the map. This may take more thought and positioning, but it's not really that much different in terms of investment. For someone who's claiming that an early promoted effie does not consistently double midspeed enemies or one round, you sure aren't providing any numbers to actually proves that claim

Base Ch 16 Felica has 80 hit on the Beast Stone + Nine tails (Ch 16 Jakob also has 77 hit). Even if you miss, you could always just shelter them out of danger or kite them. And that's only if you want no investment. If you don't mind spending Dragon Vein Points,you could get Izana who has a 100 hit on them. Though I got to ask, how do you take care of them? 66 avoid is rough for anyone. Offensive staves are actually one of the more accurate options against them. What do you do for them instead?

When did I ever claim that averages don't matter? All I'm claiming is that units need less levels to hit benchmarks with cooking. Effie never really needs Strength tonics while doubling. And you're not applying a Speed Tonic every chapter. They should be only used when their relevant for benchmarks. You're not going to put a Speed Tonic on her for Ch 17, 19, and 25 for instance. You only reclass for the final level, so it's really 124 Hit for the most of it. Combined with the Skl/Luk Tonic plus Attack stance that's 139. Add on Inspiring song and that's 144. That's enough to consistently hit the normal beaststone and Rune Kitsune, and a freeze staff will even out the nine tails evasion. None of the enemies from the north even benefit from the gimmick. And It's easy enough to lure them to side near the mountain and have them make use of the terrain. The whole thing was just supposed an example anyways. If you don't want to it this way, you could just feed with attacks stance Anonymous Speed does. It's not that difficult to do. I only do it there because it enemies are pretty flimsy and it make a otherwise terrible map interesting, on top of benefiting giving a a pretty substantial boon for the rest for the campaign.

Beastbane only has 2x might multipler, not a 3x one. Ch 14 Kinshi has 32 HP and 14 Def as a Falco. That means with an HP And Def Tonic, they can take a hit from even the life and death beast rune kitsune and one shot them in return. And on two shelter units, you can get them to Level 5 pretty easily just having them kite and clear the the north side of the map.