Mjolnir

Availability has always been a factor in FE tier lists. What I'm trying to say is that Lorenz's overall availability is far better than Hubert's since Hubie is locked to 1.5 routes. Hubert is not recruitable on any playthrough that isn't Black Eagles and he leaves if you are in SS, which makes him dodgy to use in that route since he'll siphon exp from units you will keep the whole game if you use him. Again, I adore Hubert and think he's great but when you can only really use him for a bit less than .25 of the game, that needs to be taken that into account when ranking him. Again: if a god-tier character is only available for the last chapter, that doesn't make them the best character in the game due to their poor availability. Ofc Hubert's availability is better than that, but it's pretty poor for 3H. Again, you cannot look just at Lorenz's base magic stat. It's not great, sure, but in many of my runs he's not been THAT far behind Lysithea and Marianne. Also, when you take him through the Dark Mage / Bishop pathway he gets up to an extra 20% of damage on top due to Poison Strike. So when he's not one shoting (which he can do in Maddening if you get lucky with RNG and/or feed him some boosters), he's leaving enemies nearly dead (usually with 1hp with my current Lorenz). And a nearly dead enemy is basically a dead enemy. He is the only mage besides Hubert who makes any sense for the Dark Mage / Bishop classline and the only one that has access to poison strike. Ah yes, I was talking about Recover. My bad. I get them confused sometimes. But I do find that spell handy. And no, maybe "front lines" is not the best place even for Lorenz. Maybe it's more like "middle lines", right behind the big attackers where he can zip in and out or be pulled / swapped / danced out. I simply don't agree that he's the worst Mage. If anything, Annette is worse at actually being an attack mage. She's a better rallybot of course, and very fun to make into a WL but in an optimal play comparison of Lorenz having gone through Dark Mage / Bishop and her going down the attack mage pathway he'll reliably do more damage than her for a longer part of the game. And in NG where flying battalions are at a premium she would take a very long time to justify getting airborne (not to mention how rare arcane crystals for Bolt Axe+ are before the Dark Merchant shows up). He's also a better attack mage than Linhardt since imo even though you certainly CAN send Linny down the Dark Mage / Bishop path, it's a waste to have him attacking rather than supporting. Dorothea has been ime more prone to getting Mag screwed than Lorenz even though they have exactly the same base mag growth rate (40%) (ofc this is just luck, but it's been the case for me, and can happen for other players). Her spell list is far better, granted, but giving Lorenz Caduceus helps alleviate this a lot since +1 Range on powerful spells like Agena's Arrow and Ragnarock is very helpful. Mercedes is a support mage, really, without access to the Dark pathway she's in a similar position to Annette. Both Mercy and Marianne have a 50% mag growth with on average means only a few extra points on average than a 40% growth. Mercy also competes for Caduceus due to the lack of 3+ range spells, but since she's so much more useful as support and doesn't get poison strike, it makes more sense to give it to a true attack mage. Lorenz has his place. No he's not the "delete button" Lysithea is. But I really don't think he he's bottom tier like some think he is. He has his advantages that no other unit reliably has, like the best access to Dark Mage / Bishop and perhaps the easiest time qualifying for Dark Knight as well. We should also consider that his paralogue gives you the means to make Lysithea OP. Without Lorenz, Lysithea is a bit more balanced, with his relic she's absolutely broken. No other mage has as useful as a paralogue imo.

Tier lists almost always consider availability as a factor. It's actually rather key. For instance in one FE game (not saying which just to prevent spoiling I guesS) you get an incredibly broken character for the last battle only, but you can hardly say he's one of your best units since you only get to use him once. Hubert is amazing, but his being locked to one route hurts him overall, unfortunately. I figured it went without saying that you should also put Lorenz through mage for the ability fiendish blow. It's not hard, in Maddening NG, to max both of those classes. You can also put him into Warlock -after- he's gone through Dark Mage/Bishop and take most of the benefits of those classlines with him. You really don't have to stay in DB (although there may be an argument for doing so). His magic growth doesn't hurt him that badly in Maddening. I'm doing a GD NG (minimal use of outside recruits besides paralogues) run and he has 26 at lv. 24, as compared to Lys with 31 at lv. 26. He can also one shot some enemies. not as many as Lys, of course, I don't even give him Thyrsus, he gets Caduceus instead but it still helps a lot. I wouldn't say he's better than Lys, he's not, but he's just not as bad as many think he is. HP does matter on Maddening NG imo. He has 46 at lv. 24 as compared to Lys' 32 at 26. She can never risk venturing near the front lines. Lorenz can sometimes take a hit or maybe two from weaker enemies. Which does help him out. His healing capacity with Restore is also nice since Maddening enemies hit hard and even with her superior mag, Lys' heal is not as good as his restore. I don't think Lorenz is a god. I don't think he's better than most units. I think he's good enough though, and many don't even give him that much credit which is a shame. He also has a boon in riding AND lance which makes it easier for him to class into Dark Knight, which imo is better for attack mages than an infantry class in maddening since they can zip in, nuke and then run away. I agree that he's presented as a jack-of-all-trades and will suffer if you raise him as one. If he goes straight through magic classlines, though, he usually ends up with decent mag growth. And he is the best candidate for Dark Mage / Bishop besides Hubert who will only be useable in approximately 1/4 of the game. Stealing from / killing the Death Knight is difficult for new players, but not to brag or anything but I find it trivial these days, even on NG Maddening. Once you've played the game a few times, it's not an issue. Lifetaker isn't that great, true, but Poison Strike is really useful. My Lorenz usually leaves the enemy either dead or with very few hp due to it. Linny has been my go-to serious dancer in most playthroughs . I've never had him fail once. He comes in with crap charisma, that's true, but it's easily raised via 2-3 tea times and that +5 bonus you get for the dance lessons. I also plan in advance and farm 1-2 Golden Apples for him just to be sure. This playthrough I think I got him up to 17 Charm before the dance competition with 2 tea times, the dance lessons, and 2 rounds of GA farming. Again, I don't think he's god or even upper tier. He just does get the job done.

I think Lornez tends to be underrated because a lot of people don't consider that he's pretty much the only good candidate for the Dark Mage to Dark Bishop classline besides Hubert. Linhardt is just too support focused to make use of that classline very well, imo. Linny should be healing, warping, or dancing not attacking in most cases. It sucks that the classline is genderlocked, but the fact that it is does work in Lorenz's favor. Hubert is clearly the superior dark mage by far, however he's only available on one route and ime that route is the one that a new player can most easily end up missing a dark seal on and lose access to Dark Bishop (it happened to me my first CF run 😕 ). The Dark Bishop / Dark Mage classline gives a free Fiendish Blow, Heartseeker, Lifetaker, and Poison Strike. I find the latter to be the most useful, doing an additional damage of up to 20% of max HP after combat is nothing to be sneezed at in maddening where enemies have high hp and very few units can 1RKO past the early/mid game. Lorenz softens them up so someone else can safely kill them. Lorenz with his decent def and hp growth can also be put on the front lines with a bit more confidence than other mages, where Heartseeker can be useful. I also think that Restore can come in handy a lot up front. Ward is useful as a sort of bargain basement Impregnable Wall re: mages and good for getting a bit of exp when he'd otherwise have nothing to do. Admittedly, Ward is only ever really all that useful in Maddening NG. Even in Maddening NG+ it's not really that interesting. I usually make him into a Dark Knight for canto and the better growths, but there might actually be an argument for keeping him in Dark Bishop for Heartseeker. He'd be an even better unit if you could forge an Arrow of Indra and/or got it earlier in the routes you can get it in. He's certainly not top tier, but I do think he gets unfairly passed over by many.

That's an interesting build, thanks for sharing! That said, from my experience of being near timeskip in a GD NG Maddening run and having raised Lysithea, it's not strictly necessary. Thrysus' range is so broken she doesn't really need defense since she can just nuke from a safe distance. She's often high on the list of "who gets danced this turn" as well. And with swap and reposition you can often get her out of the way as well. I find her extremely useful in Maddening despite having to take care of her positioning since she's one of the few units that can reliably 1RKO many units. Still, your build is a creative idea and sounds like a lot of fun to play with. 🙂

As others have said, gambit him and then pick him off with magic. His res is not that good. Impregnable wall is a great utility gambit, it makes Maddening NG a lot easier than it would otherwise be generally. I agree that Dmitri should have ended up as a paladin-like character with a horse. And Edelgard should have been able to use magic when in her promoted class, like the Emperor class from Genealogy. They are both pa le in comparison to how broken Claude's end class is.

Oh yeah that sounds like a contender for most useful. TBH I haven't played either 2 or 15 yet but it's already sad to me that they nerfed the rest gain in the remake. Oh yeah, Wendy is a special kind of bad that is true. Ahhh, I haven't actually promoted any armors (for some odd reason 😉 ) so I didn't realize they got too big to be carted around. Well, yes, that seals it you're right: BB is extremely bad for them. Ha, all armor knight runs sound fun! I also like using them for fun sometimes, they have a certain charisma to them. But yeah, haha, like you when I try to think of genuine optimal playstyle advantages I also come up short.Agreed on Oswin, but let's be serious if he were any other class with those stats and growths he'd be better. I did use Gaitre in at least one playthrough of FE10 since he's just sort of fun, but again that was not a 'serious' run, but more just for fun. I agree that the Pair-Up mechanic gives them them some use. I really hope we'll get a game one day where it's optimal to use them, instead of just fun because they add variety. Excellent points all around! It's interesting to think about their major strengths and weaknesses as you did: 3 major weaknesses vs. 1 major str. It seems like it would be a good think to increase their res to make them into true tanks. Maybe keep the slayer weapons but also integrate a game mechanic that allows the player to steal those weapons with a good enough thief like in 776? It's true that mobility is the best stat. I guess 3H tried to address this downside to armors with Great Knight, but its mobility is still less than other mounted units. Maybe it would make sense to make them as mobile as other mounted units in a future game? For the purposes of this discussion, I'm a bit more interested in opinions in how the mainline series compare to each other. That said, thank you for sharing anyway since it's interesting to learn that Heroes lets them shine. I guess it shows it can be done!

Yes, this is certainly also a strike against them! But at least in FE6 they could in theory hitch rides with your cavalry to the front lines. I end up doing that with the other infantry quite often. So in theory if they had a use they could just be transported... But that's still a pain and less than optimal though, you are right about that! Compare that to FE4 (which is Horse Emblem on steroids due to the ridiculously gargantuan maps) where they're really just stuck guarding the base because there's no hitching rides there and warp only sends you to an already conquered castle. It's always struck me as odd that they keep including armors without really tweaking them to make them really useful. Useable, sure. Useful, though, just not so much imo...

I've recently played FE4, 5, and 16. In all three of those games, armor knights are a joke (I think in 4 they're almost literally a joke considering how ridiculous Arden's official art is). You can certainly use them for fun (I made Flayn as an armor knight for giggles in 3H), but they'll never actually be all that useful imo. I've just started FE6 and thought "oho maybe here I can use them" due to the fact that many maps have choke points where you can in theory plop an armor and actually make use of them. But of course, as the game progresses there's an abundance of enemies with armor slayers. Which unlike horseslayers for knights who can just run away / easily reposition, armorslayers are a pain for armors because it can be difficult to run them away when they pop up. It's been ages since I played FE 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14(Birthright) but IIRC armors were maybe more useful in FE7 and 8 than the others. But I'm not sure since I haven't played them since release and they were my first FE games so I didn't really know what I was doing back then and those games were really easy so you could probably get away with running whatever character you wanted without much penalty. In your opinion, in which FE games have armors had the most utility? Have there been any where they were actually genuinely useful? Have there been any where you really "should" be running armors in order to have an optimal team? Bonus question: what could be done to make armor units "must deploys" in future installments of the game? I love the concept of armor knights and I do sometimes use them in my "just messing around" playthoughs but ime they're just never really good for any kind of optimal playstyle. It'd be nice if we could get a version of them that was.

Oh phew! I'm glad it's not a big problem. The first gen so far is kicking some major behind, I'm very happy with the pairings and inheritance decisions I made generally. Thank you again for all the very helpful advice! 🙂

I completely agree with this, and that is also the headcannon I came up with for SS. SS at least leaves it a bit vague (especially if you pick "Dmitri" to worry about, and he shows up in his post-timeskip outfit to talk to you. That does imply that he may actually be alive since in SS Byleth otherwise doesn't see Dmitri in his post-timeskip garb (at least I think that's the case). VW though, that legit made me feel really bad. I wish they'd made it so you could save him somehow.

Thank you so much for this extremely helpful and thorough write up! This seems like all around great advice and I really appreciate it. It does now seem like it's quite a major gameplay mistaket to pair Jamka x Brigid but it's too late to change that at this point, oh well. I liked the idea of "archer babies" but clearly that doesn't work for Patty, oops. Well, I will take your advice and give her the pursuit band to make up for it. 😉 Thank you again!

Oh wow thanks so much to everyone for the good ideas! After hearing your opinions about the dancer, I tend to agree with those who suggested that immediately passing on leg+knight is more useful than the advantages the replacement character gives. But I can see both sides! Thanks for the tip on the Bolt Sword, Gregster101, but unfortunately it's a bit late for that since I've just started chapter 4. Are there other swords that I could get on Jamke for Patty in the next couple of chapters? I put the return ring on him so she can at least escape if she has no good weapon. This is all excellent advice, exactly what I was hoping for! Thank you so much! It's very interesting that only a substitute unit can get the beserk staff in this game. I agree that +10 hit sounds to nearby allies sounds very useful indeed! That said, I think I will go for the story aspect and pair Sylvia and Claude just to see how it goes, and also to get the immediate knight ring + leg ring. Maybe I'll try the substitute units in another playthrough.

I'm a bit lost regarding what's generally considered to be optimal item inheritances for each child. I think I've landed on what seem to be the some of the more common pairings for each character: Aideen x Midir Ayra x Holydn Erin x Levin Lachesis x Beowulf Tiltyu x Azel Sylvia x Claude Brigid x Jamka Now what's hurting my brain is trying to figure out which kid should get what from which parent. Also, do all rings on a character pass down? Say if I had three rings on Erin, would they all pass on to her daughter? I really can't decide who to give the pursuit ring to (except that I would like to keep it for the rest of gen 1 so leaving it on Ethylyn is not an attractive option). Ditto paragon. What is the best course of action? This is a rough outline of what I am thinking of leaving on each gen 1 character so far: Fury- Wind sword, Slim sword, slim lance, power ring, barrier ring Levin- Holsety and Lightning Tiltyu- Any B rank Thunder or Fire Azel- Same as Tiltyu Aira- Hero Sword, Bolt sword Holyn- Armorslayer, silver blade Sylvia- Leg ring and Knight ring Claude- Return, Warp, Restore, Valkyrie Aideen- any B rank staves Mideer- Killer and Hero bow Jamka- return ring Brigid- Ichival, Silver bow Cuan- javelin, Gae Bolg Ethyln’s- Light Brand Finn (not paired) - Brave, silver lance Sigurd- Silver sword One bonus question: it often suggested to NOT pair Sylvia because the replacements for her children are superior. Why are they considered to be so and is it a huge difference?

Lots of people take a break in between FE4 gen 1 and FE4 gen 2 to play Thracia since technically speaking Thracia is a "midquel" and it falls in between the two parts of Genealogy on the timeline. So you could do that. I'm also playing FE4 right now and I agree it's incredibly tedious in places. There's not much you can do about the "march your army to one side of the map! now turn around and march slooooooooooooooowly to the opposite side" dynamic but I also HATE the gold/item management system so tbh i just turned on an infinite money cheat. I know, i know: the micromanagement is part of the game and I'm "missing out" by doing this. But I just really found that to be so incredibly annoying I know i would never finish if I had to deal with the clunky way it was implemented so I am going around it. You might want to try that too if you are interested in just plowing through it to see the story. FWIW I absolutely loved Thracia. It's really different from FE4 in terms of gameplay. It's cheap as hell sometimes (they did that purposefully in order to try to sell guides lol) but it's still super fun. FE4 so far does feel like a slog, but it's still a very interesting experience so I would recommend trying to get through it at some point, using cheats if you feel like it. Actually, now that I think of it I think there are also cheats for "infinite actions per turn" which if that includes move could help some of the tedium of marching to and fro. Oh and if you want a good video guide to Thracia I really liked this one: hought it was almost as fun as the game itself lol.

Would even be possible to make a game like this more difficult by NOT relying on EXP nerfing and enemy stat buffing? I know that in maddening mode as it exists currently there are a few other things that have been done to make it harder such as: In some circumstances, extra enemies / reinforcements were added Some (all?) reinforcements can attack on the same turn Enemies also have more varied skills (venin arrow, pass, etc.) Those things are all good. The enemy stat buffs are fine. However, to me, the exp nerf is just not that much fun and felt a bit cheap. Like if you were to take that off, then the game would be very similar overall to how it played on hard. But then I started wondering: how would it be done otherwise? It's been so long since I've played other FE games that aren't 776 I honestly don't recall how their harder difficulties were achieved. Has it always been like this? Or were there other methods employed to ramp up the difficulty without relying on exp nerfing? Or is there a way to design a game to be very difficult without reducing exp gains to a trickle?

It really feels like I am missing way more than in Hard mode at the same displayed %s. For example, if I have a 95% chance to hit in Hard, it almost always hits. Whereas in Maddening, it feels like even a 95% can go either way. I've also had a few 99% chances miss. The reverse goes for the enemies: it feels like they'll consistently smash me at 30% and even lower to hit. That's just a couple example, but overall I feel like RNG is less kind in Maddening. However, is that because they actually rigged the values against the player or is it more because you have to take a lot more hits to bring an enemy down, and therefore simply see a higher volume of combat, which will feature more anomalies? I'm really curious as to whether the combat RNG has been confirmed to have stayed the same as in HM in MM.

Interesting insight everyone! Hm, seeing as so many of us want more and there's the thought that the developers think that fans will NOT want more, is it possible to contact someone involved in this project and let them know that a bunch of us do want more? I know it's only a few right now, but if several do end up getting in touch maybe they'd think about adding more slots in a future update? I have no idea who to contact about this kind of thing though.

I know that older school FEs had very few save slots (the last one I played was 776 which had two), but IIRC some newer ones had more. My memory is terrible when it comes to stuff like this so I could very well be wrong. Precedent notwithstanding, there's no technical reason to limit the player to 5 slots is there? So why do so? I find this very limiting since I like to keep many saves for various reasons. Thankfully you can save your endgame data over the old ones and the playthroughs still stack, but it would be nicer to have at least 10 if not 20 slots. Is it theoretically possible that the number of slots could be increased in a future update?

Isn't 3H built using the Warriors engine? If so, then I would bet Warriors 2 will be coming next.

1: I like a lot of the electionic influences, but that one dubstep near the end of GD track took it too far. 2: I like "The Long Road". A bit of an odd choice, maybe, but I love that one. I also really like the post-timeskip monastery song (not sure of its name) and "Roar of Dominion". 3: I haven't finished AM yet, but of BE:CF and GD I liked GD's final chapter the best. I honestly can't recall BE:CF anymore, nor any other final themes from prior games. 4: After three playthroughs the music in the market is starting to grate on my nerves. I actually think that track is quite appropriate, interesting and at first it was nice. It just gets SO repetitive after so many playthroughs. As stated above, I also didn't like the dubstep track. I think part of my problem with both is that the loop seems to be too short. If they were longer they would be more tolerable. 5: Yes, this is definitely my favorite soundtrack and I've played a good portion of previous games. I wish there was a video game music award that meant something since this soundtrack deserves to win it overall.

I found a video with lyrics. ;) ...Seriously though I hope you all figure it out! It would be really interesting to know.

Thanks a lot for the link! I didn't think to search "paired endings" and only searched marriage so I totally missed that. There's lots of good information in there. Well it looks like I'm in trouble for my current playthrough since many characters already have multiple A ranks, but I guess next time I'll try the not getting A support trick. It's somewhat annoying that the game seemingly forces you to do that to play matchmaker, but it is what it is. I guess it's more realistic this way... I wonder what it would take to figure out exactly how the game determines which character ends up with another when there's multiple A ranks in play? And I am really curious about how C+ or B+ impacts the final result if at all.

I'm nearing endgame in Golden Deer and I'm now starting to think about trying to pair characters up so that they end up married in the post game. I've read various contradictory things about this mechanic in different places, and I really don't know what's what! Some seem to think it's all random, but others think you can control it to a degree. I've heard that in order to control who ends up with who, you need to look at who their "Close Allies" are under Notes as well as having the highest level of support (only A, or A+ will have a chance to marry each other). Whoever is the top in the "Close Allies" field has a good chance of marrying their corresponding top if their support is maxed. In order to get an ally into the top spot it is said that you have to spend a lot of time fighting next to each other and/or assign them as adjutants. I've noticed that perhaps assigning as adjutants is more effective since my Byleth has Felix in his top spot and they hardly ever fight together but I often assign Felix as Byleth's adjutant. I guess it's easier to get into fights together when you're stuck together! Now a question I have is: LOTS of people have Marianne as their top in "Close Allies". Marianne does not have any A+ supports on my route, but she does have two C+ supports: Ferdinand and Lornez. I actually don't want her married to either of those guys, but will the game pick one due to her having a special C+ support or does it HAVE to be A+ support to force a pairing? FWIW she currently has A support with both of them. I've also understood that the game keeps an invisible tally of support points past A or A+, and whoever has the highest tally will end up married (but I am not sure if this is always the same as the person in the top spot of "Close Allies"). Oh yes and also I've heard that if you ONLY give a character one A or A+ support (and leave the rest at B or lower) this will force them to wed in post game. It's too late for that in my game, but many report this working seemingly. If you micromanaged your characters' love lives, what was your strategy? Also, is there a list somewhere of all potential pairings? I've heard of fun ones like Dorothea x Petra but is it the case that all A supports can end up married regardless of gender?

1. Is there a definitive guide as to how stats work in this game yet? I have seen a few but they seem to contradict each other sometimes (or leave info out perhaps). 2. What determines who gets MVP? It seems more complicated than just damaged dealt but perhaps I'm wrong? It feels more like damage dealt + exp earned + # of battles fought or something... But I really don't know!

Wow, thank you for saying this! I've been struggling with trying to figure this out for a while now. As for my thing I didn't realize: I didn't realize that Divine Pulse wasn't just for bringing characters back from the dead but is basically just a rewind button. That's a big "duh" since that ability features into the story a few times. Granted, I haven't really needed it yet but it certainly would have been helpful a few times.