Peck

I am genuinely curious what your top 6 units are.

No I suppose not because you are actively and intentionally not interesting to discuss anything with and ignore any facts or data that doesn’t align with your way of thinking. You talk at people not with them. You are clearly not here to learn anything or have a discussion but to explain to others why you think they are wrong which gets old incredibly quickly. Myself and many other posters in this thread alone have already pointed out flaws in your logic or counterpoints as to why in certain situations what you say does not apply and you continue to willfully ignore these points and double down explaining why you believe you are right and everyone else is wrong. Also at no point did I call you any name(s).

Your point about engaging as many units as possible on EP is probably the most boring and cheesiest way to play. It is not difficult or compelling gameplay to make Byleth/lord/insert favorite unit here into a defensive powerhouse with avoid, health steal, etc. and throw them into as many enemies as possible. Nor is using a ton of the same class just because they are overpowered. If that’s how you enjoy playing there’s no accounting for taste but I can tell from the way you discuss fire emblem that you are analyzing it and min maxing every aspect of gameplay to a degree that the devs are never going to match with challenging but also fair and balanced content. As the game stands hard difficulty does not require anywhere near the amount of thought you are putting into it as far as theorizing efficiency. And the truth is lunatic won’t either. The only situation I can see any of your perspectives holding any degree of value would be when applied to an extremely specific set of rules and criteria as established for challenge runs, speed runs or self imposed limitations. So unless you are talking about an extremely specific set of circumstances in which one is putting any of your ideas into practice than you need to chill because there is probably multiple billions of unique combinations of ways to clear any given map and none of them are objectively wrong. Is your criteria when discussing/advising LTC or not? Because you seem to discuss this ethereal version of the game that only exists in your mind that isn’t clearly defined whatsoever.

I said best player phase unit. Not best unit overall. To be even more specific, I am saying that in a run without grinding, special treatment and all levels being equal, she will have the highest, most reliable and cheapest kill potential (magic refreshes for free unlike powerful weapons) because she has the highest magic growth and offensive stats and highest MT spellbook with a variety of effective multipliers such as against cav and monsters. Regardless, say who you think is the best then as a counter argument because you can’t seem to commit to any one idea and take a contrarian stance to everything myself and others posit, sometimes to the point of contradicting yourself. For example you say units with canto will leave a 4 move unit behind but what’s the point of canto and flying if you’re not using it to move in and out of enemy danger zone and end turn at the max move range of slower units so they can then move their 4 spaces and then heal them, dance them, rally, ward etc. It doesn’t seem like ‘efficient play’ to me if your team is a sum of its parts rather than a versatile mix of strengths and weaknesses that can respond to a variety of situations. Or do you use 12 wyvern lords? You also ignored the Gloucester relic staff completely. You mean to tell me Lorenz is a better candidate to use it? If so, why? And I’m not even arguing for making her survivable on enemy phase because I enjoy using her as a glass cannon but I’m sure an argument could be made for building her to survive EP seeing as Thyrsus procs often for half damage and she hits hard enough that Nosferatu keeps her alive. Lastly if so, why would you be against giving stat increase items and shoes of the wind to her? Who specifically makes better use of them in your opinion?

I have never encountered a target that Lys can’t kill in one round making her perhaps the best player phase unit in the game. Enemy Petra late game might be the only one because when you encounter her she has absurd speed so doesn’t get doubled and possibly not hit at all. But that’s a single unit which equates to trivia. Lys with relic staff (thyrsus?) is pretty much inarguably OP. 3-6 range is devastating. I just follow her around with a pocket dancer. If she’s not killing things her heals and utility spells are also great. Even without the staff or OHKO potential her spell list is really good and I could see myself still using her to debuff targets.

This is somewhat difficult to explain but it’s one of my favorite things about 3H. The limitations and bottlenecks that you have to play around when deciding on efficient ways to assemble your team and how it allows each character to be unique and have their own identity AND be valuable even if they are objectively worse than another unit because they might be a more efficient addition to the team as a whole. Having 9 core units for most maps, limited tutoring sessions, and completely unique proficiency strengths and weaknesses is genius. For example compare a unit like Lysithea to a unit like Raphael. If you invest in Lysithea relics, tutoring, movement increases, combat exp, etc. she will become a god with a unique identity and magic list that matches this fantasy of growth and potential. However you can’t have a whole team of Lysithea type characters because there is not an unlimited number of these resources to dump into units with a lot of potential. So sometimes adding a Raphael type unit to the team is better because even if you neglect them entirely, they will still be useful. Raphael will always have HP, strength, and a guaranteed 2 hits with gauntlets. And the best part is that simplicity matches his character design and personality. (Also dancers and rally bots like Ignatz and Annette can also be always useful and it matches their design).

I was not aware that there is a meta, community agreed upon metric for performance and quality based around, If I understand, clearing the maps in the lowest amount of turns possible. Seeing as there is no in game reward for this self imposed win condition, or difficulty that requires this level of efficiency, it seems to me completely arbitrary how one approaches any stage. Some battles have limitations such as 25 turns, or a thief who will escape with a missable item, but none of these, at least on hard difficulty have required play using maximum speed/efficiency in order to achieve. Maybe lunatic difficulty or dlc maps will require an intense degree of min/maxing to complete? Given the current state of the game I don’t personally get anything out of minimizing turns taken so my current goal on any single map or playthrough is experiencing as much content as possible which requires using a variety of units and strategies and building a lot of support to experience all the paralogues, see all the weapons, spells, animations, etc.

A few people were saying hand axes and javelins are bad so I wanted to add some useful points about these and/or anything with 2+ range. Supports, their hit/avoid bonus (and in much more relatively rare cases, MT) are all gained by the linked attack system. Being adjacent to an allied unit does nothing in 3 houses in regards to the support system. Having your target be within attack range of an allies’ currently equipped weapon is what builds support amongst all eligible allies and gives stacking hit, avoid and MT bonuses. (Up to +9 MT and +30 hit/avo) an example of where this is most useful: -lord and Byleth are usually more survivable than most. If you give them ranged options they will build support and give it constantly while being pillars of strength to be adjacent to for 20% bonus exp, and -3/+3 attack skills. Having a lower weight/MT option is ideal because they can soften things up without killing them while avoiding attacks and not getting doubled so they can get much needed class exp while everyone else takes the greater kill exp. All of this stacks additively with itself and adjacent unit skills like charm, advocate, sacred power etc. In short, If your army favors 1 range attacks you will build support much slower and enjoy its benefits much less often.