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It's a predetermined amount of autolevels, which is different for each character. This is the best ressource about it I've seen so far. https://fe3h.com/timeskip_autolevel

They both have 6 movement, but Grappler has thief movement, so can move normally through forests or sand. War Master however does get move penalties from terrain.

While these stats certainly do not look amazing, sadly she's not really RNG-screwed, but just Bernadetta. Based on your classing path, these would be her average stats. Lv HP Str Mag Dex Spd Lck Def Res Cha 45 44.8 25.25 13.4 37.3 31.75 19.1 16.2 15.6 23.8 She'll still be useful though, thanks to her personal ability, Encloser combat art and possibly Vengeance combat art

In my opinion the biggest advantage of gauntlets still is their absurd damage output while also requiring low maintenance. When fighting monsters, they often have really good chances to ORKO thanks to a brave effect, enough speed to quadruple hit considerably earlier than other brave weapons and still have the option to get additional crit with Killer Gauntlets on top of that. On top of that, gauntlet users can pretty much always ORKO mages without counterattack from midgame onwards, which is a reliable use case, too. I made a short montage of just what gauntlets are actually able to ORKO, the actual chances to ORKO were: ch4 boss: 84.90% paralogue demon beast boss: 32.62% ch20 demon beast: 97.28% AM ch22 boss: 96.99% And this is even without statboosters or death blow I don't agree with this. While technically you're right, the game does offer the ressources, it comes in a very inconvenient form. The Titanus have a decent crit chance and are not really something you could call "free loot". Unnecessarily messing with them early in the map could cost you too many divine pulses, that you might need later, unnecessarily messing with them late in the map probably increases your turn count and is pretty much just grinding (though in a more efficient way than aux battles for example) Unless you're talking about Swift Strike, Point-Blank-Volley or Hunters Volley with killer weapons against fast enemies, gauntlets still have the brave effect ahead of other weapon types. With more hits crits are also more reliable and average out better. As even with low might gauntlets 1 crit + 1 hit is still enough to kill almost all units, except for monsters. 2x 60% crit are about as reliable as 1x 84% crit C/D+ axes and D armor is really not that high of a requirement, you can literally just pick any 3 characters that you want to use as guard adjutants in the run, set their goals to axes and armor and never instruct them ever and they'll still do their job just fine

Abandoning Windsweep for the former two is a VERY hard sell, in my book. Also, War Cleric is viable... In Awakening, that is. Not so much here. Felix is good in just about any physical class, so that further drains any motivation to have him use gauntlets. While admittedly Felix IS good in pretty much every physical class, that doesn't take away from the fact that many of his strengths and shortcomings fit well with gauntlets. He has high strength which scales best with brave weapons/gauntlets. He has high enough speed to sometimes compete with enemies on maddening, while also ideally wanting to use his heavy personal shield, meaning he cares about weight, which gauntlets have little of. His crest ability also scales with every attack which he does most of with brave weapons/gauntlets. At the same time, when braves come into play, other weapon types can do that, except those don't top out at a measly 4 might. Which begs the question, why bother? Because when comparing brave weapons with gauntlets you also need to consider the costs. To make and repair brave weapons you need a special material, that cannot be bought, therefore you won't be able to use brave weapons all the time. Gauntlets however are the cheapest physical weapon type in their base form that CAN be used all the time with even less investment than other basic physical weapon types. And even if you go by peak performance you will then need to compare brave weapons to Killer Gauntlets+, where you can then argue, whether the extra might or crit are better. (and even then Killer Gauntlets+ are made from rebuyable materials, so still easier accessible)

Imo the main qualities of brawling in Three Houses are: brave weapon-effect units with good strength obliterate things good damage output combat art with 3 consecutive hits when in grappler class is an even better brave-effect low-weight, therefore not slowing units down a lot don't get doubled as often as other melee weapon types early on tomebreaker together with brave-effect can usually realiably ORKO mages without taking a counterhit not weak to another breaker-skill more consistent hit-rate than other melee weapons requirement for War Master, which leads to Quick Reposte skill prevents unit from getting doubled in enemy phase when above 50% health good for units with bad speed good for units with enough HP/defence to stay above 50% health after getting hit once Setting aside the obvious choices of Raphael, Caspar, Dedue, Alois and Balthus: Jeritza, Felix, Byleth, Gilbert, Ferdinand, Sylvain and Dimitri should also be able to pull off a good Brawling build.

For a first run, I'd say that hard is a decent difficulty, albeit still quite on the easy side. Like others mentioned, I also wouldn't recommend Maddening for a first run. I have some self-imposed challenges that keep the game entertaining for me, while neither being too hard or too easy. Maddening, NG+, DLC activated no battle grinding choosing classes regardless of how good they are only recruiting characters I actually plan on using no warp-cheese-strategies no stat boosters

From your given info, Ignatz would have an average of 15.25 defence at level 35. So no, he isn't RNG-screwed in def, it's just that he's naturally that bad at it. Still, I'd always recommend promoting asap as Shanty said.

I've done 3 Maddening Playthroughs so far, which I'll include my Byleth builds in here. I never went for Brigand for paths that don't naturally make use of axes or stuff like that, as I don't have fun metagaming in 3H. Crimson Flower - No NG+. Enlightened One (Myrmidon->Thief->Swordmaster) Byleth did alright and was my second best unit after Wyvern Rider Petra. She did good damage with her Brawling weapons and could take one enemy at a time. Thanks to her Heal spell she could also heal allies, when she wasn't needed for battle in a turn or not able to participate in it due to not reaching. She did a good job as kind of a hybrid between a melee brawler and a mediocre assist unit between fights. 7/10 Verdant Wind - NG+. Falcon Knight (Soldier->Pegasus Knight->Wyvern Rider) Byleth as Falcon Knight was really good. She could dodge tank decently without much investment and could ORKO many opponents. Not to mention that she had awesome mobility thanks to being a flying unit, which also allows other units to make use of her +20% exp personal a lot more often. Not perfect in my playthrough though as she didn't have as much strength as I'd have like her to. 9/10 Azure Moon - NG+. War Master (Fighter->Brawler->Grappler) If I ever want to obliterate an enemy, War Master Byleth had it covered. He literally ORKOs everything! No matter, if the enemy is a mage, Fortress Knight, dodgy thief, monster with its guard still in place or a boss monster w/o guard on its last massive healthbar, War Master Byleth can ORKO it. He has really good strength to make great use of gauntlets, has great accuracy, great crit rate ~35%- even without equipping crit-weapons-, and also has good speed to not get doubled often and quadruple enemy monsters and slower enemies. He doesn't have good defence in my run, but thanks to Quick Reposte he can at least take 1, sometimes 2 enemies in enemy phase. His main draw back is his mediocre mobility due to being foot-locked, which you can probably partially salvage by reclassing him to a Grappler after mastering War Master. Also note, that I didn't put him in Brigand class so he would do even better, when playing more optimally. 9/10

Based on the units proficiencies, these are the infantry master classes that they have the easiest time to get into. Have fun with half of your units becoming Mortal Savants :D BLACK EAGLES Edelgard: Mortal Savant Hubert: Mortal Savant Bernadetta: Gremory Caspar: War Master Dorothea: Mortal Savant / Gremory Ferdinand: Mortal Savant / War Master Linhardt: Mortal Savant Petra: Mortal Savant BLUE LIONS Dimitri: Great Lord Dedue: War Master Annette: Gremory / Mortal Savant Ashe: War Master Felix: Mortal Savant / War Master Ingrid: Mortal Savant Mercedes: Gremory Sylvain: War Master / Mortal Savant GOLDEN DEER Claude: Mortal Savant / War Master Hilda: Mortal Savant Ignatz: Mortal Savant Leonie: Mortal Savant / Gremory Lorenz: Mortal Savant Lysithea: Gremory / Mortal Savant Marianne: Mortal Savant / Gremory Raphael: War Master

High Tier : Byleth, Petra, Bernadetta, Lysithea, Linhardt, Leonie, Shamir, (Seteth) Medium Tier : Sylvain, Caspar, Ferdinand, Marianne, Flayn, Hilda, Ingrid, Annette, Lorenz, Felix, Dorothea, Catherine, Low Tier : Ashe, Alois, Hanneman, Manuela, Raphael, Ignatz, Cyril Take my rating for Seteth with a big grain of salt, as I haven't really used him in Maddening yet.

The DLC definitely can make your Playthrough easier. All potential DLC-benefits are optional though and only come through actually pursuing DLC-activities in the monastery. All DLC-items have unique names, all DLC-quests are marked in a unique blue color, the farming-DLC-fight is marked in a unique yellow color, DLC-characters are all optional to recruit, too. Imho they make the game more fun though, as they give you more options to mess around with. For example I saved all my statboosters in my Verdant Wind playthrough until the last chapter when I gave them all to dancer Lysithea who was then able to mostly solo the last map. Maddening is not impossibly hard, but requires you to actively think most of the time. For me one NG-Maddening was enough, now I still have fun with NG+-Maddening with DLC-benefits, which is still a lot more challenging than hard mode but also forgiving enough for me to casually enjoy it while also skipping boring grinding The DLC-campaign is quite short(~10h), but most maps I found very enjoyable. Your units are all good, but the maps give you objectives that make it worthwhile to advance quickly. Difficulty-wise it's about in the middle in between NG-Maddening and NG-hard. All in all, I would say, DLC doesn't add much to the maddening enjoyment based on difficulty and only a little in terms of customisability. The DLC is not mandatory whatsoever, however it CAN make the main campaign a little easier, if you actively seek out the DLC-features.

I agree that it's one of the least useful master classes, only beaten by mortal savant. However it offers some advantages: Allows healers to attack and retreat in the same turn, when needed Allows healers to heal and canto towards enemies to give your other units support boost. (only viable, when you know that you can keep your units safe for enemy phase) Allows healers to keep up with the rest of the pack so they actually can do 1. and 2. Gives magic users access to more movement and Canto, when they have trouble becoming a Dark Knight Gives your healers with high res enough movement to be the first ones to lure enemy mages Personally I see 4. to be the biggest advantage that Holy Knight offers. I don't think Holy Knight is the best class for anyone, however for some characters, it's easier to fit into than Dark Knight. Characters that I'd consider suitable for Holy Knight: Marianne: Easiest to reach master class for her, can act as a res tank against mages, however she doesn't really need the movement as she has physics and silence anyway Manuela: Easiest to reach magic master class for her, movement helps her with her support spells like Warp and Ward Anna: Easy to reach magic master class for her, movement helps her with her support spells like Rescue and Ward, might be able to act as a res tank?(just guessing, haven't used her yet)

(CF and AM spoilers) Mercedes and Linhardt were both really heartbreaking. Killing such peaceful souls should be illegal. Ashe and Dimitri battle quotes in CF also just made me realise: Yup, we most definitely are the baddies. Hilda's death also has got to be one of the most memorable ones.

you should bring a decent amount of magic users. exp through support magic is not reduced while combat exp is check enemy stats before putting your units into their range equip your units with multiple weapons so you can also avoid getting doubled by the enemies as often as possible don't hesitate to use combat arts or legendary weapons to dissolve a difficult situation use support gambits, especially Stride and Impregnable Wall use offensive gambits to immobilize enemies that you cannot kill fast enough. Fusillade is great for this