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I'm definitely of the school where Classic provides stakes, and the stakes contribute to my sense of accomplishment. I haven't played much Casual, and while I think I'd still enjoy my time, I imagine my sense of accomplishment would be diminished, even if I got no deaths on a level. That said, the rewind mechanic is a quality of life thing that I hugely appreciate, because I feel it allows me to play (as in, to experiment) with a given situation. How would/could I get through X situation, and so on. I'd rather have rewinds than not. Despite all this, the OP's points about the impact Classic mode has on connecting secondary characters to the story, and the inherent hypocrisy of some characters not dying when their HP hits 0, are concerns I've also felt at various points in my FE career. One response might be to double down on the rewind mechanic. Maybe there are story costs for using X number of rewinds. Like maybe using rewinds contributes to a doom clock, or a map rating that affects story paths. And perhaps you are forced to use a rewind if anyone dies. That way, the onus on consequences for permadeath in FE shifts to death-enforced rewinds. You preserve stakes for letting a character hit 0, but individual 'deaths' don't derail a player's campaign or a story's trajectory. And there's still room for the hardcore to attempt runs without rewinds. This might even accommodate @lenticular's idea about level design that innovates based on no permadeath. Not sure what the price would be for hitting the overall limit on rewinds, but hitting a bad ending (a la SMT IV) seems reasonable.

Can Speedtaker bring you beyond class/character caps? If so, that seems like something a Martial Master should want to be packing anyway.

This section of the log takes me to what I'm guessing is the halfway point - even if it isn't, it's a good place to take stock given story events, so I've also written down some thoughts about my units/the game so far. But first, the log! Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Skirmish - Grand Crossing Paralogue 3 (Lucina) Halftime Review - Units Halftime Review - Emblems Some thoughts so far:

Can confirm this! Looking forward to trying out the Edelgard/Byleth interaction. It seems like a sure bet that the other DLC characters when they arrive will have similar interactions with their main game counterparts.

Yeah this is what I do - it's not a huge inconvenience, but it isn't obvious why you can't cross the level threshold by polishing.

As someone who's been relying on Longbow Etie for most of my run thus far, I completely agree. I also can't remember the last time Longbows get serviceable hit rates, meaning you can actually use that extra range in this game - that's another point in its favour. However, Mini Bows are range-locked, and as far as I know there's no way to equip Bows and have an enemy phase against close-quarters and ranged foes (except by using Leif), so that's at least one reason why daggers are better in this game.

Agreed - daggers are significantly better in this game than they were in RD, and probably better than Heroes too (I'm not much of a Heroes player though, so take with a pinch of salt). The problem with arts is that the number of units who can use them well is relatively limited. You can give just about anybody except a pure mage a refined Steel Dagger and they'll do alright, but the same isn't true for arts. However, if you do use refined arts and put them on a decent character, they are at least better than swords. I guess it's worth saying that refining daggers/arts comes with a resource/gold cost, and the need to refine them is more pressing than for axes/lances/bows. So that's a merit those other weapons have - but I'd still say daggers come out on top in the end.

Sorry I meant any bond level, not just the ones with conversations. So for example, Alfred hit bond level 3 with Sigurd in Ch. 4, but when I returned to the Somniel he was still on level 2, and polishing didn't raise his bond exp at all.

Completely agree - wish I'd said this. I'd especially highlight what you said about polishing being proportional. Do not waste ring polishing on low bond levels - buy those with bond fragments and use polishing once buying levels gets expensive for you.

If I end a map having just reached a bond level, when I return to the Somniel the game registers me as being just shy of the bond level in question. Units in this situation cannot gain any BEXP with that Emblem by polishing rings. I encountered this multiple times with Alfred, but it's also happened to Alear, Louis, and Celine (each with different emblems).

Am doing a mostly blind run of Maddening at the moment - I'm only about halfway through the run, but some tips (people above have mentioned some of these, reiterating because they're good): Maddening is very stingy about EXP and SP. If you've played the game before, a rough idea of who you're going to use at which points of the game is helpful, so that you make sure to field them for only as long as necessary, and stick Emblems on units you plan to use long-term as much as possible so they can build SP for good skills. That being said, it isn't the end of the world to make up your party as you go, it's just a bit less efficient. I don't think anybody is unusable on Maddening, but you shouldn't have more than a couple of units that need babying/huge focus to hit their build path. Canter on Backup units (Advance is cheaper and also helpful, but less versatile), Perceptive on high-Spd units, and Lineage on anybody (if you have the DLC) are solid picks if you're struggling for skill ideas, especially earlier on. You still get a lot of Bond Fragments on Maddening - use them on Bond Rings if you like, but they mostly aren't competitive with Emblems, and their best use is to provide some SP growth for units that aren't equipping Emblems. Apart from that, your Bond Fragments are for engravings, and buying Bond ranks with Emblems. Eat meals between every battle, and do Push-ups on Alear. The DLC is game-changing if you have it. Ideally, do Tiki's paralogue ASAP - it's very tough but doable from the moment it becomes accessible, and Tiki trivialises the game once you get her. The only reason to delay is if you plan on using Jean/Anna long-term - make sure to recruit them first and field them on this map so they can catch up to your main team on levels. Jean/Anna are usable, but require you to invest straightaway and fairly heavily - I personally won't be using both on this run. Enemy bosses are unbreakable from Ch. 3 onwards, and effective damage will not work on named fliers etc. - chain attacks (and therefore Boucheron) are crucially important to beat early bosses, especially once Revival Stones kick in from Ch. 5. Support boosts from the Arena are really good, and the RNG for opponent characters is rolled after every battle, meaning that you can figure out who is coming if you save-scum (note that in some cases equipping different weapons can change the opponent faced). Ideally, the units you pick for Arena battles are both close to a level-up, and can gain support with the opponent. Metals for forging are limited, but don't let that stop you from doing it - good early-game targets are weapons that you use often (ie Javelins/Hand Axes), smash weapons, and high-range weapons (such as Longbows/Thunder line of tomes). Similarly, use stat boosters as and when you like - Alear is always a safe bet (except for magic, I guess).

And we're back! Paralogue 2 (Anna) Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Next chapter of the log! I thought I'd be done quicker, but I decided to attempt one last level before I released the log... and that level happened to be the DLC paralogue. Also, I'm really appreciating the tips and comments so far! Chapter 5 Paralogue 1 (Jean) Chapter 6 Divine Paralogue (Tiki)

Beginning to learn how difficult bosses are in Ch. 5! Thank you for the tips, especially on growths, because that's quite different to past games. I do like raising everyone, especially people I get early, but if it's too much of a struggle I will definitely pivot - I don't think I need to make Maddening harder for myself. No grinding is interesting - I just sunk 15K into donations to Firene, glad to know that's mostly wasted cash. I also spent some Bond Fragments on Bond Rings for the rest of my party, mainly so they could generate SP. I didn't know there were other uses for them, so I'll be more conservative from now on. Mixture actually - Celine and Louis are looking very good at the moment, I have high hopes for Boucheron, and Vander remains stupidly tough. The Boucheron + Sigurd tip is really useful, I've been mostly keeping the Emblems on their canon units but I should start experimenting with that.

Very nice of you to say! That's exactly the plan - I probably won't post as many chapters in one hit in the future, but I will be sure to make new posts each time I have an update.

I recently completed my first game log (for my last Three Houses run). I wrote that log to figure out the conditions I'd use for my first Three Hopes run - but even though that run is currently on hold, I still really enjoyed the actual process of writing the log. So since I'm not doing the Three Hopes run just yet, I'm going to start a log of my first Engage run instead. Odds are I finish this well before all the DLC comes out, so maybe this'll help me figure out a challenge run for Engage as well. Anyway, here we go! I'm playing on Maddening/Classic, with online functionality and DLC. I will be attempting to recruit all units, and to raise my whole army fairly evenly until endgame - I will make up builds as I go along because I don't know what's good yet. I will also try to pick up all goodies, although I may miss some just because this is a blind playthrough. I know very little about the story or game-specific mechanics, so would appreciate keeping spoilers to a minimum! Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 I'm not sure how quick I'll be with updates just yet - I'm pretty sure future levels will take me much longer. Let's see how it goes.

Mmm it's been actual ages since I used a Rampardos (like I had a literal flashback on reading your comment) so I can't say much about that. But it's probably not a good comparison, because Pokemon almost always need to have good durability because they're unlikely to one-shot stuff. If I had a Pokemon that reliably one-shot all or most enemies but wasn't that durable, it'd be better than the majority of Pokemon who are damage-dealers but don't do that. Other powerful builds, like HV Snipers, have no spell access, enemy phase etc. So they, for example, are not good at anything else except killing on Player Phase. I don't think anyone's tried to argue that Sniper is a bad class - I certainly don't think so. War Cleric still has spell access and it can do ORKO damage. I don't know what else to say here, except that you're dug into a poor position by denying that that's good. What you call the "death or glory" approach sums up the majority of Player Phase attacks in the game. If you fail to kill an enemy who then lands a counter on Maddening, odds are you die, especially in the early and late game. So do you also have a problem with all 1-range attacks/Fierce Iron Fist/Swift Strikes etc? This seems like an unreasonable criticism to level specifically at this build. More to the point, the chances of death are far far lower than the chances of glory. So while "death or glory" is technically an accurate description, a more apt phrase would be "very unlikely death or very probably glory". How would you even play this game without shouldering some danger of a counter at least some of the time? That would be both impossible and boring. You say "other builds... as restricted in terms of their usefulness", but not getting kills is itself a big restriction. That War Cleric has more than 1-range is a big plus (and one that helps it compete even with a Thyrsus mage), but not the central reason to be in the class. If the War Cleric and the Mage in this example start in the same square, the Mage has the advantage against an enemy Sniper 8 squares away, but the War Cleric has the advantage against a Sniper closer than that (because they will get the kill, and won't risk a counter). Outranging enemy snipers is a plus, but I don't think you're looking at my previous comparison with much balance. What RNG screwage are you referring to? Miracle in this game is off the top of my head on Bishop enemies (including Mercedes/Linhardt/Flayn), Indech and Macuil. A mage turned War Cleric will likely be able to tank any Bishops and Indech, leaving one enemy for which Miracle might be an issue. More importantly, this problem is not War Cleric-specific, and enemy Miracle is not significant enough to count as a black mark against this or any other build. In a game without Nihil, you just have to suck it up if it activates and make sure you have units spare to deal overkill damage.

Yeah I'm actually quite a big fan of Rescue broadly speaking - and you make a fair point that the extra Mv of War Cleric probably does matter more than the magic boost from Gremory in that respect. The reason the number of Rescue uses matters to me is because Rescue does have powerful utility beyond LTCs. If you have two Rescue users in the party and you aren't aiming for a LTC, Rescue is more versatile than Warp. But even with only one Rescue user, it's still a great spell - and it has the advantage of extra charges over Warp, even if Warp does edge the direct comparison. Pneuma Gale can lose on range against Thyrsus/Caduceus Staff/Valkyries, sure. And I take the point that Pneuma Gale is not immediate, whereas the Thyrsus will be available well before Advanced classes. I'd also add to your points that pure mages are still in ORKO range in the chapters surrounding the timeskip (when you're unlikely to have Pneuma Gale) - so extending their range really is a significant advantage over War Cleric for that period. But my Constance certified into War Cleric in Ch. 11 and mastered War Cleric in the Ch. 14 battle this run - Ch. 14-5 seems reasonable for picking up Pneuma Gale. After that point, War Cleric's 6 Mv + 2 range equals a Thyrsus Warlock's 4 Mv + 4 range, and the winner of that calculus is, at the very least, not obvious. After the midgame, extending your range when you can't get kills only has limited use (ie chip/linked attacks). I'd rather have a strong chance of ORKOs at lower range (which Aura Knuckles provides) than chip at higher range. If you can continuously ensure that a pure mage is getting kills through Part 2, then I'd happily grant a Thyrsus pure mage is better than War Cleric. For example, if I'd given my Lysithea her boosters throughout Part 2, instead of dumping them on her at endgame, then she would have been superior to Constance in every respect except use-effectiveness (because Lysithea will run out of spells faster than Constance runs out of weapon uses) and not having Bolting/Rescue. Of course, every pure mage needs significant help for those thresholds, which is why that isn't reasonable. Ward does grant EXP of various kinds, so it's slightly better than Pure Water. I don't actually care about the mileage of Ward either, for these purposes I just want to show that War Cleric does not really impair a unit who wants to use Ward. Because it has enough spell access to provide you with enough Ward for any given mission. On this point, War Cleric is superior to the magic sniper or hybrid grappler builds discussed above, which have no spell access. Which supports the point made above that even half-spell uses is worth something. I was including those enemies. Bolting won't kill units manning siege weapons from Gronders (ie Bernadetta/her replacement) onwards, and certainly won't kill mages either with siege tomes or manning Magic Orbs. Aggroing enemies from afar is a cool use of Bolting though. I can't imagine needing to do it multiple times every map, but yeah that is a benefit. I know I've replied to this point before, so I'll try a different tack. How many of your units are reliably getting kills on Maddening Player Phase, and reliably surviving Enemy Phases? Unless your answer to that question is everyone you field, this is not a critical flaw of War Cleric Constance (or anyone else).

You've definitely oversold this benefit. Even with Constance's mag, at least half of the enemies with long range attacks in the game are mages, who are never getting one-shotted with Bolting. You might pick up some ballista/onager users around the timeskip, but Bolting will mostly not one-round enemies from Gronders on - even Fortress Knights are gettable but iffy at that point. Given that there are only a couple of enemies in the game with long range pre-Gronders, its anti-artillery benefits aren't actually that impressive. As for other annoying enemies, yeah Bolting allows Constance to help out in various different places on a map, but you'll often need someone else there to get a kill. Even assuming you always use Bolting 4 times a map (I don't think I've ever done this, even when I had Gremory Manuela who couldn't contribute much else), that'll still be able to secure fewer kills than War Cleric Constance (not to mention she still has a use of Bolting for linked attacks or occasional chip). How often are you running out of spell charges, and what spells come under pressure? For Constance: 10 Heals should be more than enough by the time War Cleric is available Nosferatu is OK on Constance but it's rare that she or anyone wants to attack with it Ward is extremely niche or for mining Faith/Class EXP so shouldn't need more than 3 uses (and 10 is certainly overkill) Arguably, you do want more than 2 uses of a better Rescue per map, but Rescue isn't as broken as Warp so it's not a game changer (again, 6 uses is overkill) Abraxas isn't bad, but is unlikely to OHKO for long or at all, assuming you even bother with it - and even in Gremory it's comparable to War Cleric's Silver Gauntlets Mystic Blow (-5 Hit, +1 range) Given Constance is unlikely to double for most of the game, Training Gauntlets Pneuma Gale is straightforwardly stronger than any cast of Fire, with more uses Steel Gauntlets Pneuma Gale is equivalent to a Warlock's Sagittae (which is stronger than a Gremory's Sagittae), and has more uses Killer Knuckles+ Pneuma Gale is roughly better than Gremory Constance's Fimbulvetr (-2 Mt, +25 Hit, +5 Crit) - again, far more uses for Pneuma Gale For Bolting, see above. For Agnea's Arrow, same points as Abraxas (switch Silver Gauntlets for Vajra-Mushti) - also remember all Constance's spells lose to Aura Knuckles in damage output For the moment though, let's grant that Bolting is a straight loss for War Cleric, as Bolting is a genuine niche that Gremory makes better use of than War Cleric, even if it's not the strongest. Let's even say Mystic Blow is pointless because of its 1-range, and grant that more uses of Abraxas and Agnea's Arrow actually makes a difference. And you want the best out of Rescue (this is actually the criticism I most appreciate). That's still 6-4 War Cleric against Gremory - and I've barely mentioned that War Cleric also still has attack spells on the odd occasion that you do need them. Even half spell charges allow your War Cleric to act like a mage where needed, while still having the ORKO power of a top build.

Having adjutant Flayn specifically on Byleth removes the need for the Magic Staff on him. If we were to include the units being discussed before, Balthus can have Hilda as a pocket Mt-booster (but may still need the Magic Staff to offset the difference in his magic base/growths compared to Byleth), but Yuri can't carry around a Mt-boosting adjutant in story maps because the only one he has is Byleth. Keeping the Magic Staff equipped on those units, even with an A-support adjutant and Mockingbird, leaves that unit's Avo in the high 70s or so for endgame (maybe less for Balthus). Meaning War Masters and the like have hit rates hovering in the 40s/early 50s, which is too high for my liking. Hit rates on Enemy Phase are a bit sub-par even for Byleth (Balthus' will certainly be worse), although that is not as big of a concern as I originally thought, since I agree with you that a so-so Enemy Phase (provided the unit can survive) is better than no Enemy Phase. Also, Special Dance isn't an unreasonable buff (though surely not one you count on every turn?), and I'm also not using rallies anywhere near endgame, so that's mileage I hadn't considered. The boosts aren't super significant on their own, but 90 Avo is literally my threshold for calling a unit a dodge tank, so I definitely noticed that. Apart from those nitpicks, it's definitely an impressive build - thanks for running the numbers and mocking it up so quickly!

Yeah that's fair enough - I was calculating with Assassin (I don't think my Catherine had War Cleric at that point), and the difference in Atk power between the two is relatively significant at this stage of the game. Interesting - my suspicion is that your units will see much more combat that way than mine do, even though I normally do a week of aux battles per month, and tend to do all available paralogues relatively quickly. But yeah, given that difference Ch. 14 makes sense - mastering two Advanced classes by that time has never happened for me before. Yeah I quite like this. I mean, I didn't need any convincing that a hybrid Grappler would be powerful, my issue was more stacking evasion alongside it for a decent Enemy Phase. Brawl Prowess Lv 5, Avo+20, Death Blow, Fiendish Blow, Mag+2 are presumably the required skillset to hit that War Master threshold and maintain Avo, with a Magic Staff thrown in - but that involves leaving out at least Str+2 and Hit+20, and not equipping an Evasion Ring for that attack. Against enemies like War Masters, both my Hit and Avo with that setup are a bit too low for my comfort.

Ch. 14? No the paladins I was talking about were pre-timeskip (and I wasn't suggesting Mercedes would get those either, just that they were the kinds of enemies that you couldn't kill merely by doubling with gauntlets). Conveniently, I have recorded the stats on this thread for Catherine and Mercedes just prior to timeskip, and my boosted Catherine would only have gotten the kill on the Ch. 12 paladin with Vajra-Mushti and the Nuvelle battalion (although I didn't field her on that map, and the Nuvelle battalion had competition from other units). Mercedes wouldn't have killed that Paladin either, but she did get kills on that map (ie against Pegasi and anything she could double). My Catherine probably would have hit more thresholds than Mercedes on that map overall, but only because she could quad enemies. I did also mention post-timeskip in general - Mercedes definitely got kills by herself in the post-skip chapters before she mastered Sniper, although that may have been the result of my own selection bias (ie I only sent her against things she could kill). Especially for lower-Res units like Archers and Mercenaries, she was still in OHKO territory with the Magic Bow, while my Catherine still needed three hits (although in fairness she didn't really use Vajra-Mushti as much as she could have). I'm guessing this is with Brawl Prowess 5, Brawl Avo+20, Evasion Ring, Mockingbird's Thieves, adjutant/linked attacks and base speed? For me, none of that is coming together before Ch. 16 at the earliest and it involves delaying FIF at least a couple of chapters. And you're giving up some of the things you needed to get your units to ORKO thresholds with Aura Knuckles in the later game (maybe Spd growths will free up some of those tools but it's not a given). You may not 'need' Speed for a viable dodge tank, but you really do want it for your build. Since the build started as a way to optimise Player Phase magic attack, it seems odd now to pivot most of your resources to a half-decent Enemy Phase and lose attack power in the process. You're explicitly willing to buy Aura Knuckles with Renown, so I don't know why you're concerned about resources when it comes to Magic Bow users. And I'm still not convinced that any old hybrid Grappler will have an effective Enemy Phase - they might be able to tank attacks here and there, but not as a matter of course without giving up ORKO power pre-FIF. My main issue with the idea is that building for evasion and physical attack and magical attack is too much for one build - either you miss out on being effective in one/multiple areas, or the build is delayed too much to be truly good. Even so I do think that a hybrid Grappler is a potent build (with or without good Avo), especially post-FIF, but a mage that goes Magic Bow Sniper is less finicky (you only need to build for one specialism) and has higher range. Yeah that was just me thinking out loud tbh, that remark probably just confused the conversation.

Interesting response @LoneRecon400. Also realised I misread your FIF calculation when I posted last, so please ignore that bit. Grapplers still need to have top-tier Speed and Brawl Avo +20 (which is competing with something like Hit+20 for that final skill slot) to have a chance at dodge tanking - and there's no battalion that gives impressive boosts to physical Atk, magical Atk and Avo at the same time, your Evasion Ring is competing with Magic Staff and so on. I wouldn't take it as a given that a grappler (especially a character built for using Aura Knuckles) is both reliably dodge tanking and getting ORKOs in the lategame. I agree that I don't mind so much about the Aura Knuckles resource cost - there are ways around it if you hit A-rank gauntlets before Ch.16. Not sure it's that simple. Magic Bow Snipers are still able to get kills pre-Hunter's Volley. If they have a solid CA (Waning Shot, for example), that puts Magic Bow attacks in the region of top-tier spells which is enough to get kills in the period either side of the timeskip - it shouldn't be too long after the timeskip that Hunter's Volley/FIF becomes available. On the other hand, grapplers with decent Str (ie not Hanneman) likely need to crit, quad or have an above-average Str stat to ORKO in Part 2 without FIF. My Catherine on this run started needing three hits to kill tougher enemies like Paladins once they were introduced just before timeskip, whereas even at her highest relative strength Constance was unable to ORKO using physical attack without a crit - both were in War Cleric but I think the experience is comparable. Given this, I think there isn't a huge difference between the two builds before they master their respective classes, but Sniper probably does edge it as they are more likely to be able to attack enemies and earn Class EXP that way. I do think Aura Knuckles Grappler (using FIF) specifically requires more investment than Magic Bow Sniper. It'll depend on what unit you use for the grappler - Grappler Yuri is lower-investment than Grappler Hanneman, for example. But Snipers do win out - apart from the reasons above, the general utility of raising Bows (ie to pick up Hit+20) and having ranged attacks can't be undersold. My Magic Bow Mercedes this run was not very far at all from ORKOing everything at endgame, and only had a couple of enemies she struggled with prior to that point. Not having an Enemy Phase was a disadvantage of hers - but like I said above, there's no guarantee that Aura Knuckles Grapplers do. For me, War Cleric still ranks 3rd out of the 4 DLC classes, and would probably be mid-tier on some ranking of all the classes - but my general impression of it has climbed a lot since the DLC first came out. I also agree with you that War Master is (and should be) better stats-wise. It's interesting that you use War Cleric more than War Master. In my head, War Master is one of (if not the?) premier physical infantry class, and the only reason not to use it is that B Axes/Brawling is too much of an ask for many units that would otherwise want it, and certain specific builds (such as Hunter's Volley) can't have it. On the other hand, only a couple of build types (female gauntlets users with meh Spd, or an attempt at hybrid Balthus/Yuri/Hanneman/Hubert) genuinely want War Cleric. What swings you towards War Cleric?

Thanks for correcting on the Res stat - I had 19 in my head, but most have 18 Res except the two with the battalions (they have 20 Res). FiF only adds +1 to Atk (although it ends up being 3 damage total because you hit three times). I assumed Gloucester Knights because a male mage would prefer the +10 hit from it over the extra +1 Atk from Dicers (since Hit+20 is out of the way and they won't get Uncanny Blow, and raising hit via boosters is harder than raising atk). Fair enough with the Magic Staff though, I hadn't assumed it but it definitely makes sense and they're normally going spare. Generally happy with this (I wasn't worried about their physical offence being able to get kills via FIF). Although it's worth pointing out that neither of their personals are guaranteed to activate. And Brawl Avo +20 is at least worthwhile on Yuri (not sure it's worth it on Balthus?). I do like the idea of hybrid gauntlets on them, I was more poking holes in them doubling down on magic attack (as you would with Hanneman/Constance etc.) That's true - my Constance had around 30 displayed crit against most enemies at endgame, and actually got a couple of crits (although she didn't need them). Tbh, a War Master with Brawl Prowess Lvl 5, Brawl Avo+20, Brawl Crit+10, Quick Riposte, and something else (Mag+2?) running Aura Knuckles would be a pretty solid unit for both phases, although maybe not quite as reliable as other War Master builds.

Technically, yes, but there are other issues. Grappler/War Master is male-exclusive as you know, but Lorenz has a Brawling bane and Linhardt has banes in Axes and Brawling, so A-rank Gauntlets for them is painful. Hubert is CF-locked, so you don't get to spend much time with Aura Knuckles before endgame (he'll get by with Frozen Lance or if he's in a magic class pre-Aura Knuckles, but War Master might be beyond him). Which leaves Hanneman, who is neutral in Axes and Brawling but arrives late. I've genuinely considered Aura Knuckles Grappler Hanneman, but of course it'll still take a while to hit A-rank, which is up to individuals to see if they'd tolerate that. I would, with the caveat that I'd have to commit to investing well in him straightaway. Technically, I guess Balthus and Yuri could make this work, although their magic growths/bases make FIF a little dubious without further help. They'd need around 22 Mag to kill War Masters at AM endgame assuming Mag+2, Fiendish Blow and Gloucester Knights, which Grappler Yuri hits naturally at Lvl 42, and Grappler Balthus at Lvl 47. They'd pick up the other purely physical enemies on that map with slightly less Mag atk, but wouldn't come close to killing Mortal Savants/mages with it (whereas my Constance only needed a similar amount of help to kill even the high-Res units on this map). In comparison, Grappler Hanneman with a +8 Mag battalion might also need help for enemies with Res in the 40s (like battalion-wielding Mortal Savants at endgame), but should be able to kill everything else. As for War Master, Crit+20 is great, but building Mag atk and Crit at the same time is hard, and you'd be reliant on crits to get ORKOs against most lategame enemies. It's unlikely to be worth the effort to raise Axes for it, unless you're planning to create an Enemy Phase unit that responds with a magic counter. Still, I'd be surprised if you could get crit rates high enough to ensure reliable ORKOing on either phase. It should also be said that quadding is an option if you're Yuri. Provided he can evade the counter, four hits with Aura Knuckles should down everything physical even with average Mag growths (and Yuri can switch to physical offense to ORKO mages if he can quad them). He wouldn't need to deal with his Axes bane at that point - a hybrid Grappler may even be the best way to make use of his strengths, although Recover is good enough to make War Monk competition. Having said all this, War Cleric gives at least some spell access, women get other relevant abilities, and only Marianne/Hapi have banes in Brawling among the canon female mages. It's a path of much less resistance to get a woman to ORKO with Aura Knuckles. On Mystic Blow - Constance is the only one who gets it early enough to get kills with it, unfortunately. Balthus/Byleth don't have the growths to make it work by the time it comes around.