Barren

Not sure what difficulty you’re trying this on but if its normal/hard you can use whoever you like. Some characters may need some investment to be good for later like Chloe, Lapis, Amber. And then there are characters that needs some minor help but more resources are welcome like Ivy, Kagetsu, Pandreo etc.

So as the title says which change to Engage’s maddening mode you’re not a fan of? I’ll start: they made certain enemies and vast majority of bosses being immune to effective damage like wrymslayers and ridersbane. To me this severely limits the usefulness of most of your go to weapons. Especially when you have bosses being immune to being broken on top of that.

So we have Wendell 2.0 except this guy actually has growths. To be fair Wendell in Shadow Dragon is actually really good despite overall poor growths. Anyways, Lindon. This is assuming hard can be said for maddening too. You need either Alear, Ivy or Hortensia to recruit him during chapter 18. When he joins he comes with a Thoron tome which is nice. Sage is generally not a bad class at all. Staff utility is always nice and his build is about as good as Pandreo’s. Certainly a solid enough filler unit as others have mentioned. He can run a funny crit build with vantage + wrath. You can even have him use Micaiah to use great sacrifice and get his own HP down to 1 in order to activate wrath and get his personal ability that adds crit online. It has to be a lower weapon rank than what the enemy has but that’s easy to pull off. Just give his weapon a crit engraving and off to the races he goes. 6/10 for me if invested. If not invested then 4.5 honestly. He’s okay but would require favoritism to be as good as Pandreo or Ivy as an offensive magic unit.

I don’t know about you but there is always a way to make it work and it honestly works quite well. Having a healer near by in case your brave assist user gets hit to bring them back to full HP is generally one way to mitigate the issue. And plus chain attack strategies while yes, you do have to be committed to them, does work really well if you want to play fast as well as know how to set up the formation to begin with. I mean if it’s not your style to set up chain attacks that’s fine, but I wouldn’t dismiss the value of chain attacks whatsoever. Plus no offense but you’re making it sound like it’s easier said than done rather than the other way around. Not trying to pick a fight with you for the record, it’s just my take on your take. Now onto Goldmary. This for me is assuming hard as I don’t have enough experience on maddening to give her a proper rating but here goes. Goldmary joins you along with Rosado turn 1 of chapter 16. While the chapter was more or less made for Rosado because he flies and has Erika for damage fixing, Goldmary isn’t as lucky. She does start off as a hero and as others noted, she’s only 2 levels away from learning Brave Assist which allows a unit to chain attack twice as long as you’re at full HP. Your mileage might vary but I find it to be really useful because it’s my kind of play style personally. That said, her having an innate lance rank means that silver lances and spears are on the table for her. If you keep her as Hero, she is only 200 SP away from inheriting Dual Assist + which is really nice for chain attack strategies. Her durability is surprisingly high for a Hero thanks to her high defense growth. You could augment that by giving her speed + x from Lyn and then Roy as an emblem for sword power and hold out. If you want to switch her class, people have often brought up great knight with the same weapon proficiency. I suppose it’s fine but she would be weak to ridersbane and armor slayers so keep that in mind. Overall she’s a 6/10 unit for me. Like some of the other cast, she’s perfectly usable and can be a solid offensive support unit.

Cuteness combined! Time to talk about our lovely femboy Rosado. This is assuming hard since as of now I don’t have experience with him on maddening but I am on his joining chapter. Rosado joins you along with Goldmary turn 1 of chapter 16. Wyvern Knight is definitely one of the better physical classes in the game and he’s fortunate enough to start out as one. He also gets Erika starting out to show off what she can do as an emblem. Unfortunately for our cute crossdressing friend, his base stats aren’t impressive. But his growths are some of the highest in the game. So in a way, he’s basically Est. In terms of level of investment, you probably don’t really need to switch classes with him, although Warrior can keep his strength high while improving his build which is very mediocre while staying as a Wyvern Knight. After chapter 17 he could easily inherit canter from sigurd, maybe even piggy back off of Ike to improve his strength. Regardless of what you do with him, you will need to baby him for him to pop off. Especially if you want to use him for maddening. 5.5/10 for me. He can be rewarding if you’re patient and have been saving stat boosters for him. Favoritism for sure but we’re all guilty of it at one point or another so that’s why we choose to invest into these characters.

Ooh spirit of the cards, I call upon thee your powers to read thy fortune. Oh yes its Seadall time. This can be applied to any difficulty really. Dancers are always useful in Fire Emblem and this is no exception. He joins you during chapter 15 with Corrin as an emblem. You can immediately get him to rank 5 with Corrin equipped and get Quality Time. Healing HP while dancing is pretty big in this game despite what some will you. It’s a cheap and effective skill you can inherit off the bat. Soon after when you get Sigurd back he can inherit Canter. Another ability he can get right away. He’s a unit with the least amount of investment needed to be great. You could go for Quality Time/Canter + if you want. If you’re willing to spend bond fragments and skill books that is. There are other abilities if you like, such as avoid + x in particular can be nice so he can be a dodge tank. Remember that his combat and growths do not matter so do whatever you want. 10/10 for me. Is anyone really surprised? I ain’t. Use him unless you’re going for some kind of self imposed challenge run.

@Dark Holy ElfI can understand that. She’d be as good as someone that can score a 3 pointer for your team. Then you hear the crowd cheer: THREE!!!

@DefyingFatesAhh so it was a joke. Makes sense now

https://x.com/ultimashadowx/status/1696012593826038210?s=46&t=xmOHZGAzSBxvJKAaOHeeLA here is the tweet

God I can’t stand her voice. Yes, it’s time to talk about Hortensia. I’m assuming hard but this may also apply to maddening. She joins you once you beat her in chapter 14. Once she joins you master seal her right away. There is no reason to have her stay in wing tamer at base level 19. With that said, Ivy is a black mage on wings essentially so this makes her the white mage counterpart. Well sort of. Her promoted class Slepnir Rider gives her S rank in staves while maintaining B rank in tomes. Obviously she’s made to be probably the best staff bot in the game. Big Personality extends her staff range by 1 which is great. And World Tree has a chance to save a staff use during combat. That is nice when it happens because this could mean another chance to use any staff before it breaks. As others have mentioned, Divine Pulse+ and Canter are the two abilities that really enhances her support role really well. Emblem wise she likes using Byleth, Corrin for Draconic Hex and of course Micaiah. She’s the best Micaiah user for a reason. Aoe Warp, Heal, Rewarp, need I say more? Her durability is a weakness and her damage output isn’t the best either given the fact she’s only good to use Elfire or El Thunder. But she can function as a Griffon Knight with Levin Sword or Sage if want to use Byleth and Thyrsus. She fast and has high luck so her ability to dodge could come in handy at times. So avoid + x could also be an option if you want to use her as bait. It’s not the wisest idea mind you but still. Overall 9/10. She’s just that damn good of a support unit. I can see the argument of her being an 8. But honestly she’s pretty much a stable on teams like Ivy or Kagetsu or Panette and so forth. One last thing, while I don’t like her high pitched voice as all, when she talks in her lower pitched voice, she sounds fine. That’s my opinion of course.

This is cool is it not? Merrin! Oh hey the voice of Shantae! Anyways, this is assuming Maddening. Though I have used her more on hard mode so my knowledge on the other units on maddening for now it limited. She joins you turn 1 of chapter 14 along with Timerra and Panette. Wolf Knight is a class I find to be intriguing. It’s a mounted unit with dagger utility that is essentially a pegasus knight but no flight. That said, Hobble can be useful against high move enemies in addition to poison from the daggers. Merrin is essentially Kagetsu lite in a sense that her combat prowess is the same as Kagetsu just a few minor differences. Kagetsu has better strength even though he’s a swordmaster while Merrin is definitely faster and has higher move. Plus Merrin could use Levin Sword effectively with magic tonic support. Wolf Knights low strength growth could hamper Merrin’s performance overtime. But you can still forge a silver dagger to like +2/3 and her damage will be mostly fine for the whole mid game and some of the late game. As for emblems, Erika, Ike, Corrin all can help Merrin function as a debuffer that plays a role at making kills easier to achieve. Ike helps Merrin patch up her weaker areas like hp, strength and defense. Erika improves damage thanks to Lunar Brace. Corrin offers Draconic Hex and when engaged dreadful aura. Even canter because who doesn’t love canter is useful for Merrin. If you want to dodge tank for the late game there is avoid + x from Marth as well as dagger precision for better avoid bonuses are also decent choices. You could also reclass her as a Wyvern Knight or Warrior if you want to improve her strength. Hero gives her brave assist utility with chain attacks. Overall, she gets a 8.5/10 from me. Really good unit. Definitely recommended to bring along including others have mentioned like Panette, Chloe, Fogado and Pandreo.

Hell Yeah! Time to talk about Panette. This assuming maddening. @samthedigitalpretty much summed up my thoughts on Panette. So in an attempt to not repeat everything he said, I will give the cliff notes version. She joins you along with Timerrs and Merrin at chapter 14. Her strength is among the highest starting bases in the game and her being a berserker helps. She is in no hurry to class change since you can piggyback off of her high ho, strength and build growth for a while. Her personal ability is easy to set up and this essentially makes her a crit machine. Once she switches to warrior her versatility goes up as she can go for crit builds with killer axe/bow while chain attacking as a backup unit. Roy, Leif and Sigurd offer plenty for Panette but Ike for her has the most skills that suits her. Sure she can patch up on her speed to avoid being doubled. But having more HP and defense/res helps her survivability alot. 10/10 for me. She’s one of the best physical units in the game if you’re looking for enemy phase builds like Kagetsu excels at player phase.

Unfortunately that’s the problem with modern FE games at least imo. Even three houses couldn’t escape the stigma of great cast of characters but questionable to bad story. At least Crimson Flower and Azure Moon was interesting enough despite both of them not perfect by any means.

While I forgot which x user it was, but someone tweeted that the director of the game said that the game didn’t reach the heights they thought it could, felt that it was disappointing. And one of the directors Kenta Naganishi said that he plans on making the next game to be “less anime” Some if not most of the game is quite anime but whether or not it’s a good thing that up to interpretation. My biggest gripe is the game’s localization. I’m not a fan of it. It’s not as bad as Fates. That was a shit show. But there a number of dialogue changes that I wished was kept in tact. It seems like the vast majority where out of character from what the Japanese version intended them for them to be.

And a one and a two and a three! It’s time to talk about Timerra. She is going to be pretty tough to rate at least for me because I completely understand the argument as to why she isn’t worth the time to invest exp. But I have seen videos of people showing off how good she can be even on maddening. So this is going to be controversial for some but here goes. She starts off with Ike as an Emblem like how Diamant gets Roy and while her base speed is bad, it’s only because of her low build. She in actuality has 18 speed and is weighed down to around 13 thanks to her having a silver lance. She doesn’t get doubled by most enemies on her joining chapter except for wolf knights and the two warrior bosses. Timerra actually does fine for the mid game as you can just promote her and give her speed + 3 for example and she will be okay. 1500 sp is plenty to work with. The rest of her bases I’ll admit are pretty average. Her biggest claim to fame is that Picket is a backup unit so dual assist shenanigans are a thing and she can at least have reliable 1-2 javelins. Lance locked units don’t have as much issues as bow locked or sword locked units so there is that. Of course that does also mean that there is no armor slaying or dragon slaying weapons for her to use unless she engages with an emblem. Sandstorm like Luna and Sol has a dex % chance of it activating. Some have gotten good use out of it. Others say it’s not worth the time. I personally think that it is a chore to pull off. At least Alcryst has very high dex growth so over time Luna can be relevant. Still, she can get that improved if she has Sigurd which she can get by chapter 18 once you get him back. Plus she likes having Lance Power for increased damage. She also appreciates the build bonus from Sigurd as she can also use the Flame Lance without being weighed down as much. Especially if you give it an engraving that reduces the weight. Overall I’d say she’s a 5.5/10. Not quite horrible but not quite exceptional either imo. Just perfectly usable because she can already promote and using other weapons like Fensilar can also help matters. But feel free to bench her if you don’t want to use her.