Objeckts

He starts with C+ Axes, has a budding talent in Flying, and Mastermind. It is very fast to get him into Wyvern Rider/Lord. Even just Wyvern Rider is a clear upgrade from Death Knight. Better speed, still has 7 move but Flying is way better than being mounted on CF.

She actually does a little more damage than this. If you are planning on using Frozen Lance, then LoR is really the only way to be competitive late game. She learns Physic and Silence, so ~lv40 (~36 Magic and ~28 Dex) seems much more realistic for endgame VW. She can also equip a Magic Staff. All together that is an extra 8 + 7 + 1 + 3 = 19 Mt which should put her at 86 Mt overall. That is enough to kill Assassins, but she will still need boosters to one shot any other enemy.

It is still the best way to evaluate. Adding arbitrary restrictions because Holy Knight's shouldn't be using PBV, SS, or Vengeance has no bearing on the actual game. Some characters are more useful in more situations. How would that not be objectively better? Bernie's Physic is only going to be healing around 5-6 points less than Mercedes. The low magic really doesn't matter for Physic when it still an 8 range heal. If we are playing the same game than I am sure you would find that 90% of the time, Physic is what you want to use. It's not strictly better, because there are situations where Recover is stronger, but the vast majority of the time you want your mages to have Physic and not Restore. For any efficient playstyle Rescue, even at 4 range, will provide way more utility than Restore or Seraphim. Restore very rarely useful. Seraphim is fine on some units, but Sylvain already has Monster Piercer, which does more damage. This math is disingenuous. The Bernie that is listed here is 1-3 points off kill all of those enemies except the FK (-17), Hero (-6) and Warrior (-6). Simply swapping +2 Str for +5 HP is enough. Adding in Luin, which most units don't even want to use, is enough to kill everything but the FK with no investment. Bernie also has zero competition for +HP boosters unless you are running Cyril/Dedue. With just base stats and 0 HP/Str level ups, Bernie is able to one shot every boss on CF except the final one. Even as Holy Knight. This all comes at the opportunity cost of: one less adjunct for your other units limited battalion selection needing a female unit to be adjacent less Str boosters for your other units no LoR for other units At the end of all of that Sylvain still can't kill bosses as well as Bernie. Not to mention he requires both hits to connect (which is actually pretty risky vs Warriors/Wyvern Lords) The Paladin Sylvain already needs favoritism for him to kill late game. Holy Knight Sylvain is like that, but requires 7 more Str just to reach the baseline. Bernie is already overkilling as Paladin, so the loss of 7 Str doesn't negatively impact her as much. Bernie in general is a tier above Sylvain. The good things about Holy Knight work better for Bernie. The bad things about Holy Knight are worse for Sylvain. It's not a binary question. Multiple units can be viable at something, but one can be better than the other. Both Manuela and Linhart are "viable" Warp units. Once Lin gets Warp, he is better at it than Manuela. But Manuela can get Warp with less effort than Lin. Most would agree that Lin is a much better unit than Manuela though, even though he takes more effort to be "viable". Another example would be Hapi vs Lin. Hapi has more utility as a Physic/Warp bot once she gets the Faith ranks. But Lin starts working with way less investment. In this case I would say Lin/Hapi are pretty close. The point is that there is more nuance to "Who is the best Holy Knight?" than just which unit takes the least investment to get there. Marianne clearly has the easiest time going Holy Knight, but as Holy Knight she lacks almost any kill power. HK Bernie takes a bit more investment, but nothing crazy for a level 30 unit, and just does much more damage and has comparable utility. At level 30 Mercedes is only healing 3-4 points more than Bernie. Bernie has 8 range on Physic which is plenty for a unit with 7 move and Canto. Having high magic really doesn't make much difference to Physic. The most important thing to make Physic work is having an inventory slot to equip a healing staff. Neither Flayn or Constance has anywhere near the killing power of Bernie. Like just to be perfectly clear here, HK Bernie is going to do more damage than a Paladin Sylvain or a Bow Knight Leonie. If HK Bernie is a "Master of None", then what would you consider Paladin Sylvain or BK Leonie? Because both of them do less damage and provide less utility than HK Bernie. Leonie and Sylvain's offense isn't as strong as Bernie's. They can skip the setup turn, but the amount of enemies/bosses/monsters they can kill is much less than Bernie. The low HP thing is fairly minor if you are playing the game well. Lots of maddening enemies are going to be one shotting your units anyway, the difference between 50 HP and 1 HP is nothing when Sylvain is about to take 4 hits from a Grappler. Only 1 or 2 dedicated enemy phase units should be taking any hits. Every time another unit is being attacked is one more enemy to deal with on player phase.

She is still the best Holy Knight in spite of your level of excitement. She has 7 move, Canto, and Vengeance. She uses Physic just as well as anyone. Rescue situationally very strong. She is incredibly flexable, there is not a "specific way" for her to be useful. This is the right way to look at the question, otherwise it becomes too subjective. Generically good units, like Bernie/Sylvain/Leonie, will do better in than other units in bad classes. The only real exception is if the boons/weakness really don't line up. Both Leonie and Sylvain will struggle to kill. Even Paladin Sylvain/BK Leonie has difficulty killing many enemies on the last few maps without a bunch of +Str boosters. Taking away Bowfaire/Lancefaire and only having a +1 Str Bonus reduces Swift Strikes/PBV damage by 12 which really hurts their ability to kill. Not to mention there are still lots of bosses throughout the game that HK Bernie's Vengeance kills while even meta class Swift Strikes/PBV will not. On top of that neither of them have Rescue, so they are providing less utility than Bernie. Recover is worse than Physic even on low magic units. Healing Staff gives +10 healing already. Even with low magic, it still heals enough to provide utility while not requiring your unit to position poorly. The base magic stat of either Dimitri or Bernie is irrelevant. The 15 base magic of Holy Knight is the actual number that matters. I could see an argument that Dimitri is a better HK than Bernie, but I still disagree. Bat. Wrath + Bat. Vantage is very strong, but Holy Knight's lack of Lancefaire and low Str is going to cost Dimitri a lot of kills compared to Paladin (18 less damage on crit). The missing Lancefaire doesn't hurt Bernie at all because Vengeance is overkill anyway. Also note that by level 30, Bernie can pretty comfortably run Bat. Wrath + Vantage to do something similar but worse than Dimitri. Overall I just don't think this watered down version of Dimitri can compete with Bernie in the end game. Yes, I am claiming that HK Bernedetta is better than HK Dimtiri/Leonie/Edel. There is a trap where HK has White Tomefaire and people thing "hey this is an offensive white magic class". But even if you put a unit with strong white magic like Lys in HK, she will still be better off mostly ignoring her offensive white magic list. The best thing about Holy Knight is that it is a class with 7 move, Canto, and access to magic. The worst thing about Holy Knight is the lack of offensive bonuses and skill requirements. Bernie is already one of the best units in the game, and she benefits from all of good things about Holy Knight and can ignore the weaknesses. Sylvain/Leonie are already worse than Bernie and take a bigger hit from the bad offense. Dimitri normally better than Bernie, but he doesn't care about magic access and often is hurt by the lack of offense. Bernie as Holy Knight still has Deadeye and can aggro from 12 tile away compared to the 15 of Bow Knight, although I never find myself using either of these because its a waste of a turn. WL with Curved Shot are plenty good at aggroing if needed, but they retain the ability to actually get kills unlike the majority of the cast when stuck in Bow Knight. Personally I would put Great Knight or Mortal Savant as the worst master class, but Holy Knight is definitely bottom 3. Most maps are fairly friendly to cavalry. CF endgame and ch22 VW are really the only two maps that really punish cavalry. But a dismounted Holy Knight still has 6 move, which is tied with MS and +2 compared to GK. Dark Knight is in most cases a strictly better Holy Knight. But it is worse on Bernie/Marianne/Byleth because of the high reason requirement. I agree with you that Paladin and Falcon Knight are better for pure Vengeance than Holy Knight. You left out Bow Knight, which is also better for Vengeance because of the +1 move. There are two statements I am making which you seem to keep misunderstanding. Bernie is a very strong unit. Vengeance alone is incredibly strong, but Bernie has so many other things going for her. Her personal is incredibly strong through out the game. Pass works really well with Vengeance. Her boons and starting ranks in Lances/Bows/Riding are great. She learns Battalion Wrath. Encloser, Rescue, and Physic all provide good utility if they area available. The reality is even if you put Bernie into a normally bad class like Assassin or Holy Knight, she is still going to be strong because of all the other things she has going for her. Bernie is the best Holy Knight. This is pretty clearly true. It is easy to get her into Holy Knight. As Holy Knight she has 7 move, Canto, and Faith access. All of which synergize with the strong things she has going for her. Vengeance/Pass work well with 7 move and Canto. Vengeance's high damage means that the lack fo Lancefaire doesn't matter at all. The risky nature of Vengeance along with Bernies stellar Faith list work well with the long range utility of Rescue and Physic. Rescue works well on units with high move and Canto. Bernie is a unit that is already strong, and Holy Knight as a class actively helps her. You haven't really provided any real arguments as to why either of these statements is false. Holy Knight usually being a bad class doesn't make Bernie any worse of a Holy Knight compared to any other unit. Holy Knight's skill requirements barely affects Bernie, because with a Lance/Riding boon, she has a pretty chill time reclassing into Holy Knight. Bernie being strong as Paladin/Falcon Knight/Bow Knight doesn't make Bernie any worse Holy Knight.

Chip damage is not very useful by the time your units are level 30. If you have 8 actual units who can kill and 1 Bow Knight doing chip damage, that Bow Knight is only worth half a unit. If you have 7 units that can kill and 2 Bow Knights doing chip damage, then you only have 8 units. Just to be clear here, Bow Knight takes more skill ranks than Holy Knight does. Just because Holy Knight has White Tomefaire does not mean you have to use it. The pull of Holy Knight is that it's a 7 move Canto class with access to magic. That is a niche that is only useful on a few specific units (like Bernie), but it is still a niche that other classes don't do. If you think Holy Knight Bernie looks bad you are crazy. She is still has Vengeance, 7 move, and Canto, which alone puts her into A Tier. Dimitri is only available on one route, yet everyone rates him top 2. The fact that he is only available on one route doesn't make his performance on that route any worse. War Cleric Hilda performs best on GD, but is still available on other routes. Only working on one route doesn't detract from how strong War Cleric Hilda is. Offensively Hilda and and Byleth are almost identical as War Cleric. But Hilda also provides this 10 range AoE buff to your whole team. Hilda is better. Vengeance kills bosses. It always kills bosses. Other units don't kill bosses. Vengeance is this universal kill switch that kills everything. Claude struggles to kill fast enemies, WM Felix has difficulty with bulky enemies, Lys can't kill high HP enemies, etc... Vengeance just kills everything. Killing an enemy is much better CC than stopping them from moving. Banshee is available much earlier when your units are not strong enough to kill by themselves. By the time you get Encloser you have better kill options. Cutting movement by 5 is plenty for when the time period when movement stopping abilities are strongest. Everyone else has kinda explained this already, but: Most accurate Sniper in the game Consistent early game chip damage Reliable early game gambits hit rates Works with both Hilda and Leonie's personals Kills just as well as any other Sniper in the game C Authority for ch5 Easy A Authority for Indech Sword Fighters 2nd best Rallies in the game Perfect boons for Sniper Break Shot for early game Monsters Ignatz does all of the above while only taking up a single deployment slot.

Sniper is a fantastic class on Maddening. As someone who is obsessed with low investment, I would figure you would have a high opinion of it. Why do you consider Ignatz bad? He has probably the best passive in the game. His Auth boon means Blaze in ch5, extra Mt and stats from higher leveled battalions, and easy access to A Rank battalions mid game. He provides very accurate gambits early game. While next to Hilda, his Curved Shot is just as strong as Leonie's (adj to a male) early game. Break Shot is great early for monsters. On top of all of that, he has the second best rallies in the game. Vengeance kills everything. Encloser is Banshee that comes on line later. Once your units can one shot enemies the uses for CC start to diminish. Just because Holy Knight is a bad class on most units, doesn't mean its a bad class on every unit. In case you missed it, most units suck as Bow Knight too. Paladin Dimitri is only useful on one route, that doesn't make him bad. Wyvern Lord Hilda requires Lances (C), Flying (A), Axes (A) and Bows (C). It really isn't that much more investment. But once again, we are asking who is the best War Cleric, not what is Hilda's best class. Hilda needs to invest in Auth either way. It is actually easier as War Cleric than WL because she has more battalion choices when grounded. It's just Lorenz and Raph, everyone else is great. Balthus is crazy strong and he is one of the units who benefits most from Hilda's Bolting. But even if Hilda is only giving 10% Hit to 5-6 units and +3 Mt to 1-2, that is still a large boost to your team. I never advocated for a dodgetanking War Cleric Hilda. It would probably work mid game, but the low Mt of Gauntlets means it won't keep working without QR from War Master. I mentioned that War Cleric Hilda was bulky, which she is.

Blue Lion Dancers gives up to 4 units an extra turn at the cost of a single turn. It's 100% worth running for general play. It is debatably the best gambit in the game.

Vantage builds tend to have an easier time against gambits. Alert Stance means no player phase while Vantage/Wrath can still attack or use gambits to control enemies with battalions. Vantage/Wrath builds also start working way earlier than avoid based builds. Enemies have 100-130 Hit for most of the game. So until a dodge tank is at 100% avoid, they will be dying if attacked by multiple enemies. Getting 100% avoid requires speed growths, the 10% avoid from WL/FK, avoid rings (which can be difficulty to steal in ch7), and A+ Flying for Alert Stance+. Vantage builds are functional for much more of the game.

There is little reason to train Annette above D Faith. Maybe she hits C Faith from combat using Heal. But it really isn't that impactful. Dark Knight takes the same amount of effort to get into as Gremory. Even less investment if you have DLC because of how much free Riding wexp Valkyrie gives. Dark Knight Annette is an incredibly low investment unit. It's her ideal class if you are planning on using Blue Lion Dancers.

Dedue's Vengeance with max HP, max Str, and LoR is 203 Mt. This is before battalions or any Str boosting skills.

Dark Knight is the same investment as Gremory for Annette. Either class choice she can reach without any actual individual training, just set goals to Reason/Riding in the background. The two movement is incredibly relevant for her to secure kills with her 1 range Lightning Axe or support the team with the Dance battalion. Even on rough terrain she can still dismount and have 6 move.

Specifically on Bernie, it is something to do when she cannot safely use Vengeance. Normally Vengeance deals with one enemy per turn, but some turns it's just not possible to get use out of it because of how much of a glass cannon Bernie is. Encloser, particularly at 4 range, allows Bernie to still deal with a whole enemy. It's not as strong as Vengeance because someone still needs to finish of the enemy next turn, but it can be useful situationally. If you do try HK Bernie, don't bother with stat boosters. Spending 4 magic boosters to increase the range of Rescue is not worth it. She is only going to be using Rescue once every ~5 turns. Other units make much better uses of +Mag. It seems like you are overvaluing Encloser. Encloser is strong on Bernie, but I hardly ever use it compared to Vengeance. It's really just for odd situations where Vengeance isn't safe. Encloser is a situational utility skill for Bow Knight Bernie. Physic/Rescue are situational utility spells for Holy Knight Bernie. But both builds are just using Vengeance 80% of the time. If they are not using Vengeance then they are really just mediocre builds. The biggest reason Bow Knight is the better build is because of the +1 movement. 4 Range Encloser vs Rescue/Physic is a wash. But once again, this thread is about who is the best Holy Knight, not which class is Bernie best as. War Cleric Hilda is the best AoE Hit/Mt buff on GD. The seems to be the definition of "excel". It's also not too specialized because it: Has a lot of killing power with Darting Blow + Fistfaire Is reasonably bulky with Hilda's speed and +20 Brawl Avoid By your own definition you should like this build. It has a similar investment to get most units into WL. It's not meant to be used. It's just meant to be equipped for the team buff. You are comparing two builds that do two completely different things. Constance is a siege mage and a magic booster sink. Hilda is infantry and AoE support. They both have strengths and weaknesses. But Constance having Bolting in no way makes Hilda any worse. She is the best in class AoE buff for GD. She gives +Mt to both Claude and Balthus. On top of being a bulky infantry. Leonie? Lys? Even Ignatz is above average. Then there are very strong free recruits like Balthus, Seteth, and Cyril who all love to have a global 10% Hit buff. I really can't imagine many recruits would do better than those three on GD.

25 Dex is right about where she should be. I don't see how her hit rate is so low. Killer Lance+ is 80 Hit, then she gets 25 from Dex, 15 from Lance Prowess 5, 5-15 from her battalion, and 20 from +20 Hit. That should put her at 145-155 Hit. Enemies in AM ch20 mostly have <50 avoid. Ingrid should have 95-100% on the majority of enemies. The only exception is the Falcon Knights with 73 avoid, who honestly give most units trouble. But even then you can get another 30-40% hit from linked attacks so they shouldn't be that difficulty. Bow Knight is very strong on Leonie. WL is probably better, but it's very high investment compared to Bow Knight. Getting A Axes, A Flying, A Bows, C Lances, and B Authority is a huge pain. Cyril is better off as WL just because he actually has strengths in Axes and Flying.

Personally I would put Cyril ~A Tier. Definitely not as strong as the lords. Probably not as good as Shamir/Lys/Leonie. But he is still one of the better units in the game. Ignatz is not as strong as Cyril. But not bad unit by any definition.

It's not worth stat boosters. She starts at 16 Magic, which is a breakpoint for Rescue range. Beyond that every 4 magic stat boosters give her 1 Rescue range. +Mag gets way more mileage on other units. Magic means different things to different units. I can see Warlock Lorenz with 17 magic who needs it for offense being bad. But to HK Bernie 15 magic means 4 Rescue range and 8 Physic range, which is enough. The main action Holy Knight Bernie should be doing is Vengeance, not Rescue or Physic. From level 20-30 she is the same as a Bow Knight Bernie. At level 30+ she trades 1 move and Encloser for Rescue/Physic. Once again I am not implying that Holy Knight Bernie is better than Bow Knight Bernie. But there are a good amount of situations where Rescue & Physic are better than Encloser and 1 move. HK Bernie is a fun build that makes use of a terrible class while still being one of the best units on your team.