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Best Classes of your Students (and Faculty) Encore: Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude


Jayvee94
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BEST CLASSES FOR EACH UNIT ENCORE  

39 members have voted

  1. 1. What is the best endgame class for Edelgard?

    • Falcon Knight
      0
    • Wyvern Lord
      21
    • Mortal Savant
      1
    • Great Knight
      0
    • Bow Knight
      0
    • Dark Knight
      2
    • Holy Knight
      0
    • Gremory
      0
    • Swordmaster
      1
    • Assassin
      0
    • Fortress Knight
      0
    • Paladin
      0
    • Wyvern Rider
      0
    • Warrior
      1
    • Sniper
      0
    • Warlock
      0
    • Bishop
      0
    • Dancer
      0
    • Emperor
      13
  2. 2. What is the best endgame class for Dimitri?

    • Wyvern Lord
      3
    • Mortal Savant
      0
    • Great Knight
      0
    • Bow Knight
      6
    • Dark Knight
      0
    • Holy Knight
      0
    • War Master
      1
    • Hero
      0
    • Swordmaster
      0
    • Assassin
      0
    • Fortress Knight
      0
    • Paladin
      3
    • Wyvern Rider
      0
    • Warrior
      0
    • Sniper
      0
    • Grappler
      0
    • Warlock
      0
    • Dark Bishop
      0
    • Bishop
      0
    • Dancer
      1
    • Great Lord
      25
  3. 3. What is the best endgame class for Claude?

    • Wyvern Lord
      0
    • Mortal Savant
      0
    • Great Knight
      0
    • Bow Knight
      1
    • Dark Knight
      0
    • Holy Knight
      0
    • War Master
      0
    • Hero
      0
    • Swordmaster
      0
    • Assassin
      0
    • Fortress Knight
      0
    • Paladin
      0
    • Wyvern Rider
      0
    • Warrior
      0
    • Sniper
      0
    • Grappler
      0
    • Warlock
      0
    • Dark Bishop
      0
    • Bishop
      0
    • Dancer
      0
    • Barbarossa
      38
  4. 4. What do you want to vote for after this?

    • Equippable Abilities Tier List
      23
    • Equippable Combat Arts Tier List
      16

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  • Poll closed on 09/21/2019 at 12:37 PM

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2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I doubt it - he probably won't have enough crit with magic to bank on between enemies having actual luck stats and the prowess skills that give crit evade, among other bonuses.

I was surprised too. I originally just intended to use Mortal Savant for fashion alone but the crit rate he can achieve is simply that high and enemy Res is simply that low. I don't think it was consistently like 50% or anything. He usually had about 30% but since he can consistently double he has roughly a 50-50 chance of actually getting a crit. Even if he doesn't get one, his damage output is high enough that it will still put them in any unit's one shot range. A little inconsistent but not bad at all for what I thought would be a dead skill.

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22 minutes ago, ZanaLyrander said:

Felix can be good at whatever he does, he gets a free five damage for not having a battalion assigned

Please never focus on that skill, battallion are so infinitely better than a plain 5 damage. Even Jeralt's Mercs at E Authority could be considered better tbh.

On the hybrid topic, tbh I'm not sure, if he didn't have a strength in Bows maybe I could see it being a good option, but if you have strong bows and easy access to Assassin/BK there's not really much of a reason to switch to magic. The occasional Fortress Knight isn't enough imo, those are so garbage you can beat them with a stick. What you're going to end up with is more likely to be a jack of all trades that actually gets outclassed by the others.

It's the ethernal struggle of class/stats based RPGs, hybrid and tanks are always a cool idea, but in the end you're always better off having incredibly fast and hard hitting physical units and glass cannon mages. It's a problem at the root of a level based game, raw power becomes all, and it cancels other builds in terms of efficiency.

Edited by timon
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9 minutes ago, timon said:

Please never focus on that skill, battallion are so infinitely better than a plain 5 damage. Even Jeralt's Mercs at E Authority could be considered better tbh.

On the hybrid topic, tbh I'm not sure, if he didn't have a strength in Bows maybe I could see it being a good option, but if you have strong bows and easy access to Assassin/BK there's not really much of a reason to switch to magic. The occasional Fortress Knight isn't enough imo, those are so garbage you can beat them with a stick. What you're going to end up with is more likely to be a jack of all trades that actually gets outclassed by the others.

It's the ethernal struggle of class/stats based RPGs, hybrid and tanks are always a cool idea, but in the end you're always better off having incredibly fast and hard hitting physical units and glass cannon mages. It's a problem at the root of a level based game, raw power becomes all, and it cancels other builds in terms of efficiency.

 

I agree, the goal for Felix should be to give him a high-attack bonus battalion, and then on the off chance the battalion gets wiped out he still keeps the damage bonus. Jeralt's Mercenaries are great for him early because they give +3 Str (so only losing 2) while also giving + avoid and crit. Late-game it's possible to get him up to B Authority without too much trouble, at which point he can switch to the Fraldarius Soldiers (which are I think +7 attack at base level?).

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28 minutes ago, timon said:

Please never focus on that skill, battallion are so infinitely better than a plain 5 damage. Even Jeralt's Mercs at E Authority could be considered better tbh.

On the hybrid topic, tbh I'm not sure, if he didn't have a strength in Bows maybe I could see it being a good option, but if you have strong bows and easy access to Assassin/BK there's not really much of a reason to switch to magic. The occasional Fortress Knight isn't enough imo, those are so garbage you can beat them with a stick. What you're going to end up with is more likely to be a jack of all trades that actually gets outclassed by the others.

It's the ethernal struggle of class/stats based RPGs, hybrid and tanks are always a cool idea, but in the end you're always better off having incredibly fast and hard hitting physical units and glass cannon mages. It's a problem at the root of a level based game, raw power becomes all, and it cancels other builds in terms of efficiency.

Bold: Fates says hi - mages got nerfed to hell, and evade isn't as reliable as it was in most other games.

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I've only seen swordmaster/mortal Savant Felix and War Master Felix. Though I can easily see the merits of bow knight because how busted the class is and his affinity towards bows. Bow knight is probably the best option it just depends if the path to bow knight works for Felix. 

War Master Felix has to be one of the best combat units in the game but is that offense necessary? The question between these two classes would be the investment. 
Going for swordmaster is much much easier to get Felix to than war master especially if you recruit Felix. This leaves him extra training time for him to level up his authority which can take a while to level up. He really only needs B rank to use the really good battalions like Goneril or Fraldarius. As for mortal savant you lose a bit of desired base stats for 1 extra movement and you have to think if this is worth it. You will barely use magic on Felix as it doesn't do much. It's nice he gets thoron but having the ability to attack at 2-3 range isn't helpful if you can't kill anything with it. 

As for war master the biggest challenge will be to level up axes which is a weapon type you probably won't much. Gauntlets just work for most units compared to axes. Felix can start quadding with them really fast and can pick up death blow along the way if you train axes early. He can be made into an extremely effective boss killer with his physical stats only being matched by the lords. 

Also I tried to do a 100% crit vantage build but it seems too hard to pull off until super late game where it's not really necessary. I forgot if Felix can learn battalion wrath but it could be useful. I was just too lazy and didn't want to individually replenish battalions and not his. I did get 100% crit in the BL route on some monsters with a Wo Dao+ and double sword crit abilities by chapter 20. My idea was 100% crit vantage isn't a large investment as the requirements is reliant on gear than class mastery. 

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57 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: Fates says hi - mages got nerfed to hell, and evade isn't as reliable as it was in most other games.

Yeah okay, point still stands, magic maybe is not THAT good in that iteration, but you're still better off killing everything on the spot with Camilla than training General Benny or something like that.

Also note that I wasn't just talking about FE, it's a general problem in every level/stats/class based game, it always ends up in snowballing, and snowballing means power and speed are everything (be it magic or physical). Mage knights are always such a cool idea, and yet it's always better to go Knight or go Mage.

Edited by timon
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Just now, timon said:

Yeah okay, point still stands, magic maybe is not THAT good in that iteration, but you're still better off investing in killing everything with Camilla than training General Benny or something like that.

Also note that I wasn't just talking about FE, it's a general problem in every level/stats/class based game, it always ends up in snowballing, and snowballing means power and speed are everything (be it magic or physical). Mage knights are always such a cool idea, and yet it's always better to go Knight or go Mage.

Not really - Fates is harder on higher level units exp wise than other entries are (ergo, the dropoff in exp gained by a unit that's higher level than their opponent is much more drastic - a unit that's 6 levels higher than their opponent gains next to nothing).

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5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Not really - Fates is harder on higher level units exp wise than other entries are (ergo, the dropoff in exp gained by a unit that's higher level than their opponent is much more drastic - a unit that's 6 levels higher than their opponent gains next to nothing).

I'm... not sure if you're purposedly trying to miss my point or what. It's not really about Fates, and it's not about level difference, I said Camilla off the top of my mind. What I mean is, you want to hit hard and do it fast, just like in every other game, instead of tanking or do "quirky" more interesting stuff. I haven't played Fates in a while so I couldn't really tell you specific examples, I didn't even enjoy it too much so it's not very memroable to me, but I'm not talking details here.

Just think of the life long discussion you had in that other thread about Raphael, the whole point is that Raphael is actually not good, because he's meant to do something that is not optimal. That's it. You can use him, and it's probably more fun to use him and mix up your team instead of smashing everything with Lysithea+Wyverns, but powerful fast hitters are always going to be superior. I can't think of a single RPG that's actually balanced and makes hybrid mages or tanks as valuable as "focused down" builds.

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6 minutes ago, timon said:

I'm... not sure if you're purposedly trying to miss my point or what. It's not really about Fates, and it's not about level difference, I said Camilla off the top of my mind. What I mean is, you want to hit hard and do it fast, just like in every other game, instead of tanking or do "quirky" more interesting stuff. I haven't played Fates in a while so I couldn't really tell you specific examples, I didn't even enjoy it too much so it's not very memroable to me, but I'm not talking details here.

Just think of the life long discussion you had in that other thread about Raphael, the whole point is that Raphael is actually not good, because he's meant to do something that is not optimal. That's it. You can use him, and it's probably more fun to use him and mix up your team instead of smashing everything with Lysithea+Wyverns, but powerful fast hitters are always going to be superior. I can't think of a single RPG that's actually balanced and makes hybrid mages or tanks as valuable as "focused down" builds.

I'd say Raphael is also not good because his stats prevent him from being good at what he's supposed to be good at (a good tank, in my view, needs to be fast enough to not be doubled by almost everything, and Raphael is too slow for that). Compare to Oswin, who's also slow, but in general, Blazing Blade enemies are lacking stat wise, meaning he can tank (that being said, however, Blazing Blade enemies being weak means that his durability is generally overkill, and the hit formula doesn't really help matters).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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10 minutes ago, timon said:

I'm... not sure if you're purposedly trying to miss my point or what. It's not really about Fates, and it's not about level difference, I said Camilla off the top of my mind. What I mean is, you want to hit hard and do it fast, just like in every other game, instead of tanking or do "quirky" more interesting stuff. I haven't played Fates in a while so I couldn't really tell you specific examples, I didn't even enjoy it too much so it's not very memroable to me, but I'm not talking details here.

Just think of the life long discussion you had in that other thread about Raphael, the whole point is that Raphael is actually not good, because he's meant to do something that is not optimal. That's it. You can use him, and it's probably more fun to use him and mix up your team instead of smashing everything with Lysithea+Wyverns, but powerful fast hitters are always going to be superior. I can't think of a single RPG that's actually balanced and makes hybrid mages or tanks as valuable as "focused down" builds.

There are a lot of them actually, but those tend to go onthe other end of the spectrum and you need to get as much HP as humanly possible because otherwise you get oneshot. Also, try to build an arcane warrior in DOA.

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10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd say Raphael is also not good because his stats prevent him from being good at what he's supposed to be good at (a good tank, in my view, needs to be fast enough to not be doubled by almost everything, and Raphael is too slow for that). Compare to Oswin, who's also slow, but in general, Blazing Blade enemies are lacking stat wise, meaning he can tank (that being said, however, Blazing Blade enemies being weak means that his durability is generally overkill, and the hit formula doesn't really help matters).

Well, you just confirmed it then. "A good tank needs to be fast enough", that's my point, there's no space for variety, that's a problem at the root of these games (again, I'm not talking about FE only). And even if he was, you'd still rather make him a hard hitting Wyvern Lord, and even then there'd be better units than him.

On the Oswain point, to be completely honest I can't remember a thing of old FE games' gameplay so I'm not sure what you mean, but again this is not necessarily only about Fire Emblem, but RPGs and leveling games in general. They always push an archetype, balance is nearly impossible.

I suppose there's also a nice thing about snowballing which is that you can mostly play in whatever way you want and still do good (if the game isn't too hard), but that doesn't shake away the feeling that you're limiting yourself on purpose.

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For Ferdinand, I'm going to say Paladin is FAR better than Great Knight. 

 

Higher movement, higher BST, higher base speed, slightly better growths, and lower requirements.

 

There is no reason for Ferdinand to invest in Armor and Axes, unless you want to slot Smite, Seal Speed, or Weight -5 from the armor line. With the resources spent towards unlocking Great Knight, he could invest further into maxing out his lances, riding, and authority.

 

This also isn't a Fire Emblem in which weapon versatility matters. There is no triangle coverage to take into account, and it's typically better to just pick one weapon type and max it out, except for what you need in alternate weapon ranks to unlock classes.

Edited by Etheus
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Dorothea: Warlock. Apparently I'm only the third vote for this, but it's been said well by others before me: she doesn't need move, she needs power, and Warlock provides, while still allowing double Meteor. Snagging OHKOs with Meteor (and Thoron for that matter) increases her utility notably.

Ferdinand: Wyvern Lord. Always a good default for a physical job when there's not much else to say. You can try to go for a Lancefaire class like Paladin if you want given his affinity for the Spear of Assal and Swift Strikes and WL is overall better for sure.

Felix: Bow Knight, I think; he's a natural to train with bows thanks to his glassy stat build.

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I kept Ferdinand as a Paladin, mostly out of laziness for not wanting to go for GK reqs (although I did get his budding skill and Weight -3.) WL is always gonna be the answer for a physical unit with a prof in axes, and not a detriment in flying, but that's a boring answer, and he did well enough as a Paladin for me.

Dorothea I used as a Gremory, and while I did vote for that.. after reading some of the posts I kinda wanna give Warlock an extended try. There's some very compelling evidence on that front. I did certify her as my dancer, but I never used her in the dancer class (I might need to try that in the future).

Felix... I've used him as both a Swordmaster and a Mortal Savant, he did admirably in both classes, but I might just keep him in SM due to the novelty of it all. I think I'm too lazy to try getting the reqs high enough for Bow Knight, although I do think he could excel as one (obviously, because they're so good). War Master is just a great physical class, especially if you like some diversity in the line-up, although since I used Dedue as my WM, I never used Felix as one.

Edited by MegaGax
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9 hours ago, Silly said:

In this case: "This unit's best class as a dancer" is literally every single lower tier unit, which is not very interesting or helpful in my opinion.

Heck, Dorothea is actually not even as bad as some other students, so she probably shouldn't actually be your dancer. She provides useful utility as a regular magic class, and making her a dancer means you either sacrifice the ability to use spells freely on her or you give up dancing for the turn (which is not something that should really be done in an efficient strategy).

To be honest, the ideal traits for "best dancer" are kind of dumb:

1. Be a bad unit. Either you got stat screwed on this particular run, or your growths/strengths/etc were never good to begin with.

2. Preferably have a strength in riding. This point isn't 100% necessary, but it's nice.

Everything else is mostly irrelevant. You don't need to be good at swords or magic or whatever, your dancer should be dancing pretty much every turn, because that is by far the highest value option in the vast majority of situations. Likewise, your dancer should not be positioned somewhere where you have to see enemy phase combat. Even if your dancer doesn't die to an enemy when attacked, they likely do not have nearly as good EP combat compared to your dedicated combat units, so you should just position in a way such that the enemy is aiming for you stronger units.

She has a good player phase, but so do other high/top tier units. This is especially true given that player phase combat is considerably easier than enemy phase combat due to the potential existence of combat arts, and of skills like Darting/Death Blow (every one of your Wyverns should ideally have at least one of these skills). However, those other units also have much better enemy phases, due to having much better bulk.

Also, she is stuck in a class that has 4 movement, no canto, and takes terrain penalties for the first 30 levels of the game. Whereas physical classes become a lot more mobile as time goes on. Healing with her is very hard for this reason if you're playing efficiently, as trying to make sure your 4 move unit is usually next to one of your frontline units with 5/6/7/8 move is a huge hassle, and slows you down/causes you to move inefficiently.

She's a good unit, and definitely in the running for best magic user, but unless you place an absurdly high importance on Warp (for example, in the context of an LTC run), then she isn't "the best" unit in the game.

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?

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2 hours ago, Peck said:

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. 

My point is that benchmarks for player phase combat in this game are not super high. The existence of stronger player phase weaponry (Brave weapons and gauntlets), Darting/Death/Fiendish Blow, plus access to combat arts on player phase means that your units will gain the ability to ORKO enemies on player phase earlier than they would the ability to ORKO on enemy phase. 

Lysithea is good at ORKOing enemies on player phase, but so is Byleth, your main lord, Felix, Catherine, Shamir, any of the good Wyverns (such as Sylvain, Hilda, Ferdinand, Seteth), etc. If all of the top and high tier units are consistently putting out ORKOs on player phase, which one has the best player phase combat? They're mostly the similar in this department.

I will bring up a minor difference, in that Lysithea usually doesn't take a counterattack when attacking weaker enemies on player phase (which is a good thing because she is so frail), whereas your good frontline units will take counters and occasionally get hit by a random 40% hit rate from an enemy for some damage. But on the other hand, these front line units can afford to take the hits while Lysithea can't, which makes them better at engaging endgame boss enemies with Counterattack, that cannot be easily one-shot. (I'll also bring up that if you heavily min max/grind then Lysithea can actually one shot some of these tougher bosses, but I'm not going to really count 107 attack Lysithea one-shotting Nemesis as a big positive for her because in the standard use case she is not going to realistically get to that high of a benchmark, and if she doesn't reach that benchmark then Nemesis just one shots her back in return).

2 hours ago, Peck said:

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?

This is a very, VERY slow way of playing. Forcing your high movement units to constantly be next to your 4 move units is terrible in any sense of the word "efficiency". The fact is that many of the best Wyverns (and other top/high tier units) are mostly self sufficient. They can reliably ORKO enemies on player phase and usually (or always, depending on how good they are) ORKO enemies on enemy phase. In addition, they are generally bulky/dodgy enough to fight multiple enemies on enemy phase without dying.

One of the biggest things about efficient play is fighting as many enemies per turn cycle as possible. A unit that fights and kills an enemy on player phase and then does nothing on enemy phase is usually going to be slower at accomplishing an objective than a unit that fights and kills an enemy on player phase and then fights and kills two more enemies on enemy phase. On a rout map, one of these units is only killing one enemy per turn cycle while the other is killing three. On a map that wants you to press forward towards some objective (such as a boss or a capture point or whatever), one of these units needs to end their movement outside of enemy range, whereas the other one can move forward additional tiles into enemy range, meaning they will get to the objective sooner.

Fighting enemies on enemy phase is not a downside in efficient play. It is a GOOD thing. You want to maximize the amount of combat you see per turn cycle, conditional on your units not dying. If your unit can safely fight 3 enemies on enemy phase but not 4, then putting him in range of 2 enemy units that he can kill when you could have moved the additional tile to put him in range of 3 is inefficient.

If you do not agree on this, then you fail to understand one of the most important aspects of efficient play, and I don't believe we will ever reach an agreement, as your criteria for evaluating a unit is too far removed from what I (and many others) use to judge quality.

THIS is the true benefit of canto. You can kill an enemy of your choice on player phase, and then reposition yourself FARTHER FORWARD into the appropriate square for the most optimal amount of enemy phase combat. Without canto, you are at greater mercy of enemy positioning, because often times the optimal square for enemy phase is not a square that you can attack somebody from on player phase. Canto is usually NOT used to run all the way back to your team.

This is also why low move in this game is such a weakness. (As it is with many fire emblem games.) If your strong, high move units are good enough to take on multiple enemies, then they will leave your lower movement units behind unless they intentionally slow themselves down (WHICH THEY DO NOT HAVE TO DO). This is also why Physic is so valuable, as it prevents mages (who have awful move) from being left behind, because even if they fall behind movement-wise, they can still contribute each turn.

Also, you claim to want a varied roster that can respond to "a variety of situations", but the fact is that this claim is a huge pitfall. Class variety for the sake of variety itself is not a good argument. It has been the case in many Fire Emblem games in the past where specific classes were much better than others, and running multiples of that class at the expense of others was not a bad thing, it actually made the game significantly easier (for example, Paladins in FE7 or FE9 were king). There is room for other units that cover different niches, but the primary objective that your army needs to fill, and usually needs a lot of units that can fill this criteria, is "kill enemies, preferably a lot in a short time span". Whether the best combat units are Wyverns or Paladins or Dark Fliers or Swordmasters or whatever really doesn't matter. If they all mostly do this same primary task, they are all interchangeable in terms of team composition. If Wyvern Lord is the best class for killing enemies efficiently in this game (which it so obviously is), then having a roster of primarily Wyvern Lords is technically optimal.

That's not to say that you should have a roster of 12 Wyvern Lords, because even with how big current maps are you don't need 12 Wyverns to clear them out quickly, so the added value of the last few Wyverns is actually quite small. Instead, deploying units that can occupy a different space than the first 6 or 7 Wyverns is more valuable. (Though 12 Wyverns honestly would not even be bad, and would likely make the game pretty easy). But the niche that the Wyvern Lord clearly fills is "most efficient general all-around combat", so claiming that another class is superior in this use case is pretty disingenuous. The fact of the matter is that mages are generally less efficient at killing enemies than Wyverns. And you know what? That's completely fine. What makes them worth deploying is the other stuff that they can do that Wyverns can't, which is primarily utility (healing, warp, rescue).

3 hours ago, Peck said:

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.

Thrysus is not unique to Lysithea (or even Lorenz). It is usable with no drawbacks on every mage with a crest, which is most of them (and still technically usable on mages without a crest if you're willing to accept the drawback, but I don't see why you would need to do this). It's not something to specifically consider when talking about Lysithea, but rather something that I have already factored into the evaluation of mages as a whole. Thrysus is very good and generally serves to fix the first two or so turns of combat on a mage, ensuring that they can usually attack somebody on these turns. But it still does not fix the lack of movement in the long term. Extra range is very, very good, but is not a perfect substitute for extra movement. On the third turn, for example, your mage has only moved 12 tiles away from their starting location, which means the enemies that they could have possibly engaged is a lot more limited than say, for example, a Wyvern Rider, which has already moved 21 tiles unhindered by walls or terrain (which means that for a mage to catch up to this point they often need to move a lot more than 21 tiles).

This mostly comes up when you follow the guidelines of efficient play above, of actually moving forward aggressively with your canto units to maximize enemy phase combat, which might not be something that you have implemented in your play.

Also, tanking with Lysithea is a bit sketchy. It's possible sometimes, but relying on Thrysus procs to not die is certainly far from reliable. And Nosferatu is both incredibly weak (with 1 might) and very heavy (weighing 8 versus her super poor strength), which means that with Nosferatu equipped Lysithea will sometimes find it difficult to double enemies (due to its weight) or kill them in a single hit (due to its low might). This would put her enemy phase performance below units with good enemy phases, that can take multiple hits from enemies and survive while ORKOing them back.

Speaking as a side note, there does exist movement boosting effects in this game, as you have brought up here:

3 hours ago, Peck said:

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?

But the fact of the matter is that movement buffs are the strongest on fliers. First of all, fliers are unimpeded by any sort of terrain, which makes the extra point of movement count for a full tile more often than it would on a ground unit. This is important if you're progressing through maps efficiently.

Secondly, fliers have canto, which also means they make better use of movement than non-canto units. If your foot unit stops to fight somebody on player phase that you need dead in particular, that's it. They're done. Any remaining movement that they might have had is wasted. If you gave extra movement to a foot unit, they will sometimes not be able to utilize it properly due to needing to participate in player phase combat. Extra movement on mounts is much less often wasted, because after you kill that guy that really needed to die on player phase, you can canto further ahead with your remaining movement. If you want to move forward with your full movement, then you have the option to do so.

Lastly, movement bonuses on your high move units usually matters more than on your low move units, because more movement on the highest move units translates to more options. If your 4 move unit gets the +1 move stat booster, this allows them to now move 5 tiles away and reach enemies from there. However, the thing is that most of your army has 5+ move, so if you needed a particular unit at that distance dead, then you likely already had plenty of ways that you could have planned for to make that happen. On the other hand, if you have a plan that involves somebody moving to kill an enemy 9 or 14 tiles away, well that plan isn't even an option unless you have an 8 move unit with movement boosting effects.

It's usually better to use your stat bonuses to accentuate a unit's strengths, not try and patch up their weaknesses. Giving a Dragonshield (+2 def) to your mage may turn an enemy 2HKO into a 3HKO, but it might not even make the difference a lot of the time because the second hit overkills you by enough that the Dragonshield doesn't matter. On the other hand, that same Dragonshield might always turn a 4HKO into a 5HKO when given to a tankier unit (because rather than mitigating 2 damage from 2 attacks it's now mitigating 2 damage from 5 attacks). In the same way, movement boosters also work like this.

Also, as a side note, other than your already high mobility units, +movement is effective on a dancer, especially in this game where you can't fix dancer mobility with rescue/drops. These are all prime candidates for extra move over your 4 movement unit.

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1 hour ago, Silly said:

My point is that benchmarks for player phase combat in this game are not super high. The existence of stronger player phase weaponry (Brave weapons and gauntlets), Darting/Death/Fiendish Blow, plus access to combat arts on player phase means that your units will gain the ability to ORKO enemies on player phase earlier than they would the ability to ORKO on enemy phase. 

Lysithea is good at ORKOing enemies on player phase, but so is Byleth, your main lord, Felix, Catherine, Shamir, any of the good Wyverns (such as Sylvain, Hilda, Ferdinand, Seteth), etc. If all of the top and high tier units are consistently putting out ORKOs on player phase, which one has the best player phase combat? They're mostly the similar in this department.

I will bring up a minor difference, in that Lysithea usually doesn't take a counterattack when attacking weaker enemies on player phase (which is a good thing because she is so frail), whereas your good frontline units will take counters and occasionally get hit by a random 40% hit rate from an enemy for some damage. But on the other hand, these front line units can afford to take the hits while Lysithea can't, which makes them better at engaging endgame boss enemies with Counterattack, that cannot be easily one-shot. (I'll also bring up that if you heavily min max/grind then Lysithea can actually one shot some of these tougher bosses, but I'm not going to really count 107 attack Lysithea one-shotting Nemesis as a big positive for her because in the standard use case she is not going to realistically get to that high of a benchmark, and if she doesn't reach that benchmark then Nemesis just one shots her back in return).

This is a very, VERY slow way of playing. Forcing your high movement units to constantly be next to your 4 move units is terrible in any sense of the word "efficiency". The fact is that many of the best Wyverns (and other top/high tier units) are mostly self sufficient. They can reliably ORKO enemies on player phase and usually (or always, depending on how good they are) ORKO enemies on enemy phase. In addition, they are generally bulky/dodgy enough to fight multiple enemies on enemy phase without dying.

One of the biggest things about efficient play is fighting as many enemies per turn cycle as possible. A unit that fights and kills an enemy on player phase and then does nothing on enemy phase is usually going to be slower at accomplishing an objective than a unit that fights and kills an enemy on player phase and then fights and kills two more enemies on enemy phase. On a rout map, one of these units is only killing one enemy per turn cycle while the other is killing three. On a map that wants you to press forward towards some objective (such as a boss or a capture point or whatever), one of these units needs to end their movement outside of enemy range, whereas the other one can move forward additional tiles into enemy range, meaning they will get to the objective sooner.

Fighting enemies on enemy phase is not a downside in efficient play. It is a GOOD thing. You want to maximize the amount of combat you see per turn cycle, conditional on your units not dying. If your unit can safely fight 3 enemies on enemy phase but not 4, then putting him in range of 2 enemy units that he can kill when you could have moved the additional tile to put him in range of 3 is inefficient.

If you do not agree on this, then you fail to understand one of the most important aspects of efficient play, and I don't believe we will ever reach an agreement, as your criteria for evaluating a unit is too far removed from what I (and many others) use to judge quality.

THIS is the true benefit of canto. You can kill an enemy of your choice on player phase, and then reposition yourself FARTHER FORWARD into the appropriate square for the most optimal amount of enemy phase combat. Without canto, you are at greater mercy of enemy positioning, because often times the optimal square for enemy phase is not a square that you can attack somebody from on player phase. Canto is usually NOT used to run all the way back to your team.

This is also why low move in this game is such a weakness. (As it is with many fire emblem games.) If your strong, high move units are good enough to take on multiple enemies, then they will leave your lower movement units behind unless they intentionally slow themselves down (WHICH THEY DO NOT HAVE TO DO). This is also why Physic is so valuable, as it prevents mages (who have awful move) from being left behind, because even if they fall behind movement-wise, they can still contribute each turn.

Also, you claim to want a varied roster that can respond to "a variety of situations", but the fact is that this claim is a huge pitfall. Class variety for the sake of variety itself is not a good argument. It has been the case in many Fire Emblem games in the past where specific classes were much better than others, and running multiples of that class at the expense of others was not a bad thing, it actually made the game significantly easier (for example, Paladins in FE7 or FE9 were king). There is room for other units that cover different niches, but the primary objective that your army needs to fill, and usually needs a lot of units that can fill this criteria, is "kill enemies, preferably a lot in a short time span". Whether the best combat units are Wyverns or Paladins or Dark Fliers or Swordmasters or whatever really doesn't matter. If they all mostly do this same primary task, they are all interchangeable in terms of team composition. If Wyvern Lord is the best class for killing enemies efficiently in this game (which it so obviously is), then having a roster of primarily Wyvern Lords is technically optimal.

That's not to say that you should have a roster of 12 Wyvern Lords, because even with how big current maps are you don't need 12 Wyverns to clear them out quickly, so the added value of the last few Wyverns is actually quite small. Instead, deploying units that can occupy a different space than the first 6 or 7 Wyverns is more valuable. (Though 12 Wyverns honestly would not even be bad, and would likely make the game pretty easy). But the niche that the Wyvern Lord clearly fills is "most efficient general all-around combat", so claiming that another class is superior in this use case is pretty disingenuous. The fact of the matter is that mages are generally less efficient at killing enemies than Wyverns. And you know what? That's completely fine. What makes them worth deploying is the other stuff that they can do that Wyverns can't, which is primarily utility (healing, warp, rescue).

Thrysus is not unique to Lysithea (or even Lorenz). It is usable with no drawbacks on every mage with a crest, which is most of them (and still technically usable on mages without a crest if you're willing to accept the drawback, but I don't see why you would need to do this). It's not something to specifically consider when talking about Lysithea, but rather something that I have already factored into the evaluation of mages as a whole. Thrysus is very good and generally serves to fix the first two or so turns of combat on a mage, ensuring that they can usually attack somebody on these turns. But it still does not fix the lack of movement in the long term. Extra range is very, very good, but is not a perfect substitute for extra movement. On the third turn, for example, your mage has only moved 12 tiles away from their starting location, which means the enemies that they could have possibly engaged is a lot more limited than say, for example, a Wyvern Rider, which has already moved 21 tiles unhindered by walls or terrain (which means that for a mage to catch up to this point they often need to move a lot more than 21 tiles).

This mostly comes up when you follow the guidelines of efficient play above, of actually moving forward aggressively with your canto units to maximize enemy phase combat, which might not be something that you have implemented in your play.

Also, tanking with Lysithea is a bit sketchy. It's possible sometimes, but relying on Thrysus procs to not die is certainly far from reliable. And Nosferatu is both incredibly weak (with 1 might) and very heavy (weighing 8 versus her super poor strength), which means that with Nosferatu equipped Lysithea will sometimes find it difficult to double enemies (due to its weight) or kill them in a single hit (due to its low might). This would put her enemy phase performance below units with good enemy phases, that can take multiple hits from enemies and survive while ORKOing them back.

Speaking as a side note, there does exist movement boosting effects in this game, as you have brought up here:

But the fact of the matter is that movement buffs are the strongest on fliers. First of all, fliers are unimpeded by any sort of terrain, which makes the extra point of movement count for a full tile more often than it would on a ground unit. This is important if you're progressing through maps efficiently.

Secondly, fliers have canto, which also means they make better use of movement than non-canto units. If your foot unit stops to fight somebody on player phase that you need dead in particular, that's it. They're done. Any remaining movement that they might have had is wasted. If you gave extra movement to a foot unit, they will sometimes not be able to utilize it properly due to needing to participate in player phase combat. Extra movement on mounts is much less often wasted, because after you kill that guy that really needed to die on player phase, you can canto further ahead with your remaining movement. If you want to move forward with your full movement, then you have the option to do so.

Lastly, movement bonuses on your high move units usually matters more than on your low move units, because more movement on the highest move units translates to more options. If your 4 move unit gets the +1 move stat booster, this allows them to now move 5 tiles away and reach enemies from there. However, the thing is that most of your army has 5+ move, so if you needed a particular unit at that distance dead, then you likely already had plenty of ways that you could have planned for to make that happen. On the other hand, if you have a plan that involves somebody moving to kill an enemy 9 or 14 tiles away, well that plan isn't even an option unless you have an 8 move unit with movement boosting effects.

It's usually better to use your stat bonuses to accentuate a unit's strengths, not try and patch up their weaknesses. Giving a Dragonshield (+2 def) to your mage may turn an enemy 2HKO into a 3HKO, but it might not even make the difference a lot of the time because the second hit overkills you by enough that the Dragonshield doesn't matter. On the other hand, that same Dragonshield might always turn a 4HKO into a 5HKO when given to a tankier unit (because rather than mitigating 2 damage from 2 attacks it's now mitigating 2 damage from 5 attacks). In the same way, movement boosters also work like this.

Also, as a side note, other than your already high mobility units, +movement is effective on a dancer, especially in this game where you can't fix dancer mobility with rescue/drops. These are all prime candidates for extra move over your 4 movement unit.

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. 

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2 hours ago, Jayvee94 said:

Can anyone explain why Bow Knight is 2nd for Felix instead of War Master?

Well, mostly because it gives him Canto, Bowrange +2, and 8 mov (9 at A+ riding). War Master is cool, but for someone like Felix who doesn’t lack in the damage department, it is usually overkill. What he lacks is survivability. If he’s on the frontlines and has no way to reposition, then he has to rely on his sketchy defenses and Relic Shield to survive Enemy Phase. So instead of further increasing his offensive power, something he has enough of to one round most enemies, Bow Knight gives him what he needs. On Player Phase, he can ORKO most enemies without giving them the chance to retaliate. With Canto, he can then reposition with his high mov to a safer distance to ensure he doesn’t die on Enemy Phase. War Master Felix lags behind your other high mov units and cannot counter anything past 2 range (Hand Ax also penalizes your AS much harder than bows do). And since the two classes have similar investment since a C rank in lances is relatively easy to get, the main advantages I can see for going War Master is Crit +20 and Death Blow from mastering Brigand. This is certainly strong, but I don’t think it’s worth losing 3 mov, Canto, and Bowrange +2. I personally think Bow Knight is his best final class. 

Though, I actually do think War Master is his second best option and that Mortal Savant is questionable on him. His Magic growth is a meager 30, and his spell list is mediocre at best with Thoron being his highest damage spell. If you want him to do magic damage and have him as a sword user, the Levin Sword+ is usually better. They have the same might, same range, and very similar weight and hit. Thoron does have 10 more Crit, but is it really worth investing into B+ in reason to be in an endgame class that uses a mediocre spell with 4 uses per map? If you want to use Felix as a sword unit, Assassin and Swordmaster are both options with far less investment needed. You can invest into Authority what you would have put in Reason, so Felix can actually access some of the higher level Battalions (just as an example, the one from his paralogue gives 20 crit at max level among other stats, essentially outmatching his reward for awakening his Reason Talent and Thoron’s crit rate).

Essentially, mov is the best stat and Felix has a strength in bows, so Bow Knight is the best. War Master is second best because it has lots of damage, the other mounted classes don’t really suit him, and other characters are much better at Wyvern Lord than he is. Mortal Savant is sub-optimal because of Felix’s subpar Magic stat, and the investment ultimately leads to a relatively mediocre result (for Felix, anyway). If you want a good sword unit, make him an Assassin or Swordmaster instead. If you want a magic user, pick someone with a good spell list or at least a good Magic stat. Felix has neither, so investing in Reason for two spells is not worth it compared to what other skills will do for him. 

Edited by LegendOfLoog
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I'm so disappointed that Mortal Savant is still most voted on Felix, it's just a bad class compared to Bow Knight and Warmaster.

Bow Knight has so many advantages with Bow Range +2 and 8 move + canto, Warmaster can reach insane levels of crit and has much better stat mods than Mortal Savant.

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Ferdinand: Both GK and WL are great on Ferdinand. I keep him on WL for the most part because it's arguably the best class. 

Felix: I always stop at Swordmaster for him. I just don't use him late game.

Dorothea: Gremory. 

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6 hours ago, Silly said:

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Well, Mekkkah would be proud. Which is not a criticism by the way, and his pitfalls videos have a very good reason to exist; I'm not blaming the process here. This also was a very well written post. I can't shake the feeling though, that we're essentially pretending this is PoR since it generally works, so why fix ways of play that aren't broken? The fact of the matter is, stride despite unarguably being a huge boosts to canto units, makes quite a few changes for footlocks:

- They do not need several turns to reach the enemies anymore

- Those with range can usually pass the enemies and hit from there while being relatively safe since with a good team everything around them will die; this allows them better positioning

- Stride has two charges and the user will inevitably fall behind, meaning it can be activated on units that are lagging to allow them to immediately catch up. Yes, that's only once. We also both know that's enough in a majority of cases because maps aren't that incredibly massive

And you said it yourself, one can only canto so far ahead. You have to show some restraint, meaning there is a limit on how much move a unit really needs. That's really, really important.

There's also a point to be made that clears with primarily a PP phase mindset(or at least a general balance of both phases) are remarkably faster in this game than most previous entries, since thanks to stride, many more of your units can fight immediately and constantly. Killing 8 to 10 enemies on every PP is a really big deal. Demonic beasts are also best dealt with on PP. Units that don't die to a juggernaut on EP that cantoed ahead will instead be taken down on the next phase invariably, all of them without slowing down your clear by more than 1 or 2 turns overall. Which, unless we're going for LTC, is nothing. It's peanuts, it doesn't matter, it's a valid efficient playstyle and shouldn't be discouraged in any way.

Edited by Cysx
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My experience is that mages get constant mvp while clearing chapter in 5 or 6 turns, wich i don't think is particoularly slow, even if i often figured out 1 turn strategies that i refused to use.

Hell, i think in this game LTC may be easier than normal play in many situations just because many bosses are so easy to reach whit a stride/dance/warp combo.

This is why kill commander is the worst objective unless the commander is a fucking juggernaut.

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