Rating Spell Lists

[Ivan Tridelan]

So obviously there are some characters who are meant to be magic-focused and some who aren't. Yet some of the non-canon mages have some good spell lists and some of the canon mages kind of don't, so out of curiosity, I'd like opinions on all them spell lists and whether it's worth investing in Reason, Faith or both for some people.

Note: Not taking into consideration Strength/Weakness/Budding Talent, just spell lists

Note2: Left out Heal and Nosferatu for the Faith side because literally EVERYONE gets those

Byleth: Fire, Thunder, Bolganone, Ragnarok/Recover, Aura

Edelgard: Fire, Bolganone, Luna, Hades/Recover, Seraphim

Hubert: Miasma, Mire, Banshee, Death, Dark Spikes/Recover

Dorothea: Thunder, Thoron, Sagittae, Meteor, Agnea's Arrow/Physic

Ferdinand: Thunder, Fire, Thoron, Bolganone/Ward, Restore

Bernadetta: Blizzard, Thunder, Thoron, Fimbulvetr/Physic, Rescue

Caspar: Fire, Bolganone/Recover

Petra: Wind, Sagittae/Restore

Lindhart: Wind, Fire, Cutting Gale, Bolganone, Excalibur/Physic, Restore, Warp

Dmitri: Thunder, Thoron/Recover, Aura

Dedue: Fire, Bolganone, Ragnarok/Recover

Felix: Thunder, Thoron/Recover, Restore

Mercedes: Fire, Thunder, Bolganone, Ragnarok/Physic, Restore, Fortify

Ashe: Wind, Cutting Gale/Physic

Anette: Wind, Cutting Gale, Sagittae, Excalibur/Recover, Abraxas

Sylvain: Fire, Bolganone, Sagittae, Ragnarok/Physic, Seraphim

Ingrid: Blizzard, Thoron, Fimbulvetr/Physic, Seraphim

Claude: Wind, Sagittae, Cutting Gale, Excalibur/Recover, Silence

Lorenz: Fire, Sagittae, Ragnarok, Agnea's Arrow/Recover, Ward

Hilda: Thunder, Thoron, Bolting/Recover

Raphael: Fire, Bolganone/Recover

Lysithea: Miasma, Swarm, Luna, Dark Spikes, Hades/Seraphim, Warp, Abraxas

Ignatz: Blizzard, Cutting Gale, Fimbulvetr/Physic, Ward

Marianne: Blizzard, Thoron, Cutting Gale, Fimbulvetr/Physic, Silence, Aura

Leonie: Fire, Bolganone, Ragnarok/Physic, Restore

Manuela: Thunder, Bolganone, Bolting/Ward, Silence, Warp

Hanneman: Wind, Sagittae, Thoron, Ragnarok, Metor/Recover, Ward

Seteth: Wind, Cutting Gale, Bolganone, Excalibur/Recover

Flayn: Wind, Fire, Cutting Gale, Excalibur/Restore, Rescue, Fortify

Cyril: Wind, Cutting Gale/Recover

Catherine: Fire, Bolganone, Ragnarok/Recover

Alois: Fire, Bolganone/Recover

Gilbert: Thunder, Thoron/Ward

Shamir: Blizzard, Wind, Sagittae, Fimbulvetr/Physic

 

So some notes:

Physic: Dorothea, Bernadetta, Lindhart, Mercedes, Ashe, Sylvain, Ingrid, Ignatz, Marianne, Leonie, Shamir

Fortify: Mercedes, Flayn

Warp: Lindhart, Lysithea, Manuela

Rescue: Bernadetta, Flayn

Siege Magic: Dorothea, Hilda, Manuela, Hanneman

 

Random Comment: Funny that "Thunder Catherine" has only Fire spells for Reason

[timon]

To do this tier we first have to determine what is good, and imo those are the requirements for a fully optimal spell list.

Reason:

• 3 range (Thoron, Mire, Death)
• Siege (Meteor, Bolting)
• Nuke (Agnea's Arrow, Ragnarok, Dark Spikes, Hades)
• A good spammable "bread and butter" spell (Blizzard, Sagittae, Miasma). If we're talking double uses Bolganone and Cutting Gale fit as well. Fire/Thunder/Wind are not as good imo, Sagittae is the best.

Faith:

• Basically Physic good, no physic no good
• Seraphim is a nice plus
• Fortify is not THAT relevant I find (especially with how many crashes it causes lol)
• Warp is a nice utility, but outside of LTC it's just nice
• Abraxas is a nuke on par with its Reason siblings

Bonus considerations:

• Banshee can be useful as it's quite powerful and reduces Mov
• Fimbulvetr can crit reliably with some work so you could see it as a nuke
• Luna is nice
• Excalibur maybe? I never actually used it, but it's nice on paper (especially later on with the Falcon reinforcements).
• hitrate is not exactly a problem in the game as a whole and even more for mages, so power is better. Dark magic tends to be more powerful overall.

So with all of this considered:

• Dorothea has the absolute best spell list in the game as she has literally everything you need in one package.
• Hanneman is the same Reason-wise, but lacks Physic (other than being an obviously worse unit, but we're not looking at this now)
• Lysithea has the biggest damage output both in Reason and Faith, but lacks options/utility. No 3 range or siege, no physic either
• Hubert has a much more useful Dark Magic pool (Mire, Death, Banshee, Spikes) but is complete trash in Faith. Still, he's got the strongest early game Reason
• Marianne has quite a nice package too, Blizzard and Thoron + Physic is a strong combination. Lacks a bit in power as she tops with Fimbulvetr (and Cutting Gale at B is not great)
• Hilda has a surprisingly good list, in just 3 spells she gets range and siege. Sadly no Physic and Thunder is a bit meh as a spammable (only 8 uses and 4 Mt).
• Sylvain has a good one too, spammable Sagittae, nuke Ragnarok. In Faith he gets the key Physic plus the nice Seraphim
• Linhardt gets utility in Excalibur, Physic and Warp. Flayn is on a similar boat with Rescue and Fortify. Both lack power and range though.
• Lorenz gets early Sagittae at C and Agnea's Arrow earlier than Dorothea + Ragnarok for a second nuke. No physic nor range though, but he can fix that with Thyrsus (yes, in theory everyone can, but Lorenz is the only one who can be guaranteed to have access to it, since he's the key to the paralogue).

There are some others with good things, but those are the ones that came to mind. Also to close off here are some negatives:

• Annette gets only garbage outside of Exalibur (which, again, I'm not sure how relevant it is), but she can kinda fix her power issues with Abraxas in Faith
• Mercedes as well doesn't get much on Reason, stick to Faith
• Edelgard is intriguing with both Hades and Luna which are both very powerful, but the black/dark split halfway makes it awkward
• Manuela has an amazing combination of Bolting and Warp, but she's basically useless outside of that
• Most importantly Byleth is actual trash in both Reason and Faith (for which he has a talent!). I hate it, let me build a magic character goddamn you and your swords IS

Edited August 29, 2019 by timon

[Flere210]

Annette list make me want to stick whit a Bolt Axe+ and Crusher for every future playtrough. At least her faith list is so shit that i feel justified in neglecting it entirely and just rise Axe-Riding-whatever.

[freewaffles]

In terms of usefulness, I rank the spells accordingly:

S-Tier: Extremely valuable to have one in team:

1. Physic - universally valuable, especially since mages have low movement.  I prefer to have 2 if possible
2. Dark Spikes - Instant kill to Death Knight, and also just a strong spell generally
3. Warp - obviously necessary for LTC runs, but also super useful generally.
4. Rescue - very useful, especially on some of the paralogues, but the low range is disappointing.

A-Tier: Niche Spells that Separate the Best Spellbooks from the Average ones:

1. Luna/Excalibur - Best mage counter for Peg Knights.  Luna can't double, but it still rips things apart and is better versus other mages.  Excalibur's triple strength makes up for the fact that it's still hitting a high res target
2. Meteor - Somewhat disappointing that it's restricted to Dorothea/Hanneman, but an incredibly useful spell since mages tend to fall behind the group and the splash damage is very nice.
3. Hades/Agnea's Arrow/Ragnarok/Fimbulvetr - All four are low use count and heavy.  They are all about equal when you factor in Black Tomefaire access at level 20 from Warlock and various crit/accuracy levels.
4. Seraphim - Extremely useful for maps with a lot of monsters, but otherwise is mediocre since only Holy Knight has White Tomefaire.
5. Fortify - Mostly unnecessary, but nice to have
6. Restore - Rumor is the harder modes will have more Venin weapons, and it's useful for clearing out Gambit/Monster attack problems.  But its still meh.
7. Silence - I really only use this against enemies with Bolting/Meteor/Bohr.  This doesn't make or break my decision to use Marianne, but it's still useful.

B-Tier: These are your bread-and-butter, spells that will be used more often than anything else.  They have moderate weight, good strength, and decent use counts

1. Thoron/Death - 1 extra range compared to the other spells in this section means that the mage can counter Archers without having Thyrsus/Cadaceus.
2. Saggitae - Twice as many uses as Bolganone/Cutting for only 1 might less than Bolg and 1 weight more than Cutting.  That has a minor impact at Warlock (which has 2X uses), but a big one at Dark Knight
3. Cutting Gale - Bonus crit is always nice, but the lighter weight is the real reason I put this ahead of Bolganone
4. Bolganone - Solid, but lacks the special aspects of the previous 3
5. Banshee - Restriction to Hubert so it only impacts the shortest of the four routes in the game.  It's too heavy compared to Bolganone for just +1 mt.

C-Tier: Spells That Don't Impact my Decisions At All

1. Bolting.  Same benefit as meteor, but restriction to Manuela and Hilda make it a non-factor.  Plus it doesn't have the splash damage of Meteor.
2. Abraxus/Aura.  Yes, they are strong, but only Byleth really gets much use out of it (since s/he has budding talent in Faith but not Reason), and even then only after becoming an Enlightened One since you're probably going physical classes before that.  Lysithea (Abraxus) has Hades and Dark Spikes, Marianne (Aura) has Fimbulvetr, Annette (Abraxus) has Excalibur, and if you're using Dimitri (Aura) as a mage I can't help you.  Black Tomefaire is far easier to get than White Tomefaire (restricted to Holy Knight).
3. Fire/Wind/Blizzard/Miasma - They are all about the same in the end.  Wind is the lightest/weakest, Miasma the strongest/heaviest. Miasma is arguably better early game, but the other three get Black Tomefaire for mid-game.  By end-game, you're not using them much unless you need the double or the other spells are overkill.
4. Mire/Swarm - Restricted to one user each, and don't really have much impact.  Mire is better with the 3-range, but it's weak.
5. Recover - Heal or Physic are sufficient in the majority of circumstances.

 

In terms of spell books (for those I'd actually considering using magic on) overall, I'd rate them as:
 

1. Dorothea - Physic, Meteor, Agnea, Thoron, and Saggitae - Overall, just a complete spellbook as she has a little of everything except for Pegasus counter.
2. Lysithea - Dark Spikes, Warp, Luna, Hades, and Seraphim - Amazing offensive spellbook, not much utility.
3. Marianne: Physic, Fimbulvetr, Silence, Thoron, and Cutting Gale - Similar to Dorothea's, but no siege spell. Still very versatile and effective.  
4. Hanneman - Meteor, Ragnarok, Thoron, and Saggitae - Dorothea without Physic.
5. Linhardt: Physic, Warp, Excalibur, Cutting Gale, Bolganone - More utility focused, but Excalibur and Cutting Gale some offense.
6. Sylvain: Physic (S1), Ragnarok (A3), Seraphim (A4), Saggitae (B2), Bolganone (B4) - Versatile and effective spells, but getting them might be a problem
7. Hubert - Dark Spikes, Death, Banshee - Another offensive spellbook with no utility.  
8. Lorenz: Agnea, Ragnarok, and Saggitae - Another purely offensive spell book, but a very good one.
9. Mercedes - Physic, Restore, Fortify, Ragnarok, and Bolganone.  - Less utility than Linhardt, but lacks Excalibur for dealing with Pegasus
10. Manuela - Warp, Silence, Bolting and Bolganone.  Utility, but no Physic doens't make much sense.  Bolting is a bad Meteor, and Bolganone is mediocre.
11. Annette - Excalibur, Saggitae, Cutting Gale - Weakest of the purely offensive spell books, but Excalibur at least gives her something for Peg. Knights.
12. Byleth - Ragnarok, Bolganone, and Aura - decent, meh, and meh.

Edited August 29, 2019 by freewaffles

[Eltoshen]

Healers without access to Physic and/or Fortify (Flayn) are automatically poop IMO. Unless they have the movement to make up for it in a riding class, that is. Even then, I think Physic is still much better. 

Physic on a horse > Physic without a horse > Heal/Recover on a Horse > Heal/Recover on feet.

Mercedes should just stick with Faith as she is the best healer in the game. I think Fortify is underrated actually. 2/4 uses is enough for most purposes and the only people who have this spell are Mercedes and Flayn. If you have Mercedes tackle the healing, your other mages can focus on doing damage instead of sitting around wasting their turn single target healing. I also think Restore is quite useful in the later chapters which are full of gambits that prevent movement.

But...I can see why people might rate her below others when you're looking at reason as well. However, I'd say you can just ignore reason and just give her riding instead. Both Physic and Fortify on a horse sounds great. Restore as well. Literally everything you need on a dedicated healer.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Eltoshen

[freewaffles]

4 hours ago, Flere210 said:

Annette list make me want to stick whit a Bolt Axe+ and Crusher for every future playtrough. At least her faith list is so shit that i feel justified in neglecting it entirely and just rise Axe-Riding-whatever.

Fun with Annette: Make her a Great Knight and just use Bolt/Axe Crusher.  Grab Fiendish Blow from Mage (which she can pass pretty easily), then turn her into a battle mage.  She is likely to have over 17 base magic before level 20 anyway, so going Mage/Warlock only increases her base magic by +2 compared to going Mage/Warrior.  Dark Knight only has +2 magic over Great Knight, but you don't get Axefaire.

Edited August 29, 2019 by freewaffles

[daisy jane]

Dorothea has really nice skills - but i find that (for me personally) she's  in a field that i find everyone else can do it better. I find Linhardt heals better than she does, and damage wise Mercedes and Marianne can hit harder than she can. (Lysithea doesn't count because she's the little magic-glass cannon). no where else did i find this obvious on my BL path where i somehow ended up with EVERYONE magical (Ly, Annie, Mercie,Dorothea and Marianne),and Dorothea just...wasn't it. (it's to the point where i don't think i'd bother getting her in other playthroughs unless i want her to be my dedicated dancer  and even then i can easily pop that out for something else. (she is a good Stride bot though)

Byleth's spells are blegh. (it's 98 percent the reason why i haven't done Enlightened one. nothing unique or special-and i love bow-byleth better even though she has NOTHING combat artswise except curved shot. but she can eat maps.and it's fun.

I - honestly equip my Mercie for death and destruction with her dark arts and a magic bow (I legit forgo her magic training in the early game to get her Waning Shot budding talent and a B in bows, simply because having Fiendish Blow + her magic stat on Magic blow is basically an OHKO). (i even sometimes reclass her to thief so she can get more speed and dex as well) - she also has enough strength to pulloff using an iron bow + (or a silver bow + - but it's about the magic bow)

I find Marianne (other than Mercie) to be my overal favourite magic unit. and i LOVE Lysithea she's great for the big guns but i mean general use- its Marianne.i've had her as a holy knight (blegh), i've had her as a Mortal Savant (deadly), and now she's a dancer. if not for Linhardt's speed-i'd have him right up there because i really enjoyed using him the last 3 playthroughs 

[ApocaLips]

3 hours ago, timon said:

To do this tier we first have to determine what is good, and imo those are the requirements for a fully optimal spell list.

Reason:

• 3 range (Thoron, Mire, Death)
• Siege (Meteor, Bolting)
• Nuke (Agnea's Arrow, Ragnarok, Dark Spikes, Hades)
• A good spammable "bread and butter" spell (Blizzard, Sagittae, Miasma). If we're talking double uses Bolganone and Cutting Gale fit as well. Fire/Thunder/Wind are not as good imo, Sagittae is the best.

Faith:

• Basically Physic good, no physic no good
• Seraphim is a nice plus
• Fortify is not THAT relevant I find (especially with how many crashes it causes lol)
• Warp is a nice utility, but outside of LTC it's just nice
• Abraxas is a nuke on par with its Reason siblings

Bonus considerations:

• Banshee can be useful as it's quite powerful and reduces Mov
• Fimbulvetr can crit reliably with some work so you could see it as a nuke
• Luna is nice
• Excalibur maybe? I never actually used it, but it's nice on paper (especially later on with the Falcon reinforcements).
• hitrate is not exactly a problem in the game as a whole and even more for mages, so power is better. Dark magic tends to be more powerful overall.

So with all of this considered:

• Dorothea has the absolute best spell list in the game as she has literally everything you need in one package.
• Hanneman is the same Reason-wise, but lacks Physic (other than being an obviously worse unit, but we're not looking at this now)
• Lysithea has the biggest damage output both in Reason and Faith, but lacks options/utility. No 3 range or siege, no physic either
• Hubert has a much more useful Dark Magic pool (Mire, Death, Banshee, Spikes) but is complete trash in Faith. Still, he's got the strongest early game Reason
• Marianne has quite a nice package too, Blizzard and Thoron + Physic is a strong combination. Lacks a bit in power as she tops with Fimbulvetr (and Cutting Gale at B is not great)
• Hilda has a surprisingly good list, in just 3 spells she gets range and siege. Sadly no Physic and Thunder is a bit meh as a spammable (only 8 uses and 4 Mt).
• Sylvain has a good one too, spammable Sagittae, nuke Ragnarok. In Faith he gets the key Physic plus the nice Seraphim
• Linhardt gets utility in Excalibur, Physic and Warp. Flayn is on a similar boat with Rescue and Fortify. Both lack power and range though.
• Lorenz gets early Sagittae at C and Agnea's Arrow earlier than Dorothea + Ragnarok for a second nuke. No physic nor range though, but he can fix that with Thyrsus (yes, in theory everyone can, but Lorenz is the only one who can be guaranteed to have access to it, since he's the key to the paralogue).

There are some others with good things, but those are the ones that came to mind. Also to close off here are some negatives:

• Annette gets only garbage outside of Exalibur (which, again, I'm not sure how relevant it is), but she can kinda fix her power issues with Abraxas in Faith
• Mercedes as well doesn't get much on Reason, stick to Faith
• Edelgard is intriguing with both Hades and Luna which are both very powerful, but the black/dark split halfway makes it awkward
• Manuela has an amazing combination of Bolting and Warp, but she's basically useless outside of that
• Most importantly Byleth is actual trash in both Reason and Faith (for which he has a talent!). I hate it, let me build a magic character goddamn you and your swords IS

I agree with most of this, but for Mercedes reason is still her best bet even though her spell list kinda blows. The low tier spells really aren’t too different, so it doesn’t matter much, and ragnarok (and bolganone) are fine.  

Ultimately, she wants gremory to double up her uses on her fantastic faith list, so it makes sense to go reason over any weapon for some semblance of offense. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, timon said:

• A good spammable "bread and butter" spell (Blizzard, Sagittae, Miasma). If we're talking double uses Bolganone and Cutting Gale fit as well. Fire/Thunder/Wind are not as good imo, Sagittae is the best.

 

I disagree with which spells are are valuing more here. Blizzard and Miasma are the two worst "bread and butter spells" (along with Swarm), while Wind is arguably the best. Most of these spells have equal speed and weight. I don't know about you, but on average I'd rather have 1 spd than 1 atk on average in this game; it's more likely to put you over a ORKO threshold. So Wind's 2/2 is better than Fire's 3/3 is better than Thunder's 4/4 is better than Miasma's 5/5, and Blizzard actually having less might (3) than weight (4) is a bad look. But things get more lopsided in favour of the lighter spells when you consider they're also the more accurate ones. They also generally have slightly more crit for what (little) that is worth. Blizzard does admittedly have the most crit at 15, but Wind is only 5 crit behind and is 30 points more accurate and weighs 2 less, so it's still a clear winner.

Miasma is also even worse in this comparison once we hit Warlock and suddenly every other spell in this conversation gets +5 might and it does not (which is also around the time that Wind's weight advantage might stop mattering as mages either reach 15 str or learn Weight-3).

(Having said that Wind tends to be given to the mages with the worst stats, so this is largely moot in practice of who to use. Just I definitely find myself wishing that Lysithea had access to Wind instead of Miasma, and consider the stage where she has access to Fire a nice one.)

I'd group Bolganone, Cutting Gale, Saggitae a bit differently; they're never anyone's lightest spell. They're a good option for when you're willing to trade some speed for more power, kind of an intermediate tier between the bread-and-butter spells and the nukes. All three are pretty close in value and most characters get at least one of them, so I don't have much to say about them past that.

Weight matters for nukes too, both for doubling the slow and for not being doubled on enemy phase (especially since unlike most FEs have your allies trade away your heavy equipped spell before the enemy phase), so I'd give Ragnarok a slight nod over Agnea's Arrow and Hades as such. It's again, also the most accurate of this class. Dark Spikes and Excalibur aren't quite as good on overall stats as Ragnarok (well, Excalibur is slightly debatable), but obviously their ability to hit weaknesses gives them very nice utility, since a high-power tome hitting a weakness is usually a OHKO in this game.

[Flere210]

Tbf the bolganone tier can be cast at litle to no penalty if you splash C armor in the build, but it kinda depend on the character. Lysithea is never going to hit 15 str, but some mage have a shot at reaching 20.

[timon]

23 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I disagree with which spells are are valuing more here. Blizzard and Miasma are the two worst "bread and butter spells" (along with Swarm), while Wind is arguably the best. Most of these spells have equal speed and weight. I don't know about you, but on average I'd rather have 1 spd than 1 atk on average in this game; it's more likely to put you over a ORKO threshold. So Wind's 2/2 is better than Fire's 3/3 is better than Thunder's 4/4 is better than Miasma's 5/5, and Blizzard actually having less might (3) than weight (4) is a bad look. But things get more lopsided in favour of the lighter spells when you consider they're also the more accurate ones. They also generally have slightly more crit for what (little) that is worth. Blizzard does admittedly have the most crit at 15, but Wind is only 5 crit behind and is 30 points more accurate and weighs 2 less, so it's still a clear winner.

Miasma is also even worse in this comparison once we hit Warlock and suddenly every other spell in this conversation gets +5 might and it does not (which is also around the time that Wind's weight advantage might stop mattering as mages either reach 15 str or learn Weight-3).

(Having said that Wind tends to be given to the mages with the worst stats, so this is largely moot in practice of who to use. Just I definitely find myself wishing that Lysithea had access to Wind instead of Miasma, and consider the stage where she has access to Fire a nice one.)

I'd group Bolganone, Cutting Gale, Saggitae a bit differently; they're never anyone's lightest spell. They're a good option for when you're willing to trade some speed for more power, kind of an intermediate tier between the bread-and-butter spells and the nukes. All three are pretty close in value and most characters get at least one of them, so I don't have much to say about them past that.

Weight matters for nukes too, both for doubling the slow and for not being doubled on enemy phase (especially since unlike most FEs have your allies trade away your heavy equipped spell before the enemy phase), so I'd give Ragnarok a slight nod over Agnea's Arrow and Hades as such. It's again, also the most accurate of this class. Dark Spikes and Excalibur aren't quite as good on overall stats as Ragnarok (well, Excalibur is slightly debatable), but obviously their ability to hit weaknesses gives them very nice utility, since a high-power tome hitting a weakness is usually a OHKO in this game.

Interesting points you make, first and foremost I kind of agree on the nuke part, from my experience the difference between a Ragnarok and an Agnea's is actually the sweet spot for doubling or not doubling. That said I still value the beefy power option for some of those later enemies/bosses which you can't double anyways.

That said I don't agree for that same point on the spammable spells, I don't really think doubling is an issue with any of those, that's why I rated power first. They're all lightweight anyways, and IIRC magic focused students are all 40+ Spd growth (aside from Annette, which conveniently gets Wind). Hubert surely won't have issues spamming double Miasma and I'd say Lysithea can do so reliably even with her absymal Str if you don't get fucked in Spd, and early game it's basically a small nuke. Blizzard is imo the best one of the early bunch because it gets you kills without resorting to the nuke, it usually gives 20-30 crit and a double attack so you have a considerable chance of deleting your enemy with small investment.

And if you look at it that way then Wind becomes kind of obsolete really, you're doubling for 2 Mt when you could be doubling for 4 or 5. I'll give it that it's 12 uses though, early game when you have one spell that's quite nice. But then again, it probably requires double the uses to kill something, so I'm not even sure.

I'd make the same argument for the mid tier ones, 5 or 6 Wt is perfectly accettable to double most enemies outside of crazy stuff. Also I must add that Sagittae may very well be my favourite spell in the entire game, it's just so easily spammable.

Lastly, I find hitrate to be basically a non existent issue tbh, that might (probably) change with Lunatic, but as of now enemies really don't dodge, getting under 80% is a challenge in this game (not counting bosses).

tl;dr: it depends on what you value and thus on your experience, I found doubling and hitrate to almost never be a problem for mages, so I focused on power and utility for my list.

[Flere210]

I.never saw this reliable double with Lysithea. Maybe armors and cavaliers, but good luck doubling a 28 AS war master. 

I was valuing accuracy,crit and uses a lot, but in the BL final battle annette was often exactly 3 points short of killing things, so i am not sure anymore. Is there a mage that is stuck on excalibur whitout having a weapon alternative like crusher? Maybe Linhardt, but he is better as an healer anyway.

[Mackc2]

5 hours ago, freewaffles said:

Fun with Annette: Make her a Great Knight and just use Bolt/Axe Crusher.  Grab Fiendish Blow from Mage (which she can pass pretty easily), then turn her into a battle mage.  She is likely to have over 17 base magic before level 20 anyway, so going Mage/Warlock only increases her base magic by +2 compared to going Mage/Warrior.  Dark Knight only has +2 magic over Great Knight, but you don't get Axefaire.

Why great knight, why not wyvern lord instead, it has axefair, doesn't axe her speed, gives her flying utility and it requires less lance ranking and doesn't require her to push a skill she has a weakness in in exchange for -5% magic growth (which is on average 1 less magic every twenty levels)

[Flere210]

WL is boring as hell, but on the other hand, flying 1-3 range, rallies, and  enought str and speed to not get slowed to a crawl whit the bolt axe+... seems a better option than going reason lol. 

[Tombstone88]

First off, I thought Shamir got Recover, not Physic?  Not that it really matters, as you'll never realistically be using her as a spellcaster.

 

S-Tier:

1. Dorothea - Easily the best spell list in the game.  Only thing you could say she's missing is one extra utility spell on the Faith side.

A-Tier:

1. Hanneman - His Reason list is just as good as Dorothea's and he gets Ward on the Faith side.  No Physic is enough to knock him down a tier, though.
2. Lysithea - Has loads of powerful spells (Dark Spikes, Luna, Seraphim, etc.) and gets Warp at B.  No Physic, though.
3. Marianne - Very good Faith list and pretty good Reason list; just an overall solid list.
4. Mercedes - Excellent Faith list, but a rather poor Reason list sans Ragnarok.
5. Linhardt - Excellent Faith list, but a rather poor Reason list sans Cutting Gale/Excalibur.
6. Bernadetta - Thoron, Fimbulvetr, Physic and Rescue?  Quite a good spell list for someone you'll never use as a spellcaster.

B-Tier:

1. Flayn - I debated on whether she's A-Tier or B-Tier.  She gets Fortify and Rescue on the Faith side, which are both great.  However, she lacks Physic, and her Reason list is lackluster other than Cutting Gale and Excalibur.  She's essentially a worse Linhardt.
2. Manuela - She gets Bolting and Warp, two very good spells.  However, she lacks Physic and the rest of her Reason list is poor.
3. Sylvain - He has a decent Reason and a decent Faith list, although he doesn't excel in either area.
4. Hubert - Lots of power in his spell list, as well as early 3-range.  Has absolutely no utility Faith-wise.  He gets Meteor as an enemy but he unfortunately doesn't get Meteor when you use him.
5. Lorenz - Lots of power in his spell list, including late-game nukes.  Very limited utility Faith-wise in the form of Ward.  Basically equal to Hubert spell-wise.
6. Edelgard - Has a ton of powerful spells, although no utility.  It's a shame her unique classes (Lord, Armored Lord, Emperor) can't cast magic, so she'll probably never utilize her spells (or her 45%(!) base magic growth).
7. Annette - Pretty much the same as the previous three, but her spell list is the weakest of the four.
8. Ingrid - Thoron, Fimbulvetr, Physic and Seraphim?  That's pretty good.  Plus she has a 35% magic growth.  I smell a meme run incoming...

C-Tier:

1. Hilda - Thoron and Bolting are both good Reason spells.  That's basically all she has, though.
2. Byleth - Why is it our protagonist, who has a budding talent in Faith and a unique class that Edelgard would kill for, has such a bad spell list?
3. Ignatz - Not a bad spell list, although not great.
4. Leonie - Ragnarok, Physic and Restore isn't half-bad for a non-mage.

D-Tier:

1. Everyone else - Not really worth going into any of the others, as they don't offer much.

[Tenzen12]

I think you guys doesn't take personal reics in consideration. Which means Lys getting solid S rank and Flayn also getting at least one tier upgrade.

[Flere210]

Personal relics are not really personal, you don't get a tons of mileage out of Thyrsus protection anyway because Lysithea is not exactly a tank.

Blutbang and crushers are nice to have, but they are more a stronger melee alternative  to lewyn sword and bolt axe, so they should not matter much.

Dorothea or Hubert should lose points for not being able to us thyrsus tho.

[Tenzen12]

Well of course Thyrsus protection is just mostly irrelevant bonus, +2 range in other hands make Lys nuke where even Fire is Thoron. In Gremory class you are unlikely run out of 3-4 range spells for her unless you want solo.

Well it's not like other unit can't use it, but devil weapon effect is pretty annoying and Lys being able use it without it is definitely rason to get her tier up. Same with Caduceus staff.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Tenzen12

[Flere210]

Every crest wielder can use thyrsus whitout taking damage, they just lose the pavise effect.

[freewaffles]

1 hour ago, Flere210 said:

Personal relics are not really personal, you don't get a tons of mileage out of Thyrsus protection anyway because Lysithea is not exactly a tank.

Blutbang and crushers are nice to have, but they are more a stronger melee alternative  to lewyn sword and bolt axe, so they should not matter much.

Dorothea or Hubert should lose points for not being able to us thyrsus tho.

Dorothea and Hubert can still use Cadaceus though, which at least with Thoron/Death gives them a 4 range option.  It's not *as* good, but it still gives options. 

Edited August 30, 2019 by freewaffles

[Tenzen12]

I tried trade and it turned You are right and I was wrong. 

Hmm I think ti would be better game design if you need specific crest to avoid  backslash, but I it's as it is. It certainly add some more possibilities.

[Goosetipher]

OP is ranking spell lists, to be fair, which means relic use doesn't factor like it would in a best mage ranking. 

I think freewaffles's spell ranking underrates bolting. I get that availability is a problem, but it has 12 might to meteor's 10, and weighs less. 15 points less accuracy, but 15 points better in crit. Biggest difference is bolting has double the uses. Bolting strikes me as one of the best reason spells in three houses. Personally, I think it's worth leveling manuela's reason for this spell alone. I like tombstone88's ranking for manuela. 

As an aside, I don't particularly value the splash damage of meteor. As far as I can tell, splash damage can't ko units or crack monster shields, which makes it a bit of a ribbon. Situationally helpful at best. 

 

[timon]

35 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

I tried trade and it turned You are right and I was wrong. 

Hmm I think ti would be better game design if you need specific crest to avoid  backslash, but I it's as it is. It certainly add some more possibilities.

Definitely definitely agreed, the game pushes so hard on the misusing a powerful relic, the whole chapter 5 is dedicated to the terrible consquences of that. And then you can go around using 3 different "oh so powerful holy sacred relics" because lols

Honestly I'd push it further, just make it straight up unequippable if you don't have the crest. If using it means becoming a raging beast 10 dmg is not exactly an accurate representation.

Also it would give so much more "personality" to those weapons and to their respective owners.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I think Flayn's faith spell list is insane. Rescue is the best one in the category. Packing three times the uses of warp and the same range which skyrockets if you're using her long term. I'd only consider Warp a better spell for the purposes of LTC runs. Fortify is also great. By the end of the game having comparable range to Marianne's Physic but of course doing more since more than one unit tends to have ouchies. Marianne had almost no support role to play at the end of the game. Also isn't Physic locked to like, 20 HP or less healing? It falls of late game when it comes to emergencies.

One other note about Ward, while I don't find it to be of any general use since extremely few bosses are spell casters and the existing spell casters in the game are oddly non threatening, it does give you something to do every turn to earn exp. Kind of like how you could spam the torch staff in FE7 for experience.

[Cysx]

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I think Flayn's faith spell list is insane. Rescue is the best one in the category. Packing three times the uses of warp and the same range which skyrockets if you're using her long term. I'd only consider Warp a better spell for the purposes of LTC runs. Fortify is also great. By the end of the game having comparable range to Marianne's Physic but of course doing more since more than one unit tends to have ouchies. Marianne had almost no support role to play at the end of the game. Also isn't Physic locked to like, 20 HP or less healing? It falls of late game when it comes to emergencies.

One other note about Ward, while I don't find it to be of any general use since extremely few bosses are spell casters and the existing spell casters in the game are oddly non threatening, it does give you something to do every turn to earn exp. Kind of like how you could spam the torch staff in FE7 for experience.

Rescue is largely redundant in a game with Stride, which targets 6 to 7 units on average. Warp, on the other hand, works wonderfully with it, and only one of the two allows you to go through walls. Rescue also suffers from its utility being tied to mobility while stuck on classes with 4 move for a very long time.
Honestly, maybe I underrate it. But best Faith spell, let's just say it's going to take a lot to make me agree with that.

Additionally I find it's also really difficult to use Flayn long term, or rather, she has genuine trouble gaining exp unfortunately, meaning her stats lag behind a lot. Though she does get Fortify. Which I agree is amazing and eclipses Physic... though its range is twice as big so you had a pretty screwed Marianne.

I'm figuring out how healing exp works right now and Ward has a pretty low rate. Roughly, with regularly updated statue bonuses it consistently takes 15 uses of Ward to gain a level(not super early on but it seems like things fall into place pretty quickly). Same for Physic, Recover, and Restore. Rescue takes 10 uses, and Warp and Fortify are at ~7.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Cysx