Characters you recruited in every playthrough?

[nyainou]

So I'm currently on my 4th and final run of 3H (BE-E). I went into it thinking I'd just speed through it as fast as possible, skip everything and just get it over with (there's only so many times I can go through the same 12 chapters consecutively). But very quickly I realized that there would be some characters I'd just be way too sad to kill. Also, I had no one I could marry in BE, so I wanted to recruit at least one of my favorite characters: Mercedes. Not only is she a fuckin banger (12/10), her utility as a healing unit is amazing, just based off of my experiences. I haven't really found anybody else (except Flayn maybe?) who is as useful as her, which is strange because after finishing BL and starting GD I thought that there would be comparable units who all fill the same role in each house. Turns out, yes, there are characters who fill the same roles but.. some do it WAYYYYY better than others. Which is fine, that makes an all-Houses run way more interesting as your final party will actually have variety. 

Anyway, my question to ya'll is, is there a character you found yourself recruiting every single run? Why did you continuously choose this unit? I'm curious to see who were the must-haves for everybody. 

[Loki Laufeyson]

Ive always had the following on my teams regardless of route:

• Petra
• Marianne
• Sylvain
• Lorenz
• Dorothea

[Sid Starkiller]

Dorothea and Caspar. I absolutely refuse to kill them.

[ZeManaphy]

I had every recruit able BL member after my BL run because I cannot stand the idea of killing them. And Caspar, since it was easy to get strength and brawling.

[Sire]

Lysithea. I need my little mage nuke and she is the target of my "S-Support" for an ultimate run. While she did lose some points after I seen some of her GD supports (Ignatz, Marianne), she is still my S-Support candidate.

I got her for my first run as Black Eagles. She did a lot, but she did compete a bit with Hubert who also performed very well.
Then I got her for my Blue Lions run. I made her into a Dancer and had her use a forged Levin Sword for fun.
I also had her for default in my Golden Deer run, where I finally understood the power of the Gloucester Staff. That +2 Range is incredible.

* * * * *

Otherwise, while not recruited for every playthrough, other candidates are...

Petra - Petra is one of my favorite Black Eagle characters and she performs well with a Crit build.
Dorothea - I love her take on the war post-timeskip. She seems affected by it the most and I absolutely love her perspective.

Felix - Felix is probably the best sword user, even surpassing Catherine. I enjoy his blunt personality as well.
Ingrid - The ultimate Falcon Knight in a game where Fliers are broken.

Marianne - I joined on the bandwagon late, but now I'm happy to say I'm part of the "Marianne Protection Squad." We must keep our Disney Princess safe and sound. (Also, the Berkut/Reina fanart of Marianne being their kid helps.)

[Vince777]

Lysithea and Ignatz.

Didn't plan for them. They just always joined. 

[Jakkun]

Unless I'm on Crimson Flower, I will always have Hilda on my team.

Linhardt also has a permanent space on my crew, we lazy boys need to stick together.

[bethany81707]

I'm honestly surprised "I'm a Pegasus Knight main" wasn't the reason for it, but all four of my runs included Ingrid. (The first run got her too late to get Luin, though.)

Honourable mentions go to:

Dorothea (I married her my first run and she looks like she'll always have a place in my heart, but I recruited minimal Black Eagles for my Blue Lions run. It hurt to kill her and that won't be a mistake I repeat)
Bernadetta (She was the Black Eagle I recruited in Blue Lions, for more maternal reasons.)
Lysithea (She also missed Blue Lions, which says more because the Black Eagles came default twice.)
Catherine (She missed two runs, one of which was the All Girls, but it's a matter of time.)

Leonie and Shamir also got three goes, but I'd attribute less of that to favouritism. Leonie was eventually benched from my first, Golden Deer run- I blame building her as a Paladin instead of a Sniper. To be fair, she asked to be one.

[Vorena]

Flayn No matter what I do I can't seem to stop trying to get her to join.

[Shadow Mir]

Surprising absolutely no one that knows me well, my answer is...

All the female students. Because I seek beauty, and will do anything to get a hold of it...

Edited September 3, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Anathaco]

Ashe. Just, Ashe. 

It helps that I gave him a crapton of skills in my first playthrough, so NG+ turns him into a god right from the beginning.

Other than that... well, technically I've only played BL, and am still playing GD, which I've done as a "recruit everybody" run, so my answer to this should be, "all Blue Lions (apart from Dimitri and Dedue), and Linhardt, Caspar, Lorenz, and Raphael", but I think I'll try and recruit Raphael, Felix, and Lorenz into my Black Eagles run/runs

[Garlyle]

First playthrough I recruited and used Petra. No reason not to really.

Lysithea, because nuclear mages are fun to have.

Lorenz, just so I can get the Thrysus from his paralogue.

Catherine, best church recruit by far.

Ingrid, she flies, she's fast, and she dodges. Was underutilized in my first run unfortunately.

Sylvian when I'm a female, he's practically free. His Crest weapon and Swift Strikes makes sure he'll be a good Cav.

Also if I have the opportunity: Marianne, my precious dancer.

Optionally, I like recruiting Felix, Mercedes for their role, and Bernadetta so I don't have to kill her. Not recruiting them in my first playthrough made Chapter 17 difficult for me, but not because of the gameplay.

[Wolfen09]

I'm a stickler for characters, usable and not, so my intention is to recruit everyone I can in every playthrough.  If I had to choose though, leonie, lystheia, sylvain (who got rng screwed stats for me), Ferdinand (who got rng blessed for me), Raphael (good boy), and probably... Eh screw it, Mercedes I guess.

[daisy jane]

4 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Sylvian when I'm a female, he's practically free. His Crest weapon and Swift Strikes makes sure he'll be a good Cav.

as someone who always makes Sylvain a Wyvern Lord and he can like smash people w/axes. is swift strikes what comes w/his crest weapon? He never touches it. he likes Hautecleric. 

My Will Always Get You No Matter What Run. 
Ingrid. Her duty is your death. 
Bernadetta
Marianne. 
Felix
Ferdinand
Sylvain (he comes automatically so why not? - i never play as boy byleth)
Mercedes. 
Caspar
Linhardt
Leonie.

(Hilda in a BL run. i got her in the Church path in BE but i found that she really needs the TLC,  - so while i bought her in BL and got her amazing, she wasn't that hot (as much as i loved her) - in the Church path). 

a lot of these are due to that their paralogues are some of my favourites - or that i need to save them from the time skip (even though i wanna see what happens if you don't have Sylvain/Ingrid etc). that's one PoV i never experienced. Mercie is the best healer in the game (imo)  Ferdinand starts off slow but i love how he progresses and it's worth the Cish in armour.  In 3 playthroughs Linhardt grew on me  and all the boy wants to do is snark and take naps - how do you kill him. Bernadetta and Marianne need to be protected ASAP - and i love Ignatz and he's easily recruitable - i pick him up or not depending on my mood. 

I actually removed Ashe, Petra and Dorothea from my team.
Lysithea... is someone i always want to get (and is worth getting obviously) but she comes w/Lorenz and i don't wanna deal w/him lol and I say this as someone who LIKES Lorenz. i just never know how to build him. everyone else does his job better. 

[ZanaLyrander]

I tried to recruit everyone I could, and in fact in my current run, I succeeded: I have recruited literally everyone who can be recruited. But in terms of characters I actually used in every run... Felix, Dorothea, Lysithea, and Bernadetta. I made sure to recruit these four in every run, and they’ve been core members of my team every time. Dorothea remains my favorite character in the game, both in terms of her personality and dialogue and her usefulness as a unit. 

[Garlyle]

4 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

as someone who always makes Sylvain a Wyvern Lord and he can like smash people w/axes. is swift strikes what comes w/his crest weapon? He never touches it. he likes Hautecleric. 

That'd be Ruined Sky. Swift Strikes attacks twice for the cost of 4 lance uses before the opponent can answer - fixes up slow lance units, but only a few can learn it.

Lorenz and Lysithea are usually my earliest recruit goals, but Lorenz just to get into his paralogue. His Spd caused me too much problem in my first run.

[daisy jane]

12 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

That'd be Ruined Sky. Swift Strikes attacks twice for the cost of 4 lance uses before the opponent can answer - fixes up slow lance units, but only a few can learn it.

Lorenz and Lysithea are usually my earliest recruit goals, but Lorenz just to get into his paralogue. His Spd caused me too much problem in my first run.

thanks
and yah basically Lorenz is there to dip in get the relic and dip out. I'm trying a magic tank build on him but chances are he's gonna be benched the moment i get the relic (and i'm playing GD LOL)

[Morswo]

I played every route once, except crimson flower which I played twice. 

Every time recruited: Lysithea, Felix and Ferdinand
Lysithea and Felix were already on my to do list before the game was released and Ferdinand was after that also an favourite of mine.

Noteworthy: Hanneman, Raphael, Petra and Annette

Edited September 3, 2019 by Morswo

[xchickengirlx]

on my GD run, I recruited all the BE crew except for Ferdie and Bernie.

Used Petra a lot once I made her into a Wyvren Rider/Lord. Linhardt was good to have as a second mage, plus he gets warp before Lysithea does. He was such a squishy unit though, could easily get KO'd if he got hit twice in a row, didn't use him as much in endgame.

Caspar, he wasn't that much better than my Raphael, would swap them in an out when doing Auxiliary battles n' such. Also paired Caspar up with Hilda. Loved their support and paired ending.

I recruited Dorothea because I didn't want to kill her, and I wanted to witness for myself the dialogue she has about Ferdie after you kill him to make myself sad haha. but I got her right before the time skip, and didn't end up using her as a battle unit.

Only recruited one BL member, which was Sylvain. At first I only recruited him for his supports with the GD characters, but I ended up trying to get him to be a Leonie replacement. He never became that strong of a unit though, despite how much I tried to use him in Auxiliary battles. In my BL run I'm gonna put him on a Wyvren.

Recruited all the neutral characters, used Cyril some at first, but ultimately only used Shamir as my Igntaz replacement, and Catherine as another sword unit.

Just started my BL run, Intend to recruit all the BE members this time. how many of them i'll constantly use in battle is another question though. Will def use Petra the same way I did in my GD run. If Ashe gets RNG screwed, I might try to beef up Bernie as my bow unit. I'd rather change things up a bit and not rely so much on Shamir again. Will make Dorothea my dancer this time instead of Flyan. As for the other BE members, not sure yet.

Gotta get back Lysithea again, Marianne for story reasons, Lorenz since he is the unit in BL you get the option of sparing/recruiting post time skip if you recruited him pre-time skip. Wouldn't have wanted to kill him. He was a monster as a Dark Knight, might do them same thing in my BL run.

I wasn't gonna recruit any other GD unit, but when I saw all the supports Raphael has with the BE and BL characters, I'm gonna get him too. Taking Hilda away from Claude in BL feels like it would take away from the story  for me, so I'll let her stay with him. Will try my best to avoid killing Igntaz and Leonie, even though they were my least favorite characters hah....will recruit all the neutral characters again, but mostly only for their supports and Paralogues. 

Edited September 3, 2019 by xchickengirlx

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Basically, Cyril, Catherine, Shamir, Manuela, Hanneman, and Alois. I always seem to recruit them.

Then there are the students. I think Bernadetta is the only one so far that always seems to be recruited.

[daisy jane]

1 hour ago, xchickengirlx said:

 Linhardt was good to have as a second mage, plus he gets warp before Lysithea does. He was such a squishy unit though, could easily get KO'd if he got hit twice in a row, didn't use him as much in endgame.

Only recruited one BL member, which was Sylvain. At first I only recruited him for his supports with the GD characters, but I ended up trying to get him to be a Leonie replacement. He never became that strong of a unit though, despite how much I tried to use him in Auxiliary battles. In my BL run I'm gonna put him on a Wyvren.

 

Lysithea gets Warp at B
Lin gets it at A. (just to correct this)

Sylvain on a Wyvern is better than Sylvain on a horse (IMO) but i am making him a rider again just to make sure hah

[Shadow Mir]

I know I said that I'd recruit all the female students the game will allow me to (because of course I will), but special mention goes to Ingrid and Petra just to spare me the trouble of dealing with them after the timeskip - both of them sound like (and probably are, in fact) absolute nightmares to face...

[timon]

46 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know I said that I'd recruit all the female students the game will allow me to (because of course I will), but special mention goes to Ingrid and Petra just to spare me the trouble of dealing with them after the timeskip - both of them sound like (and probably are, in fact) absolute nightmares to face...

Ingrid's a joke, at least in CF. An arrow and she ded.

Petra is a pain though, she is the only enemy in this game who's capable of avoiding apparently. Though it's tied to her being at full HP, so a gambit chip it's all it takes to bring her down.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, timon said:

Ingrid's a joke, at least in CF. An arrow and she ded.

Petra is a pain though, she is the only enemy in this game who's capable of avoiding apparently. Though it's tied to her being at full HP, so a gambit chip it's all it takes to bring her down.

Considering that the generic pegasus knight that replaced Ingrid (whom I had recruited right before it) in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion gave the Black Eagles a boatload of trouble... I dunno about that.

[Lucemon gurl]

Personally I always recruit 

Mercedes- she is the best healer in the game

Ashe- Ashe is a awesome sniper, bow knight, and wyvern rider when I played him. Plus he is best boy so I always recruit him.

felix- so strong with his ability to us his fists and he can have a sword too. I actually made him a mortal savant in one run.

Ingrid- she has saved my ass so many times as a falcon knight to the point where her nickname is savior 

Lysithea- omg she is an amazing magic user and making her a Gremory makes her even better

Hilda (if possible on run)- she is a savage on the battle field make her a warrior or a wyvern rider and the enemy is in trouble.

Shamir- awesome sniper and hunters volly is awesome for her to have(plus she does not have a relic that will need to be fixed like a certain blond haired warrior) 

 

honorable mentions are Caspar, Petra, Bernadetta, And Seteth