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Gender-Unlocked Classes: Who Would Make the Most of It?


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As we all know, certain classes are gender-locked in Three Houses. Pegasus Knight (I), Falcoknight (M), and Gremory (M) are all exclusive to female units, while men get Brawler (I), Dark Mage (I), Hero (A), Grappler (A), Dark Bishop (I), and War Master (M). But what if this weren't the case, such that men could ride pegasi and women could don the dark robes? Which characters would get a lot out of specific cross-gender classes?

I intend this to be less of a competition ("who wants it most?") and more a brainstorming session ("how would character X do as class 3?"), so with that in mind, let's start with a couple!

Linhardt as a Gremory. Regarded as masters of pure magic, this class seems a natural fit for Linhardt, who has boons in Reason and Faith alike. Gremory would give Linhardt the highest magic stat possible (+5 mod, notably higher than +2 of Dark Knight and Bishop), with slightly better speed (+1 versus -1 and 0, respectively) than the other two. 5 move would be a step up from Bishop's 4, but stil behind the 7 (6 dismounted) of Dark and Holy Knights. His damage output would be slightly worse than as a Dark Knight (no Black Tomefaire), but getting Black Magic x2 somewhat makes up for it (extra Excalibur is certainly welcome). Moreover, he keeps White Magic x 2 from Bishop, but loses out on Healing + 10, making his Physic weaker even after accounting for higher Magic (of course, his Warp is even stronger). Overall, I could see Gremory as a strong compromise pick for Linhardt - slightly less offensive than Dark Knight, and slightly less supportive than Bishop (unless you're just using Linhardt as a Warpbot, in which case, this is his best class), but better than either one at doing both. And, let's be honest, we all know he would slay in that dress.

Catherine as a Grappler or War Master. Catherine is the only playable woman (sans F-Byleth) with a propensity for punching, so it seems like she's the one missing out most on access to Gauntlet-specialist classes. She could go back to Brawler, but that offers poor class skills and mastery (the same one, coincidently), so she'd probably prefer to train her fists either by staying Swordmaster (good stats, no seals required) or going Brigand (Death Blow, while great on any physical unit, synergizes phenomenally with brave weapons like Gauntlets and Thunderbrand; but it does require building her Axe rank from the floor up). Compared to Swordmaster, Grappler offers Fistfaire while losing Swordfaire, and Unarmed Combat while losing Sword Crit +10). She'll also lose Strength (+2 to +1) and Speed (+4 to +3), but make up for it in HP (+1 to +2), Dex (+1 to +3), and a movement range only rivaled among infantry units by Assassins. Mastery will grant her Tomebreaker and the Fierce Iron Fist combat art, which I would say far outshine this game's incarnation of Astra. It will take some work, and won't be as strong a Thunderbrand-wielder as Swordmaster, but I think Grappler could be a great pick for Catherine, likely on-par with Assassin (which, admittedly, she'll have an easier time reaching).

War Master is even more of a stretch, but if you somehow get her Axe rank to B or above, she'll enjoy an unparalleled +5 Strength mod (and respectable +2 Speed), Faires in both Gauntlets and Axes, and an absurd Crit + 20 to all weapon types (take that, Sword Crit + 10). Achieving mastery is likely a pipe dream, but War Master's Strike is an effective Axe art, while Quick Riposte is one of the best skills in the game. And it's worth noting, all combat arts may see their damage boosted, thanks to Catherine's major crest of Charon. War Master may just be Catherine's strongest infantry option (I know, you can train her in lances and flying so she goes Falcon, but punching people is too fun, dammit!), if you're willing to put in the work to get there.

Anyway, what do y'all think of these analyses (I recognize that I could have considered a lot more factors - personal skills, class growths, personal bases and growths - but chose to ignore those, for the sake of brevity)? And what units would you like to consider, in classes previously forbidden to them? Let me know!

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Hrmm, Gremory Linhartdt just feels like a side grade to Bishop. Trading +10 healing for +1 move and...more excalibur charges. I've never come close to running out of any individual reason spell with Linhardt, he's just not attacking often. Even if I was low on one spell, he learns a whopping four others to fall back on before he's forced to use nosferatu as an attack. And with excellent physic range, Linhardt is just fine hanging back and supporting from far away. As a gremory, his position wouldn't meaningfully change in those late game maps

Brawling Catherine would be great. She is the only woman in the game with brawling proficiency, except F!Byleth, and the punching classes soundly beat the sword wielding classes. And if War Master is your aim, the two routes where she is recruitable early allow you to start working on her axe rank to meet the requirement without any serious investment. Catherine also has Nimble Combo and Bombard, two excellent combat arts that improve her damage on any enemy she can't quad. Nimble Combo is the better one, yet happens to be C+.

Pegasus knight on any male that is going to be a wyvern would be a nice option. Darting Blow is a nice mid game bonus, but I like having the option of fighting in a class that improves a unit's flying rank naturally. The only issue I can think of is the usual "oh boy, there's not enough flying batallions to go around"

Falcon Knight would be excellent for Ferdinand, Seteth, and Sylvain. The only master class option they have with lancefaire to improve swift strikes is Great Knight, and that is a very hard class to qualify for. Seteth especially due to his late recruitment and bane in riding. Access to falcon knight would make Seteth even more of a monster.

Hero isn't much of a long term class, but it being there as a level 20 class option can help you pick up some nice base stats if you don't qualify for any other class immediately upon reaching that level. Felix and Byleth, typically. Vantage is an interesting class skill if you don't want the time to nab it from Mercenary. Maybe Hero Catherine could see some use in the mid-late game if the player was raising axe rank for death blow but still wants to be a sword user.

Edited by Glennstavos
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Dark Mage/Dark Bishop: Edelgard and Lysithea. Their spell lists are dark focused and I'm surprised this was even a gender locked class in the first place. It has never been genderlocked before and 2/3 dark magic learners are girls. This is probably the dumbest gender lock in the whole game.

Brawler/Grappler/War Master: Physically-inclined females would like this class line. In particular, Catherine, Edelgard, Hilda, and Petra would've made the most out these classes. War Master is the biggest loss, because ladies can't normally get Quick Riposte.

Hero: I actually haven't used this class yet in any of my playthroughs, so I wonder how it holds up. The girls that want this class are probably the same ones, except you may want to add Ingrid to that list. Petra in particular is built to be a speedy hero. I wonder why this one got genderlocked. We've come too far for this class to get genderlocked again.

Pegasus/Falcon Knight: Darting Blow being available to the ladies and Jeritza definitely hurts a lot of your cavalry-oriented guy. Characters you want in the air probably would've enjoyed these classes. Think Seteth, Cyril, Ferdinand Von Aegir, Sylvain, maybe Ashe. Dimitri would've liked to be a Falcon Knight with his strength in lances and swords. I'm still mad that the game won't let us fulfill Hubert's childhood dream of being a pegasus knight. Perhaps I should turn Corrin into Hubert in Fates and slap a Dark Flier seal on him.

Gremory: Linhardt and maybe Hanneman are the ones affected the most by this. Linhardt wants to be a Gremory so he can retain his warp uses as well as get more uses with his offensive spells. A real shame smh. Lorenz would also benefit from this class. This just made me realize how female-dominated magic is in Three Houses.

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17 minutes ago, Dandy Druid said:

Pegasus/Falcon Knight: Darting Blow being available to the ladies and Jeritza definitely hurts a lot of your cavalry-oriented guy. Characters you want in the air probably would've enjoyed these classes. Think Seteth, Cyril, Ferdinand Von Aegir, Sylvain, maybe Ashe. Dimitri would've liked to be a Falcon Knight with his strength in lances and swords. I'm still mad that the game won't let us fulfill Hubert's childhood dream of being a pegasus knight. Perhaps I should turn Corrin into Hubert in Fates and slap a Dark Flier seal on him.

I actually considered theory-crafting Dimitri as a Pegasus/Falcoknight! Darting Blow is good on anyone, and fliers are busted in this game. But whereas Wyvern Dimitri has to run up against a perpetual bane in Axes, Pegasus Dimitri can take advantage of natural boons in Lance and Sword. Flying and having Lancefaire on Areadbahr/Atrocity sounds like insanity. The one problem? Everyone will start confusing him for Ingrid, haha.

51 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Brawling Catherine would be great. She is the only woman in the game with brawling proficiency, except F!Byleth, and the punching classes soundly beat the sword wielding classes. And if War Master is your aim, the two routes where she is recruitable early allow you to start working on her axe rank to meet the requirement without any serious investment. Catherine also has Nimble Combo and Bombard, two excellent combat arts that improve her damage on any enemy she can't quad. Nimble Combo is the better one, yet happens to be C+.

Thanks for pointing these out, I forgot personal combat arts. Combine with Fistfaire and Death Blow, I could see these one-shotting, especially if the Crest of Charon activates. And good point on combining Fistfaire with Swift Strike. I can even make a case for Hubert on a Pegasus, thanks to Frozen Lance (fell in love with him as a Cav->Paladin->Bow Knight, note that CF gives him Arrow of Indra too). As for Hero, I agree it's not a great class... maybe Catherine or Edelgard could use it? Or anyone you want to set up a Vantage strat with, I guess (never been my cup of tea).

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2 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I actually considered theory-crafting Dimitri as a Pegasus/Falcoknight! Darting Blow is good on anyone, and fliers are busted in this game. But whereas Wyvern Dimitri has to run up against a perpetual bane in Axes, Pegasus Dimitri can take advantage of natural boons in Lance and Sword. Flying and having Lancefaire on Areadbahr/Atrocity sounds like insanity. The one problem? Everyone will start confusing him for Ingrid, haha.

The thought of tortured Dimitri sitting on a pegasus makes me laugh. He's so angry on top of something so graceful.

But he would be a busted unit if he ride a pegasus. Falcon Knight Dimitri doesn't sound to pleasant to go against. Ingrid is annoying to face so I know Dimitri would be especially hard.

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Gremory Dedue when?  😛

Stupid jokes aside, I'd love to see Hilda the Hero.  Or perhaps Claude on a pegasus, because Darting Blow would be hilariously overkill.

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2 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

The thought of tortured Dimitri sitting on a pegasus makes me laugh. He's so angry on top of something so graceful.

Who knows if that pegasus can even handle carrying a big boy like him. I mean he's the only lord who growth spurted and growth spurted HARD. Wyverns are more durable, so they can have large male riders vs having to have daintier females. But I know this is a joke. I'll just add that I headcanon Ingrid's pegasus does not like him and will bite him when he tries to feed her apples. She will also purposely fly slower if Ingrid has to give him a lift. Ingrid is working on that.

Dark Bishop Dorothea, to add to the list.

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The pegasus line is by far the most important.

Pegasus Knight is arguably the best class in the game; it outclasses its competition at Intermediate tier harder than any other class does at its own tier IMO (Wyvern Rider is great too, but other classes giving -faires for different weapons make it less of a slam-dunk). Obviously, giving that to more people is good. Also, Darting Blow is a great mastery skill (so is Death Blow, but it's quite possible to get both).

Falcon Knight is a dramatically better class than Paladin (in their shared availability) or Great Knight, so the Swift Strikes users would love it. I currently find that Combat Art a bit overrated since its users rarely have -faire on it, but FK would make a huge difference there.

Dimitri with Pegasus access would probably be the best character in the game IMO; giving him a better Intermediate performance, Darting Blow access, and mobile Lancefaire for Areadbhar/Atrocity would be wow.


Otherwise, I can see a case for Grappler Catherine since it is probably a better class than Assassin and easier to get into for her than say Falcon Knight, but I don't think it dramatically shifts her. Gremory Linhardt as mentioned is an option, but definitely a sidegrade one since his Reason list is so underwhelming. The dark mage line is terrible as is, but maaybe Lysithea might consider it since all her options during Advanced tier are bad anyway; every other mage prefers Warlock due to having Reason spells (even Edelgard if for some insane reason we're considering either for her). I've literally never used Hero and don't plan to, 5 move melee infantry with worse stats than Swordmaster is a joke.


Independent of gameplay, I'd like to see the gender lock removed just for fun setups and more outfits.

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War master Hilda,Edelgard or Annette because with an axe relic WMS is Atrocity 2.0.

Gaining acces to pegasus knight( and D flying being piss easy for everyone) would make the WL path easy even for people like Dedue, and would pretty much erase any other phisical class in the game, save for brigand. 

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Well, this falls a bit out of place. But personally I would have liked Bernadetta to have access to Hero. But more because of Defiant Str, which would improve her Vengeance strat a bit more. And also has a bit of a sync with her personal Skill. Of course her having disadvantage on Axe and Sword drags this a bit down. The growth rate of this class does not hurt her at all. 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Dark Bishop Dorothea, to add to the list.

While the idea of Dark Bishop is intriguing, I think she'd much prefer to stay as a Warlock. That way, she not only has two Meteors, but she also does the most damage possible with her Black Magic. Gremory offers better move and healing, but slightly less damage.

1 hour ago, Flere210 said:

War master Hilda,Edelgard or Annette because with an axe relic WMS is Atrocity 2.0.

Agreed on these, but even someone Crestless like Petra could do tremendous damage with the Devil Axe +, or the Axe of Ukonvasara.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The pegasus line is by far the most important.

Agreed with this, and basically all that follows. Having fliers does wonders in early-mid maps like Remire and the Dedue/Hannemanuela paralogues. Dimitri and Swift Strikers especially want Falcoknight.

11 hours ago, eclipse said:

Or perhaps Claude on a pegasus, because Darting Blow would be hilariously overkill.

It's kind of funny, Claude has no reason to build Flight rank because he gets his classes for free, but early Pegasus would likely change his mind on this.

1 hour ago, Stroud said:

But personally I would have liked Bernadetta to have access to Hero. But more because of Defiant Str, which would improve her Vengeance strat a bit more.

Interesting one. Bernadetta could make good use of the Devil Sword/Axe, too, to get her Personal (and, eventually, Defiant Strength) active. Although I never really used the Defiants, keeping everyone healthy just seems easier.

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2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Interesting one. Bernadetta could make good use of the Devil Sword/Axe, too, to get her Personal (and, eventually, Defiant Strength) active. Although I never really used the Defiants, keeping everyone healthy just seems easier.

Its also a more risky approach and better on classes with Canto for hit and run anyway. Would also use this more on new game+ to have some fun with her. On maddening I did play her like this though, only had the boost items thanks through the dlc though, so I could increase her HP and made her more durable. (Could even 1 hit Death Knight starting chapter 6). Also her good Skill growth helps a lot for a save hit. I also abused enemies having Poison Strike. 

Devil Weapons help her to get to 1 HP more save. And 8 more Mt would help her a bit. Sometimes it was pretty close on my run with her doing enough damage. Personally I only used Defiant Avoid until now. And there are just certain maps you don't want to have low HP. 

Personally I would go with these skills on her list would be Def. Str, HP +5, Death Blow. Lance Prowess, Bow Prowess, Lancefaire, Mov +1. For this approach I love her as a Paladin more and only barely use Bows if she cannot hit and run, while being save. If her Skill growth is extraordinary she might even drop Lance Prowess. I remember her having a hit rate around 170 at the end of the game. Thanks to Def Str she could be more useful with Bow again though. 
Problem is that it will take her quite a while to get it all. But overall its just about some ideas which are possible and in my eyes fun to use. 

Having a shield on her inventory also is not too bad, at least in the beginning..but now I got a bit too much into it. 

 

Edited by Stroud
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  • 8 months later...

Male mages would make the most of it, since their path to endgame is pretty shoddy. Namely, Linhardt would benefit a lot from Gremory. And even those that have heavy synergy with Dark Knight (Hubert and Lorenz) would really benefit from having the Valkyrie as a transitionary phase rather than having to go Mage -> Warlock -> Dark Knight or Cavalier -> Paladin -> Dark Knight.

 

Pegasi would also be a great benefit to Male Byleth, Felix, and Dimitri.

 

Female axe wielders would also find increased flexibility. They already have Wyvern Lord, and you basically can't beat that, but the option to make Hilda or Edelgard into a Warmaster is nonetheless compelling. Not to mention, the ability for women to unlock skills like Defiant Str and Quick Riposte for New Game+ would be useful.

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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