Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 10: Dedue

[Benice]

Rules

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.)

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning.

- Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more.

- Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~!

-The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage."

-The ranking assumes no grinding of any form, no DLC and minor, (one or two stat boosters per month) use of the Greenhouse.

- Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.."

- Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please!

-We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea."

-The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable.

 

Scores:

Dimtri: 9.14

Edelgard: 9.00

Petra: 8.34

Ferdinand: 7.78

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Dorothea: 6.375

Hubert: 5.525

Caspar: 4.32

 

Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94

Average score for Blue lions: 9.14

 

 

Day 10: Dedue

[Sooks]

7/10, at least on hard mode, I’m not sure about his maddening performance. He is a typical armor knight, high defense, strength, and hp, but low speed, skill, and res. Hit issues don’t matter in this game thanks to combat arts, and on hard mode when a fortress knight with a shield enemies will frequently do no damage to him, but he will get ORKO by mages. In normal fe being a fortress knight really holds you back, but in this game where shields are equippable (is that a word?) and the silver shield can give you 4 defense, with his personal that gives him +4 defense if he waits, he will consistent take no to little damage (unless there’s a mage). He also has boons that will get him easy access to war master, and fortress knight with quick rispote equals everything dead on enemy phase, but relying on a master class mastery basically requires grinding which isn’t allowed, so I guess that can’t count. War master is busted though, so if you want another one Dedue’s always an option. Speaking of master classes, he will not come back post time skip unless you do his paralogue, which doesn’t effect him as a unit, but what does effect him is the fact that he misses out on three months of instruction, and unlike Dimitri, he isn’t good enough for that not to matter. Still though, an easy way to get him to an actual good tank who isn’t based on avoid in fe is really good, so on HARD MODE he gets a high score, held back by inability to hit reliably on enemy phase (I said combat arts fix hit issues) and being guaranteed a death if a mage is among the enemies. Reliably ranking is too good to pass up so he still gets his 8. I’m sure that doesn’t work on maddening, but this is a hard mode rating.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dedue's got a great start and falls off a lot. FE3H doesn't use this model as much as earlier FEs due to how levels work, but it certainly sums up Dedue.

The good: As mentioned, he's got a good start. His HP/def are the best of anyone, his str not far behind (12, equal to Dimitri and one behind Edelgard/Byleth). But raw stats undersell how much better his def is than others, and that's because of his personal. Raising his def by 4 means it's actually 5 points higher than the next best, if he can afford to wait. Or, to put it another way to drive this home: the second best defence (7) in the game is actually closer to Lysithea's (3) than it is to a waiting Dedue's (12). He can take hits nobody else can, and can dish back good damage too.

And once you train his lance rank up, his damage potential becomes even better. Vengeance allows him to deal out severe punishment if you can get his HP low: similiar to Bernie, except Dedue's got more HP to lose and more str (even after accounting for Persecution Complex, he passes Bernie at around Level 8). He doesn't get pegasus knight, but otherwise, he easily outclasses her at the use of this CA.

He's got talent in axes and armour, so he can go wyvern easily, which also patches up his bad speed. Armour gives him Weight-3. Brawling gives him easy access to Grappler, and with his low speed and high str, he's a great fit for Fierce Iron Fist. One-Two Punch also helps out his punch damage before he gets FIF, +8 damage at the cost of eating a counter in the middle, which is bad against mages, but good against physical units. On the axe side, he also gets Monster Breaker, which is solid (even aginst human enemies, it's the axe version of Tempest Lance). Whether by punching or with a brave axe, Dedue is ready to transfer away from using Vengeance when it falls off, and still have solid offence.

The bad: Dedue is let down by his speed growth and magic durability. At most points in the game, mages will typically double him for extreme (potentially even ORKO) damage, so any time mages are around (and from chapter 4 on, they're quite common compared to some other FEs), that puts a serious dent in his tanking game. He's -flying, which slows his path to wyvern, either putting him behind on skills (a problem which is exacerbated by what I'll talk about next) or consigns him to a low-mobility role which has to avoid mages.

He leaves from chapter 13 to 16, losing out on all training both in and out of battle. This tends to leave him somewhat unimpressive upon his return; you should really be able to build up people better than him during his absence.

Finally, his tanking role is simply done much better by dodgetanks in this game, after the early going. He needs to avoid magic, dodgetanks do not. And to do concrete tanking best you have to be in a low-mobility class, unlike dodgetanks who do well as fliers.

Add that all up and there isn't much reason to use him once he returns, unless you like him. But he's outstanding for chapters 1-3, and decently solid for a while thereafter. I put more stock in performance after one is able to make party choices (i.e. recruitment starts) which hurts him a bit, but I still like him. Overall, it works out to a slightly above average 5.5/10.

[Barren]

So now we got the vassal for his highness Dedue. He's an interesting case of someone that is built like a brick wall. But even brick walls get knocked down. Let's go over some good and bad traits for this giant man from Duscar. It's also worth mentioning before I get into him is that everyone is going to most likely have a similar opinion on Dedue because tanks are not good on maddening. Though is he all bad? This is assuming Hard mostly and parts of Maddening

 

Dedue does have some good qualities that makes him a tank. 60% HP, 50% in strength and defense are good traits to have. Not mention that it works nicely with Staunch Shield. Him gaining +4 defense when waiting is a surefire way to tank hits really well. Of course that personal ability is not good against magic. In fact one of his downfalls are his miserable res growth of 10%. His speed is another bane, having it be at 20% is also bad. So he will be doubled by pretty anything except for other slow by tanky units that aren't using brave weapons. Dedue's 30% dex growth also leaves a lot to be desired. His hit rate will suffer as the game progresses. Dedue has a boon in lances, axes, brawling and heavy armor. And his banes are in riding and flying. These two would have easily made up for the fact that he is slow but would have at least have better mobility. But his most defensive option by far is Fortress Knight. While this class is only useful in some situations. You don't want to have him move in a sluggish pace. First of all, 4 move as an advanced physical class is bad. Straight up. Also on maddening, archers and snipers have poison strike. Sure he won't take much damage but then poison strike really chips away at his HP and he'll quickly get worn down. So you better make sure healers are on stand by when this happens while you take out these pesky archers asap. Not to mention that him not being able to easily access Great Knight (which is a bad class) or Wyvern Lord (which is a great class) really limits his options assuming no NG+.

Though it's not the end of the world for him. If you want a tanky Dedue, you can take him down to the Solider class for him to get Defense +2. This in combination with HP +5 shows you how defensive he can be early on. Staunch Shield really likes these simple but yet efficient buffs. But you don't want him to be passive either since you do want to have him at least leveled up enough for it to be worth it. This can naturally lead him to Armored Knight then afterwards Fortress Knight. If you want to have Dedue's speed increase as an axe user, there is certifying him as a Warrior so he would reach up to 14 speed. Though Fighter tends to be the better option for a more physical Dedue. From there he would get Strength +2 then Brigand for Death Blow. From there, it's usually better for him to go Grappler. Him gaining Tomebreaker and Fierce Iron Fist allows Dedue to overcome his lack of being able to double and landing 3 strikes in one move. From there, he could go War Master for Quick Riposte. He can either stay in War Master, or go back to Grappler to bring Quick Riposte with him. Though it can be hard to recommend him as an active unit because he will be unavailable for first half of part 2. If you do his paralogue battle by part 1, he will come back by chapter 16. 

His combat arts are actually pretty interesting. In the lance department, he gets Vengeance. This is not to say he will necessarily pump out the same raw damage output as Bernie but he his bulky enough to take hits and then on player phase, take them out. Monster Breaker is fine on select occasion and then Armored Strike works with his naturally high defense. For brawling he has One-Two Punch. Until you get Fierce Iron Fist, it'll be your best combat art for a while. He also has access to battalion wrath as well in case you want him to take advantage of that. Plus is Duscar Heavy Soldiers battalion offers the highest physical defense buff in the game so it's worth going after for sure.

Overall, I think he is a 5.5/10 for me. He is fine in part 1 but tends to really ware out his welcome by part 2 rolling around. And Gilbert essentially takes his place

 

[LoneStar]

Dedue performs his job as a tank pretty well. In Hard mode you can get away with him soaking up pretty much everything that isn't magic. However in Maddening stronger enemies and poison strike means you have to be more careful, but he is a very proper tank regardless. You can typically put him into Armor Knight then Fortress Knight, but with his high defense growth and personal skill, he can still tank decently well in Brigand/Brawler classes. He has a strength in Axes and Brawling, so he can get Death Blow and get into War Master long term pretty well. As a War Master he's a beast. Once he gets Quick Reposte, his speed doesn't become and issue and he can reliably tank and one round many things. His personal battalion gives a +10 Defense modifier, so this lets him become even tankier, or can lets some other unit with mediocre bulk become more competent at taking hits.

He has pretty strong combat arts. Vengeance deals damage based on missing HP, and since he has pretty high defense he can get into low HP range and kind of stay there. Armored Strike scales off of his defense, so this will do a lot of damage since he will a lot of defense. And there is One-Two Punch which is pretty strong, but opens you up to a counter attack. Grappler and War Master have their personal combat arts which are really strong and work as delete buttons once he masters those classes.

Him and Dimitri have a special support bonus with each other, where they can boost each others damage by 3, so that's an added bonus for the two of them. One downside to him is that you temporarily lose him for a good amount of during part 2, so similarly to Dimitri you will have to focus on his training during part 1 if you don't want him to fall behind too much. Regardless he is a great adjutant for Dimitri, and if you plan to keep using him then he makes a pretty great War Master.

My Rating: 6/10. His play style isn't too flexible, but he does excel at what he's trying to do.

Edited October 18, 2020 by LoneStar

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I really value early game performance and Dedue is one of the best units at level 1. Excellent stats, really great starting skill ranks for some reason, a very relevant personal skill, and two of the best combat arts in the game (vengeance and One Two Punch). He also has an easy time becoming a fortress knight or warrior to take advantage of a double wrath build. Early game his personal helps tank swordies, while in mid game he can ORKO them consistently with One Two Punch. That combat art along with Smash at level 1 especially makes up for his low dexterity. His speed sucks, but if you can nab a grappler certification that can help him avoid some late game doubles from enemy axe users - even pick up some quads on axe users in around chapter 9-11 where enemy stats are really petering out and of course on armor knights. I'm not confident he'll avoid doubles from magic users in late game. In my experience, enemy mages have pretty decent AS - generally as high or higher than any playable mages would naturally get. So making sure Dedue isn't caught by magic sounds like a serious concern. And siege tomes in the last chapters should be very deadly as well. Thank God he's not available in SS's finale, he would not survive against the White Beasts.

Not having four months of missions or tutoring hurts a whole lot. I mentioned his starting ranks being naturally high at level 1, but it doesn't make up such a huge difference. If you want to use Dedue seriously you can't go out of your way for luxury skills or ambitious class masteries. If you try to go for everything (vantage, wrath, grappler's base speed, and vengeance) there's just not enough time for it all before time skip, and your late game Dedue will just feel half baked. Personally I would skip Vengeance, because a gauntlet user doesn't need that nearly as badly as Bernadetta or Cyril would to pick up ORKOs. Low Charm and Luck growths will really hurt his enemy phase against any units with a battalion, and I imagine he's facing some crit rate from enemies the entire game which may cheese some divine pulses from you. Also I mentioned that combat arts really aid his accuracy, but if you intend for the double wrath build I imagine he'd be missing quite a bit there unless you stick with a training weapon and accuracy ring.

I rate him a 6.5. Because my biggest issue with him is just that we don't get more of him in chapters like 13 where he would accomplish as much as Dimitri or Byleth easily. Sure he's forced to fall a few levels behind and won't pick up any S+ ranks, but I think he has everything he needs for some of the best builds in the game. And if you're convinced your Dedue won't be useful past the early game, Dimitri isn't going to be a flier, so just make Dedue his guard adjutant. There's always something for him in any playthrough.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Glennstavos

[ruruo]

Ok I'm carrying loads of bias. I think 6/10 is the fair score, but I'll give him 7/10 with bias. I really want to give him 8 but I think it's too much for a unit that I didn't use much for the War Phase. 

So I generally don't really like slow tanky units. I never used him on Hard, and I would have dropped him early on Maddening. 
But I'm making a massive exception, because on my NG Maddening run, where I kept Byleth at Lv1 until the forced promotion, Dedue defended my bacon and carried the worst of early game for me. He was awesome. One of the few characters who could make kills alone thanks to One-Two Punch, was responsible for saving most of the villages at Remire on the left side, and can tank some hits (but not indestructible). He has a natural path to getting Death Blow, and Monster Breaker from Axes came in handy quite a few times in a pinch too. 

He falls on the second part where he's comes back late, and underleveled. At that point I preferred the permanent mt+hit support bonuses on Dimitri from him as a defensive adjunct.

I think his early game performance is still enough to make it up for me to give him a higher score, because without Dedue, I might have either given up keeping Byleth to Lv 1 or have done less paralogues and acquired the first Knowledge Gem much later. 

[SumG]

I want to like Dedue, since I like the character, but on Maddening it's tough to justify using him after the first few chapters.

The best things about Dedue are his high base defense, high defense growth, and personal ability in the early game.  It makes Dedue the premier early game tank for the first few chapters of the game.  Given that just about every unit outside of Byleth will be getting doubled in direct combat during this stretch, Dedue's monstrous starting defense makes life on the BL route much easier.

That said, Dedue's usefulness falls off precipitously from there.  Dedue's speed is poor, and combined with the nuts enemy strength growth on Maddening, means Dedue struggles to keep up.  The main choices for Dedue as a class path are either Fortress Knight to try and tank (which doesn't work well on Maddening and nerfs Dedue as an offensive unit), Grappler (for Fierce Iron Fist) which undercuts his defense, or War Master (for Quick Riposte) which has a problem with getting the proficiencies in a timely manner.  There's the additional problem of disappearing for a number of chapters at the beginning of Part 2, which prevents you from tutoring him or even gaining weapon experience, which makes it extremely difficult to get him to S+ weapon proficiency no matter what weapon you choose to use.  In the endgame, he has effectively no utility outside being a generic unit of whatever class he is in.

Overall, I'll give Dedue a 4/10 solely on the strength of his early game.

[Punished Dayni]

It's time for the guy who all the racist say is standing there menacingly while he's watering the high up plants.

Dedue is a sweet person, but if he's a sweet unit's what we care about.

It's time to Dedue du dudududedue:

Spoiler

Dedue has three stats in particular: 12+50% Str, which  and 30+60% HP and 8+50% Def, . And that's just it. Beyond that, he's got 5+30% Dex, which definitely could be better, 7+20% Spd, which will fall off before long and ensure he's very slow, though the Brawl classes could help (Doubtful it'd be by much, 5+25% Luk does leave him at risk of crits, which could be an issue for stronger opponents, 4+30%Cha is also a concern for his tanking if someone uses a gambit to rattle him and 2+15% Mag and 1+10% Res, which are absolute trash.

In his strengths and weaknesses he has a pretty simple lineup. Strengths in Lances and Axes are just generally nice, Brawling is one I find underappreciated personally and Armour... Well they can't all be winners, but easy Weight -3 and Smite can have its uses. Meanwhile his weaknesses let us know two things: first, he's not a great mage and second, he's someone who mounts are not where he usually wants to be. This is an issue with some potential builds, though this is mainly because he hasn't perfect availability.

His magic is a weakness: for Reason he gets Fire, Bolganone and Ragnarok, while for faith he gets H + N and Recover, which just means I can move on.

His personal skill is Staunch Shield, which allows him to get +4 Def when he waits. This is really nice early on and is generally great for builds where he focuses on defence. It's limited by requiring him to wait, which does make it harder to justify PP based builds.

His combat arts are kinda alright. With Lances he gets Vengeance, which is good on Bernadetta and is potentially better on Dedue because he has a ton of HP and is more easily doubled. Meanwhile for Axes he has Monster Breaker and Armoured Strike, which are about decent enough. He also gets One-Two Punch and Might Blow for Gauntlets, Mighty Blow giving +10 Might isn't as significant as +20 crit, while One-Two is interesting. It's a regular double attack, which is meh, but not only does it double, but foes can't double and it adds 8 might and 20 hit, so it has quite a bit going for it and I have fun using it on him. Finally, in Authority he gets Battalion Wrath, which is very nice for a high crit build like he could get with War Master.

Thing is not only is he missing for three chapters, but you have to do his paralogue, otherwise he ends up never being there. So that's fun.

My thoughts:

Spoiler

In my first AM run, Dedue became an absolute powerhouse. Higher Str than Dimitri (45), about the same Def, still decent Spd at 26. He went through Brigand (used Brawler for a bit, no master), Grappler and finishing in War Master. Disappointingly didn't get Wrath or Vengeance, but Dedue didn't have much of an issue unless a mage showed up.

I was surprised when I realised how long he disappeared for though.

A more than solid BL option for tanking, nevertheless I suspect he's not indispensable. I'm going to say 6.5/10, because I have to agree that disappearing sucks and he is very flammable, but I would agree he's that useful early on and while not easy he can be reintegrated in Part II.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Dayni

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Dedue, rated assuming Maddening

The bad

I get it, I sound like a broken mp3 at this point, but... poor spell lists, a Faith bane, and a Magic stat of 2+0.15x. He's among the least magically-inclined units in the game. And his Res is somehow worse, at 1+0.10x. Needless to say, he's none too comfortable around mages and their ilk. His Luck of 5+0.25x, and Charm of 4+0.30x, are none too impressive either, rendering him vulnerable to crits and gambits. As for proficiencies, he has banes in Riding and Flight - so classes like Wyvern Rider and Paladin, while not unreachable, will take a lot more work to get into. Dedue's biggest problem, however, is his disappearance - he's gone from Chapter 13 through 16. This means he can't help through the hardest chapter in the game, and he'll fall behind on levels and ranks. He'll take some effort to catch up, if you want him as anything more than an adjutant post-rejoin.

The good

His stats are excellent in the classic armor areas: HP of 30+0.60x, Str of 12+0.50x, and Defense of 8+0.50x. His defense is buoyed, moreover, by his personal ability - choosing the "Wait" command gives him Def+4 through the enemy phase. With this tool, he's basically your only unit with vaguely acceptable physical bulk in the first few chapters. And it can continue to help, should you take him into a defense-stacking direction. Regarding proficiencies, he's strong in Armor, Lances, Axes, and Gauntlets. And with D+ Axes at base, he can easily make it into Brigand (for Death Blow) or Armor Knight (Armored Blow, Def-Stacking). And even Archer (for Hit+20) and Thief (boost his Dex and Sod upon certification) are within reach. In Advanced Tier, he's well-suited to Fortress Knight, Grappler, or Warrior. There's also War Master, once he reaches level 30. He can stack defense (Shield, Def+2, Prt-batallion, Staunch Shield) in Fortress Knight to be your premier physical tank. Or he can stay in a gauntlet class to do serious damage on Player Phase. His proficiencies offer some pretty solid combat arts - Vengeance (C+Lances) and One-Two Punch (C+ Gauntlets) are the standout ones, each letting him nab kills he'd otherwise miss.

The Verdict

Dedue's physical bulk is of critical value in the earlygame - and it'll keep growing through Part I. Depending on how you build him, he can keep luring physical enemies comfortably, or delivering player-phase kills with key combat arts. Or a bit of both. Anyone who wants this performance to keep going into Part II, however, will be sorely disappointed by his disappearance. This makes Dedue tricky to rate - he goes from a key contributor, to just gone, to having to catch up. To assess his performance over the whole game, I don't think I can seat Dedue any higher than a 5 out of 10.

[Anathaco]

7/10

When people say that Blue Lions have the easiest time early on in Maddening, Dedue is a massive contributor to this. His 8 base defense on its own is impressive, but his personal skill gives him an extra 4 defense just for waiting. Without DLC- and arguably even still with DLC- he's the very best physical tank in the early game, and in the game in general. To do the math on what this means, a level 1 Dedue with an Iron Shield  (I think that's available by chapter 2? This is where my love for NG+ comes to bite me in the butt) and the Church of Seiros Soldiers at level 1 reaches 15 prt. The weakest enemies on the map deal 1x2 to him, and the boss "only" does 8x2. The most common enemies (Fighters) have 19 attack, meaning they do 4x2. And remember that Dedue has 30 base HP, so it takes 4 of those fighters to kill him. If you can get Dedue a level up or 2, or get his battalion to, say, level 3, these numbers go down even further. Having him around to take attacks for you is super helpful, especially in that map. 

His tanking stays up there for a little bit yet, but falls off eventually throughout part 1 (not to the point he gets one rounded, but it's not as useful as it once was). Fortunately for Dedue, he learns a few tricks that keep him relevant for a while yet. Vengeance is the main one, packing a ton of power that is available as early as C+ lances- and on Maddening where archers just casually take 20% of your HP every round of combat, even a tank like Dedue can hit health thresholds where Vengeance becomes very, very useful. 

Other people have already gone into his stats in depth and I don't have much more to add here. He tank, he stronk, but he slow and magic hurt.

And, of course, the biggest thing with Dedue is the fact that he vanishes from the face of Fodlan from Chapters 13-16. This hurts him a fair bit, because it messes with his availability and prevents you from tutoring him, plus results in him being underleveled. On the other hand, Vengeance, if you went that route, should be more than enough to keep him competitive damage wise, even if he may never tank the way he once did. Even if you didn't go vengeance, and you went for War Master or something, he still won't be bad, he'll just be outclassed. Still, I think his early game dominance combined with Vengeance combine to make a decent unit, at the very least.

So yeah, that's my overall verdict. A godly tank in the early game who can convert fairly easily to a damage dealer once that niche falls off. Availability issues suck, as does low speed and res, but he does what he needs to do quite well IMO.

[lenticular]

Fantastic in the early game, but horrible in the late game.

For the early game, he has great bases, a great personal and an excellent combat art in One-Two Punch. His personal especially turns him into the single best early-game tank in the game.

But then later on. Oh boy. For a start, his general archetype of "strong, tough and slow" is not one that survives well into the late game. It is still possible to put him into Fortress Knight and use him as a tank, but with his bad speed growth, mediocre charm and horrible res, you'll really have to be careful with him and his overall tanking contribution is much lower. You can also put him into Grappler and he'll do well because Grappler is good and gauntlets are good.

And then there's the big problem of availability. Losing him for four months... is bad. It's really bad. For starters, it means he can't contribute at all during those months. They're important months too. Not only is Reunion at Dawn one of the chapters he misses, but this is also the time when you're going to be doing a lot of the paralogues for part 2, since you'll want their rewards earlier. And then, when you do get him back, he's four months behind everyone else. Four months of missed training, four months of missed levels. For an archetype that was already going to be shaky in part 2, being under-leveled pushes his late game from mediocre to terrible. It is absolutely possible to still use him, of course, but getting him back up to speed means you need to show him favouritism which comes at the opportunity cost of weakening everyone else.

Overall, I give him a 5/10, purely based on his great early-game.

[L3xandr3]

Poor Dedue. This game isn't kind to him.

      Skill Levels:     D+ Axes with a Boon. Very Good, very good. Allows him to get into Brigand, if you’re willing to try a few times. E+ and a Boon in Lances and Brawling is decent, for very different reasons. D and a Boon in Armor is sufficient to get him to Armored Knight without any tutoring. A Bane in Faith is irrelevant, but in Riding and Flying, that’s a problem.

     Abilities:     Dedue only gets Battalion Wrath, which is good, but not great. It really needs Vantage. Dedue can get normal Vantage + Wrath to complement this, and a certain Art he gets, so it’s not all that bad.

     Arts:     Dedue gets Monster Breaker at C+ Axes. As I’ve said before, the Monster Effective skills are a bit crumby, but it is better for Dedue that others given that he will never reliably double. Armored Strike? On Dedue? Sounds strong. At A Axes? Not so much. One-Two Punch is a bit gimiky, given the enemy can get a counter off in between, but is otherwise quite strong. Mighty Blow is like the other non-doubling Gauntlet Arts: Not Good. Aaaand, we get to Dedue’s bread and butter: Vengence. Unlike Bernadetta, Dedue actually has HP and Strength, and so can deal amazing damage with it. Unlike Bernie? He has trouble with Movement. Take your pick of who’s better.

     Stats:     With 30+60% Hp and 8+50% Defense, Dedue has the best Physical Bulk in the game. 12+50% Strength makes him a good Gauntlet wielder. At 2+15% Magic, he’s ever worse than Dimitri when it comes to being a Mage, which is saying a lot. 5+30% Dexterity means he won’t have much Crit. Don’t be fooled by his 7 base Speed, his 20% growth has him going nowhere, fast. 5+25% Luck is a problem, what with Crit being a thing. Being your pre-designated Armor, he has shit for Resistance, sitting pretty at 1+10%. 4+30% Charm, he’s not going to dodge a Gambit anytime soon.

     Classes:     Beginner Classes- Fighter for Shove or Soilder for Repo

Intermediate: Mercinary if you want Vantage, Brigand for Death Blow, Armor for the Defense and Armor skill gain.

Advanced: Warrior for Wrath or Fortress Knight

Master: War Master for QR, or if you want to sink a massive amount of Tutoring into Riding of Flying, Great Knight or Wyvern Lord

If you want him to do anything but wall, you will need to go get him on a Crit build. With Wrath and Vantage on Enemy Phase and Vengence on Player he looks good on paper.

     The Verdict

Dedue is serviceable, if nothing fancy. I give him a 6/10.

[DriftingWaterBottle]

5.5 / 10  on Hard

The good:

• Staunch Shield + strong base Def & Str: Good defensive and offensive potential early game, very practical to lure enemy physical attackers.
• Good HP, Str & Def growth for a melee unit.
• Proficiency in Axe & Brawling: Easier access to Death Blow, as well as easier certification for strong classes such as Grappler and War Master, or guard adjutant classes.
• Interesting personal Combat Arts:
  • Vengeance at C+ Lance synergises with his high HP & Str growth for good damage, and his high Def helps with his survivability once HP is down. On Hard and before relics become available, I find his Def can sometimes be too high to reduce HP efficiently, in which case I tend to put him in range of an enemy mage and use Pure Water to manipulate his received damage.
  • One-Two Punch at C+ Brawling: +Mt & +Hit, as well as avoiding being doubled, with a downside of having to eat a counter attack in between. Considering his low Spd & Dex and good HP & Def in general, it's a good compromise. 
  • Monster Breaker at C+ Axe: situationally useful to break monster barriers.
• Battalion Wrath at C Authority: Useful for Vantage-Wrath build or after mastering Quick Riposte.
• Special bond up to +3 Mt with Dimitri: Useful as Dimitri's guard adjutant in later part 2.

The mixed:

• No crest: Penalty when using relic lances & axe, which can be beneficial for builds focusing on Vengeance.

The not-so-good:

• Low Dex base & growth: More prone to accuracy issue, thus may need more investment or some compromise in building (going for Hit+20, investing in Authority for good battalions & no flying, prioritising Gauntlet instead of other weapons, etc).
• Low Spd & Res: Late game mages capable of doubling him become extremely lethal, thus making him less efficient than dodge tank.
• Bane in Riding & Flying: May require more investment in tutoring if aiming for classes with mobility such as Paladin or Wyvern.
• Availability in part 2 relying on his paralogue completion, and still going missing for the first few chapters immediately after time-skip, especially when many part 2 paralogues become available. Not only does he need to catch up with other units, he can only be useful for a few story battles afterwards. Missing out tutoring and weekly weapon Exp also makes his customisation more limited and requires more investment and planning during part 1 if aiming for more ambitious builds. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by DriftingWaterBottle

[Dark Holy Elf]

While we're waiting for the next thread to be posted, I'm going to make some comments here about PC accuracy. Or, to be more specific, how little Dedue's low dex actually affects his accuracy. (and also pre-emptively Hilda's, etc.) And why I basically never mention dex in my writeups.

This ended up longer than I was planning and it's a bit off-topic, arguably, so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

Dedue's got 5+30% dex, which is around as low as anyone (Balthus is slightly worse). By comparison, Ashe (on the same team) has 8+55%, which is one of the very highest in the game (Claude's got a bit more). This means that Ashe has +3 dex at level 1, and as much as +13 at Level 41. Meanwhile, Dedue has an advantage of 4+15% str (4 to 10 in the same timeframe).

13 dex literally just means 13 more hit (and 6.5 more crit, but I'm just talking about accuracy in this post). Does that matter? A little, sure... until we think about battalions. Let's say our best available battalion for these two is the Goneril Valkyries: it's a good one, at +8 atk and +20 hit. I think everyone will agree that I'm not sandbagging Ashe if I give him that. But here's the thing: Dedue can give that up and use, for instance, Edumund Troops, trading 3 atk for +20 hit. At this point, he will have more hit than Ashe AND more atk than Ashe (e.g. +5.5 atk and +9.5 hit at Level 31). In other words, high-str low-dex PCs in this game can tinker with their builds to outclass low-str high-dex PCs should accuracy be desired in place of power. Weapon choices also create similar effects (with iron/training weapons allowing PCs to give up power for hit, compared to silver/steel/brave).

You might bring up the earlygame, before such battalions exist, but honestly, earlygame dex differences are small... again, no more than 3 points. And starting weapon class doesn't generally impact hit that much, either, with one big exception. Check it out (all figures are before enemy evade and any external effects which might modify accuracy):

(all at L1 prowess)
Iron Sword Wrath Strike: 10 mt, 105 hit
Iron Lance Tempest Lance: 14 mt, 96 hit
Iron Axe Smash: 11 mt, 97 hit
Iron Gauntlets Fading Blow: 7 mt, 100 hit
Iron Gauntlets (no CA): 1 mt (2 hits), 90 hit
Iron Bow Curved Shot: 7 mt, 121 hit

Except for Curved Shot, the other four weapons all output pretty similar accuracy, a mere 9-point swing between Tempest Lance and Wrath Strike. And of course, the higher-power options like axes and lances (especially Tempest Lance) can go to training weapons for +10 hit (beating out all but Curved Shot) and still be ahead of bows/gauntlets(/swords, in Tempest Lance's case) for damage. [Axes do a bit worse on enemy phase, admittedly, but player phase is generally where I create plans that require people hitting, so my focus is on that.]

More generally, of course, high-power characters like Dedue can make the switch to training weapons more easily, since they have more power to give up. To return to the earlier comparison, Training Axe Dedue has both more power and more hit than Iron Axe Ashe.

And finally, in the specific case of Dedue: he even starts with D+ axes instead of D, which is a free +3 due to having L2 prowess. So hit really should not be an issue for him, any more than anyone else not named Ignatz.

 

[LJ_Reflet]

I hope I'm not too late, I missed Dimitri's post haha.

Dedue is a character of extremes, with very strong strengths, but very weak weaknesses. His early game performance is vital for the Blue Lions, being an amazing physical tank, but his performance can notably fall later in the game. However, I found him to perform quite well in the end as a War Master. But then again, War Master is a great class for any physical unit lol.

So, the good:
Dedue is regarded as one of the best physical tanks in the game with the highest base and growth rate in defense (8+50%) out of any unit. His personal boosts his defense an extra +4 when waiting, giving him a whopping 12 at base. He will pretty much take almost 0 physical damage for the first half of part one, maybe even throughout his whole presence in the game. My favorite use for Dedue was putting him in the middle of a danger zone to aggro enemies and get gangbanged, then watch him take like 3 damage at most LOL. His strength is also one of his key assets. 12 base means he's on par with Dimitri, and 50% growth is great only being surpassed by Dimitri himself as well as Felix and Edelgard. So after taking no damage on enemy phase, he will then continue to slaughter those poor enemies. I even found him to ORKO enemy Fortress Knights just by throwing hands while this job is usually done by magic users. His weapon proficiencies are pretty worth of mention as well, having boons in lances, axes, brawling, and heavy armor. Axes and Brawling boons are always a good thing, as both put him on a super smooth path to War Master and it becomes very easy to achieve Death Blow and Healing Focus. Axes are supposed to provide a smooth transition to Wyvern Lord, but I'll get into his bane in flying later LOL. Overall, Dedue excels as a physical defensive unit--the best tank you can get--and shines on the front lines against other physical enemies.

Now, the bad:
Before his weaknesses as a unit, what hurts him the most is his absence in a good chunk of part 2. He misses out important leveling and instructing, putting him behind his fellow classmates once he comes back. You can always grind him with auxiliary battles so that he can catch up, but these are limited in Hard/Maddening and it's just kind of annoying to take that kind of detour. I abused him on the frontlines with a knowledge gem before he left in hopes of relieving this, and it worked to some degree, but he was still behind. Now his weaknesses as a unit: his biggest flaw is his terrible speed. At 7+20%, he's almost guaranteed to get doubled throughout pretty much the whole game. Now, I didn't really find his speed to be that much of a problem with physical enemies as they did very little damage, and even if they did decent damage, his high HP covered that. But what gets him are mages. Yes, putting him near to a mage is a horrible, horrible idea, but there are times when mages are in the same vicinity as other enemies and he might end up getting hit by them as well. His resistance is a grotesque 1+10%, so he is bound to die if even something like Warp were to touch him. I also found his accuracy to be a problem, rooted in his low dex growth of 30%. I always found his hit rate to be always around the 60-85 range and rarely above 90. In terms of his combat arts, they're good--but not great. One-Two Punch is nice as it guarantees a follow-up, but gauntlets naturally have a brave effect, so he's always gonna double with one equipped anyway. The extra damage from One-Two Punch is appreciated, though. Lastly, his skill banes. His boons are in lances and axes. Lances are important as they are the most versatile in the game, as all mounted master classes require it. However, he has banes in both riding AND flying--making Wyvern Lord or any master class very difficult to achieve. It's unfortunate, as Wyvern Lord would patch up his speed issues. I wouldn't say his lack of prowess in magic is bad tho, as saying Dedue has bad magic potential is the same as saying Mercedes has bad Fortress Knight potential.

 

I feel like I've drabbled on about Dedue LOL. I was originally gonna give him a decent score of like 6.5 or 7, but I realized his weaknesses outweigh his strengths, so I give Dedue a 5.5/10. He's regarded as the best physical tank in the game, taking little damage but dealing plenty. However, he is hindered by his bad speed and resistance and his absence in the first half of part 2.