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Your best, worst and most disappointing unit.


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10 hours ago, Lunarly said:

(this is with maddening mode in mind)

Best

Merrin: Her bases are very good, coming with amazing speed (which is complimented by pretty generous build stat), mixed offenses which include 1-2 range daggers while having the magic stat to use the Levin Sword, and decent-ish bulk. Her growths are on the lower side but, her bases make up for it (plus there are plenty of ways to boost stats like engraves, rings, forges, etc.)

Hortensia: Really good user of status staves because of the class skill for her personal class and also her personal skill. Comes with workable bases (mag is low but she does have very high speed and dex to use heavier/stronger tomes) and she can gain even more stats considering she's pretty much ready to promote once you get her (which means more magic). 

Kagetsu: Insane bases with high strength, speed, and dex while also having very solid bulk (considering his class) with a solid hp, defense and resistance stats. Swordmaster is alright on him but, because of his high bases I find him a very great candidate to reclass into the likes of Wyvern Lord, Hero or Paladin.

 

Disappointing

Alfred: When I used him he kept getting really good level-ups but still performed terribly since I always found him getting doubled since his base SPD is low (which means a lot of catching up to do) combined with low build. This ends up compromising his bulk which is pretty solid but, since he's prone to getting doubled it ends up not mattering anyways. The class skill of his lord class is good in theory but, Alfred has a low Dex growth so in practice it kind of doesn't really show up as often as you'd like.

Lapis: Sucks that she joins 1 chapter before Diamant who has similar speed (with higher build) but comes with better strength and bulk, then Kagetsu shows up a few chapters later and completely blows her out of the water. 

Vander: Kind of a sad Jagen archetype because he doesn't really have the tools he needs to dominate the early game. He doesn't have access to any exclusive weaponry (typically silver weapons in older games) while enemy quality is very high which means he can't really just pubstomp as easily as older Jagens. I still think he does his role fine where he can soften up enemies and his growths are high enough where he can scale if given the investment, problem is that he's going to be stuck with underwhelming bases for a while until he can get double digit exp.

Alear: Think it's moreso the expectation that the main lord will be good given that the last couple of FE games gave you really overtuned lords/protagonists. I find Alear okay it's just he's quite underwhelming combat wise due to his low strength growth but, they do get emblem type bonuses from pretty much every single ring so I guess it balances out?

Jade: I don't think she's that bad but, it's just that her bases are so similar to Louis's who joins way earlier and will have more time to scale so she seems a bit pointless to use unless reclassed into something else.

 

Bad

Anna: Joins at a low level and desperately wants to get into a magic class as soon as possible to utilize her significantly higher magic growth. You end up having to decide to either suffer through 5 more levels of her as an axe fighter with low bases or you second seal right away and delay promotion even more. Don't really think money is tight in this game (unless you donated a bunch) so I don't find her personal skill anything special.

Clanne: Suffers generally from slowly and steadily getting outclassed by like every mage (Celine, Citrine and Ivy) and has a really sad base magic growth. Still useful early for chip damage (especially against armors) and deployment slots aren't as tight but his late game scaling is very poor unless you get him up to level 10 and then reclass him into a physical class which seems like a lot of extra work.

 

Overrated

Yunaka: I don't think she's bad (I think she's quite good overall) but I don't really see her as the second coming of christ that people paint her to be (aka unhittable demon who can 1 round every enemy besides armors with 1-2 range). I found that she needs quite a bit of investment with her STR growth not being that high (still workable), not having any promotion gains unless she reclasses into a base class which would just screw over her exp gain, and there's also the issue where Zelkov does sorta outclass her due to better bases and he can fulfill the same role as her. I feel like if her and Zelkov traded places, people wouldn't be speaking highly of them.

Jean: I find him alright, I just find the reasonings for him being busted is usually due to the DLC Tiki ring taking his high growths even higher being quite silly considering the DLC is kind of made to be busted. Other than that, I think the strength of him circumventing his low level through the exp gain from Micaiah's Great Sacrifice is also silly because any unit can do that gain a ton of exp? (what's with people thinking grinding is exclusive to some units). Either way, I think Jean being a staffer helps him gain exp safely and qi guard is also very clutch in certain situations.
 

For Jean my understanding is that his aptitude doubles his class growth rates meaning he should be sitting at a 70 mag growth rate in his base class while still doing useful heal/chain guard things. 

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Best Units:

Yunaka - absolutely destroys everything in her path, especially when paired with Edelgard.

Alfred - Finally he's performing well now that I've got him paired with Sigurd.

 

Worst Units:

Vander - kept getting smoked early on and I lost interest in him - boring character.

Framme - I simply prefer Celine and Ivy so can't be bothered using him

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18 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

Have you tried giving your Alear smash weapons? I found with Lapis that there is an odd role of player phase speedtank - smash weapons + high avo(marth's perception is a key) allows you to avoid enemy retaliation and literally smash them.

To add to this: a Steel Blade with Roy's engraving and Marth's Lodestar Rush. Alear with that can deal like... 54 damage or something nutty like that to the ch10 bosses. 6x9 hits. Even in Maddening that's a OHKO and drains one of their HP bars.

I really like Alear yoinking the Iron Blade from Lapis for this reason in the first Brodia map.

Edited by DaveCozy
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So I haven't finished the game yet as I have resetted an ungodly amount of times as I decided like any other sane person that his first playthrough of FEE Engage will be a lunatic iron man.  As I have yet to get past chapter 14 currently (Alear died to a 2% crit), I have a decent idea on the very early units while having closes to no idea on characters past chp. 11.

Best: I mean it has to be Alear or Sigurd.  Alear is great as they have a good str/spd growth (at least from my like 12 resets) and combined with her prf which allows you to be more willy nilly with your Engages is extremely valuable early game.  Now when I also put Sigurd I mean the emblem ring.  I think Sigurd is a dumb ring early on as it essentially turns Albert or Chloe from mediocre units that can hardly OHKO anything into killing machines.  This is most surely due to momentum being stupid by giving you like +10 dmg for free.  Sigurd giving BLD is also extremely useful for both Albert and Chloe as their base BLD isn't that great. 

Most Disappointing:  The princess mage you get with Celica, I mean she is like only 2 stats above Clanne in magic and speed I believe.  However she comes at level 6 while Clanne is like level 1 or 2.  This means she can get to promotion faster and from what I can tell (at least so far) is that you want to promote ASAP in FE Engage.  The other is Lapis, she's quite disappointing when Cittrinne and Alcryst come on the same chapter and are instantly more usable than her.  That is to say Lapis can probably be pretty good as she is in a backup class so I can see her being good. My last most disappointing is Alfred.  I've tried a lot of different things with him and he only ends up feeling like an okay cav everytime.  Sigurd can help patch him up but his speed and build is too low to double or avoid getting doubled.  While his defense is quite good, his speed and mid build just ends up making him squishier than Chloe sometimes. 

Worst: Anna, I mean level 2 after chapter 5 and also low bases.  Her personal is also not substantial and the only reason to use her is for backup stacking.  Also I would put in Clanne's sister and Jean but they can protect other units which is extremely clutch when one of your units missees in a really bad spot.

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Completed up to Maddening Ch8 so far:

God: Etie w/Sigurd - I will admit there's a ton of personal favoritism behind this one (+2 STR/SPD from DLC bonuses, +3 Iron Bow w/Sigurd engrave, and Sigurd's ring) but she absolutely carried as-soon-as-possible Tiki paralogue, taking out so many dragons. First promote of the army into Bow Knight. Punches big holes in bosses and even armored units. There's definitely times she falls short of a kill or a double even with all that favoritism but the value of high move + bow + Canter has been a lifesaver. Has enough SP now to inherit Canter so I look forward to trying a different ring.
 

Really Good: Yunaka w/Marth - Daggers refine really nicely (and, DLC bonus, Edelgard engrave's Wt increase is inconsequential) and she's just fairly solid with dodging, doubling, and critting up a storm. Currently using Marth, probably changing that around.

Louis w/Edelgard - Enemies completely ignoring him if they deal 0 damage is a bit of a downer on enemy phase BUT he has consistently been a solid brick and crazy strong. Edelgard ring with Houses Unite has thus far always been a 100% boss oneshot which makes them much easier since I only have to figure out one life's worth of damage.

Lapis - Fed a HP+5 and Def+2, promoted to Hero(Sword/Lance) and she practically soloes an entire side of Ch8. Another favoritism case like Etie but I saw a strong package with an easy fix. Probably deserves an emblem ring after the new additions.

???: Mages - I have no idea how to feel between Celine, Clanne, and Citrinne. Clanne's performance is surprisingly decent overall and I think it would probably be objectively better to bench take away Celica from Celine. Having casters on hand has been useful in any case and Warp Ragnarok is a nice nuke on anyone but that's largely just Celica carrying the mage.

Disappointing: Alfred - It's been said by many. Just a sadly underwhelming staline. Half the reason I took Sigurd's ring off of him was that Alfred wasn't doing much of anything even with it. Amber just joined and I wish Alfred had that kind of statline now.

Boucheron - It sucked to bench my only remaining axe-wielder and Backup unit before Lapis arrived but he just doesn't seem to keep up, not for lack of trying.

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23 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Best: I mean it has to be Alear or Sigurd.  Alear is great as they have a good str/spd growth (at least from my like 12 resets) and combined with her prf which allows you to be more willy nilly with your Engages is extremely valuable early game.  Now when I also put Sigurd I mean the emblem ring.  I think Sigurd is a dumb ring early on as it essentially turns Albert or Chloe from mediocre units that can hardly OHKO anything into killing machines.  This is most surely due to momentum being stupid by giving you like +10 dmg for free.  Sigurd giving BLD is also extremely useful for both Albert and Chloe as their base BLD isn't that great. 

Most Disappointing:  The princess mage you get with Celica, I mean she is like only 2 stats above Clanne in magic and speed I believe.  However she comes at level 6 while Clanne is like level 1 or 2.  This means she can get to promotion faster and from what I can tell (at least so far) is that you want to promote ASAP in FE Engage.  The other is Lapis, she's quite disappointing when Cittrinne and Alcryst come on the same chapter and are instantly more usable than her.  That is to say Lapis can probably be pretty good as she is in a backup class so I can see her being good. My last most disappointing is Alfred.  I've tried a lot of different things with him and he only ends up feeling like an okay cav everytime.  Sigurd can help patch him up but his speed and build is too low to double or avoid getting doubled.  While his defense is quite good, his speed and mid build just ends up making him squishier than Chloe sometimes. 

Funny you say that, because my experience thus far has been the exact opposite; Alear has been underperforming, whereas Celine has been one of my best units. In the former's case, they're tied with or worse than Lapis in just about everything, with only a few points of defense over her. And I mean BASE Lapis.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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30 minutes ago, SeraviSays said:

Completed up to Maddening Ch8 so far:

God: Etie w/Sigurd - I will admit there's a ton of personal favoritism behind this one (+2 STR/SPD from DLC bonuses, +3 Iron Bow w/Sigurd engrave, and Sigurd's ring) but she absolutely carried as-soon-as-possible Tiki paralogue, taking out so many dragons. First promote of the army into Bow Knight. Punches big holes in bosses and even armored units. There's definitely times she falls short of a kill or a double even with all that favoritism but the value of high move + bow + Canter has been a lifesaver. Has enough SP now to inherit Canter so I look forward to trying a different ring.
 

Really Good: Yunaka w/Marth - Daggers refine really nicely (and, DLC bonus, Edelgard engrave's Wt increase is inconsequential) and she's just fairly solid with dodging, doubling, and critting up a storm. Currently using Marth, probably changing that around.

Louis w/Edelgard - Enemies completely ignoring him if they deal 0 damage is a bit of a downer on enemy phase BUT he has consistently been a solid brick and crazy strong. Edelgard ring with Houses Unite has thus far always been a 100% boss oneshot which makes them much easier since I only have to figure out one life's worth of damage.

Lapis - Fed a HP+5 and Def+2, promoted to Hero(Sword/Lance) and she practically soloes an entire side of Ch8. Another favoritism case like Etie but I saw a strong package with an easy fix. Probably deserves an emblem ring after the new additions.

???: Mages - I have no idea how to feel between Celine, Clanne, and Citrinne. Clanne's performance is surprisingly decent overall and I think it would probably be objectively better to bench take away Celica from Celine. Having casters on hand has been useful in any case and Warp Ragnarok is a nice nuke on anyone but that's largely just Celica carrying the mage.

Disappointing: Alfred - It's been said by many. Just a sadly underwhelming staline. Half the reason I took Sigurd's ring off of him was that Alfred wasn't doing much of anything even with it. Amber just joined and I wish Alfred had that kind of statline now.

Boucheron - It sucked to bench my only remaining axe-wielder and Backup unit before Lapis arrived but he just doesn't seem to keep up, not for lack of trying.

Honestly with Boucheron, I've found him good up until the chp you get Lapis as he is your only backup other than Anna.  However he just doesn't get any levels at all and is moree or less just there to do percentage chip damage to help reach dmg thresholds for your other characters.

On the Celine vs Clanne, Clanne technically would be better if you consider leveling him up but Celine comes with better bases (albiet like 2 points in magic and speed if I remember correctly) and is closer to promotion.  Either ways I found both of them lagging behind anyways with Citrinne just being the best one as she has the highest base magic state if I remember and also can instantly promote and with dire thunder (S bond ring from Lief) is able to nuke from 3 range.

Now that I think about it, there was like two runs I had where Clanne was already at same baases ass Celine for Mag and Spd.

Edited by Mordred
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50 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Also I would put in Clanne's sister and Jean but they can protect other units which is extremely clutch when one of your units missees in a really bad spot.

 

37 minutes ago, SeraviSays said:

Louis w/Edelgard - Enemies completely ignoring him if they deal 0 damage is a bit of a downer on enemy phase BUT he has consistently been a solid brick and crazy strong.

Just an FYI, the enemy AI will prioritize breaking and if they can set up chain attacks, before considering whether they will deal 0 damage or miss because 0 hit.

You can both use this knowledge to set up chain guards predictably, and make it so enemies target your high defense units if you park say Louis next to Backup enemies.

I tested the first part out in Chapter 10 specifically; I used a strategy to rewarp Celine with a high avo-stacked tome near the Martial Master boss. This boss specifically has Lyn's emblem equipped with Astra Storm, but instead of choosing to attack my in-range flier at 100% hit rate (these attacks never miss), he chose to attack Celine twice over two turns, even though his hit rate was in the 30s against her and I was chain guarding her. Just because he could break her if he got a hit in.

The second one I've noticed several times, my Louis rocking 25+ def gets ignored unless there is at least one chain attack that can damage him and he's the only unit in target for another enemy.

Edited by DaveCozy
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1 minute ago, DaveCozy said:

 

Just an FYI, the enemy AI will prioritize breaking and if they can set up chain attacks, before considering whether they will deal 0 damage or miss because 0 hit.

You can both use this knowledge to set up chain guards predictably, and make it so enemies target your high defense units if you park say Louis next to Backup enemies.

I tested the first part out in Chapter 10 specifically; I used a strategy to rewarp Celine with a high avo-stacked tome near the Martial Master boss. This boss specifically has Lyn's emblem equipped with Astra Storm, but instead of choosing to attack my in-range flier at 100% hit rate (these attacks never miss), he chose to attack Celine twice over two turns, even though his hit rate was in the 30s against her. Just because he could break her if he got a hit in.

The second one I've noticed several times, my Louis gets ignored unless there is at least one chain attack that can damage him and he's the only unit in target for another enemy.

Ive notice that too, I had like 3 swordfighters impale themselves on Loius cause their one axe friend had attacked Alear while next to Loius.

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Of the units I use: 

Best: Yunaka, Framme & Alcryst - these three are my MVPs and playmakers.

Worst: Alear or Timmera, which sucks because I genuinely like her. Or maybe Jade. She's a good tank but her accuracy sucks. 

Disappointing: Alear - he's just so...bleh. He's strong but not strong enough to kill anything. He's fast, but not fast enough to dodge or double every enemy. His Def/Res aren't bad, but they aren't good either. He's just there, and since I'm trying to build other units, he's not even benefitting from an Emblem Ring/Bracelet right now. 

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Best

  • Clanne - I'm pretty surprised to see how so many others have had a bad experience with Clanne so far. He's honestly one of my strongest units and the only mage that doubles consistently. Celine's alright, Citrinne's too slow, and Ivy's good for her join time but rarely doubles compared to Clanne. It's not uncommon for my Clanne to ORKO enemies, and getting Celica early and giving it to him made him grow pretty quickly.
  • Fogado - His bases are really good and has the privilege of being in the fastest royal class (20% growth, 49 cap). He joins a little late, but he's great for his join time and comes with a mount. His res is also surprisingly really good, but his defense and strength can be a little lacking.
  • Diamant - Prob one of the best royals so far. Great bases, great unique class, gets Sol upon promotion, fine af, etc.

Disappointing

  • Yunaka - I really REALLY wanted to use her, and several others have talked about their overall positive experience with using her, but she just can't get enough damage done. Daggers are really weak in this game, and I couldn't use her for much other than reaching those 2-5 damage thresholds so others could take the kill. Zelkov comes with better bases, but I wouldn't say even he's that much better than her.
  • Alfred - Tbh, I still use him. He deals big damage but never reaches kill thresholds and can never double. I love him as a character and he's there from the beginning, but his growth was mediocre.
  • Chloe - I usually enjoy early game fliers and use them up until endgame, but I've been struggling with Chloe. Her speed is fine, but her low build holds her back on top of mediocre strength. Promoting to Wyvern Knight helps her out a lot, but I still find there's much to be desired with her.
  • Vander - Honestly, probably one of the worst Jagen's we've had so far. His bases are terrible for his archetype, and his high internal level prevents him from getting any levels at all until mid-late game where he probably sees no use anymore. Ngl, I was at like chapter 10 or 11 or so and he only gained 1 whole level smh

Great then fell off

  • Louis LOL. He's a hard carry in the early game when you have Sigurd but ---
Spoiler

After you lose Sigurd in chapter 10, I found that the movement buff was everything for him.

  • (Still on Louis) I can't talk about his lack of speed and res because that's expected from an Armor Knight, but his dex is lacking as well so I decided to bench him as the game went on.

Surprisingly Good

  • Pandreo - Really surprised at how usable he is. His bases are actually really good for his join time and comes with Warp and Physic at hand. He's honestly a really useful healer and backup magical combat unit.
Edited by LJ_Reflet
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I think difficulty matters when it comes to performant units.  In Maddening enemies scales up quick and does not attack if they will deal 0 damage (either by hit chance or defense).

Best units:

Alear with Tiki: This one is a bit of cheating: since Alear is a fixed deploy, they get quite the number of stat boosters.  Tiki gives an already boosted Alear an AoE attack for a few turns which can be used to soften up a whole pack of enemies: sometimes even kill softer ones.  The claw attacks also have pretty high crit rate.

Panette as Warrior & Ike: Thanks to her exceedingly high strength (mid-30s vs everyone wondering in the low 20s) and high health pool, top off with a ridiculous crit rate, she everything you ask for in a frontliner.

Anna: I started the game blind and went a bit too ham on donating early on.  No regrets reclassing Anna to a mage then mage knight, as her high magic growth actually allowed her to keep up.  Once Byleth is unlocked, she starts generating around 1.5k every map:  consider that as paying for consumables.

 

Exceeded Expectations:

Hortensia: +1 range to staff and the occasional free use, on top of being a flyer makes her a lot better than I expected.  While she is locked to B tomes with her unique class, her naturally high speed allows her to double enemies reliably.

Goldmary: It's actually not really goldmary but the hero class. Dual assist on hero is amazing.  She would otherwise struggle to keep up with damage.

Kagetsu: While he may be slightly iffy when it comes to strength, his speed allows him to double enemies quite reliably.  I should have swapped him out of Swordmaster earlier though: I couldnt decide upon a class.

 

Disappointing Units:

Most early game physical units: Alfred, Boucheron, Diamant, etc... after chapter 15 or so are when enemy defense spike up to the 20s with 50 hp, while my melee units have only roughly 20 str. If they cannot double an enemy, they are going to have a hard time doing meaningful damage.  There will be wyvern knights and bosses in midgame with their defense in the high 20s where you units will just do no meaningful damage beside contributing to assist.

They would have been fine if their def and res are a bit higher, but Diamant @ 16 str, 17 spd, 13 def and 8 res isn't going to cut it.

Merrin and Yunaka: I am not quite sure about this one: their str isn't keeping up like the other units and will end up having their attacks bounce most of the time.  Enemies ignore Yunaka if her avoidance is too high.  Merrin doesn't quite have as much dodge but has higher str.  I do always keep one of them around partner with Lucina: since it allows them to stack poison on bosses.  The 3 poison stack really shine when you use multihit special attacks and brave weapons.  All for one also does not quite care about your weapon damage.

Daggers not contributing to the weapon triangle can be a bit annoying.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Water Emblem said:

Alear with Tiki: This one is a bit of cheating: since Alear is a fixed deploy, they get quite the number of stat boosters.  Tiki gives an already boosted Alear an AoE attack for a few turns which can be used to soften up a whole pack of enemies: sometimes even kill softer ones.  The claw attacks also have pretty high crit rate.

 

TBH, you could stack anyone with Tiki and they'd be good. Though I admit, I did the same thing. If you're forced to use Alear, you might as well get some use out of them.

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Best Units:

Diamant: He's excellent at both offense and defense. Has high attack stats and the speed to reliable double. Aside from magic heavy crowds I can throw Diamant at any situation and be confident he comes out on top. It says something that he's consistently my most reliable unit even with me barely giving him an Emblem Ring. 

Louis: If he's attacked by anything aside from a mage he's essentially immortal. And if you give him Sigurd you get a great Armor Knight with high movement

Timera: She's surprisingly tanky. Like Diamant she can hold the line in most situations. Sandstorm also occasionally makes her hit way harder than she's supposed to.

Alcryst: He's got some drawbacks but he typically deals among the highest damage in my army, and the added utility against fliers is handy. He becomes especially strong after getting Luna

Great units
The Elusian sisters: Being flying tome/staff wielders gives them a very high utility. Every turn there's at least something useful they can do, be it attacking, being taxi healers or debuffing enemies with staves. 
Merrin: High movement, decent damage and poisons enemies on top of that.
Kagetsu: Due to limited roster slots I can't take him with me nearly as much as I want, so it says something that he always pulls his weight despite getting much less levels than my other units. 
Citrinne: VERY high magic and she can heal too after becoming a sage. She's very frail but with thunder tomes its easy to keep her out of harm.

Defied expectations
Clanne: I was prepared to baby him and make him work through sheer favoritism but he didn't need much help. His magic growth is on the low side, but he has the speed to reliably double, and there's no shortage of resistance lacking enemies, so he'll always be at least somewhat useful. 

Most disappointing: 

Alear: They're not garbage or anything, but they're so consistently underwhelming that its easy to feel as if they're hogging a slot that could go to a far better unit. 
Alfred: Poor boy. I wanted to make him work, but he was just a tad too frail, and a tad too weak to keep up with the difficulty spike. 

 

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I just finished the double chapter (10-11 or 11-12). I did a lot of extra battles and am wondering if I did my master seals wrong, but here is where I am at:

Best: The Brodia Brothers. Here’s the thing, I never use archers, I didn’t mean for Alcryst to be good, he was just hitting harder than anything Lythos or Firene brought to the table. 
 

Middle - I think because I wanted to make it work, Boucheron is great. Chloe without an emblem is fine and is my go to sniper. Jean is my highest leveled player and beats the snot out of people.

Disappointing - Every. Dang. Steward.

Worst - This will be a bit off compared to what y’all are saying, but Celine just did nothing for me beyond blowing up tanks and every magic user can do that so she (and Vander) were my first two on the bench. Followed by the twins, then Etie, then Louis because I wanted Diamant to have his best friend Amber.

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Upto ch 17 on hard classic

Context: no skirmishes, save scummed for olwen S bond ring which turns thunder into a brave weapon and Claude S bond ring who gives bows +1 when fully healthy. Have used almost every unit equally. Also do have the dlc

 

Best: Ivy and citrinne and etie. Citrinne is a nuke who is best suited for using heavy raw power spells to one shot foes. Very useful in certain maps where great knights and heavy knights get really pile up. Ivybis usually my primary olwen holder so her having a brave weapon on top of her passive makes her really good. Also very versatile with rings like lyn, lucina, or the olwen bond. However they of course don't deal with flyers as well, even with a wind tome. That's where etie comes in. She's a beast once promoted to warrior, giving her passable bulk while allowing her high strength growth to flourish. Wind god makes her a long range chip queen, and early investment to canter allows her to reposition once sh did her dmg.

Very good in their niche: yunaka, alear, framme and sedall. An amazing dodge tank and a danxer who doesn't fold like paper if he gets attacked are very nice. Especially because chain attacks are easy ways to deal dmg. Also alear being a non staff utility unit is really fun to play with. His buff has won me more maps than I though it would and is still very vital. Add in the corrin ring, and it's gotten so fun to use him.

Dissappinted: alfred and chloe. Chloe really relies on nit getting strength screwed. I promoted her into wyvern easily (bought a second seal and immediately trained her with leif) but she still got immediately outshines by Rosado. Alfred is just too squishy, especially when the competition is buret, amber, or reeclassed Vander into great knight.

Disappointed atm: jade and lous. I went a weird build on her (bow knight) and mounted units not having a reposition skill is hurting her viability. It is possible to have gotten canter on her but it would have required grinding  skirmishes. As for Louis, his value in the mid game wanes as maps become focused on chasing down certain enemies across the map. Without sigurd, he doesn't have enough move to keep up. Once that's available again, I fear that the mages upgrades tomes will eat him alive. Still, his value across the 8 chapters that combo is available is unmatched and is the early game mvp.

Can be good: Jean. I actually did a casual run before my current one and Jean was a beast. Mainly because his class became the tiki class as I never let anyone but him have that emblem.

Just bad: Hot take but fogado has been really underwhelming. Similar to the jade issue, no reposition skill makes bow knight esque units really weak. I love pandreo and priest Anna may be the money farm, but pure healers are struggling to hold value later into the game. The best way to prevent damage has been to eliminate damage from the board rather than turtling up. This is especially apparent once the hounds come in. The only reason franne escapes this is that martial master is actually good, getting upto 4 strikes on low speed archers or maged while breaking them; while being tanky enough to match non armored units. Also the martial master skill actually makes her a good staff target.

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Played Hard Mode

Best:

Yunaka (Thief) - Reasons should be obvious, completely overpowered.

Etie (Warrior): Still using Bows and slapped Lyn on her. The fat STR plus guaranteed double attack before counters meant she could kill everything in the game except armored units. Instantly annihiliated 2 health bars on bosses with Dance. Ended up getting the most kills of all my characters.

Citrinne (Sage): I used Byleth on her for the Thyrsus. Incredible range nukes that usually could kill everything. Eventually her damage started being unable to oneshot but then I got put Nova on her and she went right back to being amazing. Because of the utility of 4-5 cell range attacks she is probably my most Danced on unit.

Anne (Mage Knight): It took a while for her to become a monster but when she finally did she could double most units due to her great speed in combination with Mage Knight passive, which again translates to one-turn kills.

Worst:

Ivy (Lindwurm): She ended up my weakest mage. While Citrinne had access to Nova and Anne had enough speed to double enemies, Ivy simply had nothing. I gave her Celica who is surprisingly useless too. So compared to Citrinne and Anne she simply lacked damage. which made her nothing but a chip-damage dealer, on top of having neither the range nor the movement of the other two.

Framme (Qi Adept): Occasionally she was useful to break people, and for a while she actually had amazing damage. But overall she just couldn't keep up eventually, combined with mediocre movement made her rarely useful. Basically, bad early game, good mid game, mediocre late game.

 

Edited by Smokie1437
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Recently finished my playthrough, wasnt doing  any special class swapping, basicaly just stuck with the predefined classes. So this list might change quite a lot next time around. It's also very subjective matter, cause some units with certain emblems can become quite bonkers.

Best

Chloé -She carried the late game for me, I promoted her into wyvern knight and she was destroying everything and getting away since I put sigurd ring on her. On static bosses or big annoying group, she just went in, did some damage and moved away out of range.

Yunaka - I really enjoyed using her with Lucina ring, she was assisting to almost every attack. But main reason I put her here is, when I gave her the pact ring she was criting almost everytime.

Ivy - I think no explanation is needed here, she is strong.

 

Disappointing

Alfred - I was using him quite a bit, but for a cavalry unit he barely doubled anything.

Hortensia - I never liked her to be honest, but I still was using her, mainly because of her being a flying healer. Her damage was worse with stronger tomes than Ivy with basic tomes. The saving grace for her was mainly, that she was able to use heal staff at 1-2 range.

Lapis - I think I just might have been unlucky on her level ups, cause her strenght was atroucious. I wanted to use her, but in the end avatar and Diamant were just better options for sword units.

 

Worst

Vander - He might serve an early game purpose, but lets be honest. He sucks... If you made him work good for you, but thankfully I avoided giving him xp and when you reach a point where he could actually gain some xp he can barely do anything.

 

Honorary mentions

Anna - At first I hated they gave us little kid Anna, at the end she became one of my favorite. I'm not putting her in the best category, cause she does require certain amount of investment and I wasnt using her all the time. But I really like her passive, combined with Tiki bracelet she was giving me decent amount of income, and when I promoted her into warrior she just replaced all my archers.

Edited by Speedy
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Now that I'm near enough finished and my units are starting to hit level 20 in advanced classes, here are mine now that I'm done (for context, I used Alear (obvi), the three stewards and the eight royals as my main 12)

Best:

Ivy: By far my best unit. Her with Lyn just absolutely decimated everyone in sight. Her magic growth was insane, as was her speed, which Lyn helped no doubt. She one rounded everything. Combined with the support she could give when she wasn't killing things, she was godly and by far the MVP of my run.

Hortensia: Combined with Byleth, she was a support bot who could dish out quite decent damage thanks to her speed when she needed too. She also made dealing with some of the more threatening magic enemies less of a pain thanks to instruct/the goddess dance res boost since she's a flying unit. Not much else to add other than she was good support.

Timerra: I've heard mixed things about her but my god mine was a one woman army. She was able to take hits and give them out and her speed wasn't too shabby and she doubled often enough. Her sandstorm class ability activated quite often and tore through units. Her combined with Ike was an amazing combo. Her and Ivy were a dream team.

Fogado: Elusia and Solm really representing. Fogado at first seemed like the reverse of Alfred, being fast but wouldn't dish out as much damage, however, his strength growth was quite good and he really showed why doubling (even if you don't deal massive damage all the time)>>>>>dealing big hits but not doubling. While Alfred left most units at kill thresholds after hitting them massively, Fogado reliably one rounded things. I definitely would love to get Alacrity on him since he is so fast. I had him with Corrin so he was a reliable mage killer and his HP was chonky.

Diamant: While he started to fall off, Diamant's efforts before late game cannot be ignored. His strength was insane and his speed was surprisingly good. I do think he suffered a lot post chapter 11 (it didn't help I didn't give him any replacement emblem and I didn't use bond rings at all) but he still managed quite well. Late game he has started to struggle doubling but he still dishes out massive damage and he's great on EP with the forged silver blade I gave him.

Disappointing:

Clanne: Yeah, he's not very good. He doubles consistently but his magic is so low that he deals the equivalent of one hit that most of my other units do. He did get better when I got Eirika and attached her to him (thank god she boosts magic) and since I have him as a Mage Knight, her emblem attack is quite good since Ephraim deals extra damage, but Clanne has been a struggle to use overall. I really wanted to make him god tho despite his 10% mag growth but c'est la vie...

Alfred: I think most people have talked about him but yeah he kinda sucks. He is good early game since he deals good damage and combined with Siggy, his range is massive and the brave lance takes away his speed issue. However post chapter 11 he falls off hard. His strength is good and he is quite bulky, but he is never good enough to kill and he never doubles. He does contribute and I do have Lucina on him so he chips in with Dual Assist+ but he's not very good standalone.

Worst:

Vander: I mean what was there to expect lol. He falls off so quickly and his stats never pick up so late game he's as frail and does as little damage as Framme does early game. With the TLC I've given him and Sigurd, he has gotten better and does contribute, but it was a struggle and I would say overall, he was very sucky. Wont stop from using him again tho lol, Vandad shall conquer!

Framme: Yeah she sucks. She deals little to no damage and so many units can do her job but better. I feel like if I made her a mage she might have been able to do damage but I didn't really wanna reclass much so I kept her as is. She works fine since I have her with Miccy so she can full heal when I need it and because of that she does level quick but yeah she's rather sucky

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Up to chapter 15 now, started on Hard and downgraded to Normal partway through. Have been grinding to try to keep everyone within 1-2 levels of each other (the difficulty of skirmishes with underleveled characters on Hard is what caused me to swap it). So far...

Best

  • Alear - Being the only real sword unit for so long, Alear's been consistently on the front lines and has turned out to be great with it! Currently have Engaged with Tiki, and though she can handle herself just fine, if I need to toss her into a knot of people I can turn her into a dragon and hit a bunch with the AoE, then she just murders all the rest.
  • Framme - It's interesting to see how hit-or-miss Framme is for others, I've had pretty good luck. I mostly just use her for healing, but she consistently deals double-digit damage 4 times if I need her to attack something or break a covert/mage unit. Love her.
  • Jade - I absolutely favored her a bit with Boots and Edelgard, but god I love both of those for her. She's my completely reliable hold-a-point unit.
  • Louis - Was surprised by how much I liked him as a character, but he's also an incredible armor, and would be as good or better than Jade if I favored him to the same level.
  • Amber - As much as I don't particularly care for Amber, he has paid DIVIDENDS from my forcing myself to use everyone. Consistently out-performs Alfred. He's growin' on me.
  • Yunaka - For all the reasons everyone else has indicated, Yunaka is love. Yunaka is life.
  • Jeanne - I only use him for healing, even though he's now promoted such that he could also use Tomes, but by god he does it all incredibly well.
  • Anna - I swapped her to Mage as soon as she hit 10, and just promoted her to Mage Knight, and although her Exp gain is slow because her total level is unusually high compared to the rest, she just destroys anything she's against incredibly reliably. Luck's too spotty to get much money though, unfortunately.

Middling

  • Etie - As much as I love her, she started off strong and has become just kind of...fine.
  • Boucheron - I found I really love this guy! Trying to turn him into an Axe/Sword Hero, but he's competing for time with Jade (whom I adore) and Diamant (who recently unlocked axes), and he's falling off a little. His defenses ended up being paper, so he's a little risky to use on the front lines.
  • Alfred - Just kind of...fine.
  • Celine - Really want to use her, and she's got pretty decent Str and Mag, but not enough Spd to make the most of it. Not much better than Alfred.
  • Chloe - Another started off strong and kind of tapered off. She's fine.

Worst

  • Vander - I didn't use him at all at the start, and benched him immediately so that I wouldn't lose out exp to him, and then realized it was very difficult to train him up after the fact. So now I can't use him, and he's...just bad.
  • Clanne - I tried. Early game mage, some good utility there at the start, and I've kept him caught up with everyone, but he's just...worse than every other mage.

 

And a lot of people I didn't mention, some of whom are pretty great, but I don't have super strong feelings about them so I didn't want to write anything haha.

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On 1/24/2023 at 2:51 PM, Hiroki said:

Same for Boucheron I was "forced" to bench in favor of Panette. Even Céline was benched, because she was not good enough in magic or strength, and other magic units came with access to staff (and stronger)

Really? My Boucheron I'll admit was struggling for some time, but the moment he promoted into warrior, he easily became one of my top, if not my top damaging units really quickly. It's also so nice having a backup unit that can equip a longbow, which adds up with my Alcryst on Lucina's ring. It's DLC, but I also found he synergizes really well with the three houses bracelet, as the gambits are so useful and he can proc weapon synergy with both Edelgard and Claude.

 

Hard agree on Lapis though, I tried so hard to make her work, but she was essentially a melee unit that could rarely survive one round of combat while Diamant's just right there protecting everyone. And then Goldmary joined, and her confidence seems hilariously deserved.

 

It's actually so sad that non promoted on join units don't have any unique outfits in their base class promotions.

Edited by Cupie
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For context I finished Hard/Classic with no deaths and some Castle grinding:

Best:

  • Alear: Was very weak at the beginning but by mid game he became a very resilient unit with high Avo and could 1 round everything but the speedsters. By late game he could double Swordmasters, Wolf Knights and Thiefs so no complaints. 
  • Ivy: Mage nuke with flier mobility and comes with excellent bases. The only issue she had is her Dex capping too early (23 Dex is bad) and having some speed issues without the Lyn Emblem. 
  • Fogado: This guy is amazing with the Sigurd ring and the magic bow, the best flier sniper I had. 
  • Kagetsu: Strong bases and growths, could outspeed everything in the game with only his stats. He's a bit squishy but the Ike ring fixed that. 
  • Hortensia: Her personal skill already makes her great, add Micaiah and Canter to her skillset to make Hortensia a godly staffbot. In terms of combat she's meh, but doing chip damage with Elthunder is all I needed from her. 
  • Seadall: As Feh taught me, a dancer with Canter is disgusting and that is still true in Engage. 
  • Pandreo: This guy with the Byleth ring and Canter is amazing. Long ranged magic that can double, high Bld so he won't be slowed down by the heavier tomes, staff access for some healing on the side. He's amazing from his join chapter and never falls off. I reclassed him to Sage to give him access to the A rank tomes and that helped a lot for late game nuking.

Good: 

  • Yunaka: A goddess in the early game but she got a little stat screwed in terms of Spd and Str. She still dodged everything and could easily kill squishies but I had to give her all my Energy Drops so she wouldn't fall off. 
  • Diamant: Seems so imposing when you first get him, then Kagetsu appears and outclasses him in almost every stat. Made him into a Warrior because I had like no axe users and he performed well but it wasn't anything super amazing. 
  • Alcrist: Longbow+Luna is a strong combo, it's also fun when you combine him with Lyn to get Luna on the Engage attack. His growths weren't anything to write home about and he was kinda underleveled due to deployment restrictions, but Alcrist still performed well during late game so he's good in my book. 
  • Goldmary: Changing her into a Paladin with the Leif ring fixes any build issues she might have, then I gave her Speedtaker to make her able to double after finishing a couple of units with a Spear. Her high Def made her a great tank and lasted until the end. 
  • Celine: She's bordeline great with a forged Levin Sword but I had troubles getting her into the fray so she ended up more as a sort of General sniper. She loved to proc Ignis every fight which goes very well with her balance of Str and Mag. 

Disappointing:

  • Louis: The guy's amazing during the early game. His only weakness are mages which are easy to get rid off with a Javelin and pairing him with Sigurd leads to some crazy strats during the Firene segment. Then mid game happens and he falls off a cliff because enemies become able to chip at him and Chain attacks quickly wear him down. 
  • Anna: I wasted a Master seal and a Second seal to make her a Mage Knight because her growths seemed amazing, but her low bases make it really hard for her to compete with the likes of Ivy and Pandreo. 
  • Chloe: I tried really hard to make Chloe work but she refused to level Str a single time. I was debating on making her a Wyvern Knight to fix her Str growth but in the end I decided to just bench her. 

Bad: 

  • Alfred: Mine had some excellent level ups, he got Hp, Str, Dex and Spd basically every level but even then he was unable to double stuff and wasn't tanky enough to put on the front lines. Doesn't help that Amber outright matched him in most stats (not that I used Amber either, lol). So he got benched despite being so important to the plot.
  • Timerra: She had Jack of all Trades, Master of None syndrome. She had ok stats to tank, not get double and dish out decent chip damage but she couldn't double anything but armors (which she couldn't damage at all), and her damage was on the lower side of the spectrum. She got the bench when I reclassed Goldmary into a Paladin to cover all my Lance needs. 
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