What are the best/ worst classes (and class types) in general?

[dragonlordsd]

So, the big buffs:

Generals - These guys technically didn't get buffed, but rather the cav nerfs brought things back to their level. The difference in movement between a general and a paladin is now just 2 spaces instead of 4, which makes a massive difference. The fact that generals can get sigurd and canter also hugely helps their move penalties. Then, you factor in their "unbreakable" nature, which is a new mechanic buff for them.

Warriors and Bersekers - As others have mentioned, these guys are back full force. All of the benefits from the gba games are here, plus more, making them really strong.

 

The nerfs:

Paladins - Max movement of 6 is a huge drop off, plus canter now being assigned to every class really drops cav utility in general. It's not so bad for great knights, but paladins really feel it.

Wyvern Knights - Same thing as paladins, but more. No more free dismounts to offset their weaknesses, 6 movement, etc. But fliers in general are made even worse by the fact that most map design doesn't really give them a lot of benefit from their flying nature. Maps like Ch14, for example, are littered with terrain that's flier impassible anyway. Wind and archers are now far more common as well, so even though the class isn't that bad in general, they have a lot less utility in the game.

[Tyrannate]

4 hours ago, ra2bk said:

I leveled Kagetsu mostly as a Swordmaster, but then changed to Griffin Knight. Almost exact same growths (-10 HP, +15 mag, but same str, dex, speed, def) and then higher bases (+1 Str, +1 Dex, +6 Res, +1 luck, -1 Bld) and even generally higher maxes. Kagetsu still gets S-rank swords with Griffin Knight, but also gets access to flight, +1 move, and staves. Only thing you lose is chain attacks.

Kagetsu as a Griffin Knight is a viable option. In fact, his stat caps are overall higher as a Griffin Knight than most other classes. 

However, Griffin Knights - as you said - have almost the exact same offensive stats as a Swordmaster, but gain a crippling weakness to bows, and give up Run Through for Clear the Way, which IMO is a vastly worse class ability. 

If I were going for a straight up "solo" run, I'd go Swordmaster over Griffin Knight, simply because the flying weakness to bows is too costly to work around (and I don't just mean costly in terms of currency). 

 

Quote

Swordmaster has no avoid bonus that I can see, so all they have going for them is 2 speed over, say, Hero, which works out to 4 avoid. Unless you have a weapon which weighs you down, at which point it's 1 spd / 2 avoid because Hero has +1 build. Meanwhile Hero having brave assist, +2 str, better bulk, and lance/axe access would seem to make them the superior choice in the vast majority of circumstances.

If were are talking about fresh, level 1 class changes, I agree. 
Hell, there isn't even a reason to have an S-rank in any weapon for fresh class changes. 

What I'm talking about is how the class evolves over time. Keep Kagetsu a Swordmaster will increase his Dex, Speed, and Resistance growths. But more importantly, switching Kagetsu over to Swordmaster in the late game offers far more benefit than in the mid game. 

Examples: in the last few levels of the game (not to mention post-game Trial Battles) S-ranked weaponry can be used; therefore it becomes relevant. Stat caps allow SM to have a whopping +8 speed and +7 dexterity over Hero, not to mention +4 luck. 

You could trade this all away for +5 strength and +7 defense, but why? 
It's best to focus your defense on either/or rather than both/and: i.e. get absurdly high defense, or absurdly high avoidance, not a middling mix of both. EDIT: the reason for this is because you either want to be nearly immune to all damage except chain attacks (incredibly high avoidance) or be nearly immune to physical damage and only be vulnerable to chain attacks and magic (incredibly high defense). You do not want to be sometimes hit by physical attacks, while also being susceptable to chain attacks and magic damage. 

As for the +5 strength, that will be missed -- but not even close to missing +8 speed. +7 dex, +4 luck. 

Then there is BLD. SM caps at 12; which helpfully allows SM to use every "normal" Sword with no penalty to speed, including S-rank. 

And then there is a greater variety of build options for SM. Heroes have no synergy with abilities such as Vantage or Wrath, which disables your class ability. 

My goal is not to say that Heroes are a bad class. On the contrary, they're very good. On the flip, the overall community consensus regarding Swordmasters for decades has been "Swordmaster is a mediocre/bad class" and in most cases, that has been correct. But not in this game. Most people speaking about Swordmasters negatively in this game are applying theorycrafting to the past trend of "SM = bad" and assuming that, once again, SM is a mediocre/bad class: a case of history repeating itself. Which isn't the case in Engage. 

Which, to be honest, I'm happy to see. Enage was obviously created to be a more combat-focused and better balanced game than say, 3H or Fates. That there are no awful classes, and that there are no silly OP classes, is a testament to this. 

EDIT 2: Notice the immediately reaction to the innocent question of "has anyone had good experiences with SM avoid tanking?" As soon as I say that I've had a good experience with SM avoid tanking, there is immediate resistance to the idea. Whereas if I had said something positive and affirming about Griffin Knight, or Hero, or Warrior, no one would question the statement -- let alone attack the idea and write up reasons why I'm wrong. 

This strange bias against mono-weapon classes is not limited to these forums. I've been to different forums who share the same strange ideology. But appeals to popularity and appeals to tradition hold no logical weight; moreover, FE Engage shook up the effects of the Weapon Triangle, made Armored units more viable, gave each class many build options via skill inheritance and Emblem pairing, and much more. 

To finalize: yes, I've had a very positive experiene with Swordmasters in Engage. Which is a refreshing change of pace. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Tyrannate
So = To

[FashionEmblem]

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

@FashionEmblem Good list; I think I agree with most of it. Not super sold on Successeur (I'd much rather have Brave Assist than Sol) but it's certainly not bad. The main ones I'd bump up are Bow Knight/Cupido, yeah Warrior is really good and I don't think they're as good, but the extra move can certainly be significant. That's enough to give them a clear niche in my books, at least; 6 base move + 3 range is only achievable by the flying mages otherwise. Paladin I'll agree doesn't really have a unqiue niche compared to other cavalry classes, particularly Wolf Knight.

Yeah, Successor may not be good, I think it's just Diamant. What I didn't get across well is that access to Hand Axes is a great reason to prioritize Diamant for promotion—he's usually my 3rd or 4th unit I promote, but you can achieve the same effect by then reclassing into Hero. I do wonder how much bumping his axe rank down from A to C hurts though—the Tomahawk is nice with his personal skill active, but maybe a refined Hand Axe is fine. Similarly Brave Axe is also nice since it has 2 more MT but 10 less Hit, which is mitigated by Diamant's personal. I will give Sol credit that it pairs well with Hold Out from Roy—at least it would if Diamant had higher dexterity. Still sometimes you find yourself in a pinch and you can save some time crystal if you get lucky with Sol? In terms of opportunity cost Roy doesn't seem to have a better home than Successor Diamant aside maybe putting Hold Out on your Dancer for insurance in case of bad positioning? Of course, opportunity cost of which emblem where goes down with all the DLC bracelets we now have access to—you could just bench emblem Roy.

Regarding archery, you're right that mobility matters, but does it matter more than chain attacking? I've personally landed squarely in the chain attacking is better camp since enemy quality feels too high to use high mobility (unless you are a flier that can ignore terrain for a defensive location), but maybe you can play more aggressively and I just haven't figured it out yet (DLC emblems, which I purchased recently, do help a lot on that front—Raging Storm and Houses Unit can kill two enemies on the same turn, assuming Aymr doesn't miss like it is wont to do, and Tiki gives boosts to survivability). I guess I am too mean to Cupido and Bow Knight vs. Sniper, since crit +10 synergizes better, but is it better than 1 more move? I still think Warrior dominates the archery world in this game; if only I could have Alcryst use a different outfit as one, but at least it looks good on Boucheron and Fogado.
 

On 2/4/2023 at 5:35 AM, Scaramuccia said:

You don't run Mage Knight as a hybrid class, you run them as mage. Levin Sword could be used if you want to get +spd bonus all the time.

I'm confused what this means? Levin Sword is magic, so does it do anything different than a tome with Chaos Storm? I do agree I wasn't giving Chaos Storm enough credit, but I was originally thinking the staff utility from Sage was too good to give up. Then I learned that Micaiah gives higher staff rank later on and Mage Knight suddenly looks much better. Of course, you can also use Micaiah to get an ADDITIONAL staff bot and leave your Sage as is. Even putting her on a low magic unit can work if you inherit Staff Mastery.

[DefyingFates]

48 minutes ago, Tyrannate said:

So finalize: yes, I've had a very positive experiene with Swordmasters in Engage. Which is a refreshing change of pace. 

Thank you for your analysis! I think it's definitely important to keep in mind that Engage changed a lot, so previous heuristics also need to be re-evaluated. It's a shame that swords don't have a Javelin/ Hand Axe equivalent though... does Roy's Advance skill help them at all?

[SumG]

3 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

What I'm talking about is how the class evolves over time. Keep Kagetsu a Swordmaster will increase his Dex, Speed, and Resistance growths. But more importantly, switching Kagetsu over to Swordmaster in the late game offers far more benefit than in the mid game. 

I'm not sure these differences are significant enough to seriously consider.  Swordmaster gets a 5% improvement in growth rate to Speed and Dex, and a 10% improvement in growth rate for Resistance.  Considering you get Kagetsu at roughly the halfway point of the game, you're looking at perhaps an extra point of speed and dexterity by the endgame and two whole points of resistance.  That's not a big difference.  The bigger impact between the two classes is going to be base class stat differences.  It looks like Swordmaster gets +4 speed, +2 dex and +2 luck, while warrior gets +6 strength, +6 HP, and +2 build.

Moreover, I think in this game Axes are better than Swords from a general perspective.  Enemies are pretty darn bulky, and having the extra Mt associated with axes is a non trivial benefit.  A Warrior is going to get an extra 4+ attack not evident in raw stats just by using the same tier of weapon as a Swordmaster.  And there's no good 1-2 range option for swords unless you also have a good magic stat.  There may be a case to being able to use S tier swords when you get to the endgame, but that's a fair distance into the game, and I'm not sure it makes up for the difference in reduced utility up to that point.

I think Engage gives you enough tools that if you concentrate them all onto a single unit, you can make that unit great regardless of any other consideration.  So it isn't surprising to me that you're able to make a dodgetank swordmaster function.  I just doubt that there's anything particular to this build that couldn't be done with other characters in other classes.  In my current playthrough, I have a wolf knight Merrin that's sitting at 120+ dodge before any terrain effects, but she gets to use 1-2 range daggers and their superior forging options instead of being stuck with swords.  Your description doesn't exactly make me excite to change her out of that and put her in swordmaster.

[ra2bk]

3 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

Yeah, Successor may not be good, I think it's just Diamant. What I didn't get across well is that access to Hand Axes is a great reason to prioritize Diamant for promotion—he's usually my 3rd or 4th unit I promote, but you can achieve the same effect by then reclassing into Hero. I do wonder how much bumping his axe rank down from A to C hurts though—the Tomahawk is nice with his personal skill active, but maybe a refined Hand Axe is fine. Similarly Brave Axe is also nice since it has 2 more MT but 10 less Hit, which is mitigated by Diamant's personal. I will give Sol credit that it pairs well with Hold Out from Roy—at least it would if Diamant had higher dexterity. Still sometimes you find yourself in a pinch and you can save some time crystal if you get lucky with Sol? In terms of opportunity cost Roy doesn't seem to have a better home than Successor Diamant aside maybe putting Hold Out on your Dancer for insurance in case of bad positioning? Of course, opportunity cost of which emblem where goes down with all the DLC bracelets we now have access to—you could just bench emblem Roy.

Successeur is basically just a better Hero, stats-wise. Higher bases (+2 HP, +2 Str, +1 Def, +1 Res, +1 Luck, +1 Bld). Same or higher growths except res/luck (+5 str, +15 def, +5 build, -10 res, -5 luck), which is better for Diamant since he wants Def. Hero does have higher caps in general for some reason, but Successeur isn't likely to cap anything except Dex even by level 50 (10 Lord, 40 Successeur). And then yeah the weapon proficiency you mention is much better (S sword, A axe vs. A sword C lance). It's also still a backup unit, just not double backup.

I don't think 1 extra chain attack (with stipulation) is that much better than Sol to overcome all that,

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by ra2bk

[Tyrannate]

5 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Thank you for your analysis! I think it's definitely important to keep in mind that Engage changed a lot, so previous heuristics also need to be re-evaluated. It's a shame that swords don't have a Javelin/ Hand Axe equivalent though... does Roy's Advance skill help them at all?

I would say that Roy's ability is a good fill-in ability until you can take advantage of better, more end-game oriented abilities. It can be great to have more effective movement, but you can't use Advance and Run Through in the same combat, so it's a utility option until you can find something better. But it's by no means bad. 

 

Quote

Moreover, I think in this game Axes are better than Swords from a general perspective.

This is a common line of reasoning. I saw it in 3 Houses, and now it's being repeated again in Engage. 

The difference is that Engage is a much, much more difficult game than 3 Houses. 

Accuracy and weight scale much better into difficult scenarios than raw damage. One miss, or a failed opportunity to double attack due to weapon weight, can easily lose you a unit in Maddening. And if you lose one unit, you either use one of you 10 precious time rewinds, or you deal with a permanently dead unit. 

On the other hand, how many times is 3 extra damage going to make or break your combat? You'll quickly find through experience that the damage difference between swords and axes is far less impactful on high difficulty than the difference between accuracy and weight. And the later into the game it gets, the more pronounced this effect becomes. When you're swinging around a Sword with a total damge of 28 and an axe with a total damage of 32, but the sword has 95 accuracy and the axe has 80 accuracy, you'll see exactly what I mean - especially if the sword-user is attacking twice and the axe-user is attacking once. 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tyrannate

[Scaramuccia]

2 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

Accuracy and weight scale much better into difficult scenarios than raw damage. One miss, or a failed opportunity to double attack due to weapon weight, can easily lose you a unit in Maddening. And if you lose one unit, you either use one of you 10 precious time rewinds, or you deal with a permanently dead unit. 

On the other hand, how many times is 3 extra damage going to make or break your combat? You'll quickly find through experience that the damage difference between swords and axes is far less impactful on high difficulty than the difference between accuracy and weight. And the later into the game it gets, the more pronounced this effect becomes. When you're swinging around a Sword with a total damge of 28 and an axe with a total damage of 32, but the sword has 95 accuracy and the axe has 80 accuracy, you'll see exactly what I mean - especially if the sword-user is attacking twice and the axe-user is attacking once. 

Accuracy is much easier to get in engage than in other FE games. You have forging and multiple +hit engravings. Also Sigurd's +hit skill is quite cheap and available. Weight is another tricky thing - the way build works on a high build user there is no penalty for using a heavier weapon as long as weight is under build cap. As a result axes are good because you could fix their negatives and get a really high damage weapon.

[Dark Holy Elf]

9 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

Yeah, Successor may not be good, I think it's just Diamant. What I didn't get across well is that access to Hand Axes is a great reason to prioritize Diamant for promotion—he's usually my 3rd or 4th unit I promote,

Oh, for sure, he's definitely a unit who gains massively from promotion, just beacuse 1-range lock (which exists until Chapter 12) is horrible for a backup unit. In fact I promoted Diamant, and, even though he was sadly one of the people I ended up benching during the flood of competent units you get midgame, I don't even regret it for a moment.

9 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

Regarding archery, you're right that mobility matters, but does it matter more than chain attacking?

To be clear, I'm not arguing that it does! On the whole I'm with you, I think I prefer chain attacking over +1 move too.

All I'm arguing is that +1 move is still significant and therefore it's a reasonable consideration that you might choose to use the more mobile option. This is extra true for someone like Fogado where switching from one to the other eats some money. It's enough to make the classes not useless in my book: basically I'd bump them to your mid tier, which notably is still below Warrior (which I absolutely agree belongs in the highest tier).

9 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

What I'm talking about is how the class evolves over time. Keep Kagetsu a Swordmaster will increase his Dex, Speed, and Resistance growths. But more importantly, switching Kagetsu over to Swordmaster in the late game offers far more benefit than in the mid game. 

As @SumG already mentioned, growth differences really are not very significant (in fact, I'd say paying too much attention to class growths is a trap 90% of the time).

If Swordmaster is indeed better during the window where S rank weaponry is relevant, that's a fair thing to bring up - I haven't reached that part of the game yet. But there's a lot of chapters prior to that. You can start promoting/reclassing people around Chapter 8, so there's a lot more chapters without S rank weaponry than with. Therefore, I, at least, would weigh that more heavily when ranking classes.

Personally I thought Swordmaster looked just straight up terrible in Chapter 8-12 (before you get the Levin Sword, the 1-range lock is an awful curse for a backup unit), and fine but unappearling in all the maps since. Nothing to do with other games.

10 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

My goal is not to say that Heroes are a bad class. On the contrary, they're very good. On the flip, the overall community consensus regarding Swordmasters for decades has been "Swordmaster is a mediocre/bad class" and in most cases, that has been correct. But not in this game.

I don't think you're giving the community nearly enough credit here..

Swordmaster is generally respected as a class in Binding Blade, Radiant Dawn, and Birthright. Of course, those games give Swordmaster a critical and/or evasion bonus, and don't hang it out to dry on 1-2 weaponry. So I think the community has proven that they're capable of respecting Swordmaster.

If people are turning up their nose at it here, you already have an obvious answer: it's still mediocre in the early parts of its existence, which is where most players make their judgements of such things.

[LoneRecon400]

The regular S Rank Sword ain't even anything special in this game. A +5 Steel Sword is 15 might and 6 weight, while the S Rank Sword has 15 might and 12 weight and is ridiculously expensive to forge. Like it costs 15 silver just to get it at 18 might at +3. That is pretty far worth it.

[Tyrannate]

On 2/10/2023 at 11:00 PM, LoneRecon400 said:

The regular S Rank Sword ain't even anything special in this game. A +5 Steel Sword is 15 might and 6 weight, while the S Rank Sword has 15 might and 12 weight and is ridiculously expensive to forge. Like it costs 15 silver just to get it at 18 might at +3. That is pretty far worth it.

You're joking, right? 
Oh, he's not joking. 

In a game where low % rates don't feel nearly as impossible to achieve (and new players have been noticing this as well) having a weapons with 

20

105

10

12

Is just an incredible, incredible stat line to have.  

Remember that this is a late game weapon. 
20 Might is incredibly strong for a Sword. It'll allow you to really experiment with Engravements without having to worry whether you're going to critically hit hard enough. 
105 Accuracy is going to make you super accurate on Maddening. And before anyone asks: no, having more than 100% accuracy is not redundant. Going up against high avoid opponents - some with their own skills - on maps with terrain and special tiles will teach you quickly that you're going to want 100% accuracy at all times; and even with 105 base accuracy, that's no guarantee that will be the case. Especially when, as I've said before, one miss in Maddening can be the difference between losing a unit or winning the round. It even indirectly boosts critical rate, as a missed attack = no crit. 
Having a weapon with extremely high damage and extremely high accuracy is going to benefit tremendously from having any innate crit. Getting 10 is actually rather good, because you can easily combine this with, say, Fates for a 40% base crit chance while still having 18 might (and that's before adding in things like Sword Power for another +10 might). 
12 weight is unfortunately a little on the heavy side, but more importantly, not heavy enough to slow down a maxed BLD Swordmaster. And since you won't be getting any S-ranked Swords until late game anyway, this shouldn't be an issue. If it is, however, there are ways of reducing its weight. 

So yeah, Caladbolg is all that and a bag of chips. Perhaps it takes playing on Maddening to realize that, though - lesser difficulties don't rely nearly as much upon accuracy and speed. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Tyrannate

[Technoweirdo]

While on the subject of Swordmasters, as I don't have one trained at the moment (not even Kagetsu), curious about something:

Run Through causes the SM to move behind the opponent after combat, yeah? And Smash weapons cause the enemy to move, forcing a Break if someone is behind them, yeah? What happens if combine the two? Am I even allowed to do that? Will Smash movement happen first and cause the SM to move three spaces instead of two? Or will Run Through happen first to force a Break?

[CompteSecours]

I played the game on hard.

I don't see why we should play Berserker over Warrior, and Swordmaster/Hallebardier over Hero. Maybe for the S-rank weapons ? I had Successeur for the sword and Griffin Knight for the lance.

Same for Paladin, Wolf Knight is just better.

In my playthrough, I didn't see the point of Sage. Mage Knight is a better offensive class and I had plenty of staff users : Chloé, Hortensa, Ivy, Micaiah, and the Royal Knight character. Same for Martial Master. Is there any point using fist in this game ?

Divine Dragon is good for the bonus on Emblems. Too bad it is strength only.

I didn't use a Great Knight nor a General. Any character with nice def (Diamant, Goldmary, Timerra) and Ike can tank.

I don't know if it's Ivy or her class (it's the same tbh) but it is very strong. Flyer, magic, staff, good hp/def/res. Meh spd but you can fix it with speedwings (it was the only suitable character for that), Lyn +Xspd skill and a speed emblem, like Eirika which gives Windsword, a magic weapon. My MVP.

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

You're joking, right? 
Oh, he's not joking. 

In a game where low % rates don't feel nearly as impossible to achieve (and new players have been noticing this as well) having a weapons with 

20

105

10

12

Is just an incredible, incredible stat line to have.  

Those are the stats of a Caladbolg +5, if I'm reading correctly, which costs *checks* 50 silver ingots to forge? It may be an incredible stat line, but you're also not getting it in any sort of efficient play.

In general you seem to only care about things at absolute maximum, beyond-the-end-of-the-game power levels. That's your prerogative, but don't expect many people to share your view.

[Azz]

I would definitely agree with the general consensus that Hero is one of the best Backup classes in the game. Any swordie or lancer wants to be in this class (with some exceptions). I do think the class is that bit better if the unit has an innate proficiency in lances/axes so they can go up to B and get Spear/Tomahawk access (one of the reasons I prefer Diamant in Successeur tbh is that he gets A Axes) but when you're chain attacking I guess it doesn't really matter (especially if you have Dual Support (+) from Lucina). Warrior would be a close second due to having 3-range chain attacks with Longbow. Pretty much all other physical infantry classes are moot. Personally, I do enjoy Picket and Tierur d'elite. I think their unique abilities are some of the best in the game and Timerra and Alcryst are kinda built to make use of them. Diamant can vary but I think he would do well in either Hero or Successeur since Diamant is a generally good unit (I just like Tomahwak access tbh). 

Cavalry in this game kinda suck (sans one class). Paladins have nothing that would encourage use, Great Knights are meh and Bow Knights are decent, but I prefer Snipers/Warriors if I'm gonna use a bow user (tho I think Fogado works well in Cupido). Wolf Knight is really the place to be. Knives are great and the class is essentially a Swordmaster with extra move. I also feel this game just doesn't prioritise movement like other games. So many maps are so compact and chain attacking is so useful that movement isn't the advantage it used to be. Wolf Knights I feel shine because they are so new and so fast compared to every other cavalry. Alfred's class is okay I guess, but he'd probably be more serviceable as a Hero, which he has the stuff for or as a Great Knight if you want him to be a more mobile tank.

Armours are good early game, but definitely fall off when you have more units to use and work around break. I definitely think that Louis and Jade (and any armour you intend to use) would work better as a Great Knight than a General if you do want to have a tanky unit.

For fliers, I do think Wyvern is better. Griffin is bit weak and there are better staff users around. Griffin definitely works good for an early game Chloé to provide extra support but I would say late game, Wyvern is better.

As for mages, Lindwurm, Sleipnir and Mage Knight are goated. No need for Sage since Ivy will probably have the S rank tome anyways and Mage Knight has one of the best class skills in the game and again, there are enough staff users that Sage is eh. Sleipnir could use a better tome rank but Horty will probably spend more time staffing than attacking. High Priest is unneeded cause the S staff is stupid and you'll probably never get it in an efficient run and Martial Master is bad cause arts are bad. Royal Knight is an option and works fine as a staff bot, namely Mauvier works well as a staff bot.

As for the dragons, they are good support classes and despite Divine Dragon being fairly mid, I think the boosted emblem effects, especially with Byleth makes it worth it.

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, Azz said:

there are enough staff users that Sage is eh.

I think I asked this of someone else before, but what do you think of the Mystical terrain effect? At least for Tempest Trials I think it's a useful one to have. Also, what do you think of Thieves, or did you include those when you said "all other physical infantry classes are moot"? Either way, thank you for this write-up!

I was debating changing Mauvier to Mage Knight but thought the massive drop of Str and HP wasn't worth the switch. I actually didn't really commit to making him a staff-bot though, I should reconsider that.

Also, every time I see someone praise Wolf Knights I feel that bit worse that I dropped Merrin so quickly...

[Azz]

6 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

I think I asked this of someone else before, but what do you think of the Mystical terrain effect? At least for Tempest Trials I think it's a useful one to have. Also, what do you think of Thieves, or did you include those when you said "all other physical infantry classes are moot"? Either way, thank you for this write-up!

I was debating changing Mauvier to Mage Knight but thought the massive drop of Str and HP wasn't worth the switch. I actually didn't really commit to making him a staff-bot though, I should reconsider that.

Also, every time I see someone praise Wolf Knights I feel that bit worse that I dropped Merrin so quickly...

TBH, I didn't notice it too much. I also haven't played any of tempest trials yet but by the looks of it, it looks to be terrain central so I'm sure the terrain affect will be useful however, I've seen from using Ivy and a Mage Knight!Clanne for my playthrough, they didn't really have accuracy problems, just a bit lower accuracy than Céline is all so it was never an issue in regards to reliability (In fairness, I am on normal mode). I do think overall Mage Knight is still better than Sage due to Chaos Style being an amazing skill while Spell Harmony is extremely situational and not easy to set up, tho a mystical unit will definitely have its place.

As for Thief, if you are trying to crit-stack on say Yunaka, Thief would be good for an EP dodge tank that kills on retaliation with crits, but I think Wolf Knight is the superior knife user. Yunaka and Zelkov can still use the S rank knives, and while she wouldn't have the same evade, Yunaka can still crit stack with Corrin fog and a Corrin engraved killer weapon.

Yeah, Mauvier is a good staff bot. Thankfully they gave him a staff innate rather than lance so he gets B rank staves as a Royal Knight and he has decent enough all round stats to really doing anything else tbh.

I also didn't use Merrin in my playthrough however now that I'm grinding to try and tackle the tempest trials with some unique team set ups, I am seeing the merits of Wolf Knight and hearing about how great Merrin is lol

[DefyingFates]

8 minutes ago, Azz said:

've seen from using Ivy and a Mage Knight!Clanne for my playthrough, they didn't really have accuracy problems, just a bit lower accuracy than Céline is all

Can I ask how you built your Ivy please? Because mine can't hit ANYTHING outside of armored units unless she's surrounded by supported allies. I even gave her Celica's Tome Accuracy ability and all that did was bring her Hit from ~36 to ~51 (which I know is what the description says, but I was hoping that would increase further from in-battle buffs for some reason). Thank you!

P.S. Once I've done some more support grinding (I just made another thread about that actually), I think I'll start working on Merrin too xD

Edited February 12, 2023 by DefyingFates

[Azz]

59 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Can I ask how you built your Ivy please? Because mine can't hit ANYTHING outside of armored units unless she's surrounded by supported allies. I even gave her Celica's Tome Accuracy ability and all that did was bring her Hit from ~36 to ~51 (which I know is what the description says, but I was hoping that would increase further from in-battle buffs for some reason). Thank you!

P.S. Once I've done some more support grinding (I just made another thread about that actually), I think I'll start working on Merrin too xD

My Ivy had Lyn attached to her from recruitment. Her speed was insane and she doubled everything sans Heroes and Swordmasters. I think I got lucky and got a very blessed Ivy during the main story. Having given her Celica now that I'm trying to grind, she is slightly worse but yeah I think I got very blessed with mine

[LoneRecon400]

21 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

Remember that this is a late game weapon. 
20 Might is incredibly strong for a Sword. It'll allow you to really experiment with Engravements without having to worry whether you're going to critically hit hard enough. 
105 Accuracy is going to make you super accurate on Maddening. And before anyone asks: no, having more than 100% accuracy is not redundant. Going up against high avoid opponents - some with their own skills - on maps with terrain and special tiles will teach you quickly that you're going to want 100% accuracy at all times; and even with 105 base accuracy, that's no guarantee that will be the case. Especially when, as I've said before, one miss in Maddening can be the difference between losing a unit or winning the round. It even indirectly boosts critical rate, as a missed attack = no crit. 
Having a weapon with extremely high damage and extremely high accuracy is going to benefit tremendously from having any innate crit. Getting 10 is actually rather good, because you can easily combine this with, say, Fates for a 40% base crit chance while still having 18 might (and that's before adding in things like Sword Power for another +10 might). 
12 weight is unfortunately a little on the heavy side, but more importantly, not heavy enough to slow down a maxed BLD Swordmaster. And since you won't be getting any S-ranked Swords until late game anyway, this shouldn't be an issue. If it is, however, there are ways of reducing its weight. 

So yeah, Caladbolg is all that and a bag of chips. Perhaps it takes playing on Maddening to realize that, though - lesser difficulties don't rely nearly as much upon accuracy and speed. 

+5 Caldablog requires 50 Silver, which is probably more than half the Silver that you get throughout entirety of the game. Even if you did have that much silver laying around, it'd be more conductive to spread around multiple forges rather than just one weapon that isn't even that good. It is unreasonable to forge it to that level.

Accuracy is a non issue in the late game with the amount of ways it's adjustable, even ignoring Engravings. The Ch 24 Boss has the highest Avoid in the game for a boss at 134 Avoid. That may sound like a lot until you realize that +30 Avoid is coming from terrain. Hit them with a Corrin's Torrential Roar and that causes them to lose 70 Avoid. Add on Bond Forger, and that effectively drops their avoid to 34 Avoid. Accuracy is never concern that isn't fixable in the lategame.

Crit Engravings should be reserved for Killer Weapons exclusively. With Wrath, it is feasible to hit near 100 crit rates on enemies, which is far stronger than just having higher might. Even without Wrath, the difference of +30 Crit from an actual Killer Weapon is quite noticeable and is pretty consistent on a Lyn Ring user.

Getting to capped build is very unreasonable on most units, even with excessive grinding. Using Alear as an example, even after a 100 Levels in Swordmaster, they still wouldn't be able to reach to be able to their 12 build cap. And there are no places where you can grind for those kinda of levels in the main game.

So no, there is no use cases where Caladbolg is anything more than a slighter stronger silver sword. Something much simpler like a +5 Steel Axe would be much better than it, considering it has 19 Might, 75 Hit, and 10 Weight while costing 45 less silver. Of course, Swordmasters couldn't use the thing. But I think that says a lot about the quality of the class.

Edited February 13, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[FashionEmblem]

7 hours ago, Azz said:

For fliers, I do think Wyvern is better. Griffin is bit weak and there are better staff users around. Griffin definitely works good for an early game Chloé to provide extra support but I would say late game, Wyvern is better.

Currently trying out the Wyvern Chloé and I agree that it's an improvement. Stats mostly get worse, but in ways that don't matter. Speed goes down, but build increases. Res goes down, but Def goes up. Magic goes down, but strength goes up; honestly, her magic wasn't notable for improving her staff utility (rewarp, rescue, and warp range are not based on magic stat) and Flame Lance is just so heavy. Giving her a Levin Sword I can buy instead of forging and along with it some weapon triangle variation for breaking is a big improvement in my eyes. My current plan is to resurrect her flying staff utility later on with Micaiah, who also gives better staff rank than C from Griffin.

[Azz]

6 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

Currently trying out the Wyvern Chloé and I agree that it's an improvement. Stats mostly get worse, but in ways that don't matter. Speed goes down, but build increases. Res goes down, but Def goes up. Magic goes down, but strength goes up; honestly, her magic wasn't notable for improving her staff utility (rewarp, rescue, and warp range are not based on magic stat) and Flame Lance is just so heavy. Giving her a Levin Sword I can buy instead of forging and along with it some weapon triangle variation for breaking is a big improvement in my eyes. My current plan is to resurrect her flying staff utility later on with Micaiah, who also gives better staff rank than C from Griffin.

Honestly, if you want a Griffin Chloé, it's better to reclass her to Sword Griffin to make use of her decent magic stat cause of the flame lance lol. But definitely, if you want flying support (aside from Horty and Ivy), a Wyvern with Miccy is definitely the best bet imo.

I feel like Mauvier might be a good Lance Griffin. He'd get B rank staves due to his innate proficiency which is all he really needs to use all the good staves and he actually has the stats to be able to use the flame lance while providing good support from the air.

[dragonlordsd]

I've seen some debate about the axes vs other weapon types, but I think axes have a weird advantage in this game purely off of character strength growths being so shockingly low, while all other growths are more or less the same.

The highest str growth in the entire game is a measly 45 (Amber, Panette, and Rosado). Heck, even Diamant has a mere 30. Compare this to Dmitiri at 60, or even more extreme, Kagero at 65 and Charlotte at 60. Especially since class growths are almost identical (10-20), and characters in general just have really low strength. Meanwhile, speed and dex both manage to at least get to 50.

The result of this seems to be that weight and accuracy don't seem to matter as much as raw attack power.

[lenticular]

33 minutes ago, dragonlordsd said:

The highest str growth in the entire game is a measly 45 (Amber, Panette, and Rosado). Heck, even Diamant has a mere 30. Compare this to Dmitiri at 60, or even more extreme, Kagero at 65 and Charlotte at 60. Especially since class growths are almost identical (10-20), and characters in general just have really low strength. Meanwhile, speed and dex both manage to at least get to 50.

Class growth rates for strength are considerably higher in Engage than they were in Three Houses.

Three Houses tops out at a 15% class growth rate, and that's only for three classes (warrior, war master, and wyvern lord). You're not getting it until level 20 at the earliest, and if you aren't looking to spend time in the much-maligned warrior class, then you aren't getting it until level 30. Assuming a class progression of noble -> fighter -> brigand -> wyvern rider -> wyvern lord that finishes at level 40, that's 5 levels with no class growth, 5 at 5%, 20 at 10%, and 10 at 15%, which would be an average class growth rate of 9.8%.

Meanwhile, Engage tops out at a 30% class growth rate (for berserker), and has a lot of classes give 20%, some of which are at basic tier. Even in a hypothetical case of a character leveling up from 1-20 in a basic tier and then 1-20 in an advanced tier, they're still going to end up with a substantially higher average growth. Lord (20) -> Successeur (20) averages to 20. Axe fighter (20) -> Berserker (30) averages to 25. Lance Armour (15) -> General (20) avergaes to 17.5.

However, in reality, most characters are promoting out of base classes at or soon after level 10, and most of them aren't joining at level 1 base class anyway. So, for instance, Louis arrives as a level 6 Lance Armour. If you get him to internal level of 40, that's potentially 4 level-ups as a lance armour and then 30 as a general (average class growth rate of 19.4). Or take Pannette, who starts off as a berserker. If you leave her in her base class, every single level up that she has will have the berserker class bonus of 30.

Overall, in these circumstances Pannette spends the entire game with an effective strength growth rate of 75 (45 peronsal + 30 class), whereas Dimitri has an average growth rate across the whole game of 69.8 (60 personal + 9.8 average from class) and only manages to top out at a 75% growth for his final ten levels.

So no, I don't think that strength growth rates are significantly lower in Engage than in Three Houses.

That said, though, I do think that weapon might does matter more in Engage than it did in Three Houses. In Three Houses, there were a lot of ways of stacking extra might onto an attack. Weaponfaire + death blow + battalion bonus would typically come to around about +18 bonus to damage at minimal effort, which is bigger and more significant than the differences due to growth rates or the differences due to weapon type. While Engage does have other ways to make your attacks better, it doesn't have the raw damage stacking that Three Houses did.

That's fairly normal for the series, though. It's not so much that Engage is doing something strange and unusual here, more that it's stopped doing the strange and unusual thing that Three Houses did and returned to the more tried and true way of doing things.

(NB For some of the calculations here, I've assumed leveling up from level 0 rather than the reality of level 1, just because it makes the numbers much easier to work with. This will mean that my final numbers are slightly off, but not enough to make a substantive difference to my point.)

[DaveCozy]

On 1/31/2023 at 11:43 AM, DaveCozy said:

Halberdier's Pincer Attack seems like the only salvageable thing it has going for itself. Otherwise it's extremely meh in terms of stats and modifiers.

I wanted to come back to this thread and say one thing:

Lunar Brace+ from Eirika + a refined brave weapon + Pincer attack is actually really insane. Even in Maddening it's enough to ORKO bosses if you set it up right.

So now I do think Halberdier has some legit usefulness in Engage. Sleeper class imo.

Edited February 13, 2023 by DaveCozy