Dark Holy Elf

Mages don't use many weapons, so they have loads of inventory slots. They can switch between accessories easily (as easily as a physical unit changes weapons), and you get two Healing Staves relatively early. Naturally you'll give them to two people who have Physic (and/or Fortify), since they're so much easier to use than range-1 options. As I said, there's a reason that people recommend magic builds just for Physic, and not just for Recover. Heal/Nosferatu/Recover is the worst faith list in the game. Adding Aura, which is in the running for worst offensive spell in the game, does not significantly improve it.

Strongly disagree. Even without Bishop's bonus, Physic restores (8 + Mag/3 + 10 from Healing Staff) HP, which will easily go well into the 20's even off of mediocre to poor magic stats. That's a substantial chunk of anyone's HP. I find this substantially more useful than Recover, especially since many magic-using classes have poor move (particularly if playing without DLC, in which case no magic-using class gets more than 4 until Master tier, except, admittedly, Enlightened One). Over the months I've seen plenty of people say things to the effect of "you should try ____'s magic build, they have Physic". Nobody says the same thing about Recover, and there's a good reason for that. Crit just isn't very useful on heavy tomes, because they are bad at doubling. This means the difference between a 20 crit spell and a 5 crit spell is literally just 15% chance, and the resulting higher crit will still be way, way too low to be counted on, so it's pretty useless except as a YOLO desperation tactic to kill an enemy you can't otherwise. One note worth pointing out about accuracy: accuracy on faith tomes is worse than it looks, compared to reason, because of how their Prowess skills work. Reason Prowess 5 gives 20 hit, Faith Prowess 5 gives only 10, scaling down as appropriate for lower levels. It's still not that bad, but Aura is definitely one of the most likely things to run into accuracy issues in the entire game (hitting magic avoid helps, but only so much). I agree that swapping Aura for another damage spell would be fairly pointless (though Seraphim is a bit better, IMO, because of its monster weakness niche; at worst it can one-shot monster barriers from range), and would much prefer a utility spell instead; it fits someone who is already good at killing things with swords.

A couple of people have said Meteor and that would truly be a game-changer. Byleth supports everyone (except Anna) so if s/he had Meteor that would essentially give +7 to +10 hit (+15 to +20 on gambits) to the entire team, which is, needless to say, a pretty big deal. But while I'm not sure about this gameplaywise, I do like it thematically: you'd have a teacher whose direction is making all their students more likely to succeed. Otherwise I think Byleth's reason list is fine. Faith is definitely shaky seeing as it's their budding talent, and Aura (like the other heavy faith spells) is just kinda underwhelming compared to reason spells, including Ragnarok which Byleth already gets. I like Rescue, again thematically, for Byleth to pull their students out of trouble.

I reaaally like the way this scene plays out in Birthright so I definitely wouldn't change it! I just can't see Xander wanting to be alive after he literally killed Elise.

Fates is probably the most similar to 3H in terms of style, honestly, being the other game about multiple sides of a conflict being valid, and having some similar strokes in character writing (trauma being a major common theme). It's also got really good gameplay and actually has a casual mode if your sister prefers that, so it's probably my go-to rec. Awakening is solid too though a bit zany compared to 3H so that can be a bit off-putting. The Tellius games are also a good choice if you can easily get your hands on them (i.e. you or someone you know already owns them), otherwise their price is prohibitive. No Casual Mode if that's a deal-breaker (though PoR is at least one of the easier games to get used to Classic on). I worry about the adjustment to the polish of any game before Sacred Stones. I got started with Blazing Blade and I enjoy it but the way it handles things like inventory and shops are very frustrating today IMO, as I've encountered when trying to get friends into the series.

It's usually best to think of master classes as sidegrades rather than upgrades (except Wyvern Rider -> Wyvern Lord). Every Master class requires the unit give up something meaningful to reclass into: Sniper -> Bow Knight loses Hunter's Volley Grappler -> War Master loses Fierce Iron Fist and terrain-ignoring Assassin -> Mortal Savant loses some speed and terrain-ignoring (and Stealth) Paladin -> Great Knight loses speed and move Fortress Knight -> Great Knight loses defence in a class which is all about that Warlock/Bishop -> Gremory loses either Black Tomefaire or Heal+10, i.e. raw power off their primary function Warlock/Bishop -> Dark Knight/Holy Knight both loses some Magic and Uses x2. Now to be clear I'm calling these "sidegrades" rather than "downgrades" and some are definitely more tempting than others (though usually, it's an open question as to whether the switch is worth it). But the fact that there is a question is a major contrast to the progression of Basic -> Intermediate -> Advanced which are largely a series of straight upgrades in stats, move, and innate abilities.

If Felix could certify as a Wyvern Lord, it would raise his speed to 20 (before Wyvern Lord's own modifier, which would make it 24). Flying classes have a higher speed base than other classes, though, so this is the only class that would benefit him in this way at this point. Assassin has the highest speed modifier of any male class, so it's still not a bad place to go; it would bring him to 21.

Honestly, and this is admittedly just speaking from personal experience, I can't imagine 12 uses feeling like much of a limiter on any earlygame map except Miklan. I think the phase when they're in Noble and have only 4-5 uses is where you have to consider your spell uses more carefully (and this does hit Dorothea harder since she's got 4 Thunders to Mercedes's 5 Fires and briefly 9 Fires+Thunders), but by Monk it's not something I give any thought to. And while healing isn't a part of their combat, it is something I would expect both to be doing some of (and is actually a pretty notable advantage they have that a low-end physical unit does not), which slows their offensive spell consumption in practice. Yep, completely agreed. It is a small advantage to Mercedes's flexibility that she doesn't take 10 damage from Thyrsus in this comparison, but it's not that big a deal.

I think Gilbert is a well-written character but he's such an insufferable person that I'm not surprised that he's one of the least popular characters overall. His decision to abandon his wife and daughter as some sort of personal penance is immensely unsympathetic.

Hmm. 12 charges doesn't feel that bad to me, especially on someone who also has 10 shots of Heal and potentially 5 shots of Physic. Even on Miklan's map (the longest in the earlygame by far), I find she does not run out of useful actions by the battle's end. By the time she goes Mage it's a total non-issue (and nobody has much reason to go Priest instead IMO, at least until we've first mastered Mage for Fiendish Blow). I do agree that the gap in combat between them isn't huge, but overall Dorothea does have the advantage; a slight disadvantage on magic (ranging from +1 at Level 1 to -3 at Level 41) does not offset the fact that she has Thoron, Meteor, and if one opts to build swords, Hexblade. Her riding/flying bane do hurt if we have access to the DLC, but less than you'd think because Dark Flier's flying requirement is so forgiving; also it's worth keeping in mind that unlike Mercedes she doesn't have an armour bane, allowing her to get Weight-3 more easily. Mercedes having a crest means she can use Thyrsus at less penalty, but this advantage is only particularly important if there is no other crested mage on the team, i.e. if the only other mage you're using is Hubert pretty much.

As someone who has both Sylvain and Felix in their top ten and thinks they're both very well-written characters... they're both kinda assholes, in different ways. Sylvain's assholish behaviour isn't entirely limited to women incidentally (although "only" being an asshole to 50% of the population would still be pretty wretched even if this were the case), the best example being how he fakes that he's dying as joke in his Felix A+ support. Both of them have good reasons to behave the way they do which boils down to the trauma each has suffered (in Sylvain's case, fear that he is only valued for his crest both by his family and by any potential romantic partners; in Felix's, the loss of his brother and the feeling that his friends worship a culture of violence and death) but it doesn't actually excuse the behaviour. You can still cheer for them to grow and get better (not that it happens in all of their supports in either case) while acknowledging that they have some issues and that's what makes them human. Still, I'm not trying to change your reaction; I think they're both characters who can be very offputting because their cruel behaviour resonantes as all to real for some players.

They add 10 critical evade, so they don't shut down everything, but the option of having 'em can make a big difference.

Ironically it's a paladin (Xander) who reliably shuts that boss down completely for me on most playthroughs. 🙂 My most recent similar experience was in Hans and Iago's map in Conquest. I had almost won, having winnowed down all but the last few reinforcements that appear in the southern room. I plan out some elaborate plan to kill a few enemies in front of me and leave me open to as little danger as possible to the final couple berserkers bringing up the rear. Part of my elaborate plan involves switching Camilla back to a Bronze Axe to null their crit. Naturally, somewhere in the middle of executing the plan, I forget to do this. I forget if the resulting crit rate was 4 or 5%, but y'all know what happened.

Lancereavers are storebought well before Cog of Destiny (which, incidentally, is probably a poor choice to cite since it's turned into a completely different map on the hardest difficulty, where IIRC the few physical weapons remaining are in fact axes aside from the boss's Light Brand). Money's not an issue by that point in the game (the Ocean Seal from the desert sells for 25k alone). Here's The Dread Isle, which is before storebought reavers and features 8 enemies with axes and only 3 with lances. If you want, feel free to go through all the pre-reaver maps and find the total. I imagine lances are the most common but not by nearly as much as you're implying. But anyway, it doesn't matter if there are more lances. You don't just send your units against random enemies. Your sword users perform better against axes, so you send them preferentially against axe-users, and so on for other weapon types. In FE7, if we could give every unit any one weapon type of our choosing, it would be much better to have a mix of swords, lances, and axes than it would be to have a team of entirely axe-users, even if the enemy was majority lances. If lances are the most common this does add fuel to the argument that swords are the weakest non-bow weapon in Blazing Sword (which I'd generally agree with on paper, with a caveat that the sword-locked units are better units than the axe-locked units on your side, on average), but there's still a clear point to using swords. I don't think it's unfair to say their niche is narrower in Three Houses, since they can't get WTA until you reach B rank and even then that eats a skill slot.

When someone asks you to agree to disagree, further argument with them is probably useless. That said I think you're overly focused on the hyperbolic claim "WTD all the time". I don't remember Shadow Dragon enemy composition very well any more so I'm not gonna talk about that, but none of the other games have even close to all enemies being lance-users; they may be a plurality but that's okay, because there are still plenty of axes for your sword-users to fight, which ensures even the weakest weapon on the triangle still has a niche.

I see you are a person of fine taste. 🙂

The bottom few spots rotate based on my mood, top six has been pretty consistent for a while now though. Lots of honourable mentions (particularly Mercedes, Rhea, Hilda, Bernadetta, Dedue); this cast is really good. 10) Ferdinand 9) Sylvain 8 ) Petra 7) Lysithea 6) Felix 5) Claude 4) Hubert 3) Dorothea 2) Dimitri 1) Edelgard

I strongly disagree (and Bernadetta's high popularity, particularly among people who struggle with anxiety themselves, suggests I'm not alone) but I think that debate is outside the scope of this thread.

Axes have the strongest mt of their weapon rank generally, so lots of them are worthwhile: the Silver Axe has the highest might of any weapon outside a few relics, the Brave Axe is the strongest brave weapon (its enhanced version even matches Thunderbrand for might and has more accuracy in practice), iron and steel axes are strong by the standards of earlygame/low-cost options. Training Axe+, as already mentioned, is basically a slightly lighter Iron Sword+ for when maximizing AS is a priority. I don't agree with your comment on combat arts, either: comparing the universally available ones, Smash has the second highest +hit of any universal art after Curved Shot (equal to Grounder but it's gained earlier and has more +crit), while Helm Splitter has the second highest +mt of the universal arts after Tempest Lance, and once you account for the higher might of axes it ends up the strongest of all. This is better than swords' Wrath Strike/Grounder, or gauntlets' CAs which give up the second hit for their effects, at least in my opinion. I'll grant that lances are better at this still, though, and possibly bows too although the lack of high-might option on bows is frustrating sometimes. If you were talking about character-specific arts like Windsweep then sure, but I consider that a pretty low priority since it only applies to a very small number of characters. For the large majority of characters, the decision as to whether to train swords or axes is independent of the quality of a combat art they don't have access to.

Check a list of paralogues such as this for the paralogue rewards. Some others may be available from quests, particularly DLC quests (Nuvelle battalions, for instance). Here are the storebought ones: Chapter 3: Seiros Magic Corps Knights of Seiros Seiros Sacred Monks Seiros Holy Monks Church of Seiros Soldiers *also automatic from C2 battalion quest Seiros Mercenaries *also automatic from C2 battalion quest Seiros Pegasus Co. Empire Magic Corps Empire Archers Empire Infantry Empire Knights Empire Brawlers Empire Warriors Chapter 8: Seiros Armored Co. Seiros Brawlers Seiros Archers Empire Magic Users Empire Pegasus Co. Empire Wyvern Co. Empire Cavalry Empire Snipers Empire Pavise Co. Empire Armored Co. Chapter 13 CF / 14 SS: Empire Holy Magic Users Black Eagle Pegasus Co. Black Eagle Cavalry Black Eagle Heavy Axes Empire Heavy Soldiers Empire Raiders Empire Elite Wyvern Co. Imperial Guard This list is missing some battalions which are available from other sources, such as Indech Sword Fighters and Macuil Evil Repelling Co which are available from the Hanneman/Manuela paralogue but also storebought post-timeskip. Might be one or two more.

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I would argue you don't need to give up your dancer. The dancer can play this role just fine, and it's a neat one, and a bit of a niche for swords for sure. If you're just planning to build a generalized dodge-tank, though, it's not the only way: Alert Stance+ (best done on a flier to speed the training) and Brawl Avo+20 (requires DLC) are two other routes. You can stack Alert Stance+ with one of the other two but I rarely find it necessary if you do all the appropriate evasion stacking tricks otherwise. I think it's pretty useful to have either a Training Sword or some sort of gauntlet on most physical units as a backup weapon, so you can trade them to it if necessary. This often will prevent them from being doubled, and is an inexpensive investment. I generally favour lances/axes using Tempest Lance/Smash on player phase, though. Lances in particular are very good for this, and since every mounted build requires some level of lance, going for early D rank in lances on most physical units is something I find quite helpful. Faster units like Petra may be able to start doubling with that low-weight weapon pretty quickly, but due to low mt it may not outdamage Comat Arts for a while anyway, except on enemy phase.

The Training Axe+ literally has the same might as an Iron Sword+, with one less weight. Not sure why you're not okay with it. Anyway, I already mentioned why weight often matters less: it's much more possible to do good damage in 3H without actually relying on doubling. It still matters, but not all the time...and when it matters, that's what your lighter weapons are for. Axes only have 5 to 10 less hit than equivalent swords at A rank prowess, plus 2 per rank of prowess from L5. Their peak accuracy is actually identical (Mace+ vs Iron Sword+, both have 110 hit at Prowess 5) They also have 3 or 4 more power. Here's a typical illustration to show how axes do in fact hit things just fine on Maddening: Average base Dex is 6 and average dex growth is 45, so let's take Level 41 and get a Dex stat of 24. We'll ignore any class growth modifiers. If you want to quibble my level you can take this down a point or two but it won't matter much because Dex is a small factor in hit. +1 from Wyvern Lord dex mod = 25 +70 from Brave Axe+ = 95 (if using other weapons, increase this, Mace+ is a further +20) +20 from Axe Prowess 5 = 115 +15 from Cichol Wyverns = 130 +10 from Accuracy Ring = 140 +40 from four A supports = 180 On Crimson Flower endgame, that's enough to hit 100 accuracy on everything except the Wyvern Lord miniboss (92 displayed hit) and the Swordmaster miniboss (84 displayed hit). Heck, even if you want to bump my numbers down by 10 to allow a different accessory or one fewer support, this is still enough for 100 hit on all except those two and the falcon knights... against whom you can get your hit back to 100 by using Lancebreaker. Silver Snow endgame is similar; no minibosses this time, and the only things this setup won't reach 100 hit against are Axebreaker+ Heroes... and even then you still reach 83 displayed hit. I don't have the AM/VW numbers in front of me but they should be similar. And I want to emphasize that this is with the Brave Axe+, a weapon chosen for power rather than accuracy, and not using a combat art... Smash with a Mace+ will yield up to 40 more hit if needed! There is the odd truly exceptionally anti-axe enemy, like a swordmaster on a thicket or similar terrain, but that's rare enough that it's simple to send someone else in your army after them (like magic damage-dealers, who ignore thickets).

In the GBA games, swords were helped by the fact that (a) they were lighter in a game where doubling was more critical than 3H [it was extremely difficult to KO without a double in those games, compared to 3H with its storebought brave, OHKO magic combat arts, and 2HKO brave combat arts], and (b) units couldn't choose what type of weapons they had and some good units were stuck with swords for at least a good part of their existence, HHM Raven being the best example. Additionally, the weapon triangle meant that sword-users were the absolute best at fighting axe users who they could reduce to low/0 hit... the same's somewhat true in 3H with Axebreaker but that eats a skill slot and is unavailable until you reach B rank.

I mostly agree with this, although I think the fancy named swords are less of a help than those for some other weapon types - Sword of the Creator is locked to one unit (except as a very heavy 1 range weapon which is still weaker than most other relics), and Thunderbrand is only available early on 2 out of 4 routes, and while good it does have some limitations even thereafter due to not being a good fit for combat arts (compared to Lance of Ruin or Freikugel, say). But largely swords are held back in this game by Swordfaire classes being on the weaker side and their low might hurting more in this game than some others (e.g. GBA games where one-rounding is easy if you double). They have some nice perks and no weapon in this game is truly bad but they're probably the worst (unless, as mentioned, offensive white magic counts). It's obviously not axes. Training Axe+ is light enough for most purposes (while still having the same might as an Iron Sword+), and Axe Prowess having a high boost + the many ways to boost hit in this game means it's easy to negate their weaknesses, and their high power + synergy with Wyvern makes them really useful.