Cysx

Actually Annette's average speed at level 20 is 13.65 normally. So she does get a small boost(to 14) but it's not massive. And I think your growth argument doesn't really work that well; at level 40, Lysithea will be two points higher in magic, and 3 in speed. Annette will have reaches 15 Str and Lysithea 10, making the AS difference 2 as well(Edit: Incorrect, it's 3). So sure, a difference happens but yeah. It's true that tier 3 is among the shortest, though. I just think it's nice posting numbers in cases like this. This is not claiming that Annette is a better character, she isn't. Well, probably not, anyway. Ragnarok is amazing, there's no use denying it; however, +10 Accuracy, -1 Wt, +10 Crit, +1 use... those aren't worth the drop but they're still pretty significant; regardless, it's so easy to stack MAtk that she still OHKOs the same as Ragnarok mages in a majority of cases, we'll see how it is with harder difficulties. As for pegs, from experience Excalibur with Thyrsus is a much better idea than bows, because it can OHKO from 4 or 5 range with ~100 accuracy. Pegs have high avoid, so bow users typically need to get closer, which is not always practical/possible. And Wyvern Lords need to straight up melee.

Let me post a quick comparison. Lysithea vs Annette, aka apparently the best mage in the game vs the worst, lv 20, as Warlocks. No battalions, Fiendish blow obtained and counted. Also I added the lv 4 reason prowess for accuracy. Annette: 30 HP, 11 Str, 24 Mag, 18 Dex, 15 Spd, 12 Lck, 12 Def, 15 Res, 13 Cha. Lysithea: 30 HP, 8 Str, 26 Mag, 19 Dex, 17 Spd, 10 Lck, 12 Def, 15 Res, 10 Cha Annete's stats with Wind: 37 Atk, 15 AS, 131 Acc, 25 Crit, 24 Uses Lysithea's stats with Miasma: 37 Atk, 13 AS, 110 Acc, 14 Crit, 10 Uses Annette's stats with Excalibur: 46 Atk, 8 AS, 131 Acc, 30 Crit, 8 Uses Lysithea's stats with Hades: 50 Atk, 0 AS, 95 Acc, 24 Crit, 2 Uses

Marianne is not a top tier healer, her faith list is only okay. If her main utility in your team is physic, she's frankly not worth deploying, horse or not; and aura only has so many uses. As for magic sword usage without swordfaire and probably without doubling... idk, doesn't sound amazing.

Okay, that'll be a longer one than usual. Typically I only mention the final class, but the first two need to be built a certain way to be at their best, I feel. And Marianne is complicated too. Linhardt is actually a serviceable magic unit and can be the main Thyrsus user in his route outside of cross recruitment; however, his spd base is awful and he wants that fixed asap; fortunately for him his growth is workable and his spells are light. At level 10, the certificate for thief/mercenary gives him +2 spd, which is sizeable, but he has no business being in those classes(can also go myrmidon at tier 1 for +2 spd over +2 mag, though you'll probably miss the healing quite a bit); so, he needs to be able to succeed at both those certificates and Mage, meaning he requires special attention, which he tends not to get. From then you follow a regular magic user path and end up in Dark Knight, where he'll nuke stuff no problem. Of course you could also just let him get to bishop for warp +1 and leave him there. It has the merit of being considerably more simple(one of the easiest builds in the game really, probably won't need one session of tutoring). I don't think 1 use of warp is all that remarkable an advantage, but it's your call. Note that if you recruit him, it'll already be too late to fix his speed and warp is pretty much all he'll have to his name; Linhardt is very much a bad recruit however(besides paralogue access), so I don't think his performance in a context where most people aren't going to use him matters much; as a Black Eagle he's also a main unit in two paths instead of one. Overall, I'll say Dark Knight. Oh, and Holy Knight is pointless for him since he has no offensive Faith spells beyond Nosferatu, and it's only marginally easier to access. Annette, Annette, Annette... she has two main builds. Dark Knight nuke(might want spd fixing), or Wyvern Lord with magic weapons and the odd brave axe kill. Dark Knight is basic enough all in all, the main thing to note is that tier 2 is a bad time for her. Basically every other mage is better from level 10 to 20; she struggles to kill, doesn't get Physic, doesn't get 3-range. It's worth noting that it's all uphill from there however, as around level 20 she'll get Thyrsus/Caduceus access, Black tomefaire, Excalibur and Fiendish Blow pretty much all at once, which needless to say helps her performance considerably. Thanks to the accuracy/high use count of her spells and her crest's effect(and existence), she's arguably the most reliable and enduring long range nuke in the game. So, not a bad build at all. Worth noting is that getting her Darting blow instead so that she can double with Excalibur, then staying in Warlock for +5 damage and x2 uses is also a valid, very strong build(that few others can pull off because their nuke spells have lower uses and/or higher weight/no x2 uses access, and they don't have her crest and/or darting blow access), at the cost of better mobility. Basically what I'm saying is, pure mage Annette is mad underrated. Then there's magic Wyvern Lord, and that one is tricky for two main reasons; attack speed, and battalions. Combined, those make it difficult for her to ORKO. Indeed, to my knowledge there are no flying battalions that provide a boost to MAtk, and without that on top of a slightly gimped Mag stat, her Atk with the Bolt axe will miss OHKO benchmarks a lot. AS on the other hand, while helped by WL's 20 +4 spd base, is then brought back down by the fact that the bolt axe weighs a massive 15. However, if she can double with the Bolt axe, she's pretty much golden. This means one thing and one thing only; this build focuses on AS first and foremost. That means raising lances and flying early to get her on a pegasus(you'll need both for WL anyway, and flying from lv 10 to 20 is never exactly a bad thing), but also swords for myrmidon and Spd +2, and even fighting against her armor weakness for weight -3. It is worth noting that since that build is probably not worth attempting on recruit! Annette, her Blue Lions exclusive relic the Crusher can be part of the equation, which at 11 weight and 18 Mt+ a +20 mt combat art, gives her a stronger 1 range option which few other characters can use as well(though it is a thing). On that note I don't think going full MAtk to OHKO with/without Dust is worth it, it can work but feels quite inflexible in comparison. ... and that's pretty much it really. If you do that she'll be a flier that can ORKO a majority of targets from 3 range, which is pretty valuable. One last thing to note is that Annette gets essentially a free +dmg adjutant in her route in the form of Gilbert, which can help with accuracy(he needs to fly though; wyvern rider is plenty and not too hard to get him into) Out of the three, I think objectively WL is likely better, because of a more consistent performance throughout the game if nothing else. As for Marianne, I don't... really know, actually. On paper she could pull off a magic Falcon Knight build very similar to Annette's, although the only magic lance is exclusive to a route that isn't hers, and arguably in high demand. She does get her own relic, which to her credit isn't route exclusive and is from a paralogue that is only tied to her, but it has a couple issues; neither Falcon Knight nor WL have swordfaire, meaning beyond the lack of damage, you'll likely want to run dual prowess to get the most out of her, which is never the best. It's also really not that strong on top of it. Doubling with it is feasible, but Marianne really doesn't want to take a counter every time she needs to kill something, either. Of course, you could also go mortal savant and use a conjunction of Levin Sword and Blutgang. Losing out on 2 move, canto, flight and a considerable amount of AS sucks, though. Her spell list at least doesn't push her into bishop or gremory, and she's a perfectly serviceable Dark Knight; that being said, she has an easier time getting into Holy Knight, and does get Aura. Overall I'd still go DK over it because while there's not much of a difference between nuking with Aura or nuking with Fimbulvetr, at least it gives her a stronger baseline and better Thoron. And finally as mentioned above, she's an easy +1 move dancer with Physic and can get some work done with Blutgang and the Levin sword if she ever needs to. So it's a good solution as well. Worth noting is that you don't need a strength in riding to get +1 move on a dancer; they have very little need for tutoring after all, thus if you focus completely on that skill it can still be obtained. She will, however, get it a few months earlier on average. So basically, out of flier with mixed offense, DK and dancer... I'm not too sure, I guess I'll go DK.

Rescue is largely redundant in a game with Stride, which targets 6 to 7 units on average. Warp, on the other hand, works wonderfully with it, and only one of the two allows you to go through walls. Rescue also suffers from its utility being tied to mobility while stuck on classes with 4 move for a very long time. Honestly, maybe I underrate it. But best Faith spell, let's just say it's going to take a lot to make me agree with that. Additionally I find it's also really difficult to use Flayn long term, or rather, she has genuine trouble gaining exp unfortunately, meaning her stats lag behind a lot. Though she does get Fortify. Which I agree is amazing and eclipses Physic... though its range is twice as big so you had a pretty screwed Marianne. I'm figuring out how healing exp works right now and Ward has a pretty low rate. Roughly, with regularly updated statue bonuses it consistently takes 15 uses of Ward to gain a level(not super early on but it seems like things fall into place pretty quickly). Same for Physic, Recover, and Restore. Rescue takes 10 uses, and Warp and Fortify are at ~7.

Don't go through Brawler, even when using fists; go Brigand, learn Death Blow, then go Grappler.

Okay, despite what I said above, I do think I get it. It's just that the point of averages is to put randomness out of the conversation; but in practice it's still here , so there's nothing really wrong with the way you're doing it. On BL route, one should have access to: - Macuil Evil Repelling co. (Manuella/Hanneman paralogue I assume, also buyable maybe?), +7 MAtk at Lv5, A rank - Blue Lion Magic Corps(buyable), +7 MAtk , A rank - Hevring Prayer Troops(gonna assume Linhardt/Leonie paralogue), +7 MAtk, B rank - Ordelia Sorcery Co.(Ferdinand/Lysithea most likely), +8 MAtk, B rank So yeah, the +8 one may or may not be on him at all, but a +7 one I think is fairly reasonable; though he might need A authority indeed, as not every playthrough will recruit Linhardt and Leonie. Okay, I'll just post my own thing for the magic stat, I did check a bunch of times but you never know. Also I argued that one should keep decimals in another thread, but it changes nothing here(ends up at .9 instead of .2) so for the sake of simplicity, I won't: 5 Base Magic -> +1.2 from 4 levels of 0.3 -> 6.2 -> Reclass into Monk, Mag becomes 8. 8 +1.5 from 5 levels of 0.3 -> 9.5 -> Reclass into Mage, Mag becomes 10. 10 + 4 from 10 levels of 0.4 -> 14 -> Reclass into Warlock(or yeah, Dark bishop, same thing), Mag becomes 17 17 + 9.2 from 23 levels of 0.4 = 26.2 +2 base Mag from DK = 28.2 Yeah, from quick testing that's what Magic avoid seems to be indeed. Which gives Lck an additional niche, and... I think it worked that way in Echoes, too(to an extent, it's a bit complicated), so I should probably have seen it coming.

I do think this is a possibility that shouldn't be glossed over; there's a reason many beginners think Fortress Knight is amazing. From my understanding, advanced players consider the odds and push against them(to what extent, it depends on the player, we're all different). Many beginners however don't check the numbers at all, so a lot of them just slow down when they feel there's a risk. Or that was how it was before the turnwheel and casual mode, there's way less of a reason to fear for your units these days I guess. My headcannon that I feel is quite reasonable is that most of the admiration Byleth gets, and the feats he/she achieves, is a result of them being able to rewind time, which nobody knows about. This is shown very early on, when the original results of Byleth's actions are stupidly dying to an axe in the back, which I'm not quite sure would get them quite that much praise. But the other characters never saw this happen, in the end. With this capacity in mind, Byleth's exploits are considerably less impressive, but nobody knows he/she can do that, and thus from their point of view that's only based on the results, Byleth's capabilities are exceptional. Basically as the player I knew he didn't deserve half of the praise, and found it a bit more... sad, than annoying, as a result. They just don't know any better, and Byleth has to live in his/her own little world, with only Sothis truly being able to understand him/her. ... Though Byleth is still a super awesome mercenary at the end of the day that turns competent teacher within weeks, that much I have no excuses for.

Okay, so while the final chapters are difficulty spikes on every route(dunno about church)with no access to meal bonuses, and this one in particular is one of the most Resilience friendly chapters in the game... it'd be disingenuous to deny that you've made your point. I think it's clear this gap in damage output will be very relevant in harder difficulties. However, there are a bunch of important things I think you should have considered(Also I don't really get why you're going for "best" and "worse" stats, kinda kills the purpose of averages; plus there's no reason not to consider -1 stats as well if I'm understanding your reasoning correctly; like, a 17.05 average isn't particularly far from a 16 odds wise): - Battalions. They account for +7 or +8 Atk at this point, which is a lot. - Accessories. I bring those up specifically because while they apply to both, magic users have 1: A lot of free inventory space, and 2: A +3 MAtk accessory at their disposal, and unless you're running three offensive magic users, there's no reason for Sylvain not to have one in his pockets at all times(I do believe you get two throughout the game). I'd bring up Spd rings but those are in considerably higher demand - Sylvain's passive, which again, can be activated with relative ease by DK especially due to having better range(I'm assuming +1 black magic range is equipped, this is the final chapter after all) - AS gains through dismounting. DK Sylvain in particular has more flexible attack range and doesn't have to compromise on positioning even without canto at times. I put them lower though, since they're rarely relevant here. - Also his Mag as a DK is 1 point lower than it should be, although it doesn't change much since you've put it at +1 regardless in most of your calculations. With that into account, and no doubling with Ragnarok(because 3 uses) or using lances(because Lance of Ruin just won't be on him and iron lance+ is too niche): - The strongest Mortal Savant requires 59 MAtk and 27 AS to double and kill. Dismounted Sylvain with Bolganone, a +7 Battalion and a magic wand has 59 and 28 AS. He can ORKO all 8 of them. - All Gremories require 62 MAtk to ORKO and at most 26 AS. This one's rough, but with every damage bonus(+8 Battalion, +3 Wand, +2 Passive), DK Sylvain reaches precisely that value with Bolganone. Suffice to say, there are not decisive kills at all. - Grapplers require 64 MAtk to OHKO. Ragnarok is at 64 with a +8 Battalion, 66 with a +7 one and a M. Wand. He OHKOs both. - War Masters would require 72 MAtk to OHKO and he cannot double them. Those are out of his reach. - The Assassin requires 59 MAtk and is a pretty easy OHKO. - The Warlocks require 2 less MAtk than the Gremorys, and are slower. He ORKOs both with Bolganone but needs his passive if his battalion only gives +7. - Dark Bishop die too, to Sagittae potentially to save uses - The Snipers fall to even Fire from potentially 4 range - Bishop requires 127 MAtk, that's out of his reach. So final score is 24(19) to 31(assuming I didn't mess anything up), which is a bit more acceptable considering the range difference in a chapter with a ton of walls. But in any case yes, pally has better, more flexible 1 range offense for sure. And neither have an extremely remarkable EP. Also, you've just informed me that Magic avoid used a different formula(which ignores weight); I didn't know at all. Thanks a lot for that.

Hey, thanks a lot first of all, this is going to save a lot of people a lot of time. Much appreciated:) I've noticed magic classes in advance and above have their Mag class bonus lowered by 1 for some reason, don't know if it's a bug or something. Also it's a bit of a tangent but maybe you have the answer to one of my questions: Why do stat bonuses(as well as caps) cut leftover decimals from growths, for example, a character with an average of 6.5 str at level 10 class changing into a soldier should, in my mind, have an average of 8.5, but we mark it as 8, and I just don't get why. By that reasoning, using a stat booster every two levels would make every growth under 0.5 null, no? And really in general, saying 9 levels of 0.5 will average in 4.0 or 3.5 (with two promotions) in stat gains... I don't know, that's weird to me. Whether you answer this or not, the essential part is the shortest, so again, thank you very much.

Again, you can dismount for +2 spd on pally, and iron exists.

But again, what does it matter since your AS at best will be 11/13, which doubles nothing? In what way does it help you?

Fortress knight is -6 Spd not -10, Imma correct my notes Right, but you're still not taking into consideration that Pally can go for lower weight options to get better AS and should actually be able to double some targets with food bonuses and the +2 boost from dismounting, while Great knight hard caps 3 AS lower no matter what you do(2 if you really want to be technical but Warriors specialize in axes and have no reason to go Great Knight over Wyvern, it's all about lances here) Edit: Also that doesn't really address the fortress knight part of my comment. You say stacking both weight -5 is helpful, but why?

There's only so much weight reduction can do for Fortress Knight when their -10 Spd mod makes it extremely difficult to double with low weight weapons/not get doubled by half existing enemies, including mages:x In practice they could have weight -50 and it would affect very little, you still need a speed baseline to work off of. Admittedly Great Knight doesn't have it that bad in comparison, but someone with Paladin as a final class should have no trouble getting weight -3 with all that tutoring exp they don't need, making the speed difference still in Paladin's favor... and that's only on weapons that weigh down Paladins in the first place. The lower mobility both mounted and dismounted kind of finish sealing the deal.

Unfortunately dismounting is a free action, and fliers don't have to take a counter or compromise on their positioning in the first place. You'd need to be quite extreme with this kind of fixes for them to work, because the problem goes deeper this time around. And really, we already have a lot of enemy bow users, all with 3 range... and it doesn't make a difference. Also, effectiveness negating accessories, while not accessible immediately, are also just genuinely good whether you actually have a weakness or not because they're the only shields that give defense and weigh nothing.

1: I do agree that stride fixed low move being an instant death sentence for an unit. Move is still extremely polarizing however, especially with canto in the picture. 2: Well I'm not even sure I agree with the premise here, but in general, it's a mixed bag. This game allows such levels of Atk stacking that OHKOing enemies is accessible and reliable from fairly early on all the way into the endgame, especially for magic users. Gauntlets also exist, translating high strength into massive damage without the need for doubling. Brave combat arts are a thing too. And finally, classes having their own bases means your speed cannot be utterly catastrophic outside of armored classes, with some of them making it good no matter what. So overall, it is fair to say that this FE is the most friendly towards bad speed units since probably Thracia. Still, the best classes in the game have access to neither gauntlets nor magic, and I'd argue weapon weight mattering makes speed all the more important. So it's still an extremely pivotal stat as well. 3: Mekkkah is a bit hasty in his judgements of this game I find, but he is completely correct that flying units are mind-numbingly stupid this time around. They actually took pretty potent steps in nerfing horses too, making flier dominance all the more out of place, and a pretty big reason why I have very little hope that Lunatic will make this game genuinely difficult.

You're right, they can't. Would explain why it felt so weird. ... Maybe it's route exclusive. I can say it's not a thing on the GD route.

It is. It's not always the day before the final chapter, but that actually is all there is to it.

I mean, Wind is definitely not the worst spell she could have gotten on a hybrid class without x2 uses. Allows her to have good accuracy without having to run dual proficiencies, EP with it more comfortably, and 10 crit is 10 crit. But yeah.

You're right, that's what I meant. Invicibility to one attack probably will have more applications in harder difficulty modes, but even now it can completely cheese bosses. I think its biggest weakness currently is that it's pretty easy to forget it exists. Outside of that, the +30 accuracy is nice since the failnaught is really strong but doesn't have the best accuracy, and +10 mt is serviceable. Okay, so from further testing, the effect has to be consumed. Meaning if Claude dodges naturally, it's not, it only activates on an attack that would have hit him. It is just one attack though. There might be more to it still... Edit: Also, if it's not consumed within the next turn, it expires automatically.

Just checked to make sure, but that's just for the next attack. And thank gosh because, man would that be broken. His relic isn't even hard to repair like Edelgard's.

Pretty sure the villagers all have to survive.

You'll struggle finding many units in this game that have less problems than Claude, to be honest. He specializes in arguably the best weapon type, has stellar stats, and gets the best class in the game + pass + probably the best offensive battalion in the game, for free.