Eltoshen

I think she might have missed the ring in Jeralt's room.

If you care about animations, don't use gambits then because they look ridiculous in action.

I didn't even know it was possible to not win. Don't you get the option to train their dancing once during the monastery exploration? I know that when I did it with Ingrid, she got 5 charm from it. And to win, you just have to have over 13 charm (apparently not true, thanks Manuela for the false hope). Unless you forgot to do this, which is totally plausible.

Maybe if you don't pay attention to both the dialogue telling you to avoid him and the pre battle screen lol. Also I'm about to do that GD DK chapter soon so I'm excited to try that out lol.

You mean the option of siding with Edelgard? I think it's highly beneficial to the game's thesis that it is an option. For me, the game's overall purpose is to highlight that no matter who you side with in the war, there is a desolate period before reaching the conclusion. This is really well highlighted by the soundtrack as well, including the iconic ending soundtrack centred around Edelgarde.

Totally ignoring supports and considering none of the characters change due to interactions between each other, you could argue that Marianne would prefer to avoid war entirely. However, many people are using her supports with people like Sylvain to support her potentially joining Empire or being an Empire sympathizer, which doesn't require her to actively oppose the Church. In regards to Mercedes, she does not have a good history with the Empire. It seems a lot more likely she would side with the church. That, and Annette, her bestie, has no reason to side with the Empire.

Even if you only have normal weapons, that shouldn't be too much of an issue. You said you haven't been using Gambits, which are game changers. You can totally get by not using them, of course, but if you're struggling and ignoring them, using them will be largely beneficial. Although you cant attack twice with Gambits, most are line attacks and many are cones with a couple diamond shaped area attacks with amazing bonus effects. A lot of gambits reduce hit and evasion rate as well, further boosting overall survivability if you can't kill the unit in one turn.

I'm talking about pre-Dedue Dimitri by the way. He becomes way more likeable (on his own route) when Dedue comes back. I feel like so many people just overlook what he did to Randolph and his sister as a consequence of his actions.

I can agree with that but he was still a cold murderer who went around enacting his own justice by killing people he believed deserved to die. So in essence, cool motive, still murder. He never showed empathy like Edelgard does, or at least I don't recall him doing so. And yes thank you for reminding me about Randolph. That part really made me dislike him.

Further adding on that people of faith actually come back to Garreg Marrach when you're on her route. Edit: not actually members of the Church

I'm sorry, but Dimitri was literally that character for the first half of part 2 in his route. He explicitly states that he doesn't care what you do as long as you don't get in his way and threatens to cut you down if you do. He also makes multiple remarks that he doesn't care what happens to the army and says that he's only there because they're beneficial at the moment. When he finally comes around, he even admits to Byleth that he was spiraling towards death and killed multiple people in heinous ways which he can't make amends for. I specifically remember his lines because it struck me as odd how people were acting like Edelgard was the cold one when I've seen so many more examples of empathy on her end.

I'm talking about situations like warping your units and triggering enemies or the boss to move. I know two situations off the top of my head, most famous being protect Marianne in her paralogue if you warp one of your characters near the boss's range on turn 1. Another situation I just encountered was warping my Wyverns to the top of the map in the Mercedes/Caspar paralogue (both like level 17), which triggered all of the enemies to swarm up top and reinforcements to appear on either side. I actually had to think about positioning for the first time in hard mode. You can obviously Divine Pulse and prevent this from happening but I'm sadistic enough not to. What other things can you do that make a chapter much harder than it needs to be? Doesn't have to be exactly in the vein of the above situations. (Outside of the obvious like not giving anybody any weapons).

Gambits are insanely broken in this game. They make monsters absolute jokes but you can use them on infantry as well. They have about 2 uses each and you'll hardly find yourself dying if you spam them. Abuse them and the map should be over before you run out. If you want to prevent a unit from moving on the enemy turn to protect your mage for example, use a movement disabling gambit. That, and abuse Divine Pulse, like others have suggested - rewinding more than a turn if you realise you made a mistake much earlier than you realised. I mostly use DP when I do something miniscule like miss an attack or forget to open a chest (sometimes rewinding 4 turns lmao) since there's so many uses. However, if you're struggling to clear a map, use it to roll back 1 or 2 turns if not more.

I was going to make a post but I pretty much agree with everything you've said. However, as this game is highly driven by the avatar's decisions and literal existence (hello, potential future archbishop of the church??), I can see people making valid arguments for either side depending on circumstances. There are certain things that occur in different routes, so it's hard to say exactly who would join which side unless we set a baseline. If we're going to go with the avatar not existing and the events play out very similar to how they did prior to the Flame Emperor reveal...the ones I see that are definite for staying with Edie are... Hubert and Dorothea And the ones explicitly against her are... Ingrid, Annette, Mercedes (regardless of her relation to the DK), Leonie (Jeralt's death alone, I don't think anything else matters as much) Lorenz's situation is a special one, because he's not explicitly for the Empire, but he will side with them because his family does.

And there's something preventing them from adding this to more enemy units...?

I aggro'd the boss to move on the first turn accidentally when warping a flying unit in its range. It was really fun trying to keep Marianne alive after that. This play through I have her trained as a pegasus so it should be easy enough for her to run away.

Isn't close counter a thing in this game?

Then he'd literally be Dimitri of the Empire right? Edelgard doesn't strike me as cold and sacrificial either. She doesn't indiscriminately sacrifice people. She shows remorse when her comrades die or when she has to fight her past schoolmates (for example when she realises that Dimitri is consumed with revenge in Empire route) and also when she has to fight you when she's an enemy. At the same time, she recognises that these are necessary steps to ensure the Church no longer has the power to manipulate and subjugate the people with the nobility/crest system.

That's rewriting Hubert to be Edelgard entirely though, is it not? Both when she's a protagonist and antagonist, she had a resolve of steel. She was going to do whatever was necessary to remove the Church from power. She never had the idea of peacefully settling things as she knew that was never an option. Edelgard and Hubert may have different personalities but she is not somebody who will sacrifice her goals because somebody brokers a peace offering. See the last chapter of Dimitri's route for reference. Also, she willingly works with her uncle despite the atrocities he's committed because it's a means to an end.

Healers without access to Physic and/or Fortify (Flayn) are automatically poop IMO. Unless they have the movement to make up for it in a riding class, that is. Even then, I think Physic is still much better. Physic on a horse > Physic without a horse > Heal/Recover on a Horse > Heal/Recover on feet. Mercedes should just stick with Faith as she is the best healer in the game. I think Fortify is underrated actually. 2/4 uses is enough for most purposes and the only people who have this spell are Mercedes and Flayn. If you have Mercedes tackle the healing, your other mages can focus on doing damage instead of sitting around wasting their turn single target healing. I also think Restore is quite useful in the later chapters which are full of gambits that prevent movement. But...I can see why people might rate her below others when you're looking at reason as well. However, I'd say you can just ignore reason and just give her riding instead. Both Physic and Fortify on a horse sounds great. Restore as well. Literally everything you need on a dedicated healer.

And unless I'm mistaken

Yeah, I don't remember the specifics of how it was worded but you could make that argument. I personally don't believe that love always has to be romantic.

Theres probably only like 2 'gay' pairings in this game so you can chill. JRPGs arent exactly known for handling LGBT issues well anyways. And no, felix and sylvains ending is not a romantic one.

I haven't used her much so she didn't come to mind immediately.