DaveCozy

Nice! Didn't know 2-turning it was possible, let alone without Marth involved for the bosses. That's pretty awesome. Fishing for crits too with that Killer Lance, the way Mila intended it lol Oooh also. I'm going to guess Griffin Knight Alear with Rewarp will be involved to escape ch11 quickly.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure fire damage applied right before it disappeared. Maybe I'm getting confused with ch17 terrain though. Will have to double check. Edit: okay I just got around to testing and I can confirm it works the way I thought it did. Order after casting fire dragon vein is: fire damage on enemies -> Enemies do their actions -> your own units take fire damage if applicable -> fire disappears and it's your turn

Correct. True damage is added on top of already calculated damage. Meaning that, even if the enemy has 100 defense or 100 resistance (just as an exaggerated e.g.), true damage will be considered after the damage calculation and still deal damage to that unit. Chain Attacks are also considered true damage, because regardless of enemy or the chain attackers stats, they will hit for 10% of the enemy's HP stat.

yeah... Lodestar Rush with Dragon!Alear really helps OHKO Hyacinth 😛 the extra 2 hits make enough of a difference. That chapter is honestly really gross even in Hard, you need to fish for crits to 3-turn it (idk if that's even the lowest clear). At least your rewarp strat in ch9 can still work with Dragon!Alear.

Out of the non-dlc ones, I'd say Byleth, Micaiah and Eirika are the best personally. The first two just give really useful utility to move a large group across the map, while the last one adding true damage when engaged makes it really easy to take down some of Maddenings beefiest enemies. Eclipse Brace and Bravery combined with poison stacks and other sources of true damage can ORKO all the late-game bosses in particular if set up right, without demanding much of your unit's stats. From what I'm reading, I'd say Eirika is pretty underrated. Lyn, Corrin and Sigurd follow after that for me. Lyn speed is great to have, although Speedtaker does require some setup to really steamroll in Maddening. That is a small but notable issue I have with it. Clones are pretty good as baits as well as far as utility is concerned. Corrin's veins are fairly useful, imo Fog and Fire are the best ones; Fog because of the avoid boost should be self-explanatory, but both that and Fire are great for laneblocking too. Fire in addition can help deal damage to your own units, which is pretty useful at setting up Vantage + Wrath if running that. Draconic Hex on a mystic with a Thunder tome or a Thief with knives also synergizes well, either for more range to apply the debuff, or for poison to stack on top of the hex too. You can choose to either use a Vein or apply the debuff, unfortunately not both though, unless you spend your dance on that unit. Sigurd lets any unit move really far, but just one unit. You can achieve similar results moving a large group with the first two emblems I mentioned. Still, his defensive bonuses are pretty useful to have on tanky units, who can naturally afford to move farther in more than others. Beyond that, I think it gets more murky. I think Leif is probably the worst one, just for switching so much to Master Lance or Lightbrand at higher bond levels when you have better weapons you'd prefer to switch to instead... but even he can provide valuable Build+ bonuses to units that really want them like Timerra, or just stick him in a Warrior crit-build with low bond level (think a unit like Panette with both Killer Axe and Killer Bow). You technically can keep the bond level below level 10 if you just never view the bond event. If I had to make a list of the non-DLC ones without spoilers: S - Byleth, Micaiah, Eirika A - Lyn, Corrin, Sigurd B - Ike, Lucina, Roy, Celica, Marth C - Leif

Does Lodestar Rush with a Mystic unit calculate damage with units Magic vs enemy Defense? Or is it Mystic Magic vs enemy Resistance?

no worries, it's fair to point out the SP cost. I am glad you brought it up, because it gave me a chance to clarify. Eirika definitely is a competitive emblem too. The advantage of Halberdier is that it's guaranteed to double regardless of speed, provided Pincer Attack is learnt and set up. Setting up pincer attack is also fairly easy as well, utility like Canter exists to make that manageable. I feel there's some merit to putting Eirika in one due to that, specially when some Maddening enemies and bosses late-game can hit upwards of 30+ AS (I think the ch24 boss has 40 AS) and doubling gets really difficult without Speedtaker or setting up a Draconic Hex.

Tier lists should be done from a specific standpoint imo, like for LTCs, speedrunning, ironman, etc. But as you stated, most of the early release ones don't divulge into the intended use of their list. It really feels more like it's for the sake of views or clicks unfortunately. I agree that we can't possibly know everything in less than a month from release. I was sleeping hard on the Halberdier class myself personally, until someone else showed me how easy it is to set up Pincer Attack and how silly true damage with it gets with Eirika's emblem engage skills active. I wouldn't be surprised to see 0% growth hack runs use something like that in the future, and wouldn't be surprised if more crazy stuff is found too.

Oh no, dear goodness no. You don't inherit it. You use Lunar Brace+ while engaged with Eirika lol Definitely do not buy Lunar Brace, it's way too expensive. It also means you can only realistically use 1 Halberdier to great effect per playthrough. Just as a reference. These are the true damage calcs that get added to your Halberdier's damage output with Eirika and other abilities in the mix. Assuming bond level 18 with Eirika, and quadding with Pincer Attack + Brave Lance: ((Enemy def × 0.3 rounded down) x4) + 5x4(blue skies) + 12(next to Alear) + 4(next to Magic Dagger spoiler unit) + your poison stacks (+4/8/12) + chain attacks It's still expensive because it needs a Brave weapon, which are expensive in general to refine and engrave, but realistically you are only doing this with one unit per team. And you are also having that unit carry Eirika too. It's still a bit of a sink, but a lot more manageable and also relevant for the story like this.

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.

I kept Goldmary as a Hero and just got her to level 5 for Brave Assist. You can inherit Dual Assist from Lucina and put Ike on her as a Hero. Goldmary won't be as bulky as she'd be in Great Knight or General, but she can still take hits fairly well as a Hero and doesn't lose chain attacking. Healing her to full HP when Brave Assist is needed is pretty manageable as well. I personally stuck Lucina to Merrin instead, chain attacking with Daggers is just too good imo.

Has anyone finished the game on maddening to know if they spawn more frequently after clearing it?

Geez. So you essentially need DLC to save the house: Buy the expansion pass to get the Warp staff from Tiki's paralogue, since you'll need 2 warp staves You'll also need the 3H emblem for Raging Storm Make everyone else you can use staves so you can ferry Pandreo and Alear to set up the warp chain And it's all for... an elixir. Hahahaha 😄 Yes, they do. So for e.g. a Fire tome with Micaiah's engraving that is refined up to an Elfire tome will still have Micaiah's engraving.

Wow, my heart skipped a beat when Chloé avoided that 65% attack from the boss... it would've hit for exactly 18 damage which was all her remaining HP. Good stuff!

Generals might not be as good as initially thought in Engage, but they still have situational uses that make them worth fielding imo. Their low move is what holds them back, and they do demand some kind of Warp or Rescue staff support to get where they need to be. Some key e.g. for me being Ch15 and Ike's Paralogue. Maps that have chokepoints which let you keep them in key spots to avoid being overwhelmed and surrounded. As for magic, I mean... they do need a weakness in terms of taking them down lol. Imagine if they were very magic resistant on top of being able to survive physical crits (and they can do the latter in Engage). That'd be an infuriating enemy to face. I think Great Knight > General though in terms of overall usefulness, but it's handy to reclass to General when needed.

Amber can instantly master seal to Wolf Knight as well from join, and it considerably bumps up his usefulness imo. I would say Wolf Knight is the best Cavalry class in the game. Access to accurate and strong hitting 2range is great. Refining knives offers a lot of Mt in return. Re: Wyvern Knight - yeah this class is still really good. Very high strength and respectable defense makes them fairly tanky. I have all of Chloé, Diamant and Kagetsu in this class myself for current Maddening run and the three of them stomp enemies flat. Chloé went Griffon > Wyvern specifically.

I'll say! Two very nice avoids from Celine making that 3-turn clear possible. Good stuff! I look forward to seeing those. Ch15 makes snese now actually... if this is a girls only does that mean no Seadall dancing allowed? 😮 I just thought about that, and I can totally see why that's a nightmare

Ok. What is up with Kagetsu though. Insanely good base stats. 20s in relevant areas like speed and strength when reclassed (for the latter). Great personal ability that goes pretty well with axes. I checked how he'd do if I reclassed him to a Wyvern. He just straight up outperforms Wyvern Diamant which I've been raising and even gave him a speedwing. And if I am checking right, also will be better than Rosado's stats who joins later. I'm gonna have to try Kagetsu more closely in a new playthrough (a bit attached to my group) but holy cow he seems like a strong top 3 contender imo.

The best way I've found with no DLC on Maddening is to use Micaiah on the unit you want to train in Skirmishes, as you stated. Everyone else that deploys is a trained unit, while the one you're training dedicates themselves to staff use and Great Sacrifice. What can also help here is ensuring that you bring a chain guarding unit, if they have to protect the weaker one. Usually I find that helps too. I'm unfamiliar with DLC. Cuz well it costs money, and I'm not planning on buying it yet. 😜

Knives for sure, they're very strong when refined and poison is a very solid status effect against the chunky bosses this game likes to throw at you. I do wanna say, while not the best, Swords are surprisingly good this game too, given the amount of engage attacks that use them. Blades being usable with a large amount of them is very good for them in particular, their high weight doesn't matter with these attacks and their high might is very beneficial. Still weak in the sense they lack range but surprisingly strong at finishing with a few key Engaged attacks.

Yeah I'd say so. Tomes mostly. Exploit the lower resistance of most non-mage enemies

For Anna, Mage Knight seems better to me. I can see her making better use of the +3 speed Chaos Style provides.

No, you don't have to that. If he's level 16 it's better to master seal him now into whatever class. Then Second Seal him immediately; in Engage you can Second Seal to any advanced class from another level 1 advanced class, provided your unit meets the proficiencies.

Side question; Are caps relevant in Engage? And if so, are they relevant for the Maddening campaign? Or is this moreso relevant for Tower of Trials?

For an Armored unit, I only field one usually. A good e.g. is ch15, Dancer in the Ruins; that chapter is a pain in the butt with the reinforcements that creep up from behind. But there's a lot of chokepoints that makes it really easy for a General with some backup to hold them off. It also makes it easy to set up Seadall for a warp from one of the rooms that has a chest to the exit, and let him escape quicker once you destroy the door that reveals the exit. So Armors definitely have use even in efficiency playthrough contexts. Qi Adepts have a niche with Chain Guards. Ch14 is a fine e.g. of them being useful, the throne room in that map has 4 bosses, 3 which zerg-rush you as soon as you get in one of their ranges. Chain Guard helps safely bait them all here and manage them. Also a good class to use Byleth's Goddess Dance ring with. And yes, the Dragon class has a solid niche of emblem synergy. It might be better to make Alear a flier in ch11 though (you can still master / second seal in this chapter if you have any), maybe just to make the mid-game go a bit faster with since maps get a bit bigger in size from that point on. You can always reclass back later, once you get more emblem rings that fit the dragon class better. Alfred's unique class is pretty bad, he actually loses speed being in it compared to most other cavalry classes not named Great Knight, and his bulk in Great Knight is plain better. I'd say either Great Knight or Wyvern Knight seem better for him. Celine has a decent unique class. Mixed offenses go really well with it. Ignis is not super reliable, but she can attack from range at least so it's not actively putting her in danger to try and proc it. I put mine as a Mage Knight though, because I prefer the movement for breaking axe enemies with Levin Sword. For Alcryst, I prefer him as a Warrior myself. Long-Bow chain attacks are really good. I'm not a fan of Luna in Tireur, it seems okay considering his high Dex stat and given he shouldn't be EPing either, but if that's the kind of offense you're looking for you can actually get more reliable Crit activations; put him as a Sniper; forge a Killer Bow+5 with Corrin's engraving, and No Distractions from the class skill gives a mighty +80 crit boost, which is already better than the 50ish % Luna activation in Tireur. Diamant has really low Dex and makes activating Sol unreliable, which isn't good considering it's supposed to help his bulk. Still his Successeur class has really good stat modifiers, so it's maybe worth considering if only for that. But I personally put him as a Wyvern in my playthrough and it was worth it, he was much more mobile with still solid defense. Ike emblem is great on him in this class. I'm unsure on Fogato and Timerra. I benched Fogato in my playthrough so I'd have to give him a chance first to talk more. I did use Timerra and kept her as a Picket. I didn't really rely on her class skill, but her stats were pretty solid in that class. I considered General as well but didn't like the idea of losing backup chain attacks. Maybe Hero would be ok on her in hindsight? Or Wyvern as well? A note with Diamant and Timerra too is that putting them in more mobile classes means you give up backup attacks, which is a pretty reliable way of whittling down some very bulky bosses. So that has to be weighed carefully too. Just because they worked for me in Wyvern and Picket doesn't mean that's the right class for your team either. Ivy and Hortensia should definitely stay in their unique classes though, combination of flying magic offense with staves is limited to them only. Too good to give that up.