[Fire Emblem Engage General Questions Thread]

do the Emblem paralogues in Engage scale with your current level / progress?

EDIT: NVM, found the answer here:  

On 1/25/2023 at 1:17 PM, Raeleia said:

Paralogues are fixed in terms of level requirements.  Personally, the difficulty of an average paralogue feels higher than the average story map at the same recommended level.

 

[Best Classes for each character?]

40 minutes ago, Blakejp said:

Thank you. Probably have to keep him as a thief then. I thought getting to 21 was the target, and 25 seems so far away. Appreciate the insight

wait... I think you're actually right. It's level 21 Thief to reclass to an advanced class. I got mixed up. Level 25 is for the class skill. My bad

[Wolf Knight, what's the point?]

On 1/29/2023 at 11:23 PM, Ragnell17 said:

Chain attack with daggers do inflict the debuff as well which is quite useful.

Came into this thread to mention this as well 🙂 I pointed it out in the Emblem Pairings thread too.

You could put Lucina on a Thief as well, and it'd still be really good though. The advantage of Wolf Knights that was mentioned was naturally higher movement, makes it easier to set up the chain attacks. And indeed that lets you give the boots to another unit instead (like Alear).

Besides, I'd personally say that Thief benefits more from Corrin. Or just a Covert class in general, that fog terrain is pretty useful. Though Thief looks like the best Covert class so far imo; Sniper seems ok for crit stacking but not great beyond that niche.

On 1/29/2023 at 11:40 PM, BloodRonin said:

That is actually huge. I did not know that still happened. Anyone know if it also applies Dragonic Hex if you have it?

I wasn't sure either, so I tested it... and nope.

Guess it makes sense since the description starts with "If unit initiates combat..." disappointing, but makes sense.

[Luck contributes to proc chances?]

Luck affects the procs which say they use the Luck stat.

Other things Luck affects:

• Avoid = 2 x Speed + (Luck/2) + [other bonuses from weapon, terrain, etc]
• Hit = 2 x Dexterity + (Luck/2) + [other bonuses from weapon, terrain, etc]
• Critical Avoid (Dodge) = Luck + [other bonuses from weapon, terrain, etc]

 

[Best Classes for each character?]

13 minutes ago, Blakejp said:

Any advice for what to do with [lvl20 Thief Jean]? It was a slog to get him to this point and I just want to make the most of him. 

At this point, keeping him as a Thief isn't a bad idea. It's actually a pretty good longterm class.

If you do want to reclass him eventually though, wait until level 25 so he can second seal to an advanced class. Don't put him back in a Base Class. I've heard High Priest is pretty nice for him if you want a mixed combat and utility role.

[Engage Female Only LTC]

What is your strategy for chapter 13 and 14 if you don't mind me asking?

Is it worth getting the Rescue staff in the former and the boots in the latter? In LTC contexts anyways.

These chapters are really stumping me from an efficiency standpoint... putting in spoiler to avoid spoiling story events:

Spoiler

Both maps are huge and you have missing emblems after ch10, which makes fast clears kinda hard. 13 particularly with Fog of War since you can't move or even Rewarp to tiles you can't see in Engage.

14 also has that moat which cuts off access to the throne room right at the start, for anyone except fliers. So I can certainly see wanting a Rescue staff for that, but I'm not sure if it's worth it either.

I had no issues with 10, 11 or 12 (4-turns, 5-turns, and 3-turns respectively), but suddenly 13 crept up and I felt so lost as to what a fast clear would look like. Fastest I managed while grabbing the Rescue staff was 8 turns.

Then 14 I really struggled at 12 turns... but I went for all the chests. I even abused Ike's Great Aether though to whittle down all bosses that got in range. Thinking about it, I think I could maybe just rescue + warp someone to the right chest room from the throne room and grab the boots, as it is the only worthwhile item. But then again, that would require the rescue staff from the previous chapter.

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

Yeah... I'm not seeing much use for Smash+ yet. But who knows; being able to push an enemy 2 spaces away might be useful for some strats involving terrain or long range breaks like said above. If any exist though, we're not seeing them yet.

There's another Strategy game I play called Into the Breach where almost every weapon has some kind of displacement utility on enemies. Pushing enemies in that game is really good, but in that game you can also damage enemies by pushing them into each other or in terrain. If you ask me, Smashing would've been better in Engage if they would also deal additional damage by bumping enemies into obstacles like that.

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

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.

Paladin is also pretty bad in this game from what I've noticed, very similar to Halberdier in stats, which is to say pretty bad. To prove this is quite easy; give a second seal to Vander in ch9, turn him into a Great Knight. And watch his 10 defense suddenly skyrocket to 17 defense, letting him stay viable long term if you really want to use him beyond Brodia.

The only thing salvageable about Paladin that I can maybe see is being a decent class with the Byleth ring; mobile Goddess Dance and Dex+10 buffs to other units help accuracy and crit rate. So that could have some use at least as a pure utility unit, just don't expect much combat out of them in Engage.

--

As for good classes; both of the advanced flying ones, Griffins and Wyverns, seem to be really good in this game. Griffins seem to be preferred so far due to their staff and Clear the Way utility, but I think Wyverns have a solid argument too considering they can use two WT choices. Air Raid is a situational but really powerful offensive boost too.

I would say Wolf Knight is the best Cavalry type class; knives are really good in this game, poison is fairly useful effect that can make taking down bosses, and refined knives scale really well in damage. Highly mobile, very reliable stats as well being fairly fast and accurate.

Other notable Cavalry imo would be Great Knight and Mage Knight. The former for tanking, latter for offensive magic (well, aside the unique ones).

Out of all the Backup types, Warrior and Hero seem to be preferred as well. Access to Long Bow chain attacks for the former with a very good Str mod is pretty awesome. The latter gets x2 chain attacks with Brave Assist, which may not seem like much but it really adds up over time with hand axes or javelins equipped; the weapon doesn't matter honestly, it's 10% of enemy's HP in damage iirc.

As far as unique classes go: my favorite ones are Alear, Ivy, and Hortensia's. For Alear, the dragon bonuses with emblems are actually really solid and makes it a pretty viable option even longterm; about time the MC had a good class if you ask me 😛 The latter two, flight with tome offense and staff utility is too good and unique to pass up.

--

Swordmasters, I'm still not sure about. On the one hand, setting up chain attacks with them isn't super flexible due to sword-lock. But on the other hand, they can cover a decent amount of distance with Run Through. Inheriting Advance from Roy is pretty good for them too, as it gives them flexible positioning options with Run Through (though you can only use one or the other, not both at the same time unfortunately). All in all I'm on the fence whether they're worth it over Hero and Warrior; they seem to be the most mobile of the grounded infantry move units, so they have that going for them, but sword-lock with mostly 1-range weapons isn't very hot either.

[Fire Emblem Engage General Questions Thread]

On 1/28/2023 at 12:16 AM, Scaramuccia said:

The problem with this - damage comes from the blade itself. Sure you could have a situation where +2 damage from Roy will break a threshold, but in many cases it won't. 

I would prefer something like Lucina on a smash weapon as you could combine it with other avo sources and get a player phase nuke while having similar interaction with emblem attacks. However I see the point in having emblem attack only weapon.

Yep, this suggestion is really moreso to turn those very high might but very heavy and unable to double weapons into emblem only finishers. I wouldn't recommend enemy phasing with them outside of Ike's Great Aether, let alone using them for regular attacks. Not with those engravings anyways.

+2 damage with Lodestar Rush is a big deal too, consider that it's 9 hits at 30% in Dragon class. Even if adding one more point of damage to each hit because rounding down due to the 30% cut, it is still essentially 9 extra damage. That definitely helps break some thresholds, specially lategame for bosses and even enemies that easily reach 70+ HP.

[Hardest Map Thus Far]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:16 PM, Azz said:

Changing topic a bit, did anyone else find Micaiah's paralogue easy or was it just me?

Hers was the easiest one in my opinion. Micaiah is not very far away, and can be zerg-rushed by turn 2 to end it quickly.

[Hardest Map Thus Far]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:14 PM, Azz said:

Just did Leif's paralogue and damn...

Am playing on normal and I can't even begin to imagine it on maddening. There are like four ballista which complete makes your fliers useless and they deal so much damage it's insane. There are also infinitely spawning reinforcements and a shit tone of offensive staff High Priest. Definitely is a Thracia map lol. 

Out of all the Thracia maps to bring back, they just had to pick Reinhardt bridge map. Of course it had to be that one.

In Engage, I think it might be possible to rush straight to Leif with a (Re)Warp staff powered by Micaiah's emblem. There's a gap that is exactly 9 spaces wide, which is enough to fully use the 10-range you get with Micaiah. With +1 AoE you can send 4 other units (+the rewarper if using that staff) near him if you target the top right ballista. Or possibly above the group of enemies above the bridge, if you can't move through that ballista. Consequently skipping the entire bridge and ignoring the bottom left ballistas.

You do lose out on other goodies though.

[Favorite Unit+Emblem Pairing]

Merrin + Lucina

Did you folks know that Chain Attacks with Knives also inflict poison??? 😮

This combo trivializes some of the late-game bosses, even on Maddening, no joke. Very easy set up and stack any chunky enemy full of poison like this, letting your other units abuse the extra damage.

On 1/26/2023 at 8:49 AM, BloodRonin said:

I surprisingly used Yunaka with Lucina. I have pass on her from theif. I have her a pair of boots I found in one of the later mid chapters to increase her range more. With dual assist+ she pretty much can assist from anywhere, even with enemies blocking her path because of pass. 

And yes, anyone in Wolf Knight or either of the two Thieves with Lucina is good honestly. Knives with chain attacks are crazy good.

[Best Classes for each character?]

3 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

anyone with a personal class is going to best in that, but I'm curious what classes you went with for everyone else.

Not everyone of them necessarily.

I can definitely understand keeping Alear, Ivy and Hortensia in their personal class. Those are really good.

But I personally prefer Alcryst as a Warrior (chain attacks with bows are super good) and Alfred as a Great Knight (more reliable class skill and better stats to bait enemies, which combos well with his personal skill).

Not sure about the rest myself.

2 hours ago, ZSSenpai said:

Curious:  Do we think Griffin Knight or Wyvern Knight is better?  I have Chloe on Wyvern in my first maddening playthru and it seems good, but I'm wondering if Griffin is a better pick for future runs.

That's a really good question.

The advantage of Wyvern is obviously stats. Good raw strength, 6 movement is great, 2 weapon choices to avoid and inflict breaks, and just generally strong offense and versatile positioning.

However, Griffon can actually give it some competition. Staves are pretty useful in this game, there's a lot of utility ones like Rewarp and Freeze that give it a different use case and even more versatile positioning with Rewarp. The other thing it has is also a better resistance modifier... and the reason this is relevant is because chapters 7, 8, and 9 all have flying tome wielding bosses. So Griffon can actually let Chloe bait those bosses safely for other units to come in and get the kill.

I went with Griffon myself with the first Master Seal I got. She let me clear those chapters in 2~4 turns first try. Mind you, this was in Hard, but I've seen Maddening LTCs that also use Griffon Chloe in this stretch of the game for this reason.

So... yeah I dunno. It's a good question, and a good problem to have. Both have their merits.

[Fire Emblem Engage General Questions Thread]

17 hours ago, Mitama said:

Is Ike’s weapon engrave good on… anything? I’m just failing to see to point of it. +3 mt for +15 wt just does not seem worth it. Like am I missing something?

 

49 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

On a similar note, is Roy's engrave good for anything? Because the tradeoffs seem to be laughably one-sided; only getting 2 might for dropping avoid by 30 AND +8 weight sounds laughable.

Both of these engraves are best for already heavy weapons, and specifically using them with Emblem attacks.

A forged Steel Blade+3 with Roy's engraving, for e.g., can be used with Marth's Lodestar Rush on Alear. With average fixed growths, a level 9 Alear deals a nutty 54 total damage (6x9) which is enough to kill even the bosses in ch10 in one interaction (or drain one of their HP bars anyways).

I would not recommend them for Enemy Phasing though. Not unless you put them on already tanky units that can shrug off doubled damage already like Louis. Still, even with that, I think they're best with Engage attacks to get the most damage out of them.

Basically, I think they let a specific weapon fulfill a small but important niche of reliably killing some very tanky bosses with engaged attacks, or just deal a ton of damage over a wide area with other emblems.

20 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

EDIT: I guess I could add Dex+ lol. I kinda answered my own question. Anything else I'm possibly missing?

Answered my own question again too... I could go for Wrath instead of Dex+. Though that does require setup on Enemy Phase and Yunaka is kinda frail. Also, I actually prefer the idea of Lucina on a ranged unit like Sniper, to let them get in chain attacks too. I don't really want to inherit Wrath from Ike (2000 SP is a lot) just to make that even higher. Hmm...

Well, wanted to reply to myself to share, in case anyone is curious where this Crit monster unit theory went.

[Fire Emblem Engage General Questions Thread]

I've been thinking of building a crit monster of a unit in Engage. What I came up with:

Yunaka personal skill (+15crit if on avo terrain), Sniper class skill (+10crit), forged killer bow+5 (+40crit), forged with Fates engraving (+30crit). That's a total of +95crit in the right conditions, before factoring in Yunaka's stats vs enemy dodge.

Anyone see a better way to stack crit than what I'm trying?

I haven't looked much into bond rings tbh but quickly skimming the site, I couldn't find any that would help the above setup.

Also, I did think of Lindon... but he's a Sage on join with magic stats. While theoretically higher crit at 100 if I placed him over Yunaka, he'd be too much work to mold into that role.

EDIT: I guess I could add Dex+ lol. I kinda answered my own question. Anything else I'm possibly missing?

[Your best, worst and most disappointing unit.]

50 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Also I would put in Clanne's sister and Jean but they can protect other units which is extremely clutch when one of your units missees in a really bad spot.

 

37 minutes ago, SeraviSays said:

Louis w/Edelgard - Enemies completely ignoring him if they deal 0 damage is a bit of a downer on enemy phase BUT he has consistently been a solid brick and crazy strong.

Just an FYI, the enemy AI will prioritize breaking and if they can set up chain attacks, before considering whether they will deal 0 damage or miss because 0 hit.

You can both use this knowledge to set up chain guards predictably, and make it so enemies target your high defense units if you park say Louis next to Backup enemies.

I tested the first part out in Chapter 10 specifically; I used a strategy to rewarp Celine with a high avo-stacked tome near the Martial Master boss. This boss specifically has Lyn's emblem equipped with Astra Storm, but instead of choosing to attack my in-range flier at 100% hit rate (these attacks never miss), he chose to attack Celine twice over two turns, even though his hit rate was in the 30s against her and I was chain guarding her. Just because he could break her if he got a hit in.

The second one I've noticed several times, my Louis rocking 25+ def gets ignored unless there is at least one chain attack that can damage him and he's the only unit in target for another enemy.

[How often do older maps show up? (spoilers probably)]

That was my favorite map back in PoR, glad they remade it for Engage.

Thanks for linking that video as well, I didn't even know you could save scum the RNG for bond rings. I'm curious if future challenge runs will use them due to this, and wouldn't be surprised if some players challenge themselves to not use bond rings at all.

[Your best, worst and most disappointing unit.]

18 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

Have you tried giving your Alear smash weapons? I found with Lapis that there is an odd role of player phase speedtank - smash weapons + high avo(marth's perception is a key) allows you to avoid enemy retaliation and literally smash them.

To add to this: a Steel Blade with Roy's engraving and Marth's Lodestar Rush. Alear with that can deal like... 54 damage or something nutty like that to the ch10 bosses. 6x9 hits. Even in Maddening that's a OHKO and drains one of their HP bars.

I really like Alear yoinking the Iron Blade from Lapis for this reason in the first Brodia map.

[Your best, worst and most disappointing unit.]

Best - Chloé. With the Sigurd ring, she reminds me a lot of Marcia from PoR, and to me that spells OP. So I'm really surprised so many didn't like her. Lowkey she's being slept on, and she's gonna be carrying future LTCs.

I chose to promote her first to Griffon Knight, and she carried me through the first three Brodia maps easily, baiting all 3 of those bosses; you can easily get 3 turn clears in chapters 7, 8 and 9 with Chloé. Even as she's falling off in terms of combat now at ch14, she's still keeping up with staff utility and Clear the Way. That's actually kinda nice, going to more utility as better units start joining and still justifying a deployment slot.

Disappointing - Lapis. Joining Ch7 in a bigass bridge map with only 4-move and 1-range combat just wasn't useful at all, she couldn't keep up in that map nor in subsequent ones. Even Boucheron was better at providing Chain Attack support with Hand Axes at this point, even if his stats were worse; at least he has 2-range combat options while Lapis did not.

Does anyone have any tips on using her effectively? I read earlier that she can get an early Master Seal with item boosters making a difference, but there's a lot of units that want those things too.

Worst - Anna. Why does she get ORKO'd so much as a frontline unit. In her join chapter FML. Even the Boss can one-round her... in Hard.  

On 1/24/2023 at 5:35 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

That being said, if you like [Vander's] beard as much as I do, there are ways to make him work long-term. It's not so easy that he becomes another Seth/Titania/Frederick/what have you, but it's possible if you like him enough to put in the effort. His growths are okay, I find his speed is weak, but otherwise he's been growing well enough to keep up. His EXP gains are the real problem. Later on you encounter enough promoted enemies that he can grow at a somewhat decent pace, but otherwise, Micaiah, Byleth and Ike's AoE abilities grant a lot of EXP that he could use. Micaiah in particular gives him a ton just by healing multiple people at the same time. He could also inherit Byleth's Instructor skill, though it doesn't seem to do much.

Daddy Vander ❤️

He's a good candidate for a second seal imo. I put him in Great Knight; his speed tanks, but his defense rockets to 17 or something like that, which is honestly solid enough to let him stay relevant even in ch9 and beyond. Getting doubled isn't the worst thing when he can absorb damage.

Micaiah is also hilarious but surprisingly viable on him in Brodia; 5 base magic actually works well with a heal staff to top up a unit early. However, Great Sacrifice only nets him about 20~ish EXP max in Maddening, whereas other units can easily gain 75 EXP with it. Also, mages like Clanne or Citrine would prefer having it if you're into chain-rewarping; the Rewarp staff with Micaiah has +1 range, so it can hitch adjacent units along for the rewarp ride, and Mystical type classes get more Rewarp range with her. So it is a very competitive emblem.

Personally, I'd say it's best to reclass him to Great Knight. Even from base his stats stay much more competitively that way. Assuming ofc you do want to use him.

[Hardest Map Thus Far]

On 1/23/2023 at 5:05 PM, Shadow Mir said:

IIRC... Nope. It was AFTER this one the shop gets them (albeit limited). And infinite tonics.

Oh wow. So what I'm getting is that Chloé promotion to Griffin Knight is gonna be key to Maddening LTCs. In fact, someone linked me a ch10 Maddening 3-turn clear with her too: https://youtu.be/p-0_AMypwiI

Albeit... they relied on avoid and crits to clear it that fast. The Avoid part seems reliable since you can inherit Avo+10 from Marth, there's also Sigurd and Micaiah's engravings which give big Avo bonuses, and Alear with Marth emblem is pretty heavy with Avoid too (I think Rapier boosts it as well). What I think is super iffy is the crits... like even with forging, that's only 40ish% max you're reaching.

I'm not a fan of needing that much luck personally. I tried a similar strat but got a 4-turn clear instead, that's with less lucky crits. But I didn't lose anyone by comparison, and I am willing to say I made more effective use of getting exp with the units left behind at the bottom (Alcryst sniped Rosato, Framme got some heal exp for e.g.).

On 1/24/2023 at 3:36 PM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I actually managed to win it pretty easily once I remembered I had a pure water. Easy baiting at that point. I just did chapter 11 and it had me worried, but then Ivy comes in with rings and it was no sweat. I had heard both 10 and 11 were hard chapters, but I honestly didn't think so. Then again I'm not afraid to meatshields someone I'm gonna bench either. Had to let Vander and Jade both bite it inn the first part of 10. It's like sacking a Pokemon during a Nuzlocke. 

Thinking back, I'm gonna change my mind here and say that 10 was much harder. 11 sucks because no time crystal initially, but it's not too bad as long as you have restore staves and yeah, like you said getting it midway helps a lot.

10 however really pained me, I resorted to skipping it in a similar manner linked above. EXP and the chests be damned.

[Hardest Map Thus Far]

On 1/22/2023 at 1:29 AM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I'm not sure if Ivy will eventually pursue, but I have had to enter her threat range to get her to come to me, something that also requires me to be surrounded by many other units, as the endless army of flying units make their way 

Something I'm very, very glad I did before starting the first Brodia maps was having an early promoted Chloé into Griffin Knight. I used my first master seal from Anna's paralogue on her, and no regrets at all.

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 are all "defeat commander" objectives, and all of them have flying tome wielding bosses! She was an absolute lifesaver in baiting the bosses and clearing those maps quick.

For Chapter 8 specifically, there's a wall right below the ballista which only fliers can move on. The center tile of that wall is just on Ivy's tome range. That's exactly where I parked Chloé for an easy bait, forcing Ivy to use her tome instead of Leif's other weapons. Alcryst and Etie did wonders to weaken her with Ballista and Long Bow from there.

I frankly saw no other way to get through this map quickly without a flier (do you even get 2nd seals from the shop this early?). Those constant reinforcements are brutal.

--

I'd say personally that chapter 3, 5 and 11 on Maddening have been the hardest by far. 11 probably takes the cake if I had to choose only one though; freeze is a very mean status effect...

[Growth Method Explained]

5 hours ago, CompteSecours said:

I think it's nice reclassing doesn't keep stats.

It was total bullshit in Three Houses. "Everyone, go Wyvern for those juicy stats !! Then go back to your original class".

Why would an archer have the same build as a knight ?

Fair enough sentiment.

But to be clear, you only kept the base stats in 3H. So a Fortress Knight would have base 17 defense for e.g., quite higher than any other class. What you didn't keep though was the class bonus stats, which in the previous e.g. would be +10 defense from Fortress Knight for a total of 27 defense minimum.

So in other words, the only thing you kept if you reclassed out of Fortress Knight in 3H was 17 defense, not the additional +10, which I thought was okay and balanced honestly. I was assuming that it would have worked that way with 10 build in Engage, but it doesn't.

But again, fair enough point of view. I can see it that way too.

[Growth Method Explained]

3 hours ago, Nio said:

 

Im playing the game i just tried this with Timera, going from her promoted class to General (11 build), then back to her promotion and nope, she got her original Build. That sucks honestly.

oh man, that does suck. Thanks for confirming.

2 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

If you are worried about low attack speed, wouldn't it be a better approach to focus on maximizing speed than build?

For the single player game, maybe. It depends on enemy stats and what will be "good enough" to break certain speed tiers to double enemies.

If making a defense outrealm team, you'd probably want to maximize both eventually, since both have caps and you wouldn't want to lose speed anywhere to give other players the most challenge. Not unless you're putting a defensive oriented stack armored unit-type.

I'm guessing here too.

[Growth Method Explained]

54 minutes ago, CompteSecours said:

I'm not sure about that. It was possible in TH but not in Fates.

Has someone tried it ?

Hmm, I was assuming that it'd work based off 3H/Echoes method. Truthfully I forgot whether it worked this way in Fates and prior games, so you have a point, it might not even work with base stats transferred either.

I'll dig around some more.

[Growth Method Explained]

So "Build" is the stat in this game that affects Attack Speed, kinda like Con in previous games. If it's 1:1 as leaks have noted, then it's going to be pretty important to increase before settling on an advanced class so that units can use the heavier and stronger weapons without receiving a significant bump to your attack speed.

Fixed growths obviously can complicate this though. Reason number 1 being that build growth is low overall and relying on lucky level ups just won't cut it. Reason number 2 is that some units simply have 0% growth for build to start, due to their combinations of starting class and growths.

What can be done? Well, just like how it worked in Echoes and 3H (and prior games probably), you could reclass to bump up base minimums. Not just Build growth, also your base Build stat.

From what I'm noting in leaks, these are the best classes to reclass to in order to bump up the stat:

• General - 10 base build
• Berserker - 9 base build

Early game notable ones:

• Any Armor - 7 base build
• Axe Fighter - 7 base build

As long as you reclass to it, you get the base Build minimum, and it'll carry over to whatever other class you want later. That base minimum will be quite significant too, as leaks have also noted some units have very low base build and very low growth (e.g. like Celine at 4 build and 5% growth, and a lot of stronger tomes are heavier than that). You can switch back to your preferred class afterwards. Thankfully, Engage lets you go from Advanced to Advanced class at any level as long as weapon proficiencies are met; not like Awakening which forced you to be at level 10 Advanced to reclass to another Advanced class.

I would personally say it'd be better to reclass first, and then after use any permanent stat boosters to increase build. That way it can more easily and realistically reach the classes Build cap.

EDIT: all this is an example as well and based on leaked info, not necessarily fully confirmed info. It might be possible that high enough speed stats can make the AS penalty moot too, pending expected enemy stats (if I have to guess, it'll be more important for defense team building where you want challengers to struggle as much as possible 😉 ). I'm merely using examples to explain how base minimums can be altered via reclassing, based on how they work in previous games.