DaveCozy

I thought Bernadetta was Bernie. She refers to herself in 3rd person like that for like half of her lines lol 😉 On topic: there's definitely politics in play with 3Hs lords and how they approach the same problem fundamentally clashes post-time skip. How do you associate them to said irl politicians though? I think you have to go in a bit more context there. Not that I'm disagreeing, just curious.

I know these replies are several months old but yeah, I agree that map really sucks on Maddening. In the context of Hunting by Daybreak, the one similarity both that and Anna's Paralogue have for me is that I try my best to finish them by avoiding as much combat as possible. Enemies are just really strong in both, in general. For HBD I try to make Byleth at least be a flier, specially if Dimitri is the lord cuz his on-foot class isn't getting far. Most of my other units are either flying or at least have range. I try my best to just hit and run as much as possible and kill the Assassins with Pass ASAP. Claude and Seteth flying helps a lot, I gotta say. Even if Seteth admittedly isn't as good as the lords, he's still pretty good to have if only because he's easier to manouver with. For Anna's paralogue, I think the best thing is the flying battalion with stride tbh. For that one I make Anna and Byleth fliers, and just hide in the bottom left corner of the map for all 10 turns. It's on a cliff and even the Bow Knights don't have enough range to reach you. I've done it normally without cheesing it even in non-CF routes but it is pretty hard. Strategy in loose terms is take the center of the map as fast possible and hold most units there, moving only the ones who can reliably kill or dodge or tank to dispatch the groups of enemies that don't move. Typically a very late part 1 paralogue clear if it's on a non-CF route.

Games that caught my eye:

Lol sorry, I followed the discussion. Didn't realize this was necro'd. Back then Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn were the only FE games I'd played. The comment for Armor still applies though, still have a soft spot for them even if they aren't very good in most games. Even now though I still wonder why they made Gatrie so fast! 20 base speed + 60% speed growth in Radiant Dawn... in a bigass suit of armor! Lol. Did he eat the Knight Ward? One of the best armor units in the series so far

None. I think refreshers are already really good in every Fire Emblem game they've been in. Giving up their turn to let another unit have another action is very useful in general as it lets you gain ground and manage combat experience better. Awakening's Dancer with Olivia being maybe the only exception, since Lunatic(+) enemies are real strong and come in large aggro packs, and I still think that's debatable. I used her fine in both Lunatic difficulties all the way to endgame. Refreshers rock. Not every unit has to enter combat to be useful.

Chapters 1 to 5 are the most challenging start in New Game Maddening imo. I realize this thread is old and TC may not still be looking for more advice, but for other readers here I'll copy paste some notes I've shared with friends: First thing I really recommend is to learn how the game calculates its combat values. There's plenty resources out there (Serenes included) and it's worth paying attention to that stuff. You'll always have some tools available to beat any challenge if you know the games math. Second thing I greatly recommend is to learn the route you're doing and plan your team before you start. Know what the units you're planning to use learn as they get skill ranks and plan well in advance to set their goals and tutor them on those things to reach the needed ranks in time. Aside that, keep your main combat team to a reasonable number too; about 8 combat units is a fine number, more is doable too. You can fill the rest of your deployment slots with supporting units (with spells, rallies, gambits, or secondary effects) or chip damage, or in other words units that don't need to keep up in levels to be useful. Not everyone you deploy has to be good at a fight necessarily to be useful. Always look at enemies and their abilities before engaging and finishing your move. Don't trust the battle forecast without first analyzing those things, lest you be surprised by a Vantage counter-attack when you engage an enemy. Explore is by far the best choice when in the Monastery. For battles, I would recommend doing those only for quests and paralogues, and preferably at the end of the month (depends on the route and month). I recommend doing Flayn's early fishing quest and using your bait to fish until your prof level gets to E+. Try not to miss any fish and try to wait until you get at least a red shadow (you can skip up to two fish, but take the third one to not waste bait). This will increase the amount of instructions you have for lectures. And it gives you head start into the next week with 2 activity points which is way better than 1. Otherwise save fishing bait for Fistfull of Fish (you get a ton of money with good timing), or when you need to cook things like bullheads for +speed. There's one week in chapter 2 where you have to choose between rest and seminar. I recommend seminar and choose Seteth, which trains lances and authority. This is relevant for female units who want to go into pegasus knight, male units with swift strikes, mages that learn frozen lance (very strong magical CA that nukes enemies), and any unit that learns rallies which are at least helpful early game (some which stay helpful further). A lot of units fall into that category. You can control who attends the seminar by setting their goals to those (Byleth + 5 other students). Best use of activity points: cook something that boosts a stat (speed preferably) once per week, dine with your students, use faculty training to boost Byleth's ranks, tournament for money and the most prof experience. Generally I recommend going for as much professor experience as possible to get the most out of your weekends. Gift the students you want to recruit aggressively and early. Remember you can also increase motivation of your students by giving them gifts, doing support conversations when they want to see you (only then!), and giving them their lost items. All of those raise motivation and don't cost any activity points. Certifying classes lets you boost stat minimums for your units. Relevant e.g. is Armored Knight to boost base defense of a unit to 12. Battalions and gambits are OP. Stat boosts for equipping them and stun-locking enemies is very helpful early-game. Stride is super useful in general and later support gambits like Impregnable Wall and Blessing can make units unkillable. Use Combat Arts early for maximum damage to kill first before enemies even counter. Durability doesn't matter much later because most weapons are easy to repair (you can buy common ore from the market on the monastery). Equip your lighter weapons (training ones, swords, mini bow, etc) to engage enemies on their turn if you have to bait them. Generally try to strike first though.

Yeah in terms of canon I don't think there really is a route that is defined as one. And honestly there doesn't need to be either, not everything needs a golden or true ending. Anyway, story-wise I agree it's not the greatest route, arguably the worst. But when it comes to the gameplay challenge I think it's fun enough to give it at least one try. That's why I personally think it's worth playing.

I have a soft spot for Armored Knights -> Generals. They look badass in most games they're in. I also like that their niche is to just take hits and tank. It's a class that sucks in most games for the player due to their cursed movement, but it's also an annoying enemy to fight because they're already where they need to be to defend typically. Although they've made defense tanking something valuable for the player too, if at least for some missions, in recent FE games. I've liked seeing some polish in usability.

Yeah absolutely, Hunter's Volley is a broken combat art. It is definitely a good thing for Ashe to have relevant boons that lean towards that, Axe also is nice for Death Blow. The main thing for me comes down to Gilbert is at least ready to contribute (however minor). Getting Ashe to level 20 though to get him the things that fix him... that's the thing. It isn't impossible by any means, I've done it before. It's just that his damage while getting there is really underwhelming, and he's also real frail which is not a good combination. He doesn't really learn anything notably useful aside the standard bow arts everyone else already does, and Deadeye being his only somewhat unique and useful one. That also makes it tough to justify deploying him. Generally I find he needs to be fed kills to keep up beyond just chipping, till at he at least gets to level 10 and certifies Brigand. Then again I'm also one of the players who fed Rolf a bunch of kills in PoR just to try and make him something relevant. I will say at least Ashe isn't close to needing the same amount of babying. Not even comparable. Cool thing about 3H in general is how everyone can be good and usable, even the worst units.

If you have DLC Balthus is unquestionably the tanky character you should be going for. Without DLC I would recommend making Alois a Fortress Knight; C armor rank is good enough to try and save scum the exam if you're up for it. Other options are to recruit Raphael, though he is not the easiest to recruit, or at worst there's Caspar, but the he has a lot of issues (his in-house stats suck and his authority bane also holds him back from reliably equipping better and tankier battalions). I agree too that the final boss is hard, I'd say the hardest endgame out of all routes. I really recommend a good number of units that wield bows for that endgame.

In any difficulty other than Normal, Marth's capped stats are still too low and throwing him to Medeus on higher difficulties is just a bad idea. For reference, Marth can only have 25 speed capped, while Medeus has 30. Medeus still doubles a capped Marth lol, and is at a huge risk to die. In general, I'm convinced that harder difficulties for Shadow Dragon did not get quality tested at all just due to things like that. TBH even with that he very likely still is the worst mage in the game. At best he's tied with Lorenz for that spot... and Lorenz at least learns Frozen Lance to nuke enemies with in part 1 so I'm still willing to bet worse than him. Interestingly Hanneman supports the majority of mages, so he works quite well as an adjutant for all routes. As far as combat spells though, he's really slow, to the point where he even struggles one-rounding some armors in Maddening without getting growths on speed. That's really my biggest issue with him, since that's the one unit type I would expect mages to handle reliably without having to rely on stat growths and boosters. Probably not the worst unit in the game but I will safely bet he's the worst mage in 3H. Dark Holy Elf already said most of what I wanted to say regarding this. Just to add some things: Rally Charm can and should be absolutely picked up by chapter 2, which will make Dorothea more useful than just 4 thunders. You can do that by just setting her to solo-authority, tutoring her at base motivation, and picking Seteth's seminar. Even if you ditch using her later in the game (or will make her your dancer) this is very low commitment to do. FWiW even if DLC isn't an option, Hit+20 is not much work either, specially by chapter 8 she can easily certify it at that point too. Adjutanting Mages to master that class is a necessity anyways and so nothing really changes between them if we're talking in-house Dorothea. Out of house is a different discussion but I think it'd be more productive to compare Hanneman to the other mages you'll likely be using instead, since his main competition isn't necessarily just Dorothea. Another point for Dorothea that I didn't see mentioned was Gremory, that class is really good for her considering x2 the physic uses and x2 the Thoron uses too. There's a funny but effective thing you can do with Defiant Magic; equipping Thyrsus and using the Devil Sword with Hexblade (or even just on breakable walls). She takes 20 damage with both, 10 if you use longer range instead, and since HP of mages is low it takes about two turns to activate Defiant Magic. It's a bit of a meme in terms of setup, but it's reliable in some maps and makes her a harder hitter than a lot of mages (and also increases the range of Physic too). Strictly speaking I consider Gilbert to be a worse Alois, which doesn't bode well for Gilbert either given you can just use Alois too. Both are similar in terms of stats, abilities and role, but Alois has better ranks to go something more relevant like War Master for endgame, whereas Gilbert has to make do with either Great Knight (literally the only unit who can use the class when it's role matters) or put the work in his flying rank for Wyvern Rider -> Lord (and as you said it's not a very unique role). Even if you consider Gilbert's armor rank and Fortress Knight as an early advantage, Alois has C armor so even he could just attempt to certify Fortress Knight too 😛 And seriously, who the hell in IS thought three prowess abilities with a steel axe and intermediate seal was good equipment for Gilbert, in Hunting by Daybreak of all chapters... 😞 at least give him a shield, sheesh. I do want to defend Gilbert a bit though, because Dedue does leave between chapter 13 - 16 and that's where Gilbert really comes in useful. Once you finish ch13, he can certify Paladin at base to bump his base speed to 14; that prevents him from being doubled by armor enemies. Chapter 14 is a map where you want an armor to safely bait and tank the pegasus knights and assassins, and since Dedue is gone he's one option. He can become a Great Knight or Wyvern Rider by chapter 15 too; he's only 4 levels away from Great Knight certification and very close in riding rank to attempt the exam fwiw. And honestly, as a Wyvern Lord he is at worst a flying Smite-bot which at least is something that could be useful later in the game for positioning shenanigans. I dunno if I'd put Gilbert near the likes of Anna or Ashe tbh because at least he's got some merits. I still think that the latter two are probably the worst units in the game due to just being so underwhelming in either an offensive or supportive role.

Note that Battalion Wrath and Wrath only work on enemy phase, not player phase. You don't get +50 crit if you engage enemies, only if they engage you. You need defiant crit to reach 100 or more crit on player phase and that requires Wyvern Lord mastery, which is realistically not happening chapter 14 in any route. Hence why I go Vantage + B. Wrath for this chapter. Just as my preferred solution anyway. Definitely not the only one out there, just the one I prefer for dealing with the Wyvern Lord reinforcements and Nader. The latter who otherwise becomes untouchable if his defiant avoid activates and it's a struggle at that point to do much.

thanks, it's moreso the setup that is a learning curve. Resources aren't actually expended much. Just to explain a few things: the selling point of Hero is Vantage, not Swordfaire necessarily. I choose Sword Prowess and Axebreaker for two reasons: Wo Dao+ has the highest crit rate of any weapon in the game, and a sword+axebreaker is necessary to get good hit rates on the wyvern lords. Vantage is what makes the build reliable. You could also run Death Knight (or Wyvern Rider) but you likely won't have Vantage either. I'd be wary of trying to bait and crit Wyverns at that point - they're very fast, and even though Axebreaker helps, they still have around 50ish displayed hit (to my recollection) which is an iffy dodge. That's why I stick with Hero for Vantage to hit and kill first. I don't go through the ships either, I stick to the straight path through the city. This is what the map looks like when the ships come: The Sniper in the bottom right of the city is where I put Hero Jeritza, since the Wyverns from the ship and their spam of reinforcements fly straight towards that spot and sit just out of reach in the water before they get close. A handful of them will target him if he's the only unit in range and the rest of the reinforcements will fly close to him because he'll be the closest unit. So he doesn't have to really move from that spot much until you've cleared out enough enemies to safely start approaching Claude and Nader. You'd think the 5 move on Hero would be a constant issue, but it really isn't as bad since there's enough ways to play around it. Stride in turn 1, take care of Lysethia's/Gremory commander's group first with a handful of units and a gambit to assist, set up my low HP units (Jeritza and Bernadetta) and send Edelgard on a Wyvern to get near the enemies guarding the gates. Then turn 2 is to position all my units (Jeritza included) within the city and handle the ship enemies that flew close + get ready for their reinforcements - including the bow knights that are hot on my tail from the bottom right ship using the other units that didn't get strided - and start killing the enemies guarding the gates with Edelgard. This way I simultaneously take care of both sets of reinforcements before turn 4 ends, and don't give the city reinforcements any chance to spawn. Once all enemies in the city are taken care of, you can move Jeritza near the group of War Masters and Warriors and in Nader's range near his ship; just stay out of the nearby Sniper's range. For that you use something like Warp or a flier with Reposition; note the top wall above the bottom right sniper in the city is only one tile. And again, you can just choose to have Jeritza bait a few of the axe enemies, and have your other units going around the buildings through the straight path kill the rest if you want to share the EXP. EDIT: if you don't feel like mastering Hero, you can also go with Dex+4 instead of Mastermind for perfect Enemy Phase crit rate on the Wyvern Lord enemies too.

Indeed, I see where the confusion lied now. What I meant was that the Path of Radiance JP game had no easy difficulty in terms of gameplay, the Normal mode in that game is the "easiest" difficulty there. We didn't get a Maniac difficulty. Radiant Dawn has different names for difficulties but that is all, they are unchanged otherwise in terms of gameplay. It's why if you insert a GameCube memory card on your Wii with an NA Path of Radiance Easy file, and try to do a transfer to Radiant Dawn on Wii (any localization), Radiant Dawn crashes. Easy difficulty from the NA version was just not something the devs programmed save transfers for. You have to delete Easy PoR data from the memory card before trying a save transfer. Path of Radiance was my first Fire Emblem game btw and I found easy to be way too simple without having ever played a turn based tactics game. I really think Normal is a better way to first experience the game. Edit; fwiw I also enjoyed Maddening in FE3H. The difficulty spike between Hard -> Maddening in that game is very poorly done, but compared to other FE hardest difficulties it at least feels like you always have tools to help you climb a steep hill. Agree with the user who said that Lunatic+ in Awakening is a whole lot of BS. Random overpowered skills on all enemies is way dumb. I'm pretty sure that if the Fighter on Ch1 with a hammer has Hawkeye the chapter is basically impossible

I agree that Vantage/Wrath is ultimately better, but remember that you have to master Warrior to get that, while B. Wrath is a C authority skill for the majority of units that learn it. It's what I meant when I said less investment earlier in the thread. It's one good point that Shadow Mir brought up about Wrath being in an Advanced class taking investment to get. That is why B Wrath has value if only temporarily... and it can be either on a unit who's going for a crit build or on a completely different unit that can just set it up from the get-go and then ditch it later when someone else has the better version. You definitely don't need to reclass to use Hero. It's just an option if you'd rather have an EP unit earlier than when you're likely done mastering Wrath. Off the top of my head the only unit that ever masters an Advanced class before part 2 starts is Shamir, and for her... well she's an early joining Sniper. Also in regards to Raphael, I actually do not like him with Vantage + Wrath. On paper he would be perfect for it, but his personal ability randomly healing him makes the combo inconsistent to use with him. I agree with Dedue and Balthus though

I train authority on almost every unit I use. Bane, Boon or neutral. Save for specialized ones like Linhardt who don't need it. I get A authority on a booned unit before chapter 10. Dimitri, Annette, Ignatz, Hubert, Constance or Yuri are some e.g. Except for Dimitri whose priority for A rank authority is obviously combat oriented, the rest usually go for it as one constant goal (not the only one) and primary tutoring lessons. Their combat suffers somewhat compared to if I hadn't focused on Authority as much, but that's not what I'm using them for anyways, it's to carry support battalions to help the rest of my team. I only use one unit in that role in my main team too, which helps me alleviate having to level them up as much. For B authority I only get that on a handful of others shortly after, before chapter 10's main mission earliest but more realistically chapter 11. That is doable by setting it as one steady goal and occasionally tutoring on it. Usually on units who want to fly or units who just want to high move with good combat stats. There's several e.g. for those, but they at least have neutral Authority. The ones with banes are at C Authority at best by that point, and usually don't go past that. After C you fight the bane too much to be worth it. The reason why I think Authority is so important is because battalions are essentially a set of very broken equipment you can put on a unit to boost their stats significantly. I don't try to keep up with enemies when it comes to stats in Maddening, because it feels like a fools errand. They're always way too strong to be worth bothering with, but Authority rank is something I can invest on outside of battle and gives me an avenue to keep up better. Chapter 10 (or probably before that) is when most units are also hitting level 20 to go into advanced classes. Those are the units, yeah. It is limited to them indeed, but they are all available in one form or another in part 2 as well. You need C rank Sword minimum to attempt the Hero exam with the ones you mentioned indeed, since they are well past the Axe rank already. C rank swords is not a huge investment though at part 2 when saint statues and Byleth having a naturally higher sword rank boosts that. If I recall correctly I get both of them to Hero for chapter 15 in most routes, but usually I only swap to it for paralogues. Nothing stops you from getting Death Blow while that is being trained either. The thing with Jeritza getting Def str over Death Blow, I was just listing it as another option, not necessarily a better one. The reason I sometimes go for it (key word, sometimes) is because I don't feel like adjutanting a Brigand and would rather use Jeritza in an advanced class. Ditto with Seteth. Also, you're not using a Vantage/B. Wrath unit to necessarily bait and kill everything in the map either. Maps are pretty big by part 2. They can handle one section of the map at best, but more realistically, they are only baiting the high movement and fast enemies like Assassins or Grapplers. Remember that enemies come in groups and if you bait one of them, usually all the rest move too. The Vantage/B. Wrath combo is designed to take care of the more dangerous ones first, then let the rest of your units bully the ones who walked forward and fell behind. At least, that's how I use it, and I have no complaints. I use my dodge tanks and crit blocks later in the game in a similar fashion. This is why I said, maybe it's just a playstyle thing. Actually, it's chapter 14 where I find the highest reward for Jeritza as Hero. Half the enemies in that chapter have axes (the other half bows) and a handful of them are Wyvern Riders and Wyvern Lords. The reinforcements are also Wyverns, and they're relentless. They fly straight towards the city where your grounded units are moving towards as well. This is where the setup and planning comes into play, and why I understand some folks not liking all the pre-amp that comes with it. But with all the work, you can make dealing with those wyverns pretty easy at the end of it. It's just one possible solution, but it's a viable one. That's what I've been getting at. Let me demonstrate: Jeritza as Hero with Axebreaker, Sword prof, Defensive Tactics, Mastermind and B. Wrath is what I usually run for abilities at that point of the game. The crit boosts respectively come from Jeritza's own crit rate as Hero (+14), B. Wrath (+50), critical ring(+5), Fraldarius Soldiers (+20 max level, I recruit Felix late and cheese his paralogue tbh) and a forged Wo Dao+ (+40) with a forged Killer Edge (+35) as backup. Aside having good hit rate since we know there's a large amount of enemies wielding axes, he also has 129 crit rate (124 with the latter). Taking one hit from an enemy is enough to activate vantage and that's all he needs - Jeritza has 27 speed at base as Hero, Warriors and Snipers do not double him. You don't even need Retribution because almost none of the axe enemies have 2-range. The Wyvern Lords with 21 luck +10 crit avo from prowess, that to 98 displayed crit... the risk you're taking is very small here to not crit. Worth noting; Nader has 15 luck only in Maddening, so he gets 100% critted, guaranteed. This build makes him a non-issue. EDIT: updated to correct above values. I forgot to calc (Dex+Lck)/2 and forgot about the enemies prowess too. Still changes changes nothing in regards to the main point. Black Sand steel is all you need to maintain the above weapons, which is infinite to buy from the east merchant in the monastery and you get a ton of gold in this game thanks to fishing. The rest of the bow enemies can be dealt with other units too, and in fact you don't even need Jeritza to hog all the experience either if you don't want to. You could just let him take on one or two Wyverns to minimize getting overwhelmed, and let the rest of the other enemies that approach be dealt with other units. Just because you build a unit to function like a crit block doesn't mean you have to use them to kill everything. In fact, that's actually pretty hard to build because enemy breaker skills and weapons are much more varied. Battalion Wrath works for more specialized, but still relevant cases like what I described above. That's just one e.g. that is fresh off my head, since it's the route I literally am doing right now on Maddening. And yeah, admittedly, a lot of prep work goes into something like described above. Low-investment abilities doesn't mean no skill or forethought is involved either. I'm just demonstrating how it all comes together to show how it can be a viable option. In particular before Falcon Knights and Wyvern Lord certifications are possible to help make avo-tanking more reliable with avo+10, because your units are not likely at level 30 on Maddening at chapter 14 either since EXP gain is nerfed. I'm actually past chapter 15 and I've already mastered Hero with Jeritza and ditched the class. I swapped him to Death Knight and gave him darting blow to be more player phase focused 😛 again, Hero and B. Wrath for that matter are not something I stick with till the end, just tools that are useful for a part of the game.

Pretty much every Fire Emblem game from Blazing Blade onwards is doable on their Normal/Classic difficulties. Maybe except Radiant Dawn. Blazing Blade = simply known as Fire Emblem in the west. I haven't played Sacred Stones nor Valentia but I've heard both are pretty manageable FEs on Normal/Classic. Also haven't played New Mystery, no idea on that one though. Path of Radiance Normal is JPs easy difficulty. Even Hard is very manageable. Shadow Dragon on the default difficulty is pretty light and easy. The NES original game is too fwiw, although that game is also a relic and the outdated feel is not for everyone's enjoyment (I personally liked it but I can understand why modern fans wouldn't) Awakening Normal is pretty easy too. Fates I've only done Birthright but it's pretty easy on Normal too. Same with 3 Houses, Normal is very doable. So is Hard fwiw. -- Honestly Radiant Dawn is the only one I have played that I can think of which can be fairly difficult, even in Normal. In general that is a tough game as a whole. Oh and obviously stay away from things like Lunatic+ in Awakening and Shadow Dragon H5 if you want to keep your sanity. Masochists only for those.

I'm curious about Rally Magic by chapter 8, which is where Hanneman gets recruited earliest. That's the one rally on Hubert/Ingrid that I get good use out of early game, but is usually the first to go for me as well. What do you personally find useful about it by that point? And yeah he probably is better than Ashe and Anna tbh, coming with Thoron does give him better chances of grabbing more exp than the latters chip damage. You're probably right about that. Marth was definitely me exaggerating too, I just get so sad when I see him in Shadow Dragon. Wanted to vent is all. I seriously think Lyre was supposed to join earlier but then the programmers decided Wolves were a better concept, and so Volug the mute with almost no writing was born. And then forgot to adjust Lyres stats. Only thing that makes sense to me.

For the record I get the points and they're good ones, I'm not denying that there's no setup involved or that it isn't tedious. Thing is that something like Battalion Wrath is very early to get, by comparison to something like Alert+, Defiant dodge (assuming that's something you use for dodge tanks), breaker ability, a better weapon proficiency ability for extra dodge, etc. all come into play too. I like dodge tanks as well but I'm also not desperate enough to throw something like Sword Avo+20 on one and put aside dancing either... Really that's what my entire posts come down to. Battalion Wrath + Vantage on Hero is a temporary useful trait. Not the end goal. Doesn't mean it isn't or can't be useful to use because it's not the end goal. As another e.g. is a class like Fortress Knights. Their 4 move is obviously awful and they need to be moved with stride and shoves probably to get where they need to get. But their protection is very high, and stacking them to the teeth with a good shield and a good battalion also results in a pretty low investment bait that can tink hits. Obviously not something to use once maps get big and seige magic is more common (route dependent)... but when nothing better is around... Well why not? It's the same thing I'm saying regards to Hero as a class. Specially when units like Jeritza literally just need an advanced seal (he already meets all the ranks) and a battalion at that endurance set up already. No mastery at all required and he can go back to Death Knight of Wvern after you don't need the class anymore. Personal note, I find it more trouble to master Brigand with late joiners since intermediate stats aren't up to par by this point, so that's where I sub in Defiant Strength sometimes. Not ideal obviously but it's a different approach than having to adjutant an otherwise combat ready unit to master an intermediate class. In regards to defiant strength, fair enough. I think it's a fine enough trade-off for the high risk, but it is high risk to be at low HP and I get not wanting to play like that either. I'm fine agreeing to disagree. I've already addressed this misconception of switching low endurance battalions after every fight in previous posts. Will quote for you: And before I get misquoted again, let me stress. The goal is to only do this for the parts of the game before you have better abilities, not all the way to endgame. So no, you're not necessarily depleting and changing your battalion a whole lot either, if at all.

For the ones I've played: Blazing Blade: gotta be Karla for being a pain to recruit and being absolutely terrible. Requiring having Bartre, a pretty mediocre unit, as a level 5 Warrior is already a pain enough. The cherry on top is how bad her stats suck. Most useful thing about her is that she comes with the Wo Dao which you can at least sell lol -- PoR - Rolf takes the cake but Mia is a close 2nd in that game. Problem with both is that they're in bad classes with either no range or no 1-range counterattacks, in a game that is very enemy phase dependent. And they're very weak too in general when they join. I guess Mia is slightly better though because axe enemies are still somewhat common when she joins, whereas Rolf just outright struggles without being fed BEXP. Honestly best use I've seen from Rolf is to Longbow snipe a Pegasus Knight in chapter 17-4; but even then, killing that Peggy can also be done by a strong Jill or Marcia instead. -- RD: The unholy trinity of Astrid, Vika and Lyre. All of them suck so bad. Okay maybe Vika can at least shove someone and fly away in part 1 lol, I guess that's something, but her awful bases and availability make training her impossible. Astrid suffers from equally awful bases and bowlock, even with a mount her damage never gets better and her availability kills her too. Lyre is probably the worst just cuz an Est-like unit on a bad class will be bad regardless. -- SD: I know there's technically worse but Marth just sucks. It's sad to see how they didn't want to give him the rest of the cool stuff other units got - class changing, promotion, low stat caps that don't even help him in the higher difficulties of the game. To top it off he's in heavy lance-enemy game locked to swords, like wtf. I know he's not the worst unit in that game, but I just wanted to call that out because of how overlooked he got. Main lord should ideally be at least a bit helpful, not a hindrance. -- Awakening: it's Donnel. Requiring a second seal to escape villager with abysmally bad stats is already bad enough, it's even worse that he has to start from bronze E swords or axes upon reclass. Even if you baby him, he only ends up slightly better before he caps stats by midgame, which is also the easiest part of the game where no units should really be struggling. By endgame other units catch up and he's not special at all. -- Three Houses: Honestly units are pretty well balanced in this game, to the point where they're all relatively useful to some extent. Mostly because the reclassing system is incredibly flexible, and there's really good classes with really good tools that can basically fix any bad unit. With that in mind I think the worst unit is the one that struggles the most getting to an Advanced class... I think it's between Hanneman, Ashe or Anna. Hanneman is way slow when he joins, normally not an issue but he can't even double ch12 armors (in Maddening) without a speed wing or carrot, something no other mage struggles with. His bow arts are a joke too. Probably the best thing about him is he has Thoron as a 1-3 range spell to start and at least his magic stat is good enough to use the Magic Bow with his boon. Ashe is the closest you get to a really generic sniper unit. Bad stats in and out of house, with the only real notable thing he learns being Deadeye. His damage is bad and his durability is comparable to Annette, so he's a constant liability to deploy and he's hard to level up too without feeding him kills. His saving grace is that he's at least straightforward to train with good boons in Axes and Bows. Anna has awful stats and very limited support abilities (break shot and Rescue, Rally Luck too I guess). Worst thing about Anna are her skill ranks and no supports, the latter which wouldn't be too significant if it was only a her problem, but the way the game assigns supports is by deployment order (lol) so she can actually butt in on a linked attack and take someone else's priority, giving no bonus. The skill ranks are an issue too; while she at least has good boons in physical weapons, bane in authority is always bad to have since you really want better battalions by part 2, and bane in reason is terrible too since it's hard to get her in better magic classes, and she can't really pull off Bishop well due to poor Faith list besides Rescue. Leveling up all three of them is still a struggle though, and that's what matters in 3H due to reclassing being primarily level dependent - ranks too, although you can cheese exams with lower requirements to a certain extent. And at least with all three of them, there's some reason you might want to invest in them, which is more than I can say for previous games worst units.

I like Armored Knights in all Fire Emblem games

I see. To be fair a V/W setup doesn't have that many ways of being destroyed though. There are ways to deal with ballistas and monsters like I said earlier though, that's where the team composition comes into play too (one thing I forgot to mention with monsters is that their beeg size sometimes forces them to get stuck on "chokepoints" if you put a unit in their way, depending on the map that greatly reduces their attack range and movement). Other teammates are just important to the success of a unit wielding the combo. Beyond that equipment, the battalion choice, Rally Dex and rally speed, etcetera help for that. All these things take planning, but getting them isn't actually much work. It's the setup that is a pain, which is done chapters in advance and which is admittedly, the learning curve and the annoyance. So I get it. Not gonna argue with the fact that you don't like it. I'd say it's worth it though, seems unfair to say it isn't just because it takes an advanced mastery. Enemies in maddening are chunky with HP, so I like having as many units with some kind of nuke offense. Whether that means getting both Death and Darting blows, or whether it means I go for Vantage and (B) Wrath and then eventually put a better more manageable combo later, that comes down to the unit and what they can access reliably. For what it's worth, I only go for Vantage + Wrath on units that already learn Battalion Wrath already so I can at least sub that in first, and if they have a reliable way of getting to Warrior and mastering it before getting to at least the least 4 chapters of their route. Obviously going for Wrath on a unit like Hubert would be wasteful, so this setup is something that works depending on unit strengths too. Not something I recommend for every unit in your party either, in fact it's moreso a specialized build for one, maybe two max units that you are using regularly.

I do agree with that and that is part of the high maintenance I was talking about. When I mentioned low investment I was referring moreso to skill ranks, since again something like the Battalion abilities are mastered easily for some units. But yeah it is definitely something that needs setup and that's where I get the sentiment. I don't disagree with the amount of management it takes, I'm just saying the reward shouldn't be dismissed either. Maybe it's a playstyle thing here. I don't ever find myself in situations where I want my player-phase focused to get hit. That's where I have other units for that job, like Fortress Knights in the midgame part to lure a bunch of enemies at once and tink them. Later on it's war masters or dodge tanks. The defiant units clean-up afterwards. Just what works for me. Imma be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. I am missing the reference. Dunno how your playthroughs are like but I don't usually run out of retribution in any part 2 chapters. You have 2 uses that last 5 turns each, and 10 turns per maps is really doable to clear. Paralogues included. Archer and Mercenary are pretty easy to master as well, not sure what the issue is there. I already master Brigand and Peggy Knight with a female unit and usually I pick up Hit+20 on top of that, one is done as an adjutant usually. It's just a different role for a bit more class Exp needed for Wrath, which is a pain but is still possible and doable. Anyway that's probably enough of me arguing for these. Maybe I just like high risk play more and that's probably why I don't value staying at high health. Probably just a playstyle preference.

There's units who have Authority boons and easy ways to run the indech sword fighters by chapter 10. Even before that honestly. Reaching A authority is not an issue at all with those units. Every route has one too. Missing isn't an issue when you have hit+20 to boost accuracy. That is why that ability is important on basically every combat unit you're using (unless you have Valkyrie). You can gambit monsters and break their barriers, and they have really low movement anyway so staying out of their range to let the rest of your team deal with them first isn't hard. Ditto with armors. That's what the rest of your team is for, to deal with those enemies. Ballista is easy to deal with too with tools like warp and just generally having good movement units to kill the archer or sniper. Only a few chapters have multiple ballista that I can think of (ch12 CF) where you really might have trouble but those are more exceptions than anything off the top of my head. But again, you have other units for that. It's a group of units you're using after all, even with enemy bait and low HP builds... That is still true. But you do you mate. There's absolutely value to low-HP strats, but if you don't like them then that's fine. Doesn't mean the damage boost isn't worth it and they don't have value just cuz you don't like them though

Please expand on that then. Gambits are the only legitimate concerning thing I can think of that counter that combo supported by retribution, which can also be played around with other units in your party to deal with the enemies that have battalions. What is the other stuff that I am missing? I already addressed this on my post. B rank battalions have 35 endurance at 1/3rd health. You only need to be attacked once to reach under 50% HP realistically in Maddening. A battalion loses 1/2 health of the damage the unit takes, so you'd have to lose 70 HP in one hit for said battalion to retreat from 35 endurance. Realistically speaking you don't have any units near that number in HP stats by the point Hero is relevant. And it only counts damage done in combat too, so as I said things like Poison Strike can help you further without affecting battalion endurance. You're greatly exaggerating how often you're actually switching battalions, you just have to enter combat and get hit once to reach that threshold per map, and you can even mitigate that with self-damaging out of battle attributes too. Even if that's a concern you can also go for Defensive Tactics as an ability (curiously it becomes available at B rank authority), which reduces the endurance lost by 1/4th of damage taken, further giving you more maps to use it on. Also like I said, the end goal as well isn't to stick with B Wrath in a build like this either, unless you're Dmitri. So it's not like you rely on Battalion abilities till endgame either, you use them until you get better abilities that take more investment. Meaning you want to replace it with Wrath at some point. You're not going to need to manage battalion endurance forever, it's just something that is useful for a part of the game. Remember, B Wrath is a C Rank authority ability for some units, super low investment. Wrath on the other hand is Warrior mastery which is higher certification req and class use. And that's just Wrath too, you can replace with Quick Riposte or similar things you prefer. Point is all those things, admittedly better than Battalion abilities, still come much later. Again, please elaborate? +8 damage from defiant str, mag, avo or crit for that matter on both player and enemy phase is great otherwise, especially when reaching that threshold is easy. Just don't get hit afterwards to the point that you'll die. Obviously I'm also ignoring the pointless defiant defense and similar abilities too, those do suck