Eltosian Kadath

Not sure how unpopular this one is exactly, but I don't think I have shared it in this thread yet. Engage is a game that is funner to play than it is to talk about, while Three Houses is a game that is funner to talk about than it is to play. I would like to hear you elaborate on that point a bit, as I find it a bit surprising. The other remakes almost killed the franchise, and they didn't learn their lesson for Echoes, why would they have learned from this far lighter setback.

I don't think this is as bad a problem as you think, as I tend to find that being willing to sacrifice units to finish the game works as a solid alternative to the cheese strats most people use in endgame, people just aren't used to, or comfortable with those kind of strategies, and how to get the most out of them. I tend not to mention it much, but I legitimately believe Conquest endgame was designed with unit death in mind.

What makes it obnoxious to ironman is the numerous random unit dies death defeat conditions added to maps. Part 4 is where the defeat conditions are at their most sensible, but even then most of those maps have multiple game over units, which is worse than most games having just one. Somewhere between a half to a third of part 1 has the Any Ally Dies defeat conditions, and even when Radiant Dawn gets over that bad habit, characters can kind of randomly be added in as game over conditions even into part 3, worse yet sometimes its suicidal green units as well. I don't see how Fates is even in the running here. It can be a difficult game, but there are so many ways to replace your units if you want, gives you a lot of options to change up the units you have to fill holes, and I find it rather ironman friendly for its difficulty level. Blazing Blade on the other hand deserves some mention as a game that is distinctly ironman unfriendly for its difficulty level...

Its a bit obnoxious to dig through, but there is a link to the data-mined spreadsheet at the top of the page you linked to, which might have the information you are looking for in it. Alternatively you could ask about what information you are looking for here, which forum goers can probably provide.

Funnily enough, the Gods of Tellius are women. You do get to mix and match them a bit here, but eventually you get to pick of team of the best of the best (or whatever you think is funny to win the game with), for the tower. Fun fact, they do have a paired ending if you get them an A support in the end. Although Ike also has a paired ending with Soren to compete with it... What a mad lad. "The only good morning is the one you sleep through" - Me It is a long running joke that Yune gave Sothe's promotion the prominent midriff for Micaiah's viewing pleasure.

Getting the Dream World (or at least the Game Sync part of it) to work now a days requires some real janky incomplete software, and to setup some port forwarding on your router. Sometimes enemy move sets can be funny like that. Kind of reminds me of the Emerald fight with Aqua Admin Matt, where his Mightyena's only way of dealing damage is Swagger. I did always find it odd that his motivation is about the capture of his sister's Purrloin, and not his own... At least he doesn't leave any of us heartbroken by killing any of your 'mons. Random side note, but I much prefer triple battles to rotation battles... That really is a great word. It would be funny if you managed to luck into any of the other N pokemon... The change to the exp formula in Gen 5 can be a bit of a nuisance at times... My Bouchy Boy... The safer strat would have been to lead with a pokemon weak to Ground moves (like your Growlithe), that way you bait the AI into using a ground move, so with the Air Balloon it is a free switch into Ogmalfred with the Intimidate debuff gone. Oof, that is another of the units I promoted. Promoting my units really seems to be the kiss of death for them. Clay can sweep teams with that Excadrill if you aren't careful, so recognizing you needed to sack Merrine was a good play for the position you were in. Although recklessly losing my Bouchy Boy... That makes a lot of sense. Lunge is such an interesting skill to have around. Using pairup to skydrop Draug into the deep end like that is kind of funny to see. It also makes me wonder what a Fates style remake of New Mystery would look like (as I find the New Mystery version of this map far more memorable...) Its fun to see them anticipate your cheesy play, and at least try to punish it. Nice to see you went with Matthis in the end...also it looks like they updated those really janky MSpaint images from before with just FEH art. Ouch. Did she have the classic Witch Warp skill to really break things? The model just looks so out of place with the Fates ones. I am surprised they didn't just use one of the Echoes dragon model... Finally the Maligknight rises That is a nice skill to have on an armored knight. Fair enough. That perfect damage is beautiful to see Classic Gordin. Lol, Auras destructive power is too much for even the game itself to handle Nice to see them taking some Thracia inspiration with that weapon Nice Gaiden get. Oh, a double feature! While my first instinct is oh god not the Devil Axe, I seem to remember this version being rather milquetoast. That is a cool change. Time for me to...spin my wheels a bit, and do the Lucina paralogue to get more money to feed my fashion addiction, and figure out who to replace my dead with. Hopefully I get the next chapter out a bit sooner, as it is starting to feel like I am falling a bit behind with all this sudden activity.

An very simple alternative I have always thought would work is simply that Begnion offered Pelleas resources Daein desperately needed to get back on its feet in exchange for joining the war... There are some events only possible on a second playthrough, with some extremely specific requirements, including specific Path of Radiance support transfer requirements to even see, which frame a lot of things in a different light here. When you are done with the game, it might be worth looking it up, or letting some of us veterans spoil it for you. You do get to learn a little more posthumously, and on a second playthrough you have the option to let him live (and recruit him), to see a bit more. That is a solid point. It is a bit undercut by secret second playthrough secret reveals, but there is something compelling about him offering his life for his people, only for it to come to naught, with his mother morning the tragedy of outliving their child. I guess that is a morbid part of it too, that eventually most children outlive their parents, with parents outliving the child having that extra tinge of tragedy due to it being more unlikely. Part 4 isn't very long, but it is kind of interesting, especially with the Tear Ring Saga style army split at the beginning. Radiant Dawn utterly ruined Ike because they didn't know what to do with him after the clean completed arc they gave him in the first game.

Now for the rare classes whose main purpose is the novelty of being able to use the Fire Emblem games equivalent of the Goomba... S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game A Tier: A Good Class Fates: This class feels like the only tanky class in Birthright, and I feel that game is desperate for a few tanky units, so its getting my A tier ranking at least. It feels slightly biased to give it this ranking, especially with so little to say about the class, but being kind of boring beyond the novelty is the hallmark of these classes in general. Three Houses: It feels odd to rank what is only a beginner class (as the only other real lance focused infantry classes are Lord exclusive classes), but its a good choice for the beginner tier. Reposition is a great utility art to be working towards, and the boost to lance helps units reach certification for better mounted classes in the future. B Tier: An OK Class Engage: Its a perfectly serviceable backup class. The pincer attack skill is interesting on paper, but in practice is far more situational C Tier: A Subpar Class Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: This is literally the same class line as Armored Knight in this game, so I don't see them getting a different tier. Admittedly it is the early game where they shine most... Path of Radiance: Infantry only class with nothing too special going for it in a horse emblem game sounds like an easy recipe for C tier. At least it has more reliable 1-2 range to keep it from joining the Sword Masters in D tier Radiant Dawn: Not terribly much has changed for the Halberdier between sequels, and while I could talk about changes in the games environments (like the nerfs to normal cavs), this class has manages to stay just as unremarkable, barring the novelty of using what in earlier games would be an enemy exclusive mook class. This might be a bit harsh on it, and I could see someone talking me into putting it a bit higher, but this is where it falls for now. D Tier: A Bad Class Sacred Stones: I talked myself into including poor Amelia's class for Sacred Stones, and it obviously reaches D tier. None of the Recruits fair particularly well, but the other two have something interesting about them (Ross's early arrival and Pirate access; and Ewan's Summoner access, or full magic triangle with Super Trainee), whereas even if you go through the effort of training Amelia's version of Recruit, it gets you nothing special, either the awful Armored Knight line, or the massively over-saturated Cav line. Its not worth the effort of training, or using.

This was an odd one to rank. S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game Radiant Dawn: The Laguz in this game do vary a lot, but there are enough absolutely broken Laguz units that you get access to at varying parts of the game that I can't deny them the S tier. Starting in part one, you get the solid Voloug, who helps a lot in part one, and while he falls off a bit in the DB maps of Part three, you even get to use the utterly broken Wolf Queen for a few maps of part one, and even the blink and you miss her Vika has some special utility as the only flier in the swamp map. The Laguz of part 2 are fairly forgettable, but Part 3 brings back some solid entries with the Birds, and even the forgettable Lyre and Kyza are mostly so due to the far better Ranulf, and nearly identical but objectively superior Mordecai and Lethe showing up at about the same time. All of this talk is burying the lead, as Part 4 lets you use the Royal Laguz in earnest, and even some semi-Royal Laguz that are almost as good, and all of them are easy S tiers, and I would even say not bringing a Royal Laguz to the tower is a challenge run for this game. A Tier: A Good Class B Tier: An OK Class Awakening: I almost gave this class A tier, as the Manakete class has a lot going for it, and is definitely a debatable contender for A tier on its own. It doesn't break the game wide open, but the high defense, and 1-2 range make for a potent combo, but I do have a distinct memory of it taking a fair bit of effort to get them as good as those tools should make them...and I am burying the lead about the Taguel being at least one tier below this one if looked at alone. Sacred Stones: You wouldn't expect a low level growth unit to really work with as late as Myrrh arrives, but with Myrrh having effective damage against monsters, and how easy Sacred Stones tends to be, you can get some good work out of her. She also gets flight to give her slightly better movement capabilities. Being only one range definitely keeps her out of A tier, despite what she has going for her. Shadow Dragon: The two things Manaketes are most famous for, are Bantu being objectively the worst unit in this game, and for suiciding and reviving one being the best way to deal with Medeus on the highest difficulties. I will even give them credit for having some solid effective damage against enemy Manaketes, but by the time those are on a map, you should be warp skipping them to the end. Being the best method of dealing with an otherwise difficult final boss is something I feel I am giving them fair credit for here with this ranking. C Tier: A Subpar Class New Mystery of the Emblem: Bantu is still objectively the worst unit in the game, and with Divine Dragon stones losing its effective damage against Medeus, the class's greatest niche was lost, but the Secret Dragon Stone Shop gave it another. The Mage Dragon stone giving them immunity to all Magic damage (even the resistance ignoring spell...) is something useful the divine dragons can do, the Flying Dragon stone lets them hit speed tiers they otherwise couldn't (although the worst stat bonuses that comes with that are harsh), and the divine dragon stone has some nice stat bonuses, and effective damage against all other dragon...but you get the first divine dragon right after the major dragon arc where that would have really been most useful. I am giving this class a lot of praise for a C tier class, but you aren't able to access the Secret Dragon Stone shop on Lunatic, and Lunatic reverse difficulties, and if I am being honest, the only way you will know about this secret shop that is inaccessible without the warp staff (so it also cost a use of what would otherwise let you warp skip a chapter) is by looking it up. That is just a few too many caveats to get it into even the middle tier...although I must admit it is a close call, I am still considering letting them slip their way into B tier anyway. Path of Radiance: Theoretically you could make use of the Laguz, but they are not great. I definitely get just enough use out of their pushing (and smiting) capabilities to avoid the D tier...plus Ena is an out for a stat cursed Ike, if you read your luck early enough, and saved some good things to give Ena (to be fair, with Wrath-Resolve, and a few stat boosters she can pull off the minimum turn kill on him, but those are some of the best resources to use on a unit, and it takes some real shenanigans with equipping and unequipped the Laguz band to pull it off as well). I could see someone talking me into bringing them up to B tier due to that Ena utility, but it is simply so common for people to train up Ike for the Ashnard kill instead. Fates: I have already ranked Corrin and kid's class back in the Lord's section, so I will not be ranking them here (for those wondering they just barely eked their way into S tier, and would have definitely been driven down a tier if tied to these anchors). The Wolf and Fox classes are the only promoted classes that are locked to a single range, 1 range, which is a notable detriment to them. Personally I like the interplay between the tanky -rune, and the speedier and deadlier -stones, but in practice the class ends up rather underwhelming. Binding Blade: Fah has some funny utility with the stone buffs making her a rather good staff sponge, a deployment slot dedicated to her in the last map (although it is free for anyone to use if she dies), plus effective damage against Manaketes is a nice plus. In practice she acts a lot like Myrrh does in Sacred Stones, but in a game difficult enough to make training her harder, with less opportunity to use her effective damage, and without terrain ignoring flight. D Tier: A Bad Class

First off, after she uses her DV, you can counter it with one of your own to cancel the effect of hers, and still get the full effect of your own, which is debuffing the move of all flier, but increase the move of non-fliers. The buff of her DV should also effect your own fliers, so you can use it to your advantage at times as well, for instance if you are having trouble reaching the next DV due to the move debuff, having a flier available for a DV user to pair with and use the move buff to reach the DV, and then switch over to then activate is useful. Admittedly you do have to be a bit careful with this strat, as both Setsuna, and Azama have an infantry force with them that can get the move buff as well, but I find that more manageable than the high move fliers. You can also use the flyer move buff to jump Azama before he can hex your units, but if the one you send to assassinate him can't deal with the infantries allies around him, this might be a place where you have to pull out the Rescue staff. Admittedly its less vital below Lunatic, but keeping at least one Rescue use on each of the two Rescue staff you get is useful for endgame. Another piece of advise for getting the damage you need is to get the most out of the effective damage bows deal against fliers by using attack stance. Bows have very high base might, so when tripled they deal a lot of damage, and even when that damage is halved by being used in an attack stance, it is still a LOT of damage on them. Attack stance also has the advantage of giving at minimum +10 accuracy to the main attacker if you are having trouble hitting, and depending on supports can add even more (or other buffs like avoid, crit, and crit avoid). That is a little worrying, and makes me think you really overused your prepromotes earlier in the game. Fates actually has a rather steep experience penalty for overleveled units, which gets harsher with higher difficulties (and even has stop gaps against boss abusing, as chip exp starts diminishing if you keep getting it off the same enemy, but I digress a bit). I am not an expert in how the exp curve works in Normal mode, but seeing some units reaching 20/15 by chapter 24 is a normal enough number off the top of my head for higher difficulties. It can be difficult to arrange at times, but there are a lot of positional buffs you can use to make you units a lot tankier, your Troubadours/Strategists/Maids should get a skill that reduces the damage all opposite gendered allies within two spaces of them take by 2; Strategist's level 15 skill (which you might be reaching by now) is Inspiration which stacks with that and adds 2 more damage reduction on top of that by the same range; Elise's personal gives 3 damage reduction to any ally adjacent to her (so if you got her to a level 15 strategist, that is potentially +7 Def and Res by being next to her); add to that the level 5 skills of Defense rally (on Wyvern Lord), and Resistance Rally (Strategist again), for 4 more potential bulk; Corrin can add 3 Damage resistance to allies that either use his attack stance, or his pairup with at least a C rank support with them (which it wouldn't surprise me if everyone has by now), admittedly that last one can be a bit tricky to proc on enemy phase if you are using attack stance to do so, as if there are more than one ally adjacent on enemy phase, it picks the unit with the highest support points to use as attack stance partner; Corrin also gets a similar buff from Felicia or can use a 3 damage reduction version from Jakob, also the defense gains for having a Dragon Stone equipped are solid (+4 Defense and +3 Resistance for the basic one, and +9 Defense and +7 Resistance for the Dragonstone+) , although the speed penalties might make them more dangerous if you aren't careful with them (-2 and -4 speed respectively); Camilla also has the low yield +1 damage resistance to adjacent allies from her Rose's Thorns skill; and finally you have the two most difficult to position buffs, as they are dependent on enemy positioning, the level 25 dancer skill, that reduces the damage enemies can deal if they are within 2 spaces of her, and Izana's similar personal, which reduces the damage all units within 2 of him deal (which is a double edged swords as it effects your units too). Phew, that was a lot, but I generally find it fairly reasonable to 8-14 effective damage reduction using these skills when I need it, and could potentially get even higher if you need to.

Sorry you aren't enjoying Conquest, as once it really clicks, it can be a real blast. A lot of the fun of Conquest is in the interplay between when to be in the more defensive, but tactically restrictive and rigid pairup/Guard stance, and when to be in the more offensive, and flexible separated/Attack stance (admittedly I am more a fan of attack stance, which might be bleeding into my descriptions here). Baiting enemies in with a strong pairup, to then carefully chain together attack stances to wipe the enemy group out is a joy, especially when you get to play with the mobility added by your option to have separated units pairup within a turn, where you can do things like pairup with a closer/higher move ally to reach where you need to, switch over to them, and then transfer them over to an unpaired adjacent ally to get the attack stance hit you need for your kill, and later in the turn using another units action to transfer and separate the unit you transferred onto an ally to maintain your flexibility for next turn (or leave them as is for a more defensive option against some upcoming enemies, or perhaps you needed that unit's attack too, so you transferred and then switched to them to give them an attack as well). Skills are also a part of the game that people have a hard time really grokking how important they can be, as you need to watch out for them on enemies (on Hard and Lunatic at least, I started with Conquest on Hard, and while it pressed my abilities as a player to their absolute limit at the time, I never really looked back at Normal), but there are a lot of way you can use them to your advantage too. Personally I love how bulky you can make your units using positional buffs, things like Elise's Lily's Poise (which reduces damage to adjacent allies by 3, and increases the damage they deal by 1), Demoiselle/Gentilholme (Male/Female allies within 2 spaces take 2 less damage), Inspiration (allies within 2 take 2 less damage and deal 2 more) Corrin's Supportive skill (allies with at least C rank support with Corrin, using Corrin as an attack stance partner, or pairup partner takes 2 less damage, deals 2 more damage, and gets +10 accuracy), etc., which all stack (although multiple instances of the same skill don't), which can make for some remarkably tanky units (or more aggressive units, many of these skills have offensive counterparts, like Camilla's Rose's Thorns to Elise's Lily's Poise) with the right positioning. The mobility skills of Lunge and Shelter are really interesting in the players hands, although finding way to defang enemy Lunge traps can be difficult. Shelter has a lot of surprising utility, the more simple uses are to protect an unpaired unit by pushing them behind the user, or in creating the space you need to get the next attack (or get the right attack stance hit you need), but you can also use it as a pseudo-dance by Sheltering someone that already acted, and then have another unit transfer and switch to that unit to give them another action. Lunge is less flashy in the players hand, but surprisingly useful, it can break up an enemy formation so you don't have to deal with their attack stances while you are attacking them, get a kill to then leave the space you attacked from open for other allies to use, move a unit you chipped closer in to give a further out ally the kill, or even cross a wall using a ranged lunge. Rallies can be vital for reaching key benchmarks, and still effect at 2 range in this game, which is nice. Breaker skills are a fun one as well, where you can do things like block off the enemy mage reinforcements on chapter 24 by Felicia/Jakob on the bridge with the Tome Breaker the got from reaching level 15 Maid/Butler, to save you from some dangerous foes, or help deal with bosses with things like Sword Breaker and Dual Club (which you given back in Chapter 10) to counter the dodgy sword blows of Ryouma, although they are all level 15 promoted skills, so tend to be for late game (I generally consider chapter 23 the earliest you are likely to see them on someone other than Felicia, Jakob, or Gunter). I will also add that Conquest doesn't have ambush spawns, so unless you have really overcommitted to pairups, you almost always have the time to backup, and reassess how to deal with reinforcements, or simply get the jump on them yourself. Also, while it does give you some units to carry you if you are struggling in the form of units like Camilla, and Xander, you can beat it on even the highest difficulties without them, as it is a very flexible game. That is a rather fun gimmick, especially with how you can use it against her if you have your own flyers, using the extra move she gives you to do things like assassinate the otherwise hexing Azama without leaving a unit in staff range, or simply ferrying a unit over to the next DV you need with the now more mobile flyer you have, to then counter her use of it. Leapfrogging from DV to DV is a lot of fun on that map, with how it pushes you onward with it. First off, earlier in the thread they said they were playing normal mode, secondly, there are only three units in the entire game that have that (and with how Iago works, he probably shouldn't count), and all of them are after the chapter 24. This take reminds me of how my mom would call every videogame console a Nintendo.

Took me a while to get to this one, and it was a tough one for me to judge overall. S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game Thracia 776: As much as I could jokingly say Staff are king, hence S tier, but that would be taking away too much credit from how useful, and vital magic is in Thracia. Thrones and Gates (your bog standard seize points...) give +10 defense, and immunity to status effects, and good magic damage tends to be the best way to deal with that. Some chapters go from fairly normal, to brutal if you don't have access to a mage, like Gomes's monstrous reputation was built on people not having the magic to deal with him. Your mage is always the boss killer you send in for the warp skip, and they deserve the S rank credit for that. Also, they get staff access, just to ensure they get into that S tier. Three Houses: I thought about putting this just in A tier, but what pushed it over for me, is that everyone and their mother is passing through this class line for Fiendish Blow, on top of it having good classes to be in anyway. With magic being the only weapons locked to class, classes that get them have this inherent advantage to them, and with all magic open to any mage, you get good combat together with the utility of White Magic. Gremory is a great final class for any magically inclined females with those double all magic skills, and Dark Knight is great for the males, with two really solid endgame options on top of some solid options along the way. A Tier: A Good Class Binding Blade: One of the biggest weaknesses of this class is that every single member is a project. Despite that this class has so much stuff going for it that it earns its way to A tier anyway. Getting an effective damage attack that targets the weaker resistance of wyverns in this game is really good. They get the most accurate 1-2 range options, and the most viable siege magic, which are nice as well. Getting staff access after promotion is useful, and if you are willing to grind a LOT of staff rank, they get some of the best staff ranges, which is really good if you take that massive amount of effort...if only Sages got their own prepromote like the other magic classes this would be an easy S tier. Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: In a game where being indoors gives people +20 avoid, and some terrain gives +60, having your primary weapon type ignore terrain is really useful. They also get further ranges, especially with the amazing mage ring, but with enemy phase always defaulting to their weakest spell, that makes it far weaker than Bows, and while there are a fair number of enemy types with resistance, those that don't take a lot of damage from mages. I don't think the flaws of being worse than the best classes in the game are enough to drop it below A tier. New Mystery of the Emblem: I have been waffling a bit back and forth over whether this should get A tier, or B tier, but I think I am letting it into A tier for now. First off, it gets a new flyer effective tome on top of Exalibur, all ready for the monstrously brutal Flying Dragon Desert map, female mages get access to the amazingly potent Nosferatu (one of the few ways to be tanky in a game where you are lucky to have a unit survive two hits), and its 1-2 range is some useful versatility for how rigid this game tends to be. Unfortunately it doesn't really get the speed stats you need for lategame, but people tend to use them late game anyway, as you kind of need at least one to kill Garnef, 1-2 range lets you get in some player phase work by avoiding counters, and forging up a high crit tome to rig suicidal crits targeting on Medius weaker defense is the scuffed version of using Naga against him from Shadow Dragon. This one is a close call, but I think it squeaked its way in here for me. B Tier: An OK Class Blazing Sword: I am tempted to give this the A rank for Pent alone, but was tempered by this being more about classes. Alas the old assessment of the three mages ending up about the same holds true, with the basic Mage's only edge over the other version being that more of them are available. Engage: It is a solid option in the early game, but slowly gets overshadowed by newer and better things as the game goes on. I don't think they ever get bad enough that I went without one, but I never find them to be one of the classes that really shines, as they slowly get relegated to your slow moving backup healer. If Ivy, or Hortensia's classes weren't exclusive to them this class would almost certainly be in a lower tier. Genealogy of the Holy War: This class can absolutely run the gamut of quality here, with some stuck as infantry after promotion, some gaining that beloved horse, and with almost exclusive Holsety access (Holsety Corple is a joke) that can swing anyone that touches it's value up at least one, if not two tiers, with inheritable Wrath as a fun bit of spice on the side. I just don't know how to tier this one, as the class's value in the second generation is so wildly variable by parentage, but this is about where I think it ends up in first generation, with the one that gets a horse on promotion being a bit mediocre due to how long it takes him to get going, with the infantry versions both getting something particularly valuable to them to keep them better than most infantry units. Fates: This class has a lot going for it, the stat buffs on Hoshidan Scrolls makes for interesting plays, but Horse Spirit is so good that it tends to overshadow the rest of them, staff access after promotion, and some nice promoted skills. I just never found Birthright to be a good environment for the class, Revelations is designed in very silly ways, and there are too many hoops to really use it much in Conquest (especially since Izana clearly reached Onmyoji from the healer side of things). I guess I should mention Basra as well, and in my experience, going the Basara route mostly just makes you agonize over whether you should have Horse Spirit, or Guard Naginata equipped, and other equally gimmicky, and silly options. Not completely useless, but definitely a meme build, especially if you start leaning into some Quixotic proc skill builds that take til endgame to become functional. Sacred Stones: I am very, very tempted to drop this into C tier, as the other magic type class just get so much better tools to work with, but if you do bother to use a mage, they end up fine. I guess the higher move of Mage Knight is something, but still pales in comparison to summoning and slayer. C Tier: A Subpar Class Shadow Dragon: Despite enemies having embarrassing resistance, forged effective damage so thoroughly overshadows it, and the only effective magic can't be forged. They do have staff access after promotion (but worse rank than Bishop), and magic isn't useless, so it avoids the D tier, and is even kind of close to B tier. Awakening: This class gets really overshadowed latter into the game, but it does have some minor early game utility as a magic user, and if you are willing to grind them up, a lot, they do get some skills that are useful to have when in a better classes. Path of Radiance: This ones placement is complicated by the Japanese version of the game (which has to be used to access the highest difficulty setting of this game), having a bug which lets you underflow the crit rate of forged Thunder tomes so that they have 100 crit against all enemies. I am ranking them without that boon in mind, but I could see an argument of them potentially even reaching S tier with an argument of giving one vantage and 100 criting enemies to death on enemy phase. They are slow moving, and physically squishy, but they do get good 1-2 range, can be promoted into staff users, and potentially doing a little dodge tanking. I am tempted to let them slide into D tier, but I have used Soren with an Ike support enough to know they are slightly better than in Radiant Dawn. D Tier: A Bad Class Radiant Dawn: I have brought too many mages into the tower for a run where I decided to field all the max rank weapons, and it really emphasized just how bad mages are in this game. Despite all the magics getting effective damage against different enemy types, they just don't get the stats (and stat caps) to capitalize on it. Ilyana even has the highest availability in the nonsense availability of this game, and it is simply not enough to make people consider her good, that is how bad the class line is.

Wait, are you talking about the goofy tail axe, which still swings like a tail when you strike with it?

Sometimes its a benefit to be a little wrong in your game knowledge, and Skill Link Minccino is a nice enough Pokemon to get. The luck giveth, and taketh. Oof, male Combee is about as bad as it gets. At least you don't have to take the Combee And it sounds like a solid Baton Pass mon there. Fairly certain you are given an Air Balloon in Clay's city somewhere. It always did seem strange to give the player character of a Pokemon game, a love interest old enough to go on international business trips. Now the luck is just taunting you, as you never get female Combee in a Nuzlock. Good work with the unevolved Drilbur sweep, surviving what would be a super effective hit in its final form. Ah too bad, but if you need to go back and forth to the pokecenter enough, you usually get stuck with the rock smash encounter. Wow, this is a bit of a lucky run in other was. And then you get this random bit of awful luck to balance the scales a bit. Crushing sweep with the Gyarados, classic nuzlock strat there. Yep, sorry about the brief delay That makes me feel a little better about taking a week and a half off playing some DS 3... Now for chapter 12 of Engage

Sorry to get a bit nit-picky here, but Leif isn't immune to status staves, its just that like many later games deployment order is a part of enemy staff targeting priority, and with how deployment order works, Leif is always the lowest priority target for enemy staff. If for some reason he is the only valid target, status staves can effect him, it is just rare to be in that position. Phew, I feel like I am a bit late getting to this one, but it was an interesting one, as this ranking tends to be very tied to the value of staves... Now I am not including the light magic using base classes in this (so FE4 Shaman, FE5's Bard and Sister class, FE7 and FE8's Monk class), as I do see them as very distinctly different classes, filling VERY different niches, but I suspect we wont get a ranking for so rare a class, so I will talk about them quickly here at the top. FE4 Shaman I am tempted to give A tier, mostly because Julius is rather hard to deal without Julia. To be fair, their exclusive access to Nosferatu, both being scripted to never be killed, only captured, and returned at the seizing of next castle, and even Deirdre has a scripted moment to shine with her Silence Staff in Chapter 1. Admittedly that might still be too high for a mere infantry unit, but Julius is very difficult to deal with, without Julia, and utterly trivial with her. FE5 Sister gets full S rank for having good starting staff rank, and gaining a rank on promotion. They also get access to Nosferatu, which leads to fun Wrath Nosferatu strats, although that does either require you to grind a light magic rank and promote Sara, which is only possible after by Hammerneing the only Lightning tome you get early game twice, or buy two more in chapter 22, or far more likely, use the Wrath Manuel for Linoan. As for Homeros, the bard, he behaves like a mage, until he promotes and gets both Nosferatu access, and D rank staff, which is made easier by him having Paragon. FE 7 gets B tier for its monk. The monk ends up very similar to the one Shaman the game gets for a clear B tier, with the higher staff rank on promotion, as its niche distinguishing it from the other magic classes. FE 8 has a more solid version of A tier for the very simple reason that the Bishop's slayer skill is really useful in the extremely monster infested late game of Sacred Stones, trading the better early staff utility of the Cleric for better early combat from the Monk. S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game Thracia 776: Staff are king in Thracia, and this class is the best at accessing staff. Easiest S tier decision yet...I could probably leave it at that, but seeing me miss all this Thracia discussion led me to elaborate a little. Getting Safy to A rank staff for chapter 12 is vital for most playthrough, and usually means she is the first unit you promote for the +1 staff rank to get there. As many people know as a fun fact, but rarely interact with enough to really understand is that staff can miss in Thracia, but there are a few important things to note here; first it reaches 100% as soon as your staff unit reaches 10 skill, and by chapter 6 you can get the Od Scroll that increases the holder's Skill growth by 30, and is one of the least in demand scrolls for other classes, so it doesn't take long to get; second is that weapon experience for staff only is dependent on staff rank, with personal staff giving a whopping 10, and you get full experience and weapon experience without spending a use when a staff misses, so getting a staff miss can be optimal at times, with LTCs sometimes rigging one intentionally, and even on a more casual playthrough accidentally getting one with a high rank staff I consider a lucky boon. This class also has the two units that get personal staff, which tend to be very good. I may just keep repeating that staff are king, but I do think its important to talk about how powerful they are. Warp, rescue, and rewarp are all infinite range, and with stealing/capturing, rather available (you even get a warp in chapter 7). Status staves are infinite range, last until healed (either by restore staff, sitting on a throne/gate, ending the map, or another status overriding it), and only require the staff wielder have a higher magic than the target to effect them, which also increases the value of the Restore staff even more. The Barrier staff increases the magic stat by 7 (as this is like gen 1 pokemon with Magic playing double duty as Resistance as well), which can let you status staff things you shouldn't, or get some extreme kills with your mages. There are also the excellent personal staves, like Tina's thief staff, which allows you to steal any weapon/staff/item from a foe that has lower magic than Tina (who can be Barriered up for that +7 Magic before using it...), Tina's unlock staff, which opens any door or chest on the map (in a game famous for nearly soft locking you if you run out of means to unlock doors), and of course Safy's hammerne staff to fully fix any weapon/staff you want, which is especially good with how many great personal weapons, or just amazing staff you get. Beyond those simple descriptions, the maps Thracia throws at you makes these effects especially useful, from things like Berserking Reinhardt to watch one of the most terrifying bosses in the game eviscerate one of the most difficult maps for you, to warping close to trigger potent event, not mention letting you blitz enemy staff units, that will gladly inflict your army with these terrifying effects themselves (some of whom you even recruit, with those staff still functioning if you are fast enough), or simply doing a traditional warp skip of a difficult seize map. Shadow Dragon: Getting unreasonably many infinite range warp staff in a game where every objective is seize is a recipe for making the most basic staff units to be top tier. Plus the classic warp Nagi, Aum her corpse back up to then warp her again for the one turn kill is a classic way to one turn Medius even on the highest difficulties. New Mystery of the Emblem: I considered putting this in merely A tier, in large part due to the Warp being far more limited in this game, and even inaccessible in Lunatic and above difficulties, but the many utility staffs added swayed me to move it back up to S tier. The most prominent staff added has to be the Again staff, an infinite range staff that gives one unit an extra turn, which is amazing, but you only get three uses per staff. The Rescue staff also arrives very early game, and with only E rank requirement, and tends to play the part of a faux warp staff, which is still very useful, if not as useful as its Shadow Dragon Warp counterpart, but with such a low rank, tends to get pawned off on the Sages later into the game. The dramatic maps wide Silence staff that effects both armies is a delicate, but very powerful staff as well, able to cripple some maps (chapter 23 comes immediately to mind), but is a double edged sword if you use it wrong. The infinite range staff that can open chests is a nice one to mention as well, but more of a convenience than anything all that amazing. That being said, the extra staff rank this class gets is a clear reason to reclass into it even after promotion, over Sage and Sorcerer in both DS games, despite all three getting tomes and staff, made even more valuable by these being games where arms scrolls don't work on staff rank Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: I must admit, I have been swayed a little by popular opinion to put this class into S tier instead of A tier. While Warp is not as useful in a rout focused game like this, getting the Warp and Rescue combo with Silque and Fae on Alm's route is nice. Invoke is really good, and while it is frustratingly random, Expel is a godsend on some maps with Canters. Add to that some endgame Fortify spam with Tatiana, and it makes for a nice class to have around. Healing in general is very useful, and the way magic work in this game, you really want to double up on healers. I will note, that I have never managed to get Anew on any run before the post game, and thus don't consider it for these rankings. A Tier: A Good Class Three Houses: These tend to be the most useful classes to be in for a white magic user, with Priest giving extra heal uses on top of healing more with those uses, and Bishop doubling your white magic uses with even more extra healing. For their tiers, they are the best classes to be in for your white magic users, and Bishop is even viable for the final class of a male white magic user. With things like Warp, and Rescue usable every map (and whose uses can be doubled in Bishop), being good with white magic is rather useful, but there is the awkward competition with any more combat oriented magic classes also getting access to white magic, which keeps them out of S tier. Sacred Stones: This just barely gets bumped up here due to Bishop getting the slayer skill to help with the monster infested late game. I do also find the torch staff, and restore staff as nice added utility for the class earlier in the game, both helping with the only chapters that even resemble being difficult in this game, and Warp can help getting the early win with chapter 19 as well. It does also have an especially long early game monopoly on staff utility, with the Troubadour coming particularly late (and being particularly bad) in this game. B Tier: An OK Class Engage: My first instinct was to put this in A tier, but that was mainly due to lucking in to an S tier Deirdre ring on my first round of ring making on Maddening, and with the passive healing that ring gives, this class can use Chain Guard with impunity, which makes it much better. In more normal playthoughs, Chain Guard is far more obnoxious to use (especially with HP levelups breaking you ability to use it), and it is the big unique utility of the class line. Staff are fairly good in this game, but there are enough good promoted classes with staff access, that they only really monopolize that utility in the early game. Also punching is good, its just hard to get the stats to make it work right with this class, so you might even promote someone into this class for the punches. Admittedly in the linked ironman running I am doing right now, I lucked into a Framme with rather good combat stats, that can actually make those punches work, but I suspect that isn't exactly a common occurrence. I am still tempted to put it into A tier, but you just need some luck to get this class to really shine (which I have randomly stumbled into in different ways, on different runs...). Binding Blade: This is mainly due to this class tending to get the best ability to use the warp staff, due to stats (over the Troubadour), and ease of getting the staff rank (over Sages/Druid). Also the early game healing monopoly, although stats aren't as important for that, so Troubadours, get a bit of an edge there when they start arriving, and Sages can take over some healing duty after promotion territory as well. Speaking of promotion, they kind of have the combat issue of only using light magic, starting at E rank, and is unavailable before chapter 11, so you don't get much out of promoting one earlier than that. I will also add that Yoder is a solid late game prepromote, which helps buoying up the value of this class in the later game. Fates: Now I am mainly talking about the Birthright class here, as I already discussed Butler/Maid as part of the Troubador line (although they didn't have a major impact on my ranking there, seeing them more as an interesting side-grade to the already excellent Strategist class). This class is a bit too much of a mixed bag to really cement the A tier, or drop down to C tier. Staff utility is useful, but the Birthright class give a lot of promoted classes staff access, so that is more of an early game value, and I don't find utility staff as useful in Birthright, as they are in Conquest, so they tend to drop off after your team starts promoting. On the weapon side of things, Bows are great in this game, but do force the female side to use their strength to attack (as the Shining Bow is a Conquest weapon, which doesn't drop in Birthright), while the male side getting Lances means they get access to Guard Naginata tankiness, or the far more available Bolt Naginata to use magic to attack, although I am burying the lead a little, as you can also promote into the sage equivalent of Onmyoji for better magic utility. It does also get Luck rally, which is only really useful on an ironman, and if they go the Onmyoji route, they get a double rally with Magic, which is far more useful. C Tier: A Subpar Class Awakening: Healing falls off a fair bit later in this game, but this class gets the skills to make them the best at it for that early game where it is useful. Buyable rescues are also nice, but this is another E tier staff that is easy for promoted classes that get staff utility to use. Really this class is only really useful early game, as better classes can take over staff duty after promotion. I am a bit torn as to whether this should eek its way into B tier for its early game value... Blazing Sword: They get worse move, and stats than the Troubadour, and the utility staff that give them a niche after promoting your Druids and Sages, are both far later game, gutted by Pent being a staff wielding beast, and not as useful due to the maps remaining. Additionally, very enemy phase games like this are where using items to heal is more viable, as losing your player phase isn't as big a deal when you get most of your work done on enemy phase. Genealogy of the Holy War: While healing is useful in this game, this class line gets the move of armored knights, and can't even keep up with the infantry... Path of Radiance: Staff utility is less useful on more enemy phase games like this, but even if less useful, it is still useful enough to keep all of them out of D tier. Rhys does fine, easier to use than Mist, and your prepromoted sages don't get staff, so they don't have as much competition. Radiant Dawn: If only you got some of the amazing staff your opponents get access to, this class might be higher up. Healing is still useful, but there are some funky competition for this class, for instance over 2/3 of part 4 have another staff unit force deployed, Rhys always competes with Mist for a slot in part 3, and Micaiah's Sacrifice ability complicates the question of healing/restoring monopoly the class has in part 1. Add to that how much staff acting like weapons screws over any combat you can pretend these units have, and healing items being particularly good in this game, and it is itching to get into D tier. The main thing keeping them out of it, is that this is the kind of game where healing with a staff is particularly useful, as it is too player phase oriented for items to really replace a healer's utility, so deploying a few spare healers in empty slots isn't a terrible idea. D Tier: A Bad Class

Oof. Yep, its the thing that ruined RD's story... That makes a lot of sense when you train up the worst unit into one of your best. Tragically this is far more true than it actually should be. I hate when that feeling sneaks up on me. It tends to fade away eventually, but makes things feel emptier than it should while it lingers...

Hmmm... If I were to rank her in my tiers...a lot of what I said about Alear's class holds true for hers as well, but with an even better class skill, and better weapon types, but comes MUCH later. I am thinking A tier, but it is a close call, as there are a fair number of things to offset that late arrival. For reference I will copy my comments on Alear's class in the spoiler box below That is really cool...What character(s) did that add that are Bat shifters? All those Romance languages share a lot of similar words. Heck, from my knowledge of English, it clearly shares a Latin root with words like Obscure, and probably has a very vaguely similar meaning We already got the Demon King, and Demonic Beasts, while the Herons are extremely angelic already.

I wonder if @Shrimpy -Limited Edition- will have a similar breakdown with how Japan uses the German word for work to mean part time job (admittedly Arbeit becomes Arubaito, so he might not have noticed before).

Electrode, Diglett, Nidoran, Mankey Venosaur, Rattata, Fearow, Pidgey

Once again with an image to display my thoughts. I will start by weighing in on whether or not to include to include Dark Knight on this list, and while I was going to at first, the more I though about it, the more clear it became that the games that have Dark Knight intentionally very distinct from the Dark Mage and Sorcerer classes. In Awakening and Fates this comes in the form of the being cut off from Dark Magic, and in Three Houses being the only one of the three not requiring a Dark Seal. I will cover the three quickly here. Its inclusion in Three Houses would have the most impact, as it is around A tier, and solid enough to drag my ranking up at least a tier, and probably enough to bring it all the way to A tier with it. In Awakening it losses Dark Magic, and with it would be more in the C tier, but wouldn't be able to shake Awakening's S tier ranking if combined. In Fates I find it the worst mounted, and worst magic class in Conquest, I don't think it would be D tier on its own, as being either of those things is still rather useful, but it would be far closer to the B-C tier rank, and not enough to impact Fate's ranking on the merits of Sorcerer alone. S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game Awakening: Nos-tanking is one of the things that breaks this game in half, and earns the S tier, but I will add that the other Dark Magic Tomes are rather nice too (like the brave Waste, absurd crit rate of Ruin, and long range of Thracia 776: The first Dark Mage has a good showing, although ironically not for dark magic, but for staff utility, and with Staff being king in Thracia, that makes it an easy S tier. The only one you get starts with C staff at base, gets a free rank on promotion, making it very easy to get all the way up to that A tier for warp. Magic is also really useful in Thracia, but Dark Magic Tomes tends to be rare, and heavy, but fortunately Dark Mages can use all magic types in this game, so its weaknesses don't hold him back. A Tier: A Good Class Sacred Stones: I really wanted to put summoner in S tier, but despite how great they are, they do come rather late into the game, no matter how you slice it. Fates: Sorcerer is the best non-DLC magic class in Conquest. It has the best stats distribution for magic damage, Heartseeker has utility for a few dodgey bosses (helping to capture the very useful, but dodgey Haitaka is one nice example of heartseeker utility), and Bow Breaker is a great skill to have for dealing with the final boss, and if you are working towards it, you can get it in time to deal with Takumi on his wall as well, disarming two of the most dangerous bosses in the game. Nosferatu as the only Dark Magic Tome is a bit underwhelming, but Odin seems tailor made to make it work with his weird stat spread, and if you know what you are doing, he can put in a lot of work with Nos-tanking. B Tier: An OK Class Binding Blade: A bit of a mixed bag with this set. Sophia is one of the worst units in the entire game (IMO the worst, but Wendy is certainly in close competition). Raigh is fine I guess, he comes a bit underleveled, but can become good with enough love, a true B tier unit. Finally Niime is great, but she comes so late into the game that I don't think she can carry the rest of them into A tier with her. Talking a bit more abstractly, the Dark Magic Tomes in this game don't compare all that favorably to Anima magic. Nosferatu is the notable benefit of Dark Mage as it is fairly usable, but Anima gets the excellent Excalibur as a wyvern killer, and with Eclipses embarrassing 10 base accuracy, Anima also gets the far more usable siege tome as well. Blazing Sword: The three basic mages of this game (Erk, Lucius, and Canas) end up very similar, and very average. I prefer Canas of the three, as Dark Magic is interesting, but Nosfertu was made dangerously heavy in this game, Luna is very situational due to most enemies having low Resistance (and you want to save some for Athos to use on the final boss), and while Eclipse got buffed to base 30 hit, it is still unusably inaccurate. Not that Anima or Light magic get anything all that special to compete. C Tier: A Subpar Class Three Houses: I considered putting this in B tier thanks to Dark Mage, but with how restricted this class is with having to cut the Dark Seals from the Death Knight's corpse, it being only on par with classes of its tier for the extra hurdles, and with Poison Strike being more funny to use than actually good, I let it slip a tier. Dark Bishop is simple not up to snuff with other classes in its tier, and would probably earn a D tier ranking all on its own. Shadow Dragon: This class is just a slightly worse Sage that you can deploy less of. It trades Magic for a bit of Defenses, which is not a great trade for the class type, and with how SD reclassing works, it is the most restrictive class with you only having the option for one Dark Mage/Sorcerer for the majority of the game, and only very late into the game get the option for a second (and unless you hack the game, or are intentionally sacrificing units for the Gaidens you wont see any natural Dark Mage/Sorcerers). Even the thing it is a worse rarer version of, isn't exactly great in SD, at most being a tier up from this. New Mystery of the Emblem: The devs tried to mitigate the weaknesses of the class, but in allowing mixed male class sets, they took away the main reason to be in it, that you didn't have another magic option. In a lot of ways the weaknesses of the class from SD are still here, but there were things done to mitigate their impact. First off, the environment is far more conductive to magic, and you open up that second Sorcerer slot far earlier, and will actually have the chance to meet Etzel without intentionally killing off hoards of units. There is also an odd weakness added to the class, that it is a male only class, so ironically has no access to the powerful Nosferatu, and while access to the male only, useful effective damage of Excalibur, might seems to counteract that, they added the gender neutral Shaver that also has that potent effective damage against fliers. Although the biggest weakness added was the mixing of the male class sets. Before if you had access to Sorcerer, you didn't have access to Sage, but now any unit you wanted to be in the slightly worse Sorcerer class could be a Sage instead. I do feel this widened the gap between these two classes, especially with how quickly, and how many Mage/Sage reclassing slots you accumulate. Admittedly the Bishop lines became a bit rarer, but their extra staff rank (and only staff access before promotion), make them a very different class, and Sage has a similar time acting as a staff bot as Sorcerer does. D Tier: A Bad Class Radiant Dawn: The only option here is not available on the first playthrough, very late game, rather under-leveled for that late arrival, and finally mages aren't even good in Radiant Dawn's late game. Just a terrible class option, whose only value is novelty on a replay.

Seems to be doing well so far I guess that boy has daddy issues... Yeah, they did uncomfortably child code far too many of the Fates kids. If only the Avatar didn't have to be able to romance the whole cast... Izana's award winning hair getting in the way of his love... Its the loading screens that make them so seemingly obscure. Although if you end up taking that path to Sif instead of paying for the 20k for the key you will probably pass through there enough to stumble upon its oddities. BIG OOFS... My Rev opinion has generally been that it is a game that is bad, unless you are playing it with some kind of challenge run in mind, and then it shines. Same opinion I ended up having with Shadow Dragon really.

That sounds like such a bizarre glitch (and solution to said glitch)... Also have fun with Dark Souls, those games are great. Edit: I have been replaying Dark Souls 3 recently, as I finally saw them put its DLC on a Steam sale, and I wanted to see how well they integrated the DLC into the main game. I have only gotten far enough to see part of the first DLC, and it is not very well scaled for where they actually put the entrance...kind of. They put it in the Cathedral of the Deep, which you can put off for about two bosses before it becomes mandatory, and checking out the DLC at a fairly normal time to face the Cathedral of the Deep, a majority of the DLC was obviously scaled for further into the game, so after getting a little way into it, I returned to main progression a bit before returning (getting another boss into the game), and while I am still checking out what I can of that first DLC area, I might have to return to more main progression before finishing it.

Thanks for all the well wishing, seems like its healing up just fine, it was just painful and stressful, and will probably leave a nasty scare beneath my hairline. Hopefully I can sleep better tonight, as I could barely get any deep sleep after that fright last night.

Whelp I have had a sucky day. Was chasing the doggo around, and ended up tripping and scrapping my head against a fence for a nasty bleeding head wound, where I am worried at every minor thing if its a sign of a concussion. Looking on the bright side, I guess I got a surprise Halloween costume this year...

My point was that a class I will probably get some use out of is better than one I probably wont. When you have to put so much work, and long term planning into getting one of these classes, why would you intentionally work your way to the worse one? In a lot of other FE games I am more lenient with classes that get overshadowed by other classes, because the opportunity cost to use them tends to be much lower. Often you will have a unit that just starts in the class, reclassing cost nothing (like the DS games), or the only cost to get one is a buyable seal (that you might have gotten for free anyway). Three House's certification system throws that through a bit of a loop with the higher tier, and odd movement type classes. That lower opportunity cost means using them on a whim, as a replacement for someone in the "better" class, or just so you can field more units with the utility of that better class are more in the realm of possibility. And as I said in my original post its the early access to renewable Rescue staff on a mount that got Troubadour/Valkyrie in the tier its in, and that is a middle tier position, not even reaching the tier I would call good. That is why I was mentioning Cleric in comment about how the class compares to Sage to begin with. Falcon Knight only has staff use after promotion, is losing you a staff range (-2 Mag), and forcing the combat you do use to be either physical or 1 range (although the higher speed is a serious improvement), and the main thing you get in exchange is the terrain ignoring ability of flight, which can be very useful, but there are a lot of Awakening maps that are fairly open. Falcon Knight can use staff, but a lot of its advantages over Valkyrie tend to be in the more physical combat side of things, and getting a unit with good enough strength and magic to do both well is a bit of a different niche than the more magic focused class of Valkyrie. Picking up Vantage/LnD is only really early game with Skill Buy, as Felicia would need to pickup the Samurai class through a Friendship or Partner Seal, and in Conquest only with a marriage to a Corrin with the Samurai talent. Despite Skill Buy being a standard feature of Fates, it is common enough to ban/ignore the feature to the point that using it should probably be mentioned. There are a few classes that just give you a spell as one of their class skills, so perhaps make Holy Knight one that just gives Seraphim to you. Yeah I am starting to feel the same about my decision to have RD Mist in B tier as well. I just really wanted to emphasize how much easier she is to use in her lame duck stage of thing by giving her a tier up from Path of Radiance, but Radiant Dawn is a different enough environment that what you get after her promotion is a bit less impressive. Although there is one minor benefit to Mist I will point out, but I am not sure how it should be judged. Her having access to swords, and being most useful as a staff bot makes her a great candidate for using her weapon blessing to give Ike a blessed Wyrmslayer.