samthedigital

She has -2HP, +2Str, -3Dex, -1Speed, +1Def, +1Res, -3Luck, and -1Bld compared to Chloe assuming no stat boosters were used and that they are at the same level; you should have access to Second Seals to change her class by this point. You would want to do that too since Swordmaster isn't very good. Chloe can gain an extra level before we have access to Second Seals, but it should be close enough of a comparison. Just based on the stats they should be performing fairly similarly; Lapis has more strength to one round certain enemies, but she has even more issues with weapons that weigh her down. That's all to say that just based on the numbers she shouldn't be doing all that much worse than Chloe outside of as a Griffin Knight with a Levin Sword; off the top of my head Chloe has 5 magic on Lapis and it's pretty easy to determine who is better there. C and D tier should be reserved for units who either take a lot more work to do anything or whose stats are not good enough to do anything long term without favoritism; I could use Boucheron, Alfred, Etie, Anna, etc as examples. I don't feel the same way as Skyteppelin to be sure as to me she doesn't match the best characters in the game. This isn't really related to what I'm quoting, but since I last posted in this topic the well and more dlc content has been introduced, and I've also played through the game again to play the DLC and to try out different things. The well changes the dynamic a bit; Lapis used to have a harder time getting Canter, but it's not as much of an issue anymore because SP scrolls are more readily available. DLC on the other hand is something I wouldn't really consider for a variety of reasons mostly related to the fact that it breaks the game and depending on when we do the DLC. My carries from the early game had Canter and Starsphere and were at level 10 promoted gaining 2 exp per enemy by the time I had Kagetsu. It's a world of difference to the base game. Now that I think about it though Kagetsu's base stats are still better than just about every physical unit without stat boosters even in this context unless units are specifically leveling with Starsphere.

You can get them as 5 star rewards from the well, but the chance of getting them is pretty low.

I found the Pure Water and Weapon Surge effects to be more useful generally speaking; 20 crit on Killer Axes was my primary use case, but the +5 Mt on weapons that get that can be equally strong; it's just that I'd worry more about buffing enemies then. That's what I gave my enchanter when they weren't performing enchanter or Bonded Shield duties. I don't find healing to be quite as necessary with DLC and well access either since there are so many ways of avoiding damage, and character power level has increased by quite a lot.

I haven't tried Mage Canoneer because it didn't seem that appealing to me at the time, but Enchanter is fantastic. The character of choice isn't really important, but if you can somehow get a unit with enough defenses that the AI prefers targeting their Bonded Shield target over them that would be something to consider. Otherwise they really just need to get to level 5 and then spam Weapon/Item surge to be effective.

Looking at weapons it seems that the Killer Lance is lighter than the Killing Edge, but the difference is marginal (the well and dlc weapons are pretty light too I think), but it depends on what weapons you want to use for your other characters and what stat boosters you invest in her, etc. Gut feeling says that with no investment swords will perform better because 1-2 range with Levin Sword is good, but I can't say for sure.

They're fairly necessary in this game especially later on; Rewarp is a strong tool already, and removing them would both make it even better and remove a lot of the strategy from the tactic since we wouldn't need multiple units to handle a boss. If you're not doing that then I can mostly agree that it doesn't change too much, but it does make bosses more interesting when you get there; the alternative would be to make them incredibly bulky, but then we'd be far more limited on what units would be able to damage them. I like going Wyvern and Griffin Knight for Chloe, but she also works as a Martial Master if you like that sort of thing. She's pretty flexible though because of her growths; she works in a lot of other classes too. The only two classes I would consider for Pandreo are Sage and Mage Knight. Mage Knight is preferable because of the bump to speed, but Sage can work if you really need more staves. Amber is not nearly as good as those two, but he can be worth using. You have to keep in mind that his speed isn't good and build around that. Halberdier, Lyn, speedwings, etc are ways of fixing his speed. I wouldn't bother with Lyn or speedwings personally. I tried Halberdier on my last playthrough and it worked out alright; working with the speed he has and making him a crit machine would probably work out a little better though. I'm not a big fan of the class after trying it out.

Before the patch World Tree wouldn't proc things like Rewarp, but that has been fixed. The chance of getting Nodus from the well is only 10%, and the 5 star is difficult to sustain to any degree. I don't really have anything else to add though; I largely agree with Jotari, and I don't spend long enough in most of the maps later on in the game for an extra round of Nodus to be relevant anyway.

It basically gives you 5 levels worth of stats.

You could also get lucky and win big; it's really just playing the averages game and starting tier 3 when we can afford to lose a few times. I'd say that it's worth doing once we hit the Brodia arc and the game hands us a lot of item doubles that we don't need; the reward jump is pretty substantial with Freeze, Killer weapons, and Rewarp being tier 3 rewards. Master Seals can be nice to hit really early on too.

Tier 2 is best for profit (using well logic) and tier 3 is best for SP generation while still gaining more gold value than is put into the well on average. Tier 4 and above are only useful if you have a surplus. edit: Someone did the math on this; I'm just reiterating the main takeaways, but I don't really want to look at the moment. It shouldn't be hard to find though.

Yeah, it makes it the easy choice for any character that wants to use offensive staves.

I can confirm that Hit+X does not apply to staves. There's also a resource to determine whether DP+ or Hit+X is better that I'll provide. There might be a better one too, but I haven't done any digging recently. Desmos | Graphing Calculator

No, you don't.

10/1 Rath with his better bases compared to base Louise has +2HP, -1 Str, -2Skl, +2Def, and -5 speed without factoring in growths and the fact that he has 5 maps to catch up. Considering the fact that FE7 enemies have low doubling thresholds and the fact that he leads everywhere that's important after adding in growths (especially in move, 1 range access, and mounted utility) there shouldn't be any argument for Louise getting more use out of it or being better, and if we're moving at a mounted unit's pace there's no way that Louise is catching up anyway. Another thing to note is that he has more movement than Paladins in snow; it gives him some added utility for that one chapter too.

If you're looking for consistency I would not suggest any emblem besides Ike. Hit+X does make the build consistent even against enemies with high avoid, and the Ike engage is a good alternative on the handful of occasions (probably only against select enemies in the last two paralogues) where her crit rate dips a few points shy of 100%.

Rath has a decent niche in some LTC/Efficiency playthroughs (particularly dondon's 0% growths run, but I do remember seeing it somewhere else) because of early Brave Bow access and being mounted, so I would disagree with it being placed below Sacred Stones where there's less concrete utility for bows. Thracia hasn't been mentioned yet, and Selphina is the only unit of note there. I've always found her to be average because of her mounted utility, decent damage, and not losing her primary weapon indoors. It's still a lower tier showing, but I still find it to be at least somewhat noteworthy; the class in general isn't complete garbage in any game besides RD.

Killer bow access and class bases are the main reasons to go for Warrior, but you can experiment with multiple classes and probably still have success with it. One shot thresholds are likely lower on hard mode, so the lack of strength on other classes might not matter either. I just don't don't want to fully endorse a setup that I have not tried personally.

Not exactly. From what I understand the character levels, classes, and inventory are set, but you can swap emblems and skills and characters are unlocked as you progress through the story.

I just finished the Soren paralogue after chapter 8 on Maddening, and this is almost exactly what I did. Warp Ragnarok can provide a little bit of chip damage too and the user doesn't need to be rewarped to reach Soren. Tiki and Roy are also worth mentioning since they can help with damage. Tiki's engage skill can also potentially let the Sigurd user run off ahead to get another unit in on the rewarp to have more bodies on Soren, but it's probably unecessary. You should be able to access a second one from either the shop or Anna paralogue. I am able to promote 4 units at the moment. One of them came from the well, but I don't remember where the last one came from.

If you're playing on hard mode the strategy should be even more effective. Ike is there to help tank hits, and if you're worried about getting broken before she gets to half HP all you have to do is avoid that encounter. Once she's set up and you don't send her in against enemies she doesn't proc vantage against she will one shot just about everything. You also have control over what enemies she faces; some armored enemies are probably too bulky, but there isn't much of anything that lives outside of that. The problems you listed really don't really apply when she's set up; if you're having difficulties getting her to half health you can get her to take damage on player phase since you have more control over the damage she takes, but with Ike it's possible to do it on EP too in some situations. Here is a quick example of the build in action: I am now a Panette believer - GIF - Imgur

Do you have the full build set up? She reaches 100% hit+crit against just about every enemy and attacks first, so provided you're sending her out against enemies she can counter you won't have to worry about getting damaged at all once she has vantage up; she's strong enough to one shot everything in the game. If that's not working you can try to use some more player phase oriented build with Wrath and Canter as a wyvern or something to make her a player phase machine or use speedwings to patch up her issues, etc, but it's not going to be nearly as effective. You could also try a few more classes with the same build, but I can't attest to the efficacy of that personally as I've only played through Maddening once with Panette.

Oujay aside I don't disagree that there are better options, but I wouldn't strongly consider the opportunity cost here. Fir is the only one that should be performing primary objectives later on, and there's redundancy if Rutger gets the first Hero Crest, so none of the options are saving us a lot of time unless Dieck gets promoted first instead.

It has been too long since I've played, so I'll let someone else give you specific advice on building characters. The two things that you should keep in mind though are ways of tackling Chapter 25 and endgame. I've always set up a rescue chain to have Corrin down Takumi in final, but you need to make sure that your Corrin is able to do that if you choose to do this strategy. Chapter 25 is one where you want to have Corrin able to beat Ryoma on her own or have a good idea of how to tackle ninja hell. You could potentially have someone like Selena inherit Shurikenbreaker and pair them with another unit to have a child unit that also has it, but there are a plethora of options available to tackle that; it's just something that you'll want to be aware of.

Shinon initially does not join under terrible circumstances; he has like 3 chapters where he has some decent utility before he disappears for most of the game. This should be enough to justify having PoR above Blazing Blade and possibly in a similar ballpark to Sacred Stones depending on what Innes does on Eirika route. Otherwise I agree with the sentiment broadly speaking; I don't think that being underleveled is a death sentence in PoR though. There are a handful of good units that are underleveled and are still good because bexp is such a good catchup tool. It's possible to budget bxp for Rolf/Shinnon; it's just that they're worse than every other unit when given those resources, so the end result is the same. My own tier list wouldn't look too different otherwise. I'd put Thracia above Sacred Stones, and Conquest around that general ballpark too. I would put Conquest pretty low, but it's more difficult to actually rate that game because it is possible to get something out of training Mozu compared to some of the other games even if it's still not terribly efficient to get her there. Engage is one I'd have to think about more too.

If you're looking specifically for a speedrun: just note that it uses glitches and speedruns don't necessarily take turn counts into consideration even though there is some correlation between the two.