Ari Chan

So why doesn’t Jeritza have the Rafail Gem in his inventory? Even if you recruit Mercedes you can’t get access to their Relic in CF at all which is dumb tbh.

Or you know, get her to lv 10 for Pegasus Knight and make her a full time rally bot? Feeding her kills to lv 20 for Wyvern while having her do the only thing that she’s actually useful at (rallying) sounds like a lot of work to me. About Dorothea, spell list >>> growths, she doesn’t need Lysithea’s Speed and Mag to provide 10 range linked boost with Meteor, chip with Thoron from 3 range or spam heals from a distance with Physic. Also a unit only need either Physic or Warp to become a good Faith user, everything else like Rescue, Silence and Fortify are just nice add ons.

Vengance Pegasi/Horse Bernie is pretty good actually and synergize well with her personal skill, Sniper Bernie with Hunter’s Volley isn’t half bad either just requires more investment.

Making crap units like Caspar, Raphael or Lorenz a dancer will give you some breathing room on Ch 13 Maddening, having one less deadweight on that hell hole of a map is worth it imo.

Nope, only Reason and offensive Faith spells benefit from the staff effect (Thyrsus also doesn’t work on Utility spells like Physics, Warp, Rescue)

Yea I forgot you can also buy 1 from Anna's Secret shop and I believe you get 2 pre-skip so farming for additional Premium Magic Herbs isn't necessary. The Macuil Evil Repelling Co. Battalion in the Shop gives 7 Mag and 40 Hit at max rank if accuracy and recruiting Ferdinand are your problem, getting S+ Reason on Lysithea before chapter 17-18 for Dark Tomefaire is not hard thanks to her personal skill, and like Flores said above you get more than enough Spirit Dusts to boost Lysithea's Mag above 50.

I said most maddening enemies not all, and she totally can one shot the Gremory and Swordmaster in the pic with Luna. Gremory Lysithea with at least 50 base mag(easy to achieve without excessive grinding considering mid-late game you can get as many Premium Magic Herbs from gardening as you want) + 8 from Ordelia Battlaion + 6 from Fiendish Blow + 5 from Dark Tomefaire + 2 from the Monk mastery skill + 1 from Luna = 72 effective Mt against all enemies regardless of their res, the map is also filled with mounted units who die horribly to Dark Spikes. That being said you only get 4 Luna uses and I only brought Lysithea up to compare with Magic Combat Art Users who will most likely fail to OHKO almost everything late game.

The thing is, there are better units that can ORKO stuff without exploding when attacked, you’re sending incredibly squishy 4 move mages to the frontline (putting them in Physical Classes pre lv 30 for Canto is a worse idea because you’re sacrificing their useful spell lists to set up for a magic Weapon build). If you want a Magic nuke then just feed all of your Mag stat boosters to Lysithea and give her Thyrsus, she’s only a few points away from OHKOing most maddening enemies thanks to her already high Mag stat.

One Two Punch is pretty underrated imo, it gives you a reason to use Dedue beyond the early game hell phase especially when he gets it at C rank Fists, + 8 mt and guaranteed double are nice, combined with Fistfare, Death Blow and a Str focused Battalion he can realiably one round a lot of enemies mid game. This combat art is not as good as Swift Strike and Point Blank Volley tho, since it’s not 2 consecutive attacks so you will take 1 counterattack before the second hit and fists have pitifully low damage so it balances out the +8 Mt. Encloser is the best Utility Combat Art, it basically disables an enemy for 1 turn which leaves you some breathing room when you’re swarmed by a horde of enemies on harder maps.

I made Annette a dancer, she was so behind in levels because I abused her rallies early on and didn’t feed her kills, the 4 mov also made it impossible for her to catch up to rally my powerhouse.

I thought the game will just replace Petra with a generic assassin that has the exact same stats if you recruit her before the war phase?

I don't understand how promoting your units into Bow Knights (or any mounted master class) is difficult considering that you can savescum the exams, also 4+ range attack with canto is hilariously broken, Hunter's Volley is a very good combat art but Brave Bow and Inexhaustible also guarantee at least a double so it's not like BK (or Claude's personal class) are worse than Sniper combat wise. Imo BK >>>> Pally and Sniper. You ranked War Master way too high, it's still an infantry foot unit with no ultilities and mostly 1 range combat, Quick Riposte and WM's Strike takes way too much time to master and is only good on bad units (units that are unable to double or ORKO enemies before getting these skills). Not no mention all WM's candidate in the game are either garbage (Caspar, Raphael, Alois) or are better off promoting to other classes (Felix = BK, Sylvain = WL, Ferdinand = WL).

For what it’s worth, you can forge a magic gauntlet from the Blacksmith with Arcane Crystals.

Caspar is going to lag behind your other BE units even if he goes Wyvern Rider/Lord, I think OP should build up his Sword + Flying rank and make him a Dancer, Alert Stance + Sword Avo + Sword Prowess + Ok-ish defense stats should be enough for him to run around dancing without dying and you can continue using him post chapter 13. Bernie's most likely not going to double anything on Maddening even if she doesn't go Cavalier/Paladin lol, however I wouldn't wanna miss out on hit rate + 20 and Hunter's Volley since both are pretty essential if you want her to have any kind of ORKO potential mid-late game. So imo go Fighter > Archer > Sniper if you want your Bernie to actually kill stuff without having to rely on Brave Bow which is rare if you're not doing a NG+ run. Linhardt's final class should be Bishop not Dark Knight, White Magic x2 and White Magic Heal + 10 are much better than Black Tomefaire since his Reason spell list is mediocre, 4 mov shouldn't be a problem because healing will be his main job and Physic has more than enough range to cover most of your units. Make sure to promote Petra to Pegasus Knight first for Darting Blow, she is one of the very few unit in BE that can double constantly with that skill equipped and she will turn into a powerhouse later on with enough investment. Her main weapon should still be Sword imo because Sword Prowess gives her additional avo so she can dodgetank more reliably.

Can confirm that you need to promote to Dark Mage first to get Dark Bishop access. Does Fiendish Blow from Dark Bishop stack with the one you get from mastering Mage? If not then I see no reason why you should make your magic unit a Dark Mage/Bishop.

I don’t think it’s fair to place Dorothea in the same tier as CF/SS early boots access and 2 rally bots(who will eventually fall off later on), she still has Thoron at base for 3 range chip and it only takes 2-3 chapters to get her Faith to C rank for Physic which isn’t terribly late considering you can recruit her as soon as chapter 7 and once Dorothea gets Meteor she’ll outclass Mercedes who learns nothing valuable but Physic. I feel like Marianne should be 1 tier higher, Dorothea should be in the same tier as Mercedes, Hilda and Ferdinand should be lower considering their recruitment conditions and Sylvain should be way higher (literally free if you’re playing F!Byleth and his paralogue is one of the best in the game: early Relic, Speedwing, Energy Drop and Magic staff along with many useful items in one chapter)

Ideally your dancer should do nothing else besides dancing so Caspar seems to fit that role perfectly, that guy sucks so much even if you turn him into a Wyvern Lord and he doesn’t have any useful utility to make up for his lackluster combat. His charm base and growth shouldn’t be a problem considering you get plenty of golden apples and tea time to fix that.

I don’t see how losing Flayn on CF is a big disadvantage at all considering the only useful thing she offers is Rescue, Flayn doesn’t have Physic so there’s no way she could compete healing exp with Linhardt and Dorothea. Also Flayn’s going to be a very poor offensive spell caster because she joins at chapter 7 with E rank in Reason and a mediocre spell list. I disagree with Linhardt or Dorothea being dancer materials. Linhardt being unable to promote to Gremory is not a big deal since his Reason spell list has nothing special to take advantage of Black Magic x2. Plus Physic in this game has ridiculous range, he really doesn’t need the extra +1 mov from Gremory to get closer to the frontline to heal. On the other hand White Magic Heal + 10 combined with his crest allows him to output a lot of healing so I don’t see anything wrong with Bishop being Linhardt’s final class. Also his attack prowess is far from garbage if he has Magic+2 and Fiendish Blow which should both be very easy to get if you choose the BE house so he’s available from the beginning of the game. On top of this Linhardt also has the most broken utility spell in the game: Warp, that alone makes him a lot more useful than the majority of the playable cast. The same can be said about Dorothea because she has an amazing spell list: Thoron for 3 range option, Meteor for massive Gambit/Support bonus and Physic for amazing healing utility.

Come to think of it, it seems like I overestimated Azure Moon’s late game difficulty since most of the chapters (if not all) are very susceptible to cheese starts (Warp + Stride + Dance Battalion). While Verdant Wind’s 2 last chapters are impossible to abuse these starts, and the dubstep level is actually very hard to beat. Should’ve voted for Azure Moon as the easiest maddening route.

Bernadetta maybe, but Ignatz is just a flat out better version of Ashe lol. He has the same spd and str growth and comes with an actual personal skill that greatly increases his reliability on hitting targets early on. (Ashe’s personal is essentially useless considering a lot of enemies usually drop keys upon defeat and they can also be purchased from the shop for 100g each which is super cheap). Ignatz is also a very good support unit, he gets Rally Speed which is one of the best Rally in the game at D rank Authority which is really early, he also learn Seal Strength as a budding talent which allows him to weaken stronger foes from afar. In addition Ashe has availability issues on VW and SS route, he will leave your party for 3 chapters which is enough to set him behind in levels. Ignatz’s strength in Authority also allows him to use stronger battalion to boost his stats earlier than Ashe. Deadeye is one of the worst Combat Art imo the hitrate is atrocious and it costs you 5 weapon uses to cast.

Crimson Flower late game can be very brutal especially the last chapter with all the hyperbuffed Falcon Knight spawning everywhere, also it doesn't help that those big machine thingy keep getting buffed up if you don't end the chapter fast, also BE early game sucks the most. Silver Snow is definitely the hardest though, you lose your main lord and it gets extremely tough towards the end, chapter 21 being the most ridiculous since you're surrounded by a sh*t ton of Flying Monsters and Falcon Knight that ORKO everything they touch unless you can dodgetank. I'm having a hard time deciding between Azure Moon and Verdant Wind as the easiest Maddening route, guess I'll go with Verdant Wind because multiple Bow Users + Warp earlygame are very nice to have.