lenticular

My guess is that one of the remaining two waves will have mostly Fates characters and the other will have mostly Awakening characters. Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses are the most popular and successful games in the series, and IS will want to put popular characters into the DLC since that will sell more copies. As much as I'd personally be interested in some older characters, I don't think that we're going to get them. Outside of Awakening and Fates, I think that the two games with the best chance of being represented are Shadows of Valencia (due to recency) and Shadow Dragon (since IS falls back on it a whole lot). I also think that the gender balance across the DLC will be kept fairly even, and I think that if Fates characters are used, there'll be a balance between Nohr and Hoshido. So my best guess: Wave 2: Azura, Camilla, Takumi. Wave 3: Chrom, Robin (F), Alm.

I largely agree with you here, but I wonder if they couldn't have explored the space a little bit more by giving these battalions more generous stat gains when you level them up. Let their starting stats be the same crappy ones that you see when enemies have them equipped, but then let them level up to become maybe not actually good but at least competent. That would maintain the link between the enemy version and player version of the battalion, but allow for some extra actually usable battalions. I also quite like it thematically, since it implies that the members of the battalion are improving rapidly once they're transferred under the player's tutelage.

Alliance Youths, Pirates, Rogues, Thieves, Duscur Infantry, Duscur Cavalry: 0/10. I can just barely imagine a situation where you have a unit with E authority as late as chapter 18: late recruited Anna. As far as I'm aware, she doesn't auto-level Authority at all, joins with it at E rank, and then has a weakness in it. So in the niche but plausible circumstance where someone is doing an ironman run, loses a unit, and recruits Anna as a replacement deep into part 2. And even then, they're still not going to use any of these when they could be using Jeralt's Mercenaries, Seiros Holy Monks or Almyra Mercenaries instead. This makes these, at best, the fourth best option for a situation that is only going to come up once in a blue moon. Reaper Knights: 4/10. Only having 1 point of Charm really hurts here. Pretty much any character who cares about Avoid is also going to want to have a good Charm stat to help them dodge enemy gambits, and this just doesn't deliver. And if you compare this with Gautier Knights, the biggest reason to favour the Reaper Knights would be if you wanted to have an offensive gambit. Except that you also want to have good charm to power that gambit. Even if you don't recruit Sylvain and don't have the Gautier Knights, you're definitely going to have access to the Brigid Hunters, which are going to be a better choice for many (though not all) grounded dodge tanks. Morfis Magic Corps: 5/10. I'm pretty sure that I have used these and been reasonably happy with them. I mean, you probably aren't looking for C-authority magic battalions all that often by the time they show up, but in the few games where you are, these are a solid choice.

I can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed. I don't like the "pay now before we even tell you what exactly you're buying" nature of expansion passes. I'm also somewhat concerned by the inclusion of the Silver Card as a DLC item. If the item works the same as it has in previous games (not guaranteed, but seems probable) and if the DLC items are just given to you immediately at the start of the game (also not guaranteed but also seems probable) then this would immediately kill any semblance of balance to money management in the game. What I'm really hoping we don't get is a situation where you have more than enough money if you have the DLC, but need to grind incessantly if you don't. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out, but I am not feeling optimistic.

My guess would be that cavalry units were, at some point in development, restricted to only having cavalry battalions and that they were deliberately set at a lower power level than infantry battalions (but a higher power level than flying battalions) as a way of balancing the unit types. Obviously, a lot of cavalry battalions ended up being pretty great, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like this poor gambit got left behind as a vestigial remnant.

Alliance Pavise Co: 3/10. These are very similar to the awful Kingdom Heavy Soldiers. Same horrible gambit, very similar horrible stats, same single redeeming feature in having high prot. Where these do have an advantage over their Kingdom counterparts, though, is that they actually offer the highest prot of any battalion that the Deer have access to, which means that they do actually have a niche, albeit a narrow one. If you are playing as the Golden Deer and you are using a Fortress Knight and trying to stack your prot as high as possible, you should use these. But let's be honest, that condition isn't going to come up all that often. Armour tanks just aren't that strong to begin with, and even if you are building one, there are plenty of other approaches than just stacking prot above all, and pretty much any other approach is going to be willing to sacrifice a point or two of prot if it gives them more attack and hit and a better gambit. Alliance Physicians: 0/10. An unmitigated disaster. It feels like the stats here were balanced on the assumption that they would have a really strong gambit, but what they actually get is the worthless Resonant White Magic. Any potential use for this gambit dried up about 10-12 chapters ago, and I wasn't impressed with it even back then. So this leaves us with a battalion that has very similar stats to the Alliance Magic Corps, but a worse gambit. The Alliance Magic Corps was available 11 chapters earlier and requires only a D rank in authority as opposed to the B rank that the Alliance Physicians take. And the Alliance Magic Corps isn't even good (I gave it a 4.5/10). It's hard to imagine any circumstance other than extremely specific challenge runs where i'd want to use these. Alliance Sages: 7/10. A very pleasant surprise for me. I didn't realise that these had such a high magic stat. All the same comments about the Blessing gambit apply here as did for the Empire and Kingdom equivalents, but now you can have it without compromising your combat performance. In fact, the magic attack is high enough that you'd consider running this just for the stats alone even if you didn't care about Blessing. Alliance Master Archers: 1/10. 4 attack, 4 prot, no hit, and a gambit that is OK but not great. That's just not good. Clearly worse than both the Holy Knights of Seiros and the Alliance Pavisse Co. which both are available at the same time and are both bad. The only thing saving this from a lower score is that I just graded the Alliance Physicians, which is even worse. Alliance Guard: 1/10. For a moment, I thought I should discuss the relative pros and cons of this compared to the Master Archers. Then I realise that neither one of them is worth that level of effort. Terrible. Golden Deer Wyvern Co: 4/10. Doesn't really offer enough for me to want to train a flier up to A rank authority, especially in a route that has access to the Immortal Corps to alleviate some of the flying battalion pressure. Clearly worse than both the Immortal Corps and the Cichol Wyvern Co. so this will be your third choice flying battalion at best. And if you recruited Ingrid or like Impregnable Wall, then that's down to fourth or fifth choice. I'm typically not running that many fliers, and if I do, then I'm typically not wanting to push more than one of them up to A authority. That said, if you are in that situation and you do end up running this, it will do the job perfectly competently. Golden Deer Archers: 0/10. 2 attack? On an A rank battalion? What were they even thinking? A rank battalions need to offer something exceptional for me to even consider them, and the only things here are exceptionally bad. This is worse than the 1/10 Alliance Guard, but it requires A rank authority. The only thing that might conceivably make anyone consider this is the high hit bonus. But stacking hit to that extent is rarely relevant, and even when it is, there are better choices. As the Golden Deer, you inherently have Marianne which means you have access to the Edmund Troops, which have even higher hit, an actually relevant amount of damage, and a lower authority requirement. Golden Deer Cavalry: 3/10. Comparable to the Alliance Pavisse Co, sacrificing a bit of prot for some extra attack, but at the cost of requiring an A rank in authority. Normally I'd be more down on the A rank authority, but Fortress Knight is such a cheap and easy build that training authority isn't really much of a burden. Still not very good.

Oops. I never actually responded to this. I only meant to respond to it and then forgot. For me, I prefer to build my tanks to be able to contribute on player phase as well. Admitedly, a big part of that is just personal preference, but I do think that there are actualy mechanical benefits to doing things that way as well. Specifically, having a strong player phase can significantly boost a tank's survival by taking out potential threats. The biggest threats to an armour tank are archers with poison strike and mages, both of whom are much better dealt with on player phase. For the archers, they'll mostly be attacking at 3+ range, so there's nothing you can do to them on enemy phase outside of shenanigans with Retribution or the Chalice. For mages, they'll typically attack at 2 range, so you can potentially counterattack with a hand axe, except that hand axes are pretty bad, and being hit by a magic attack first is also pretty bad. With a strong player phase, I have a decent shot at taking out those mages and archers before they become a problem. Though, like you said, there are lots of different ways to build a tank, and which is best does depend a lot on how you're using them and what you're trying to do with them. I would say that your way of focusing entirely on enemy phase is probably better for a tank that is trying to hold a choke point, especially if they have other units behind them backing them up. In that case, you absolutely don't want to be moving away from your choke point to seek out a mage or archer and it also doesn't matter if your tank can't kill them, because one of your other units will be able to. On the other hand, I think that my way of building a tank works better when you're expecting a tank to operate autonomously, without as much backup. I like my sort of build better when dealing with enemies from multiple directions. In that case, it's often possible to -- for instance -- send a strong tank to deal with a handful of units to the east, leaving the rest of your army free to engage the main enmy force in the west. You can do this with your sort of tank build as well, of course, but being able to take out problematic units on player phase increases the number of potentially viable situations you can do so. And that's the sort of tank that I'm imagining for Lifetaker. One question I do have about your build, though (if this isn't going too far off topic) : how much use do you find you tend to get from lancebreaker in that build? My initial reaction is that it doesn't sound like it would do much, even against lances. Fortress Knight evasion tends to be pretty terrible, not only because they have awful speed, but also because a lot of the battalions with high prot also have evasion penalties. So I'd assume that they aren't evading anything even with lancebreaker. And while bonus to hit is never a bad thing, I'd generally assume that I'd be wanting to get to reliable hit against everything, so the extra hit specifically against lance users wouldn't make any substantial difference. Am I missing something, or is it just something that you throw in because it's simple to pick up and there isn't much that's better? I really like this build. I don't think it's especially strong (except in as much as a Swift Strikes wyvern is always going to be strong), but I do think that it's sweet. I think that I would have fun using it. Though probably less fun getting to it. But as a lover of quirky off-builds, this one certainly seems like fun. I think that if I were to run it, I'd probably drop Str +2 for Alert Stance. I haven't done the arithmetic -- and it would depend on his exact level ups anyway -- but I doubt that losing 4 damage per use of Swift Strikes is going to make him miss very many kills, whereas it seems like it would be nice to at least have the option to use Alert Stance to boost his Avoid when you needed it. Even if you only have regular Alert Stance rather than +, that's still an extra 15 points of Avoid. I wouldn't plan on using it regularly, but it would be nice to have in my back pocket to pull out when I needed it, and my intuition is that that would be more useful than Str +2, while not killing the spirit of the build.

Kingdom Heavy Soldiers: 1/10. These are pretty terrible at almost everything, with their one saving grace being their good prot stat. And the good news for them is that there are some builds that really only care about stacking prot as high as it can go and don't care about having good attack or a good gambit. However, this is the Blue Lions that we're talking about, and they already got the Duscur Heavy Soldiers 8 chapters earlier, which not only offer more prot, but also have an actually good attack boost and an actually good gambit. I suppose it's just about possible that you want the Duscur Heavy Soldiers for a more offensively oriented unit, in which case your def tank might end up wanting this... except that even that isn't a sure thing. The Kingdom Heavy Knights that come available at the same time have very similar stats, but a more interesting gambit. But let's say that you're using a def tank and you don't care too much about how much damage it's dealing in return, and some other unit is using the Duscur Heavy Soldiers and you really want to be able to use Sacred Shield on your def tank? Then you might consider this. Maybe. Yeah no, this isn't happening. Kingdom Holy Knights: 2/10. I gave the Holy Knights of Seiros 3/10. These are similar, but with a worse gambit and no option to pick them up in Chapter 11. Pass. Kingdom Heavy Knights: 5/10. This one lands firmly in "I don't use it, but I can understand why other people might" territory. Sacred Shield isn't my style, but it is undeniably a powerful and useful effect. My main gripe is that it feels to me as if everything that you can do with this can also be accomplished by other tools, and those other tools either have broader applicability or a lower opportunity cost. Still, I can easily accept that anyone who equips this will probably manage to find some decent use from it. Royal Guard: 4.5/10. Seems perfectly servicable, but Azure Moon is not the route where you're resorting to perfectly servicable battalions in Part 2. Maybe worth deploying for the gambit on a very monster heavy map (Marianne's paralogue, maybe?), but otherwise probably not. Kingdom Priests: 3.5/10. Worse stats than the Empire equivalent, and on a route with much stronger competition for support gambits. Blue Lion Knights: 0.5/10. I just looked this up, and apparently you get a second copy of it as the "reward" for Dimitri's paralogue? I've obviously never paid too much attention at that point, because that's insulting enough to leave me pining for the halcyon days of Part 1 and getting Gaspard Knights from Ashe's paralogue. The stats are servicable, but not nearly enough to make up for the A-rank requirement, horrible gambit, and Part 2 availability. The only standout here is the +15 crit, but if you're in Part 2 Azure Moon and have an A rank in Authority, then you have access to Fraldarius Soldiers, King of Lions Corps, and Cichol Wyverns, all of which are far better. Blue Lion Magic Corps: 2.5/10. On the positive side, I consider this to be something of a sidegrade from Macuil Evil Repelling Co, or a slight downgrade at worst. On the negative side, I didn't like that battalion very much either. The A-rank Authoirty requirement is asking a lot, and neither of them do enough to really warrant it. Compared to the Evil Repellers, this loses 25 Hit (ouch) and 10 Avoid (whatever), but gains 4 prot and 1 res, and swaps out Resonant Lightning for the more accurate Resonant Ice. This is probably a losing trade overall, but I can imagine situations where I'd prefer this. A unit with solid hit but low charm (magic Ignatz, perhaps?) might prefer the more accurate gambit to having more hit; a bulkier magic attacker (Frozen Lance paladin Lorenz, maybe?) might really value those 4 points of prot. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter too much which of the two I'm prefering, because I'm probably not bothering to push anyone up to A Authority for either of them. Blue Lion Dancers: 7.5/10. I don't really have anything to say about these that hasn't already been said.

My thinking largely echoes that of @haarhaarhaar and @SnowFire, but I do have two additional points to make. One is that I typically use Retribution on my own time. That is, I use it at the start of a battle or I use it during a lull in a battle. I don't use it when things are very hectic. When I'm under a lot of pressure, Retribution is a bit of a dead turn. It isn't killing anything on this player phase, and it's not stopping me from being attacked next enemy phase. Sure, it has a very powerful effect, but it's a delayed effect that doesn't help if I need to alleviate the pressure now. I also typically want to hit as many units as possible when I use Retribution, and when I'm under pressure, I'm typically not able to reposition everyone into a nice 3 by 2 box to take full advantage of it. That's something that I can do when I use it on my own time. And in those circumstances, having flying mobility really doesn't help me out. Because of the way I'm using the gambit, I inherently have the time to get its user into position. My other point is that getting a flying unit to A rank authority is more costly than getting a grounded unit there. Not for all grounded units, but at least for some. Wyvern Lord wants three weapon ranks raised to C, A, A. Falcon Knight wants C, A, B+. Typically a bit lower than this in practice, given that you can certify at below 100% chance, but how much lower depends on luck, willingness to save-scum, and funds. If you then want to add an A rank in authority, it's starting to become a bit of an ask. Not a huge ask, and certainly doable, but something that involves a little bit of favouritism. I usually push one flier up to A authority to give them Cichol Wyverns, and I feel that is generally worth it. If I wanted to field the Black Eagle Pegasus Co, that would mean either showing that minor favouritism to 2 units, or dropping Cichol Wyverns. On the other hand, the cheapest ground units are far cheaper. If I'm running a Sniper, for instance, all they need is their bow rank. Realistically, they're probably dipping axes as well to get Death Blow, but it's still a far cheaper build than Wyvern Lord. A Sniper can easily reach A rank in authority without any favouritism at all. So, overall: I don't see much benefit to putting Retribution on a flier, grounded units can get to A authority more easily, and grounded units prefer the stats on Indech Swordfighters. There are still cases where this can be relevant, but I wouldn't expect this to see any play in a typical run.

Post-timeskip guild battalions do tend to be at a disadvantage. For starters, you're probably going to have a good selection of juicy paralogue battalions from part 1 all leveled up at this point. But beyond that, they're coming available at one of the easier points in the game. Across all the different runs of the game that I've done, I can't think of a single one where early part 2 has been a problem (once you're past the infamous chapter 13 and up the point where you can grab these battalions, at least). By that point in the game, you've probably got most if not all of your characters' builds either finished or close to finished, and you inherently need to have been strong enough to get through Chapter 13. So, for instance, let's compare the availability of Empire Holy Magic Users with that of Ordelia Sorcery Co. The latter has pretty awful availability, with its paralogue not becoming available until chapter 17. So that's a 3 chapter difference. And in theory, you'd think that being available 3 chapters earlier was a big advantage, except that I don't think it is. Those three extra chapters are almost always easy ones, so being available for them just doesn't count for much. For the likes of chapters 1, 5, 13, and endgame, it's reasonable to try to eke out every little bit of micro-optimisation that you can. For chapters 14-16, not so much. The sum of all this is that these battalions come up very poorly in terms of availability when compared to Part 1 paralogue battalions, and only have a very slight advantage in availability compared to Part 2 paralogue battalions. This is not a good place for them to be, and typically means that these battalions have to do something special for me to even consider using them. With all of that said, though, I do think that Crimson Flower is the route where they fair the best. You don't natively get any Part 1 paralogue battalions, you haven't had to get past the gate that is Hunting by Daybreak, and I think that early part 2 is harder in CF than in other routes. So maybe these have a chance. Empire Heavy Soldiers: 6/10. The best prot on their route, combined with decent attack and hit and a strong gambit. These are pretty good. Probably not worth grabbing and levelling if you have a full collection of battalions you're reasonably happy with (unless you're runnign an armour tank), but if you're doing a low-recruitment run and are somewhat battalion starved, then this is a decent pick. Empire Holy Magic Users: 4/10. This is all about Blessing. Personally, I don't use Blessing, so I don't use this battalion. But if you want Blessing, then you don't have very many options. So if you do want Blessing and you don't have the Hevring Prayer Troops (either because you didn't grab Leonie or because Legend of the Lake was the map you wanted Blessing for) then there's a place for this. It's a pretty narrow niche, but still a niche. Empire Raiders: 1/10. Absorption is bad enough that this may as well not have any gambit at all. The stats are not nearly good enough to make up for the unusably bad gambit. I can't imagine ever running this. Imperial Guard: 3.5/10. The main purpose of this is probably to remind you of other Imperial Guards form history and from fiction that were cooler, stronger, or more interesting. Personally, I suggest Napoleon and Warhammer 40,000. These are not particularly good. However, they do come with a pretty decent attack stat and a moderately OK gambit, so they might be picked up in a low-recruitment run. Empire Elite Wyvern Co: 6/10. This is probably not your best choice of flying battalion. Cichol Wyverns are better if you have A rank authority. Galatea Pegasus Co. is better if you recruited Ingrid. But maybe you only have B authority and you didn't recruit Ingrid. Or maybe you're running three physical fliers. There are enough use cases for this to deserve a respectable score. Black Eagle Heavy Axes: 0.5/10. If these were B rank, then I'd be talking about how they were clearly inferior to Empire Heavy Soldiers, but trying to talk myself into giving them a score as high as maybe 3/10 by arguing that maybe there are a few situations where you actually want to have 2 armour tanks at once and would run both battalions side by side. As is, though, these actually want an A rank in authority which manages to completely eliminate any chance that these will actually see use. Black Eagle Cavalry: 1.5/10. This is better than the Heavy Axes and the Raiders. This is not good enough for me to ever bother using, given it's A authority requirement. Black Eagle Pegasus Co: 4.5/10. Want to use retribution, but you didn't recruit Hanneman and are playing Crimson Flower? Really need flying Retribution for some reason? Making a dodge tank but didn't recruit Ingrid or Anna? Just running a whole lot of fliers? None of these scenarios are all that likely, but there are enough possibilities where this might be used for me to feel OK giving it a middling sort of score.

I won't say that I never save scum the certifications, but I do it very rarely. Not that I have a problem with other people doing it, but it's just not fun for me personally. I remember back when I did a no-monastery challenge run, I ended up running out of Master Seals, since you can only get an unlimited number from Anna's shop which you can only access from the monastery, not the menu shop. And in that run, I decided that I'd just let myself run out and not use any more master classes, rather than save scumming. Thinking about it, one thing that they could have done with Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, which I think would have been cool, would have been to drastically reduce or even eliminate the weapon skill requirements from the certifications. Still require the level requirement, but let you grab the certification even if you're sitting at E rank Reason. That might have opened up a few interesting niche uses as a way to just give someone a little bit of magic with minimal investment. I did think about Gilbert as a possibility for this, but I decided that his availability would probably be an issue. You wouldn't even be able to start training him in Reason until chapter 14, and then you'd have to get him up to at least a B, pass the certification, and then master the class, by which point the game would probably be over. With other characters, you'd be able to start off much earlier, and actually finish in a reasonable length of time.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I'd recommend it, but I've had fun in the past putting Lifetaker on Fortress Knights. They're frequently taking damage that needs healing up, and they can do good damage which translates to decently sized heals. The idealised use case is that they take some chip damage while tanking on enemy phase, and then instantly heal it all back with a single hit on player phase. Sure, you have healers with Physic who can heal them up instead, but if your Fortress Knight can be self-sufficient then this can either free up your healer to take other actions, or can allow your tank to operate autonomously without healer support. Fortress Knight is also not typically a very skill-hungry build. I'd want to give it Axe Prowess, Def +2 and Death Blow, for sure, but then what? Neither Armored Blow nor Pavise are particularly impressive. Weight -3/5 can be good on some characters, but Fortress Knights probably aren't going to be doubling anyway. Hit +20, Str +2, and HP +5 are all reasonable options but I wouldn't call any of them essential. Axe Crit +10 is OK if you manage to get to S rank in axes. Axefaire and Quick Riposte are both good, but require even more investment to grab than Lifetaker. And while I've only ever done this in NG+, I do think it would be at least somewhat viable in NG as well. Fortress Knight is a very low investment build, only really caring about training axe, armour and authority, and a quick dip to D in lances for Soldier. Training Reason up high enough to also certify into Dark Bishop sounds reasonable, especially if you're willing to save scum exams and doubly especially if you're using Balthus who is strong in both axes and armor and has a budding talent in reason. (Aside: one of the things I dislike about Dark Seals in this game is how they interact with the exam system. For most class certifications, if I fail an exam then I can just buy another seal and try again next time. The cost of trying at below 100% chance is that you have to spend extra money on seals, which is reasonable. But with Dark Seals, you have a very limited supply of them, once they're gone they're gone, and you lose them even if you fail the exam. This means that your options are either to wait until you have 100% success chance (lowering the viability of these classes even further), or you accept that you might fail and have to completely rethink your build, or you save scum the exams. I hate all of these options.) It's definitely a build with multiple problems and I want to reiterate that. I'm not saying this is great. I'm just saying it's somewhat viable as a somewhat quirky, off-beat build.

Let's do this. First, let me introduce you to Genevieve. Think of her as a cross between L'Arachel and Meg. She's a member of the minor nobility and has had a very sheltered upbringing. She yearns to get out and see the world in all its splendor... but she's also a little bit terrified of it. She has a personality along the lines of the quixotic, overbearing nobelwoman (L'Arachel, Serra, Clair), but tinged with a slight layer of cowardice. She has a good heart, though, and her character arc (to whatever extent it exists) would be about overcoming her fears and actually getting out and really living life to the fullest outside her family's manor. Mechanically, she is an armour knight -- got to have lots of armour to protect from whatever's out there! -- but with an atypical stat spread for the class. A similar sort of stat distribution to Meg, except not terrible. Or like what you'd get if you reclassed a pegasus knight into an armour class. So, higher speed than what you'd expect for an armour knight, but lower strength and def. Next up, we have Columba who is a pretty boy archer. He's androgynous in appearance, almost elfin (possibly he has a tiny bit of manakete ancestry five or six generations back?). He's also completely oblivious. He's completely asexual and aromantic, and he doesn't notice that women tend to fawn over him, and even if he did then he wouldn't know why and certainly wouldn't have any interest in acting on it. Instead, he's mostly interested in reading historical novels and playing chess (which he's pretty good at). His supports would generally tend towards the wholesome, as he and (female character) initially have some awkwardness as she tries to flirt with him and he is oblivious, but once they get over that, they form a strong platonic friendship instead. Stat-wise, he's a fairly typical archer. Compared to other archers, he has slightly lower strength, but slightly higher luck and res. Finally, I give you Poppy. She is an incorigible flirt but, in a departure for Fire Emblem, not also a creepy asshole. She is pansexual and will flirt with basically anyone, since she can find beauty in basically anyone. However, she's actually self-aware and will stop if the other person isn't into it. From her perspective, it's only fun when both people are having a good time. She's very charming, but she's also flighty, terrible at committing to anyone or anything, and tends not to take things seriously, even when they deserve it. She's a cavalier, which she only took up because she figured that it was something that would make both the ladies and the gents swoon. And while she was right about that, she's also found that she's actually very good at it. In terms of stats, she has higher strength and luck than a typical cavalier, but lower than average def since she refuses to wear a helmet that would stop people from seeing her pretty face and her long hair flowing behind her as she rides past. (I've also noticed that she would work well as one half of a christmas knights duo, but that wasn't how I originally conceived of her.) Feel free to use any, all or none of these, and to change as much or as little as you care to about them.

I have neither the time nor inclination to go fully in depth, but a few quick points: This is tonally inconsistent with the source material. Just way more gruesome than the original The Lion King. Which makes me think, who is this for? If it's for fans of the original, many wouldn't care for the tonal shift. If it's for people who want something grittier and more violent, does it really need to have any of the Lion King references, or would it be better off as its own thing? Are you doing it just for shock value? If so, then be aware that trying to be shocking usually just makes many people roll their eyes. If you're specifically trying to write for the fairly small subset of people who really want a sequel to The Lion King except with more blood and violence, then I guess that's your choice, but you should be aware that that probably isn't a very big audience. Pick a tense and stick with it. You start off in the present tense but then switch part way through to the past tense. You need to be consistent. If in doubt, just stick to the past tense, since it's a lot easier to write in than the present tense. Your prose is very purple. Being evocative and poetic is one thing, but at least for my tastes, you go too far and are overusing adjectives, adverbs and similes where simple descriptions would be better. It's especially jarring given that you seem to be going for more of a violent action-movie sort of aesthetic, which seems like it would want to be more immediate and to-the-point. You have a bunch of instances where you're reusing uncommon words in quick succession, which comes across as very clumsy. Use more paragraph breaks, especially when you're writing speech and dialogue. Long paragraphs without line breaks are harder to read. This might be a nitpick, but it was something I found especially jarring. Hunting carnivores don't try to bite off chunks of flesh to eat as they chase their target. They bite to maim, incapacitate and kill, and only start eating once they've downed their prey.

To what extent do you care about adherence to Archanean lore? I could easily throw an OC or three at you, but my knowledge of Mystery of the Emblem is somewhere between slim and none, and my knowledge of Shadow Dragon isn't much better.

Vestra Sorcery Engineers: 6/10. A little disappointing overall. +7 magic attack is nice, and while Resonant Lightning is the worst of the resonant magic gambits, it's still not terrible. The bonuses to prot and avoid don't offer much to most mage characters, since they prefer to sit in the back and not be the target of any attacks in the first place. They can find a place on something like a Frozen Lance Paladin, but that sort of build often prefers to have the option to make physical attacks as well so won't be appreciating the -2 to physical attacks. Having B-rank stats on a C-rank battalion is a nice perk, but this comes along too late for that to be as strong as it might otherwise be. But it does make this a good choice for any mage lagging behind on Authority, with Hapi being an obvious candidate. Supreme Armored Co: 8/10. The weakest of the three Lord battalions, largely because the unique class that they're optimised for is the weakest of the three unique Lord classes. The stats here are pretty comparable to Gloucester Knights. +1 to physical attack, +1 to prot, and +3 to charm, but at a cost of -10 each to hit and avoid. Overall, I'd view that as probably a very minor upgrade. But where these really outclass the Gloucester Knights is their gambit. Raging Flames is really good. On the other hand, where these are worse than the Gloucester Knights is availability, coming in a full 5 chapters later. King of Lions Corps: 9/10. +10 physical attack: fantastic. Wave attack: fantastic. +10 charm: fantastic. C-rank authority: fantastic. +15 crit: fantastic. +5 prot: fant... wait? That's not fantastic! That's merely good! Would this ideally like a little bit more hit and a little bit of res? Sure. Is that enough to stop this being an outstanding battalion for any grounded physical attacker? Not even close. Imoortal Corps: 10/10. Comparable comments to King of Lions, except that this flies, and flying is better than not flying. The best attack and the best avoid on any flying battalion makes this a must use. Add in the best offensive gambit in the game shoots this into the stratosphere. We've discussed before the trade-off between good gambits and good stats, and how the choice can often come down to play style. But why not pick a battalion that does both? I said way back when that the Seiros Holy Monks might be my personal pick for best battalion in the game. This is the only battalion that makes me question that.

The other benefit of Retribution is that it doesn't take your accessory slot, which may or may not be relevant. Depending on exactly what you're doing and how your stats work out, having an Evasion Ring for your dodge tank or a Critical Ring for your Vantage/Wrath unit can still potentially make a difference. Just using the Chalice is a whole lot easier and doesn't require any set-up, but using Retribution can potentially give you a somewhat stronger unit.

Leicester Dicers: 6.5/10. These are decent enough, but there are just too many different things working against them to get a high rating. The bad gambit. The paralogue that unlocks them being unusually difficult for the time it appears. The way that hybrid attackers just aren't that good. They can get the job done, but I'm not excited by them. Timotheos Magi Corp: 8.5/10. These, on the other hand, I am excited by. They come with the joint highest magic attack of any battalion in the game and the single best magically attacking gambit in the game. And then also get a useful little bonus to both hit and crit as well. What's not to love? If I'm only running a single grounded magical attacker, this is the battalion I want them to have. Mockingbird's Thieves: 3/10. I want to like these. I really do. I've tried to make them work. But then I inevitably end up dropping them when they just aren't working for me. The stat boosts just aren't particularly great for the point of the game when they arrive, and Absorption has a bad habit of missing when I need it the most. Nuvelle Flier Corps: 8.5/10. The unique selling point here is being a flying battalion with magic attack. If you're running a flying unit who attacks with magic, then you want this. It's almost irrelevant to talk about how good this is, because it doesn't have any competition in its niche. But it is good. Even if you aren't running a magic-using flier, it's good enough for consideration for grounded mages. Not quite top tier there, but worthy of consideration. But the high marks are mostly because of how it empowers builds that just wouldn't work without it. Secret Transport Force: 7/10. I haven't really used this one much since I don't usually recruit Anna, so this is mostly theorycraft. This looks to be something of a weird one. I can certainly imagine several niches for it, but none of them are amazing. Firstly and most simply, there's the possibility of putting Stride on a flier, though I do agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate that this isn't as awesome as it sounds. It's also a perfectly good choice to put on a grounded unit to give them Stride. As I've mentioned, I like to have Stride on my healers, and for that use case, this is the only choice that's a straight upgrade on the original Seiros Holy Monks. It also has the best Avoid stat of any flying battalion (tied with Immortals Corps) so is an option if you just want to make the dodgiest dodge tank who ever dodged. Or, if you're running two magic fliers, then this wouldn't be a bad choice. The first one would want the Nuvelle Fliers, but for the second one, having no penalty to magic and a support gambit is probably the best you can do. And all of these things are good but none of them are great. There's nothing that makes me want to rush out and put any of this theorycraft into practice.

OK, let's do this. I'm going to be imagining a fight between Byleth and the Link from A Link to the Past, since those are the two games from their series that I know best. I'm going to assume that we're comparing both characters at their strongest. So Link will have all his items and Byleth will have a good selection of skills and items. Though I will assume that Link went with their canonical Enlightened One class, rather than choosing to be a Wyvern Lord. And I'll also assume female Byleth, partly because I usually play female, but mostly because it lets me say "she" and "he" without it being ambiguous. Swordsmanship: I'm going to say that Byleth is better with the sword. She definitely starts out stronger than Link since she has her history as a mercenary, whereas Link has never used a sword before. She also receives direct training during the course of the game. Link also only knows two techniques in this game other than a basic slash (spin attack and sword beams), whereas Byleth knows 5 different combat arts and can have up to 4 of them equipped at once (including Sublime Heaven). Swords: I'm going to say that this is about even. Both the Sword of the Creator and the Master Sword are legendary magical swords, personally linked to their wielder, and also upgraded during the course of the games. If there's any advantagehere, I can't see it. Ranged combat: This one goes to Link, but only just barely. Both have some strong ranged attacks, but Link comes out slightly ahead by virtue of the sheer variety of his options. Byleth can use the Sword of the Creator as a whip, cast Ragnarok (and other spells), and counter-attack at any range by calling a lightning bolt from the sky thanks to the Chalice of Beginning. Whereas Link has bombs, a bow (with magic silver arrows), a boomerang, a hookshot, two magic rods, three magic medallions, exploding magic blocks from the Cane of Somaria, and beams from the Master Sword. Combat Magic: Probably Link by a hair. Both of them have some pretty strong offensive magic options, but it isn't really either of their specialties. They also both have pretty strong limits on how many times they can use their magic. But Link can have a few extra uses on his strongest magic, and also has the secondary freeze effect of the ice rod. Ultimately, neither of them really want to be relying on their offensive magic too much. Defense: Link, for sure. The Mirror Shield alone is incredibly strong, easily deflecting lasers, magic, and fireballs, but it's not even close to Link's best defensive option. This version of Link also has access to the Cane of Byrna, which makes him completely invisible, and the Magic Cape, which makes him invisible and intangible. Both come at the drawback of being limited by his magic power, though. Byleth might have access to some magic shield or other, but nothing she might have is even close to the Mirror Shield, let alone Link's magical defenses. Healing: I'm actually going to say that Byleth has the advantage here. Link's healing options are stronger, but they're a limited resource. At most, Link can carry 4 blue potions and once they're done, they're done. On the other hand, Byleth can use both her Crest of Flames and her Healing Focus combat art without limit. Death mitigation: Again, Byleth has the advantage here. Link can carry a maximum of four fairies with him, so he can die four times without issue, but when he dies the fifth time, he's really dead. On the other hand, Byleth has 13 uses of Divine Pulse which she can use to counter any blow that would kill her, and will only actually die when you kill her for the 14th time. Mobility: Link wins this by a mile. Link can swim, jump off ledges, use bombs to break through walls, run extremely fast using his Pegasus Boots or be carried by his summonable magic duck. Byleth can... not do any of these things. Or anything else. She can run marginally better than an average human, I guess? Extra-dimensional travel: I'm going to call this a tie. Both can do this, but neither can do so on demand. Link needs a warp tile, and Byleth only managed it once when returning from Zahras. So, with all of that said, here's how I see the battle going. To start with, Link will use his superior mobility and ranged attacks to attack Byleth from afar and not let her get close. However, this will not be a successful strategy. Byleth can just counterattack with lightning bolts from the Chalice of Beginnings, and lightning is one thing that the mirror shield actually can't block. Byleth can also pause to heal up with Healing Focus as often as she wants, whereas Link only has a finite supply of healing. Seeing that this isn't working, Link will try to switch to attacking up close. He's not as talented with a sword as Byleth, but he can use his superior defenses to attack with complete impunity, at least for as long as he has magic for the Cane of Byrna. And this might be enough to let him get a few hits in, maybe even what should be a killing blow or two, except that Byleth is going to use divine pulse and just dodge the would-be fatal hits. And then Link's magic runs out, and his defenses drop. Of course, he still has the mirror shield, and he's still good with a sword, but Byleth is better. So over time Byleth will get the edge, and eventually Link will go down... only to be revived seconds later by a fairy. After being revived a second time, Link will realise that this is a fight he can't win, so he'll quaff a blue potion, reactivate the Cane of Byrna, and then use the Pegasus Boots to get the hell otu of dodge. At which point, there's no way that Byleth will catch him. He can dash around and there's no way he can catch her, but also no way for him to attack her such that she can't counter attack. End result: a draw.

A rank in authority is a lot to ask. It's certainly attainable, and not all that difficult, but it will almost inevitably come at a cost. If you're putting in the time and tutoring to grab it then it means that you're delaying or abandoning something else. Maybe you're slower getting to A+ in your main weapon for Prowess Lv5, or you're delaying being able to certify into a master class, or you're abandoning thoughts of hitting S rank in your main weapon, or not bothering with a dip into armour for weight -3 and Armour Knight cert. Whatever the case, there's almost always going to be some other option that you could be training instead. So for A rank battalions, the question is generally "does this offer more than the combination of a B-rank battalion and the skill training that I'm forsaking by getting it?" Macuill Evil Repelling Co: 3/10. There are 10 battalions that offer +7 or better to magic attack, and this is one of only two of them that want an A rank in authority. And because of the way that this game does paralogues, it generally works out that the more mages you're running, the more good magic battalions you have. The 30% bonus to hit is nice, but hit is rarely something that I'm desperate for on a mage. The extra charm is also nice, but not worth the cost of the upgrade from B to A authority. I do have a question for anyone more intricately familiar with the details of the game's mechanics than I am, though. My understanding is that, when calculating a gambit's hit rate, the battalion's charm bonus is included in the calculation but the battalion's hit bonus is not. So if you compared the Macuill Evil Repelling Co. (30 hit, 10 charm) with the Alliance Magic Users (0 hit, 5 charm) the former will have up to a 25% higher (displayed) hit rate for Resonant Lightning than the latter and not 55% higher. Can someone either confirm or refute this for me? If I'm wrong here, then I might bump my score up a little bit since Resonant Lightning really would benefit from that extra accuracy. Overall, I hardly ever use this. It's not a bad choice for Lysithea, since she requires relatively less effort to reach A authority than anyone else (due to her authority boon combined with Mastermind), but I wouldn't bother for anyone else. Indech Sword Fighters: 7/10. Do you want Retribution? If yes, this is great. If not, this is... still pretty OK, I guess? Notably, one of the benefits of upgrading to an A-rank battalion from one with B rank is that you get extra charm. And while extra charm is always nice to have, it's less impactful on battalions which don't have an offensive gambit. The stats are a downgrade from Gonerill Valkyries, but an upgraded over most grounded physical battalions, so you might consider pushing on for A authority just for the stats. But if you're running something that is able to take advantage of both the stats and Retribution, then these can really shine. Cichol Wyvern Co: 8/10. Alongside the Galatea Pegasus Co, one of the two best flying battalions in the game. Personally, I prefer the Wyverns for a unit who can run either, but rate them slightly lower overall due to the higher authority requirement. But it's something of a moot point which is better, because if you have both then you're probably going to run both. Good flyng battalions are in short enough supply that this typically will be a big enough upgrade over whatever it's replacing to be worth the investment in authority, and I will typically always make sure that I get at least one flier to A authority specifcally to run these. Cethleann Monks: 1/10. Well, it's a good job that the other rewards from this paralogue are so amazing, because otherwise these monks would be a real letdown. While I'm not a fan of Resonant White Magic at the best of times, if it does have a place then that place is in the very early game. By the time you can be running this battalion, it may as well not have a gambit at all. The stats aren't bad but are nothing to write home about, and are generally worse than several other lower-rank battalions. Definitely not worth the investment of getting a unit to A-rank authority. I don't think I've ever used this, and I doubt I ever will. Holy Knights of Seiros: 3/10. These are a bit weird, in that there are two ways to get them, both of which have their own problems. The first possibility is to hold off on doing the Sword and Shield of Seiros paralogue until chapter 11 when you've recruited Alois. I generally feel that it is a mistake to do so. If you do hold off, your extra reward is a copy of this battalion. On the other hand, if you do it sooner, you get to enjoy all the other rewards for four additional chapters. Personally, I'd rather have everything else four chapters earlier, back when the experience and the extra copy of Seiros Archers were both more relevant. And in the hypothetical case where you leave the paralogue until late because you have a lot of other paralogues to do, that just means that you've done a lot of other paralogues and got a lot of other battalions, many of which are probably better than this. On the other hand, you can wait until Part 2 and buy them in the battalion guild starting from Chapter 14 (outside of Crimson Flower). At which point it's probably too late for these to have much relevance since they're now competing not only with the battalions from Part 1 paralogues, but also with those from Part 2 paralogues and the others that are available in the Part 2 battalion guild. I'm having a really hard time imagining the circumstances where this would be something I'd want to use.

I'm really curious to hear your resoning here. I generally consider Catnap to be the worst personal ability in the game, or possibly the second worst behind Raphael's Goodie Basket. I can certainly see rating it above Marianne's clunker of a personal (even though I'd disagree), but it's hard for me to see how it could be considered better than Live to Serve (Mercedes), Lily's Poise (Flayn) or Monstrous Appeal (Hapi). What is it that you like about it?

My experience with Arcane Crystals (prior to unlocking the Dark Merchant) is that they are inconsistent and unreliable. Sometimes, I will find some in the monastery or an auxiliary battle, but sometimes I won't. And as far as I'm aware, this is entirely down to RNG. Sure, you can skew the odds in your favour by meticulously searching the monastery every month and by going for lots of auxiliary battles that reward ore, but if the RNG says no then there's not too much you can do about it. And the more you do try to skew the odds, the more you get into the territory of tedious grind. I'm fine picking up monastery items that I pass while I'm doing other monastery tasks, but I don't do a full sweep every month. I'm fine doing an occasional auxiliary battle when I have a spare battle point after doing a paralogue, but I'm not doing three every month. And I'm definitely not using every single piece of bait to catch fish and feeding all of the fish to the monastery's cats. Now, there's nothing that says that you can't pivot to a different build if you don't get the arcane crystals that you need. Having Hit +20 and Curved Shot is almost always better than not having them. But the "wasted" investment does hurt, and can make it harder to switch to some other builds, especially more expensive ones. I'm also the sort of person who generally likes to have all my builds planned out beforehand, so I don't like to have to change things up mid-game. So my assumption will always be that I'll have bad luck with Arcane Crystals, and will only run builds that I think are viable even with bad luck.

Gloucester Knights: 7.5/10. Pretty much unmatched for hybrid attackers. Supreme Armor Co. is better, but is route-specific. And I think I prefer Gloucester Knights to the (higher attack) Leicester Dicers due to the increased hit and the superior gambit. And this is available earlier than either of those two. Of course, hybrid attackers are generally not great, so being the best at a niche role is only worth so much. Fortunately, it's still very solid for pure physical attackers, especially given its early join time. I'm less inclined to put it on a pure magical attacker, sicne they generally prefer to have a magical gambit as well, but it can fill that role too if it has to. Leicester Mercenaries: 8/10: Excellent bonuses to attack, hit, and crit. Only one other battalion in the game can offer this level or better in all three stats. And it then also comes with decent if unremarkable prot and a decent if unremarkable gambit, meaning it doesn't really have any weaknesses. The only reason not to run this is if you're running an unusually small number of grounded physical attackers. Gonneril Valkyries: 8.5/10. Going out of order, because oh hey, here's that one other battalion. This basically does everything that the Leicester Mercenaries do, but does it slightly better. It appears two chapters later, though, which means that the gap isn't as wide as it might be, and I actually toyed with the idea of giving them the same grade because of it. Regardless, I'm most likely using both of these. Victor Private Military: 5/10. Might see a little bit of use for a few chapters, but will almost inevitably be swapped out before too long. In the continuum of the trade-off between gambit and stats, this has notably worse stats than the Nuvelle Chamberlains and a notably worse gambit than the Alliance Snipers. There might be a few cases where I'd prefer the jack-of-all-trades, but I think I'm more likely to want to go for either the best stats I can get or the best gambit I can get, and this offers neither. Almyra Mercenaries: 3/10. Pretty good, if you happen to have someone still at E rank authority at this point. You almost certainly don't have anyone still at E rank authority at this point.

I dunno. "Has no particular niche and is outclassed by other, better options" seems like pretty quintessential Ashe to me. Jokes aside, though, I do agree. If I were tasked with making a battalion that fit Ashe, I'd have gone with high hit (to help him attack at long range), high crit (to complement his high dex), bow users with the Fusillade gambit (to match his bow use), and maybe make them cavalry to fit Ashe's idolisation of storybook knights. These do absolutely none of those things. It's such a weird choice.

Welcome back! Now let's see if I can remember how battalions work. Duscur Heavy Soldiers: 7/10. Are you running a def tank? If yes, then you definitely want these. If no, then you might want these. The obvious standout feature is the highest prot on any battalion, but it also has good might and a strong and uncommon gambit. I don't really consider the avoid penalty to be a deal breaker, since I'm mostly playing under the assumption that the enemy is hitting most of their attacks anyway, regardless of whether that's at 75% displayed hit or 90% displayed hit (for instance). Galatea Pegasus Co: 8.5/10. There's an argument to be made that this is the best flyking battalion for any house other than the Golden Deer, with the only real competitor for that title being the Cichol Wyverns. Would this like a better gambit? Definitely. How about a touch more prot? Sure. Are either of these things enough to stop this from being great? Not remotely. Gautier Knights: 6/10. This is the one from this batch where I expect that my opinion diverges furthest from consensus. I'm just not that big a fan of these. The two big selling points are Stride and the high avoid rating. Both of which are, on paper, excellent. But the whole package just doesn't work for me. For starters, I'm not the biggest fan of dodge tanks, but if I am running one, it's almost always going to be a flier who can't use these. And if I'm not stacking evasion, then 20 avoid typically isn't enough to stop me from playing under the assumption that my unit will be hit. There's also tension between what Stride offers and what the avoid offers. A Stride user is typically going to be one of my rearmost units, since all the units that it buffs are going to be able to rush ahead. Meanwhile, a dodge tank almost always wants to be the most advanced unit so that it can be the one drawing aggro. The two best features of this battalion are in direct conflict with each other, making it very difficult to use both to their full potential. I've also stated before that my preference is to put Stride onto a unit with Physic since they can still contribute if they're stuck behind everyone else. For such units, the Gautier Knights are probably a downgrade from the Seiros Holy Monks. Gaining prot and charm is nice, but losing out on might and hit probably more than offsets it. I also like putting Stride on force-deployed units for battalions if I've not really been using them. And again, this loses out in this use-case too, since such units probably won't have B in Authority. But, with all that said, I'm still giving it 6/10, because it still has decent enough stats and Stride. If you use it, it will definitely put in work. I can imagine it being a good choice of battalion for something like Bow Knight Ashe, for instance. Fraldarius Soldiers: 5/10. Just as the stats on the Duscur Heavy soldiers are heavily weighted towards prot, and the stats on the Gautier Knight are heavily weighted towards avoid, the Fraldarius Soldiers are weighted towards Crit. However, I rate crit less highly than either of the other two stats, so that's not a great start here. It also comes with a fairly poor gambit, which also contributes to it getting a lower score. Not a terrible battalion, but an underwhelming one. Gaspard Knights: 1.5/10. Let's compare the Gaspard Knights to the Kingdom Knights. At max level, they have identical physical attack, hit, and crit, as well as the same gambit. The Kingdom Knights have +1 resilience and +5 avoid whereas the Gaspard Knights have +2 to magical attack, +1 prot, and +2 charm. Pretty even, with the Gaspard Knights appearing to just shade it. Except that the Gaspard Knights require B rank Authority and are available no earlier than Chapter 9, whereas the Kingdom Knights only need a C rank in Authority and were available fully 6 chapters earlier. Even if you are training authority hard and getting lots of units to an early B rank, it's dubious whether this is even better than the available C-rank options.