lenticular

I had had that thought as well. The world map is weirdly symmetrical, and it didn't feel like the sort of design that would happen by accident unless there's a reason for that symmetry. Being able to go through the kingdoms in any order would make sense to me as one possible reason. I think it could work really well, too. One of the (many) divisive aspects of Three Houses was the front-loaded recruitment. On the one hand, this was good, because you could always have your favourite unit from pretty early on (unless your favourite was Gilbert). But on the other hand, it was bad because no late game recruits meant your team became static and you didn't get replacements for anyone who died. Giving the player choice as to which order to tackle different maps could be the best of both worlds. You're guaranteed to get your favourite character early (if you want to), but you also get a steady stream of new recruits throughout the game. I don't think that it would be so much work as to make it completely implausible. At the most basic level, it could just allow the 4 kingdoms to be handled in any order (with a few introductory levels before and a few finale levels after), which would only require 4 different versions of each map, most of which would just be scaling of level and stats on enemy units. Not trivial, but definitely possible. I don't think I'm expecting this, or even necessarily hoping for it, but I do think it's possible. Are you thinking instead of Turnwheel/Pulse or as well as? They seem like very different features to me, with different use cases, designed to appeal to different types of player.

It certainly makes a hell of a lot more sense than Canto ever did, but it still seems a bit weird to have the skill be named for "going pretty fast but not actually as fast as you can". But then, I never was much of a horse girl. Does anyone know what gait would most commonly be used by warhorses in battle? I do wonder if that might mean we get some other terminology changes too. Maybe we could finally see Volcano magic instead of Bolganone, for instance. Or maybe our moody loner swordfighters will stop being named for a group known for unwavering loyalty (Myrmidons).

Most of the characters I wouldn't want to see are way too minor for me to be worried that they might show up. I don't like Neimi for instance, or Makalov, but does anyone expect either of them to be in the game? If they are, then the cast of Emblems would be so huge that it would be easy to pick my favourites and just ignore the characters I don't like. Of the characters who realistically might be included, the ones I don't want to see would be: Edelgard and Rhea, since I have no desire to see yet another rehash of that argument; Camilla, for obvious reasons; and Mark, for being a non-entity of a character who's only there if IS are heavily favouring avatar characters.

DLC featuringh Elice, Elise, Elincia, and Eliwood. Make it happen, IS.

I don't have a problem with low move if it's done well and has small, tight, well-designed maps. I'm just a little wary because some of the early maps in Three Houses (the Miklan map especially) were exactly the wrong kind of low move maps. Having low-move characters having to trek over large maps can get really tedious. I also worry about the possibility of desert maps. One of the four countries in the trailer looked like a desert, so I'm expecting multiple desert maps. And if these reduce movement as usual, then they're going to be awful. 4 move is fine (if the maps are designed for it), but you can't really go much below that before things grind to a halt. So, overall, yeah, low movement might be great. But it might also be terrible. It depends on how it's done. And I'm enough of a pessimist to imagine the worst case scenarios first.

I would also guess that we're only going to get the 12 that were shown, but I also wouldn't be surprised if some more showed up as part of a DLC at some point. If there are more, then yeah, it's going to be other major characters only. One thing that I do hope for is that there are good options for support characters, specifically for a healer and a dancer. None of the 12 that we know about were really support characters in their original games, though Micaiah could easily be made that way and have it make sense. Celica could have been as well, but doesn't seem to be, from what we saw in the trailer. Having one that makes sense for a Dancer might be harder, though. Azura would probably be the obvious choice there, but doesn't seem to be the route they've taken.

Some thoughts on the trailer (all time stamps are approximate). Going to put this under a spoiler because it got long. Overall, my first impressions were fairly negative, but I'm warming up to it as I look at it more closely. I'm not really a fan of the big crossover aspect, and I'm a little worried about the low movement stats, but there's quite a lot that I do like. Definitely want to see more of this before jumping to any conclusions though. Or to be more realistic, I'm going to want to actually play this before making my mind up. I'm cautiously optimistic, though.

My reaction to the direct as a whole: I really need to stop wasting my time by watching these things in full. If I just waited for the specific trailers and announcements that I care about, it'd take me under ten minutes. My reaction to Fire Emblem Engage: well, I'm not really feeling it so far, but I'm going to wait until we get more information rather than jumping to conclusions. It didn't feel as if we saw enough here to really have a strong grasp of how it will play. I'm not thrilled by the whole "summon characters from old games" thing, but I'm not ready to completely write the game off yet.

For whatever it's worth, I would largely agree with such a person, although I would word it differently. I generally don't find a lot of value in the concept of canonicity of fiction. For works that are intended to be able to be played, read or watched as a standalone, I also think that it should be valid to analyse them purely on their own merits. So, for instance, I would see it as a bit silly if someone tried to analyse or understand The Two Towers Part 2 outside of the context of the rest of The Lord of the Rings. However, I think that it's entirely reasonable to want to discuss The Hobbit as a standalone work, without taking cues from The Lord of the Rings or the rest of Tolkien's legendarium. For analyses that focus on authorial intent, canon can be useful as a way to understand what the author(s) was (were) thinking, but I'm generally more interested in interpretations of the work. As a somewhat silly example, Holst was somewhat infamous in Three Houses for how he never actually showed up. My tongue-in-cheek interpretation for this was that "Holst" didn't actually exist, but was Hilda's drag king/superhero alternate identity. This was a silly interpretation, definitely, and not one that was particularly supported by the text. But given that we never actually saw Holst, we were free to make up whatever we wanted to about him, and I liked that. Then Three Hopes came along and had Holst as an actual character. Does that make my interpretation of Three Houses even less valid than it already was? I would say no, though I recognise that many people would say yes. But for me, I am still looking at Three Houses as a stand-alone work, not as part of some larger Fódlan legendarium. In a way, I think there are a few slightly disturbing connotations to the idea that it is only ever valid to view a work through the scope of the broadest possible canon. Personally, I have not played Three Hopes and have no desire to do so. (I tried the demo but didn't enjoy it; I've nothing against it, it just isn't for me.) So does that mean I'm no longer allowed to have opinions and thoughts about the story and narrative of Three Houses? I certainly hope not. I'd even go a step further, and say that it is entirely valid to try to analyse and understand any individual path of any multi-pathed Fire Emblem game. I strongly suspect that the majority of players of Three Houses did not complete all four routes, that the majority of players of Fates did not complete all three routes. They are long games. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a majority of players didn't even finish a single route. As game developers, it would be bordering on incompetence for IS not to realise that most players aren't going complete Three Houses four times, so there is an onus on them to ensure that the game -- and its narrative-- must function as a complete unit based on only route. It's good to have extra routes add extra nuance, lore, and background, but I don't think that it should ever be required. To me, an analysis of Azure Moon is as valid as an analysis of Three Houses is as valid as an analysis of the two Fódlan games in combination.

Your maths is way off. (1/4)^15 would be the probability of a unit with a 75% growth rate getting no stat ups over the course of 15 levels. For a 25% growth rate, the actual numbers should be (1-0.25)^14 * 0.25^1 * 15choose1. Which is about 6.7%. Still pretty unlucky, but nowhere near as bad as you thought.

First: The little "pronouns" part of our profiles exists for a reason. Please use it. Second: I have no idea why you think that I use dodge tanks so much that I am sick of them. I've reread everything I said in this thread, and can't see anything that would cause that misunderstanding. In actuality, I don't use dodge tanks very much because I don't enjoy using them. Right in the original post, I said: "I find this to be an incredibly boring way to play, so I typically limit my use of dodge tanks". Third: Why do you need more than one person to answer your question? I didn't answer because there didn't seem any point in repeating what had already been said but in slightly different words.

Ahhhh, I see where you're coming from. And yeah, that's fair enough. They're certainly not as obvious as some other overpowered choices that other FE games have. Stuff like Pair Up (Awakening), Invoke (Shadows of Valentia), or Seth (Sacred Stones) are just given to you in a straight up overpowered form that requires no thought or effort beyond "use this thing". Certainly they are easier to make overpowered than Three Houses dodge tanking. I still think that Three Houses dodge tanking is too powerful compared to how much effort it takes, but I understand your point of view now too.

You know, this is probably worth a topic of it's own over in the General FE forum. I would be glad if someone else feels like making one, otherwise I might get around to it At Some Point. I'm in no way an expert here, but I have seen a few speedruns of Three Houses, and I don't think they use dodge tank strats. And yeah, I think that part of the reason for that is what you identify about people who are well practiced being able to execute movements very quickly, especially when they don't actually have to think about what they're going to do beforehand, sicne they've memorised the tactics for every map. But beyond that, I think that the time spent bringing the build online would be an issue for speedruns. All of that said, though, I believe that the vast majority of speedruns are done on Normal difficulty, which is very different from Maddening. And I would definitely think that Normal is another framework in which dodge tanks are not overpowered. Not that they aren't still incredibly strong in Normal, but a lot of things are incredibly strong in Normal, so they're not as far ahead of other options. That's probably true on Hard as well, honestly. It's only really on Maddening where other options really start to decline but dodge tanks remain as strong as ever. I think that it's an interesting question to consider, how late in the game must an overpowered option become available for it to not be a problem? Like, I don't think it's controversial to say that the Laguz Royals in Path of Radiance are overpowered, but I also don't think I've ever seen anyone say that they unbalance the game. You only get to play with them for the last map/half of the last map (depending on difficulty), so no matter how busted they were, the worst they could do to game balance would be to turn the final chapter into a victory lap. There's no definitive answer here, and "how soon is too soon?" is going to vary a lot from person to person, but for me, probably I'm only willing to put up with a couple of maps with overpowered options before I get bored. And while dodge tank availability is going to vary a lot based on play style, how much you're willing to grind, and how much favouritism you're willing to show, I think they're clearly available sooner than that for the vast majority of people. I don't think it's exactly a difficult build to figure out. "Hey, the game is giving me a few different options for making my units harder to hit. I wonder what would happen if I put all of them on the same unit." I don't think it takes a genius to come up with that idea. That doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to see it, but I think that for anyone who's interested in trying to optimise the game and come up with interesting builds, this is one of the most immediately accessible and obvious ones. Maybe I'm wrong here and it's less obvious than I think it is? There are multiple different ways to do a vantage/wrath style build, but all of them have pretty substantial weaknesses: B. Vantage + B. Wrath is pretty great, but its main weakness is that it's only available on a single unit who is only available on a single route. Wrath + Vantage requires mastering a mediocre advanced class, and requires you to be at low health, meaning that you only typically need one thing to go wrong in order to die. Vantage + B. Wrath dispenses with the need to master Warrior, but retains the drawback of low health, and adds in the extra problem of juggling battalion endurance as well, with the notable clash between needing to lose health to make Vantage work but wanting to avoid losing health since you don't want your battalion to break. Wrath + B. Vantage is technically possible, but I dont think I've ever seen anyone suggest it, even as a joke. It combines all the worst parts of the two previous options. Vantage + Defiant Crit requires mastering Wyvern Lord instead of Warrior. And on the one hand, this is a much better class, but on the other hand you're not going to be able to pick it up until considerably later. Yeah, that was a big part of the reason I made this thread in the first place. It isn't a simple question, and there's obviously going to be a lot of subjectivity involved. I was interested to see what different people thought about the issue, and what their thoughts and feelings are.

Ahhh, fair enough. I haven't played BiBl (or any of the other Japan-exclusive titles), so had no idea about that. Thanks for letting me know. This speaks of another way that dodge tanks could potentially be held in check in hypothetical future games that allow avoid stacking. Sprinkling in just a few chapters with defend objectives (or similar) would effectively nerf any single overpowered build, just by virtue of forcing you to train up multiple units. I agree with all of this, but want to add an additional point. If we're looking at real time taken as opposed to number of in-game turns, I find that dodge tank strats are usually faster, by virtue of being so incredibly brainless. Let's say there's a hypothetical map thatwould take me 30 turns to beat with a dodge tank but only 3 turns to beat with more conventional strategies. Those 3 turns will probably involve thinking through the exact tactics I'm using and the order of operations for my turns, changing my mind, doing damage calculations, double checking I wasn't leaving my squishies in danger, acually executing everything I'm trying to do, and so on. Whereas the 30 turns with a dodge will mostly involve hitting end turn and then skipping enemy phase. It wouldn't be at all unusual for the 3 turn victory to take over half an hour, but the 30 turn victory to be done in under 10 minutes. I would agree that dodge tanks probably aren't too overpowered under this metric. I think they're still very good, but not so far and away above everything else that I would consider them too good. This isn't a metric that I personally tend to care about most of the time, but if it's something that's important to you then I can't fault your argument. Which makes me wonder, would it be beneficial for Fire Emblem to try to incentivise people to care more about this sort of thing? It's been tried in the past (eg, ratings, awards) but the impression that I get is that most people just ignore these. Even so, having them come back would probably be nice, as they're very easy to ignore for people who don't care about them. I really like this point, and it makes me think about things in a different way. If the existence of occasional over-powered builds is the price we have to pay for an easily comprehensible combat system, then yeah, it's definitely one that I'm willing to pay. I also think that we actually know approximately where the line is, beyond which people will start to disconnect: it's Fates. While a lot of people love the combat mechanics in Fates, for people who don't care for it, one of the most common complaints is that there's just too much going on and calculating combat becomes a chore. I think it's a pretty safe bet that if they turned up the complications even beyond what Fates does that the ratio of fans to critics would start to look less favourable.

Typically, I don't stack avoid bonuses. So I will use flying classes and thier inate +10 avoid, but I won't then stack any further avoid on them with Aler Stance, Evasion ring, etc. Similarly, I'm happy to have my Dancer use Sword Avoid +20, but won't stack that with further avoid. Basically, I avoid having a character with high enough Avoid that I can happily throw them into the middle of as many enemies as I want without any fear of them dying. Do you honestly think I don't know that? Really? Come on. For weapon skills, there are inherent benefits at pretty much every single level. There are prowess skills, combat arts, breaker skills, crit +10, faire, other miscelaneous skills like Close Counter, and the ability to wield better weapons. I wouldn't swear to it, but I believe that for every single weapon type, every time you level up its associated weapon skill, you gain something of use. It's not always great, but by and large, leveling up weapon skills is satisfying because every level matters. Magic skills are similarly good. By and large, the + ranks grant the prowess-style abilities, and the non-plus ranks (D, C, B, and A) grant spells. Not everyone learns spells at every level, but the characters who you typically want to learn the magic skills will learn spells at most if not all levels. Again, levelling these up is satisfying because (almost) every level matters. Authority is somewhat worse, but not terrible. Everyone at least learns the Authority Lv X abilities (which are terrible, but at least exist) and has at least one other ability learned at C authority, many characters have more abilities, and there are new battalions available at the non-plus ranks up to A. The movement skills (riding, flying and armor), on the other hand, are pretty terrible. They all offer an ability at A+ and an ability at S+. Flying also has one at B, riding has one at C, and armor has one at both B and C. If you disallow the two Alert Stance skills, then that means that leveling up flying inately gives you nothing until S+, which is a pipe-dream in most cases. Every other skill in the game has a dual purpose: it makes you more powerful as you level it up, and it subsequently allows you to certify into new classes. In a world without Alert Stance, flying breaks that pattern. It exists purely for the purpose of certification. This means that a. the only levels of flying that mean anything at all are the ones that allow certification for your class(es) of choice, b. once you are into Wyvern Lord or Falcon Knight, further skill points earned in flying become completely meaningless and c. levelling up the flying skill feels very unsatisfying -- at least to me -- because there are long stretches where it does absolutely nothing. Do you now understand the point that I was making? I would agree with this. The problem isn't so much the strength as the fact that it is such a dominant strategy that -- if it is used -- it pretty much invalidates every other build. This is true. And it's not as if I immediately stopped playing the game or stopped using other builds after the first time I tried stacking Avoid. I still like the game a lot, and I still enjoy coming up with other builds and other approaches to things. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little voice in the back of my mind always reminding me that dodge tanks are better. I said it makes things less exciting for me, and I stand by that, but it is worth noting that "less exciting" is not the same thing as "not exciting". I am, admitedly, much less familiar with the GBA games than I am with Three Houses so anyone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that hasn't really been my experience with them. Instead of their being a single dominant class or build, it's mostly just that enemy quality is really low, so anyone with high enough level and a hand axe or javelin is automatically a god. If anything, I'd say that the other game in the series where this was the biggest issue was probably Radiant Dawn. Tellius double-earth supports are pretty busted, and Radiant Dawn lets you have more of them and have them faster than Path of Radiance. I really like these proposed changes. Letting the build continue to exist but with counters of this type does sound like the best of both worlds. At least for my tastes and preferences.

As per the title: are dodge tanks in Three Houses simply too powerful? By which I mean, would the game as a whole be improved if they didn't exist or if they were weaker? Or is the game more fun if you decide not to use them? As it stands, once you have a dodge tank up to the point when they are reliably not getting hit -- typically when you pick up Alert Stance+ -- you've basically won the game. There are ways to further optimise the build, more and less efficient ways to use it, but they only really matter for style points. The game is more or less over at that point, if you want it to be. Now, I don't know about anyway else, but personally, I find this to be an incredibly boring way to play, so I typically limit my use of dodge tanks. So in that sense, for me at least, I do find that they are too good. But on the other hand, there's nothing saying I have to use them, so does it do any harm to the game overall? And I'm in two minds over that one. On the one hand, sure, it's nice that the build exists for people who love using it, and it doesn't hurt my fun all that much. But on the other hand, it's difficult to completely ignore its existence. From an objective standpoint, ignoring dodge tanks makes levelling-up flying completely worthless if Alert Stance is banned, for instance. But there's also the subjective element where coming up with other builds just feels less exciting when I know full well that there's another build I could be running that is both easier to build and more effective. Anyone have any thoughts?

One thing that I do think is worth noting is that getting x (an ability, a class, a spell, whatever) earlier by a chapter or two varies in value a lot depending on exactly which chapter it is. Having a dodge tank available by chapter 13 rather than chapter 14 is a big improvement; having it available by chapter 14 rather than chapter 15 is largely inconsequential. Sooner is still better, of course, but really not all that much better. Or another example: having Lysithea learn Dark Spikes on Chapter 4 is much better than having her learn it on Chapter 5, but learning it on Chapter 5 is only a tiny bit better than having her learn it for Chapter 6. If we're talking about how long it takes for a character to pick up some improvement, then it's not just relevant that some particular build gives it to them two chapters later. It also matters exactly which chapters they were. And, unfortunately, that's also one of the hardest things to compare since it can vary so much by play style.

If I'm finding the run difficult, I'll use whichever unit is more powerful, sentimentality be damned. If I'm not finding the run difficult, I'll use whichever character I like more. Old versus new doesn't really factor into my decision-making in either case.

I haven't played for a while, and my memory isn't great, so take this with a grain of salt, but my feeling is maybe somewhere around about chapter 16 or so.

First off, thank you for taking the time and effort to do the numbers. Even if we don't end up agreeing, then I appreciate that. As for the numbers themselves, I think that the difference between us is that you are assuming putting more resources into the dodge tank than I would. For instance, I wouldn't be assuming use of the sauna, wouldn't be assuming that manual instruction was available every week, wouldn't assume that the flying bonus of the Cichol statue was unlocked immediately in month 5, and so on. My base assumption would be that a character would be manually tutored only half of the available tutoring sessions -- either because they didn't have motivation, or because there are other units who also want tutoring -- and that we would not be using the sauna. Basically, I am assuming a slower rate of advancement than you are, which means that the gap as of chapter 8 is narrower, which means that there's more time for Manuela's strength in flying to help her catch up. Which isn't to say that I think that you're approach is wrong. If you are going to show favouritism to any unit, then doing so for a dodge tank is definitely a great choice, given how strong they are. But I think that that's the fundamental difference in perspective that has led to our disagreement. And I will agree that if you are pushing hard to get a dodge tank online as soon as possible then that makes Manuela considerably less attractive for the role. I broadly agree with what everyone else has said so far. For the most part, I think that Valkyrie is an excellent stepping stone class for characters who want the riding training to go into Dark Knight (or Holy Knight, I guess), have dark magic spells and so don't benefit from Warlock as much, and/or want to pick up uncanny blow. If I am sticking with Valkyrie as an end game class, then I'm doing everything I can to optimise for range. That means that I'm using Thyrsus, I'm pushing hard to try to get to S rank in Reason, and I'm choosing a character with a 1-3 range spell. All of which gives a total range of 7, which can do some pretty nutty things. High range is great for firing through walls, offering linked attacks, and (especially with canto) taking pot shots at an enemy while keeping out of their range. It can still be a decent enough class even if you arne't optimising for range, but that's it's only unique selling point, so that's how I'd use it. The ideal Valkyrie candidate should: be female, have a high magic stat, know a 1-3 range spell, ideally have a strength in both Reason and Riding, have a crest (for easier Thyrsus use), and support a lot of other units (for linked attacks). The best choice is probably Marianne if playing as the Deer, or Hapi otherwise.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I am curious. Which series are you thinking of that have been brought down just by a poorly received game? The closest ones I can think of are ones where the problem was a single bad game and some pretty awful mismanagement, like Fable or Mass Effect. What are the ones you're thinking of?

I would honestly just say "Chapters 1-5". They all have the same basic problem that you havne't had long enough to build your units to really start gaining advantages, and most of them also have their own unique problems on top of that. As you say, Chapter 1 has no Divine Pulse, Chapter 2 I don't really have a problem with, Chapter 3 has fog of war, Chapter 4 has the Death Knight, and Chapter 5 has the Black Beast plus the possibility of awkward aggro patterns depending on how annoying Gilbert decides to be. It's just a pretty tricky part of the game overall. Personally, I think that there's a useful and meaningful distinction to be made between theoretical optimisation and practical optimisation. Theoretical optimisation is mostly about exploring the absolute limits of what is possible, and how far the game can potentially be pushed. Practical optimisation is more about giving practical advice that will actually be helpful to them as they play the game. Knowing what to include in theoretical optimisation is easy: it's literally everything (unless we're in the context of a particular challenge with specific rules that dictate otherwise). Tea time is included, fishing is included, every conceivable greenhouse shenanigans, save scumming for exam passes, divine pulse abuse to burn random numbers and get lucky battle outcomes, broken weapon grinding, the month repeat bug, the endless dancer xp bug, all other glitches and exploits, use of online features, use of DLC (including items like the +2 boots and the Chalice of Beginnings)... and so on and so forth. We're looking for the theoretical limit of what is possible. Practical optimisation is trickier to judge because different players are able and willing to do different things. Maybe one player is fine with broken weapon grinding but doesn't want to divine pulse scum, but a second player is the opposite way around. I wouldn't fault either one of them. So for practical optimisation advice, I think it's good to include different options when possible to account for the different preferences of different players. So in the case of Charm on dodge tanks, it's good to note that a high Charm stat is useful, especially in the end game, and that this can be achieved either by using a unit with naturally high charm or by using the teatime mechanic. This is what's likely to be the most helpful to the most people. All of that said, though, here are the reasons why I personally don't enjoy tea time. First, it's time consuming. I've never timed it, but I suspect it's the single most time consuming option available in the monastery. Second, the random availability can make it unreliable; if you're going to need it, you need to plan it well in advance otherwise you risk not having it be available at the times you really need it. Third, it feels like it pretty much requires looking at guides if you want to guarantee success. A lot of the answers are obvious once you're familiar with the characters, but there are enough that are not that there's a very real chance for failure if you don't have a guide (or memorised results). And lastly... I honestly just find the whole thing a little bit creepy. Especially the ending part with its whole vibe of "why Mr. Darcy, what a delightful teatime that was, I shall now permit you to stare at my bosom". I mean, I don't like fishing either, and will mostly avoid that too. But I'm more willing to engage in it occasionally and grudgingly than I am teatime. But I don't claim that's anything other than personal preference. Honestly, I don't remember. I know from experience that the build is possible, but I don't recall details (and don't have the energy to do the maths for it myself right now). If you have done the maths and it shows that it shouldn't work, then I will be perfectly willing to concede that I may just have got lucky and/or shown favouritism. That said, I would be interested in seeing your numbers, because the result that you've got surprises me. Early chapters are just so much less productive than later ones when it comes to training skills. In the early game, you don't have relevant saint statue bonuses, you aren't doing as many battles per month (higher professor rank makes more battles possible and the availability of paralogues gives more incentive to do them), lower professor rank makes it harder to ensure you're getting multiple manual tuitions per month, you don't have a knowledge gem, you can't gain flying xp in battle at all before level 10, and so on. Did you account for all these sorts of things while doing the numbers?

HP +5 and Mag +2 are always decent fallback options for a Bishop. They aren't the best skills, but they do help out and also have the benefit of being extremely low investment to pick up. Agreed. The two things that Bishop really offers are the doubled spell charges and the extra healing. If it's the doubled charges that you're after, then Gremory does the same thing but with increased movement and higher magic stat. And if it's the healing that you're after... well, how often does that actually come up? It isn't never, but -- assuming the use of a Healing Staff -- I find that the extra healing from Bishop is mostly just overkill. So even on characters where I'd consider Bishop (eg Mercedes, Hapi), it mostly ends up just being a stepping stone on the way to Gremory. Linhardt is the big and obvious exception, since he doesn't have access to Gremory. I'm not really a fan of Bishop for Manuela, since that's very much a build that uses Warp and does basically nothing else. Stacking tea parties is certainly possible, but given that a lot of players (and I count myself among them) dislike tea parties, I think it's pretty reasonable to want to list builds and strategies that avoid ever having to use them. It's similar to grinding strategies, in a way. "Here's one option that you can do, but here's another possibility for if you don't want to do that thing." Sure. which is why I did specifically say that she isn't as good as others listed and that her late joining time was a weakness. And she doesn't just have a good speed growth. She also has a strength in flying, and excellent charm (which you might not care about, but I do). You're right that there are other units who are better choices, but if that's the criteria that we're using, then we'd never use most characters. Stuff like Sniper Ashe and War Master Gilbert are also far from optimal, but are worth noting down anyway since a. they can still perform the job decently and b. they're good choices if you are choosing to use those units.

Given that there's no Dancer (and there definitely should be a Dancer), that would be a good option for Ferdinand. Or make Caspar the Dancer and give his class to Ferdinand.

Agree that pretty much any physical unit would benefit from having it, but I think there are a fair few cases where I'd rather use my combat art slots for something else. Everyone also benefits from having a movement art (with Reposition being the standout of the bunch), and there are also plenty of instances where I want a character to have two or more arts for their main weapon (eg, a generic damaging art and an effective damage art). So I wouldn't say "put curved shot on everyone" so much as "curved shot is a valid choice for everyone, so keep it in mind when considering your options". Dodgetanks are probably just too good and come close to the point where I'd flat out say that they break the game. If your goal is just to win at all costs, then dodge tanks are amazing. If you still want to have to actually play the game rather than let it play itself... well, dodgetanks are still amazing, but you need to exercise a bit of restraint with them. Manuela also belongs in this conversation, with her excellent speed and charm and her strength in flying and swords. Her drawbacks are her mediocre strength (same growth rate as Ingrid), her lack of access to Sword Avoid +20, and her late joining time. She's not as strong an option as some of the other units here, but she does the job and does it well. This isn't something that I would personally want to rely on for any build, especially not ones that aren't using axes and gauntlets naturally. My general assumption is that I don't want to make any build that relies on S or S+ rank to skills or mastering a master tier class, since these come online very late in the game, if at all. It's fine to include them as options for people who are playing on NG+ and/or are willing to grind a lot more than I am, but it would probably be helpful to also have a lower investment alternative listed as well. I would very rarely put Thyrsus or Caduceus on a Bishop. Not that they aren't excellent, but I always have other characters who want them more. Maybe if I wasn't running any offensive magic users. Or for a turn or two here and there if passing them around would allow for a very specific beneficial play. But as a general rule, no. The alternative way of looking at things would be to say that low HP strats are bad because they ruin Fortify. I think it's probably more accurate to say that there is tension between Fortify and low HP strats and that they do not have good synergy with each other. Be mindful if you're trying to use both. Paladin can also be a good choice due to wider battalion access. If you're using all your good flying battalions on others, or if you want a high mobility user of a gambit on a grounded battalion, then look to paladin. (And it's also a good choice for anyone doing any sort of challenge run where fliers are restricted.)