lenticular

No need to be so condescending about it. It was only 7 months ago that I was explaining the concept to you. With some remarkably similar words to the ones you've just used, I might add. That you have since latched onto the concept and enjoy throwing the term about whenever you get the chance, even when it only very loosely applies, does not mean that you get to act as if people who aren't familiar with the concept are beneath you.

One thing that I will say about dodge tanks is that there are different ways that they can be used, and I think it's important to clearly establish what type of dodge tank we're talking about before we get too deep into the weeds of discussing a given build. The two extremes are what I will call the baiting dodge tank and the soloing dodge tank. For the baiting dodge tank, the typical use case is something like the following: the baiting dodge tank moves out slightly in front of the rest of the player's army, standing just in range of enemy attacks, while the rest of the army remains safely out of range. The enemy moves in to attack the baiting dodge tank, misses, and is then in range of the rest of the players army who can deal with them on the following player phase. For the soloing dodge tank, on the other hand, the use case looks more like this: the rest of the army either isn't deployed at all, is left at the starting location, or runs away to some out-of-the way corner of the map. The soloing dodge tank then wades neck deep into the enemy, gets attacked by everything, and then kills it in retaliation, essentially winning the game on their own. Other than wanting to get a very high Avoid stat, these two builds are quite different, with different requirements and priorities. For the baiting dodge tank, I would be looking for excellent survivability, low investment (ie, not requiring use of limited resources), and the ability to also contribute on player phase. Somewhat counterintuitively, I would also not want this character to be routinely killing things. If the idea is to draw in enemies for other units to kill, then I want for those other units to be able to earn experience as well. For the soloing dodge tank, my priorities are shifted. I no longer care about using limited resources and I no longer care about having a player phase, but I absolutely do care about being able to secure kills. Of course, these are only two extremes of a wider spectrum of use cases, and many dodge tanks will lie somewhere between the two. The exact perfectly optimal build is going to vary from player to player, because different people are going to be using their dodge tanks differently and wanting different things out of them. I don't doubt that the build that's presented here could be extremely effective, and would not be surprised if it is the perfecly optimal build for the way that the OP uses dodge tanks. That said, let's look a bit more closely at the build. I think that it's clear that this is much closer to the soloing dodge tank end of the spectrum. It's using two extremely valuable resources, in Dancer certification and Cichol Wyverns; it requires a decent amount of tuition and use of the knowledge gem, which is certainly doable but does mean that other units aren't getting that training; and it's also heavily focused on securing kills, with Hit +20 and Battalion Wrath to make sure that very little survives. So far, so good. However, I don't personally value skills like Hit +20 and Battalion Wrath on this sort of build. They definitely allow the dodge tank to get kills in fewer turns, but that isn't something that I care about. It takes seconds to hit "End Turn" and then press + to skip the enemy phase, so it doesn't matter to me personally if I take one turn to kill everything, or three turns, or five turns. There definitely are circumstances in which the number of turns matters, and in these circumstances it is important to be able to secure the one turn kill. Here are a few possibilities, and why I don't tend to care about them: If you have other units following close behind the dodge tank, having the dodge tank might leave them in danger. This is true, but if I'm using a soloing dodge tank then my other units aren't going to be anywhere near. If I do want everyone else contributing, then I'm going to build my dodge tank very differently. However, I will admit that for maps where you start off surrounded (eg Silver Snow endgame, Lorenz's paralogue) then it isn't always possible to keep other units out of the firing line. The second potential problem is with infinite reinforcements, such as the ones in Azure Moon endgame. These don't bother me at all. If it means that I can't reliably block off the reinforcements, then so what? Let them come. What are they going to do? Slowly suicide on my dodge tank? Slowly trickle back to the start of the map where the rest of my party can kill them? Finally, there's the issue of the Retribution gambit running out. I can definitely see how this can be an issue. Retribution has only 2 charges and each charge lasts only 5 turns. If it takes you more than 10 turns to kill everything then you're out of Retribution (unless you have multiple Retribution users, which is possible, but even then, there is always going to be a time limit). However, Retribution is not the only way to kill things. Any sword is enough to deal with melee enemies. A Levin Sword+ can deal with everything except for Bow Knights (it also can't counter attack siege tomes, but these can easily be exhausted). Fortunately, Bow Knights are fairly rare in most maps, and it isn't typically difficult to deal with them. Options include having a Retribution gambit just while you're killing bow knights, letting the rest of your party deal with the bow knights, or just have your dodge tank kill them on player phase and trust that you won't need the +30 avoid of AS+ when you're dealing with attacks from 4 range. So, that's why I'm not too worried about lowering my dodge tank's damage output, but what are the advantages of doing so? Well, for starters, not needing Battalion Wrath increases the number of units who can make the build work. This is nice just from the perspective of being able to have more variety, but also opens up the build to units with higher Charm and higher Magic (useful if you're using a Levin Sword at all). It also requires less training: if you aren't using Cichol Wyverns, then you can drop from Authority A to B, if you aren't getting Hit +20 then you don't need to invest in bows at all, if you don't mind slightly lower strength (and are using a female unit) then you can shift from Wyvern Lord to Falcon Knight, which replaces the axe training with lance training but removes the secondary lance training since you're already training in swords. Finally, it frees up two extra ability slots, that you can use for whatever else you want, which will vary depending on exactly how you're planning on using the dodge tank. This is getting long and rambly and I'm not really sure if I'm going anywhere with it. I guess my ultimate point is this: because there are multiple different ways to use a dodge tank, there is no such thing as the single best dodge tank build. Rather, it's important to know what you're wanting to use your dodge tank for, where you need it to be able to excel, and where you're willing to make sacrifices. Because every build will have to make sacrifices somewhere.

Trickster is a class that I want to like but have always found disappointing whenever I've actually tried it. Its biggest draw is the combination of Stealth and spellcasting, and I assume that any Trickster build is going to want to try to take advantage of both of them. If you aren't, then there's really very little incentive to be in Trickster to begin with. Yes, Foul Play and Lucky Seven both exist, but neither is particularly impressive (though Foul Play can be quite nice on Yuri in the Cindered Shadows campaign). But generally speaking, if you aren't going to be casting spells, then you're almost certainly going to be better off as an Assassin, and if you aren't going to be using Stealth then you're probably better off in any number of other classes, from Bishop to Valkyrie to Mortal Savant and more. The problem that I've found is that there isn't much incentive to be using spells and stealth at the same time. Keeping spellcasters away from the front lines is pretty easy in Three Houses. Increased range options are easy to come by, as are classes that have spellcasting and canto. That's not to say that situations never come up where you can benefit from attacking with a spell and then being in Stealth. They do. But I've found them to be rare, and even rarer if we're only considering situations in which Stealth is effective but the alternatives wouldn't be equally as effective. So, we're essentially left with a class that is sometimes using stealth and sometimes using magic, but largely using them separately. Maybe using stealth after hitting a Soulblade and then being in Stealth on one turn, and then healing someone with Physic on the next turn. This is the Jack of all trades generalist approach mentioned by the OP but, again, it's never really worked well for me. Giving it some thought, I think that I've put my finger on one of the reasons why I don't really like this sort of build. It's fairly easy, in Three Houses, to make builds that excel in one area and are still able to perform adequately at some other task. For instance, I might build someone primarily as a healer but also train them in reason so that they can contribute some meaningful chip damage if they need to. Or I might have a Sniper who is built primarily for one-turn kills with Hunter's Volley, but they can also debuff with whatever bow combat art they happen to have (Encloser, Ward Arrow, Break Shot, etc.). Or there's the simple fact that gambits exist. Every unit in the game has some degree of extra utility baked in just by having a gambit. What this tends to mean, at least for me, is that I don't get much use out of a versatile generalist. If I have some sort of task that I need to perform on a given turn, then I probably have someone who can perform it decently well already. And I can do that without having to have a character that doesn't excel at a primary function. I'm sure that playstyle has a big effect on this one, but it's not a class that I've got much value from.

I was assuming that there would be a rebalance going on at the same time. So, using your example, maybe Edward would end up with increased bases or increased growths, or maybe Zihark and Mia (and pretty much all other units, both allied and enemy) would be slightly nerfed. The overall idea would be to make it so the Dawn Brigade units ended up at a similar strength to other units (as they do now) but that they would need to level up fewer times to get there. Of course, this would be a pretty major undertaking that would pretty much require rebalancing the whole game, but I'm not sure if it's possible to properly fix the problems here with anything short of that.

One possibility would be to reduce things down to two-and-a-half tiers. Keep tier one, but only have it go from level 1-10 and then promote at level 10. You retain most of the benefits of the three-tier system, allow for the storyline benefits of the first promotion, but also reduce the Dawn Brigade's level deficit by 10.

Nice to see you back. I'd definitely recommend doing challenge runs of some description, and you can come up with some sort of challenge to suit pretty much any taste. I've done a no-items run and a no-monastery run. You can also do restricted class runs (no wyverns, only mages, everyone in different classes, everyone in off-build, no advanced or master classes, etc.), restricted item runs (swords only, no relics, training weapons only, never use stat boosters, never sell bullion and try to accumulate as many bullions as you can by game end, etc.), restricted students (solo runs, duo runs, in-house students only, men only, women only, commoners only, etc.). Really, just pick something that will put a focus on something you're interested in trying, or will ban something that you're sick of.

He already did get a bit of redemption/justification in the DLC for Three Houses, during Yuri and Bernadetta's A support: Personally, I hope he doesn't show up in Three Hopes. I'm already not really a fan of Bernadetta's because of how inconsistently she's presented, and I suspect that a more prominent Count Varley would only end up making that worse.

That's basically confirmed at 1:36. The box only flashes up very briefly, but if you pause it the text says "Clear a path for the conquest of Gerreg Mach by defeating the Church of Seiros army." Other things I noticed: At 1:31, there's what looks to be a map icon for Anna. Hard to say for sure, but that's definitely who it looks like to me. Similarly, at 1:47, there's a map icon that I'd guess is Bernadetta, though I'm even less confident about that one. Claude, Dimitri and Hilda are all shown wielding their Relics. Edelgard and Byleth are not. So if there is a point of divergence from Three Houses, it's likely before Byleth got the Sword of the Creator (or else they lost it somehow). Edelgard has a new Sacred Weapon called "Labraunda" (1:39), which apparently is the real life name of an archaeological site in Turkey? OK then. Shez is shown in the class "Fluegel", which is German for "wing". I'd guess that it's their unique class and that it has a focus on mobility.

Honestly, the way you're describing it makes it sound less appealing to me than I remember. Different strokes for different folks and everything, but I'm not really a big fan of games where "remember what's about to happen due to having played it before" is a major factor in success. I thought that the difficulty level was pretty much dead on in my first playthrough, and while I'm not surprised to hear that knowing the maps makes it substantially easier, I still find it a little disappointing. To each their own, though. I know that a lot of people do get a lot of fun from learning levels inside out and being able to pre-empt all problems before they show up. It's just not my thing. For the boss, my problem with the fight wasn't that I found him too hard. Rather, I found him very easy but very boring. I never felt like any of my units were ever in any sort of real danger, but the map still took forever to clear, because the boss is such a damage sponge. From memory, I think he has somewhere around about 1000hp on hard, once you account for all his health bars and his damage reduction skills. It's way too much, when you can very quickly and easily get into a pattern of dealing damage to him which you then just have to repeat over and over. Though, again, I know that a lot of people really loved that boss fight, but it just didn't work for me at all.

A well-built dodge tank is more than capable of soloing the game, even on maddening, even if you don't build for crit at all. It potentially takes more turns to kill everything, but so what? If you want to make sure that you aren't pulling aggro onto the rest of your party, you just need to fly far enough ahead that units who attack the dodge tank aren't in range of the rest of the party. There's nothing wrong with stacking crit on a dodge tank, whether from Battalion Wrath, Defiant Crit, or any other source, and if you have them available then there's really no reason not to. But they're not at all necessary. They can help you win faster, but they aren't actually helping you win. You've already won once you have a dodgetank set up. Unless you're talking about a specific context like a LTC where being able to win quickly actually matters, then the main difference between a crit dodgetank and a regular dodgetank is one of style, not effectiveness.

I also only played Cindered Shadows once, but I liked it and have been meaning to get around to playing through it again. I generally found that I liked the difficulty balance in Cindered Shadows better than in the main story. CS Hard is harder than main story Hard but not as hard as main story Maddening, which I think is a good place to be. My biggest gripe with the maps was that some of them went on too long and started to outstay their welcome, but that's a fairly minor gripe (except for the final boss fight, which I didn't enjoy at all). By and large, though, it was good times.

Dancer Raphael.

I think it's hard to analyse, because at the same time that the games have been accounting less for permadeath, they've also been growing more complex in what you can do with character builds, reclassing, skills, etc. This means that there's more of a gap between a well-optimised team and a poorly optimised team than there used to be, and at least normal mode seems to be designed to be beatable with little to no build optimisation. If your endgame map has to account for people who have decided they want to run Caspar as a Bishop or Orochi as a Blacksmith then it's probably not going to challenge people who are running builds that are actually good.

The tier boundaries are very fuzzy, so I certainly wouldn't object if you wanted to move Mercedes up a tier or Hanneman down a tier, for example. Hanneman especially, I found somewhat hard to place because of the implications of his late join time, which typically makes it trickier to run successful off-builds with him. So on reflection, maybe he should be in the same tier as Mercedes, for that reason. I had similar problems at the other end of the spectrum with Seteth and Gilbert. Seteth has a very respectable 8+35% magic stat and a fairly decent reason list, but actually turning him into a mage requires going back to grab mag+2 and fiendish blow, which is awkward. But to compare Hubert and Mercedes, as purely physical archers, Hubert has: A slightly improved strength growth. It's not much, but it's not nothing. More and better combat arts. Heavy Draw, especially can really help compensate for lower strength. A quicker start, since he starts with E+ in bows and proficiency, rather than E and a budding talent. Comparing purely physical archer builds for Hubert and Ignatz, in terms of raw damage, Ignatz will do slightly more damage to start with due to slightly higher strength, then Hubert will do slightly higher damage once they get to C+ bows thanks to Heavy Draw (except in cases where Ignatz is fast enough to double, but I wouldn't bank on that happening often), with that gap growing a bit at level 20 when their strength is equalised when they cetify into Sniper, then their damage will be the same once they learn Hunter's Volley, and then finally Ignatz can expect to move ahead very slightly in the late game as his 5% higher strength growth takes effect. As in the case of Ashe vs Hapi as Wyvern Lords, I do still think that Ignatz is a better unit (due to his higher crit chance and his utility through Break Shot, Ward Arrow, and Rallies) but I think it's close enough to be illustrative of why I think of physical bow Hubert as being sub-optimal but not terrible. And finally, let's compare magic bow sniper Hubert with regular bow sniper Hubert. I think it's obvious that, once the build is up and running, the magic version will be doing more damage. But I think it's equally non-controversial to say that the non-magic version requires much less effort to pull off. You have access to physical bows from level 1 as opposed to needing to get to B rank bows and have a steady supply of Arcane Crystals. This also means that, as you're picking up relevant skills along the way (str+2 and Death Blow for the physical build and mag+2 and Fiendish Blow for the magic build), they are actually benefiting you immediately. In turn, this means that you can actually use bows as your main weapon as you are leveling up, rather than training them in the background, ready to switch to once the build finally starts to come together. Which means that it's a build that requires much less training as well. So, from the persepctive of "is there ever a reason to run the physical build, or is the magic build just strictly better in every meaningful way?" then I'd say yes, there is a reason. Of course, the whole endeavor is very fuzzy and very hand-wavey, and I definitely don't claim that my definitions and demarcations are the one true objectively right answer. But at the very least, I hope that this rambling is enough to let you understand my thought process. Can't say I agree with that. I've never been hugely impressed with his magic either, but I do think it's quite clearly better than any of the units I put in dubious tier. Oops. Just realised that I meant to reply to this before but forgot. I tried to keep the tier names as short as I could, just so that it fits on the label better. Your version is definitely more descriptive, but if I were left to my own devices, I'd end up writing an explanatory paragraph for each tier name, and I firmly banned myself from doing that.

Yeah. I've had fun with Shamir as a Gremory in the past too (her spell list isn't bad, and her personal skill does work on magic), but I would equally consider that to be highly dubious. For the characters I put in that tier, they have some combination of: higher strength growths than other mages, non-magical combat arts, proficiencies that make them well suited to strong physical classes (wyvern for Hapi and Annette, bow knight or sniper for Hanneman and Hubert). Basically, that's the tier where, if someone told me they were running a purely physical build for the character, I might start to think "huh, that's a weird off-build; definitely not optimal but maybe you can make it work" rather than just thinking "well, that's not going to be any fun at all". As an example, let's compare a purely physical wyvern build for Hapi with a similar build for Ashe. Wyvern Lord Ashe is a real build that people use and recommend, and I have seen some people claim that it's his best class. They have the same strength growth rate (+35%), although Ashe has a higher base strength (8 compared to 6) Ashe is faster (9+50% speed compared to 6+40%), but Hapi has the option of picking up Darting Blow to cancel out that advantage. Other stats are typically less important, but are largely a wash. Hapi is better in some (eg HP, res) while Ashe is better in others (eg dex, luck). I'd say that Ashe comes out slightly on top here, but not by much. Hapi has a slightly easier time getting into the class, with a budding talent in axes, strength in flying and neutral lances, compared to Ashe's budding talent in lances, strength in axes and neutral flying. They both get one axe combat art, but neither of them are very good. Hapi has Exhaustive Strike while Ashe has Focused Strike, and I can't imagine I'm getting much use out of either of them. Now, to be clear, I'm well aware that I'm comparing against one of the weakest physical units in the game, and I'm also aware that while they are comparable and similar, Hapi is still the slightly weaker of the two. I am absolutely not recommending this build. She's much better off as a bolt-axe wyvern, a gremory, a dark knight, a valkyrie, or various other magical build. But I do think that, at the very least, it's borderline viable. Then, consider what the best purely physical build would be for Lysithea. I don't even know. Assassin? Maybe Falcon Knight? Either way, it would be a miserable experience. So I consider Hapi to be "less magey" or "more physical" than Lysithea, in the same way that I would consider Ferdinand or Shamir to be "more magey" than Petra. I did try to order units within tiers as well as between them. I didn't put too too much time and thought into that, and even looking at them now, there are things that I would change, but the idea was that the leftmost characters in each tier are the most magey of that tier. So I do have Lorenz as the most magey of his tier and Sylvain as second most magey as his tier, so I wouldn't argue terribly strongly against them being shunted up a tier. For me, though, I consider purely physical Lorenz to be significanly enough better than purely physical builds on anyone above him that I felt he belonged in the lower tier. Though, I definitely conceded that even that is debatable.

The thing that causes problems for my intuition is when various symmetries don't hold. Intuitively, I expect for a 1% hit-rate to hit about as often as a 1% crit-rate crits, but under 2RN, it doesn't. Intuitively, I expect for a 99% hit-rate to miss as often as a 1% hit-rate hits, but under Fates/SoV hit formula, it doesn't. I can adjust fairly easily to the 2RN system, but having to keep multiple sets of probability distributions in my head is a little problematic.

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

Agreed. To be clear, I am absolutely not saying that I think that this build is good, just saying that it is something that I have seen people suggest. I agree with you that it's pretty terrible.

Fair enough. I guess I was thrown off by the inclusion of Lorenz, who I very much think of as being in the same sometimes-mage category as Ingrid (with both of them having the same growth rate for magic and strength). If you prefer to classify Lorenz as a more dedicated mage (which is reasonable, even if it's not how I think of him), then what you said makes more sense to me.

The general consensus, which I would agree with, is that no, there really isn't any particular use for Hero. If you want Vantage, it's generally pretty easy to just pick it up by mastering Mercenary instead. Having it built-in does mean that you can save a skill slot, but there are very few builds that really need all five skill slots to work out. I've seen people advocate Hero for late joiners like Alois and Gilbert who don't have an easy a time mastering Mercenary and can then combine it with Battalion Wrath, but I have to say I don't see it myself. There are a couple of other minor potential advantages that Hero has over Swordmaster, but neither one is particularly impressive. First, it's easier to certify into. Which would be a bit of a selling point if Assassin didn't also exist, require a more useful secondary weapon, and just generally be better. The other one is Defiant Strength as the mastery ability. Some people like Defiant builds, but I am not one of those people. So, yeah. You can sort of manage to build a very minor niche for it if you really try, but I definitely don't think it's worth it.

I'd agree with all of this. In the situation that you want a Rescue user and are willing to invest and don't have the DLC, then Bernadetta would definitely be my first choice. Agree about Constance, too. Dark Flier Constance is certainly the most use that I've personally got from Rescue. I'll also add Canto (specifically, Canto that allows moving after attacking) to that list, especially in combination with the high range that bows and magic can get in Three Houses. A lot of hit-and-run style tactics are possible in Three Houses that would have required Rescue in other games. Ingrid says hi!

I didn't really care for magic Bernadetta when I tried it. It's certainly workable, but the pay-off didn't really feel worth the investment to me. Her spell list is good, but not phenomenal. Physic and Thoron are both very good spells, but not uniquely so. They're both pretty common, and there are multiple units who pick up both of them, including one (Dorothea) in the Black Eagles. For the most part, she has a very similar spell list to Marianne or Ingrid, except with a worse magic stat to back them up. And sure, you can give her stat boosters, but in that case, you're spending resources to bring her up to parity. Her big selling point and the reason to actually run this sort of build is Rescue. Now, I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Rescue in Three Houses. People who value it more than I do might be more impressed by magical Bernadetta. But a couple of things to note here: first is that Rescue is one of the few spells in the game that can only be strengthened by pure magic stat. For other spells, there are -faire skills, battalions, heal +10, staves, etc. For Rescue (and Warp) it's all about the magic stat. If you want to get decent range, then you need to have a high magic stat, which in Bernadetta's case means you need to use stat boosters (or get exceptionally lucky, or scum level-ups). Second, among the units that learn Rescue, Bernadetta is unique in getting it at A rank Faith rather than B rank for Flayn, Constance, and Anna. Flayn and Anna also have the advantage of a strength in Faith, whereas Bernadetta (and Constance) are only neutral. You aren't going to actually pick up Rescue until a fair bit later than other units can. It's not a terrible build, and I do see why people like it, but it wasn't for me.

Pretty much the same. I was never super excited for this one, since classical antiquity isn't a period of history I find as interesting as some others. But I have over 1700 hours in EU4, so you can bet that I was definitely keeping a close eye on this one. But then it came out. And then I stopped keeping a close eye on it. This one, I did play and I'd say that you aren't really missing all that much. It wasn't terrible. It just wasn't particularly interesting. I played through one campaign, started a second one, realised that I was incredibly bored, dropped the game, and have seldom thought about it since.

Some of mine: The Heart of Crimea (Radiant Dawn, 3-10) -- really, this spot could be any of Radiant Dawn's maps that have playable units returning as either enemy or allied units, because of how they have no concept of resource management. Every time I play Radiant Dawn, I'll have a moment of panic as I see the AI eating up the durability of some expensive or irreplacable weapon or item. I know it's possible to avoid this by unequiping the items in advance but a. I don't like that sort of micromanagement, b. it feels too gamey for my tastes and c. I always forget. Choosing this chapter in particular because this is where ally Calill always uses up the Meteor tome that I've been diligently preserving. And since she's an ally, I can't even kill her to make her stop. Father & Liege (Fates, P7) -- this is here for how awfully it scales into the late game. The system of leveling up child units with an offspring seal just doesn't work well for this chapter, since Shiro will just die if you don't rush to him and use a Rescue rod. The Feral Frontier (Path of Radiance, ch15) -- I don't like sand maps at the best of times. It's made worse by PoR's UI being bad at displaying ranges for about-to-transform laguz, especially the bird laguz who are unaffected by the sand. I also don't like hidden treasure at the best of times. And that's made worse here by having a full character recruitment behind the mechanic, having it be ridiculously specific in its requirements, and one of the game's four occult scrolls being tied behind said character. Winds of Change (Fates, Conquest, ch20) -- plenty has been said about this level's gimmick, but for me -- and I know this is something specific to me, not a universal problem -- the worst thing about it is that the graphical effect for the wind gives me a literal headache (even with the 3D slider turned off). Which is obviously bad. But even worse is that it makes me want to rush the level just to get away from it, and this is a level that will eat you for lunch if you try to rush it and are insufficiently careful. Wolf Pack (Three Houses, Cindered Shadows, ch7) -- this is just a slog. Single enemy, never actually threatening, big old ball of hit points, takes forever. With his multiple health bars, his skill that makes him take half damage from all sources, and his monster barrier, you need to do over 1000 points of damage to drop him. I've only ever done this map once. At no point did I worry that I might fail. At multiple points, I worried that I would quit due to boredom.

Guns aren't just about their destructive power, though. They're also about their ease of use. It's a whole lot easier to train someone to use a musket than to use a longbow, which is valuable in any war relying on militias, conscripts, or irregulars. On the other hand, magic in FE (and most fantsy worlds) is typically portrayed in the opposite way. If you want to be effective with magic then you need to be either naturally gifted or you need to spend a lot of time studying, or often both. So I don't see that magic would be a good substitute for guns. But yes, I do agree with the overall sentiment that it would be interesting to see a greater variety of conflicts in the FE series. Though I will say that one thing about the typical wars of conquest that FE likes to do is that they create a very strong sense of right and wrong. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On the positive side, I for one find it much more easier to emotionally connect with fighting for "the good guys". On the negative side, it can lead to very shallow and tedious plots with no nuance and no interest.