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Raising her Faith to A is really only so she can reliably get into Bishop/Gremory without needing to invest as much into Reason. Where I'm not utilizing her Reason list at all (or even picking up Fiendish Blow for that matter), getting her to A Faith makes more sense as will happen a lot more naturally. Of course, if you're going for a mixed/more offense-focused build instead, then the opposite is true: training Reason (and Flying to get her into Dark Flier) takes priority over Faith. Doesn't Gremory double white magic uses too though?

Of course, no worries! I definitely see why Gremory's the better option for my Annette build. I was trying to apply my usual "eh, who cares, they're already a Bishop anyway" logic (which I usually follow with Mercie because Physic) to her. Which, now that you mention it, really doesn't fly on a single range healer/rallybot who leans heavily on movement. Hey, to each their own. For my teams, I always prefer building Annette as a support since I tend to recruit other units (Lyssie, Constance, Hapi, etc.) who do the offensive mage thing a lot better, while Annette's support kit is for the most part unique to her. Ignatz does okay in the role too, I guess, but his Mag growth isn't as good so he's just not as effective a healer. Can confirm that these two absolutely wreck house as Gremories, especially with Uncanny Blow. Constance gets four casts of Bolting, possibly even more if her crest procs on any of them. And Sothis help everyone if you put Thyrsus in her hands. Hapi's basically the unholy cross between a Lysithea and a Linhardt, the kitchen sink of mages: full dark mage Reason lineup, Physic, Seraphim and Warp, all doubled.

I must admit, you both make really good cases for Gremory's movement advantage on my Annette build. I'd still persoanlly consider the Bishop/Gremory difference to be fairly negligible on anyone with Physic. However, on a single range healer like Annette that extra point of movement could really improve her overall versatility as a support. Especially since giving her the Fetters and Mov +1 would bump it up to a total 3 Mov improvement over Bishop. I doubt that I'd invest at all in combat skills for her though, aside from the C+ Reason minimum for Gremory. Where I'm typically running two dedicated offensive mages already (one with Thyrsus, one with Caduceus), Annette's really not gonna measure up that well as a side caster with no 1~3 spells and no extra range until S Reason. I'd much rather keep her as a dedicated support (heals, rallies, dance gambit, etc.) Like you mentioned, I think this one can mostly get chalked up to Maddening differences. Healer Annette's definitely not something I'd attempt if I played under the constraints of Maddening. I imagine she'd get benched pretty quickly once Lysithea and Constance join the party. I mainly started using her this way on my Blue Lions runs because I liked the wide range of support options she offers, and overall I enjoy her character a bit more than Mercedes or Linhardt (nothing against those two, their personalities just get kinda dull after a while.) It's really just a fun, convenient little build to shake things up from the usual healer experience, even though it isn't exactly "optimal".

Faith neutrality isn't really that big a deal, though. At least outside of Maddening, I mean. If Dimitri can drag his ass through that axe bane to Wyvern, Annette shouldn't have any trouble getting to Bishop simply without a boon. As for her lack of Physic, I didn't say she was my only healer. Heal and Recover with the Fetters of Dromi are enough for her to fill the healer/rallybot role, and then I've usually got a secondary with Physic if I need it. I figure if Annette's close enough to rally though, she's close enough to heal. Dammit! You figured out my plan to use up that last skill slot :P

No worries lol It was really more a question of my understanding than anything. On paper Falcon Knight seemed to be the obvious choice for them both, given their specific strengths and weaknesses, when really each class path has its own unique set of speed bumps that puts them on relatively equal footing. Or in Flayn's case, actually pushes the odds in favor of an offensive mage build. There's always the option of giving Flayn (or any mage without a 1~3 range spell) Thyrsus or Caduceus as well, effectively giving them the same range as Thoron. 1~3 Wind and Excalibur, along with Frozen Lance and Rescue, could give Dark Flier Flayn some real versatility as a unit. Though nothing quite beats the range of a Thyrsus Dorothea, imo. 1~12 Meteors and 1~5 Thorons for days lol Yeah, Manuela's pretty much all over the place when it comes to class options. She's not the absolute worst unit in 3H (that medal of dishonor goes to Anna), but she's easily one of the most underwhelming. She'll never be that good, sadly, no matter how you build her. But at least it's kind of a fun exercise to try and build her into something useful! That's true I suppose, though micromanaging equips could possibly get a little cumbersome at times. I just imagine a lot of "Shit! I forgot to switch back to the Evasion Ring! Divine Pulse!" moments cropping up, which turns me off from the idea. Limiting each unit to one equip per mission is mainly my preference, since it just gives me one less thing to think about mid-battle. Ngl, this is actually why I've recently taken to using Annette as my main healer - when nobody needs the heals, she comes forth with the rallies! As for training healers in Reason, that mostly just boils down to playstyle differences I guess. I personally haven't run into many instances where I've thought "Damn, if only my healer could've attacked just now", and so I've just never felt compelled to build them that way. I'd rather invest in more support options for them like the dancer battalion (A Authority) or Movement +1 from A+ Riding.

Ah, my mistake, I misunderstood what you were saying before. I thought you meant Gremory was their best class, not just better than Bishop. Sorry for the confusion there. You bring up some really interesting points about their spell lists though. I'd never considered running Flayn as an offensive mage before, her Reason list always turned me away from the idea. Now that you mention some of the practical uses of Wind and Excalibur (two spells I often tend to overlook in favor of Thoron and the like) I might be tempted to try building her as a Dark Flier on my next Blue Lions run. Full magic acces on top of Frozen Lance might just open up a few extra doors for her on my team. Manuela though... yeah she's got Warp, but with that Mag growth of hers she's always gonna lose out in the range department to Lyssie and Linhardt (With the dlc, Hapi as well). And Bolting's gonna come pretty late for her too thanks to her bane and late recruit time. Even with Lance neutrality, her utility as a Hexblade/Levin Sword Falcon Knight will end up coming a lot sooner by comparison. Manuela's a pretty middling unit either way though, so it's really kind of a "pick your poison" type situation anyway. Just out of curiosity, who? It's no good on a combat unit since they always prefer something that boosts their combat efficiency (Evasion/Critical Ring, Thyrsus, etc.). That only really leaves your healer or your dancer.

If you're using them purely for healing though, you're likely only training them in Faith and Authority, not Reason. There's hardly enough difference between Bishop and what Gremory offers to justify training them all the way to B+/A in a skill they're not even gonna use. White Magic ×2 is the only skill that matters on either class, and 1 extra Mov isn't all that important with Physic's long reach (and March Ring still exists if you need it). Unless you want your healer fighting stuff for whatever reason, why not just keep them in Bishop? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Flayn and Manuela do better on the Pegasus/Falcon Knight path? Their spell lists are both pretty lacking with the excpetion of Flayn's Rescue, Flayn has a Lance boon and can learn Frozen Lance, and Manuela's got a Flying boon with Ingrid-style growths. Hopping on a pegasus after mastering Mage might actually be the better choice for these two, especially when you throw Manuela's Reason bane into the mix.

Best class for healers? Yes. Best class in the whole game? Hell no.

I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it a "weird" build, but since you're on NG+ (so Dimitri's five-chapter emo phase won't set him back as much), you could try fighting Dimitri's axe bane and making him a Wyvern Lord. It's a bit of a longer road for him since you need to get his axes to at least B+, but the end result is hilariously busted, especially if you have the dlc to give him the Chalice of Beginnings. If you're looking for a way to make Dimitri less broken, though, I think you're right about mage classes being the only option. Dimitri's gonna slay even in the worst physical classes because he's just that damn strong. His mag growth and spell list are pretty much the only meh things about him (unless you count his dlc haircut), so if you're looking for a nerf I'd say Dark Knight's your best bet. High mov, Canto, Black Tomefaire and he can still use his lances if you need him to.

Which route/lord was your favorite when you last played? I'd suggest replaying whichever one's story you enjoyed the most. Difficulty can be lowered at no cost, so if you start playing on Hard and realize you've gotten a bit rusty, you can just bump down to Normal if you feel like you need to.

You mean stat boosters? I mainly just use them to patch up any weak areas on my units. For instance, if someone like Ashe is falling behind in strength, I'll just throw a couple strength boosters on him to get him back into fighting shape. You only get two (just one if you don't have the dlc) movement boosting items though, so you really want to think about who you give them to. Foot-locked classes get more mileage out of them, usually, since they have less natural movement than cavalry/fliers. I typically give them to my mages or healers, since Gremory and Bishop have pretty low movement even compared to other foot-locked classes.

God, I hope this doesn't actually happen. The last thing this game needs is more encouragement for that crowd. Heroes already did Dorothea dirty with that last alt, and Marianne has enough creepy stans as it is without sticking her in a swimsuit too. Not to mention it'd likely make a lot of characters feel really uncomfortable in-story based on their personalities/life experiences (Edelgard was subjected to horifically invasive experiments as a child, Dorothea and Yuri both had to live their whole lives being harassed by perverted guys, Bernie and Marianne have severe self-esteem issues, etc.) Seeing them in fanservice-y swimsuits just wouldn't feel right, imo. If we do get more dlc/updates, I'd much rather have something like removed gender locks (at least on the fist classes) or letting us put characters in their class outfits around the monastery (imagine Byleth strutting around the Cathedral in her Enlightened One outfit). Swimsuits are a lazy addition and don't even make that much sense setting-wise, especially in part 2 (let's all go to the beach in the middle of a war! lol)

Ffs, we've been over this one before... This isn't a real life, modern day military school campus. This is a Fire Emblem game. It doesn't matter if a real life military instructor wouldn't be caught dead dressing like Byleth on campus. In a medieval fantasy setting, that's about as valid a complaint as griping that the students don't all march around in identical U.S. army uniforms, or that everybody can have tea parties whenever they please, or that they answer to the bloody Church. This isn't real life, so don't expect real life. Clearly there's no such thing as a dress code at Garreg Mach, considering Raphael seems to have thrown away his uniform's jacket, Dorothea and Lorenz are free to accessorize however they want, and Manuela's allowed to dress way more inappropriately than Byleth. Hell, speaking of Manuela, apparently professors at Garreg Mach are free to behave like drunken fools on the job without any repercussions too. And say nothing of Hanneman stalking around after every student whose crest catches his eye, including his boss's "sister". None of that shit would fly on a real life military campus, and yet it's all just everyday happenings here in Fire Emblem. So a professor in a fantasy setting doesn't dress like a professor would in real life. What's new there? And yes, it's extremely offensive and wrong to label a woman a "slut", fictional or not, based entirely on her clothes or appearance. Disliking a character's design because of personal taste is one thing, but encouraging sexist stereotypes just makes you an ass.

It's a very slight difference, but looking closely at them both, her happy face definitely shows the tiniest beginnings of a smile, while her neutral portrait is more or less just a straight-faced stare. But I imagine if there was too much of a change between each portrait it would be a tad jarring. The subtle purity of female Byleth's expressions (especially in contrast to her more flamboyant outfit) is one of the reasons why I feel hers is the stronger design. She looks like a genuinely good-hearted person, like someone I'd trust if I were one of her students. Guyleth's design just puts off too much of that "emo tryhard" energy for me lol I do see what you mean about the green hair, though I don't notice too much of a difference myself. The lighter hair color gives her face a brighter look overall, which would definitely make her smile stand out more.

Not to keep this going either, but for me female Byleth's smile (I'm assuming you mean at the end of Ch.6) is more in keeping with her character because it happens at an important part of the story to show that Byleth's growing and changing as a person instead of staying the emotionless rock she was at the beginning. Jeralt even comments on it, and it makes for a nice, lighthearted moment between her and Dimitri (at least on Blue Lions) after such a grim chapter. To me it's a really sweet character development moment for someone who I feel gets overshadowed most of the time by the more complex lords. Male Byleth's scowl on the other hand is in his neutral dialogue portrait. If you look here: https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122141/ https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122142/ There's hardly any difference between his neutral portrait and his "angry" one. Even in his happy, concerned and blushing portraits, he looks like he's masking anger or contempt. While female Byleth's smile looks wholesome, male's looks like he's scheming or something. Female looks like she's genuinely concerned while male looks like he's trying too hard to "look concerned." And his blushing face just looks damn weird. Overall I feel like female Byleth's expressions show a gradual change from having absolutely no feelings at all to feeling pure, genuine emotion, while male's just show a perpetually moody, angry man. Which is great if you're writing a character like Felix but just feels out of place on Byleth, imo. But again, this is just my take. I'm not trying to discourage anyone who prefers male Byleth, everyone's got their own feelings and nobody should feel forced to play a protagonist they don't like (looking at you, Corrin).

Different strokes, my dude. Female Byleth's outfit, while obviously impractical, doesn't bother me. Nearly everything about male Byleth's design does: the hair, the scowl (Byleth's supposed to have no emotions wtf), the black clothes with the bloody red pentagram thing on his chest... I could go on. Clearly it's the other way around for you, and that's perfectly fine. Not sure why you have to post your disagreement when we've already had this discussion before.

Cause you're not a noble.

I personally don't play on Maddening because I feel like it forces a lot of extra grinding and makes battles longer/more tedious, but I always choose female Byleth no matter the route/difficulty. Pegasus/Falcon access, Darting Blow and free Sylvain are too good to pass up, plus I almost always prefer a woman as the protagonist. Certainly helps too that I find male Byleth's design ugly as hell, dude looks like he's got a stick up his ass lol

This, really. VW and SS, the way they are now, are pretty much the same damn route. It's not worth trying to salvage both, imo. And when you compare the two routes, VW has a much more engaging cast (Golden Deer vs. shoehorned Eagles? Not a close race there) and a fan-favorite lord character with a unique and interesting backstory (not to mention an effing albino wyvern.) SS has... Rhea as the final boss. That's about it, really. Makes more sense to try and salvage VW, seeing as it's got more going for it to begin with. SS was just the rough draft, anyway. It shouldn't have even been in the game at all.

Well, canonically (as in, no recruiting) the Deer and the Lions (except Ashe) all get wiped out offscreen courtesy of Gronder 2: Fiery Boogaloo, so... I'd say nobody. Claude cuts his losses and nopes back to Almyra, and all the Alliance heirs are dead. So Leicester's pretty much done for. Faerghus has already been gutted like a fish by part 2, and then Gronder happens, snuffing out any hope of pulling the place back together. And there's no way the Churchpire is ever gonna let Adrestia have any more autonomy after their betrayal, so they're most likely screwed as well. Or, alternatively, Ashe becomes the new ruler of Faerghus and declares war on the Church to get revenge for Lonato's death lol I actually kinda want that now.

Petra: You will be slapped down!

Ikr! I was definitely going for the "comic relief idiot villain" feeling with Acheron, since he's already such an infamous screwup in-story. And I loved the idea of him just barging in like a moron, spouting his grandiose ideals... then noticing Ladislava and Ferdie lying dead atop of a heap of Imperials and just being like "...Oh." This lady cleared out half the damn map on my first AM run, no joke! Not even Dimitri could keep up! Though honestly, I've got no clue why they decided women can't use the brawling classes. I mean, some of the gender locks I get (Pegasus/Falcon, Dark Flier, Gremory) because there's a canon-ish excuse, but what's stopping the ladies from being able to throw a punch? I want War Master Edelgard, dammit! Thanks! My idea was basically to set up the final chapter a little more by having the Alliance lords reconcile with the Almyrans before they all come together for the finale. I also liked the thought of giving Claude his own version of AM's Ch.18, since that was such the perfect culmination of Dimitri's character arc before moving into the final act of the story. Instead of redemption like in Dimitri's case, this would be Claude's chance to finally achieve the first steps of his dream and bring the Alliance and Almyra together as respected allies. Honestly, I'd always seen Count Gloucester as kinda the "stubborn old grandpa" of the Alliance lords. Not really bad-intentioned, just difficult as all hell and a little arrogant. Though he and Claude may not always agree on things, I like to think he still respects Claude and stands by him when the future of the Alliance is at stake, like a true noble would. Like father, like son, basically lol Ironically, I think the most problematic of the Alliance nobles would actually be Holst Goneril, given what we hear about him in Hilda's supports with Cyril. I mean, he supposedly does sort of come around eventually in their A-support, but I still think it's pretty telling of his character that he's fed his younger sister so much bullshit about Almyrans that she's legit surprised to see that Cyril's just a regular guy (Rhea simping aside) and not some warmongering villain. I don't imagine he'd actively betray Claude, but I could definitely see some heavy resistance from him in terms of rebuilding bridges with Almyra. He could potentially end up being a major political rival for Claude down the road.

Just finished addding in the Acheron chapter! Thank you everyone for your suggestions so far, I can't wait to hear more of your thoughts! 🙂

No worries! Like I said, I took a combination of our ideas based on what we discussed and what I felt worked the best. I didn’t make any changes that I wasn't also on board with. And overall I'm very pleased with the end result, it has everything I'd want from a recruitable Fleche. She'd make the perfect addition to anyone's CF run. A female Swift Strikes unit would definitely be cool, but I realized that having access to Darting Blow (not to mention Falcon Knight) means that Swift Strikes would likely see much less use on a female unit than on, say, Sylvain or Seteth.

Just went back and edited my main post. Here's a list of the changes I've made so far: Under non-specific changes, I've addressed the issue with fog of war on Blood of the Eagle and Lion. I included Randolph as a green ally alongside Fleche on Ch.22 Under changes to other routes, I've added in stats for Fleche as a recruitable unit on CF. @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate I took both our ideas for Fleche and combined them as best I could. I added Excalibur and Aura at Reason A and Faith A respectively to give her that hint of Flayn's spell list. I also swapped out Swift Strikes for Frozen Lance. This not only brings in another aspect of Flayn's kit, but I think it'd serve her better overall since she shouldn't have any trouble doubling. I lowered her rank and skill levels, but bumped up her growths like you suggested so she can quickly catch up with the others. I don't know if she's exactly an Est now, or if she's more of a "semi-Est", but I think she strikes a good balance nonetheless. I still need to finish writing the new Acheron chapter and fix the ending so the crest stone doesn't disappear. That shouldn't take too long, though.