Barren

That's a fair point. I mean of course those 3 are good choices but if you are able to make the argument that MS and HK can fill some kind of role for you then more power to you. I am doing the same thing ironically. I am curious though who you used as a MS and HK. I am currently using Mortal Savant Lysithea on my Crimson Flower maddening run out of curiosity, and I must admit I am impressed with her damage output with a forged Levin Sword. She was rocking at least 55 damage or so since her magic stat is around 40 (I think it's above 40 now since she is level 35). She can certainly make it work. I wanted to like Mortal Savant in the beginning because it's a master class that can use both swordfaire and black tomefaire efficiently. I compared Assassin Felix's stats to Mortal Savant Felix's stats since I was raising his reason magic a little bit. He would lose 4 points of speed and I think 2 points of dex in exchange for spell access, higher strength, defense, res and magic. I'm not sure if losing that 4 speed for Felix (or anyone else for that matter) is worth the trouble. I have also done Holy Knight Bernadetta. Her role as a rescue/physic bot isn't too shabby but you would have to go out of your way to increase her magic by for example certifying her as a bishop so you can bump her magic stat up to 15. Then her magic growth would bump up from 20% to 30%. It's a bit better but chances are her magic stat would in theory only make it to 18 magic by the time she makes it to level 30 as a holy knight. Though I suppose that's why stat boosters exist. She was useful on a few maps for me when I was doing Azure Moon. Her rescue spell was helpful in bringing my units closer rather than pulling them away from certain death but still, I liked what she brought to the table there. If we hope for a future Fire Emblem game that can better balance the class options and class access, I think a first step is to remove gender restrictions on classes. I know I'm not the only one who feels that.

Makes me kind of wish that they had upgraded move up to 5 since they could take better advantage of Heartseeker. Like Shanty Pete said, it’s a good ability on the wrong class. I mean Gremory has 5 move why not Dark Bishops? Dark Flier, Dark Knight and to an extent Gremory are the only class suitable enough for offensive mages to consider at that stage of the game. DF and DK has 7 move and canto which gives them nice advantages compared to Gremory. But Gremory has the 2x of magic so they can have more spell charges (Final Fantasy 1 & 3 references). Jeritza has a variation of heartseeker like Caspar but as a personal skill. Lifetaker is way too niche for it to be worth mastering (though I have seen Zoran’s play through so I respect the fact that he wanted to show it off). Poison Strike I can see good for those who really can’t double or that has been magic screwed. Like everyone else, I wish it wasn’t restricted to guys only.

Maybe make Constance a dancer instead of a warrior? At least she has Bolting and could act as siege tome support for Jeritza, Byelth, Edelgard and Mercedes.

It’s doable no doubt. And yes with the right preps you can make it more than manageable. Best of luck when you get to that point.

He’s not kidding about the mission being a huge issue for players even if not that under leveled for it since people often find themselves stuck whether it’s due to lacking the stats to deal with power creep, or you don’t have the right battalions/abilities at your disposal. It’s strongly recommended that you make a separate save file because there is no way to change your set up for this fight. Whatever you have equipped for chapter 12 will be carried over towards chapter 13. Good news is that your weapon’s durability gets repaired so feel free to bring expensive silver weapons as well as hero relics. You may still need training weapons due to their lack of weight. Those would help prevent you from being doubled (pending on your strength and speed stat) and have a better time dodging to an extent.

Maybe do Paladin Hubert instead since it’s a bit easier for him to achieve. Because Great Knight requires an axe, heavy armor and riding rank. So you would have to probably go armored knight, cavalier, fortress knight, paladin (?) and then finally great knight. At least with Paladin you’ll have Frozen Lance unlocked already (assuming you went to unlock his budding talent right away from the start). Plus having fiendish blow + frozen lance as a cavalier then paladin can have Hubert possibly achieve OHKO potential when factoring in a strong battalion and lancefaire. But you would have to hope for a lot of good magic and even some dex level ups for damage and accuracy. Not to mention that he’ll lose access to his spells. So it’s really up to you. Great Knight can allow Hubert to be someone’s backpack but that’s honestly about it imo.

That’s also a fun build for her. Plus that juicy Bowfaire damage.

If you’re doing Gremory Mercedes, I don’t mind you borrowing a magic bow gremory build I did for my maddening run. It gives her a 3-4 ranged option without needing to use Thrysus or Cadesus on her whereas you can give them to someone else. I’m currently doing Mortal Savant Lysithea on my Black Eagles run. She’s doing 55+ damage with a Levin Sword.

Thanks. I’ll need it. Chapter 4 was my toughest one so far.

@Eltosian KadathHe’ll still have the VIP card by chapter 6 correct? Because if so then that would make chapter 5 way easier for me to handle because then all I would have to do is kill the enemy thief that has a master seal already and then I could retrieve the VIP card later on. @Shaky JonesYes I do remember the secret shop only having 1 master seal available. This would save me 2,500 gold pieces actually and I suppose I’ll run into more master seals later on. Anyways, I’ll give just letting him run away a try. Thank you both for the response.

Hey guys. I could use some help. I am not sure if this is already a topic or not but I am having a hard time trying to recruit Rickard safely. I know that Barst can be easily recruited on the first turn. But yet the devs thought it would be funny to move Rickard 1 tile ahead so I can't get him on the first turn. I can't use up a rescue staff either because I also know that if I am in any one of Jeroge's men's range then I am screwed. Julian would somehow trigger the other Snipers at the northeast corner of the map where Jeorge is also. Plus even if I try to corner Rickard somehow (which I am having trouble with thanks to the enemy Cavaliers), Dracoknights are right there to wreck me. I've tried promoting the avatar to a Dracoknight as well and I seemingly still run into issues with Rickard running to a spot where I don't want him to be. Plus I don't want to move my rescue staff user too far ahead so early because mages and cavaliers are there as well. I know that MU and Shida can one round them, Palla and Catria can double them (Catria with the rainbow potion) and Barst doesn't immediately die to one of the cavs. But even then I am stuck, if anyone can recommend me a party set up on getting Rickard easily enough then that would be appreciated. My MU is currently a cavalier who started as a knight so I can work on his lance and later on his axe rank (though I did give him an arms scroll for him to wield hand axes already).

Especially forged Iron Bows for those strong and reliable curved shots. Anyone and everyone can just trade chain and mow down one enemy at a time with this strategy.

Sounds good. I’m not sure what team you have in mind right now. We’ll be happy to give you our thoughts and pointers if you like.

Sweet. Also what route do you plan on going? I’m currently finishing my Black Eagles maddening run then jumping into Silver Snow. I already did Golden Deer and Blue Lions. If you want I could give you some ideas on how to at least get started pending on what you want your team to be. If you’re going to do NG+ it will be easier to get some abilities and whatnot. But unless you beat maddening without NG+, you won’t get the golden colored title screen. Not that it’s that important it’s more of a trophy of some sort.

I mean it’s your play through. It would be cool though if you tried out NG+. But it honestly doesn’t matter, whichever you feel will give you the easiest time going through this self imposed challenge.

Bernadetta actually has a bane in axes and heavy armor so it does hamper progression quite a lot. Though if you have the patience to work on her ranks then I ain’t stopping you. If you want to try any sort of vantage build, there is Vantage + Battalion Wrath. She does have a bane in swords but it isn’t as hard to get her into Mercenary as it would be for her to access Fortress Knight. Paladin, Falcon Knight or Bow Knight Bernie would be ideal fits for her if you’re using this set up. Of course if it’s going to be Falcon Knight, you would have to make sure that she has Blessing applied so she can live with 1 HP. Fliers can’t have guard adjutants after all. Bernadetta has access to Vengeance which is her most potent combat art at a rank of C+ in lances. You can amplify her damage output with strength +2, death blow and even HP +5 which adds more damage with Vengeance. She can also use Dead Eye at C rank in bows for long range and Encloser with an A rank in bows to keep enemies from moving. Encloser in particular can be useful in scenarios where Vengeance is not. Whichever one you pick she can be an absolute monster on player phase.

The only work around I can think of is Stride and Warp. But that depends on how your squad is set up. Otherwise, you are absolutely correct, fliers are just too good. IMO Alert Stance is what really makes them head and shoulders above everything else.

What would have also been nice is if there was a “fixed growths” run like what PoR did once you beat the game. I know that New Mystery of the Emblem did Lunatic Reverse but I don’t think that everyone having Vantage+ on maddening would be a welcome challenge.

I think it’s because once you get his axe and flying rank high enough then it becomes worth the time. Though to be fair, his bane in axes does make it a tall mountain for him to climb. In my opinion it’s probably not worth it because he has battalion vantage + battalion wrath to more than make up for the lack of movement and flexibility compared to a flier.

While I never did try out Wyvern Lord Hapi, I have done Wyvern Lord Annette in my previous Blue Lions run. She was useful for at least providing strong chip damage at enemies like Paladins especially with Lancebreaker. I know that with a forged Hammer she can OHKO Fortress Knights with Lightning Axe (really wish they gave that to Hapi. She would have had a niche in using axes even when not a flier). Other than that, she can pretty much 2HK most other enemies with either Lightning Axe or even Bolt Axe. Her magic stat was a bit lacking from my experience since the class does decrease her magic growth a bit. She was perfectly serviceable in that class if you want to ignore her spell list. It’s funny that hers is the exact same as Yuri’s except that Yuri is much faster and could still double with these spells provided that he has something like speed +2 and weight -3 backing him up which he can easily achieve. While off topic, simply certifying someone into a Wyvern Rider has it’s benefits for mages since it will bring their strength stat all the way up to 18 which helps reduces the overall equipment weight of said weapon or tome. So Dark Flier Annette or even Dark Flier Flayn, Constance, Marianne and other females benefit form certifying in that class just for the strength boost.

It is rather disappointing that a typical customizable avatar should in theory be good at anything you want them to be like Robin from awakening. With Byleth having 13 base strength as their starting stat and 6 base magic, this is hard to get behind the idea of a mage Byleth from the onset. Plus their spell kit isn’t the best as you guys pointed out other than maybe nosferatu tanking. I can still see this being pulled off on hard mode. It’s still astonishing that on maddening someone dared to go down the magical path. But yea. I do kind of wish that Byleth’s starting base stats could better suggest they can do whatever role you want rather than what’s obviously the optimal way to go. I mean I suppose you still could but Byleth would rather stay in any physical class.

Hey guys, we all know that Byleth performs very well in physical base classes like Grappler, War Master, Falcon Knight, etc. Has anyone ever tried a mage Byleth or at least a magic based build for Byleth? I have dabbled in a part magic build for Byleth as EO with a Levin Sword, Even with their magic being considerably lower than their strength stat, Levin Sword still can rock enemies with low res even without Fiendish Blow or even magic +2. I remember using Macuil Evil Repelling Co. for the magic +7 and hit +30 and it works very nicely with Levin Sword and Swordfaire. So I am wondering that if anyone has every tried a full on magic based Byleth? I was watching Zoran's playthrough and he was doing a magic based Byleth throughout his playthrough. He even showed off how useful Dark Mage's Heartseeker ability is or how useful Trickster's stealth ability can be very helpful at avoiding enemies entirely. That's where I got the idea to be asking this. If a magic based Byleth has or hasn't worked for you, let's discuss why. Oh and I as a disclaimer I am prepared for this to be another derail of the topic.

With a tier list like that there isn’t really anything more any of us can add.

I think I can agree with the fact that Recover can be slept on. For example in my Blue Lions run, I was doing Dedue’s paralogue and Annette had Recover. Since Dedue takes a lot of damage from a group of enemies, it was important for me to have her act as a full heal for him while Mercedes can use Physic on Ingrid who was my Pegasus Knight for the paralogue so the enemies can focus on her. Meanwhile, Byleth and Felix soften up enemies with their bows while Dimitri and Sylvain picks up the scraps with Tempest Lance. But it’s Dedue that is the center of attention while Annette either helps with chip or full heals him. Even with 5 uses that is quite helpful.

Plus if you're serious about Dark Knight Ingrid, you can promote her to a Warlock to nab that 17 magic stat, as well as Paladin for the 17 strength. Plus you can and probably should have her spend time in the Valkyrie class so Uncanny Blow can help her accuracy issues in regards to her spells. Plus she can still use Physic and Seraphim to good effect and get a 5% increase to her strength and a 10% increase to her magic. Her speed would suffer slightly at -5% but considering how fast she is this is a small price to pay. Plus her defense, res, hp and charm also get some modest boosts as well.