Barren

So far I'm near the end of chapter 9 getting some paralogues out of the way just for the sake of clearing out some battles. I did try white magic avoid +20 with dorothea. As long as she's in the bushes or thickets that provide extra avoid, even on maddening mode archers and brigands have a really hard time hitting her. For instance, one of the enemy archers or Raphael's and Ignatz's paralogue battle had only a 17% chance of hitting Dorothea and she's only a priest because I needed some extra healing power on my team. Brigands had about roughly I think 30 something percent chance of hitting me. I didn't write down the exact numbers but I was impressed with how low their hit rate was for me. Granted I had her hiding in a bush but still. Then I did Marianne with sword avoid. And despite hiding in the bushes, archers only had roughly the same odds of hitting Marianne as they did trying to hit Dorothea. Cavaliers only had roughly a 53% chance because of Swordbreaker. Makes me wonder if maybe the devs knew what they were doing the entire time? I mean yes white magic avoid can only go on for so long but in terms of luring in the enemy and then taking them out afterwards, even for the short term effectiveness, it worked. This would probably convince me that Byleth can pull it off better because Byleth in general is more bulky compared to Dorothea.

Yea I can say that calvary units got shafted by this as well. I haven’t played Radiant Dawn that much but, I’ve heard decent things about it so maybe I’ll give it a look. Catherine and Shamir being their intermediate classes would being an interesting challenge as long as their stats are neutered

Thinking on it now yea that is a good idea. I should consider that when I post ideas like these in the future. Still appreciate your feedback 😄

I can understand why these kind of abilities would be way too good on Felix or any other non lord unit. I did think though that it was weird that the crest he bears is named after a female. Also fun fact: Enemy Felix in part 2 gets Darting Blow. That was why I thought he should get it. But everything else about what I suggested, I can see that it would be a bit much since he’s already white good. Though this would be a dream unit for anyone to use since this combination would have so much kill power. I also don’t mind my crit+15 idea for Petra being toned down to +10. I was just throwing a number out there I thought would be safe. But hey we could witness more Brigid pride.

For Ignatz, if that were to happen, I would think that keeping his stat growths as they are would be the proper way to rebalance him because if he had another boost in strength or something then with Deadeye and Encloser he would be the more OP archer. Would he keep his budding talent in reason? Because the devs had built him to be a debuffing unit with seal strength and break shot in mind. Flayn having Physic would no doubt be a godsend for her. But I do wish that she’d be unique as a healer. Someone mentioned that so I’ll second this. Give her Recover instead of Heal as her D rank spell since she’s supposed to be the gifted white mage. I wouldn’t mind her leaving the rest of her spells as they are because having rescue and fortify are a nice set of spells for her. For Caspar, his personal ability stays in affect if he is still next to an enemy making it easier for his teammates to hit them. But I do think that he could be bulkier or faster since he starts off behind anyways. Though granting allies extra crit when he is adjacent would be nice. Ashe, maybe changing his personal ability would make sense performance wise but lore wise no it won’t. I do think however that allowing him to steal freely regardless of stat difference in addition to lock picking would be good because at least you won’t have to be forced to use a thief when you want to steal something like an evasion ring or aurora’s shield for example from some of the bosses. If we were to ditch it entirely, then maybe something like patience from awakening except that you gain hit and crit +10 or something when you choose to wait. Also give him battalion vantage instead of battalion desperation so you can crit stack with him using a forged killer’s bow. While a bit off topic, I think sniper should get bow crit +10 so they can be as proficient at scoring critical hits like Swordmaster and Warrior. Manuela I pretty much agree with. Her high speed would help her double with Darting Blow and her as a Mortal Savant would work. Another side note: I would at least give Mortal Savant a +10% speed growth instead of -10%. Sure they would still be slower than Swordmaster or Assassin but at least they can be a viable hybrid sword class. But enough derailing. For Lorenz since he went to the school of sorcery before going to the Alliance, why not give him an innate boost with his magical damage in addition to his +2 damage with a battalion equipped. Like either an additional 10% of his magic stat plus his PA, or a enemy suffers a res - 5 when Lorenz is within a range of 3 so that way other mages can easily destroy enemies. For Raphael, I would give him the effect of Leftovers from Pokémon to make his PA better. 12.5% of max HP recovered every turn. And sure raise his HP, defense and dex growths to make him a solid reliable tank. Gilbert, I guess just give him better equips in part 2. Like a Silver Axe, Silver Shield, Elixirs, and a item stat buff (probably defense) so he can use it on his first turn. And give him a unique battalion (with his authority at rank C) where it jacks up his protection, hit and might. Anna, I guess give her supports so she can be a viable unit. And maybe just for the sake of nostalgia, have her join you as a Trickster. Why not? She’ll already have commoner, myrmidon, monk, priest and thief mastered. The rest of her proficiencies are fine. If I can add a couple of things: Petra’s personal ability should just be critical +15. That right there would give Petra a better role at killing since her strength growth is a little lacking. For Felix, since he happens to have a boon in bows and a 55% strength growth, give him Point-Blank Volley. That right there would make him a better Bow Knight since he can still keep Heavy Draw for raw damage, Curved Shot for reliable chip and PBV for a brave attack that isn’t HV. Also instead of a budding talent in reason magic. Budding talent in flying. Fraldarius is a Falcon Knight and ladies can learn Darting Blow. Felix bares it’s major crest so him having Darting Blow like Jeritza would be a fantastic ability for him. Thoughts on this?

That generally comes with the territory for Fire Emblem in general. Especially since Swordmasters are foot locked. While they can be good at crit stacking, i.e Battalion Vantage with forged Wo Dao, Falcon Knight and Wyvern Lords just bring more to the table by comparison. The only foot locked classes that are good at attacking and have decent movement and/or range are assassin (but to a small extent), grappler, sniper, war master and gremory. Bishops at least are the more viable classes to pick for obvious reasons.

I think that would be good as well. Having an ability trigger based off of luck does little to nothing for you especially since anyone’s luck stat can vary. This reminds me somewhat of the item Focus Band in Pokémon where there is a chance you could live a hit with 1 HP. In this case @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate‘s suggestion would have Miracle be an alternate version of that item but like he said works like the Blessing Gambit. It would make the Priest class at least a decent intermediate class. Plus this would work nicely with any of the defiant skills.

Not to be a buzz kill or anything but since when did this go from talking about what to do about swordmaster to byleth’s and manuela’s designs in the game? I guess if we’re going to talk about designs for a second I suppose they would raise an issue in today’s world. Especially those Twitter puritans that like to bash people for dressing up like that and look good doing it. Sorry for the minor rant on my part

@JotariYes I was. Sorry about my phrasing. I should have been more specific.

At least some of Three Houses Bosses are better designed than the DS remake of the first one. Like for example if you were playing on Hard 5, Gomer can solo any of your characters since he frequently doubles and has an hand axe to boot. Limited heaing, your HP and Defense isn't high enough to even tank these hits. Not to mention that he is the chapter 2 boss. Point is that at least Three Houses even on maddening mode has methods to taking down bosses whether it's normally or if you're doing a LTC run. Shadow Dragon just has plain old dumb luck. One of the better bosses for example in Three Houses would probably be Pallardo. The one before the timeskip (or Crimson Flower route). Sure his reinforcements are annoying but the map you fight him on at least has a wide open area where you can figure out your own path to get to him. Plus there are gambits that allow you to either push him away from the bushes or in the case of maddening, if you send someone towards him with no one else coming for you and you have swordbreaker equipped, then he's at least manageable. I'm not sure if he qualifies that way or not but at least I'd rather deal with him on that map than the one on Hunting by Daybreak.

If you want Thrysus early get Lorenz in part 1.

This was a lot of fun to do. I'm glad that we all had a chance to discuss how we felt about the characters in question. I know that our opinions varied but all in all this is still great insight to how these characters performed.

I'm glad to help out @Benice. I liked the idea of this series and I was happy to contribute however I could

True I could do worse than EO. Still you're right. It's a free class for Byleth to get and in the event I want her to be a Falcon Knight I can always change switch back and forth

All good things must come to an end as we can finally end this series. It's been fun though as we all got a chance to review each individual unit based on our own experience with them. So the last character we talk about today is Hapi. She's a refugee at the Kingdom of Faerghus and then gets relocated to Abyss. What kind of potential does she have? For the last time let's review a character. This is assuming hard mode. Hapi is the fourth member of the Ashen Wolves and she has some interesting things she brings to the table. First off, while none of her stat growths exceed 45%, these growths are in magic, dex and resistance. Her speed could be better but a 40% growth isn't the end of the world. Her strength and HP are at a low 35% growth and her defense is even worse at a 15% growth. Hapi's Charm and Luck aren't much better either with a 25% and 20% growth respectively. Her personal ability Monstrous Appeal allows her to deal extra damage to monsters. This can be helpful on certain missions especially Silver Snow since that route is crawling with monsters. Hapi bears the crest of Timotheos which occasionally allows her to preserve her white magic. So if you're lucky she can hold onto spells like Physic and Warp as long as her crest allows it. Her boons consist of Reason, Riding and Flying with a budding talent in Axes. She has banes in brawling, authority and heavy armor. So she'll have a harder time getting into War Cleric (not that you would honestly want to anyways), equip better battalions and get weight -3 since some of her tomes are pretty heavy. She may be neutral in faith but like Constance, if you recruit her between chapters 3 - 5 she'll start with her faith rank at D. Though even then it'll take a while to get all of her faith spells. When unlocking her budding talent in Axes she gets Exhaustive Strike. It's honestly not all that good. She could have used something else like Lightning Axe would have been amazing on her. She also starts off with a lance rank of D interestingly enough and comes with tempest lance. This means that she can easily slip into Dark Knight later on. Her reason spell list consist of Miasma (which she already has), Swarm at rank D+, Banshee at rank C, Death at rank B and Hades at rank A. Having Swarm and Banshee available is a huge boon for her since she can either help lower the enemy's speed making it easier to double attack them or stop them from moving entirely. These qualities help make fighting stronger enemies more bearable. Her faith spells consist of Physic at rank C, Seraphim at rank B and Warp at rank A. While it will take awhile for Hapi to get these spells, they are incredibly useful. Physic for longer range healing, Seraphim while redundant on her considering her personal ability but hey another offensive spell helps and Warp is great for LTC runs or just sending help in general. Her class options are quite obvious, Monk for Magic +2 then Mage for Fiendish Blow. You won't have to worry about her hit rate issues because she can easily slip into Valkyrie. One of the better magical mounted classes. Sure the growth rates from the class isn't the best but the extra range you get with black and dark magic is always nice even with 6 move. You still get Canto and being able to play hit and run is always vital. Not to mention that you unlock Uncanny Blow which is Hit +30 upon initiating combat. It's a fantastic ability to bring for any attack that has a shaky hit rate. Dark Magic tends to not have the best accuracy but with Uncanny Blow fixing that issue this makes them worth while. As mentioned earlier Hapi has a very easy time slipping into Dark Knight thanks to her boons and her early D rank in lances. Dark Knight having 7 move but no extra range is a trade off going from Valkyrie to DK, but Valk can be a nice bridging class. And Dark Knight has better stat growths than Valkyrie so there is that too. Hapi also works well as a Gremory since they offer double uses of all magic. If you're the odd type that wants to experiment with Axes, she could go Warrior for Wrath, especially if you're leveling up her swords to unlock Mercenary for Vantage. She could also go Wyvern Lord thanks to her boon in flying. She could also go Dark Flier beforehand just to get Transmute. Transmute boosts all of your stats by 3 if you're hit with a magic attack which can be okay pending on the map. She gets Rally Dex at Authority rank D and then Battalion Wrath at Authority rank C. Having Alert Stance+ and Battalion Wrath can always be a fun combination to use. Overall, I think Hapi is another good unit to bring. I rate her 7.5/10. Hapi certainly has plenty to offer and she doesn't disappoint. Having a combo of Physic, Warp, Banshee, and Swarm is quite powerful and not to be ignored whatsoever. On that note, this is where we end the "Rate the character" series that went on for more than a month. I hope everyone had fun :D

Rules - Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.) - Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning. - Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help. +/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more. - Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~! -The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage." -The ranking assumes no grinding and no stat booster items - Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.." - Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please! -We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea." -The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable. Scores: Dimtri: 9.14 Byleth: 9.05 Edelgard: 9.00 Claude: 8.977 Felix: 8.625 Lysithea: 8.472 Petra: 8.34 Leonie: 8.2 Jeritza: 8.2 Ferdinand: 7.78 Catherine: 7.7556 Sylvain: 7.66 Balthus: 7.5 Ingrid: 7.34 Hilda: 7.31 Yuri: 7.28 Seteth: 7.2273 Bernadetta: 7.125 Linhardt: 7.11 Marianne: 6.9769 Mercedes: 6.756 Shamir: 6.65 Constance: 6.6 Dorothea: 6.375 Cyril: 6.0454 Dedue: 5.8571 Alois: 5.75 Annette: 5.5375 Hubert: 5.525 Ignatz: 4.88 Flayn: 4.583 Caspar: 4.32 Hanneman: 4.18 Lorenz: 3.8077 Raphael: 3.7273 Ashe: 3.69 (nice) Manuela: 3.1 Gilbert: 2.27 Anna: 1.978 Underscore: Black Eagles Bold: Blue Lions Itallics: Golden deer Purple: Faculty Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94 Average score for Blue lions: 6.82 Average score for Golden Deer: 6.543 Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number) Average score for Ashen Wolves: 7.12

I've been considering either Assassin or Falcon Knight for Byleth. Petra I could make either an Assassin or Wyvern Lord pending on what I have planned out already. I originally wanted to do EO when I first considered a maddening run sometime back but was told but basically everyone that EO would be too slow and require a lot of support like you said. Still much appreciated

Ahh good catch. I'll edit my post.

Now we get to talk about Constance. This formal magician dreams of restoring House Nuvelle back to the glory days of old. She also likes to perform magical experiments and she has a bit of a split personality going on when either indoors or outdoors. But we're here to talk about her potential on the battlefield. This is assuming hard. Constance is third to last members of the Ashen Wolves and her stat spread is rather lopsided like Lysithea except it's a bit different. She has a 60% magic growth which is among one of the highest growths in the game. But every other stat growth she has doesn't exceed 35% with her second highest being in speed. Her dex, resistance and charm are at a low 30% growth too. Her HP and strength are sitting at a low 20% and her defense and luck even lower at 15%. So needless to say she is very much a class cannon mage. Her personal ability Circadian Beat functions like indoor fighter and outdoor fighter from Awakening merged together. If indoors her strength and magic goes up by 3, if outdoors, then it's her defense and resistance that gets the boost.EDIT: +3 Str/Mag on Fog of War maps works as an in door map. It's a cool little feature but also makes her a bit situational as she really excels better when indoors IMO. She bears the crest of Noa which by chance can preserve her uses of magic attacks. She has a boon in swords, reason, authority and flying with a budding talent in brawling. Her banes consist of axes and heavy armor so no fortress knight for her. I wouldn't recommend weight -3 anyways because she is simply not fast enough to double anything outside of fortress knights. Still her qualities can't be ignored. If you recruit her between chapters 3 - 5, she'll have faith at rank D which means she already comes with heal. Her sword combat arts consist of Soul Blade at rank C+ and Hexblade at rank A. Both of which capitalize on her high magic stat. Her budding talent in brawling grants her Mystic Blow which basically does the same as her sword combat arts. Her reason spell list which is the highlight of this character, consists of Fire (which she already has), Sagittae at rank C, Fimbulvetr at rank B, Bolting at rank A then Agnea's Arrow at rank A+. These spells are quite strong as Fimbulvetr albeit inaccurate can score critical hits and Bolting is one of the best spells in the game. Of course since her dex growth is quite low, she'll be having trouble landing those spells. Her faith spell list has Ward at rank C, Rescue at rank B and Abraxas at rank A. Ward is okay at best. Rescue can be helpful in certain dangerous situations and Abraxas while a strong spell in it's own right, doesn't exactly stand out. As for class options, they tend to be geared towards magical routes. Like Monk for Magic +2 and then Mage for Fiendish Blow. Pretty obvious stuff here. If you want to you could work on her bow rank to get it up to rank D+ and have her certify as an Archer. For advance classes, there is Warlock for Bowbreaker. From there, you can take Bowbreaker and bring it to the Dark Flier class. Bowbreaker is a great ability for Dark Flier as this ability gives the class an extra layer of protection against enemy Snipers. Especially when you combine that with Alert Stance. Constance having a crest allows her to equip other hero's relic like the Thyrsus so range won't be an issue for her. Constance can co Valkyrie if you want the extra range thanks to the class bonus and get Uncanny Blow. But of course you'll need to train her riding up to a minimum rank C+. Her sword options may consist of something like Swordmaster or Assassin, but you would lose out on her magic and she's too frail to pull it off. Constance could go War Cleric if you want to experiment around with her brawling, yes Mystic Blow will deal a lot of damage but you better be sure she won't get revenge killed for it afterwards otherwise all that power would go to waste. Constance can go Gremory if you like having her on the ground and having double uses of all magic. Or Mortal Savant if you're feeling different. Like Yuri, she can also be a decent choice to be a dancer, her boon in swords and authority really helps and she can be a support bot with bolting similar to Dorothea and Hilda. Except that her support pool is very limited compared to those two. She also comes with Rally Magic off the bat then get Rally Resistance at rank C. No battalion vanatge or wrath or anything of that sort. But honestly it's fine that she doesn't have anything of that sort. Overall, I think Constance is really a 6.5/10 unit. She is capable of being a good mage but you may have to baby her a little first. But still, if you want to help her realize her dream of restoring House Nuvelle, then now's the time to do it.

Rules - Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.) - Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning. - Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help. +/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more. - Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~! -The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage." -The ranking assumes no grinding and no stat booster items - Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.." - Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please! -We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea." -The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable. Scores: Dimtri: 9.14 Byleth: 9.05 Edelgard: 9.00 Claude: 8.977 Felix: 8.625 Lysithea: 8.472 Petra: 8.34 Leonie: 8.2 Jeritza: 8.2 Ferdinand: 7.78 Catherine: 7.7556 Sylvain: 7.66 Balthus: 7.5 Ingrid: 7.34 Hilda: 7.31 Yuri: 7.28 Seteth: 7.2273 Bernadetta: 7.125 Linhardt: 7.11 Marianne: 6.9769 Mercedes: 6.756 Shamir: 6.65 Dorothea: 6.375 Cyril: 6.0454 Dedue: 5.8571 Alois: 5.75 Annette: 5.5375 Hubert: 5.525 Ignatz: 4.88 Flayn: 4.583 Caspar: 4.32 Hanneman: 4.18 Lorenz: 3.8077 Raphael: 3.7273 Ashe: 3.69 (nice) Manuela: 3.1 Gilbert: 2.27 Anna: 1.978 Underscore: Black Eagles Bold: Blue Lions Itallics: Golden deer Purple: Faculty Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94 Average score for Blue lions: 6.82 Average score for Golden Deer: 6.543 Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number) Average score for Ashen Wolves: 7.39

Time to talk about the King of Grappling himself Balthus. This giant bruiser likes to show off his bod for the ladies to get their fill and remain in constant debt too. So many bounty hunters so little time. But we're here to talk about his performance overall on the battlefield. This is assuming hard. Balthus is similar to Raphael and Dedue in a sense but there's more to it than that. His HP and Strength growths are his highest points, they both share a 50% growth. His defense growth at 45% is also note worthy. The rest of his stats are either below average or quite low. Balthus' magic, speed and resistance have a 30% growth. His charm has 35% growth, dexterity at 25% and luck at 20%. So he would be pretty slow and less likely to land or avoid crit, as well as land gambits. He can however can take quite a lot of punishment. Quite literally too thanks to his personal ability King of Grappling. This grants him +6 in strength and defense when under 50% health. Balthus can potentially turn low damage attacks he takes to suffering no damage whatsoever. Balthus bears the major Crest of Chevalier which allows him to restore HP equal to 30% of damage dealt when using Combat Arts. Balthus also has a Hero's Relic the Vajra-Mushti. This allows him to have access to the Eviscerate combat arts which targets the enemy's lowest defense stat whether its defense or resistance so he always has a way to punch holes for you. Balthus has a boon in swords, axes, brawling, faith and heavy armor with a budding talent in reason magic. That's a lot of areas for him to do well in. His banes consist of lances, bows and riding. This obviously means that classes like Paladin, Bow Knight and Sniper are very hard for him to pull off. However, there is a neat trick you can do: recruit him between chapters 3 - 5, he'll have a D rank in bows with Curved Shot unlocked off the bat. So he can get to rank D+ and have a good chance to certify as an archer. His only sword combat art he gets is Bane of Monsters, unfortunately this is situational at best. His list of axe combat arts contains Diamond Axe at rank C+ and Armored Strike at rank A. Diamond Axe hits incredibly hard but unless you have Hit +20 it's really unreliable. Armored Strike can be okay as long his defense stat is high enough to make a difference. His brawling combat arts has Draining Blow at rank C+ and Mighty Blow at rank A. Draining Blow is meh at best and Mighty Blow while powerful not as useful as something like Bombard or One-Two Punch. This would mean that he'll want to rely on class exclusive CAs like Fierce Iron Fist or in the case of War Monk, Pneuma Gale which is a 2 range magic attack for the class. His faith spell list has Seraphim at rank C+ then Restore at rank B+. Seraphim is always nice to help deal with monsters but his magic stat is quite low for him to take advantage of, and Restore on occasion can be helpful when being rattled by gambits. When unlocking his budding talent in reason he gets Black Magic Crit +10 like Edelgard. Though his reason spell list has Fire at rank D, Bolganone at rank C and Ragnarok at rank A. Edelgard at least has a reasonable magic growth and can go into magical based classes like Valkyrie and Dark Knight. Balthus, not so much as he would only be taking advantage of this by using the Warlock class. For class paths, he should always go to Fighter to gain Strength +2. He can go to Archer if recruited as mentioned earlier above so he may get Hit +20. Then Brigand for Death Blow. If you're working on his Heavy Armor, he can get Weight -3 at C rank which can be okay for him when going down the brawling route since gauntlets generally allows him to double. Armored Blow from Armored Knight can be basically a budget Windsweep where he could take minimal damage from physical attacks especially when King of Grappling activates. Death Blow also combines really well with his personal ability. Thanks to his sword boon, he could go Mercenary to learn Vantage and go Hero (Hey remember that class? No? I don't blame you). With that class, you can learn Defiant Strength. If you want to combine that Defiant Strength with Vantage and Wrath from the Warrior class and Death Blow, his damage output can reach an astronomical +20 strength when initiating combat. +14 strength and +6 defense when on enemy phase. Not to mention if you raise his authority high enough for him to have access to better battalions and get higher defense and resistance to boot. Holy shit that is ridiculous. Vantage and Wrath, especially when a War Master would absolutely decimate everything in his path. And you think Dimitri is OP. Balthus is a pretty damn close second because he needs to be on the verge of death to achieve that kind of damage. War Monk is actually a good class for him (at least as a pit stop to other classes) because he can get Brawl Avoid +20. This helps him dodge a number of attacks. Especially when combining that with Grappler's Tomebreaker which gives him a way to stand up to Mages. Balthus can even go Wyvern Lord if you're willing to muscle through his lance weakness and his neutrality to flying. At least axes is one of his boons. War Master grants him a crit +20 in addition to Fistfaire and Axefaire. War Master's Strike is a solid CA exclusive that hits every enemy effectively. Quick Riposte is quite valuable as well. Fortress Knight is only there for Pavise but his dex growth isn't high enough to take advantage of it. Balthus gets Rally Strength at rank D which is a nice tool to have to increase an ally's attack. He also gets Battalion Desperation at Authority rank B. which is not the best for him since his speed is quite low Overall, I think Balthus is a damn good unit. 8/10 for me. Balthus may be slow and at times a little shaky with his hit rates, but when recruited at the right time and trained in the right areas, he can be an great addition to the team. No doubt one of the better units to use in the game at least in my opinion. It is understandable if you feel he is a bit overrated but honestly, he is worth the try.

Ahh you’re right. I didn’t think about that

Rules - Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.) - Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning. - Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help. +/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more. - Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~! -The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage." -The ranking assumes no grinding and no stat booster items - Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.." - Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please! -We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea." -The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable. Scores: Dimtri: 9.14 Byleth: 9.05 Edelgard: 9.00 Claude: 8.977 Felix: 8.625 Lysithea: 8.472 Petra: 8.34 Leonie: 8.2 Jeritza: 8.2 Ferdinand: 7.78 Catherine: 7.7556 Sylvain: 7.66 Ingrid: 7.34 Hilda: 7.31 Yuri: 7.28 Seteth: 7.2273 Bernadetta: 7.125 Linhardt: 7.11 Marianne: 6.9769 Mercedes: 6.756 Shamir: 6.65 Dorothea: 6.375 Cyril: 6.0454 Dedue: 5.8571 Alois: 5.75 Annette: 5.5375 Hubert: 5.525 Ignatz: 4.88 Flayn: 4.583 Caspar: 4.32 Hanneman: 4.18 Lorenz: 3.8077 Raphael: 3.7273 Ashe: 3.69 (nice) Manuela: 3.1 Gilbert: 2.27 Anna: 1.978 Underscore: Black Eagles Bold: Blue Lions Itallics: Golden deer Purple: Faculty Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94 Average score for Blue lions: 6.82 Average score for Golden Deer: 6.543 Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number) Average score for Ashen Wolves: 7.28

If I can provide a quick update to my run so far. I got Yuri at chapter 2. Balthus, Constance, and Hapi by chapter 3. Dorothea, Bernadetta, Sylvain and Catherine by chapter 5. Ingrid, Ashe and Felix by chapter 6. And finally Linhardt and Petra by chapter 7. I'm at the weekend before the Gronder Field battle. Thankfully no deaths so far on my classic run. I've also managed to beat the Death Knight thanks to using a Rapier and Byleth survivng with a slither of HP left back at chapter 4. I almost lost Yuri at one point but I had Lysithea equipped with Stride so I was able to send Raph for back up and Marianne for healing which really saved my ass. I'm considering either Balthus or Felix as replacements for Raphael by part 2 as my War Master or Grappler classes pending on which of them is better. Sylvain as a Paladin with Death Blow and Hit + 20 for strong and accurate Swift Strikes. I could get Ferdinand as well at some point but not a 100% sure yet. I do need him for the part 2 paralogue though. Could replace Lorenz at some point as well pending on how I feel about him. I'm also thinking of turning Petra Assassin with Death Blow simply because I've already planned out my fliers. Unless of course anyone has a suggestion otherwise, I'm willing to hear you out. Bernie I'm planning on doing Bow Knight with Encloser since Claude also gets it. I figured two units with Encloser will be extremely helpful. As for fliers, I've been planning on using F!Byleth and maybe Ingrid as Falcon Knights, Claude as Barbarossa, Hilda and Seteth as Wyvern Lords. Maybe Constance or Flayn as a Dark Flier. Of course I could also do Assassin Byleth and make Petra the flier instead. Yuri I could just leave him as a Trickster in case I need him in certain maps. Hapi I could also leave as Valkyrie. Linhardt and maybe Dorothea as Bishops and they can be Physic bots. Catherine and Shamir I'm already getting them Hit +20 so they can help out in certain situations as well. If anyone wants to give me some ideas or tips going forward would be great. Thanks again in advance

It's late on my part but here goes: We'll talk about the leader of the Ashen Wolves Yuri. This cunning individual likes to wear eye shadows and looks quite a but like Leon from Echoes actually. But looks aside, what does this guy bring to the table as part of the DLC? Let's fins out. This is assuming hard mode. While Yuri's stats look like a typical Myrmidon class like spread, one thing that stands out off the bat is his blistering speed growth. The highest ever in the game in fact. If you recruit him early in chapter 2 as a level 3 commoner, his speed stat is 10 with a high 65% growth. This makes him pretty much the fastest unit in the game. His charm is also quite good at this point. A stat of 9 with a 50% growth which pretty much means he'll be great at using gambits as well as dodging them. His luck growth isn't too shabby either at a 45% growth rate with a starting stat of 8. While these are nice traits the rest of his stats are average. His strength is 11 which isn't bad but has a 40% growth as does his dex with a stat of 8. So he's seemingly more of a physical fighter. But his 35% magic growth suggests that he can go magic as well. At least the rest of his stat growths are not beneath 30% so he's not exactly vulnerable in any given area but he's not excelling in any other area either. His personal ability Honorable Spirit is an odd one. If he is not near an ally, grants Atk +3 when in combat with a foe one space away. I'm not sure this is poorly explained on the devs part, but to me it's implying that as long as no one is around and he's right next to an enemy he'll deal more damage. Yuri also gets the Crest of Aubin which has a 1/5 chance of negating any enemy counterattack. It's a nice perk but don't always count on it happening. This also allows him to use the Fetters of Dromi very effectively. This relic grants him movement +1 and canto. He also gets Aegis and Pavise since he bears that crest and with his good dex stat growth, he'll trigger it often enough. Yuri's boons consist of Swords, Reason, Faith and Authority with a budding talent in Bows. His banes consist of Lances, Axes, Riding and Flying. For a guy that has a number of nice qualities, his banes is honestly where it hurts the most because while it is possible to get Death Blow despite the Axe bane, getting him into better classes like Bow Knight or Wyvern Lord makes it difficult for him to achieve so the developers really want him to be foot locked I suppose. I guess it's there way of balancing him out, but then again, Petra who has similar stat growths can easily access Wyvern Lord and she's one of your fastest units around that isn't DLC. Still, his relic patches up essentially two of banes so I guess we wouldn't have the to worry about. Yuri's sword combat arts consist of WIndsweep at C+ and Finesse Blade at rank A. Getting Windsweep this early in the game is a huge advantage for him since as early as chapter 5 I want to say (could be earlier) he can easily chip away at an enemy safely allowing your other units to pick up the scraps. Finesse Blade is fine if you're Assassin or Trickster since they offer a high dex stat growth. His budding talent in bows allows him to unlock Dead Eye which is a huge range attack. It's a pretty good combat art but nothing special. Now if he had let's say Encloser or Point-Blank Volley (especially with his Honorable Spirit personal ability) this would be amazing. His spell list isn't too bad, as his Faith spell list consist of Recover at rank C, Silence at rank B and Aura at rank A. Recover tends to get slept on because it's a one range spell but it's a strong super heal. Silence can be useful on occasion making safer for your allies with bad res approach them with ease. Aura is a strong spell in it's own right with a 20% chance to crit, you only have 3 shots with it at most with him unless you're making him a Bishop, then at that case you would have 6 uses of it. His reason spell list consist of Wind at rank D, Cutting Gale at rank C, Sagittae at rank B and Excalibur at rank A. Considering how light these tomes are, this gels well with his naturally high speed growth. Allowing him to actual double with these spells. Unlike Annette who needs Darting Blow in order to more likely double enemies that aren't Armored Knights or Fortress Knights. As for class paths, there a few he can take. For the physical side, he can easily slip into Trickster as this class provides utility for the team. Having Duelist's Blow can be okay at times but being a dodge tank on player phase but it feels a but redundant because if you're killing on player phase then what's the point of adding avoid when it's better used on enemy phase. But sometimes you could still use the extra avoid if your aim is to have him chip away without much fear of getting hit back. Foul Play is an interesting combat art as it allows you to swap places with other allies. This can be fun to use as it would help your lower move units get in range or one of you're weaker units to safety. Yuri can also go Assassin thanks to his budding talent in Bows. His high dex stat could feasibly make somewhat of a use with Lethality. I wouldn't count on it happening often though. It's awesome when it does occur though. You can muscle through his axe bane and get Death Blow if desired. Archer's Hit +20 is always useful especially if you plan on going to Sniper and go for Hunter's Volley. If you want to tackle his magical prowess, there is Mage for Fiendish Blow, Warlock for Bowbreaker then finally Mortal Savant. I know that Mortal Savant is technically a bad class because of hybrid attackers tends to struggle at either role and the -10% speed growth is pretty awful when earlier on you're enjoying a +20% speed growth as an Assassin or Swordmaster. But he's pretty much the only one who can pull it off. Felix can too but he's much better off as any physical attacking class since he only gets Thunder and Thoron. He gets Battalion Vantage at rank C which is good for crit stacking builds. Again, Trickster, Assassin or Swordmaster would gel nicely with this since 2 out of the 3 sword classes offer high dex growths and swordmaster has an innate sword crit +10. Not to mention that swords are easy to crit stack with, like using a Wo Dao+ for example. Overall, I think Yuri is a solid 7/10 unit. He certainly has tricks up his sleeve and he can be good early game, but as you progress you'll see that other units who are while in comparison slower than him can access to better mounted or flying classes that can easily catch up to him stat wise. This is not to say Yuri is a bad unit, it's just that there are units that can have access to better classes which he can't as easily and they can just as competent as he is