Barren

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

I've gotten Windsweep without needing NG+ because what I do eventually in my run is keep using swords regularly. Then when I recruited everyone (this was when I first did casual, currently on a maddening classic run right now), I just focus on swords and by early part 2 I got swords to A rank. Also, getting Byleth into a Flying class is really easy to do if you plan ahead. Yea you'll lose swordfaire as a Falcon Knight or Wyvern Lord, but being able to fly around, use windsweep then run off afterwards to safety has been one of my favorite hit and run strategies. Plus having 8 move, avoid +10 and canto is too good to pass up as opposed to being foot locked. I guess the only downsides of being a flier is that you can't take advantage of terrain bonuses and the selection of flying battalions is limited.

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 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)

I’ve done Falcon Knight Byleth. It was a treat to see.

Good on you for pointing that out. I’ll fix it

It's time to talk about Anna. What is there to say about her. She's been everywhere in about every Fire Emblem so she has to be well versed right? She's also notorious for other appearances like debuting as a outlaw in Fates. Or that time she was wielding a brave lance and spear on the apotheosis map. You would think that she'd be great right? Ehh....not really. Here's why and this is assuming hard. You can recruit Anna as early as chapter 3 and get a large bullion along with her. That's a nice 5,000 G right there. She comes in as a Myrmidon at Level 5, or if you want to wait until chapter 6 or so she comes in as a Thief. Her growths are okay, Anna starts with a speed stat of 11 with a 60% growth thanks to the Myrmidon class bonus. Her charm stat starting at 9 with a 55% growth means she should be decent with gambits. Her luck stat could have been better, 9 with a 45% growth. Anna is not as lucky as she wants to be. Or can she be? Her personal ability Business Prosperity grants her a flat bonus of Luck +5. While the luck stat adds to her crit and crit avoid, it's the least reliable stat in the game. The rest of her stats are pretty average, her strength and magic have a starting stat of 8 with a 35% growth. Her HP and dex both have a 45% growth as well, combine that with a 30% defense growth and a 35% growth in resistance, she has at least noticeable bulk. But she's not a tank by any means. Also to get this out of the way, she has no supports with anyone. So she doesn't contribute to boosting your allies whatsoever. Anna has a boon in swords, axes, bows, faith with a budding talent in riding. Her banes are reason and authority. These at least give her a variety of options she can go for. Her sword combat arts consist of Soul Blade at rank C+, and Hexblade at rank A. Soul Blade is a decent attack for her since they get boosted thanks to her res, and Hexblade is a straight up magic sword combat art. Her axe combat arts are quite interesting. She gets Spike at rank C+ which is an alternate version of Smash. Anna also gets Armored Strike at rank A, which deals more damage based on her defense. Ironically, there is a way for Anna to go defensive if desired. Her bow combat art only gets Break Shot at rank C+. This is nice for debuffing monsters and bosses in case you need her to attack from range. When unlocking her budding talent in riding, she gets Pass. Her and Bernadetta share this trait as you can get around their restricted movement when enemies stand in the way. Her eventual boon in riding gives her easy access to movement +1 so that in conjunction with pass allows her to move around rather freely. Her faith spell lost consist of Ward at rank C which is only situational and Rescue at rank B which can be useful. Her reason spell list consist of Fire at rank D, Thunder at rank D+ and then Meteor at rank A. Going for her reason magic is simply not worth it because as I mentioned earlier, she has no support bonuses with anyone. At least Manuela can pull off some siege tome support despite that being her bane. Hilda and Dorothea are better as siege tome supports because they have a wide range of support with other units on the team. Anna has no such qualities. As far as class options, she can get Brigand's Death Blow, Archer's Hit +20, she can also go Pegasus Knight if you like to combine flight with Pass and get Darting Blow if desired. You could get Miracle for her as a Priest since she gets a Luck +5. But that is quite unreliable to bank on surviving anything fatal, especially since Divine Pulse now exists. Since we can mention DLC, she is made to be a Trickster. Like Yuri, her proficiency in swords and faith sets her up perfectly for it. You would need to qualify as a Thief to get access to Trickster, you do get a Abyssal Seal from Abyss by offering renown. Her combination of Rescue and Foul Play can provide some interesting utility. Her also getting Duelist's Blow for adding avoid when engaging in combat can be okay for evasion purposes. You can even get Death Blow and Darting Blow with her when using a weapon. The Trickster class though has it's problems. Like half use of magics for example. It's not an attractive quality because you could use all the help you can get from your spell kit. So having the uses getting cut in half limits your options. Trickster also doesn't get Swordfaire but gets Lucky Seven. Lucky Seven adds to your stats at random every turn as a one buff. This isn't to say you won't get the same stat buff more than once, but the stat buff itself is random so you'll have to keep rolling the dice. Trickster also is stuck at 5 move. So overall, this is only a novelty class for her and not that viable. Anna can also go Assassin if you want her to be more physical but it adds no strength bonuses but more dex and speed bonuses. Anna can even go Fortress Knight or Great Knight if you want to take advantage of her Axe combat arts which are pretty good. Bow Knight is another option for her if you want long range Break Shots. Hit +20 really helps in that department. She gets Rally Luck at authority rank D and Battalion Vanatge at rank C. Her bane in authority will make it rather tough to get to rank C if that is what you're going to focus on. Overall, I think Anna is a meh 2/10 unit. Somewhat usable but ultimately outclassed but virtually everyone. Even Ashe has a niche that can be helpful at times with Locktouch as well as easier access to Wyvern Lord compared to her. And that is saying something

Next we get to our notorious merchant from pretty much every Fire Emblem game we can think of Anna. 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 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 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)

We finally get to the Death Knight himself Jeritza. Considering that we're now talking about DLC we can finally bring it up. Is the Death Knight as scary as they come or just a mere generic unit? I think not, but let's see why. This is assuming hard mode. Where to start? Well he is only available on the Crimson Flower route at level 27. As the Death Knight, He's rocking a lot of good stat growths like HP at 80%, Strength at 60% and Speed at 55%. His defense is also quite good as well at 45%. This is one of the classes that doesn't suffer from a bad speed modifier like Paladin does. His dex and charm growths being 35% and 25% respectively leaves a bit to be desired though, so he has to have a weakness somewhere. He's vulnerable to enemy gambits so be careful. His personal ability murderous intent allows him a Hit +20 when engaging in combat. It's cool but Ignatz always have hit +20 on both player and enemy phase so he beats him in that department. But Jeritza is far more bulkier compared to him so he wins there. Jeritza comes with the Scythe of Sariel, his signature weapon that deals high damage and has a high crit. He also comes with Mastermind as a regular ability so he can master classes very quickly like Lysithea could. In terms of what he starts with, he comes with a lot of tools to play with. He has a boon in swords, lances, brawling, riding, and has a budding talent in flying. He has a bane in faith and authority. The Death Knight class also allows him to use magic as well. He already comes with Thunder since he has reason at rank D. His authority starts at rank B which is great because he can equip a number of good battalions despite it being his bane. Jeritza gets Battalion Desperation and Battalion Wrath, both of which are useful pending on what build you're going for. His sword rank starts at B+ and he already comes with Haze Slice. He is one rank off on getting Windsweep, so it takes little investment to obtain it. Windsweep allows him to safely chip at enemies and bosses in addition to having Canto thanks to the Death Knight class. He already has lances at rank A+, Shatter Slash which is nice for defense debuffs and Glowing Ember is fine though he doesn't have the highest defense stat to take full advantage of it. Jeritza's other talents like Brawling, is at C+ rank and has Nimble Combo. If you make him a Brawler then later on a Grappler he can make good use of that and Fierce Iron Fist if desired. He has Curved Shot as well, thanks to his bow rank being at D. So archer is not out of the question for him either. He can even reclass as a Brigand for Death Blow too. Jeritza has a budding Talent in Flying, and for that he gets Darting Blow. This makes him really useful at doubling enemies, you can even combine that with Battalion Desperation and perform an immediate follow up attack. Flying as his boon can make him a Wyvern Lord. Now how scary is that? Mastering the Death Knight class grants him Counterattack which works on anything from any range. Imagine combining that with Alert Stance+ and Battalion Wrath. Now that is scary. Overall, I think Jeritza is a 8.5/10 unit. He is as good as he's cracked up to be. If you want a easier time in hard mode or even maddening, he's your guy.

It's time to asses Gilbert. He's only available on the Azure Moon route. Is it time for Gilbert to hang up his axe or does he have something to offer? This is assuming hard and no dlc. Gilbert becomes available during the Hunting by Daybreak fight in chapter 13. He comes in as a Fortress Knight at level 26. Thanks to the class bonuses offered by the Fortress Knight class, he starts with 61 HP with a 85% growth. 30 defense with a really high 60% growth. 26 strength with a respectable 55% growth. Even his dex stat at 17 with a 45% growth is okay. But then we get to the bad. 2 speed with a 20% growth...OUCH. 7 resistance with a 10% growth, just as bad. 16 charm with a 40% growth, it's really low at that point in the game. He replaces Dedue at the beginning of part 2 and perhaps for good unless you do Dedue's paralogue early on in part 1. His personal ability Veteran Knight allows him to take 2 less points of damage as long as he has a battalion equipped. Thankfully there are no mages on that map so he may be able to benefit from it. If you have Ashe with him and give him the giant shell to buff his defense and a silver shield he should be able to tank a few hits for you. He has a boon in lanes, axes, heavy armor and riding. No weaknesses to speak of. So he is quite flexible. He already comes with lance and axe rank B+, this means he already has swordbreaker and lancebreaker available to him. If only he had both of them initially equipped. He also starts with Authority rank D+ which is to be honest, way too low at this point of the game. Even Alois starts off with Authority rank C. Gilbert already has Heavy Armor at rank B which means he also comes with weight -3 like Alois. He also gets Smite which is a upgraded version of Shove. He also gets riding at rank C so he has Dexterity +4. He already gets Shatter Slash which is nice for lowering a enemy's defense, then he gets Glowing Ember at rank A which gets boosted pending on his defense stat. For axes, he already gets Spike which is good. He also gets Rally Defense so that might be okay at times. As far as class options, if you ever plan on using him, you'll have to reclass him as a Brigand for Death Blow and that will take a while even with a Knowledge. He could also go Paladin which would improve his speed in comparison as staying as a Fortress Knight. Aegis would help out his very poor res. But only if it triggers. His only viable master class would be Great Knight. Best defense boost in the game, but that is not saying a lot considering that on Hard and even more so on Maddening mode power creep rears its ugly head. He gets Battalion Wrath at Authority rank C, so he could feasibly pull off a wrath set. He could go Hero if you want Defiant Strength along with it. But honestly, he would be better off as a Guard Adjutant for someone like Dimitri or Annette. Overall, I feel Gilbert is really 3.5/10 unit. He could pull off a tiny niche but beyond that, he doesn't really contribute as much as you would hope he would.

Now we get to talk about one of Faerghus' stalwart knights Gilbert. 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 of any form, no DLC and minor, (one or two stat boosters per month) use of the Greenhouse. - 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 Ferdinand: 7.78 Catherine: 7.7556 Sylvain: 7.66 Ingrid: 7.34 Hilda: 7.31 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 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: 5.66 (rounded, it was a very very long number)

So now we get to Fodlan's worst comedian Alois. That sounds pretty cruel considering he tries at making puns but he's honestly not a bad guy. This jolly fellow certainly has something to offer or does he? This is assuming hard and no dlc. Alois may be bad at jokes, but looking at his starting tool kit is not a joke. He does join you quite late in part 1, particularly chapter 12. Alois stats off as a Warrior, and thanks to the class bonus, he has a really high HP growth at 85% with 50 HP starting out. So he can take a hit if need be. His strength being at 60% growth is also worth nothing. His defense and speed isn't too bad either. They are both at a 40% growth but his defense is higher than his speed. The warrior class might be not necessarily the class you would like for him to start off as but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Reason being is that Axefaire and Axe Crit + 10 are still good traits. His charm is at an alright 45% growth rate so he is a decent battalion user. You would hope his luck growth be nice but it's at a rather low 30% growth. Luck does play a part at landing a critical hit which similar to Swordmaster is what the Warrior class is designed to be. Speaking of luck, his personal ability Compassion is Rally Luck. Rally Luck is one of the worst rallies in the game as you can't bank on it helping you out. Alois comes with quite a few nice boons starting out. He has a boon in Axes, Brawling, and Heavy Armor. He has banes in Reason magic and Flying. Since he is a Warrior, he can re-class into a fighter or brigand if you want Strength +2 and/or Death Blow. He already comes with all of his axe combat arts including Spike which is pretty good and Exhaustive Strike which is pretty bad. Having Axes at rank A also Lancebreaker available to him. Lancebreaker is a nice ability to have against enemy Cavaliers and Pegasus Knights. He has a brawling rank of B, which already comes with One-Two Punch which is a double attack and he already has Healing Focus which is a free heal for him basically. He gets Might Blow at Brawl rank A which is powerful but not as useful as Grappler's Fierce Iron Fist since that hits three times. He also has Authority and Heavy Armor at rank C. Weight -3 and Battalion Wrath are good abilities for him as well since Weight -3 can help him land a double attack if brawling or if significantly faster quad hit. If you're adamant about raising his heavy armor, you could get smite which is a powered up version of shove, and weight -5 which essentially makes you a bit more nimbler. But weight -3 is usually enough. Alois also gets Rally Strength so he could have a minor role at boosting stats similar to Raphael. Though I guess he would have two rallies at once as opposed to one. If you're wanting to, you could get Vantage for him if you're wanting to take advantage of Wrath. He has the bulk to pull it off especially when you give him a battalion with a good hit rate boost and retribution gambit activated. Of course you go for Battalion Wrath along with Quick Riposte as a War Master instead. The class offers critical +20. So in addition to using a forged killer's axe or gauntlets, a good battalion that offers high hit and crit means that he'll be KO'ing enemies left and right. Grappler is another good option for him as he gets Tomebreaker. You can even bring Quick Riposte with you once you master War Master if you want. He could also be a guard adjutant as either a armored knight or fortress knight if need be and give a support bonus to allies like Leonie, Catherine, Shamir, Bernadetta. His magic options are basically non existent. Fire and Bolganone, no thanks. Recover....do better. So yea, stay away from making him a mage. EDIT: Another interesting option for him would be the Hero class since he only needs swords to be at C+ rank and he can get Defiant Strength. This combos well with his Vantage + Wrath set. Hero more so since the class has innate Vantage so you just need Wrath really. Or you could bring Defiant Strength to other classes like Grappler and War Master if you're dead set on murdering enemies when at 25% or less HP. Just be sure to bring either a guard adjutant for him or using the Blessing gambit on him Overall, I think Alois is a 7/10 unit. His personal ability for me holds him back since it's essentially a worthless rally. But aside from that, he's a solid choice to bring on as a team member or a adjutant since he offers good stat bonuses. Just don't let him teach you on how to make jokes, he's just not that clever.

It's Manuela's turn to be on stage for this review. But how well does she perform on the battlefield? This is assuming hard and no dlc Manuela can be recruited during chapter 8 if you are level 15. But you would be able to lower that requirement really easily with faculty drills and that would lower the level requirement from 15 to 12. Manuela's growths are very similar to Ingrid though there are a couple of exceptions. She starts the game off as a Priest with a higher HP and charm growth than Ingrid both with a 50% growth. Thanks to her class bonus, her magic is now at a 40% growth. Her res jumps up to a 35% growth as well. Her strength does get lowered to a 30% growth. So her physical attacks are not good. Her personal ability Infirmary Master allows adjacent allies gain Crit Avo +10 during combat. Now this is something she brings to the table to your party. The only problem is that having crit avoid would have been better paired with having additional regular avoid and that would have given her a stronger niche as a support unit. She does have other utility with her. She has a boon in swords, faith, and flying. Her banes are in reason magic and heavy armor. This is a rather awkward trait for someone that starts off as a healer. I mean sure you can always make Manuela something other than a healer but you would hope that she was dealt with a better hand. Manuela joins you with her sword rank at C+. Not to mention that all of her sword combat arts mastered and not too far off from getting Axebreaker. Her other sword combat art is Hexblade. This is a straight up magic sword combat art so this allows her to inflict some good damage. Manuela also comes with Faith at rank B already having heal, nosferatu, ward and silence. Ward is fine for boosting your res against enemy mages. Silence is a good spell for stopping other mages from attacking you for a turn. She gets Warp at rank A, while a very good spell, she gets it later than Linhardt or Lysithea especially if you focus on their faith from the start. Her bane in reason is quite problematic. She learns Thunder at rank D, Bolganone at rank C then Bolting at rank A. Her being a Bolting support bot sounds great for her except her progress in reason gets grounded to a crawl so it's basically not worth struggling through. However, if you decide to go down that way, her support pool is quite big, almost as much as Dorothea's. Her boon in flying which already starts at rank D, could maybe get you alert stance at least. Manuela also gets Rally Charm at authority rank D. If you're looking to land a strong gambit attack, this will help you out. You can make her a Pegasus Knight then maybe Falcon Knight if you want to disregard her spell list. Her boons in sword and flying makes it easy for her to get there. If you would rather focus on her spells, then the easiest one to go for is Bishop. At least she can use double uses of Warp that way. If you're a crazy person and would be willing to work on her reason bane, she can go Mortal Savant. But then all you would be doing is spamming forged Levin Sword. Plus you would have to deal with the -10% speed drop. Then there is gremory but same issue as Mortal Savant, you have to work through her reason bane. Overall, I think Manuela is really a 4/10 unit. I mean you could in theory make her a rally charm/siege tome support bot but that takes forever to get there. Honestly, similar to Hanneman, you can just recruit them, do their paralogue then bench them afterwards.

I hope it's okay with everyone I help out here. Now we get to our former songstress and current physician at monastery Manuela! 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 of any form, no DLC and minor, (one or two stat boosters per month) use of the Greenhouse. - 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 Ferdinand: 7.78 Catherine: 7.7556 Sylvain: 7.66 Ingrid: 7.34 Hilda: 7.31 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 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) 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: 6.073

Now we get to the Father of Crestology himself, Hanneman. He's basically like a grandfather that you might find yourself relying on for any sort of knowledge as he himself at his old age still yearns for knowledge. His expertise on crests can not be denied. But what does he bring to the table here on the battlefield? This is assuming hard and no dlc. Hanneman joins you at least as early as chapter 8 if you're level 15 which is easy to get to even without support. Being available on all routes certainly helps. He starts off as a mage. Thanks to the class bonus, his magic stat start off with a 65% growth. His dex is decent too, with a 50% growth to boot. His res growth is nice as well, 45% growth. His charm is a little to be desired with a 40% growth but he at least starts with authority rank D so he has access to a magic based battalion immediately. His big downside is his speed. 20% growth is way too low for him to be doubling anything. His strength and defense growth are also very low so he is easily doubled by anything but armored knights and fortress knights. Ironically, he can use that to his advantage on maddening. Hanneman's personal ability Crest Scholar which is rally magic helps out other mages like Annette and Lysithea. Not to mention that he has high support with these magical ladies as well so that has it's benefits. I'll get into that in a bit. He has a minor crest of Indech which occasionally allows him to land an additional attack. But it's only a 10% chance so I wouldn't bank of that working. Hanneman has a B rank in reason which is one of his boons. This a nice start for him as he is one rank off for going for Warlock if desired. He also has a boon in bows starting at a C+ rank as well as riding at D rank. His banes include heavy armor and flying (I believe it's faith as well but feel free to correct me). He doesn't really have good options as a Fortress Knight or a Wyvern Lord. Fortress Knights make him way slower, even with a forged Bolt Axe he'll have accuracy issues and axes are already at E rank so I wouldn't even bother. And Wyvern Lord while a great class, not for him since his bane in flying is an issue as well. His starting reason magic are Wind, Sagittae and Thoron. He also gets fire thanks to the mage class. He then learns Ragnarok at rank A then Meteor at rank A+. Now Dorothea learns this spell one rank quicker than Hanneman and she has access to the Gremory class as Hanneman does not. His reason spell list is pretty good as he (along with Anna) are the only three units in the game that learns Meteor. The bow combat arts he gets is Schism Shot which he already has. This debuffs the enemy's res by 5 which is the most niche debuffs there is. Then he gets Ward Arrow at rank A, this silences enemies which is slightly better but that's really it. His faith spell list consist of Recover at faith rank C then Ward at rank B. Recover is always nice for a super heal and Ward is just okay but not great. Him having Meteor allows him to be a nice linked attack support bot for units like Annette, Lysithea, Dorothea, Byleth, Manuela and Marianne. Edelgard as well assuming Crimson Flower. While not necessarily a long list of support for him, that's still plenty of choices for him to help enhance their magical attacks with. If you plan on using Hanneman, he can go back to monk if you need to magic +2 and draw back. He can go Warlock if you want the 2x of black magic and black tomefaire. You can also use his boon in riding to his advantage and make him a Dark Knight. Having access to canto as well as 7 move is a nice way for Hanneman to either rally magic and get out of range or play hit and run. He could also go Sniper if you want to use a forged Magic Bow. He would want the archer's Hit +20 ability regardless which class you want him to be. He could also go Bow Knight if he wanted to as well. Overall, I think Hanneman is honestly a 5.5/10 unit for me. His lack of speed as well as lack of Physic don't really make a case that he should be picked over the other mages that you've been training since the start of your run. Training him also will be a chore if you're dead set on using him, but at least being a meteor support bot gives him a niche similar to Dorothea. Dorothea however can play that role better than him because she has a wider support pool and has better class access in comparison.

Actually her starting lance rank is at C and her flying is at D so she would be a pegasus knight if you wanted to turn her into one

So now we get to Seteth's little girl Flayn. This sweet innocent girl regularly frequents the monastery until being abducted by the Death Knight. Then the mercenary turned professor comes to her rescue so she decides to join the professor's class. Ain't she so grateful? Of course we're really here to talk about what Flayn brings to the table. She is available on Azure Moon, Verdant Wind and Silver Snow. She is an enemy on Crimson Flower so we won't get into that. This is assuming hard and no dlc. Though I will mention that she makes a very good Dark Flier. With Fiendish Blow, Darting Blow and Bowbreaker along with Alert Stance+ and Reason Prowess equipped, she can effectively attack and heal while flying. This will not have an impact on my final score. Flayn joins you at the start of chapter 7 after you defeat the Death Knight for the second time as a priest. Thanks to the class bonus, she starts with a magic stat of 15 that also has a 60% growth. Her dex isn't that bad either, 12 dex with a 50% so she would be quite accurate with her offensive magic. Her resistance is naturally quite high. 19 res with a 60% and her charm growth is very good too. 16 charm with a 55% growth suggest that she can be a good battalion user. The rest of her stats are unsurprisingly low. 28 HP with a 30% growth, 7 defense with a 20% growth, 8 strength with a 20% and 9 speed with a 35% growth. So she'll get doubled quite frequently. Her personal ability Lily's Poise, grants adjacent allies to take 3 less points of damage. This ability is rather interesting since this would work on any ally and is not gender based. So there is something there. The only thing about it is that she is not bulky enough to take damage herself so you would have to position her carefully so she won't be in harms way. Seteth will be pissed if that were to happen. She has a boon in lances, faith as well as a budding talent in reason magic. Heavy armor and riding are her banes. She also comes with a intermediate seal which is nice. This would suggest that she can immediately become a Pegasus Knight. She comes with a lance rank of C and a flying rank of D from the get go. Her faith rank is at C+ so she can easily get it to A rank. Her lance combat arts consist of Hit and Run at rank C+ then Frozen Lance at rank A. Hit and Run is fine but her speed isn't high enough to make the most of it. Plus her strength is quite low. Frozen Lance at least capitalizes on her magic stat but that's ways off for her. Her faith spell list consist of Restore which she already has access to, Rescue at rank B then Fortify at rank A. She is the only other unit in the game aside from Mercedes that gets this spell. When unlocking her budding talent in reason she gets seal magic. This skill pales in comparison to the silence spell since that outright prevents enemy mages from acting. Her reason spell list consist of Wind at rank D, Fire at rank D+, Cutting Gale at rank C, and Excalibur at rank A. Her tomes are pretty light so that would compensate her low strength. If she goes to pegasus knight from the start, she can get Darting Blow. If you work on her reason magic, she can go to mage to get Fiendish Blow. With the two blows equipped together this may help Flayn double at times since she would benefit from the Pegasus Knight's speed growth. From there she could simply be a Bishop if you want her to be a pure healer. Flayn can also go Gremory if you want double uses of all magic and get 5 move as opposed to Bishop's 4 move. Flayn does lack Physic unlike Mercedes, but Flayn has Rescue unlike Mercedes so it's to you on who you think is the best healer in the game. Flayn can also go Falcon Knight if you want to use Frozen Lance a lot more. But you won't have access to her magic which is pretty good. Plus her strength which is already lacking won't be that much better. Her speed might be better but you can only see results with Frozen Lance spamming. Flayn can also be a dancer for you. A very easy choice if you feel that you're initial team on Blue Loins or Golden Deer shouldn't be a dancer. I wouldn't recommend that on Black Eagles because if you choose to side with Edelgard you would lose a dancer, unless you're certain you're going to side with the church instead. Overall, I think Flayn is a 6/10 unit. She has a nice qualities as a healer and be a dancer if you got nothing else going on for her. But honestly you don't necessarily need her to win the game. There are other healers out there that can get the job done as well. But if you need a Fortify user that isn't Mercedes, then Flayn is your girl. Plus bringing the two of them together would mean that if they were both bishops they you have 8 combined used of fortify. Think about that.

Now we get to Shamir. She is anomaly among the Knights of Serios and perhaps she doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the pack considering she's not really a religious person. But today we're here to talk about her potential on the battlefield. How good is Shamir actually? This is assuming hard mode and no dlc. Shamir can be recruited on all routes and can even stay with you during Crimson Flower so that is a nice boon off the bat. The earliest she cane be recruited is in chapter 6. Similar to Catherine, you can lower the level requirement by sharing meals with her as well as getting her gifts. If you happen to reach level 12 by chapter 6 then you just need to get her support rank to C. If under 12 then it needs to be C+. She joins as a Sniper which is a big deal since she comes with all of her bow combat arts and a bow rank of A. This means that you can gain very early access to Hunter's Volley before part 2 if you choose to go down that way. Her personal ability Survival Instinct grants Str/Mag/Dex/Spd +4 for one turn if she defeats an enemy. Now at first this is not a factor since her bulk isn't the best for enemy phase but later on when you get a dancer and use dance on her after she defeats an enemy, she can get the benefit of those boosts and go again. Thanks to her starting out as a Sniper, she gets a strength growth of 45% with starting stat of 18, luck growth of 65% with a starting stat of 17 and a dex growth of 75% with a starting stat of 21. Those are actually pretty good stats to start off since she'll be likely to land critical hits. Especially when you get her forged Killer Bows later on. Her speed growth isn't that high however. It has a 40% growth with a starting stat of 14. Her speed isn't going to hold up without a class like Thief or Assassin patching it up. Her bulk is rather poor. 33 HP with a 45% growth, 12 defense with a 20% growth and 8 resistance with a growth of 15% means she'll want to stay away from those that will attack her. She has a boon in bows and lances and has a bane in faith. This makes sense as she is not a devoted believer in the goddess and all she gets is Physic at rank C. Her reason magic is more plentiful by comparison. Shamir gets Blizzard at rank D, Wind at D+, Sagittae at rank C, and Fimbulvetr at rank A. But her magic growth being at 20% with a starting stat of 8 isn't really that great for her at all. Which is a shame because having Physic and Fimbulvetr could have lead to a more interesting mage build for her. As mentioned she already comes with bow rank A which makes it very easy for her to to get S+ rank in bows. Her lance rank is at C+ which is nice considering that if you work on her flying to D rank she can get Pegasus Knight and get Darting Blow if you want to improve her attack speed. Her bow combat arts consist of Heavy Draw which is a close up but strong single hit attack. +8 might is nothing to scoff at though Curved Shot is more useful for reliable chip damage and you can hit from further away. Monster Blast is only useful against monsters and that's it. Her lance combat arts consist of Hit and Run which is okay if you're looking for a way to safely engage the enemy. At rank A she get's Lance Jab which deals more damage based on her speed. She's not the fastest unit on the field but if training her as a Falcon Knight, this can work. She gets Battalion Desperation at rank C which only really when you are fast enough to double attack and you'll especially benefit from it when using a brave weapon. However if you're using a bow and you're not going to fear a counter attack anyways, it's not that useful. You can immediately reclass her as an archer so you can get Hit +20. If you want her to hit harder, work on her axe rank and get Brigand to learn Death Blow. She obviously fits as a Sniper as once you gather the abilities like mentioned before, she can contribute to the team quite nicely. She could go Bow Knight as well but you trade off Hunter's Volley in exchange for high move and canto and bow range +2. Though it's feasible if you decide to give her Hit +20 as well as a battalion that gives her a high hit rate as well. Overall, I feel Shamir is a 7.5/10 unit for me. The one thing I felt that holds her back a bit for me is that her bow combat arts. Monster Blast isn't always going to shine and Heavy Draw while the damage is nice it pales in comparison to Hunter's Volley which is a double attack from range and Heavy Draw you need to be close which isn't really what a Sniper really wants. Lance Jab is nice if you're going for Falcon Knight but it will take a while to work on her flying. Yes you can mix and match lance and bow offensive with her but bowfaire for her is more useful for her than lancefaire since she isn't really the fastest candidate to be a Falcon Knight. Even Leonie who is also neutral in flying as a higher speed growth and stat than Shamir and can deal more damage than her using Lance Jab. This is not to say she is inferior in anyway, Leonie is just a better fir as a Falcon Knight than Shamir. But Sniper Shamir won't disappoint whatsoever.

So now we get to one of the strongest knights for the Church of Seiros Catherine. The wielder of Thunderbrand has a reputation of charging in recklessly and fighting head on to now being one of the most disciplined warriors. She does go on and on about "Lady Rhea this and Lady Rhea that". But this post is more about what she brings to the battle field. This is assuming maddening mode and no dlc. Also worth noting that she is not available on Black Eagles and if you go onto the Crimson Flower route she can not be recruited at all. She is available on Silver Snow but far less developed than what she would be on the other two routes. Catherine is your game's Swordmaster. Some call her the "Jaegan" in this game considering that she is an advanced class at such a low level. You can recruit her as early as chapter 4 but can't be deployed until chapter 5. You if are looking to recruit her you would have to be at least level 15. On hard and maddening it is rather difficult to get to that point early. So what you can do is share a meal with her that she will enjoy then give her a gift she loves. This would lower the level require from 15 to 12 as you'll reach C support rank. You're not done yet, you'll have to share at least two more meals she likes and give her another gift she'll love and then you'll get her support up to C+ rank. When you reach that point, you're level would only have to be 9. That's more manageable than if you were to try to recruit her the long way. But is she worth these activity points just to recruit her? In short yes. Catherine will no doubt help take the pressure off of your time in maddening early on. Catherine comes with Thunderbrand, a strong hero's relic which functions like a brave sword. If she is fast enough which is likely at least in part 1, she'll attack 4 times in a row. Nothing would survive a round against her with Thunderbrand. Of course unless you have Umbra Steel to spare to repair it, you don't want to spam Thunderbrand. Even without Thunderbrand she can still dish out good damage. Her stats are very good. Assuming you get her by chapter 5, she starts with 19 strength with a 60% growth thanks to the class bonus and 18 speed with a 75% growth, along with 13 dex with a 40% growth. These stats are notably higher than most of your students at that point. She is also quite bulky with 35 HP, 13 defense and 8 resistance. But there's more. Her personal ability Fighting Spirit enables her to take 5 less points of damage as long as she doesn't have a battalion equipped or if it's endurance is reduced to 0. This effectively makes her sturdy unit this early in the game. She can take a hit as well as dish it out. Of course if you're planning on user her in part 2, power creep will give her a hard time due to much higher stats and she might not be able to keep up. Though it's not the end of the world for her as you can always invest her into other classes to make her viable. She already has all of her sword combat arts since her Sword rank is at A. She comes with Finesse Blade which is boosted based off her dex stat, Bane of Monsters which is situational, and since she bears the crest of Charon, she can use Foudroyant Strike with her Thunderbrand. This special combat art deals extra damage to Heavy Armored enemies as well as Dragons with a +6 might, +30 hit, and crit+30. That's a really strong attack you want to preserve for tough bosses. Catherine also comes with a brawl rank of C. Nimble Combo grants her a double attack with +4 might and +20 avoid/crit avoid which can be good in case you need to her have act as a dodge tank for player phase. At rank A she learns Bombard which grants +3 might but crit +10 so she might need to score a KO if you want to work on her gauntlets that much. Her only bane is reason but that's okay because you don't want her to be Mortal Savant anyways. And also, for someone whose nick name is "Thunderstrike Cassandra", she doesn't have any lightning based spells. She gets Fire at rank D, Bolganone at rank C then Ragnarok at rank A. Her faith spell list isn't much better either. She only gets Recover at rank C. If you're planning on using Catherine, you could work on her axe and bow rank rank so you can get her to Brigand and Archer respectively. Death Blow will make her hit even harder and Hit +20 will help her out with some hit rate issues. You can even work on her lance and flying rank if you want her to be a Pegasus Knight and get Darting Blow. She can go back to Mercenary if you want Vantage. If you want to keep her as a Swordmaster I suppose you could work on her riding to gain movement +1 but that takes forever. She could also go Assassin. She'll lose out on some power but in exchange she'll high higher move and can move through forests and thickets without any issues. If you're willing to invest more into her, she can go Falcon Knight. Sure she'll lose swordfaire but 8 move, avoid +10 and learning Alert Stance gives her a lot of avoid. Overall, on Blue Lions and Golden Deer, she is a 8.5/10 unit. However on Silver Snow, even if you did want to use her she would be lacking in areas where your other students are well developed at this point. She would be then a 7/10. So that averages out to 8/10. She is overpowered in part 1 and tends to struggle in part 2 but you still get to keep Thunderbrand regardless so it's a two for the price of one kind of deal. So yea, recruit her when you can.

Now we get to talk about Donn-- bah...it's Cyril. Cyrils is from Almyra and he's in endless debt to Lady Rhea it seems. He's always busy working and he never stops. But outside of that, how well does he do. This is assuming hard mode and no dlc. Also I will be covering him on Blue Lions and Golden Deer. I will say to get to out of the way that on Silver Snow, while you could still get some use out of him considering what he comes with, he'll be harder to justify to put on a team spot since he'll be available so late when starting out. Cyril is this game's villager. He has the aptitude ability which allows each of his stats have an additional 20% chance of increasing when he levels up. His growths are also quite good because of this. 55% HP growth along with a 30% defense and resistance growth are quite decent. His strength his a little low though, 40% is not the highest but thankfully that can be salvaged. His speed and dex being at a 60% growth is quite high as well. These qualities make him worth training right? Well in theory yes, but at chapter 5 he starts as a level 9 commoner and his stats are really low. 28 HP with 7 defense and 4 resistance isn't really good. 10 strength and 11 dex and speed are not what you would like to have starting out as well. At that point, he's likely to be doubled and probably killed in one round pending on the enemy. So you would have to baby him if you want him to get good. He has a boon in lances, axes, bows, riding and flying. He has what some call "the holy trinity" since he'll go right into Wyvern Lord or even Bow Knight for an end game choice for him. We'll get more into those choices in a bit. He only has banes in faith and reason magic. Plus his magic list is quite barren (get it?). Wind and Cutting Gale are meh for him. And Recover while a nice super heal, his magic growth is only at 30% with a starting stat of 7 so no thanks. For lance combat arts, he gets Vengeance at rank C+, so he could feasibly use it for any of his final class choices. Plus unlike Bernadetta, he can use a hero's relic that will lower his HP every turn so you can easily set yourself up for a one shot without necessarily having to lure in an enemy and get hit. He would still need a guard adjutant in case he needs to survive the first hit. For axe combat arts, he already comes with Monster Breaker. It's fine on occasion. At A rank, he gets Armored Strike which factors in the user's defense. His defense is solid but it is usually better if he is something like a Fortress Knight or Great Knight. For bow combat arts, he gets Point-Blank Volley at rank C+. This is arguably the best of the three since it's a close up double attack and you can potentially one shot an enemy with it pending on the set up. Cyril starts off with a E rank in lances, riding and flying. His axe rank is at C+ and his bow rank at C rank. If you want to make him an intermediate class immediately, you can always wait until chapter 6 and then promote him right away. He can easily go into Brigand for Death Blow, then Archer for Hit +20. From there it's up to you how you want to proceed from there. You would need to level up his lance rank regardless if you're going to Wyvern Lord or Bow Knight. Both classes have canto so he'll make great use of it. Wyvern Lord is a great option for flight, canto and all the other obvious reasons. Plus Axefaire pumps out the combat art attacks like Armored Strike. Bow Knight, while you get the same 8 move as Wyvern Lord, you won't be able to fly over terrain. However Bow Knights have +2 bow range which is effectively 4 range with a regular attack. You can even use Point-Blank Volley and run away with Canto afterwards. He could go Paladin if you want to use Vengeance more effectively. He could also go Warmaster if you want Quick Riposte. Cyril gets Battalion Desperation at authority rank C. His speed growth might be good, but with his speed stat starting so low, it's very unlikely he'll make any use out of it unless you got really fortunate with his speed growth. Overall, I think he is a 6.5/10 unit. Aptitude is a nice ability that will help him level up his stats, but he'll still have a tough time starting out. Still, he's not a push over by any means so he might be able to contribute in part 1 and a couple of instances in part 2.

I think you have to wait until part 2 (at least on a normal playthrough) to unlock the magic bow. Plus you can forge it once you get arcane crystals which aren't hard to come by

Yes that is correct. The goddess ring is basically a better prayer ring since it adds luck but that's really about it along with the residual healing. Dorothea has to be in your party though. And yes, you do get the battalion that uses Dance of the Goddess. An AoE refresh is always nice. But it's not available on Crimson Flower. It's better available on the other three routes, but on Azure Moon you get it on the second to last map in the game

So we get to the Arch Bishop's right hand man Seteth. This former child of the goddess joins you late at chapter 12 assuming you're on the Golden Deer, Blue Lions, or Silver Snow routes. He does not join you at Black Eagles. What does Seteth bring to the table as a member of the Church of Seiros? Let's get into it. This is also assuming hard and no dlc. Seteth joins you as a Wyvern Rider. He comes with a solid HP, Dex and Speed growth of 50% as well as a good strength growth of 45%. His charm growth is also quite good as well at a solid 50%. Seteth being at level 23 is a pretty good level for him to be in but he joins you late. However, he's not quite as developed as your students but he's still rocking a number of abilities off the bat. He has a boon in swords, lances, axes, authority and flying. Lances, Axes and Flying in particular are what people consider to be the holy trinity because he has easy access to Wyvern Lord. His personal ability Guardian allows adjacent female allies deal 3 extra damage during combat. This allows Seteth to act as a support for female front liners like Hilda and Leonie to deal good damage. In the case of being paired with Hilda, they can buff each other's attack by staying together. In the case of Leonie, you can use Rally Defense on her then have Leonie stand next to Seteth afterwards and not only be able to still deal extra damage thanks to Rivalry but also be able to withstand more physical damage. He also has his fair share of other abilities he can nab quite easily considering what he starts with. Having a D+ rank in swords means he could go Mercenary to gain Vantage. He already comes with Battalion Wrath which in conjunction with Alert Stance can be effective. Of course that does mean that you have to let his HP fall to 50% while making sure that his battalion doesn't get withdrawn. He could also go to Hero can get Defiant Strength since his Axe rank is already high. For axe combat arts he gets Focused Strike which is reliable and then Diamond Axe which hurts but has -20 hit rate to consider. He also comes with Rally Defense so him being able to fly around and increase your defense can be helpful. His authority is at rank B+ so he is also one rank off from gaining access to the Cichol Wyvern Co. Seteth is also the third out of the "Swift Strike Squad" along with Ferdinand and Sylvain. He has lances already at B+ so he already gets Monster Piercer which only fine on occasion. He is also one rank off from getting Swift Strikes. Seteth's Major Crest of Cichol, while not useful for its occasional ability to nullify counterattacks when using combat arts since Swift Strikes usually kills anyway, allows him to use Lúin and the Lance of Ruin with Swift Strikes without the 10 HP penalty, granting him more certain kills by way of the Relics' higher might without the penalty of a riskier enemy phase. His axe rank comes at B rank so he can jump into Brigand no problem to gain Death Blow. His boon in flying also allows him to gain easy access to Alert Stance since he starts with flying rank C. Then afterwards Alert Stance + when he reaches rank A+. His only bane is in riding but he has access to the Cavalier class. He could go Paladin if you want to maximize his damage output using Swift Strikes with Lancefaire. Though that can take some time and honestly people just prefer Wyvern Lord above all else. Overall, I think Seteth is a solid 8/10. Despite the fact he joins you late and if you were to get him other notable abilities like Hit + 20 for example you would need to work his bow rank a bit. But after some investment Seteth can certainly contribute to the team and him having Swift Strikes as one of his main attacks is a good reason to bring him on board.