Barren

I did Ferdinand as a Swordmaster with Sword Avoid +20. That was done to take advantage of his confidence ability. He has sky rocket high avoid with this build. Give him a battalion that grants him more avoid and perhaps even axe breaker makes him a hard counter against fortress knights and wyvern lords. I never tried Dark Knight Linhardt but perhaps on another run it might be worth a try.

Uncanny Blow is a good skill but that would mean you would to invest into riding. Plus I'm assuming you're taking her down to monk, mage, pegasus knight, warlock/dark flier? It's a path I tend to take because it takes less time. I mean I guess you could go for riding at C+ rank if you want the minimum requirements. I haven't tested it out the valkyrie path line for her so maybe you could make it work if you're not going to invest heavily into flying

Maybe do a no master class run? That way it prevents you from using Falcon Knights and Wyvern Lords. If you want fliers, you'll be resorting to use Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Riders. So it's either you get a weapon faire or avoid +10 on a flier and not both. I think that can be a feasible challenge because it might encourage more fortress knights of the like

I do like her a lot I won't deny it. Her voice is cute. Seeing the favorite FE lines video the other day and seeing Xanthe Huynh do her voice was amazing to see. Aside from favoritism, I do see a lot of potential options for her and I'm currently playing these routes on normal mode just to experiment around and see what I think of them I have tried Dark Flier Ingrid and she was fun but unless you pump magic into her she would have similar issues in terms of her offensive growth. Though her spell list is pretty decent. She does get Physic which can be nice on a flier and Blizzard, Thoron, Fimbulvetr are decent spells but you would want either Caduceus Staff or Thyrsus if you want Ingrid to be more effective as a mage unit. Also, getting her to master Warlock to get Bowbreaker imo is worth going for if you're going to make her a Dark Flier since you'll just be spamming magic anyways

Same here. The most simple build for her would be something like Sword Prowess Level 5, Sword Avoid +20, Magic +2/Axebreaker, Special Dance, Movement +1 with a March Ring. There you go!

Interesting details on Frozen Lance, I'm going to try Falcon Knight Marianne on my BE/SS playthrough and see how she fares. I've already done Dancer/Holy Knight Marianne on my GD playthrough and had her as my Mortal Savant on the Blue Lions. So Falcon Knight is my next goal for her

For me, I've done Marianne as a Dancer, she was very good at what she did for me. I tend to usually get Linhardt or Hapi as my main healer since they both carry Physic and Warp. I do like Marianne as a healer as well, Physic and Silence are also good tools, but I want to capitalize more on her Hero's Relic sword. Technically there is Mortal Savant Marianne to further buff her sword attacks as well as keeping her magic, but I like to use her as a support unit. I am torn between Bishop and Dancer but I am leaning towards Dancer for her. I did use Ferdinand as a Dancer but only for Sword Avoid + 20. I was testing out his evade prowess as a Swordmaster and the enemy literally had 0 hit on him when he's at full health. Of course I was testing it out on Normal mode. I would imagine that if that combo would work he'd be better off as a Wyvern Lord. Missing out on Axefaire damage sucks but his evade would sky rocket even on hard or maddening. Though Swift Strikes is better at damaging things than dodging things for some people. I am going to try Dorothea next since I have heard good things about her with linked attacks and all. Maybe Yuri on another playthrough since he has Fetters of Dromi and he can just run away afterwards. Though that can also mean that Yuri should be able to transition to Swordmaster or Assassin far better since sword avoid makes him a dodge tank in addition to having aegis and pavise in his back pocket

I think Silence tends to get slept on because it only targets mages and warlocks of the like and stops them from doing anything for a turn and nothing else. I know bosses are immune but if you need someone with high strength to take out a mage without taking nay damage Silence does help out in that regard. Especially if you have another silence user on deck for the sake of preventing mages from blasting away with their magic. It's niche I know, but I find it to be useful on occasions.

That might be stretching out his development a bit too thin because that would suggest that you have to train him in brawling, axes, bow and faith. Granted he doesn't have a bane in axes or faith. However if you're goal is for him to go Grappler then it sounds more feasible I think. You could have him go D+ in Bow and Axe Rank for the minimum requirement for Brigand + Archer respectively. For Faith get it up to Rank C if you're going for minimum require again while primarily work on his brawling. Once you do that, then Grappler should be attainable pending on how much you're tutoring him. Going for Warmaster would be awesome but then you have to jack up his axe proficiency to at least B+ in order to get there. It all depends on your tutoring route honestly. If you're willing to drop archer then Warmaster is more possible for him. If you're willing to drop Warmaster, then Grappler would be the more logical end game class for him. I'm currently going to try Felix as a Sniper since he has a boon in bows and his strength and speed growths are already pretty good to begin with. Plus his dex could use some work so that's what I'm currently building him for on Crimson Flower I think that for Caspar if you want to at least keep him somewhat leveled up, then something like Fortress Knight or even Grappler for him can be okay and you can just keep him as a guard adjutant from there if you're replacing him with Felix Ferdinand can be even more of a tank if you give him the Ochain Shield but that's on any other route besides Crimson Flower however. There is Hexlock Shield if you want a good amount of physical and magic protection at least. Or if you're going for a full evade build then evasion ring + the innate confidence ability and avoid +10 works wonders

I would say Marianne as a Dancer would be your best option since she has a boon in riding and can access movement +1 rather easily if you work hard enough. Plus her boon in swords and faith allows her to mix and match between her sword combat arts and physic heal support. Felix as a Grappler is pretty good as well. You could also use War Monk as a bridging class towards Grappler so you can get Brawl Avoid +20. I would also have him go Warmaster (if you can also work to get his Axe rank to at least B+) then learn Quick Riposte. You could have him go back to Grappler for FIF. Tomebreaker while situational can still be useful even for a filler ability. Caspar as a adjutant seems fine. His personal ability can be useful early one but he does seem to drop off after late part 1 because other units would surpass him for sure. Everything else looks pretty good to me. If you plan on keeping Dorothea and Lysithea as Gremory, keep feeding them the magic stat buff items so they can actually one shot things. One last thing and this tip is optional pending on how you feel about it, Ferdinand has a budding talent in Heavy Armor, you could certify him as a armored/fortress knight in case you need to give them the extra defense buffs. Along the way, you could give him Seal Speed for monster battles and/or weight -3 for reducing the weight penalty of his weapons

I think its a fair statement. I started playing FE back in high school when I was first exposed to emulators. FE7 was my first Fire Emblem game. I dipped in and out of the series over the years. It wasn't until Awakening that I really got into it because they offered casual mode. Which is really nice because I can at least get my feet wet with the series until I am more comfortable with taking on classic mode. Three Houses I do like for different reasons like giving characters the freedom on how they progress rather than being saddled with classes you're stuck with i.e Virion can only be a archer, mage or wyvern rider. I have looked at Blue Lions and Golden Deer at full so far (currently doing Black Eagles though I do know all about the 1st half of Black Eagles), at the moment Blue Lions is my favorite story in terms of being invested into someone's story arc. Granted I can see where it wasn't perfectly done (not all great games have any sort of perfection), but I did appreciate how the game shows us what happens when you go down that dark road. Golden Deer I do like hearing about the lore of the game and I do like Claude as a protagonist, he kind of felt like he was a passenger in this story. His goals are admirable, wanting to end prejudice and racism (which what we all could use in this day and age), it felt secondary in comparison to their war with the empire and then TWSITD. I don't think this arc was that bad but I can see where people would think it's the weakest of the 4 routes in terms of story anyways. It depends on what order you do actually that affects your perspective

Pending on my route, I can either use the time for faculty training and or get professor points with meal sharing, choir, etc. If I am close to leveling up in professor rank, I fish with whatever bait I have until I level up. I usually tend to get to professor rank B+ or A by the end of part 1. By early to mid part 2 I max out the professor rank and never look back

I can totally agree with that. Giving her swordbreaker against assassins and swordmasters allows her to handle them with relative ease when she goes Falcon Knight. I do like Darting Blow and Speed +2 on her because it's a way easier transition for her to go Myrmidon then Pegasus Knight. Giving her strength stat buffs like Rocky Burdock helps her out a lot when not going down the Brigand class line. I can see her go Myrmidon, Pegasus Knight, Swordmaster (for the extra strength bonuses) and then Falcon Knight and you can just have her switch back and forth pending on the map until she reaches Falcon Knight. By then at least if you want her to use something like defiant avoid + alert stance with the cursed ashiya sword and score crits then she is your girl (sorry Annette).

It's all good.

From my experience with Poison Strike, it's really only useful on bosses/monsters with high HP since chip damage can be a big deal. It's however not really necessary to have on a frequent basis. Lifetaker only really works on player phase and I think it only allows to recover half the damage you inflict. I haven't tried Lifetaker personally but from what I was told, it's generally not worth it using you should have a plethora of healing at your disposal anyways. I am going to try out DK Sylvain with Black Magic Avoid +20 and see how he functions on my Black Eagles/Church of Seiros playthrough

Marianne does not learn recover. Not counting heal and nosferatu, her faith line up is physic, silence and aura

Marianne's Faith Rank starts off at Rank D+. It's really easy for her to learn Physic after about 1 or 2 sessions since she learns it Rank C. From there you could focus on Reason and Flying. In the case of Flying she has a boon so she should be able to get to Dark Flier relatively easy. If you're looking for her to play a pure healing role then Bishop is her best option at this point. Silence at Rank B can be useful at times in case you need to approach mages safely without retaliation. Aura is not a bad spell since it hits hard but you only get 3 uses out of it. 6 if you're a bishop. And Holy Knight being the only class having white tomefaire boosts the damage. But people would say that Holy Knight is not a good pick since white tomefaire boosts only offensive white magic. Lysithea somewhat gets more out of it since she learns Seraphim and Abraxas, but it doesn't justify having her switching to offensive white magic when she can spam her plethora of dark magic instead.

I think it's because with Lysithea as a Bishop would have the earliest access to 2x warp since the bishop class offers double uses of white magic. So for movement purposes it's nice to have it early on. Though Gremory would still be her go to end game class since it doubles the use all magic. Renewal isn't that great on her like you said since her defenses and hp are paper thin. Like she'll die to a stiff breeze of a hit. Renewal is better used on tank units since they tend to take less damage anyways. Even with her Thyrsus staff granting her Aegis + Pavise because of her naturally high dex stat growth can only do so much for her. I use it because of the extra range it offers her which can also be combined with dark magic range +1 in her case giving her a combined whooping 5 range spell list for her to play around with. So it's 2 range because of her spells, plus 2 more from the staff plus 1 more for the ability makes this 5 move class quite good

For Dimitri, you're really better off mastering one beginner class since you'll usually want to jump to an intermediate class afterwards. Speed +2 seems more useful than Defense +2 imo. Mastering Mercenary for Vantage is fine since it is a better skill in comparison to Thief. The difference in growths though is that Mercenary gets a +5% buff to his strength and speed stats. Thief meanwhile gets a +10% buff to dex and speed. Dimitri has a solid dex stat growth of 50% innately so you can probably afford for him to go Mercenary. Plus like @Shadow Mirsaid, based off your own class path going for Brigand (at least for Dimitri) may throw you off track. Plus his really high strength growth of 60% should carry him throughout the game. For Marianne, you don't necessary need her to go Bishop before Dark Flier. Actually, if you have her go mage, you can also have her go warlock and master that class to learn bowbreaker. Dark Fliers are weak to arrows so bowbreaker would add that extra layer of protection for her since she'll be constantly using black magic anyways. Flayn being a dancer and nothing else can be fine. Sword Avoid + Sword Prowess along with Axebreaker and Special Dance should be enough to help her out a bit.

Hilda can go down a similar class like Ingrid. However, Ingrid has a better dex stat growth than Hilda though Hilda has better strength. So maybe give her either an accuracy ring or have her spend time in the archer class to have her learn hit +20. Hilda can also fill that Falcon Knight/Wyvern Lord role really well like Ingrid can since they are both fast. Ingrid being faster however can help double hit enemies or at least prevent herself from being double attacked because of her innately higher speed stat so that could be the difference there. Having weight -3 can also help with AS, especially for Hilda since Heavy Armor is her budding talent. So combining that with Darting Blow works well. Getting both Death Blow and Darting Blow for both Hilda and Ingrid will no doubt come in handy for them. Death Blow for Ingrid especially since she struggles with a strength growth of 35% while hilda's 45% strength growth is better in comparison. Death Blow in general pending on your build is one of the more useful abilities to learn for any would be front/mid line attacker. So going out of your way to learn Death Blow especially if you're planning on OHKOing enemies. Dimitri can still have lances on the side while in his sword class. Him having Windsweep as an option to prevent any enemy counter attack is always useful swordfaire or no. As far as him learning Death Blow, it really depends on your route because you don't want your development to be stretched out too thin unless you're willing to grind all the weapon experience. There are methods however to do this within a few minutes with the broken/rusted weapons if you so chose. I tend to have him learn arguably one of the more broken combos he has access too: Battalion Vantage + Battalion Wrath since you can set him up to be a crit hit machine and wipe out everything he encounters. You can even give him the Chalice of Beginnings acessory and he'll have counter attack equipped at all times. Just watch out for other gambit users.

While nothing wrong with Ashe as an Assassin because of his lore of him once being a thief, he already has the locktouch ability permanently, which makes it redundant imo. Still him gaining Death Blow and Hit +20 since he has a boon in bows and axes makes it easier for him to inflict big damage. I tend to do wither Sniper or Wyvern Lord with him pending on what role I need him to play. Ingrid may need strength +2 and or Death Blow (definitely Death Blow) to help her strength issues out. You could in theory go Fighter > Brigand > Pegasus Knight > Wyvern Rider > Falcon Knight. You'll get a handful of useful abilities to give to her. Dimitri going down any physical route will make him your MVP for sure. His bane in axes may getting axes to D+ or C rank a chore since it will take longer. But Death Blow certainly helps. Though his high strength growth could make it a non issue for him however so Death Blow might not be needed. You can either give him higher speed growths by putting him in Myrmidon > Thief > Swordmaster then High Lord > Great Lord. Or take him down the cavalier route and then master Paladin for Aegis. You could even keep him in Paladin since he'll keep lancefaire and have his stats be well balanced aside from a speed penalty.

For me, on Black Eagles or Golden Deer, I find recruiting Ingrid to be really easy because I can get to Flying Rank D within a month very early as long as I get 2 goods and 2 greats when doing the faculty training. Of course that takes soft resetting and some RNG with getting the Dex stat to 15, but it can be done really easily. Felix and Dorothea I think you can recruit as you naturally progress sword and authority respectively. Catherine can be easy to get as well if you get her support to Rank C+ which should be doable on chapter 4 then later chapter 5 which you can actually use her for all mission battles for GD and BL routes. According to a lot of veteran players, she's worth the time. Annette you can recruit naturally as well if you're tutoring Byleth in Faith magic and unlocking their budding talent and get her support rank up to at least C. Of course I'm only talking about in terms of how quickly you could choose to recruit them if you go in a certain way

That's a good point well.

That's a good idea too. Getting Strength +2 on him would be easier than him getting faith at rank C+ just for the War Monk class and to get brawl avoid +20. If he's going to be killing enemies in one round or at least taking some damage in return at least his damage output would be worth it.

That is good point. I just think it depends how blessed he is with RNG in terms of strength and such. But you're right, him as an Assassin or Swordmaster with Windsweep allows him to inflict damage without a counterattack.