Graveless

I'm on Maddening playthrough 4 now and have tried out a few other strange builds to see what you can do. Early Reclass: Vander - If you swap to Great Knight or General, he'll be able to tank for quite some time. With DLC, there's a hilarious build for him with Veronica and Holdout. His massive HP means that Reprisal will be able to boost his damage numbers to silly levels in warrior. 15 Str + 21 (if at 1 hp) + whatever bow should be enough to do real work. SP Conversion means he'll even get SP out of the deal. Early Promote: Chloe - I think Chloe > Wyvern is probably the best early promote you can get. It bolsters her weak stats to the point where she can start one rounding many enemies. Celine - Getting extra staff utility is very nice and Celine's personal class is also a pretty good one. Much better than her brother. Diamant - Joining the pretty good personal class crew, also gaining 1-2 range. Lapis - Lance Hero will shore up a bunch of Lapis' weaknesses, even if she'll still be a worse pick than Diamant on average. Early Promote and Reclass: Alear - Alear is a promote midgame for me if you're going Divine Dragon. If, instead, you go Wyvern or similar, you'll basically get a second Chloe with convoy access for all of the sweet effective weaponry you could want. Anna - I tend to go Mage Knight Anna and it doesn't cost that much to feed her a couple of kills as an axe fighter. She'll generally be ready for promotion and reclassing at around chapter 10 if you try to passively train her, will be capable much sooner with Miciah. Etie - Going Warrior means you can start really making use of Etie's niche of high strength + Silver Bow. She'll start killing one thing per turn and be one of the better candidates for Lyn thanks to how high impact her starting to double is. Also, that big hp bump means she's occasionally not die if exposed to any enemy attack. Also, she'll get use out of being a backup because covert's avoid bonus would not save her. Amber - Take your pick of Halberdier, Wyvern, and Hero to a much lesser extent. The same benefit of changing Etie applies here as well. He'll have a worse weapon set, but actual bulk to make up for it. Boucheron - Warrior actually wastes his impressive build advantage over other characters by going too high. Instead, he can go Wyvern and wind up with the same speed as Kagetsu using heavy axes, along with net -3 strength assuming there's anyone chain attacking because he'd rather be receiving help than giving it. Jean - See Anna, but he's so much higher investment that I don't think its worth it to try. Mid Reclass: Yunaka - Eventually the low Thief strength will make her damage fall off, but she's also a good choice for some of the early stat boosters to hit one rounding thresholds and will probably remain one of your best Res tanks for a while. So, reclass to either Griffin or Wolf Knight to become a slightly worse Merrin. Zelkov - Second verse same as the first, though he wants to go Warrior or Wyvern. Pandreo - Put him in Sage to make those base stats go nuts. Fogado - Go with Warrior and he'll put in a lot of good work. Goldmary - Either Great Knight to outdo Louis/Jade or Halberdier for big damage numbers. Late Reclass: Diamant - Eventually he's going to Successeur's low Dex cap and start having hit rate problems. At around that time, I typically have him re-class to Hero because he'll have inherited skills that fit the role. He'll loose a bit of strength and bulk, but will come out of it with a more useful class skill and the ability to hit things.

One very unorthodox idea that just made a challenging fight into a joke (Zephia in chapter 17) is Ike with Ivy. She has enough bulk to make his bonuses turn her into a nasty enemy phaser in the mid game. The other pairs are all pretty normal so far. Eirika - Wyvern alear Lyn - Warrior Etie Lucina - Wyvern Chloe Byleth - Vidame Celine Corrin - Thief Yunaka I had a silly idea of Veronica - Warrior Vander and see how long he can keep contributing by sacking his HP for big damage and occasionally summoning/dancing.

I'm on my third Maddening run so far and I've mostly come to the opinion that if you're giving Alear levels in the early game, they ought to claim the second Master Seal and be reclassed. Wyvern Alear will be very comparable to baseline Kagetsu on his joining level and likely have Canter to make better use of their personal skill. They're obviously worse than Wyvern Kagetsu, but Merrin will be a side-grade to their averages. I know some people really want Dragon for Corrin and Byleth, but most of the dragonveins besides fire and fog didn't feel great and dragon Alear can't make much use of Corrin's skills. Not tanky enough for Pairup to be huge, not enough range for Draconic Hex or Dradful Aura. Byleth is trickier because spectrum dance/instruct is really good. I've found that that Alear having good combat while Byleth is either on a Covert for +speed or a Mystical for long range magic sniping wound up playing better.

Toward the end of my first playthrough, which was Maddening so fixed growths mostly means that this was from my own emblem and stat booster choices. Best: Yunaka - The MVP of my run who gained a commanding level lead in Tiki's Paralogue which carried her to dominance since. She's the only true juggernaut I have, even if her damage output has been falling off since chapter 18. If I ever get the sp to give her Lunar Brace, she'll go back to clear top. Jade - By reclassing to wyvern and grabbing Ike, she's my second main tank + killer who will have 4-6 rounds of neigh invincibility while she Silver Greataxe smash's most things to death. Desperately needs to inherit Pairup, but there's not enough SP to go around. Worst: Etie - I really tried to invest in her because I liked her schtick, but she's just too squishy and got benched. Jean - I know he could be good. I tried to do him and Anna at the same time and it didn't work out. Plus, Ivy and Hortencia took over staffing. Disappointing: Diamant - He's not bad, I just wish he was better. He's so close to being able to enemy phase, but is just a little too squishy and it keeps getting him killed because I look at his stats and think he can take 2-3 hits. Instead he and Anna are my two player phase nukes. Goldmary - She's still on the team, and actually holding Sigurd, purely for long range Lucina inherit double support attacks. Her damage and bulk are just slightly too low otherwise to see real combat. That extra 10 damage on every other unit's attacks mean that she will be deployed for now though.

Preparation for Three Hopes made me break out an fun challenge run that I had started and just sorts of petered out on because other games appeared. NG+, Maddening, Learn your Weaknesses: Only use both weapons and classes for the banes of each character(for those with none, they're banned from boons). Most notably, this bans having a mount from anyone who doesn't have it as a bane along with making lances really bad. I did this with the deer because of Leonie's faith spell list and Lysithea's personal skill. Lysithea was the clear MVP for most of the game because she was the only one able to unlock any classes at a reasonable time. Armor Knight bases along with a Bolt Axe solved so many problems. However, with the insane amount of lategame enemy damage (also her capping both hp and def) she's been replaced with War Cleric dodge-tank Hilda as the main frontliner. Marianne and Hapi are also Fortress Knights, but their lack of offense is a problem on many maps. Sniper Raph and Wyvern Yuri are the main damage dealers besides Warrior Lysithea.

It's tricky for many characters in NG, but unlocking Armor Knight and then never using it can be a godsend for making certain characters capable of surviving counter strikes(Lysithea) or hilariously powerful mix-phase fighters(Ingrid, Annette, and Petra) for quite some time because they'll often get +4 to +6 defense out of it. In particular, anyone you're having work on Axes can get there with a small amount of time spent on leveling armor and eventually get the - weight skill later on when you have the spare time to focus it again.

Part of the problem with the rush was that I had no paladins. My movement was a lot slower because I needed to be careful about archers. On that run I lost Marcus to him critting too many times in chapter 25 and taking a bunch of low% hits. Isadora went down to a failed 10% dodge with none of the other cavs either alive or trained thanks to bad levels. I sent Hawkeye and Pent left there and everyone else right. For the sleep strat, torch staff + sleep was the main plan. Pent needed to finish Maxime off though because Hawkeye and Farina both missed their attacks. Jaffar is also bad, I've lost one attempt to him just dying turn 2 thanks to bad rng.

I just lost my third attempt at HHM Ironman, the second attempt which was lost to the exact same problem: Zephiel in BBD. Both times, it's been the first sword merc that makes it to him. He gets one rounded and there's the loss. Last time, I tried to rush and didn't make it in time to stop the first one. I might've been able to if I was willing to let Eliwood take a bolting hit, but that felt too risky when he was res screwed. This time I brought the sleep staff and planned to sleep him with Pent and Priscilla, but Maxime was a problem that required Pent's attention and the merc wound in FoW when I otherwise would've been in range. Does anyone who's pulled it off have advice for getting through this issue?

One thing you may want to consider for Maddening is Bow Knight Felix. I found Felix to be a little too squishy to survive multiple rounds in melee, but can wind up with enough speed to double even in Maddening. The extra range meant that he deleted one enemy every action and canto'd to safety without needing support. His relic can give him more bulk, but it also stopped him from doubling. Petra had basically the same problem, not enough defensive bulk to really front line, though going for high avoid as a flier is possible. Dancer Ferdie is surprisingly good because of all of his avoid, assuming you don't want to send him into paladin for swift strikes. I'd definitely do one of him or Sylvain as paladin or Leonie as Bow Knight for the brave combat art.

I decided to give FE7 a whirl too and it's mostly been working well, but I found a strange behavior. When trying to promote units who randomized into lords, the Heaven Seal is selectively available. Lyn randomized into herself and turned into an Eliwood lord; The Heaven Seal works for her. However, I have Oswin -> Nils as a Hector lord who cannot use it to promote. Technically I have a Lyn lord and other Hector lord as well, but they aren't high enough level to try. I'm playing Hector Hard Mode for this one and wasn't sure if this was caused by something about Nils, it being the Hector class in Hector mode, or some other issue. Output from the log

Swapping to vanilla VBA 1.8 fixed it.

VisualBoyAdvance-M version 1.8.0 And oops, it wasn't that seed, I reopened my output log "To think I'd lose a fight not to a man's sword but to a woman's words." Is the seed: Recruit Eirika, Assassin Seth. In this run, the character/class combos that don't crash with animations on are: Peg Knight Vanessa, F Myrmidon Gilliam, M Archer Natasha, M Mage Lute, F Archer Forde, Journeyman Kyle, Druid Orson. Everyone else will crash.

I just gave this a try and wasn't sure if the crashes I saw was a result of a bad patch or misapplying it. Game is Sacred Stones and I used the following settings. A lot of the characters crash the game if they enter combat with animations on, but I haven't seen any consistency between which characters and classes do so.

I just ran the numbers on average stats for her and forgot how much the wyvern rider unlock is needed. I still don't think that early recruit is the right call, instead something like chapter 7 or 8. The assumptions I ran with were: early and mid recruit go for 5 brigand/ 5 peg knight > wyvern rider > wyvern lord for classes while late does peg knight > 5 levels of brigand for death blow > falcon knight. Recruiting on chapter 7 compared to chapter 2 gives +1 hp, +2 spd, +2.5 luck, +3 res at level 30. She'd be missing out on the noble and fighter/soldier masteries, but I don't think those wind up being super important on her. Chapter 12 compared to 2 gives: -2 hp, -3 str, +3 dex, +4 spd, +1 def, +10 res at level 30. You'll still get darting blow, but death blow will be late. Getting authority to D isn't too bad in my experience, but not being able to unlock wyvern rider at 20 really winds up hurting her due to low average strength.

This is all pretty route dependent, but I'd say the following are in the always recruit if able tier for me. Early Recruit Catherine - Probably the closest you can get to a Jeigen with those bases. She will fall off compared to others eventually thanks to having no good combat arts and a hard time doing , but is a godsend early on in Maddening and remains useful in late game even if she can't solo portions of maps by herself anymore. Early Recruit Shamir - She falls off sooner than Catherine outside of mastering Sniper, but getting a brave art through your already unlocked class is still pretty great. Early Recruit Lysithea - If you want her to have any chance of surviving an attack, she needs the class unlock bases and you won't get those if you recruit her late. Getting her going on faith training early also helps. Felix - It doesn't matter when you recruit him, Felix performs well in general. Earlier is better to get him out of swords and into... anything else, but he'll still do well. Petra - See above, though I consider her a bit weaker than Felix. A bit weaker than one of the best characters in the game isn't saying that much though. Has the potential to be strength screwed if you don't get her into axe based classes early. Ferdinand - If you want him to be the best dodge tank ever, he's better off early so you can get flying training and make him your dancer, but he'll perform well in most roles and gets some benefits from the auto-level growths. Mercedes - It doesn't matter when you get her, she's still the best healer in the game with okay offensive magic. Hilda - She's not as available as the others, but Hilda's always been a powerhouse for me and her natural skills allow her to start flying pretty soon. Late Recruit Ingrid - Ingrid can be very good, but spending some time auto-leveling with the later recruit growths shores up her strength and defense weaknesses without sacrificing skill levels. Late Recruit Leonie - She can be recruited early without problems, but the nice auto-level stats compliment many of the classes she'd naturally go towards and free xp is free xp.

Level 43 Bow Knight Dimitri with only 19 defense. On the other hand, he did hit 39 speed, so not screwed along every dimension. He had more speed and less defense than a almost identically leveled Felix(they went through the exact same class lines).

A while back I decided to see if the added power of New Game + would make Maddening completable while sending everyone down really poor class choices. I also heavily limited recruitment, only allowed to recruit people at Support B and I wasn't allowed to give gifts to anyone not in my house. I'm about to go to the story battle of Chapter 15 and the results have been very interesting. For student class choices, I didn't quite go for the worst possible(Raph isn't using magic), but going after weaknesses primarily and never using strengths once I got past the second chapter(it was close to unavoidable on maddening because I didn't have enough healing to not use Marianne). For added challenge, only those with a bane in riding or flying were allowed to go to mounted classes. Current class progression for my actually used characters. Byleth(M) Monk > Mage > Dark Mage > Enlightened One(just wielding magic) Claude Fighter > Brawler > Priest > Grappler > War Cleric Lorenz Fighter > Brawler > Dancer Hilda Monk > Mage > Bishop > Brigand > War Cleric Raphael Fighter > Archer > Cavalier > Sniper = Paladin(swaps depending on map) Lysithea Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight = Warrior(swaps between most useful for the map) Ignatz Fighter > Brigand > Wyvern Rider Marianne Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight Leonie Monk > Priest > Bishop = Gremory Flayne Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight Yuri Brigand > Wyvern Rider Ingrid Monk > Priest Seteth being trained toward Bow Knight, but hasn't seen deployment Several things that I didn't expect have come out of doing this, especially using classes that I normally completely ignore. For one, I need to enemy phase a lot because I don't have the movement to player phase. This made the armor knights, and Leonie who is def and speed blessed so she can nos tank, the MVPs of the pre-timeskip. Someone needed to be able to survive enemy phase and no one else had enough defense to do it. In the war phase, this has fallen off a lot thanks to magic enemy's being mixed into many formations. An armor absorbing blows and dealing some chip, then having a gauntlet or magic user finish things off has been the main solution for most chapters. Lysithea in particular is far and away my most effective character. Her innate meant that she has higher skill ranks than the others and was one of the few who could qualify for her classes at the min level. She made it to the Bolt Axe / Silver Axe tier long before anyone else, also hitting A rank bows, and high authority meant that she had her pick of the really good battalions for many chapters. I'm not sure if she'll be able to hit the 60+ def I need for late game without boosters, but I'm shifting my greenhouse over to that so I still have an immortal wall. Lack of healing was one of the larger problems. Leonie was the only person with Physic for the longest time, but her lackluster magic means that it isn't too good. Instead, Byleth and Hilda needed to take over big heals with Recover's larger base. This hasn't proven to be that much of an issue because my units are often kept right next to each other thanks to the wall of armor. Claude and Hilda having a combat art for their own recovery has also been great. Claude and Hilda have taken over for Marianne as evasion tanks thanks to War Cleric's mastery skill and their innately high speed. Lysithea has awful res, so they need to pick up any mages and no enemy having gauntlet breaker as an innate skill means that they can go after anything. Tome breaker on Claude is a godsend here, I wish I could give it to Hilda. Getting reasonable authority levels has been one of the larger challenges. Most units need their goals focused on shoring up whichever weaknesses they need to be training, along with all of my instructs per session. For other class picks and recruitment, Lorenz got a lot of bad levels so he became the dancer by default. Ingrid was someone with Physic and a reasonable Magic growth. Yuri could become a flier. I forgot Seteth came automatically and hadn't planned for him. Like most Maddening runs, the first three chapters and chapter 13 were the hardest. I had to break my rules at one point and use a bow on Claude to get through the latter. Neither he(without gauntlets) nor Byleth were capable of taking hits and I ran out of battalion uses before reinforcements showed up.

Make each character work on their weaknesses primarily and neutrals secondarily. I've been doing this with: Punch MAge Claude, Armor Knight Lysithea, etc. No boon skills for anyone.

I'm currently doing a GD Weakness run and it's been really interesting how things have worked out. I'm also doing Maddening with limited recruitment, which may not have been the best decision, but I think it'll be possible. Thanks to some characters having no weakness and making neutrals questionable, Leonie is the only healer.

A lot of this depends on the size of the map for me, but 10+ for almost all maps and 15-20 at the end. Some of the most fun things were being able to sweep through multiple sections of the map simultaneously by splitting up my army. It also feels nicer when you can field all of your strong units, while also bringing along people who you intend to train up. Sometimes they'll even shock you with incredibly good levels or a new use that wasn't expected before. Also, large deployment sizes mean that the enormous cast of recent games can see the field. Having... ~30-40% deployed feels a lot better to me.

It came from laziness mostly for Dimitri. I didn't want to worry about keeping Retribution up on him, so going bows made more sense than trying to make use of magic weapons. I also felt the same on DLC items, but I wasn't having problems clearing maps, they were just tedious... Actually, tedious sounds like a very good description of both early game and late game on Maddening. All thanks to the stupidly high damage output of enemies on each mode. At endgame, only high-avoid units, and Vantage Dimitri, were allowed to see a significant enemy phase. Even Leonie, who was incredibly def blessed and my only unit with significant def, crumpled thanks to 60+ Attack with 40+ AS coming in. Magic in general destroyed her. In the final map, Byleth, Ingrid, and Dimitri did almost everything because they were the only ones who could and Byleth beat the final boss almost entirely by herself. Everyone else needed to do hit and run. It wasn't too hard to get her into vantage range by purposefully taking an early hit, rather than killing on player phase. The vantage tank period of her life was also pretty short-lived, only a few chapters. It did allow me to use her for specific chokes and kills later on though. Armor Knight was only for the unlock, she was a tank as a Mage with 12 starting Def for most of that time period. Who then kept leveling def for a while. As for getting the unlock, a couple of lectures and a few weeks of armor training focus for her to reach D. This was enough to unlock the class with her initial Axe rank. Looking at stat averages, I think that: SmuG's experience is probably closer to normal. My Annette was flying around one rounding enemies and could take a reasonable number of hits on enemy phase until chapter 16 or so. I looked at what's expected for her in this build and I got average in most stats... with 14 extra points of Mag. I know I fed some of the mag boosters to her, but most of my gardening was spent patching up Byleth, Catherine, and Ingrid's Strength. That extra Mag easily explains why I was able to use her to one-shot almost anything. I actually looked at dark flier for her and was disappointed by the amount of damage her spells did compared to Lightning Axe. They'd usually leave enemies barely alive, just like Lysithea did in the late game. Annette as a Wyvern Lord had more Mag than Gremory Lysithea... which explains a lot about why she was so effective.

This thread is one of the things that convinced me to register since Annette was definitely my Maddening BL run's MVP by a wide margin. Some of this was getting rng blessed, but I think it's more about the unusual way I used her. Going into it, I'm pretty experienced with Fire Emblem and especially the higher difficulties. I generally play each game on the highest, reasonable(looking at you Awakening and Radiant Dawn), difficulty for my first play through. This includes every game past FE6, with the exception of Birthright and Revelation, which I haven't played. Conquest Lunatic is one of my favorite games. Blue Lions Maddening: NG, Blind I did Crimson Flower and Verdant Winds runs before Maddening came out and was looking for a greater challenge in my first Blue Lions run. DLC use was odd. Abyss came out halfway through my run and I completed it towards the end, so no bonus characters or items that were relevant. Though I had it from the beginning, I refused to use the special grinding battle. I also held off on using any of the DLC items until the third to last chapter, where I just got tired. So, I gave my strongest flier the broken boots and LTC'd the final few chapters of the game. I also made use of the completely broken accessory in order to make the final chapter less annoying. I could've used retaliation battalions instead, but... keeping track of that was irritating considering how few units I had who could handle enemy phase. I have rough memories of each stage of the game and will be going over what each unit was used for and when they had that role. Each character can have several important roles. The main ones are as followed. Tank: split into physical, magical, dodge, and vantage. Tanks are units who I felt comfortable exposing to 3+ enemies during enemy phase. Vantage tanks need to also be Damage because they only work if they can keep one rounding everything(they also tend to die to gambits and siege). Damage: Damage units are capable of one rounding enemies reliably. Damage- means they can one round unreliably or with support. Support: Has some sort of useful non-combat ability. Dancing, Rally, Warp. Healing: Can heal people. That's about it. The game itself was also split into phases with very distinct challenges for me. Stages: Early(Chapter 1-4), Mid(Chapter 5-12), Late(Chapter 13-19) End(Chapter 20-22). The stages of the game are split up like this because of what they represented for my run. Early game is far and away the hardest portion. You have no tools and the enemies are incredibly punishing. The only chapter which had a comparable number of resets to the early game is chapter 13. Tanks were very important and anyone capable of one rounding an enemy was vital. All of the resources got fed into units capable of doing that. Mid game for me is defined by your main units having access to intermediate classes. You have some levels, some skills, and a good number of different types of weapons or combat arts. A lot more characters became capable of handling themselves here, but one flew past everyone else by a wide margin thanks to being a physical and magic tank with good damage. Late game is the majority of the post-timeskip section. You have most of your diversity and need to build up a team capable of handling endgame. This is where many of the characters who I was sort of training became benched if they didn't wind up leveling well. Everyone who wasn't doing well, who could fly was made into a flier for this section, just to keep them alive. End game is the very end where almost everything that you have to do is direct plot and all units' builds are locked in. Adjuncts became armor units and doding all enemy action was the name of the game. Playstyle: I tend to play very aggressively and quickly. I'll clear as many enemies as I can during player phase and tend to only use tanks who can either get close to killing enemies or who also count as Damage. I aimed for efficient play overall and was willing to take risks to clear maps faster, not in a turn count sense, but in an overall playtime sense. I did my monastery sections as effectively I could until halfway through Late game. Fishing was the worst. I know it's important, but I am so bored of it that I ignored the fistfuls of fish days. Some characters I went out of my way to grind supports with during meals in order to recruit them, others I got once my stats were higher enough because more paralouges is useful. In particular, I held off on recruiting Leonie and Hilda thanks to how their levels and extra growths would work out. Gardening benefits were primarily strength or magic bonuses, trying to push whoever was near the Damage line over it. This was basically all that I did in the late game. Characters in the final team: Apologies for the bad images, I need to get an SD card reader at some point. Bylass - https://i.imgur.com/QTjk1s2.jpg Class Progression: Soldier > Thief(for the mastery) > Pegasus Knight > Falcon Knight Early: Damage- Mid: Damage Late: Damage, Dodge Tank End: Damage, Dodge Tank Byleth is almost always a good unit and going up the line to Falcon Knight seemed like a good fit for her. This was partially because I planned to recruit Leonie and needed to raise lance rank anyway. I didn't get very good defense or resistance on her, so she was stuck in player phase only for a long time. By the end, she was capable of soloing entire sections of a map with Retribution and nearly solo'd the final boss because only one person could be carrying the Rafail Gem. Dimitri - https://i.imgur.com/mqa2OT2.jpg Class Progression: Soldier > Archer > Cavalier > Sniper > Bow Knight Early: Damage Mid: Damage Late: Damage, Vantage Tank End: Damage, Vantage Tank Pretty basic Battalion Vantage + Wrath for Dimitri. Once it got going, he wiped out huge portions of the map through innate long range and tons of crits. In the early game, his Tempest Lance was one of the only things which would reliably one round enemies. This is important because his bulk was awful. Defense and Resistance? What Defense and Resistance? He wound up worse than Felix, comparable to Mercedes's physical bulk. Felix - https://i.imgur.com/0xEwKz0.jpg Class Progression: Fighter > Archer > Cavalier > Sniper > Bow Knight Early: Damage Mid: Damage Late: Damage End: Damage Felix always hits hard and fast. He never fell off at doing this, keeping up even at the very end. Unfortunately, he didn't have any utility beyond that or the ability to survive enemy phase, so canto and huge range was a godsend on him. Mercedes - https://i.imgur.com/Nk94Caw.jpg Class Progression: Monk > Mage > Bishop > Gremory Early: Healing, Damage- Mid: Healing, Magic Tank Late: Healing, Magic Tank End: Healing, Magic Tank Mercedes is the best healer in the game. She does her job super well. Early on she also contributed valuable damage against some enemies. Bishop is the better final class for pure healing, and sometimes I swapped her to it, but I wanted the extra movement of Gremory more often. Ingrid - https://i.imgur.com/pVXRew5.jpg Class Progression: Fighter > Brigand(mastery skill) > Armor Knight(unlock) > Pegasus Knight > Wyvern Rider > Wyvern Lord Early: Damage- Mid: Damage-, Physical Tank Late: Damage, Dodge Tank End: Damage, Dodge Tank While Ingrid is basically built to be a Falcon Knight, I've been disapointed in her damage in other runs so I sent her up the axe line and wasn't disappointed. She's also one of the units who got a lot of use out of unlocking Armor Knight. Having 12 def at around level 12 was incredible for surviving, even if her damage was player phase loaded. This added bulk kept her going until she had the speed, and alert stance, to just dodge everything. Marianne - https://i.imgur.com/29v1qKH.jpg Class Progression: Priest > Bishop > Valkyrie > Holy Knight(unlock) Early: - Mid: Healing, Magic Tank, Damage- Late: Healing, Magic Tank, Damage- End: Healing Marianne was one of the first recruits that made it to endgame. I found myself without enough healing for the amount of damage taken and she provided noticeable chip that let other people kill. Catherine - https://i.imgur.com/7CwiAev.jpg Class Progression: Sword Master > Assassin > Mage > Mortal Savant > Sword Master Early: - Mid: Damage, Physical Tank Late: Damage-, Healing End: Damage- Recruited Catherine as early as possible and she didn't disappoint. She sort of fell off in late game, but training the meme-build of mortal savant allowed her to be a backup healer while still providing some damage. Eventually, I swapped back to a real class, once the dodge tanks had fully come online and I didn't need extra healing anymore. I would have benched her, but the others were even less useful and she wasn't a liability, could even one round with brave weapons. Lysithea - https://i.imgur.com/rvPLFhP.jpg Class Progression: Mage > Mercenary(mastery skill) > Warlock > Gremory Early: - Mid: Damage, Support, Vantage/Magic Tank Late: Damage, Support, Vantage/Magic Tank End: Damage-, Support Lysithea is a unit with so many interesting things she can do, mostly warp in endgame. I raised her sword rank to give her an additional one shot option and picked up Vantage because it allowed her to have a relevant enemy phase for quite some time. Besides that, this feels like a pretty normal build for her. Dorothea - https://i.imgur.com/gcU8hdM.jpg Class Progression: Mage > Dancer > Warlock(unlock) Early: - Mid: Healing, Support Late: Support End: Support Dorothea is a great dancer with a decent spell list. She spent most of the game with Meteor equipped and dancing. Hilda - https://i.imgur.com/9cmi17e.jpg Class Progression: Brigand(mastery skill) > Wyvern Rider > Wyvern Lord Early: - Mid: Damage, Physical Tank Late: Damage End: Damage Hilda! Hilda! Hilda! came in hitting hard and one rounding enemies, which is exactly what I wanted her to do. She kept it up even into late game, though her bulk fell off. Leonie - https://i.imgur.com/TkvaWec.jpg Class Progression: Cavalier > Archer > Sniper > Bow Knight Early: - Mid: - Late: Damage, Physical Tank End: Damage, Physical Tank Leonie was technically in the party for the end of Mid, but didn't see much happen there. She was immediately a powerful physical contender and actually could make enemies ping off of her at end game, while not being doubled. Annette - https://i.imgur.com/wo5x2H1.jpg Class Progression: Monk > Mage > Armor Knight(unlock) > Warlock > Wyvern Rider > Wyvern Lord Early: Damage-, Support, Healing Mid: Damage, Tank, Support, Healing Late: Damage, Tank, Support End: Damage, Support Last, but certainly not least, we have Annette, my MVP and by far the unit who surprised me the most. I wasn't expecting too much from her thanks to keeping her as a Mage during my BE run, then I noticed that she could easily unlock Armor Knight. This one unlock turned her into an enemy phase machine during the first few chapters who could take on either physical or magical enemies, laugh off their damage, and either kill or come close to it. She and Dedue were front line buddies for so long and she out-leveled everyone, save Mercedes, for most of the game. Her rallies also let Dimitri or Felix one round when they needed it(cursed 1-2 range where she couldn't handle the problem herself). In the end game, her bulk didn't keep up. Instead, she became the single cheapest and most reliable source of "one enemy dies". Lightning Axe with a Training Axe was enough for non-magical enemies, those it wasn't either got Bolt Axe or Lightning Axe + Killer Axe(poor Hubert, she took him out as the only attack on that map). At the absolute worst, it's be use a relic with this. At the credits, her kill count blew Dimitri(the next highest) out of the water. Other notable characters: Dedue Class Progression: Soldier > Fighter > Armor Knight > Wyvern Rider Early: Physical Tank Mid: Physical Tank Late: Benched Dedue was a godsend early on. One of the only units able to take multiple this for a long time, but this wasn't as useful on Maddening when thieves with pass were all over the place or archers shot over him. He still had his niche, until the time skip when he could never catch up. Also... armor knights could never keep up with anyone else, soooo.... Sylvain Class Progression: Soldier > Cavalier > Paladin Early: Damage- Mid: Damage-, Physical Tank Late: Benched Sylvain had some decent early game bulk and damage. He was even vital for Death Knight kills, but he sadly fell off. Petra Class Progression: Brigand(mastery skill) > Wyvern Rider > Wyvern Lord Early: - Mid: Damage Late: Damage- End: Benched Petra was doing really well for a while, but stopped leveling strength. Eventually it came down to her or Catherine. Catherine was just better, especially since she wasn't in competition for limited flying battalions.

Heya. I've been a fan since I found FE7 way back in the day and a lurker here for quite some time. Not sure how much I'll break that habit, but we'll see. Radiant Dawn and now Three Houses are probably my favorite games, even if I only replayed RD once to beat it on Hard. FE7 or FE8 are probably my most replayed of all of the games thanks to a large variety of challenge runs. My Hector Hardmode Ironman recently ended in chapter 23 thanks to a mage running out of FoW and critting Hector. He went from full health to dead in one attack. Golden Deer Maddening, worst class choices, is still going strong.