Myssdii

I made Alfred a Halberdier in my 2nd maddening run (with partial DLC, I ban wearing Tiki and Edelgard, as well as their exp/growth boosting skills, to not break the game too much). With a forged Ridersbane and Fensalir, he's still relevant with no stat boost at all, and I'm at chapter 18 (currently finishing paralogues before moving on). I was dead set on making him usable, since he's considered to be bad (and I trashed him in my first hard run), and so far the class suits him well. A +5 Ridersbane is just super good, as there are a LOT of cavalry in this game. While it will still have trouble going through Great Knights in the end game because of their absurd defense, it will deal with wolves, nomads, paladins, royal knights and mage knights with no issue, which is pretty great.

Staff hit is Weapon Hit + Mag + Dex, but the issue comes from the avoid from enemies, which is, for staffs, (3*Res + Lck) / 2. This gives mages and high res units a ton of staff avoid on maddening. Trying to silence a mage in end game is just rolling for low 40 or even below. Divine Pulse+ is just so good for that. I do agree that for lower difficulty than maddening, just patching with hit+ skills or engravings in enough, but maddening end-game is just stupid in terms of avoid for some units, that I think Divine Pulse+ is better on units that have decent luck stat by that point. To give you an example of stats (chapter 21, I still have a save of that): - Veyle has 30 Res and 25 Lck, which gives her 57-58 staff avoid (I don't know if it's rounded down or up) - the High Priests next to her have 39 Res, 18 Lck, so that's 67-68 staff avoid - my Citrinne has 136 hit on her Silence (Entrap is less hit as well), but all those units are also on an avoid tile, which works for staff avoid as well (because why not), so it reality, I have less than 50% chance of hitting Veyle with a Silence or a Freeze, and even less for the two High Priests next to her. Entrap is even lower than 20% on them. I could use the staff boosting skill from Micaiah or the general Hit+ from Sigurd, but they are either specific to one type of weapon for the former, or extremely expensive for the latter. Divine Pulse+ is extremely cheap, works for any weapon, and is a fixed reroll chance that is entirely based of your own stats. So even with avoid stacking from enemies, you'll always have that same chance of getting your hit if you miss your initial roll. My Citrinne has 23 base Lck at this stage, and a shaky 22 base Dex, which means Thoron hit rate is definitely a problem. Divine Pulse+ will both fix her accuracy for staffs and Thoron (and later Nova), and is cheap enough so that I still have ton of points to give her extra damage through another skill. Hortensia even have more than 40 luck with Byleth sync, so that staff hit is nearly guaranteed. I'll probably mess around with Sage Anna in my next run, with Byleth for luck stacking + Thyrsus.

Not too sure I agree with all that was said. Especially considering maddening gameplay. S Tier: Game changer emblems - emblems that give you more options on how to handle maps Micaiah - Full map healing, vastly increased staff range and area of effect that works on all teleportation staffs (from Rewarp to Entrap), being able to turn any unit into a staff holder (really useful on units with only one weapon type since they have inventory space), Micaiah has a lot of benefits. She also gives a ton of experience early on since the more you heal, the more exp you get, which can help catching up with a low level unit quickly. In late game, with all the armors and great knights, her signature tome Thani is really good for offense as well in specific situations. Byleth - AOE dance is always good, Rally is good, and that alone gives Byleth a high rating. What a lot of people are missing is that Divine Pulse is pretty busted as well: it works on staff hit. With the extra boost to luck and the effect, you can turn any offensive staff low chances of hit into a guaranteed effect (Freeze, Silence and Entrap). Corrin - Just the ability alone to immobilize and debuff a group of enemies for a turn is completely busted. Dragon Vein is the cherry on top. Too bad that her weapons are garbage, so you usually want her on units that come with good weapons (daggers are great for adding to the whole debuff package) or 3-range. Lucina - My last maddening run just made me discover Lucina as something more than just "turn this unit into a ranged backup" passive mode. Bonded Shield + Dual Support allow you to use deep-dive cross-shape formations to bait enemies or choke points, turning the centered Lucina holder into a dodge tank thanks to the support bonuses. 80% trigger doesn't seem much, but it can be boosted (Alear boost it to 90%, and if you have a lot of cavalry or fliers, you can do a similar formation with a 100% chance). She is an Emblem that give you boosts for both player and enemy phase, which is really rare. I've done boss and formations pulls that I wouldn't even dare doing without her. Lyn - What pushes me to put her in this tier and not A-tier is Astra Storm and its ability to pull bosses from across the map that would otherwise stay in place until you reach a certain tile or turn (20 range on Covert units is absurd). This can completely turn harder grindy maps into an easy boss rush (hello Ike and Micaiah paralogues). Outside of that, she's basically giving speed to anyone who needs it. Up to +10 from Speedtaker will allow units to reach maddening stupidly high speed thresholds, which is really good. A Tier: Booster emblems - emblems that turn okay units in god tier units Eirika - She adds a lot of true damage to any offensive unit, which is just stupid, especially in higher difficulty where enemies have inflated stats, and it's harder to deal damage to them. Units with the speed to double, or brave effects, will love her. Her weapons are really nice, as she's the one of the two Emblems that have a weapon effective against Corrupted (and hers is much stronger than Celica's), until you get past chapter 22 and unlock the hidden emblem. Ike - It's basically Eirika but for defense stats. Dividing received damage by two, as well as extra Def and Res when below 75% health mean that you'll get into single-digit damage territory, or no damage at all pretty quickly. His weapons are really good, providing a really strong 1-2 range sword for enemy phase. Grand Aether is an okay action, mostly useful for baiting groups of enemies and doing pre-emptive damage (and sometimes break) onto them so your other units can finish them off. Free pivot is also nice, as it's sometimes hard to find spots in your skill sets to plug it in. B Tier: Niche emblems - emblems that give some nice boosts to specific types of units Sigurd - Sigurd is extra movement, and that's pretty much it. Momentum and Canter are both pretty good skills for mobility and extra damage, but they are also easy to inherit. Extra movement is always nice, especially in the beginning of the game when you are stuck with 4 movement units. Gallop allows to reach some targets really quickly, but you expose yourself while doing so. But it's useful, and nice to have on units that like the extra movement like your Dancer, or a Wolf Knight for kiting options. Marth - In lower difficulties, I would rate him in A tier. But in maddening, extra attacks at 50% damage will not do enough unless you are hitting for magic damage or effective damage. Its availability also sucks. In early game, he is amazing, especially with Mercurius extra exp, but in endgame he has to compete with Eirika who is vastly superior for damage. He's pretty okay though, especially on units who can use magic swords and lances effectively. Roy - His effectiveness will likely depend on the holder's growths. 5 extra levels can make the difference for doubling or getting that small extra damage for a kill. Blazing Lion and Hold Out also allows for a choke point, or at least slow down a pack of enemies and getting pre-emptive damage. It's less effective than Corrin on that point, but it's nice to have that option. He's just slightly below more specialized emblems, but a mix bag of slightly useful stuff. Celica - Her early game impressions are amazing as Warp Ragnarok is pretty busted at this stage of the game. But when you get her back, she's just not enough. Echo is nice, but you're just short of everything, at least in my experience. Resonance also does not compete with Eirika 5 extra damage to everything, while Resonance damages you, is restricted to tomes and only adds 3 damage. C Tier: Bad emblems - also known as Leif tier Leif - I wished I could rate him better, but he just sucks. His main issue is that Adaptability only works when you are engaged, so you have to deal with his absurdly bad personal weapons when the game has to choose a specific weapon in enemy phase. This results in the game sometimes switching out of a good engraved and forged weapon for his magic sword or custom brave lance, just because they have weapon advantage instead of being neutral but doing much more damage on the counter attack. Extra build can be nice on some units, but you can inherit that and Initiative if you want, as well as the damage reduction when you have the weapon advantage. Some bond rings are just better than he is. Also, Quadruple Hit is probably the worst offensive Engage Attack in terms of damage, just because it uses his signature weapons.

I've used Timerra in maddening. She's pretty good in the mid game, but end-game is really difficult for her with the enemies inflated stats. She has trouble ORKO unless she procs crit + Sandstorm, and while her crit is decent with engraving + forged Killer Lance, it's not super reliable to get Sandstorm on top unless you've fed her stats boosters. Maddening is not forgiving for physical units, and Timerra is just a bit short of everything. You really need to give her resources. She's okay with just a bit of investment, but sadly not near top tier unless you are really investing.

Currently at chapter 23 in my Maddening/Classic run (second overall run after Hard/Classic), tried to change my comp a bit. Best Jade (GK!Ike) - She's insane, insta-promoted her after her recruit chapter, never looked back at Louis. Her higher Res makes her safer at holding groups of enemies with magic weapon shuffled into them (which are common in late game), and her Mag actually scales well enough to allow her to keep one-shotting Wyvern Riders with the Hurricane Axe throughout the run. Her weapon of choice is still a crit enchanted Killing Axe, for a juicy 85+ crit chance after losing a bit of health. Fogado (Cupido!Eirika) - I wasn't too sure about him after recruiting, but after a few level ups, his 75% speed growth actually makes him double reliably with the Radiant Bow. Great player phase unit, his passive and class skills aren't that great, but his class give him great growths in speed and mag, so I haven't changed it, but now that he reached the cap, maybe I'll do to gain a better skill. I gave him Lyn's bow accuracy skill to patch his shaky hit rate, and that's pretty much it. Yunaka (Thief!Corrin) - I already used her in my first run, but there's no way I'm dropping her. She's hands down the best unit in the game. She capped her Res, sadly. Okay-ish Timerra (Picket!Leif) - She actually was really good in her recruit chapter, able to choke point the wyverns really well. She's decent when she procs her skill alongside a crit, but when she doesn't, her damage is really lackluster. I gave her a forged Ridersbane alongside a forged Killer Lance to do pretty nice damage into Wolf Riders and other cavalry (outside of Great Knights, they have too much defense), but she's just okay. I did gave her Celica's Holy Stance++ skill, which actually patches her damage nicely, since her defenses are enough to not get one-rounded, but she still takes enough damage for that skill to matter. I wished I didn't bought Ike's Resolve, and saved points for Wrath... Hortensia (Sleipnir!Byleth) - While her mag is lowish and she can't use A tomes, she has insane speed to always double. Byleth gives her Divine Pulse+ for staff accuracy, as well as the Luin lance that scales on speed for killing mages reliably. She has the movement for dancing and rallying for extra res, which is always useful. She replaced Chloe as small magic damage is more useful than doing 0x2. Citrinne (Sage!Celica) - Even with magic boosters, she's always short in damage since she can't double anything. She still can do a lot with Thoron, and maybe the S tome will patch her damage once I get it. She has the luck stat to exploit Byleth's Divine Pulse+ skill for balancing Thoron's bad accuracy and offensive staff usage, so at least her damage and utility is reliable. Alear (Hero!herself) - I just swapped her to Hero after she capped her class, since I'm removing Lucina from her, and keeping her gage for her own Fusion+. Lucina has been a reliable emblem on her for most post-11 shenanigans. 90% shield is reliable, and gave her exp each time she blocked an attack, and Dual Support paired with her high support meant it was extremely safe to just pull entire rooms with a tight formation with her in the middle (and units with enough speed to avoid being doubled), since she had enough avoid for enemies to ignore her and try to hit her protected allies. Now she has enough exp and stats to use her own fusion for the sheer strength and utility of it. Hero gives me an extra backup unit. Disappointing Alcryst (Tireur!Lyn) - The other unit outside of Yunaka I kept from my Hard/Classic run, and... oh boy... I don't know if it's my own mistake of switching to a forged Brave Bow as his main weapon, the overall higher defense of the enemies, his lower str compared to my previous run, or a combination of everything, but he's just not doing it in the end game. He was absolutely insane for most of the early to mid game, but he's just not cut for the end game unless he procs Luna for each arrow (and even with 45+ dex, it's not reliable enough). Enemies have way too much def, and he can't double the frailer ones unless I've stacked Lyn's speed boosts already. Still, 20 range Astra is never a bad thing, so he can always snipe enemy staff users from the other end of the map, or pull bosses. Lapis (Hero!Roy) - She's starting to catch-up, but the amount of babying she needs is just too much for the okay-ish end result. She needs either Roy's fusion or Alear's fusion to be a reliable front laner. She still has backup utility, but any backup unit you recruit after her would have just been better. Maybe I'm too stubborn when I want to use someone...

Just finished my first Hard Classic + random level ups run, planning to do Maddening. Best Yunaka - Mine never fell off, dodging absolutely everything. A forged Iron Dagger will hold until the end of the game, only getting surpassed with a forged crit dagger. She ended up with Emblem Leif, but I'll mess around with Emblem Corrin in the next run. Diamant - Absolutely insane, he gives me a lot of Hector vibes: can't die, does a lot of damage (also a Sword + Axe user). With Emblem Ike and Corrin's skill for Chain immunity, I could send him right in the melee and he would smash everything to death. The "ting" sound of no-effect attacks has never been so satisfying. His lowish dex comes back to bite him in the very late game, but it's fine, as most of Ike's weapons are pretty accurate. Alcryst - I really love archers in this game, with their terrain advantage. Alcryst + Emblem Lyn is such a disgusting combination, and mine ended up with close to 50 dex (thanks to +5 dex skill from Lucina), meaning that Luna would trigger pretty reliably as well as a pretty decent crit rate, even on longbows. Decent to Disappointing Alear - They're okay. Decent speed, str and dex, but being sword locked isn't that great. And most emblems that seemed tailored for them don't give more weapon options. Although, the dragon type is insane on some emblems. I ended up giving them Roy, for that extra oomph and aoe attack. Ivy - While she isn't bad (I would say she's one of the best units of the game), her bad dex makes her unreliable as a late game magic nuke. She can still do a decent job with Emblem Corrin + Canto to debuff and stop reinforcements before flying off to safety. Anna - I love her, but she needs a lot of TLC to shine. In mid to late game, she becomes really good with a really good magic stat for the magic bow, allowing her to nuke flyers and armors alike into oblivion. Long bow + support allows her to help the front lines. I ended up pairing her with Byleth so she could help the front lines better, get more luck for her passive money, and having access to more weapons scaling with mag. Chloé - She basically has a str scaling issue. Everything else on her is decent to great. Mine was a Wyvern Knight (Lances + Axes), and she still did a decent job, but until I could recover Marth to patch her damage and avoid, she had some trouble. Emblem Eirika would have been better to patch her damage, but she was on other more reliable units at the time. She's amazing in the early game, though. Worst Alfred - I got really bad level ups on him, but even looking at his average stats, he looks like he's just all around garbage. Even in the early game, where usually cavaliers shine, he just wouldn't do enough damage or wouldn't survive more than one or two hits. And it didn't change over the course of the game. Great bench warmer, though. Céline - I wanted to use her so much. I love hybrid mag and str nukers, but she nevers takes off, she has mediocre speed, and her dex is just way too low to make her skill trigger reliably. I benched her when she started getting more def than mag. Clanne filled her role of a mixed attacker better thanks to his better speed and dex. She just made an appearance in the later maps as a staff bot when I needed to deploy a 14th unit.

Verdant Wind endgame enemy stats are off the charts... But these builds are pretty good for the vast majority of the game, don't expect any magical unit to get one shots on the final map though. Even my 46 magic Lysithea with Dark Spikes couldn't OS a regular Paladin on this map... They're broken... You should rely on other units to get kills on this map.

The Nuvelle Fliers Corps is the only magic flying battalion (tied to Constance/Yuri paralogue with DLC), so she had a +7 mag boost that helped a lot. She was in range for kills on some units, but not everything. To be honest, the only units in my underleveled team that were capable of one-round every unit in the map (apart from Nemesis) were Ignatz, Claude and Byleth with crit builds XD To note: Lorenz might bonus with Ferdinand is only +2 as his support with him is limited to B. I could have optimized Lorenz more for offense with what you said (I had the resources), but I liked the extra bulk on him provided by the Gloucester Knights and the shield. With how underleveled I was, Lorenz was the only unit capable of choke point blocking at the beginning of the final map, which proved extremely useful with how much units you need to handle in the first 2-3 turns. I also had a dodgetank Claude, but it was difficult for him to handle all sides at the same time, so Lorenz filled in ^^

In my latest VW maddening NG run, I've used both Marianne and Lorenz as Frozen Lance users. They've ended up really different, and their strong points were at different periods of time in terms of pure damage output. Basically, in the beginning of the game when they've both mastered mage, their Frozen Lance output is pretty similar, they are reliable for kills, and you can start unlocking Cavalier and Pegasus Knight for Lorenz and Marianne respectively. When Lorenz unlocks Paladin, his damage output is slightly superior: he gets Lancefaire and his passive, and Marianne is still stuck with Pegasus Knight (unless you also train her in riding, but it hinders her progression in flying, lances and sword ranks), so it's a trade. Marianne has better magic growth than Lorenz, so in the end game and after unlocking Falcon Knight for Lancefaire, she'll outdamage him. But before that, it's pretty much a trade between Paladin!Lorenz slightly higher damage output, and Pegasus!Marianne mobility as a flyer. Marianne got a lot of MVP ranks before the timeskip as a Pegasus Knight. I still trained Marianne in swords as her speed was actually really good (I always end up with speed-blessed Marianne in all of my runs), and in the final chapters she was really reliable at doubling axe wielders and snipers with Blutgang without risking too much. Frozen Lance was missing most OHKO for both, unless I used Horseslayer/Blessed Lance/Spear of Assal damage effectiveness, but while Marianne was still able to double with swords, Lorenz was also filling as an amazing tank unit (with some help from stat boosters in HP and a bit in def). To note: I was slightly underleveled on most of my units since I was warp-skipping a lot of maps post-timeskip. See spoiler for final map stats on both.

If I had to make the choice, I'd keep Linhardt and Lysithea for double Warp and drop Fortify alongside Mercedes, but I don't value Fortify that much. My opinion is that if you use Warp/Stride strategies to beat maps faster, Fortify loses value. But if you don't intend to use Warp-skip mechanics too much and will clear all maps, you can keep Fortify. Unless you stat-boost him a lot, Ignatz will never double in maddening, he'll do much more damage as a Sniper than a Wyvern Lord, mainly because of his incredible crit rate as a Sniper (better dex and luck modifiers and growths), and Hunter's Volley increased crit rate as well as automatic brave effect on anything. If you intend to use bows exclusively and you don't have Point-Blank Volley, stay Sniper. Movement is not that much of an issue if you carry two Warp units with you. To make a numeric comparison between Sniper and Wyvern Lord (assuming same weapon and base strength): WL +4 strength modifier VS Sniper +1 strength modifier Sniper Bowfaire +5 might Hunter's Volley +1 might And Hunter's Volley negates any need for speed, so Sniper gains +5 dex and +3 luck compared to Wyvern Lord +1 dex, so you have a better crit rate as Sniper.

I'd drop a couple of mage units: in maddening, mages tend to fall off really hard in the late game, even units like Lysithea will fail to one-shot most enemies in the 4-3 final chapters. Mostly because tomes lack the might that combat arts do have, and mages will often fail to double unless it's an armor unit, unless you grind them in Pegasus Knight to help their speed. You could have instead one or two units with magic combat arts and use weapons (sword!Dorothea, Ingrid, Marianne...) to keep the offense on the magic side of the spectrum, but deal way more damage that you would with gremories. I'd not go for Wyvern Lord with Ignatz. You could instead do a Vengeance build with Bernie as a Bow Knight, and keep Ignatz as a Sniper. Ignatz needs Bowfaire to deal damage, and he lacks strong combat arts if he's not a Sniper. Other than that, looks good ^^

You can have access to Silver Swords at this stage of the game through forging, there is also the quest where you can fetch an item for either Catherine or Shamir that gives either a Silver Sword or a Silver Bow that is around the same time if I remember correctly. Unforged, the Silver Sword is just one point of might lower than the Devil Sword, but lighter and more precise. The Devil Sword also needs Agarthium to forge/repair, which is insanely rare. I like the Devil Axe because its might is way off the charts when you get it in the game, but the Devil Sword is just... meh... Also, swords in this game are less stronger than other weapons, usually I find myself with only one or two sword wielders at best, mostly dodge tanks (because of the low weapon weight), Levin Swords users or crit spamming with the Cursed Ashiya Sword from chapter 13. If you like it, go, but Lorenz paralogue is just so tedious to do without rushing to the boss. The Devil Sword is not worth it in my opinion. My feeling is that if you take each house individually without taking recruitments in account, the three play very differently and gives different tools to the player. BL is more like a juggernaut type army: really strong and solid units core (Dimitri, Sylvain, Felix and Dedue), with some supports and utility around it. GD has more tools for movement, strike and retreat type of gameplay, with bonus stacking from multiple sources. BE is more diverse with really strong individual units, but less overall synergy between them (probably because they must adapt to two very different routes). The feeling of "this house is easier than the others" probably comes from the way you play the game. My personal opinion is I find GD to be easier to play than the others, and for now I've struggled more with BL. BE is kind of a mix bags of things I like and don't like, I've yet to play Silver Snow in maddening though.

You can easily one-turn Lorenz paralogue on maddening if you have one or two flyers (one really strong, or two ok units if one have a ranged attack) and Stride. With Stride and having flyers in the middle of the starting location (f!Byleth as a pegasus knight will do), you can reach the boss on turn 1 and he's pretty frail. Other items on the map aren't really worth it compared to grabbing Thyrsus and the Gloucester Knights asap 🙂 I love the Golden Deer students, they are overall really good as a group, with a ton of synergy: Hilda and Leonie personal skills combine really well with other units like Byleth and Claude early on, Ignatz is one of the more reliable units in the entire game thanks to his rallies, debuffs and high hit/crit rate, Lysithea gets Warp really early and is pretty strong in the mid-game (she struggles early on and falls off in late game because of the enemies inflated stats). You have less crested units than in other houses, but they compensate like you said with strong stats, skills and boons in flying and bows, two of the strongest skills to have in this game. My last GD run I did no auxiliary battle at all (only quest battles and paralogues), did not reach A+ professor rank before timeskip (A to A+ is really long). I also warp-skipped a lot of maps and ended up underleveled on the final map (most of my units were in the 32-35 level range instead of early 40), but it did not cause any issue to finish the run. This is pretty interesting to do, because your skill ranks will progress much faster, at the expense of a couple of levels. Main issue was reaching class mastery since I could not farm auxiliary battles for them, so some units took much more time to build.

Sniper also gets Bowfaire, it's pretty much Hunter's Volley VS the extra movement and range. HV gives extra damage, hit and crit rate, which is absolutely busted, and you're guaranteed to double even the fastest units like QR Swordmasters and Falcon Knights. I mean, my latest Sniper Ignatz pretty much one-rounded any 10-elite on the final map of VW with at least 60% crit rate on HV, I don't think Bow Knight would have done it unless fed to death with stat boosters (when units like Goneril have 50 AS...). If you like having the extra movement for support, go Bow Knight and with good stats he'll pull some weight, but if you want to one-round stuff on every map, stick with Sniper 🙂 I'm still happy to hear about blessed Ignatz, so have fun with him ^^

Hi! Just checked your first video (not everything, I skipped through just to see how you would play), and I want to raise my opinion on Ignatz: you should not make him a Bow Knight, he'll never have the strength and speed to one round anything with this class. You should keep him as a Sniper and focus early Authority ranks to get access to Rally Speed. Since you spend your first instructs on him on Riding, it's unlikely you'll get it for Chapter 2, but you can fix that for Chapter 3, it will ease the beginning of the game by allowing your units not to be doubled by anything. Get D Authority asap, unlock his hidden talent in Reason (Seal Strength) and unlock Break Shot at C+ Bow. After that, get D+ rank in Axe so he can get Brigand at level 10 for Death Blow, and you can just straigth up keep instructing him in Bow and Authority for the rest of the game and unlock Sniper as his final class. He'll be amazing and super useful throughout the game, especially in the beginning, and will one-round a lot with Hunter's Volley and a Killer Bow+ one you master Sniper. He's way worse as a Bow Knight since he loses his ability to kill stuff. I also recommend to get A rank Authority on him before the time skip (totally doable without too much focus), so you can give him the Indech Sword Fighters as a battalion (unlocked with Manuela and Hanneman paralogue), since it's the only battalion with Retribution you'll get in a recruitless NG VW run, and he's the main contender for it with his boon in Authority and the stats that the battalion provides (+8 damage, extra hit and crit).