LJ_Reflet

I know I'm late but Ignatz is my faaaaaaaaaaaaave ㅠㅠ Honestly, I really REALLY struggled with Ignatz in the beginning of my very first playthrough to the point where I wanted to bench him. But this boy GLOWED TF UP. He was my speediest crit-machine, and his debuffs and personal were a godsend. To this day, he has become one of my top favorite characters right behind Claude. I have a thing for high-speed, high-crit characters if you can tell LOL. and he is so SMOL, goodest boi behind Ashe Out of the 3 baby archers (Ignatz, Ashe, and Bernie), I found Ignatz to be the best and most reliable. The good: Ignatz at first glance may not have an array of impressive stats, but his standout stats are in dex, speed, and luck--at 7+50%, 8+50%, and 8+55% respectively. He most notably has the highest luck stat in the game, tied with Shamir. This makes him one of the top crit machines with a 105% crit growth (dex+luck) which is tied with Claude. I think his crit rate is highly unacknowledged and definitely deserves recognition. "Let me paint you a picture!" was something I heard with every other hit. Killer weapons with Ignatz are *chef's kiss* worthy. His speed isn't too bad either. It's not the best, but his growth is in the top 3. His personal is also one of his assets. While a simple Hit +20 may seem boring, it's actually one of the most useful personals in the game. There's no prerequisite for it, no HP threshold, no need for proper positioning, nothing. Ignatz will ALWAYS have an extra Hit +20 that stacks with archer's mastery Hit +20. That's an extra 40% hit for free with Ignatz, and it even works for gambits. Despite only having played hard mode, I know that speedy enemies are really slippery in maddening and his personal proves Ignatz to be one of the most reliable characters on your team. You can trust Ignatz to land a hit even from 3-5 spaces away. Hell, you can trust Ignatz to CRIT from 3-5 spaces away. Even better, Ignatz is loaded with debuffers. He gets Seal Strength when his budding talent in Reason is unlocked and Break Shot at C+ Bows--meaning he can debuff both strength and speed at the same time and ensure he can land the hit. He even gets Ward Arrow, which is great to turn off a mage than can potentially spell danger for a nearby ally. In terms of his boons, he is blessed with an Authority boon and 3 different rallies--speed, dex, and strength. Rally Speed comes at /D/ Authority--even sooner than Annette. Rally Speed is one of the most useful rallies early game, and he gets it pretty much instantly. His other boons are in Swords and Bows. His canon class is Archer>Sniper, but I feel he's more inclined to be an Assassin. Either way, he'll end up a crit machine, but Assassin will capitalize on his speed more. He also has a budding talent in Reason and a pretty decent spell list. His ice spells have high crit, which complement Ignatz's natural crit capabilities. He also has access to Physic and can be your secondary healer (however his magic growth is worse than his strength growth). The bad: Unfortunately, aside from his good speed, dex, and luck, every other stat is pretty bad. There's a lot to name, but he suffers from bad strength like Ashe and Bernie and his survivability is just as bad (but he technically has the "highest" defense growth out of the 3 ... at only 5% more than Ashe LOL). He may prove to be a liability on the battlefield if he were ever to get attacked, but his speed is high enough that this can be POTENTIALLY salvaged. His speed isn't high enough to be reliable dodge tank, but it's up there and can dodge just fine. His magic is pretty low, too, despite having a good spell list. So either way, his offensive capabilities fall very short. Also, despite being blessed with an Authority boon, Rally Strength comes at S Authority for Ignatz and that's probably not gonna happen unless you only train him in authority and bows. On top of that, his charm growth is low (4+25%), so although he can guarantee a hit with a gambit, he's not gonna deal a lot of damage (Personally, I never use gambits for damage anyway, I just use them to stun monsters and break their armor). And he even has one of the worst banes--a bane in flying. I'm not a fan of the whole make-everyone-a-Wyvern-lord-to-slay kinda thing, so I wouldn't even consider putting him down the Wyvern path even if it would patch up his worst stats (he doesn't even have boons in lances or axes). But, Ignatz would really appreciate Alert Stance and he can't really get that easily. I also kinda hate saying he'd "make a good dancer" cause that's kinda the same as saying "he's a bad unit so just make him dance," but considering his boons, he's probably second in line to be a canon dancer next to Dorothea (if he's not second in line to be an Assassin). Overall, with a +1 bias, I give Ignatz a 7/10. He is a supportive bow unit who's loaded with debuffers and rallies as well as having a great crit potential. He boasts the title of being the most accurate character in the game with his personal and can guarantee a hit with any weapon from any distance. However, he suffers from abysmal stats and lacks offensive capabilities as well as having low survivability. He can be a very reliable and useful unit if invested in.

Aw man, I missed Hilda's haha. She's one of my faves. But Lorenz tho. I'm ngl, he's definitely the weakest of the Golden Deer especially with standout units like Lysithea, Leonie, and Hilda. He's disappointed me in both of my Verdant Wind playthroughs and I had no idea how to salvage him at all. The good (More like "the okay" cause that's the best I can get with Lorenz): Lorenz has the most balanced and even stat line out of any unit, with similar Strength and Magic at 8 and 7+40% respectively. All of his stats seem to average at about 6~7+40%, but his luck is on the lower end at 5+25%. He can take a hit better than most magic-oriented units as his HP and Defense stats are the highest for any magic oriented unit at 28+55% and 5+30%. Despite having very balanced stats, they all seem fall below average. He will do good--or more so okay--on either a physical or magical route, but will not excel at either. However, because of how balanced his stats are, he's better suited for a hybrid class more than any other unit. He's better off going down the mage route rather than Paladin (which is his supposed "canon" class) as Paladin will hurt his speed greatly. His reason spell list isn't too shabby; Ragnarok, Sagittae, and Agnea's Arrow are pretty decent hard-hitting spells. Lorenz also gets Frozen Lance very early at C+ Lances, and out of anybody, he's probably the best at using it due to his higher bulk compared to Marianne and Hubert and can actually attack close-range safely. Lorenz's biggest plus is that he's the one that unlocks Thyrsus with his paralogue, which is regarded as one of the best relics in the game. But let's be 100% honest, do you EVER give it to Lorenz??? When Lysithea is in the same house??? Regardless, Thyrsus works really well with Lorenz when going down a magic path, but it works well for any magic unit with a crest. He's overall a below-average unit at best with below average stats, but because of the balance between magical and physical in his kit, he's the "best" candidate for a hybrid path. The bad: Even though Lorenz does have the most balance in his stats, he will never excel in either a physical or magical class and will only be "okay" at either. Both his magic and strength are relatively average, but on the lower side meaning he won't be able to deal enough damage to ever ORKO nor does he have the speed to double. His only hopes of ORKO-ing enemies is with Fortress Knights. His charm growth is okay, but his base is a hilarious 3--so his gambit attacks will need some time to deal decent damage but at least he has his crest for +5 mt with gambits (with only a 10% proc rate). Also, his low charm base makes it fairly difficult for him to reach the threshold to become a dancer should he ever disappoint you on the battlefield. Also, as a mage, his faith list is quite disappointing--with his extra spells being Recover and Ward. Recover is a good healing spell especially if you need one on the front lines, but Ward is very, very niche should it even be used at all. He lacks any talent in either an offensive or supportive role making him very difficult to use. It'll be very difficult for him to ORKO anything and he lacks the Dex and Luck to even have a chance of a crit-kill--which is something even Ashe and Caspar can do. My personal experience with him has been pretty bad in both my Verdant Wind playthroughs. In my second playthrough, he was actually doing so well in the early game as a mage and was OHKO-ing pretty much everything. However, he just fell off mid-game and all he could do was deal enough damage so the next person could take the kill. On top of that, his personality is shit. The only thing I found I liked about him was that he was Claude's only m/m paired ending. Overall, I give him a 3/10. He has the most balanced stat line out of any unit, with similar bases and growths in both magic and strength. He also has better bulk compared other magic-oriented units and can take a hit better than they could. However, everything about him falls below average and will never excel in any one path. I personally found even Ashe and Caspar to be significantly more reliable than Lorenz has. Poor guy.

Omg YES, CLAUDE. My original name was kia_kula meaning "Golden Deer" in Hawaiian, just cause I loved Claude so much HAHA. Claude is hands-down my top favorite character in this whole game and is arguably the best unit, probably topping Edelgard and Dimitri. He's HOT, lovable, speedy, strong, and a downright crit-machine--how can you hate this guy? But maybe I'm just being biased LOL. I'll do my best to rate him in a completely unbiased manner, but that'll be insanely difficult for me HAHA. Prepare yourselves, for I am about to hand you guys a whole-ass academic journal about the god of the Golden Deer, CLAUDE. In this essay I'll-- The good: Well, for one, HE'S LIKE HOT. A PoC man like me appreciates a PoC man like Claude. Jokes aside, Claude has a lot going on for him. Despite having the lowest strength growth out of the three lords, he is undoubtedly the fastest. His base speed is 8, which is actually the same as Edelgard, but his growth is 55%--tied for the second highest growth with Felix and just behind the speedy girls. As you play through the game, Dimitri and Edelgard may have the strength to OHKO, but Claude will have the speed to always double and resist doubling as well as ORKO. On top of that, he is an exceptional dodge tank where the other excel more in physical tanking. Aside from being the obvious speedster of the lords, his other standout stats are also where the other two lords fall behind--and that's in Dex and Luck which are at 8+60% and 7+45% respectively. He is tied with Lysithea for having the highest dex growth in the whole game, and combined with his great luck stat, he will have a 105%(!!!) crit rate growth. Petra is regarded as the crit queen, but hers is just 95% compared to Claude's 105%. Claude will run around in circles critting everything he sees. Alongside his high dex, he also has a high charm stat of 8+55% which is a given as he is a Lord character. You can trust Claude to never miss with either a bow or a gambit since he has the dex and charm for it. Now aside from his great stats, his skill proficiencies are definitely worth the mention. When his budding talent in Axes is unlocked (which nets him Diamond Axe), he will have a total 5 skill boons--tied for the most with Edelgard, Marianne, and Cyril (minus DLC Balthus who has 6). This allows from him to be one of the most versatile physical units in the game especially with his preference for bows and axes. His other boons include Swords, Authority, and Flying--all great and useful boons. Training his skills is pretty much no-effort/low investment as he automatically promotes into his personal classes, Wyvern Master and Barbarossa, which are arguably the best in the game and only available to Claude (pls don't argue with me I'm bad at arguing). Barbarossa basically patches up all of his weaker stats which will later help Claude prove himself as one of the top units of the game. It's also the only flying class in the game that has Bowfaire--and we can all agree both flying and bows are the best HAHA (Kinshi Knight, take notes). Wind God upon mastery is also pretty broken, having 5-range and +10 hit. However, before he receives these classes,the paths paved out for him are usually for the Archer>Sniper>Bow Knight or Wyvern paths (and according to Edelgard's paralogue, this is very much because he is of Almyran ancestry HAHA). Achieving Hit +20 and Death Blow is a no-brainer for him and is definitely worth picking up for Claude--Death Blow especially because his strength is lower than the other lords. Unfortunately, Darting Blow isn't an option for him, but can you imagine Claude with Darting Blow? With his boon in swords and the fact that he gets his own special holy sword (Sword of Begalta), Assassin is actually not a bad choice for him either as it compliments his already high speed and dex (I've never tried this, but now I want to LOL). Next, his crest is also worth a mention. His Minor Crest of Riegan allows him to recover 30% of damage dealt with a combat art, which acts very similar to Byleth's Crest of Flames. Honestly, it could be better, but what's great about the Crest of Riegan is Claude's access to Fallen Star--a broken combat art LOL. Claude's given a free dodge after using it which really comes in handy especially against the final boss. I'm not even done talking about Claude, but I'll keep my next point short since I rambled on about my man LOL. Last thing to mention is his combat arts. Because of all of his boons, he has a lot, but the main one I want to mention is Encloser. He and Bernadetta are the only ones to learn Encloser and is one of the more useful bow combat arts, as he can salvage a unit in a danger zone from getting damaged or even killed. Overall, Claude has a lot of great assets allowing him to be considered as one of the best in the game, but what else can you expect from a Lord character? Haha. Okay, now the bad: I want to keep it fair and ramble on about his flaws as much as I did his assets, but dang that's a lot LOL. Now his biggest weakness in comparison to the other lords is his low strength and survivability. Despite having a rather high 11 base, his growth is 40% which can fall into an RNG trap. Honestly, I never had a problem with is strength and always competed with Byleth for having the highest strength in my Golden Deer playthroughs. His defense and HP are also relatively low at 26+35% and 6+30%--the lowest out of the 3 lords and pretty low for a physical unit. He can't take a hit as well as either Dimitri or Edelgard, however I find that his high speed can compensate for that as he has high dodge potential--which is something the other 2 can't do as well as Claude. He is also a ranged fighter, which means he'll probably be out of range of enemy attacks on PP and can also keep him safe from damage. I was gonna mention his low resistance as well, but the lords both have bad resistance too LOL. In terms of skill weaknesses, he does unfortunately have a bane in lances which can hinder him from achieving Bow Knight should you put him down that path or any other horse-mounted class. ... I--... yup that's it. I can't ramble on about his weaknesses as much as I did his strengths LOL. I tried my hardest not to be biased, I really did. But I love this guy and I gotta give him a perfect 10/10. Despite being the physically weakest and frailest out of the 3 lords, he is definitely the most nimble and agile boasting the high speed and dex that the other two wish they had. He is given the exclusive class of Barbarossa, arguably the best class in the game as it is the only designated bow-oriented flying class and also patches up Claude's weaknesses with great growths. He is also very versatile with his many skill proficiencies and has access to great combat arts on top of his personal Relic. He's a top tier unit and one of the best.

This wasn't my doing, but I saw it in a comment on Reddit and I cracked the hell up LOL: It was a guide/tutorial to beat chapter 4 in Fates (the one where Corrin turns into a dragon for the first time) and this guy commented saying that he was having such a hard time that he just leveled Azura to level 19 by singing and slaughtered the rest of the map with her. But something I did was: On the final map of Crimson Flower, I killed Catherine with Edelgard, stole her Thunderbrand, then killed Gilbert with Thunderbrand. true villian stuff right here.

Ah, Ingrid. Pegasus Knights are hands down my favorite class of the whole series (hence my name) despite being a gender-locked class in all games except Fates, and Ingrid has the privilege of being the only designated Pegasus Knight in Three Houses. She shares the same archetype with Leonie and Petra being high-speed units. I like to call these 3 the "speedy girls" HAHA. She is a great unit especially in the late game, but I feel she falls in comparison to Leonie and Petra mainly due to her strength. The good: As always, I'll start with her stats. Ingrid displays the stats of your traditional Pegasus Knight: low strength/low defense, but high-speed/high resistance. Majority of her stats are fairly well-rounded averaging to about ~7+40% in each stat--all pretty good and I would consider them to be pretty above average. She has a notable 8+45% charm growth, which compliments her personal that boosts her might with gambits by +5. However her biggest selling point is her lighting fast 8+60% speed stat--having the highest growth with Petra and Leonie (minus DLC and tied with Manuela if you wanna count her? LOL). Strangely, her base speed is 1 point lower than Ashe's but she will grow to be faster in the long run. She is one of the more reliable dodge tanks in the game and she is almost always guaranteed to double or resist getting doubled. In terms of her skill proficiencies, she along with Ferdinand and Leonie boast the lack of skill banes and has 4 boons to top that. Her skill proficiencies are Swords, Lances, Riding, and Flying--four of some of the most ideal boons to have. Being a canon Pegasus Knight, it's no question that she has boons in Lances and Flying, but Lances and Riding provide a smooth path to almost any master class available. She's neutral in Axes, so Wyvern Lord isn't really out of the question, but I find Falcon Knight to be slightly better (or maybe I'm biased HAHA). Despite being considered a "jack of all trades," I find her path to be more so focused on physical classes in flying and riding more than anything else. She also gets her own relic: the Luin. It's pretty similar to Sylvain's Lance of Ruin, but has lower might and higher hit. Her relic also gives her access to Burning Quake, which has +10 avoid--further accentuating Ingrid's ability to dodge tank. EDIT: I had NO idea Burning Quake calculated damage based on her speed, but that is amazing considering speed is her best stat LOL The bad: While despite having the strengths of a typical Pegasus Knight, she also shares their glaring weaknesses. She is known to be a snowball character, having a really rough start compared to her other housemates and the other 2 speedy girls. Her biggest problem that many have complained about is her very low strength: 8+35%. This is literally on par with Ashe, and even Ashe might gain more strength than her as snipers get a +5% strength growth (not a lot, but it's something). She has a very hard time killing in the beginning and in my personal experience, she had to keep using Tempest Lance to reliably kill (which in turn kept draining the durability of her lances). Her strength problem can be relieved by putting her in Paladin for an advanced class after Pegasus Knight, but her speed will take a hit which is something you want to capitalize on. Also, despite having the highest speed growth, her base speed is at 8 and caps at 83, so she's technically slower than Petra and Leonie who have 10 and 9 at base respectively. I'm using "slow" very VERY lightly here, as she is still faster than every other character in the game LOL. But having 8 base speed means she won't be able to display her full potential until later in the game when her growths kick in. Strangely enough though, in my AM run, Felix always consistently had at least 2 more points of speed than her. Her survivability is also questionable. Despite having a great resistance stat, just like your usual Pegasus Knight, she suffers from low defense at 5+30%. Her superb ability to dodge makes this almost irrelevant, but the chance that an enemy lands a hit, she may take more damage than expected. Also, aside from Burning Quake, she doesn't really have any special combat arts. Hit and Run stands out, but I found that it rarely ever killed but the extra avoid is nice. If anything, if you want some chip damage, use Ingrid's combat arts. I also want to point out that, if you're not playing Blue Lions, Ingrid strangely benefits the most from enemy growths. So the later you recruit her, the better. It's just in my opinion in terms of the story, she has the least reason to leave the Blue Lions, like I have a hard time justifying her to side with any other house. ... am I rating ingrid or am i rating pegasus knights in general LOL Overall, I give her an 8/10. And this is me being unbiased HAHA. I do really like Pegasus Knights, but as a character, I'm not the biggest fan of Ingrid herself tbh. She has a rough start with her low strength and despite having an overall high speed stat, it's just above average at base. However, her great above-average growths means she will snowball into a great unit that excels at dodge-tanking and will almost always double or resist doubling, as well as be your best mage-killer. The pathways paved out for her are many with her skill proficiencies and a lack of any skill banes, and will do well in any physical mounted class.

I'm ngl, I was reading advice from forums, guides, etc. on an ideal way to build Annette because I didn't know what to class her as, and a LOT of people SWORE by Wyvern@Bolt Axe+ Annette. So, I decided to give it as shot and spent majority of the first half of the game training her in flying, axes, lances, and reason. Since this was a lot already, I just ignored Faith, making Gremory not an option should this build have failed. Oh man, did I screw the hell up. Yeah, Bolt Axe+ is great and it gives her a strong 3-range option, but it's 65 hit is unreliable and should Annette fail to hit, she's pretty much gone. She won't be even be able to dodge or double because of her low speed (and strength which I hear lowers weight). On top of that Crusher is locked to 1-range, and despite being one of the strongest magic weapons in the game, it's terrible on Annette. Using it will force her on the front lines and relying on her killing enemies in one hit. Even then, poor positioning may prove fatal for her. Also, Wyvern Lord doesn't have access to magic so the 2 magic axes will be her only option. To be fair, I relieved her of her accuracy issues by equipping +hit battalions and an accuracy ring, and Bolt Axe+ on Warlock Annette was pretty reliable if her wind spells couldn't kill. I ended up reclassing her back to Warlock for a good chunk of the game and started grinding her Faith like crazy in the end so she could just end up as a Gremory super late game. I got her certified at level 38--basically the end of the game. I take full responsibility for messing up Annette LOL. I should have just rallybot-ted her when I realized it wasn't working out for her. Just put her in a magic class and plug a Bolt Axe+ on her LOL. Had she been conceived a generation or 2 earlier, she would have competed with Camilla as a Malig Knight, but sadly she was created in a FE generation that lacks a Magic+Axe class. I feel like I have no place in critiquing Annette properly because of how bad I screwed her over, but I'll just continue with my usual format and keep it brief. The good: She ties with Lysithea and Dorothea for having the second highest base magic and falls short to Hubert at 11+55% magic. As the game progresses she will trail behind both Hubert and Lysithea in damage. Other than being a mage, what Annette is known for is her access to great rallies. Her personal is basically a built-in Rally Strength, then she learns Rally Resistance, Speed, and Movement at Authority D, C+, and S respectively. Rally Resistance and Speed will come fairy early game if you train her in Authority and it will prove to be very useful especially early game--even late game as well. The bad: Despite being Blue Lions' only designated mage (bar Mercedes), her unfortunately suffers from a poor spell list. While wind magic isn't bad and Excalibur specifically is effective against fliers, they fall short of damage and lack a 3-range option. This can be relieved with Thyrsus--in which she has a crest so she can use it without penalty. Or she can use Caduceus Staff, which is much more easily available. Or you know, Bolt Axe+ LOL. But you gotta get her to B Axes if you want to use it. Aside for her mediocre Reason spell list, her Faith spell lacks anything outstanding as well. She gets Recover and Abraxas, leaving much more to be desired. Overall, with a -1 from my personal experience messing her up, I give her a 5/10. She is a strange magic-oriented unit that can deal decent damage with her wind spells and can utilize magic axes, but suffers from a mediocre spell list in both Reason and Faith. She is also considered to be the best rallybot in the game, in possession of Rally Strength, Speed, Resistance, and Movement. She has potential to go down a magic-focused axe path, but this path is very gimmicky. I'm not gonna doubt that she can prove to be an magic axe goddess, but it just didn't work out for me.

I'm pretty surprised with the ratings she's getting so far, I've always kind of perceived her as the "best" healer in the game. I really like Mercedes and she is pretty valuable to have on the battlefield, as a healer should be. The good: Being a designated healer, her stats stand out in magic. She has 10+50% in magic, 9+45% in resistance, and 6+50% in dex. She also has an 8+40% in charm, which is surprisingly good. These are all respectable and serve her well being a healing mage as she can heal a good chunk of HP and take a magic hit pretty well. Her magic falls short to Annette or Hubert (not even gonna compare to Lysithea LOL), but will surpass that of Linhardt and Dorothea in the long run. Being primarily a healer, it's no question that her skill proficiencies lie only in Reason and Faith and is tied with Bernadetta for having the most banes. However, I find that her banes in Swords, Lances, Axes, and Heavy Armor to be completely irrelevant as she is more than likely--if not always--going to be in a magic class. It's also worth noting that she has a budding talent in bows, which unlocks Waning Shot. An okay combat art, but it suits her magic image well (healing+bows=hoshido priestess tbh HAHA). It's just as a pure healer, she won't have much use for it. Next, I'll be going into her biggest strength which is her spell list, more specifically her Faith spell list. Her Reason spell list is good, not great--and actually it's identical to Byleth's. But her Faith spell list is where she really stands out. She possesses pretty much every single healing spell in the game: Physic, Restore, and Fortify. Physic is a given, no need to explain LOL. But Restore and Fortify definitely have it's uses. Albeit very situational, but still very helpful otherwise. And with her great magic stat, she can cover some range with these spells even if she stays in the backlines. Also, her crest allows her to conserve healing magic uses, which can come in handy. It's 10% proc rate is really low though and isn't reliable. It's just a nice surprise when it does activate HAHA. Having all of these spells means she will be of use during every turn proving her worth as a sole support unit. The bad: Mercedes excels as a support unit/healer. However, this comes at the cost of combat prowess--which is what she really lacks. As I mentioned, her twin-spell list with Byleth is subpar as it lacks any 3-range options as well has having few uses. And despite having a good growth in magic, her damage output won't be as hefty as Annette's. I do have to admit, with her magic growth she does have potential to be quite a potent offensive mage. Also, she suffers from poor survivability with 5+25% defense and 30+25% HP. Unless it's a mage that's hitting her, she won't be able to take more than a hit or two. She's got more than Lysithea, but still it's not good enough to survive on her own. Her 8+40% speed isn't too bad though. And even though she enjoys a great Faith spell list of healing magic, she does lack any other type of support outside of healing. She doesn't have Warp or Rescue or anything so she won't be doing much other than healing. I did plug Stride onto her, so that she can do more than just heal. Also, her lance weakness hinders her from reaching Holy Knight or Dark Knight if ever you want to take her down that path (Holy Knight is next to useless to her as she lacks any offensive Faith spells other than Nosferatu). Lastly, I feel like her personal skill leaves much more to be desired. Yeah, it's great she can self heal, but more than likely she shouldn't be taking damage. It won't really do much for her unless there's damaging terrain or she was in range of a gambit or a beast's attack. EDIT: Oh, I forgot her relic. A relic so irrelevant that I completely forgot about it LOL. With Caspar in your party, you unlock her paralogue that nets you the Rafail Gem, which nullifies effective damage and prevents enemies from critting. While it may seem useful in writing, it's completely useless on Mercedes who should never see combat. It may be more useful on your fliers to eliminate their weakness to bows--Ingrid being a good example as she is a designated Pegasus Knight in the same house as Mercedes and has a crest. However, her paralogue as a story is worth noting as it provides some very useful insight on not just Mercedes' backstory, but for the whole game's story as well. Overall, I give her a solid 8.5/10. She is built to be a pure healer and nothing else, with a great Faith spell list consisting of only healing magic. However, she does lack support outside of healing and is fairly inept at combat if ever you needed to use her for that. Regardless, she is a great and useful unit to have on the battlefield.

Oh, Sylvain. I really grew to love this guy. I hated him so much at first, then learning more about him, I really learned to love him LOL. Sylvain is a very competent, above average unit. He is a reliable delete button with his notable Swift Strikes and has respectable stats all-around. He's got a lot going for him, except for the fact that he can't get a girl LOL. The good: I normally start with stats, but I'll just get this out of the way: Swift Strikes. Sylvain has access to Swift Strikes at lance A and is regarded as one of the best combat arts in the game, offering a guaranteed double--and it is remarkably difficult to double on Maddening. Swift Strikes combined with his relic--which is available very, very early (def gets points for this)--crest, and personal, he can reliably deal massive amounts of damage. It's widely regarded as a delete button by many. Swift Strikes is just so good that his other combat arts are pretty much ignored LOL. His crest even has a 40% proc rate which is much higher than other minor crests. Okay, now let me get into his stats LOL. He has above average stats all around. Stats worth pointing out are his 27+55% HP, 9+45% strength, 8+50% speed, 6+40% defense, and 7+40% charm. All good, average-to-above-average stats, nothing outstanding, but can prove he is competent on the battlefield. He can deal decent damage and take it fairly well. It's also worth pointing out his speed is pretty good, but if you take him down his "canon" (I'm ngl, I kinda hate this word in a FE context LOL) path of being a Paladin, it can drop to 40%--but you can choose to avoid this by taking him down other paths such as Wyvern Lord. Speaking of which, he has boons in lances, axes, and riding--making him a very versatile unit. A boon in lances and riding paves a smooth path to many of the master classes should you choose to bring him into one. And axes offers him easy access to Death Blow and Wyvern Lord. He also has a budding talent in reason, which unlocks Black Magic Avoid +20. Avoid skills are always great to have, and Reason allows him to easily class into Dark Knight which I find to be a very good class in general. However, his magic growth is subpar and is much preferable as a physical unit. Despite his mediocre magic growth, he has pretty solid spell list for a physical unit. Ragnarok, Sagittae, and Bolganone are okay spells, but I think his Faith spell list stands out much more. He actually has access to Physic and he is (strangely) the only male character to have access to Seraphim, which I personally find to be the best offensive Faith spell there is. Overall, Sylvain is just great all-around and very well-rounded. He is the epitome of "above average." The bad: While I find Sylvain to be a great character than can last you the whole game, I find that he isn't outstanding at any one thing. He has good strength, but falls short to Felix. He has a solid spell list, but is out-damaged by Annette (okay, to be fair, Sylvain's spell list is better LOL). He has decent speed, but Ingrid is much quicker. He is also outshined as a Dark Knight by Lorenz as Sylvain's magic growth isn't as good (but I don't find Lorenz to be that great honestly LOL). Also it is extremely unfortunate that male lance-preferred characters don't have access to the best lance-based class: Falcon Knight. Male lance characters--Dimitri, Ferdinand, and Sylvain--get stuck at Paladin, which is a good class (better than Great Knight), but the -10% speed penalty is painful. And since all these characters have pretty good speed, it really sucks they won't be able to maximize that. On the other hand, female lance characters (Ingrid and Leonie) get to bask in the ambiance of a +20% speed growth in Falcon Knight WITH Lancefaire. This is just in general tho, not Sylvain LOL. ANYWAYS. His last flaw worth mentioning is his bane in Bows. Now, he doesn't necessarily need to be a bow character, there's plenty of other characters that can fill that role, but Sylvain has a naturally low dex so the Hit+20 would really help him. Overall, I give him an 8.5/10. He is overall a well-rounded, versatile, above average unit having good growths in many stats with access to a good crest and personal. His biggest selling point is Swift Strikes, which is a double-hitting combat art and is one of the most reliable at ORKO-ing enemies. However, despite being a good physical unit, he falls in comparison to other units that excel at one thing better than Sylvain does himself.

This actually makes so much more sense. Three Houses is my first FE game, so a lot of my expectations of Fates were based off of 3H haha. I was so used to throwing in my best dodge tank in the middle of a danger zone to aggro enemies in 3H, but that tactic lead to the worst results in Fates and I couldn't understand why, but I guess now I do LOL. The amount of math in this a is a huge headache. You know, I have no idea why I never looked her stats up (probably because I only use her to sing), but I just did and I'm really surprised but I believe it since she undoubtedly has more strength than my Corrin. Right now, my Azura has 24 strength at level 30 and my Corrin has 26 at level 18 post-Master Seal. So proportionately, she has more strength. Once again because of 3H, my expectations of what a dancer was (or in Azura's case, songstress) was supposed to be a weaker unit that shouldn't see combat, but her stats say she should be really efficient on handling her own. I always strayed her away from combat tho, so her weapon ranks never built up and I couldn't equip more than a brass Naginata on her haha.

Nooooooo, not my bby Ashe 😭 He's one of my top 3 favorite characters both as a character and as a unit, it hurts seeing these ratings for him but I understand LOL. Yeah, Ashe isn't necessarily a great unit, and there's nothing that really sets him apart from other bow-based characters, but he was amazing in my BL playthrough. I took him down the basic archer-sniper-bow knight path and he ended up a crit machine (always at least 75-85% crit rate). He was MVP for several of my late game chapters in Hard/Classic. I even used him to wipe out a whole HP bar for the boss in the final map. Even tho he's not a great unit, he can be pretty good if you invest in him. Keyword: invest LOL. But yeah, there's plenty of other better units. I wanna end this on a good note, so I'll start off with the bad: Honestly, Ashe finds his flaws in his stats. There's a lot to list, but to put it shortly, he has low growths strength, defense, magic, AND charm--none of these exceeding 35%. This unfortunately really hinders his performance in any class available as his damage output AND damage intake will be poor. He will be very lacking in either a physical or a magic role with his stats. Because of his stats, he may prove to be a liability on the battlefield especially on enemy phase. He's a physically-oriented unit with a preference in bows, but he lacks type of standout feature that sets him apart from the other bow oriented units--as Leonie has Point-Blank Volley, Bernadetta has Vengeance, and Ignatz is loaded with debuffers and rallies. Ashe overall is an "okay" unit at best, falling below-average. Unfortunately, he is plagued with a pretty bad personal, as well. It has it's uses, yes, but it doesn't offer him anything useful in combat. The good: Despite having abysmal stats in every other category, his dex, speed, and luck are part of his saving grace--at 8+55%, 9+50%, 6+40% respectively. If put on the right path, he can be a speedy crit machine with an amazing 95% crit rate growth (dex+luck). This is actually on par with PETRA (minus her personal), and I did find him to crit very, very often--which is something I noticed many people miss to acknowledge. His combat arts are pretty decent as well, having Deadeye, Waning Shot, and his budding talent as Shatter Slash. While not amazing, these definitely have their uses and can allow Ashe to chip decently so that others can steal the kill--but let's be real, he has to NOT crit in order to chip, which he probably might HAHA. His boons are also pretty worthy of noting, being one of three characters that possess a boon in both Axes and Bows. This can put him on a smooth path to 2 of the considered best classes in the game: Bow Knight and Wyvern Lord, as well as easy access to Death Blow and Hit +20--all very useful niches to have. Having a boon in both Axes and Bows, he shares the niche of being a bow-wielding Wyvern with Cyril. Flying bows are arguably the best in the game (something the Kinshi Knight of Fates wishes it was), and Ashe can transition easily to that. However, he is neutral in flying while Cyril is proficient. Wyvern+Locktouch can prove to be useful when needed, as well also he's a bby that should be protected ALWAYS Overall, with a +1 bias, I give him a 6/10. He is lacking in almost every stat category minus speed, dex, and luck, giving him a very poor performance on the battlefield. He also lacks any standout feature from other comparable units, but if invested in, he can excel as high-speed crit-machine. and he's the best boi of the blue lions NO QUESTIONS

So, I'm on chapter 25 on my current playthrough and here's how it went as Falcon Knight Corrin: This experience has definitely been a snowball experience and my biggest obstacle was strength over anything else. In the beginning, oh man, I STRUGGLED. I decided to go +Speed so that I could dodge tank and consistently double, but I found that the game's RNG was not as friendly as Three Houses as enemies would frequently hit me even at a 35% even /15%/ hit rate. A 15-35% hit chance was pretty much a guaranteed dodge in 3H. Or maybe I'm just unlucky? LOL. But in the beginning, my strength took a hit as soon as I reclassed into Sky Knight and it was pretty bad. Before reclassing, I had 13 strength as a Nohr Prince at level 10--pretty decent, I could ORKO mostly everything. But then it shot down to 9 strength when I switched to Sky Knight and after losing access to Yato. Yeah, I was doubling, but 5x2 damage is not killing anything LOL. At that point, both Subaki and Hinoka were hitting way harder than I was and I couldn't reliably kill. I didn't even get a single strength level up until lvl 13, and I was so desperate for extra damage that I actually save-scummed the next few levels just so I could build my damage output. Azura got more strength points than I did LOL--not even joking. I knew Pegasus Knights were low on strength, but dang, I didn't realize it was that bad LOL. I had to take the few energy drops you get because I wanted my main unit to be the /main/ unit, you know? LOL. Thankfully, it started to improve as the game progressed, with the right weapons (forged) and pair-ups and better levels. Silas' pair-up bonuses were my biggest help. And thank SOTHIS that Master Seal-ing to Falcon Knight gave me an extra +2 in strength. In the mid-game, I was finally able to consistently ORKO and double and I finally surpassed my other fellow Pegasus Knights LOL. In the end, I was doubling 35+ with an Iron Naginata+3, which was such a relief from the beginning. I decided to pick-up Spear Master from Shiro (I just wanted a male-male thing going on, okay? LOL), so I grinded a little bit to get Lancefaire to help my damage output. Lancefaire is a late-game skill anyway, so it didn't feel late achieving it. I felt like I regretted doing +Speed over +Strength, but I'm kinda glad I did speed cause my Corrin/Kamui has over 40 speed now. I even went online to try and seize a castle for some skills, and their Corrin managed to trigger Astra. But only hit me twice LOL. But like I said, most of the time the RNG is not in my favor HAHA. And last, Subaki has actually been fairly competent in my playthrough, but to be fair, I did baby him quite a bit and even picked up Lancefaire online. His saving grace was Saizo's pair-up bonus and that I got lucky finding multiples of his weapon, Subaki's Pike--which is actually really REALLY broken when forged.

I feel like most people have recommended the most ideal order to be Verdant Wind>Azure Moon>Crimson Flower>Silver Snow. Honestly with a series like Fire Emblem, canon is a really difficult word to use and just play whichever one you think will appeal to you more.

I hope I'm not too late, I missed Dimitri's post haha. Dedue is a character of extremes, with very strong strengths, but very weak weaknesses. His early game performance is vital for the Blue Lions, being an amazing physical tank, but his performance can notably fall later in the game. However, I found him to perform quite well in the end as a War Master. But then again, War Master is a great class for any physical unit lol. So, the good: Dedue is regarded as one of the best physical tanks in the game with the highest base and growth rate in defense (8+50%) out of any unit. His personal boosts his defense an extra +4 when waiting, giving him a whopping 12 at base. He will pretty much take almost 0 physical damage for the first half of part one, maybe even throughout his whole presence in the game. My favorite use for Dedue was putting him in the middle of a danger zone to aggro enemies and get gangbanged, then watch him take like 3 damage at most LOL. His strength is also one of his key assets. 12 base means he's on par with Dimitri, and 50% growth is great only being surpassed by Dimitri himself as well as Felix and Edelgard. So after taking no damage on enemy phase, he will then continue to slaughter those poor enemies. I even found him to ORKO enemy Fortress Knights just by throwing hands while this job is usually done by magic users. His weapon proficiencies are pretty worth of mention as well, having boons in lances, axes, brawling, and heavy armor. Axes and Brawling boons are always a good thing, as both put him on a super smooth path to War Master and it becomes very easy to achieve Death Blow and Healing Focus. Axes are supposed to provide a smooth transition to Wyvern Lord, but I'll get into his bane in flying later LOL. Overall, Dedue excels as a physical defensive unit--the best tank you can get--and shines on the front lines against other physical enemies. Now, the bad: Before his weaknesses as a unit, what hurts him the most is his absence in a good chunk of part 2. He misses out important leveling and instructing, putting him behind his fellow classmates once he comes back. You can always grind him with auxiliary battles so that he can catch up, but these are limited in Hard/Maddening and it's just kind of annoying to take that kind of detour. I abused him on the frontlines with a knowledge gem before he left in hopes of relieving this, and it worked to some degree, but he was still behind. Now his weaknesses as a unit: his biggest flaw is his terrible speed. At 7+20%, he's almost guaranteed to get doubled throughout pretty much the whole game. Now, I didn't really find his speed to be that much of a problem with physical enemies as they did very little damage, and even if they did decent damage, his high HP covered that. But what gets him are mages. Yes, putting him near to a mage is a horrible, horrible idea, but there are times when mages are in the same vicinity as other enemies and he might end up getting hit by them as well. His resistance is a grotesque 1+10%, so he is bound to die if even something like Warp were to touch him. I also found his accuracy to be a problem, rooted in his low dex growth of 30%. I always found his hit rate to be always around the 60-85 range and rarely above 90. In terms of his combat arts, they're good--but not great. One-Two Punch is nice as it guarantees a follow-up, but gauntlets naturally have a brave effect, so he's always gonna double with one equipped anyway. The extra damage from One-Two Punch is appreciated, though. Lastly, his skill banes. His boons are in lances and axes. Lances are important as they are the most versatile in the game, as all mounted master classes require it. However, he has banes in both riding AND flying--making Wyvern Lord or any master class very difficult to achieve. It's unfortunate, as Wyvern Lord would patch up his speed issues. I wouldn't say his lack of prowess in magic is bad tho, as saying Dedue has bad magic potential is the same as saying Mercedes has bad Fortress Knight potential. I feel like I've drabbled on about Dedue LOL. I was originally gonna give him a decent score of like 6.5 or 7, but I realized his weaknesses outweigh his strengths, so I give Dedue a 5.5/10. He's regarded as the best physical tank in the game, taking little damage but dealing plenty. However, he is hindered by his bad speed and resistance and his absence in the first half of part 2.

Petra is one of the few units in Black Eagles that actually stay consistently good throughout the whole game, as even Edelgard has a pretty rough start with her accuracy. With her insane speed and reasonable strength, she's regarded as one of the top units in the game (and definitely one of my favorites, combat-wise and personality/story-wise). Her comparable units would be Ingrid and Leonie, the other speedy girls of the game. The good, there's a lot to say here: Petra's biggest selling point is her speed, with a base of 10 and a growth rate of 60%--the highest in the game only behind Yuri, who's DLC. She's the only one that can double or resist getting doubled in the early game against other high-speed enemies. And with her 60% growth, she'll be able to maintain this speed throughout the whole game. She will be one of your most reliable dodge tanks and is notably very difficult to hit. Her strength with a base of 9 and growth of 40% is pretty decent as well. The growth is good, not great, but it's respectable. Her boons are also worth a mention, with boons in Axes, Bows, AND Flying--three of arguably the top best skills to be proficient. This puts her on a very smooth route to Wyvern classes, further capitalizing on her speedy killing power (it's even one of her canon classes technically). It even gives her the easiest time out of anybody to achieve Death Blow, Darting Blow, and Hit+20 all at once. Lastly, I don't understand why nobody ever mentions a unit's crit rate? Petra's crit rate is insane, and you can even rely on a crit-kill with her. With 50% dex and 45% luck, this puts her at a 95% crit rate growth. However, she does fall behind Ignatz, Ashe, Claude, and Shamir, but all of these characters including Petra can crit pretty reliably. Honestly, Falcon Knight Petra with a Killer Bow+ or Wo Dao+ is a map deleter. On my CF run, I had my Byleth as a Falcon Knight as well and Petra would outshine me. Overall, Petra's just good. She's great. Her many strengths outweigh her few weaknesses. Now, the bad: Petra biggest weakness is her low charm growth, which breaks through her biggest strength as a dodge tank. She'll be pretty prone to gambits and probably won't hit hard with them either, but this isn't too much of a dealbreaker. If you want, you can just spam tea parties with her to boost her charm LOL. Also, despite being a killing crit machine, her 40% growth in strength and 30% growth in defense may lead her into an RNG trap. 9+40% strength is good, but it can potentially fall off later in the game. And if an enemy manages to land a hit on Petra, she can take severe amounts of damage. I honestly had to feed her a few strength boosters mid-game to relieve her strength, and Ingrid actually one-shot my Falcon Knight Petra with Alert Stance+ activated so I had to Divine Pulse her back to life. Lastly, I feel like her personal is pretty mediocre if not completely useless. If an enemy is at 50% health or lower, you're most likely going to kill them anyway even without a crit. Overall, with a +1 bias, I give her a 9/10. Petra is a speed demon-crit machine-dodge tank that stays consistent throughout the game and has easy access to the best classes in the game. However, she may be prone to low strength and defense, and her low charm makes her prone to being hit with gambits. She is a top tier unit with very few weaknesses. (My bias comes with the fact that I like Petra and I just have an affinity for speed-based, high-crit characters HAHA)

So far I've done 4 playthroughs, Verdant Wind twice (once Normal, second Hard), then Crimson Flower, and I just finished Azure Moon (the credits are literally rolling as I type LOL). I wanted to see how Byleth would do in different classes, so I put him/her in a different class for each route. Here's which classes I chose for each path and how I felt about them: First time on Verdant Wind -- Thief>Assassin>Enlightened One (mByleth) I chose the thief path for my very first playthrough because it was my first time playing and thought I should just keep Byleth with his natural affinity to swords. Plus, I just usually have a preference for bows, and Assassins are partially a bow class. I really enjoyed using him as a Thief/Assassin, as he was virtually untouchable and would crit almost every other hit. With the lack of a strength boost in this class path, his damage output did start to fall juuuust a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. Once I unlocked Enlightened One, I just kept him in the class. This is where I also started to train his Faith magic (just because), which I didn't really use much. I was honestly suuuper disappointed in this class mainly because of the lack of speed. I noticed that he was dodging a lot less often than when he was an Assassin. The extra strength growth was okay, but I wasn't dealing crazy amounts of damage or anything. Overall, I enjoyed him more as an Assassin than as Enlightened One mainly because of the speed growth. Enlightened One isn't a bad class per se, but it's not great and it kinda felt like a trap for Byleth. Second time on Verdant Wind -- Thief>Assassin>Bow Knight (mByleth, with a focus on Bows) I enjoyed the Golden Deer so much I wanted to play their route a second time in a row, but I wanted to stay with the bow theme of the house. So, I put Byleth through the same Thief/Assassin path but prioritized using bows before reaching Bow Knight. I also want to mention that for most auxiliary battles, I switched him back to Assassin for the growths, and reclassed him back to Bow Knight for story missions. Don't ask me why I didn't decide to go on the Archer/Sniper path because Idk why I didn't either LOL. I did miss out on the Hit +20 from archer, which did hurt me just a tad bit when he ended up as a Bow Knight, but nothing unsalvageable. I still maintained a pretty decent hit rate even from afar. Overall, this was definitely my top favorite class. It was so much fun sniping enemies from afar and that extra speed and dex from Assassin guaranteed I would crit 5 spaces away. The biggest downside to Bow Knight-Byleth was the fact that he didn't have any combat arts in Bows other than Curved Shot. I mainly relied on basic attacks to kill enemies, but I normally dealt enough damage and had enough speed to double to ORKO most/all enemies. Other than that, Bow Knight-Byleth was a lot of fun to play. Crimson Flower -- Mercenary>Pegasus Knight>Falcon Knight (fByleth, with a focus on lances) I honestly really, REALLY like the Pegasus Knight class, but it's a shame that it's genderlocked. I played female-Byleth on CF just so I could get a feel of the class (and I felt fByleth suited this route well HAHA). It sucks that Pegasus Knight has a really awkward transition to Falcon Knight, so instead of going straight into Pegasus Knight at level 10, I treated it as if were an advanced class and waited until level 20 to certify for Pegasus Knight. I also took this weird path because I know that Pegasus Knights do lack an extra strength growth, so I felt being a Mercenary would help with that. Achieving Vantage was also a nice bonus. Anyways, my thoughts on this class: I loved it, but it took a while for Byleth to really excel. She was a late game bloomer in this path. She wasn't as dodgy as Thief/Assassin-Byleth early game, but it ended up kicking in once I reclassed to Falcon Knight. I'm ngl tho, I had Petra as a Falcon Knight and I think she overshadowed Byleth. Also, training flying for Byleth was really hard because you only have Manuela and Seteth in part 1, and they're not available every chapter. Regardless, this is a great class and probably Byleth's best class option because of the high speed and great mobility, as well as the fact that this class is a secondary swords class making it easier for Byleth than Wyvern Lord. I probably should have skipped Mercenary and went straight for Pegasus Knight, but I think it was a reasonable choice LOOOL. Oh, and having to give up Jeralt's Mercenaries was kinda sad. Azure Moon -- Mage>Warlock>Dark Knight (mByleth) I had pretty low expectations for this route mainly because of Byleth's base 35% growth in magic and average spell list. Honestly, it kind of met my low expectations. In the early game, he did fine and was still able to ORKO enemies because his speed was decent enough to double. However, as the game progressed, he started to fall behind with his tome damage. In the late game, I honestly really relied on Levin Sword+ to deal damage and attack from 3 spaces away. If only Dark Knight had Black Magic x2, then I would have had no problem as Ragnarok was pretty much his strongest spell, but locked to 3 uses. I also had trouble doubling so he couldn't really kill enemies unless he crit, but fortunately that happened often on the best times. Also, going down the magic path for Byleth means his damage with SotC won't be as great, but at least it saves on Umbral Steel? LOL. Overall, magic Byleth isn't bad, and he can deal pretty decent amounts of damage, but you won't really be killing much late game unless you get lucky. Levin Sword+ will be your best friend tho. However, I do wanna say being a mage with the Blue Lions was nice because their only natural mage is Annette (minus Mercedes, who's mainly a support mage), so having the extra magic really came in handy for those enemy Fortress Knights. I haven't done Silver Snow yet, but I feel like Holy Knight might suit the story? But I know it's a bad class and I already struggled with magic Byleth LOL. I kind of want to try War Master Byleth to throw hands tbh. Or Wyvern Lord since I know it's a good class overall? Sorry if this is a long and clunky post, I just had a lot of thoughts LOL. Which classes did you use for Byleth? And how did you like them? I wanna see if any of you guys did Fortress Knight Byleth or something out of the ordinary haha.

When I started CF, I had some expectations for Bernie after reading how out of the 3 baby archers (Bernie, Ignatz, and Ashe), Bernie had the most potential. However, I was pretty disappointed with her in my playthrough and didn't meet any expectations I had for her. It may have just been my own personal experience with her because people swear by her, but she highly underperformed for me. I'll start off with the good: Bernie plays an identical role to the team as Ignatz and Ashe, being low strength, high dex/speed archers--the trio I like to call "the baby archers" HAHA. What sets Bernie apart from the other two is that she has access to skills and combat arts that greatly boost her middling strength and can potentially deal much more damage than Ignatz or Ashe. First, we should talk about her personal: Persecution Complex (strength +5 when below full HP). Her personal is regarded as one of the best in the game, as it is considerably easy to activate and puts her base strength on par with Edelgard once activated. And because her preferred weapon is bows, she can easily kill enemies from afar in the early game. Her combat arts are also what makes her stand out with her access to Encloser and Vengeance-two very uncommon yet insanely useful arts. Bernie is one of only TWO units that have access to Encloser, the other being Claude who is obviously route-exclusive. Encloser really comes in handy if you want to salvage a fellow teammate from receiving damage, providing Bernie with some very useful utility. Vengeance is her most notable art that she learns, as it synergizes perfectly with her personal. Give her the classic Vantage+Wrath combo with Vengeance, and you have yourself a killing machine that embroiders in her free time. Also, Pass---her budding talent--is worth a mention. Any type of buffer to movement is always appreciated. Lastly, Bernie also possesses a surprisingly good spell list. Her Reason spell list consists of ice and thunder spells which deal pretty good damage and ice spells have pretty high crit rates. Her Faith spell list includes Physic and Rescue, both of which are of the most useful white magic spells and can fare well as a support mage if put down that path. The fact that Bernie is neutral in magic would make it fairly easy to go down a mage path in order to utilize her great spell list. (But her magic growth is only 20%, so good luck with that LOL) Now, the bad: It's pretty common knowledge that one should class any physical unit as a Brigand early game in order to achieve Death Blow, and the fact that it is highly suggested to get Vantage and Wrath to optimize Bernie's Vengeance build, one should class her as a Mercenary and Warrior as well. However, Bernie has four banes--Swords, Axes, Brawling, and Heavy Armor. The banes in Brawling and Heavy armor are whatever, but the banes in Swords and Axes really hurt her. While C in Axes isn't too difficult to achieve even with a bane, but getting an A in both Swords and Axes would mean you would have to really invest a lot of work in her (And you would still have to grind the class exp to get the mastery skills). Her banes really narrow down her pathways, but thankfully her boon in lances opens up more doors as the most versatile weapon. Battalion Wrath is worth considering, but I personally don't like Batallion skills as they are much harder to activate and monitor. Of course, it wouldn't be necessary to do all of this for her, but it would really boost her potential. When compared to Ashe and Ignatz, they have a boon in Axes and Swords respectively meaning this would be much easier for them than it would be for Bernie. Next, Bernie's growths. Aside from dex and speed, Bernie suffers from below average growths in almost every stat. She is insanely squishy with her 20% defense, 35% HP, and 30% resistance. She will most likely be sniping from the backlines anyways, but she would pass out if any enemy had the chance to even breathe on her. Also, Ignatz and Ashe are pretty well-known to be late-game crit machines, being of the units with the highest crit growths (dex+luck) salvaging their low strength. However, Bernie has just a 25% luck growth, meaning she won't crit as much and is prone to BEING crit. Also, her crest is actually really good, allowing her to double at random times. It's just unfortunate that the proc rate is only 10% so it is very, very unreliable. Literally, her crest only activated ONCE in my entire CF playthrough. My personal experience with Bernie: Now the reason why she underperformed for me was because I didn't feel like overcoming any of her banes, so I didn't give her Death Blow or anything and had a hard time activating her personal without her dying (unless the map had damaging terrain which was uncommon). I couldn't even give her a Devil Axe cause I didn't train her axes. I probably neglected her and didn't use her to her full potential, so her performance was most likely just me. In the end, she was mainly just chip damage from afar and if I desperately needed a kill, I prayed for a crit. Not even Vengeance was able to save my Bernie 😭 Overall, I give Bernie a 6/10. She a strong, player-phase oriented archer unit that excels in her access to great combat arts and skills that boost her middling strength. However, in order to perform well, time must be invested in her as she her banes hurt her potential as well as the fact that she has below average growth rates. Regardless, if her potential is unlocked, she can perform very well as a ORKO-er.

I got into Crimson Flower with the expectations that Caspar was gonna be terrible throughout the whole game (after reading many things about him), but Caspar came in super clutch mid-late game for me. He's pretty bad in the start, yes, but his late game in my personal experience was invaluable to my CF team. I'm ngl, I actually love Caspar LOL. I'll start off with the bad so that we end on a good note LOL: It's pretty widely accepted that Caspar has, hands down, the worst base stats out of any unit in the game--most notably his speed and strength. Unfortunately, for being a designated frontliner, his defense is pretty bad as well with a base of 6 and a growth rate of 30%. His overall growth rates are pretty average at best, with 55% growth HP being his only asset. But what good is his HP if his defense can't save it? On top of that, he starts off with an axe, which is heavy and inaccurate so it is highly recommended to get him gauntlets ASAP. Even then, he'll still get doubled. With all of this combined, trying to keep Caspar alive will definitely be a struggle in the beginning. His axe combat arts are pretty underwhelming as well. Personally, I don't like the idea of Exhaustive Strike and absolutely never used it, and I don't like risking a missed hit with Wild Abandon. His brawl combat arts include Bombard, which I find actually really good, so I'll get into that later. Lastly, his skill proficiencies give him a bane in both bows and authority. And unfortunately, these 2 skills are considered the best to have for any unit. Poor guy got everything a terrible unit would have. Okay, now let's get into the good: Okay so the reason why I found Caspar to be so good in my late game was basically because of the War Master class. It may have been because the class itself is great and can salvage any bad unit, but Caspar's natural affinity towards its skill proficiencies make the path much easier to class into. Despite having only a 45% dex growth and a base of 5, his crit rate ranged from 60-80 with Killer Knuckles+ and the innate +20 crit from War Master. To be 100% fair, I did baby him quite a bit and this may have been just me getting lucky with a bad unit, but hey, he carried my team at times and I couldn't doubt that. But anyways, let me just get into Caspar in general as opposed to my own experience with him. There's honestly not a lot going for Caspar that's actually that great, as his only saving grace is his boon in axes to make it easier to get into Wyvern classes--which is pretty widely accepted as the best class in the game next to Falcon Knight. But also, I really want to point out that despite Caspar having a bad speed start, when you look at the other "designated" Brawlers/Fortress Knights aka Raphael and Dedue, Caspar is f a s t. He essentially plays the same or at least a similar role as Dedue and Raphael in their respective houses, but at least Caspar has the benefit of having higher speed. But yeah, he's definitely not fast enough to double or dodge consistently, but he can at least have enough speed to resist getting doubled on some certain enemies unlike the other aforementioned two. Lastly, BOMBARD. Bombard, I find, is a really underrated combat art. Extra might, +10 Crit, low durability cost, and a guaranteed double (even though gauntlets already naturally double) is nothing to scoff at. You can potentially wipe out a demonic beast's whole HP bar with this. Potentially LOL. EDIT: I also forgot to mention his personal! Avoid -10 on adjacent enemies is really good and worth noting as it is fairly similar to Ignatz's Hit +20. I find it actually one of the better personal skills in the game as reducing dodge means higher accuracy, which is really REALLY useful on late game Assassins and Swordmasters. It won't mean a guaranteed hit, but it is at least very helpful. Caspar's not hitting anything long-range anyways, so he's pretty much always going to activate this in combat and can prove useful if other teammates want to land a hit on enemies next to Caspar. Overall I give Caspar a 6/10. He has the roughest start out of any unit with terrible base stats and only average at best growths, as well as having surprisingly bad survivability potential for a frontliner. However, he can perform pretty well late-game as long as time is invested in him but will still be outperformed by his fellow housemates. (but in my personal CF run, I'd give him an 8/10 LOL)

Linhardt is outshined by the other 2 healers, but he does have a few niches that the others don't have which help him prove he is a very viable suportive unit on the battlefield. The good: So the thing about Linhardt, he is most likely going to be a pure support mage. His 45% magic growth and 10 base magic is decent, above average at best, and his spell list in both Reason and Faith is pretty solid. As others have mentioned, he is the only unit with both Physic and Warp--2 of the most useful Faith spells in the game. Physic is an obvious must-have for any healer, but access to warp sets him apart from the other house healers. While not having anywhere near the same warp range as Lysithea, the extra mobility is still serviceable. Also, his Minor Crest of Cethleann is pretty worthy of attention. Despite only having a 30% proc rate, the extra bonus in healing when it does proc is highly appreciated--and also what I find sets him apart from Marianne who lacks any bonus to healing (as Mercedes has Live to Serve). Possessing a crest also allows him to use Thyrsus without any penalty, which is nice (however, I have never given him Thyrsus in any playthrough. But this is just nice to have HAHA). Lastly, his reason spell list consists of fire and wind spells, which are lightweight, accurate, and Excalibur is effective on fliers. All of these are really good qualities to have when using Linhardt in an offensive manner when you need him to. ...Also bonus points to Linhardt to being the only gay marriage option for mByleth who is available on all routes. The bad: I did mention above that Linhardt is outshined by the other house healers, as Mercedes has basically every healing spell in the game and Marianne has value in both support and offense. I would say his personal seems useless, but Marianne's personal seems worse to me personally. But the worst thing about Linhardt is that his skill proficiencies scream GREMORY, but IS said "GENDER LOCKED." lol anyways. Being tailor made for a purely supportive role, he does lack offensive capabilities. Despite having good offensive spells, they are locked to 1-2 range--meaning he has to be a little bit closer to the front lines to chip damage and his terrible defenses and speed won't allow him to survive up front. This can be relieved with Thyrsus or the Caduceus Staff (which works perfectly with Linhardt as he has the compatible crest), however. And finally, despite having acceptable magic growths and bases, they are the lowest of any other magic-oriented character (his magic growth is 5% higher than Dorothea's) meaning he will underperform when compared to your other fellow mages. Overall I give Linhardt a 7.5/10. He is a tailor-made support mage, with a solid spell list in both Faith and Reason, giving a highlight to Physic, Warp, and wind spells and performs well as a healer with his crest. However, he lacks any offensive capabilities and his magic stats are relatively low compared to the other magic-oriented characters which lets him be outshined by the other house healers.

VW was the first route I played, and since it was my first, I enjoyed it for what it was. But after playing through the other routes, I did find that VW was pretty lacking when compared to AM. It would have been really interesting to see a chapter where like Lorenz goes through a crisis as his family was the one leading the faction that supported the Empire and he was the one teaming up with Claude. I felt as if, instead of having the Golden Deer force themselves to be involved with the war between the nations, the story should have been more focused on how the Empire had affected the Alliance itself--as in the opposing factions between House Riegan and House Gloucester. Claude is hands-down my top favorite character of the whole game, but I really wish his own route dove deeper into his background. Not even Joe Zieja knew Claude's real name cause it wasn't even in the game. Cyril should have shared his paralogue with Claude rather than Hilda because I felt that the two would have had a really interesting interaction with both of them being Almyran. On the plus side, at least the Golden Deer have arguably the best starting team (in terms of combat) since you have Lystihea, Leonie, and Hilda loool (Ignatz too I guess, since his personal is a godsend)

Not that I know of (but don’t take my word for it haha), but I heard Maddening slightly nerfs experience gained. Weapon skill experience should be fixed, and you can get more with the statues anyway. With normal mode tho, leveling is actually easier cause you can grind auxiliary battles as much as you want.

I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been able to get their timeskip outfits on the battlefield without setting it manually haha 😂 All my units ended up defaulting into the generic class outfits after chapter 13 and I honestly had no idea they were supposed to keep their outfits in specific classes until I read about it online LOL. But back on topic, I know these: Hilda - Warrior Ignatz, Ashe, Bernie - Sniper Leonie - Paladin (I honestly thought sniper seemed more canon tbh) Dorothea - Dancer Petra - Assassin and Wyvern Rider Marianne, Linhardt, Mercedes - Bishop

1.) If you want either of them to end up as Dark Knights, the warlock route is ideal as Dark Knights are primarily a magic class and Paladins are more physical. But yes, as others stated, Lorenz is better off as a warlock and Sylvain is better off as a paladin. However, Sylvain has a pretty decent spell list as he is one of the few that learns Seraphim. It’s just his magic damage output won’t be impressive. 2.) This is just my own personal opinion, but I just like the warrior/brawler path over fortress knight. Fortress Knights suffer from bad speed and low movement, and you want these guys up front. But as bad as I find Fortress Knights, Dedue’s speed is already low enough so you can capitalize on his DEF if you take him down that route. War Master is great though.

There’s nothing wrong with Normal mode, in fact, I personally played Normal/Casual for my very first playthrough (but switched to Hard/Casual on all my playthroughs afterwards). Honestly, there’s many characters in the game that are better off ending the game in an Advanced class rather than Master, because some Master classes aren’t that great nor do some have a direct promotion to a Master class. The most notorious being sword classes, as the only sword-based master class is Mortal Savant (which isn’t that great). Priests/Bishops as well, as the Holy Knight class doesn’t provide any healing bonuses. Which route are you playing ? Knowing which characters you’ll have in your team can help you determine who’s better off in master and who’s better off in advanced. And regardless, you’ll probably hit the threshold for master classes around chapter 14 or 15 roughly, your lord and Byleth (and Lysithea maybe) probably reaching it a little earlier. So I wouldn’t worry about the time limit haha. On top of that, you can grind levels with auxiliary battles on Normal mode if you feel short on levels !

My first playthrough with Verdant Wind, I had a level 38 Leonie with 22 STR. In my 2nd playthrough for Verdant Wind, my Lorenz had both 27 STR and MAG at level 37, then at level 45, he had only 29 STR and MAG. ... So for 8 levels straight, he only gained 2 points in either stat. However, I did find it quite satisfying that both stats managed to stay even with each other. LOL But what really surprised me is that, during this playthrough, Lorenz excelled in the beginning ORKO-ing pretty much all of his enemies and ended up MVP at least once or twice in part 1. I should have known, though, because my first playthrough with VW, he was my worst unit. Also, in my Blue Lions run, Ignatz managed to land a 1% crit chance on my Mercedes in a forest during the first mock battle 💀 Thankfully she survived LOL

That’s fair, honestly looking at his stats, it doesn’t seem impressive, which is upsetting since he has the novelty of being the first male Pegasus Knight haha. If he doesn’t perform well for me, I’ll just bench him in place of Shigure later, who looks more promising Also another question (I apologize for the amount of questions 😭), but how does Kinshi Knight fare in comparison to Falcon Knight? Bows have always been my favorite weapon type in any kind of game, but I haven’t heard too many good things about Kinshi Knight.