singularity

Best to take it with a grain of salt and wait for the DLC’s official announcement.

Assuming the leak is true, here’s some of my thoughts so far:

I’m surprised Jeritza is free. He’s most likely BE exclusive, as that path seems the easiest to shoehorn him into the story. BL would need some degree of rewriting, and he isn’t so relevant in GD. I have a feeling the Wave 4 new characters might be the way to introduce the Crests lost to history. There’s still 5 Crests remaining without any Hero Relic/Sacred Weapon, and they’re introducing new Hero Relics as well. Since there’s 4 characters, 1 Crest would probably be left behind for another character. I’m guessing it’s Ernest, since it’s probably in Anna instead, as her outfit has the Crest.

Well, people can have different interpretations. Personally, I can see some of the correspondences in there(Rhea/High Priestess, Dimitri/Justice).

There’s already established Arcanas based upon the Crests:

Edelgard and Ignatz have the best handwriting. Caspar writes like a doctor. Raphael often ends up having not enough space because he writes too big. Linhardt and Hilda can’t write in straight lines because they’re too lazy to care. Annette and Mercedes would have rounded letters. Lorenz writes exclusively in cursives. Marianne has a nice handwriting but she writes so small Byleth has to squint to see what she’s writing.

She gets Frozen Lance, though it’s only really viable at player phase and eats durability. You can also give her Levin Sword+ too. But I do agree the lack of the lance equivalent of Levin Sword/Bolt Axe is kind of jarring.

Personally, I’m not really a fan of turning Marianne into a Dancer unless you already have another healer recruited. Sure, she’s one of the few characters that doesn’t really get hindered by being one(in fact she benefits from being a Dancer for the Sword Avoid skill, even though dodgetanking is still up to RNG’s whim), but you end up sacrificing part of her healing and offensive potential for dancing, and I’d rather not give up a versatile unit like her(and if you didn’t use Mercedes/Linhardt, your only healer) to be relegated on that role. Though it’s nice to have a Dancer who can actually fend off on their own, it’s still a support unit on its core, which shouldn’t really be engaging or being engaged against enemies on the first place.

Hilda’s best bet is being a Wyvern Lord. Leonie is fine as a Bow Knight. Marianne can be either Bishop if you want to stick her as a healer, or Gremory/Dark Knight if you want offensive capabilities as well(Holy Knight is for when you don’t plan to train her Reason, which has a pretty decent set in my opinion). Try making Hilda a Brigand and Marianne a Mage during class progression for Death Blow and Fiendish Blow respectively as well. Ignatz can go Assassin, or Dancer if you find him underwhelming. Raph can be a gauntlet-toting War Master. Lorenz can go either Dark Knight or Paladin due to his mixed status.

I’d pick BL because they are the most well-rounded cast in my opinion. Felix and Sylvain might be troublemakers, but as long as I could steer them behind their worse tendencies and play to their academic strengths(Felix gets more focus on physical based training, and Sylvain seems like he’s the kind of person who gets high marks even without studying) it should be fine. The rest of them have a nice attitude in general and would comply when it comes to learning, and I can particularly see Ingrid and Dimitri be the mediator between the troublemakers, which would be a massive help for me. For other classes, I can see BE being the hardest to deal with due to several clashing personalities, and they don’t really have someone who stood up in general for me(I can only see Petra being the only one who poses no trouble in one way or another). GD would also be troublesome to deal, but they don’t pose as much potential threat as BE does for me as they’re mostly just trying to have fun instead of potentially looking down on the teacher.

If we’re basing on Smogon, I’d add RU, NU, PU, and LC as well since it’s more familiar and easier to categorize. Basing upon the main 3 tiers, I’d consider the OU/UU as “OU” ones, while RU/NU/PU/LC are the “UU” ones. Ubers(basically the best classes in FE3H): Wyvern Lord - essentially the best physical class with its high mobility, growths, and stats. Falcon Knight - trades Wyvern Lord’s axes for swords, has slightly less strength in exchange for speed, and is a bit more restrictive as it’s female only. Otherwise, the same argument for Wyvern Lord applies. Bow Knight - +2 range on a mount is busted. OU(not as broken as Ubers but still very good): Dark Knight - best mounted mage for long term investment. Gremory - x2 uses is nice, and they have higher mobility than other mage classes. UU(slightly below OU in terms of performance, can still be seen and used every now and then): Assassin - one of the better infantry units if you want to stick with swords. Paladin - a solid option for those who didn’t end up their non-flier mounted class into a Bow Knight. War Master - a good physical class which is just a bit behind in mobility and is sadly gender-locked. Dancer - mostly used for utility, though can be turned into a capable fighter with certain builds. RU(entering the less considered choices, but still utilized in a way or another as they’re quite decent on their own): Swordmaster - while not a bad unit, it has less speed and mobility than Assassin. Bishop - if you need the extra healing and/or if you’re a female, you can’t be bothered to train Reason to A. Linhardt benefits the best from this, since he can’t be a Gremory. Dark Bishop - hurts from availability issues, and only Hubert can gain full benefits from this class. Warlock - not utilized as an endgame class as much since others would either become Gremory or Dark Knight, but still workable for certain people(Annette/Dorothea/Hanneman). NU(not really considered for usage, can be used but won’t be as optimal compared to the rest of the classes): Mortal Savant - I feel like this class can shine on endgame where you don’t need to bother with growths anymore, since most of the complaints seem to come from the speed growth reduction. Even then, Dark Knight can potentially achieve what it could do with a better mobility(albeit missing the innate Swordfaire). Holy Knight - the issue isn’t in the class, but in the offensive Faith spell spread in general. Most characters that have the potential to be one only have 2-3 offensive Faith spells at maximum, compared to 4/5 offensive Reason spells they tend to have. If there’s someone who has all of the damaging Faith spells but subpar Reason spells, they could be one. PU(outclassed by others): Hero - Swordmaster/Assassin exist for swords. War Master/Wyvern Lord exist for axes. Fortress Knight - low mobility and speed hurts in the long run, and Stride can only get you so far. Great Knight - might as well use Paladin instead of having a lower mobility and an additional armored weakness. LC(has a direct upgrade for class): Wyvern Rider(Wyvern Lord) Sniper(Bow Knight) Warrior/Grappler(War Master)

1. Flying, Riding, and Authority, since eventually the three of them will end up crucial on wars if we’re basing upon the gameplay. 2. Dimitri, Marianne, Ashe, Ingrid, Petra, Mercedes, Lysithea, and Annette. Since we can only judge from the surface, I’m basing the picks based on a mixture of personal preferences and personalities.

She has easier access to Holy Knight, which is why people are inclined towards that instead. For her Reason, I’d probably invest at least until she reaches Thoron. The extra range is quite nice, especially before Arcane Crystals are widely available. And if you don’t mind taking chances, you can try classification with lower Reason ranking. I personally won’t turn her into Dancer though. While she’s technically a viable option as one, she has much more to offer than to dance and I’d rather capitalize on those aspects instead.

Linhardt can either go Bishop or Holy Knight, though I’d probably lean towards the former since it’s the only class that gives him x2 Warp uses. He doesn’t really have an offensive presence, so it’s better to give him a class that offers more support/utility. Annette’s a bit of a weird one. If we’re focusing on her Axe strength, she can utilize her Relic and Bolt Axes as a Wyvern Lord. While she might be unable to cast spells, Bolt Axe+ already gave her 1-3 range which is more than the rest of her spells, and her Reason spell list is nothing special so it’s not like she’s missing much(besides Excalibur). But if you want to keep her as a spellcaster, you can go for Dark Knight or Warlock(leaning towards the former because of mobility). As for Marianne, she’s the most offensive-oriented out of the healers due to having a fairly good Reason spells and being able to use Soulblade and Frozen Lance. She’s also a great candidate for using Levin Swords(which can replace Thoron if it’s forged), which synergizes with her Crest, and has a magic-based Relic. Due to that, she’s a bit more flexible in terms of choices. You can go for Holy Knight because she has all the proficiencies, Dark Knight to utilize her Reason spells while maintaining mobility, or Bishop/Gremory for more spell uses(though she loses mobility compared to the former 2 classes). There’s more niche alternatives such as turning her into Falcon Knight or Mortal Savant but they have their own drawbacks(you sacrifice her spells as a Falcon Knight, leaving you to use magic-based weapons and Combat Arts, while Mortal Savant lacks in mobility and might give her Speed issues). Her hypothetical best class is probably a flying healer, but sadly such thing doesn’t exist in the game.

3H tends to have depth on their characters and Sylvain is no exception for it, so I could appreciate the team in that regard. Regarding his amount of B supports, I’ve seen people saying that he should get A support with Marianne, which kind of makes sense considering both of their lives are deeply affected by Crests(albeit for different reasons). While I do agree there’s a potential for their A support, I feel like the reason might be more rooted towards Marianne than Sylvain himself, in a way. In the B support, he understood her issues stemmed from Crests, which is something that could definitely be expanded upon(and she’s definitely not the kind of person who sees people for their Crests since she sees more of it affecting herself than others, so Sylvain doesn’t have any excuses here), but Marianne already had Ashe and Dimitri as her A options(the former is a nice person overall, and the latter bonds over their personal traumas).