BravuraLevi

Alear's promoted class is Swords/Arts

She might not be the best for the lategame, but she's useful for having a second staff unit after Framme, but before you recruit Ivy/Hortensia/Pandreo or promote Clanne/Celine/Chloe/Citrinne, which should make early game and early midgame much more bearable. As for lategame, she could be useful to help units move a bit further with rewarp, or set up obstacles with icelock to create chokepoints.

Chloe too, thanks to Griffon. Though thinking about it, it's likely that unless one of them has a natural staff proficiency, then it's possible you'd have to put Miccy on them for a while anyway to help them gain the aptitude for staffs anyway.

I kind of feel like we could get either Veyle or Zephia, but maybe not both? I dunno, I just feel like one of them has to stick around so that Sombron isn't just completely alone by the endgame. Though, seeing as how FE generally writes its female villains, they're more likely to be more sympathetic Camus or Sephiran types than Gharnefs or Thaleses.

Considering the last game had the Golden Deer path: Verdant Wind, I'd say it's a solid maybe. The fact that the rings are basically stands also points in that direction.

Looking at this video, the Lyn one and the chain attack tweet, it seems like chain attacks really don't do much damage. In both the videos it only does 5 damage, while in the tweet it's a measly 2- and that's coming from Boucheron, of all people. Combined with the fact that none of the rings thus far get more effective with backup units, I feel like this could be a tough game for infantry.

I could be cheeky and say Sigurd, but I get what you mean now. From what I understand though, Nanna is sort of the Caeda to Leif's Marth(which should put her at a similar importance to Diamante in Engage), so if Finn really is her dad, he could sorta count since he's still around. Granted, that was like 20 years ago at this point...

I mean, there's playable dads, but you rarely see the kids. Tauro 'She took the kids, Ike' Neo from PoR/RD and Alois ' Offscreen family' Rangeld jump to mind. Chrom, by the Valm Arc is technically also a dad, but the big exception is the man himself, Garcia in FE8- playable, his son is also playable, and he's not suuuuper old, but he's getting up there(or just has good genetics). Possibly Finn too, Nanna's whole situation seems kinda ambiguous.

I guess it could be useful as an opener against bosses who have multiple health bars, and in a similar vein, especially if the dragon enemies ever get as chunky as the later demonic beasts in TH. But yeah, against most guys, just killing them would be much more straightforward,

Pair-up was unlocked at Chapter 3. The world map also opened around that time. It's possible that the tutorials go on longer though- Lyn mode was a like a whole 10 chapters which were(in normal mode) largely tutorials.

Tharja could be fun(though I imagine a lot of places would have a... very strong reaction to her being revealed lol) but I will that if Smash Bros and Heroes(where M!Morgan wields Grima's Truth as a tactician) are anything to go by, they could just slap some dark mage stuff on Robin and call it a day. Alternatively, they could use Pelleas from RD as the Dark Magician, (though I doubt that with the whole NG+ Thing...) A joke idea I thought of was having Merlinus be a bracelet, where he offers an absolutely massive convoy and a big buff to BLD, but little actual combat utility. I doubt they really have space for jokes in a DLC that half the price of the game though.

32 would be the smallest roster we've seen in the series, tied with Gaiden. I guess it's not impossible, but I feel like we could still get a surprise or two. Well, and Veyle, maybe as a Gotoh.

There's still hope for Baselard. The chances of Knifeciah are looking kind of slim though.

Good eye! If anything I would've thought it would be the other way around, given Qi Adepts fight hand-to-hand, but giving Armour Knights an immunity to one of the big new elements of this game could bolster their viability a good bit. Giving Qi Adepts(who seem to be mostly support units as of now) the chain guard creates an interesting risk/reward scenario of putting them near the front lines to let them chain guard, or keeping them safe in the back. Will be good to see how that plays out. That's a good shout. We're still missing the retainers for the Brodians, Solmese and Elusians, but most of the marketing will focus on the royals if Fates was any indication. It would make sense for the next trailer to focus on the overworld stuff, and maybe the class system too.

I'll be sad if there's no more Trickster class, I really like the mix of support and utility they brought. I guess they might want to emphasise thieves actually being utility and not just better Swordmasters like they were in Awakening though.

I see that Kagetsu will negate priority attacks I guess both of these could potentially be S rank weapons? Peshkatz was one in RD, and Brionac is allegedly the spear of the Irish god Lugh. However, it's kind of like Yewfelle from Genealogy in that it moreso seems to have been made up by JRPG creators than coming from ancient myth. That could bring up some neat story implications! Especially since we've already seen that we fight some Firenese soldiers. It could be that the Elusians/Hounds/Sombron are stoking division, just bandits, or a civil war type situation brewing in the kingdoms.(As an aside, I find it slightly strange that Fogato, Timerra and all of the generics are brown, but none of the retainers seem to be, but whatever) We can only hope Leif lets us do that! Chain attacks seem like they'll get pretty nutty, especially if bosses manage to set them up on you. The Fabrications being Lysthosian could mean that they're like the Children of the Goddess enemies from 3H, where they aren't evil or a result of corruption, but just show up to challenge anyone who wants the power of the rings. I think now we know what almost every type of unit/movement can do: Dragons- improved engagement abilities(potentially weak to wyrmslayers?) Cavalry- High movement, weak to beastkillers Flying- High Movement, flight, weak to arrows + wind magic(and seemingly either beastkillers or wyrmslayers, based on mount) Covert- Doubles terrain bonuses(might also keep the thieves ability to be less hindered by terrain?) Mystical- Ignores terrain bonuses(might potentially also resist Quicksand tiles?) Backup- Can do chain attacks. Now we just need to see what Armoured and Qi Adepts can do. My guess is that Armoured units can do chain guards, but no clue what Qi adepts might have. Presumably something supportive?

I think they're still Yellow, actually. The screenshot has the Monk character(who seems to be someone we haven't seen before? I think they're wearing silver) standing next to the Ice block, while holding only a yellow staff. Now, it's possible that you can make the ice from pretty far away, so I might be wrong. Anyway, I'll say that I quite like Fogato, and I really love Hortensia. Fogato's dark skin and hair tones make for a nice contrast with his white clothing(and the star eyes are a nice touch too), and Hortensia's flashiness is something I just adore.

Either that or we start going into the retainers. ... Though given the game is releasing in just over a month and a half, I'm moreso expecting the Emblems. (I just hope there are more non-royals/retainers than just Yunaka, though...)

I guess Roy could kinda reference how Flare Blade worked in Smash Bros and have his Engage Attack just be a strong attack that hits several opponents, but has no other side effects(like how Sigurd dashes through foes or Corrin makes water tiles). I think his set could play into the tactical side of Roy's character, some mix of the Wyrmslayer/Armorslayer for effective damage, Runesword for healing and maybe Poison Sword(this is a stretch) to inflict the new poison weapons. And the Binding Blade, of course. I think Micaiah could potentially have Purge in her kit somewhere, especially if they're referencing 3-13. Either as a tome or her Engage Attack, like how Lyn has a long range move for her Engage attack. Looking at Bows from Awakening, the only ones that are really of note are Astra(already covered by Astra Storm), the Towering Bow and Glass bow(for the lols) and the Superior Bow, which beat other Bows. That could be somewhat useful here with the Break ability. Other than that, I think the ideas already presented here are pretty good.

Yeah, the poison thing seems to just be the same as how Fates daggers debuffed opponents. Though, if it doesn't have any HP-draining properties(as seems to be the case), that could get confusing pretty fast.

This. It was unfortunate that awakening tried to bring back weapons from pretty much ever game, but only brought Amatsu, Ragnell and the Levin sword for ranged swords... I think the swordsmaster class, in addition to being sword locked, tends to have a lot units who are hit-or-miss, or even plain out bad, like Guy, gets strength screwed super easily, Hinata with his wack growths, or Karla who's... Karla. On the other hand, however, I'm legitimately struggling to think of a bad mercenary. The closest I can think of is Oujay, but he's more outclassed than he is bad. If the next game doesn't have reclassing, then they really need to fix up the Swordmaster's growths.

I'm hoping that some variant of the dual system comes back. Regardless of how good or bad people found the characters in awakening(I liked those characters, for the record), having characters fight together and grow closer is something that's really cool, both story and gameplay wise. At the very least, I found it to be more immersive than other games' "stand in adjacent spaces for 400 turns" style of building supports.

Axes. You could plausibly go for all three options in the story, but in gameplay, axes would help mitigate their low strength at low levels, and compounded with the general lack of playable axe users in early FEs (at least compared to lance/sword users), it would boost the villager's utility.

These are pretty much my thoughts exactly. I mean, I'm not bothered by a bit of fanservice, but things like female mounted classes not having any pants made me reluctant to use them because 1) If I'm playing FE on the go, it gives people the wrong idea and 2) It makes me uncomfortable to think of how chafed their legs are. Basically, as long as no one's running around in their underwear, I'm fine with most previous games' class design.

Even if they had 80% growths in every stat, I'm not sure if I would use them; The full benefits of the attack and guard stances would likely outweigh them, as they likely don't have supports(Or personal skills, now that I think about it.)