Good reasons for recruiting units from other classes

[Garlyle]

So I was thinking - if Lunatic or other difficulty comes to play, what would be a good reason for these people to recruit them? Could they do anything for us besides warming the bench or they do have something that can give you something OP to win against anything. I'm going to think this through later, but so far this is what I come up with. Let me know if I forgot to mention something. I'm considering these in long run.

Black Eagles

• Petra - she's fast. great balance in stats, easy to train no matter what class you pick for her
• Caspar - only if you need the Rafail gem
• Bernadetta - Encloser, Deadeye. Nice utility, keep an eye on her offense though
• Linhardt - if you need 1 more Warp user
• Ferdinand - shaky earlygame, but good proficiencies and personal skill. +Swift Strikes

Unsure about Dorothea

Blue Lions

• Sylvain - Lance of Ruin, Swift Strikes, Stride Battalion, free for female Byleth
• Mercedes - Fortify, Physic, live to serve, 10/10 best healer in the game
• Annette - because Lightning Axe is so much fun even without Crusher, or Rally Up
• Ingrid - flying, dodging, Lúin, low recruitment requirements
• Felix - strong offense early and midgame, sometimes dealing extra 5 damage. Aegis Shield is heavy, but useful on him.

Hmm, nothing jumps to my mind for Ashe

Golden Deer

• Lysithea - Dark Spikes, Luna, Warp, Seraphim, dropping a nuke on everything
• Lorenz - 1 word: Thrysus
• Marianne - Physic, Silence, Blutgang, personality
• Ignatz - possibly use from Break Shot and Seal Strength for safety. Highly accurate even on Bow Knight range 4. Ward Arrow is a secondary silence.

I'll think up something for Raphael, Leonie and Hilda. Freikugel is not a good reason for recruitment, except if you are Dimitri.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Garlyle

[Gregster101]

Another thing you should put down for Petra. She's super annoying as an enemy in the timeskip, and recruiting her before the time skip spares you the agony of having to deal with her and that 100 avoid she has

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

For me Ingrid is the biggest threat of all recruitable units because she is a flyer which means mobility and has the stats to double and ORKO units.

Petra is extremly hard to hit without Gambits, and herself she is a critting machine. I would not say a must have, but definitely not wanted as an enemy, although you can ignore her in chapter 20 GD route by warpskipping.

Lysithea is known to eat the Death Knight, means dark seals and extra levels for free. In general she destroys things without much effort. Also warp user.

 

These are the three which I would recruit in every run.  

Edited September 3, 2019 by Lysithea

[Shadow Mir]

Speaking of, given what happened for me in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion... I'd agree that Ingrid is someone I'd rather not see as an enemy after the timeskip (in fact, I recruited her right before it, and the generic Pegasus Knight that replaced her still gave the Black Eagles a crapload of trouble). Ditto for Petra.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[ApocaLips]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, given what happened for me in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion... I'd agree that Ingrid is someone I'd rather not see as an enemy after the timeskip (in fact, I recruited her right before it, and the generic Pegasus Knight that replaced her still gave the Black Eagles a crapload of trouble). Ditto for Petra.

These are good points, and I’ll add that Petra can show up twice, and is a problematic enemy both times. Well worth it to take her off the table. 

[daisy jane]

I will argue for Felix for what i said in another post - 
you give him a sword. plop him in front of armours. the armours are dead. the end. no one is left standing. 

I've had Petra on every playthrough (dorothea too) so i was actually going to skip them. - but i didn't realise she was stupidly scary to face off against. 

[EdgeOfDreams]

Linhardt/Leonie - paralogue for The Inexhaustible (sacred version of a Brave Bow+)

[Chaotix]

On the positives side:

-Linhardt gets Warp. Later than Lysithea but still nice to have.

-Dorothea gets Meteor, only other person who gets it is Hanneman and he's pretty bad.

-Felix gets the Aegis Shield from his paralogue, which is great on him but also good for just about anyone.

-Leonie makes a better Bow Knight than pretty much anybody besides Shamir.

-Hilda makes a great Wyvern Lord: her relic is an axe and Wyvern Lords get Axefaire. Great pick for a second flier.

-Caspar's only saving grace is that his paralogue (shared with Mercedes) gets you the Rafail Gem. Otherwise, see negatives.

 

On the negatives side:

-I love Annette as a character but she's honestly the worst mage and you probably never want to recruit her for gameplay reasons. You can only get her Relic in Blue Lions.

-Ferdinand, Ashe, Bernadetta, and Ignatz pretty much all have other characters that do their job better than they do. For Ferdinand - see Sylvain. For Ashe, Bernie, Ignatz - see Shamir and Leonie.

-Caspar and Raphael are built for becoming a Fortress Knight or War Master, which are just not great classes as far as efficiency is concerned. They're great at what they do, but what they do is suboptimal. They can go wyvern instead, but they're not as good as other picks and they bring nothing to the table.

[Wolfen09]

2 minutes ago, Chaotix said:

On the positives side:

-Linhardt gets Warp. Later than Lysithea but still nice to have.

-Dorothea gets Meteor, only other person who gets it is Hanneman and he's pretty bad.

-Felix gets the Aegis Shield from his paralogue, which is great on him but also good for just about anyone.

-Leonie makes a better Bow Knight than pretty much anybody besides Shamir.

-Hilda makes a great Wyvern Lord: her relic is an axe and Wyvern Lords get Axefaire. Great pick for a second flier.

-Caspar's only saving grace is that his paralogue (shared with Mercedes) gets you the Rafail Gem. Otherwise, see negatives.

 

On the negatives side:

-I love Annette as a character but she's honestly the worst mage and you probably never want to recruit her for gameplay reasons. You can only get her Relic in Blue Lions.

-Ferdinand, Ashe, Bernadetta, and Ignatz pretty much all have other characters that do their job better than they do. For Ferdinand - see Sylvain. For Ashe, Bernie, Ignatz - see Shamir and Leonie.

-Caspar and Raphael are built for becoming a Fortress Knight or War Master, which are just not great classes as far as efficiency is concerned. They're great at what they do, but what they do is suboptimal. They can go wyvern instead, but they're not as good as other picks and they bring nothing to the table.

See my sylvain got stat screwed, my Ferdinand must have gotten it all, cause he's amazing.  Only reason sylvain gets into battles is for the Lance of ruin

[Chaotix]

2 minutes ago, Wolfen09 said:

See my sylvain got stat screwed, my Ferdinand must have gotten it all, cause he's amazing.  Only reason sylvain gets into battles is for the Lance of ruin

Ferdinand is by no means a bad unit, didn't mean to imply that. He and Sylvain are very similar in terms of growth rates. What pushes Sylvain over the edge is access to the Lance of Ruin and instant recruitment with female Byleth.

There's basically no reason to recruit Ferdinand if you already have Sylvain. Conversely in Black Eagles you might actually want Sylvain just for his relic.

[Kiran_]

3 hours ago, Lysithea said:

For me Ingrid is the biggest threat of all recruitable units because she is a flyer which means mobility and has the stats to double and ORKO units.

Petra is extremly hard to hit without Gambits, and herself she is a critting machine. I would not say a must have, but definitely not wanted as an enemy, although you can ignore her in chapter 20 GD route by warpskipping.

Lysithea is known to eat the Death Knight, means dark seals and extra levels for free. In general she destroys things without much effort. Also warp user.

 

These are the three which I would recruit in every run.  

Ingrid was super easy as an enemy in my experience, I just shot an arrow at her and bam, dead.

Petra however?! Even Dimitri only had like a 20% hit rate I was so confused. She's soooo awful as an enemy. Hahaha. I had to gambit her twice, and then got lucky with a 64% hit rate. So after that I've always recruited her.

Lysithea is literally the only one who can destroy the Death Knight, I agree. So she's a must-have every time.

Otherwise I can't think of anyone I *need* necessarily. Dorothea maybe as a Dancer. Everyone else I want as actual units, but she's the only one who is a functional combat unit as a dancer, but mostly is just a great dancer and doesn't feel like a loss. Also I love her.

[ApocaLips]

4 minutes ago, Chaotix said:

Ferdinand is by no means a bad unit, didn't mean to imply that. He and Sylvain are very similar in terms of growth rates. What pushes Sylvain over the edge is access to the Lance of Ruin and instant recruitment with female Byleth.

There's basically no reason to recruit Ferdinand if you already have Sylvain. Conversely in Black Eagles you might actually want Sylvain just for his relic.

Kinda off topic, but I really disagree with this. Ferdinand has a noticeably better top end thanks to two relics and IMO a much better personal skill. He uses lance of ruin just as well as Sylvain does - swift strikes is going to outdamage the unique combat art the vast majority of the time. I do recruit Sylvain, but I recruit several units I have no plans to use for their relics. 

[Chaotix]

4 minutes ago, Kiran_ said:

Lysithea is literally the only one who can destroy the Death Knight, I agree. So she's a must-have every time.

This is not necessarily true. She's certainly the best at killing the Death Knight, but you don't need her. The Sword of the Creator, Lance of Ruin, or even just the Knightkneeler combat art can all get the job done. I've even done it with a Frozen Lance from Hubert.

[Chaotix]

5 minutes ago, ApocaLips said:

Kinda off topic, but I really disagree with this. Ferdinand has a noticeably better top end thanks to two relics and IMO a much better personal skill. He uses lance of ruin just as well as Sylvain does - swift strikes is going to outdamage the unique combat art the vast majority of the time. I do recruit Sylvain, but I recruit several units I have no plans to use for their relics. 

I'd say on the other hand there's no reason why you couldn't give the Spear of Assal and Ochain Shield to Sylvain, just like you can give the Lance of Ruin to Ferdinand. Either case would require you to recruit both units regardless (although you can get just the Spear of Assal without Ferd), but my argument was more directed towards the scenario where you only want to spend the effort to recruit one.

The HP-restoring of the Spear of Assal does synergize well with Ferdinand's personal, so I'll hand it to you there. On the whole I'd still say that's not worth the effort spent recruiting him when you can have Sylvain for free though.

[Eltoshen]

17 minutes ago, Chaotix said:

This is not necessarily true. She's certainly the best at killing the Death Knight, but you don't need her. The Sword of the Creator, Lance of Ruin, or even just the Knightkneeler combat art can all get the job done. I've even done it with a Frozen Lance from Hubert.

Hubert has dark spikes also and I used him to kill the DK in Edelgard route. However, I don't think we should be bringing him up when this topic is talking about recruiting from other classes. Your other points still stand, though.

[ApocaLips]

8 minutes ago, Chaotix said:

I'd say on the other hand there's no reason why you couldn't give the Spear of Assal and Ochain Shield to Sylvain, just like you can give the Lance of Ruin to Ferdinand. Either case would require you to recruit both units regardless (although you can get just the Spear of Assal without Ferd), but my argument was more directed towards the scenario where you only want to spend the effort to recruit one.

The HP-restoring of the Spear of Assal does synergize well with Ferdinand's personal, so I'll hand it to you there. On the whole I'd still say that's not worth the effort spent recruiting him when you can have Sylvain for free though.

Err, no, the ‘trade the relic’ consideration isn’t at play here. Both relics restore significantly more HP on Ferdinand, and they synergize especially with Ferdinand’s superior passive. It’s not the same situation as the lance of ruin or any other relic where all you get is an okayish combat art, and any unit with a crest can use the weapon with roughly the same level of efficiency. It’s closer to giving felix’s shield to someone else - you can do it, but they won’t perform anywhere near as well with it. 

Sure, Sylvain is free for female byleths, but Ferdinand only requires a few gifts to get to C support and D+ in heavy armor (which I almost always have since I’m either trying to qualify for armor knight for the base 12 defense or to pick up weight -3). 

Edited September 3, 2019 by ApocaLips

[Garlyle]

1 hour ago, Chaotix said:

On the positives side:

-Linhardt gets Warp. Later than Lysithea but still nice to have.

-Dorothea gets Meteor, only other person who gets it is Hanneman and he's pretty bad.

-Felix gets the Aegis Shield from his paralogue, which is great on him but also good for just about anyone.

-Leonie makes a better Bow Knight than pretty much anybody besides Shamir.

-Hilda makes a great Wyvern Lord: her relic is an axe and Wyvern Lords get Axefaire. Great pick for a second flier.

-Caspar's only saving grace is that his paralogue (shared with Mercedes) gets you the Rafail Gem. Otherwise, see negatives.

 

On the negatives side:

-I love Annette as a character but she's honestly the worst mage and you probably never want to recruit her for gameplay reasons. You can only get her Relic in Blue Lions.

-Ferdinand, Ashe, Bernadetta, and Ignatz pretty much all have other characters that do their job better than they do. For Ferdinand - see Sylvain. For Ashe, Bernie, Ignatz - see Shamir and Leonie.

-Caspar and Raphael are built for becoming a Fortress Knight or War Master, which are just not great classes as far as efficiency is concerned. They're great at what they do, but what they do is suboptimal. They can go wyvern instead, but they're not as good as other picks and they bring nothing to the table.

So Dorothea is the best ballista mage?

I guess Linhardt has Warp, but his Mag stat and later Warp means his Warp will be half as good as Lysithea.

Felix Shield sounds reasonable, but it's his crest that made me consider to put up an idea on him - plus he doubles easily.

Leonie COULD be a better Bow Knight, but could be not - it's still a growth game, and every house has a starting archer candidate (Bernadetta, Ashe, Ignatz, I am looking at you)

Hilda, reasonable still for only BL and GD runs from what you said. She's one of the harder recruits, so what else she offers?

Rafail Gem does sound nice, but unfortunately I never had the chance to aquire it yet.

I'm focusing on the positives in this topic, so I'm not going to evaluate on the negatives here - I need the good reasons to recruit someone. I might even go out to defend Ignatz later on.

[Kiran_]

2 hours ago, Chaotix said:

This is not necessarily true. She's certainly the best at killing the Death Knight, but you don't need her. The Sword of the Creator, Lance of Ruin, or even just the Knightkneeler combat art can all get the job done. I've even done it with a Frozen Lance from Hubert.

Well not necessarily true and I was exaggerating because I love her, I do think she is the most reliable. Even when she's RNG screwed she's the best, because she can one-shot him even in the early chapters. I've used the Sword of the Creator (Lance of Ruin is after he shows up once if I'm correct?? But Sylvain never could do it anyways), and even a Horseslayer WITH Knightkneeler, and those don't always work, because if they don't one-shot him, there's a high chance he'll Crit and kill.

I beat him once without Lysithea (because I stupidly didn't have her in a magic class cause I was getting me some Vantage), and I had to Gambit, Horseslay with knight kneeler, somehow he didn't Crit and then used Byleth to finish him off. Too much work when Lysithea can just look at him and he dies. Haha.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Kiran_

[Seafarer]

2 hours ago, Kiran_ said:

Lysithea is literally the only one who can destroy the Death Knight, I agree. So she's a must-have every time.

Nope.

She doesn't get Dark Spikes until B Reason. Sylvain can Knightkneeler-Lance of Ruin at C Lances from C6, and he's all but guaranteed the OHKO, and he's easier to recruit early. Lysithea's great, but Sylvain's the best Anti-DK.

(Funny thing: the DK has higher Res than Def.)

EDIT: and I very much doubt that Horseslayer and Knightkneeler stack.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Seafarer

[Kiran_]

2 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

Nope.

She doesn't get Dark Spikes until B Reason. Sylvain can Knightkneeler-Lance of Ruin at C Lances from C6, and he's all but guaranteed the OHKO, and he's easier to recruit early. Lysithea's great, but Sylvain's the best Anti-DK.

(Funny thing: the DK has higher Res than Def.)

EDIT: and I very much doubt that Horseslayer and Knightkneeler stack.

Hahah, probably not, but it's fun to pretend. =P Also my Sylvain was always in a magic class, so his Str was always just a shy bit of being able to OHKO him. And Lysithea was always insane, so I always stuck with her.

[Seafarer]

4 minutes ago, Kiran_ said:

Hahah, probably not, but it's fun to pretend. =P Also my Sylvain was always in a magic class, so his Str was always just a shy bit of being able to OHKO him. And Lysithea was always insane, so I always stuck with her.

Is it reasonable to have Lysithea's Reason at B in C4 if you recruit her to another house? I haven't actually used her except in the final map of Silver Snow, and being able to wreck C4!DK would give her an edge over Sylvain.

[wissenschaft]

Felix is a fantastic character to recruit, he is a beast. Probably the best physical unit in the game. Hes pretty resistant to being RNG screwed and he can be whatever physical class you need on your team. Heck, he is the best Archer in the game with his growths if you build him as such. He is likely to have higher STR than Petra which makes him very likely the best Assassin in the game as well. He is also the best Mortal Savant in the game. Felix is just THE BEST.

9 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

Is it reasonable to have Lysithea's Reason at B in C4 if you recruit her to another house? I haven't actually used her except in the final map of Silver Snow, and being able to wreck C4!DK would give her an edge over Sylvain.

I don't think so. Though its not actually hard to beat Death Knight in chapter 4. All you need is a Horseslayer and a character with KnightKneeler combat art (they stack). Then just deal cheap damage with gambits still you can oneshot with knightkneeler. Every house has someone that can excel a lances.

Edited September 3, 2019 by wissenschaft

[eclipse]

Felix - Pure physical offense, full stop.  Make him an Assassin, give him a pair of gauntlets, and everything either dies because it can't see/hit him, or he initiates and insta-blicks something.
Ashe - Best damn supports in the game, and a flying lockpick is handy.
Bernadetta - Can stop enemies in their tracks with Encloser (I think that's what it's called).  No more wasting gambits for that!

[ApocaLips]

9 minutes ago, wissenschaft said:

Felix is a fantastic character to recruit, he is a beast. probably the best psychical unit in the game. Hes pretty resistant to being RNG screwed and he can be whatever psychical class you need on your team. Heck, is the best Archer in the game with his growths if you build him as such. He is likely to have higher STR than Petra which makes him very likely the best Assassin in the game.

His shield also makes him exceptionally durable. I don’t think anyone has cracked the numbers, but in my experience it has about a 50% chance to proc on any attack and halves damage, on top of what I think is the highest stat total of any shield (6 def 3 res). The weight isn’t hard to offset with weight skills and his high str. Don’t need a second character to trigger the paralogue, and it’s available somewhat into part 1.

Great unit. Also pretty easy to recruit for any Byleth running swords. 

Edited September 3, 2019 by ApocaLips

[wissenschaft]

Also, Felix is a great character to aim recruiting in your first playthrough since many other good physical fighters are still susceptible to RNG screw-aged because of base STR and speed in the 40-45 range. Felix can pop in and easily be a replacement frontliner for any character that falls behind the rest of the team in effectiveness.