Fire Emblem Three Houses Final Class Tier List(In Order)

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/28/2019 at 11:31 PM, Fire Flower said:

Mortal Savant has Sword+Black Tomefaire, 6 move (not bad for an infantry class honestly), +2 magic. If your unit has sword proficiencies and magic combat arts, then this is a quite flexible class for them. Marianne does particularly well in it due to her crest adding extra might to weapons which stacks with Swordfaire, making her very strong with Blutgang and Levin Sword+, while still being able to cast spells when needed.

Trouble is, if Mortal Savant is a viable option for a unit, odds are there's something better for them than it. Like Gremory for Marianne, for example. The proficiencies needed being two that very few characters are good in at the same time doesn't help its already flimsy case.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Fire Flower]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Trouble is, if Mortal Savant is a viable option for a unit, odds are there's something better for them than it. Like Gremory for Marianne, for example. The proficiencies needed being two that very few characters are good in at the same time doesn't help its already flimsy case.

What exactly makes gremory better in this case? I argue basically the same thing about gremory being most people's best class - that other mage classes fill niches better.

For Marianne specifically, you can take advantage of canto with dark knight, swordfaire with mortal savant, and even +10 heal with bishop if you needed a dedicated healer. I'm not really seeing what makes gremory the best magic class, in the context of this tier list at least.

Characters with warp would definitely make good use of the class due to warp being overpowered, but only one of the three characters with warp can feasibly go gremory, and that is Lysithea; Linhardt is male, and Manuela has a reason weakness. Even then it's kind of a toss-up between that versus dark knight for Lysithea due to canto and dark tomefaire existing.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Fire Flower

[Silly]

If you want the best offense, Dark Knight is basically always the way to go.

On characters with good support spells (Physic, Fortify, Rescue, Warp), you are usually willing to sacrifice combat in order to be a better support unit. Your good physical units already have most of the combat covered, so comparatively a magic unit is more useful by indexing into utility. Given that this is the case you want to be in a class that doubles your usage of those spells, meaning you go Gremory or Bishop.

Gremory's main advantage over Bishop is +1 move, and main disadvantage is -10 healing. Both traits can be very useful, and which one is more important may depend on the map and your playstyle and the character in question. Gremory also has double black magic uses as a bonus, but this is mostly only relevant for Dorothea.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

What exactly makes gremory better in this case? I argue basically the same thing about gremory being most people's best class - that other mage classes fill niches better.

For Marianne specifically, you can take advantage of canto with dark knight, swordfaire with mortal savant, and even +10 heal with bishop if you needed a dedicated healer. I'm not really seeing what makes gremory the best magic class, in the context of this tier list at least.

Characters with warp would definitely make good use of the class due to warp being overpowered, but only one of the three characters with warp can feasibly go gremory, and that is Lysithea; Linhardt is male, and Manuela has a reason weakness. Even then it's kind of a toss-up between that versus dark knight for Lysithea due to canto and dark tomefaire existing.

Marianne's already strong in faith, so that's one thing pushing her towards magic. Second, Mortal Savant falls victim to the same pitfall that hybrid classes were plagued by in the past, that being that very few units can actually make them work because most units are blatantly slanted towards being physical or magical. And because Marianne already has crap for strength, that further discourages investing in physical weapon proficiencies for her. It doesn't help that Blutgang is locked behind arguably the biggest pain in the ass as far as paralogues are concerned (Fog of war with monsters? And the unit it revolves around (Marianne herself) is easily killed? Ohh, no bueno! No buenoooo!), nor does it that it's a pain in the ass to repair due to needing rare materials (Umbral Steel). What's more, I consider it better to specialize in one thing (magic, in this case) than to try to do two things and not be able to do either well. As they say, the person who chases two rabbits will catch neither of them. Long story short, I'm a hell of a lot more inclined to have her go full magical, which she's already built towards going by base stats and growths, than try to put her on the path to Mortal Savant. While I do agree that Lysithea is the only Warp user that can feasibly go Gremory, I don't consider the extra effort achieving Dark Knight to be worth it between having to grapple with a weakness in Lances and the massive Riding investment needed (which her personal ability won't help one iota in dealing with unless you make her a cavalier or paladin).

Edited October 30, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mortal Savant is a fine option for Marianne even if she's going pure magical (as she should, I agree). Blutgang and Levin Sword are both magic, as is Soulblade. Mortal Savant offers Swordfaire to buff those moves up, meaning they'll do more damage from MS than from Dark Knight or Warlock etc.

Marianne's paralogue is also a great one to do and I would do it even if I weren't using her because it gives you so much Wootz Steel. Many enemies are unaggressive and it's relatively easy to distract the aggressive ones because of how monster AI works. I didn't find it too difficult myself on Hard, though I haven't done it on Maddening yet. *shrug*

[FoxyGrandpa]

From my exp, Mortal Savant and Dark Knight are about on par w/ one another. Both are great classes for offensive spell casters thanks to black tomefaire. Mobility-wise, MS is slightly better than DK due to the ridiculous amount of terrain that only hurts cavalry units. DK makes up for it w/ hit and run utility, however, which makes them a little better in combat. In terms of weapon ranks, DK's is a bit steeper, which makes it more difficult to have them specialize in another skill like Authority. The lower reqs also make it easier to get early, which is a plus.Given how much stronger Black Magic is compared to physcial weapons, having access to swordfaire isn't that big of a selling point I feel, but it does make Levin Sword+ is  a cool option for Mages without 3 range spells like Ignatz. 

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:55 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Mortal Savant is a fine option for Marianne even if she's going pure magical (as she should, I agree). Blutgang and Levin Sword are both magic, as is Soulblade. Mortal Savant offers Swordfaire to buff those moves up, meaning they'll do more damage from MS than from Dark Knight or Warlock etc.

Marianne's paralogue is also a great one to do and I would do it even if I weren't using her because it gives you so much Wootz Steel. Many enemies are unaggressive and it's relatively easy to distract the aggressive ones because of how monster AI works. I didn't find it too difficult myself on Hard, though I haven't done it on Maddening yet. *shrug*

I question that - it requires sword investment, which is a dead investment for a lot of the game for reasons already mentioned. And Blutgang has only 20 uses. And requires Umbral Steel, which can't be farmed easily, to repair.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[NegativeExponents-]

59 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I question that - it requires sword investment, which is a dead investment for a lot of the game for reasons already mentioned. And Blutgang has only 20 uses. And requires Umbral Steel, which can't be farmed easily, to repair.

The game throws so much umbral steel at you that it's really not an issue. I don't see how sword is a dead investment on Marianne between her prf, Levin Sword, and Soul Blade plus Swordfaire to power all those up. I'm not gonna argue that MS is her best class but its definitely not a terrible choice and one she would do well in.

On 10/30/2019 at 9:17 PM, FoxyGrandpa said:

Mobility-wise, MS is slightly better than DK due to the ridiculous amount of terrain that only hurts cavalry units.

Just dismount. Same move as MS and no more terrain penalty. It even gives a AS boost so there's literally no reason not to do so. DK is just so much better than MS by having a mount and even has matching stat boosts to MS that the only reason I would consider doing MS instead is for easier accessibility.