Rate the unit 13: Citrinne

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Guidelines:

2.1.) mention the diffculty on which you rate the unit 

2.2.) what classes your unit went through, what skills they had and so on; don´t consider obviously suboptimal builds.

2.3.) no DLC rings, no non-unit DLC bonuses

2.4.) no grinding in skirmishes

2.5.) no rng abuse (no resetting for bond rings)

2.6.) cooking is allowed

2.7.) ratings to be given in the format X/10

2.8.) if it isn´t mentioned above, it´s fair game

2.9.) no "Kagetsu exists and obsoletes Lapis, 0/10", explain your rating

 

Unit: Citrinne

Class: Mage

                     Lvl   HP    STR   MAG   DEX   SPD    LCK   DEF    RES     BLD

Bases:          10     24      2       15       13       10      10       3        12        4

T. Bases:      10      6       1        8         7        4        8         2          5        0

Growths:      /     45      10       40       25      30      25       20       40       5

 

Personal Skill:  When this unit uses a healing item, adjacent allies also recover the same amount of HP.

Innate Proficiency: Tome

SP: 500

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Avoid+5
B    Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+5
A    Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+5, Dodge+5
S    Hit+10, Critical+6, Avoid+5, Dodge+5

 

Tools and mo stats:

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

Average Stats - Fire Emblem: Engage (FE17) (triangleattack.com)

 

Rating: 5.5

Next unit on Monday

Edited July 24, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[Etrurian emperor]

6/10. A decent enough attacker but Citrine not being able to dodge or double her way out of a paper bag is pretty problematic. On Hard she's already a character who can't survive an enemy attack under any circumstance so in Lunatic she'd likely be even more fragile.

[Aria Belacqua]

Maddening difficulty; on my first playthrough, Citrinne was one of my core team, and MVP for most late-game chapters.

It's impossible to discuss Citrinne as a unit without mentioning Dire Thunder (Olwen's S bond ring). With Dire Thunder, Citrinne is S-tier; without, she is B-tier in my opinion.

One question is how hard it is to obtain Dire Thunder, without rigging. In my first game I didn't get it until after Lief came back after chapter 17. Even so, she was run-defining with it, and was my unit most able to ORKO enemies, all while doing it from 3 range before even longbow archers could counter. (There are plenty of other units who can ORKO as much as her, but on my first run I didn't build my characters as well as I am in my second run, and Citrinne did phenomenally with a fairly simple build).

So for Citrinne's value, I'm going to count getting Dire Thunder after chapter 17 as still making her very strong, but her availability for that level of power is lower.

In terms of acquiring Dire Thunder, it's the most valuable bond ring in the game. Early game you want bond rings and don't have much else to spend them on. In my recent run, I got enough decent bond rings for my team after chapter 4, and then saved up bond fragments until after chapter 8, when I dumped all 10k into Lief's bond rings. This gave me 6/10 of Lief's S rings, or a 60% chance of getting Dire Thunder (which I was lucky to), as well as several other strong spd/mag and spd/str rings. While that's certainly not reasonable to rely on before chapter 10, it seems very viable to acquire before chapter 18 if you want to.

Otherwise, Citrinne is useful but not amazing. She won't ever be useless with strong magic in a game with most enemies having lower res than def, but won't OKRO most units and won't shine the same way. She's a great staff user with her high magic, and she uses Byleth's Thrysus very well if you don't have a faster mage in the sage class (faster mages probably want to be mage knights, so that's likely, but fast sages would do better with Thrysus). She's also a decent user of Corrin for 3-range lockdown and the fire dragon vein. Excalibur or Elsurge, for crit, or a levin sword or even a hurricane axe could probably make some strong builds with hold out and 1-2 of unyielding/wrath/vantage (using an emblem to potentially have 3 of those skills active at once), as long as you can position her so she's only in range of one enemy.

Which gets to her biggest downside: bulk, or the absolute lack thereof. I found this pretty workable in my first run, because as my first run, I played a very player-phase heavy game that required keeping multiple weak units safe. But in a run with stronger/bulkier units overall, Citrinne could easily be a liability.

One value prop is that she fills her role well with little investment, making her a great role-player for the early-mid game if you need a temporary mage. Her starting class, mage, can promote into either of the best classes for her without a second seal, which makes her a pretty good filler unit for midgame. She also arrives right when Céline and Clanne are beginning to fall off (at least as mages), and before Jean, or Anna can really pop off as mages (Chloé starts popping off at the same time Citrinne joins, but even then you probably want a second mage). So she'll probably get some good use in chapters 7-11 even if you drop her for Ivy or Pandreo afterwards.

With Dire Thunder I'd say 9/10. Without I'd say 5/10. So let's say 7/10 overall?

[lenticular]

She has a great magic stat, but that's about all she brings to the table. Her other stats vary from average to bad, her personal skill is largely worthless, and the early-mid-game recruitment time also does her no favours. So, what can you do with just a great magic stat? Not too much, really. She's perfectly fine from chapters 7 to 11 if you haven't much been using your earlier mages (or they turned out badly, or they died), and if you do want to use her long term then she'll be reasonable, but I can't see any way to get her beyond "fne" and "reasonable" without an undue expenditure of resources. 5/10.

(And since it came up, I personally don't consider any bond ring to be sufficiently reliably obtainable as to plan around, so I will be rating under the assumption that they aren't available. That's my personal preference only, and I absolutely think it's reasonable for others to rate differently.)

[SumG]

Suffice it to say I don't find Citrinne particularly enticing under normal circumstances.  The problem is that she is so severely outclassed by too many other units it would be hard to justify a roster spot for.  I'll talk about them in the context of Maddening, but I think everything broadly holds for any difficulty level.

First off, I'll address the Dire Thunder issue.  Personally, I think it's overrated.  I think a mage unit is better off investing in skills, inherited abilities, and emblems that improve their speed rather than in Dire Thunder.  A Dire Thunder build is necessarily locked into Thunder (5 Mt), the Olwen ring (1 Mt), and best case the Awakening Engrave (3 Mt).  A simple Bolganone tome has 16 Mt on its own.  If you can figure out how to get a mage to reliably double with Bolganone, they will massively outdamage any Dire Thunder build.  So even considering the taboo of rigging a Dire Thunder ring, I don't think it affects my grade much.  And with access to the well and various emblem rings, it's very possible to get at least some mages reliably doubling with Bolganone.

Problem number 1 is Pandreo.  Pandreo's stats absolutely put Citrinne to shame.  Assuming a Sage Citrinne Dire Thunder build and a Mage Knight Pandreo at IL 30, he is liable to have less magic (7), but he's also going to have 10(!) more speed and 6 more build before even considering bonuses from the Chaos Style class ability.  Having that amount of a speed advantage lets Pandreo use much heavier tomes with ease while still reliably doubling.  But it doesn't end there.  Mage Knight is a mounted class, which would give Pandreo significnatly more movement than Citrinne.  Further, Citrinne would be locked into using the Olwen ring, which has a very modest Magic stat boost (+1), no ability to engage, and no passive or Sync abilities.  Pandreo gets wear an emblem ring, and regardless of what emblem he uses it's liable to provide a number of beneficial stats, passive abilities, and the ability to Engage, which all improve his utility.  It's not even close.

Problems number 2 is Ivy.  Ivy has fairly comparable stats to Citrinne.  A Sage Citrinne at IL 30 will have about 5 more magic than a comparable level Lindwurm Ivy, but Ivy will have an extra 2 speed and 3 build.  That effective 5 speed will make it much easier for Ivy to figure out a way to reliably double while still wielding a Bolganone tome, and if she's doing that she's out damaging Dire Thunder Citrinne.  But on top of that, Ivy has a better personal skill, a much better class (more movement and flying utility), and gets to wear an emblem ring.  Again, it's no contest.

Problem number 3 is Hortensia.  In terms of raw damage stats, Citrinne obviously outclasses Hortensia.  But the problem here is that Hortensia is a far superior support magic unit than Citrinne.  She has access to a flying mage class for more movement and flying utility, has a great personal ability that let's her occasionally re-buy uses of staves in a game where staves are tremendously powerful, and on the off chance she has nothing better to do she can do some chip damage.

Citrinne joins in Chapter 7, but the earliest you could get a Dire Thunder build going is Chapter 9 (after you gain access to the Leif ring).  Ivy joins in Chapter 11 and Pandreo in 12, and once those two show up they are much better options for deployment during the Solm arc where you are short on deployment slots.  After Chapter 14, when you get access to a full complement of deployment slots again, you'll also have access to Hortensia.  Citrinne can't really make a case for deployment over Pandreo, Ivy, or Hortensia, and it would be fairly hard on Maddening to justify bring 4+ mages onto a map until you get 14 deployment slots just from the need to have enough front-liners.

So at the end, to me Citrinne is really only available for 4 chapters before she gets her lunch eaten, her best build (Dire Thunder) requires tedious RNG rigging while not even reliably outdamaging other powerful mage builds, and she doesn't have any thing unique in terms of personal ability or unique classes.  At least Celine shows up a bit earlier and has a bit of niche utility in using an early Levin Sword before you have access to more powerful tomes.  To me Citrinne is roughly a 3/10.  Sure, you could use her.  But why?

Edited July 20, 2023 by SumG

[Jotari]

All she has is a magic stat, but that's one of the best stats for actually killing things. Her speed issues can be mitigate with Speed Eater, just like everyone else in the cast. On Lunatic everyone struggles to double, so I'd rather have someone who is nuking powerful single hits than someone who is just failing to double with weak hits. Enemies are also so bulky that few if anyone will be one rounding enemies with normal attacks even if they can double. So a powerful magic poke to knock off 1/3 of an enemy's HP is super useful. Her durability also isn't much of an issue if you don't let her get hit on enemy phase. And she has very little competition for the magic Emblems. Though, her best Emblem would most certainly be Byleth with her as a Sage for that sweet three range magic. I think a lot of these arguments hold wait for Hard, but, as inverted as this sounds, for Maddening, I wouldn't underestimate the utility of just having a really hard hitter that can knock around enemies from range. Even a simple Elthunder can be very useful in Citrinne's hands. This isn't Blazing Blade where your strong units can solo the enemy, you really need to have your units gang up on the enemy.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Jotari

[Bartozio]

And so we have arrived at Citrinne, the noble who is too rich for her own good. My rating is based on Maddening mode with fixed growths.

As other people have already mentioned, Citrinne has sky high magic and not much else. When she joins it allows her to easily replace one of your other mages as she has no trouble nuking enemy armor units or dealing big chip damage to anyone else. This makes a pretty good filler unit for a few chapters, although getting Canter on her is more difficult than other early game units because of her low starting SP for her level.

In terms of long term investment, we run into the discussion of bond rings. In particular the Olwen S-rank ring is amazing on her as it lets her always double when she initiates combat with a thunder tome. In my first run I used this on her as a sage and it lets her one round most enemies all the way to endgame, including faster enemy types like wolf knights and swordmasters, who can be quite the pain to deal with otherwise. She also gets to use staves, so even on turns where she won't kill anything she can make herself useful.

Obviously she has competition in doing this, mostly from Ivy and Pandreo, but her higher magic stat makes her pretty competitive for the spot. And like... even if you prefer the other 2, it's not like using 3 strong mages is a bad thing in this game.

However, since the rules state we're not rng abusing for bond rings, I'm going to assume she won't get any specific S-rank ring. Without that tool, her speed starts to become a fairly serious issue. I've encountered several times later on in the game that Citrinne had trouble even doubling generals, which really starts to hurt her viability. Of course there's ways to fix her speed. Going mage knight or inheriting Speed+x should let her keep doubling generals, and inheriting speed taker or just straight up using the Lyn ring will let her double most regular enemies (though not the really fast ones). However, needing an almost full set of speed taker before you start doubling regular enemies is not a great look, and the Lyn emblem is a pretty heavily contested resource.

I still think that's an okay look, being able to deal good chip and healing, and dealing with armor units is good enough to earn someone a filler slot, and she can make good use of some of the more support oriented emblems like Corrin or Byleth. Not amazing, but you can do much worse than that. If you want, she can even reclass to a bow wielding class and use the Radiant bow to kill wyverns, something most natural bow units will struggle with (and she can still kill other fliers with a regular bow, because the might and class bases are enough for that).

In conclusion, if I took bond ring rigging in account I'd rate her a 8/10, but we're not I'm giving her a 5/10. She's a decent choice if you want more mages or a magic filler with canter during the Solm arc, but she needs some investment and she's not going to turn into a team carry unless you happen to get lucky.

[Bartozio]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

 This isn't Blazing Blade where your strong units can solo the enemy, you really need to have your units gang up on the enemy.

You can definitely build some powerhouse units who can solo masses of enemies if you want to, even on maddening. Having a unit with high magic and speed protected by bonded shield, or a unit running a crit build with vantage or Ike does wonders for clearing out maps.

You're likely not going to have an army of those powerhouses of course, maybe 3 or 4 units like that, but that can be more than enough.

[Jotari]

18 minutes ago, Bartozio said:

You can definitely build some powerhouse units who can solo masses of enemies if you want to, even on maddening. Having a unit with high magic and speed protected by bonded shield, or a unit running a crit build with vantage or Ike does wonders for clearing out maps.

You're likely not going to have an army of those powerhouses of course, maybe 3 or 4 units like that, but that can be more than enough.

It's possibly to get really powerful builds, certainly, especially with DLC, but you're not going to be doing it out the gate and even with power houses, a lot of those chapters are going to need units assisting them. My 100% vantage-crit-Lyn-Panette can only be in so many places at once. Citrinne with Byleth is always going to be a useful unit with options; dealing significant damage to enemies from afar, using a stave, or dancing. And you're going to want Byleth on someone, because Goddess Dance is great, you might as well make it on a unit who can make good use of Thrysus.

Also I'll note that Ivy also has pretty big Speed problems that take a lot of resources to get around. It doesn't really matter if the gap is 1 or 10, being unable to double is being unable to double.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Jotari

[Bartozio]

46 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's possibly to get really powerful builds, certainly, especially with DLC, but you're not going to be doing it out the gate and even with power houses, a lot of those chapters are going to need units assisting them. My 100% vantage-crit-Lyn-Panette can only be in so many places at once. Citrinne with Byleth is always going to be a useful unit with options; dealing significant damage to enemies from afar, using a stave, or dancing. And you're going to want Byleth on someone, because Goddess Dance is great, you might as well make it on a unit who can make good use of Thrysus.

Also I'll note that Ivy also has pretty big Speed problems that take a lot of resources to get around. It doesn't really matter if the gap is 1 or 10, being unable to double is being unable to double.

I mostly agree with the first part, although the not out of the gate part is somewhat inacurate. Citrinne join in chapter 7, and I've had Anna as a bonded shield sweeper online for chapter 12. That's basically 4 chapters without a super unit, and even in those I've had other characters with the right emblem and a bit of planning be able to take out entire halves of the map on their own. So pretty much from the moment Citrinne joins powerhouses (can) exist.

I will agree though that those powerhouses can't be everywhere and your other units will have to do some combat in other parts of the map. I consider that mostly filler combat, especially once you have more than one powerhouse going, but Citrinne deserves praise for filling that role better than most other units. I am redacting points from her for not being able to turn into one of those powerhouses though, or even not having any kind of enemy phase.

In terms of speed issues I strongly disagree. I should start of by saying I think Ivy being able to fly while using staves and tomes and having enough bulk to have something of an enemy phase is more relevant when comparing them then the difference in speed.

In terms of how much the speed difference matters, I'm not sure how big the difference really is between the two, but it matter a lot if one needs the lyn emblem to double whereas the other can get by with Speed+x and maybe a tonic or meal. One is a heavily contested resource, the other is not. Even needing almost the full boost from speedtaker is a huge downgrade over needing Speed+x, since it takes a few turns to stack up on speedtaker, whereas Speed+x you can have instantly.

So no, it really matters exactly how much support you need to start doubling.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Bartozio said:

I mostly agree with the first part, although the not out of the gate part is somewhat inacurate. Citrinne join in chapter 7, and I've had Anna as a bonded shield sweeper online for chapter 12. That's basically 4 chapters without a super unit, and even in those I've had other characters with the right emblem and a bit of planning be able to take out entire halves of the map on their own. So pretty much from the moment Citrinne joins powerhouses (can) exist.

I will agree though that those powerhouses can't be everywhere and your other units will have to do some combat in other parts of the map. I consider that mostly filler combat, especially once you have more than one powerhouse going, but Citrinne deserves praise for filling that role better than most other units. I am redacting points from her for not being able to turn into one of those powerhouses though, or even not having any kind of enemy phase.

In terms of speed issues I strongly disagree. I should start of by saying I think Ivy being able to fly while using staves and tomes and having enough bulk to have something of an enemy phase is more relevant when comparing them then the difference in speed.

In terms of how much the speed difference matters, I'm not sure how big the difference really is between the two, but it matter a lot if one needs the lyn emblem to double whereas the other can get by with Speed+x and maybe a tonic or meal. One is a heavily contested resource, the other is not. Even needing almost the full boost from speedtaker is a huge downgrade over needing Speed+x, since it takes a few turns to stack up on speedtaker, whereas Speed+x you can have instantly.

So no, it really matters exactly how much support you need to start doubling.

Well I'm too lazy to go check stats right now, but I can say from my own personal experience that Ivy could only ever double early on when she had Lyn backing her up. Once Lyn went on a unit better able to make use of Astra Storm, Ivy's practical ability to double anything that's not an armour virtually vanished. Meanwhile, with both of them having Speed Taker, Citrenne could more reliably boost her speed as she could more easily secure those first five kills early in a chapter.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

I´ll assume no lvl ups in join chapter to make matters easy for myself:

Available after chapter 7:

1/10 Sage Citrinne:                           26 HP / 2 STR / 17 MAG / 15 DEX / 11 SPD / 5 DEF / 14 RES / 11 LCK / 5 BLD

Available after chapter 11: 

Base Wing Tamer Ivy:                      32 HP / 7 STR / 17 MAG / 15 DEX / 13 SPD / 12 DEF / 15 RES / 4 LCK / 7 BLD

1/17 Lindwurm Ivy:                           34 HP / 8 STR / 19 MAG / 16 DEX / 14 SPD / 14 DEF / 16 RES / 4 LCK / 8 BLD

 

If I´m reading these stats right, then as of 3/10 Citrinne has 19 MAG and can get a lead of around 1-2 points of Mag at most, ending up at 30 - 29 at 20/10, with  differences in spd (11 -14 at lvl 1 promoted and 17-22 by lvl 20) and especially build (5 -8 at lvl 1 promoted and 6-10 by lvl 20).

Citrinnes major lead over Ivy is... LCK.

I imagine getting kills with Ivy would be easier and somewhat safer, considering her flying and movement range.

[Barren]

Now it’s time to talk about Citrine. This is assuming hard but will mention maddening.

 

She is your typical magical bomb. Good offense but weak everywhere else except for res and luck. People have already mentioned her Dire Thunder build so there is that. Though still good on Hard throughout, on maddening it starts to become average by end of mid game and heading into late game. But still very useful early on when or if you get it.
 

She is immediately ready to promote since she joins you at level 10 so that is a plus. Citrine can go either Sage or Mage Knight in this case. Mage Knight is likely the better option if you want her to be more offensive. Especially since it will help her speed, build and move. Though she might end up having to use a forged El Fire tome to make sure that the weight of the book matches her build so she wouldn’t be slowed down.

 

Her high magic growth is enough to make it matter and she would seriously need something like speed + x to help her double or avoid getting doubled as we head towards the mid game. Hold Out is a great option for her survivability assuming you get lucky with the well. This can also support her personal ability generosity where if she heals herself with a vulnerary or elixir, adjacent allies can get in on the healing as well. More so if Celine was nearby and gentle flower was active as it would boost the healing by 50%.

 

Even though Citrine can end up being pretty decent if trained, she does face stiff competition as already mentioned from the likes of Ivy and Hortensia who can fly and use magic as well. Ivy has better bulk with a easy way to fix her accuracy and speed. Hortensia can potentially save a staff use thanks to world tree. Then there is Pandreo who is sporting better HP, speed and build which means he along with Ivy can wield Bolganone tomes while being able to double.

 

I’d say she is 5/10. Not terrible but definitely out classed.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Barren

[Shadow Mir]

18 hours ago, SumG said:

But it doesn't end there.  Mage Knight is a mounted class, which would give Pandreo significnatly more movement than Citrinne.

Bold: 1 more movement is significantly more movement? Since when?

Edited July 21, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: 1 more movement is significantly more movement? Since when?

It's kind of funny, in an way. Like you're initially stuck with 4 movement and you're usually capped at 5 or 6. Plus, the movement costs between infantry and cavalry are the same across the board in Engage as opposed to the usual "ok, you can have more movement points; but  you can't rush through most types of terrain with it" deal.

Of course, there isn't that big of difference between 5 or 6 mov unless you're drawing people in or just trying to get the drop on them. There's also Sigurd with an mage knight for the extra movement, but I'm not exactly sure if his boosts would actually work with the Flame Lance, though. Celica gives your mage knight and extra two tiles to warp to with Warp Ragnarok. But as far as the Emblems catering specifically to Mage Knights, I'm not sure if there are any more of them. Except for the twins, but mainly with the Flame Lance and the Wind Sword if you want an alternative to the tomes

Edited July 21, 2023 by Armchair General

[samthedigital]

I'm going to give Citrinne a 7/10 for Maddening, but it's a somewhat speculative rating. Theoretically in the best case scenario she can get enough investment to start doubling and nuke enemies with a bonded shield partner on Enemy Phase. If she was able to do that consistently I'd go even higher, but I'm not sure if it's possible to get Citrinne there if I've committed some resources to get another unit (probably Ivy) to double too. I'm also not sure if she could double enough with some kind of Griffin Knight Levin Sword build because of her build issues. She's a great Bonded Shield target because of her low defenses; it's just that I find that it's a lot more limiting to do this as a Make Knight rather than as a flying class. She has access to Canter a few chapters earlier than Pandreo and Ivy too, so there could be a few situations where she has some more utility than the two of them given a lot of investment.

She is a lot worse if she doesn't get enough speed to double. She's probably the best Celica user for a few chapters and has access to Canter, but it gets a lot worse as the game goes on. I can see her being paired with Corrin to some success or have some random staff utility, but that's something that any other magic user does well too. I do value that magic stat a lot more than I do units with middling physical stats though, so I still consider her to be better than average.

I'm not a fan of resetting for Dire Thunder since it loses more time than it would ever save without getting lucky, so I'm not factoring it into the rating. I'd probably bump her rating a point or so because she's a lot better with low investment as a player phase nuke, but just being that isn't enough to compete with the best units in the game.

[LoneRecon400]

47 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

Theoretically in the best case scenario she can get enough investment to start doubling and nuke enemies with a bonded shield partner on Enemy Phase.

If she was able to do that consistently I'd go even higher, but I'm not sure if it's possible to get Citrinne there if I've committed some resources to get another unit (probably Ivy) to double too.

I'm also not sure if she could double enough with some kind of Griffin Knight Levin Sword build because of her build issues.

She's a great Bonded Shield target because of her low defenses; it's just that I find that it's a lot more limiting to do this as a Make Knight rather than as a flying class.

You can definitely get Citrinne to double without compromising other unit's Speed.

A base Mage Knight Citrinne has 13 Speed and 6 Build. By using a Speed Tonic, Chaos Style, Byleth Covert Instruct, Spd +3, that's 26 Speed at base. That's enough to double most enemies in Corrins Paralogue at base, and can one round them pretty easily with Celica Engraved Bolganone at the recommended level.

When the Corruped start showing up she becomes even better as she can rely on Seraphim. With the orbs from the free update, you can augment that spell to have an effective 30 might on all enemies in the lategame. Combined with its low weight it makes one rounding trivial for her so long as she can double. It can make Griffin a viable lategame class for her.

There's also a niche in being able to use a mounted class as it allows for other mounted units to benefit from Bonded Shield. That can be very useful in taking use of Sigurd Engage bonus or Erika's Twin Strike.

Edited July 22, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

There's also a niche in being able to use a mounted class as it allows for other mounted units to benefit from Bonded Shield. That can be very useful in taking use of Sigurd Engage bonus or Erika's Twin Strike.

My team is usually comprised of a lot of flying units, so while I can see the utility it's definitely something that would be more situational for me.

Quote

A base Mage Knight Citrinne has 13 Speed and 6 Build. By using a Speed Tonic, Chaos Style, Byleth Covert Instruct, Spd +3, that's 26 Speed at base. That's enough to double most enemies in Corrins Paralogue at base, and can one round them pretty easily with Celica Engraved Bolganone at the recommended level.

It's probably not much of an ask to give her a speedwing or two depending on team composition or giving her more speed from Lyn either. I would revise my rating to a 7.5 or 8 then, but I'm still not confident because I haven't tried it out myself yet.

Edited July 22, 2023 by samthedigital

[SnowFire]

Level 20/20 Sage Citrinne:

39 HP, 5 Str, 37 Mag, 24 Dex, 20 Spd, 11 Def, 34 Res, 22 Lck, 6 Bld, 5 Move
That lousy 6 Build means she's using Elfire or Elsurge if she doesn't want to slow herself down late-game; Bolganone +2 would knock 5 speed off, and Elthunder / Thoron are even worse.

--

First off, Dire Thunder is a trap.  It's a cute build for a few chapters if you get it going ASAP (C9-C14 or so?) but Citrinne really wants Byleth or Corrin for her BIS Emblem / Bond Ring long term.  Dire Thunder becomes quite mediocre if you did the free FEH account linking that granted the Alfonse / Sharena / Anna S-rank Bond Rings, all of which are very serviceable, and/or got any DLC Emblem Bracelets which drastically cut into the value of "I guess some units need Bond Rings anyway, might as well get the best one."  Maybe, maybe, if Engage was a game of tons of high-HP, high-Speed, low-Res enemies (enemy Swordmasters, I guess?), then Dire Thunder's forced doubles would be more potent, but that's just a slice of enemies.  So while Citrinne is the best Dire Thunder user, I'm not inclined to consider it very heavily, as I'd sooner bake in DLC than I would Bond Ring RNG save scumming (which, to my understanding, is not even guaranteed to give you Olwen for C9 if it turns out the RNG was uncooperative, at least short of doing a Skirmish on Hard mode to re-roll the dice.  I know somebody posted some magic trick to get around that a few months ago but it also sounded like Too Much Work.).

That said...  I'm overall positive on Citrinne.  You can certainly leave her on the bench forever and not notice, so I wouldn't call her a must-deploy or anything.  But overkill Magic is a good stat build to pick, especially with how high enemy Res can get on Maddening.  We've been complaining a lot about damage problems on "mixed" builds before (i.e. Clanne, Celine, Warrior Anna), and Citrinne exceeds all their Magic scores by miles.  She's not gonna have problems with breaking through enemy Res.  If you just use her for one-shots and chipping (chipping get extra-safe if you give her Emblem Byleth's Thrysus and an Elthunder / Thoron tome), that's a pretty solid niche.

I think SumG's post was pretty on target, despite being more skeptical of Citrinne than I am.  I will say that Ivy and Pandreo are probably better combat mages than Citrinne ultimately - Ivy has flying mobility and Pandreo has much better Speed / Build.  That said, being worse than two of the best units in the game isn't really a terrible criticism; Citrinne still carves a solid niche for herself, Engage isn't a game where you might be worried about deploying too many mages.  If you really want to salvage combat Citrinne, you probably should make her a Mage Knight rather than a Sage, which will help salvage her speed some, and see if you can sneak Micaiah onto her.  And possibly just throw her a Speedwing outright along with some Lyn skills.  Speedy Citrinne is certainly possible, just requires some work, but I can see the complaint that this still makes her lesser than Pandreo who is just naturally speedy.  (Also, even if Citrinne is left slow, she's decetively tanky in that a decent number of enemies have Smash weapons equipped, and she can absolutely fry some of them with counterattacks before they ever attack given her insane Magic stat.  Plus those Smash-weapon enemies are often weighed down and it's easier for Citrinne to double them anyway, while a low-damage unit, even if they double, might not kill a General with a Greatlance and then get OHKO'd by it.)

However, the comparison with Hortensia is more interesting.  Yeah, Hortensia's personal is interesting if you are really abusing the low-use staves, and flying is nice (although less important for a support unit).  However, I'd definitely rather have Citrinne as a combat unit, given Hortensia's suspect Magic - if we're talking favoritism, Hortensia really needs some Spirit Dust in the same way that Citrinne wants to eat Speedwings.  I feel that Sage Citrinne is probably still the right call just to have a powerful staff user in the backlines who can also chip.  She's really edging out the likes of Céline here, at least if you're not planning on attacking physically.  I think a Hortensia sidegrade is worth a decent score.

Citrinne gets a 6/10 from me.  (But I liked Orochi in FE Fates, so...  yeah.)

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Welcome to the DLC zone!  This isn't going into her score, and this "niche" is shareable with any frail cast member, but I'd just like to say that Citrinne's very frailness makes her a hilariously overpowered target for Emblem Tiki's extremely fair "get a revival stone" ability.  Like, this is too good, it trivializes bosses.  The bosses will see frail, double-able Citrinne and do overkill damage to her and...  she just gets back up.  This is Tiki being good rather than Citrinne, but still.

Citrinne would also be perfectly happy with a Soren or Chrom Emblem Bracelet if playing with DLC.  (Maybe Veronica too?  Haven't used her.)

[LoneRecon400]

33 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Citrinne would also be perfectly happy with a Soren or Chrom Emblem Bracelet if playing with DLC.  (Maybe Veronica too?  Haven't used her.)

Veronica is really broken on her if go all in on Reprisal +. With 3 Seraph Robes, you can have her reach the High Preist HP Cap of 55. Combine that with Hp +15 and Hp Tonic, that'll add +37 Damage to every attack if you can get her to 1 HP, which is easy with Corrin's Fire Dragon Vein.

At level 10/30 High Preist, Citrinne will have 36 Magic. Combined with a Ike Engraved Thoron +1 for 22 Might and Veronicas +5 Magic, that's 99 Attack. That is enough damage to one shot every enemy at Endgame except for Somborn.

Now imagine that with Vantage. It's a rather asinine combination.

Edited July 23, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Shadow Mir]

34 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Dire Thunder becomes quite mediocre if you did the free FEH account linking that granted the Alfonse / Sharena / Anna S-rank Bond Rings, all of which are very serviceable

The FEH link bonus was later made available for free. 

[SumG]

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

However, the comparison with Hortensia is more interesting.  Yeah, Hortensia's personal is interesting if you are really abusing the low-use staves, and flying is nice (although less important for a support unit).  However, I'd definitely rather have Citrinne as a combat unit, given Hortensia's suspect Magic - if we're talking favoritism, Hortensia really needs some Spirit Dust in the same way that Citrinne wants to eat Speedwings.

Just to clarify, I did not mean to imply Hortensia is a better combat mage than Citrinne.  Merely that I think you can afford only so many squishy units in your normal deployment, and going beyond three mages starts (assuming a normal deployment of 12) to feel risky to me.  If I'm being honest, Hortensia might only attack once or twice per chapter when I play through the game, but to me they fill a similar role in team composition consideration as they are extremely squishy magic users.  It's in that context that I consider Hortensia and Citrinne jockeying for the same deployments slots.  And since Hortensia is very likely the best support unit in the game, in a game where healing is required and utility staves are powerful, she gets the nod over Citrinne.

I also disagree on the value of flying on a support unit, but that's probably a subject worth waiting on until the Hortensia discussion.

Edited July 23, 2023 by SumG

[SnowFire]

Yeah, sorry, to be clear I think we both agree on the basics.  I was just saying that while I agree with you that Citrinne loses to Ivy & Pandreo in the role of battle-mage, I think that using her as a support slot who really hurts when necessary is an interesting sidegrade to deploying Hortensia.  She's still being deployed largely for the staves but she can get her hands dirty better than Hortensia, which makes her a sidegrade rather than a downgrade.  Basically a lategame deployment of battle-Citrinne / support-Hortensia is probably clearly weaker than battle-Ivy / support-Hortensia; but I think battle-Ivy / support Citrinne and battle-Ivy / support Hortensia are about equivalent in power, say.

Edited July 23, 2023 by SnowFire

[FashionEmblem]

Citrinne isn't that strong without rigging bond rings or DLC. She is all Magic, which most notably means no Speed. She can work as a 3 range attacker for some big chip off her high Magic stat, but she can struggle to double even Generals at parts of the game when factoring in Bolganone's weight and her abysmal build stat. In a lot of ways, Citrinne is worse Ivy since she has to choose between staff utility (Sage) or mobility (Mage Knight), and even then her mobility isn't flight. I suppose Citrinne has somewhat more Magic and accuracy to her benefit in the trade-off. She can hold her own offensively when she joins, so she can easily take over a spot for Clanne or Céline before relinquishing it to Ivy and Pandreo in a few chapters. I'd say she's one of the better candidates for early game units that make it past Chapter 11, but her join time is the worst for gaining Canter pre-Chapter 10 and she gets a ding for that.

Bond rings turn Citrinne from snooze to hero since Dire Thunder from Olwen or Great Thunder from Mae are excellent. Generally I would say Dire Thunder is better in the short term, unless you want to invest in forging a Thoron super early into the game. Later on, I could see arguments for these Bond Rings instead of the mage emblems in the base game, though with DLC it's harder to imagine sticking to Bond Rings.

Speaking of DLC, my favorite way to run Citrinne nowadays is speed focused Mage Knight with Speedtaker and the Camilla emblem. At internal level 39, MageKnight!Citrinne ends up with ~23 speed, which fully realized Speedtaker ups to 33 speed, then 38 with fully bonded Camilla. This compares with a Wolf Knight!Merrin whom hits ~38 speed at internal level 39. Plus, being able to do a Divine Paralogue prior to Chapter 10 makes it easier for her to gain Canter despite her bad base SP.

[SlumLordDaddy]

3/10 she serves as a good mage for a couple chapters. Anna is probably still in her axe fighter class at this point when she's recruited. Clanne is still good at this point but magic is really good so having two characters going at it is excellent. She has really good bases and starts at level 10 so you might be fooled into using a master seal on her. But her dex and speed growths are pitiful and she's made of paper. 

I use her up through chapter 11 and she gets replaced by pandreo every time. She has a really good magic stat but this is a game with a lot of characters who also have good magic growths but can double and actually see what they're aiming at.

Pandreo is to citrinne what kagetsu is to lapis in my eyes.

Now if you're rigging for bond rings like great thunder I can see the appeal but I don't know how many people actually use that.

So in a nutshell use her while she's really good and drop her when she's falling off.