Rate the Unit 26: Merrin

[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: Merrin

Class: Wolf Knight

                     Lvl   HP    STR   MAG   DEX   SPD    LCK   DEF    RES     BLD

Bases:          1      36    15      10          21     21      12       12        14        9

T. Bases:      16    13     9        7          12      11       8        8         10        3

Growths:      /       55    25     25         40     50     30      30        25       10

 

Personal Skill: When 2 or more female allies are within 2 spaces, grants Hit/Avo+5 to unit and those allies.

Innate Proficiency: Knoife

SP: 1500

 

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:

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

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

Rating: 8.19

Next unit on Thursday

Edited September 7, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

9/10

Merrin is effectively the same unit as Kagetsu, so just about everything written in that topic is applicable to this one. She has a better personal and a slightly worse distribution of stats, but the differences aren't enough to make much of a difference in my experience. She's a good unit for one more chapter (give her a forged Silver Dagger) and has access to Wolf Knight for a little longer for what that's worth too.

Here's a fun fact: In a speedrun when Merrin joins she's better than Alear in every single way who has been the main carry up until that point and has been fed all of the relevant resources. It's still better to continue with Alear because of main character privilege. This doesn't affect my rating whatsoever because I'm not using speedruns or normal mode as a way of rating units, but there honestly isn't anything that interesting to talk about. Merrin is just a ball of stats that is amplified by whatever emblem and class we want her to have.

Edited September 4, 2023 by samthedigital

[lenticular]

I'm not sure there's much to say about Merrin. She's good. Very good, even. She has good stats. She has a good starting class. Her personal is... well, calling it "good" would be pushing it, but it's one of the better ones in Engage. She even supports with a strong set of other units. She doesn't have any Corrupted Hate This One Weird Trick style ways to break the game wide open. She's just generally strong. 8/10.

[SumG]

Merrin's a really good stat ball, probably only behind Kagetsu in terms of being an all-around physical fighter.  That said, aside from very good all-around stats, she doesn't have anything unique to recommend her.  Her starting class is solid for the near-term future upon recruitment, but she probably will want to move out of Wolf Knight eventually due to its low strength.  It can be a bit of a decision whether or not commit any resources to upgrading daggers for her, as the weapons are helpful immediately, but not great in the long term.  Happily, she fares very well in most of the strong physical classes like Warrior, Wyvern, and Hero.

Definitely one the easier units to grade overall.  Very good grade, just not as good as the very best units.  I'll go for an 8/10.

[SnowFire]

20/5 Wolf Knight Merrin:

51 HP, 22 Str, 16 Mag, 34 Dex, 37 Spd, 20 Def, 24 Res, 24 Lck, 11 Bld, 6 Move
--

Rather than Kagetsu, I think Chloé might be the better comparison...  at least if left in Wolf Knight forever.  Lightning fast and very mobile, but not particularly damaging, but also lacks Chloé's magical staff utility (although can at least be passable with a Levin Sword off the okay Magic score).  Since lategame Chloé does fall off some, this is more 7/10 material than 8/10 material.  Makes a theoretically interesting Lucina users too, if you want to have Chain Attack Poison Dagger strikes...  for all that once you get rolling, you don't really need much Poison stacking to kill enemies, but it is cute if you have a low-damage team or something.

However, if you want to have Merrin carry rather than simply hole-fill for some missions, there's nothing stopping you from making her a Warrior or Wyvern Knight for big Str increases.  (Or even Griffin Knight for Chloé #2.)  I do think she's a tad worse than Kagetsu, but downgrading her to 7/10 just feels contrarian for what is only a mildly worse stat build, so yeah.

8/10 works.

[Alogeo]

Good stat, good starting SP, fine personal.

On maddening She can definatly carry her weight until late game. But for DMG purpose i would change her to Warrior or wyvern.

Rate : 8/10.

[Excellen Browning]

Merrin isn't as good as a wyvern knight Kagetsu, but she's about on par with a griffon knight Chloé. On hard mode I'd insta promote her to either of those classes, or maybe warrior, because even with a forged silver dagger I don't think her offense is that good. 8/10

Edited September 5, 2023 by Excellen Browning

[Bartozio]

Honestly, there's just not too much to say about Merrin I think. She has high stats when she joins, starts in a good class and her growth rates let her stay good throughout the game. My first maddening playthrough I kept her as a wolf knight all game with Erika to fix her damage output, and she basically became my hard carry. She's insanely fast and suprisingly bulky, which pairs very well with Erika's bonus damage.

There's also several other good builds for her though, so it's difficult to really go wrong here. Similar to what I said about Kagetsu, there's a few units with more unique qualities that I think are better than Merrin, but she's definitely among the better units in this game. Which gives her a 8/10

[Ether]

Not going to give a rating since I haven't been, mostly just following along, but I wanted to chime in on Merrin because I think she's quite a neatly designed unit. The comparisons to Kagetsu are pretty obvious(similar availability, Kagetsu needs Ike to come online so he kind of just coasts until Merrin joins anyway) and they have similar stats, with Kagetsu edging out a bit more Str. But Merrin is also very comparable to Pandreo, only having 1 less base mag than him and -5% growth. While these two are your plug and play godphys or godmage respectively, Merrin said to getchu a girl who can do both, and I really like the flexibility she brings because of it. She can be a second Kagetsu or a second Pandreo and performs on par with either of them(neither -2 Str or -1 mag are particularly hard to fix, being as simple as a tonic, though my lack of experience with Maddening means I don't know if those breakpoints even matter) but her being uniquely stronger than either in mixed roles like whipping out a levin sword/radiant bow on a phys build or whatever melee weapon you slot on for a mage knight/griffin build and being flexible in going either way depending on army needs would actually make me give her the shout over either of them. 

[Alogeo]

49 minutes ago, Ether said:

Not going to give a rating since I haven't been, mostly just following along, but I wanted to chime in on Merrin because I think she's quite a neatly designed unit. The comparisons to Kagetsu are pretty obvious(similar availability, Kagetsu needs Ike to come online so he kind of just coasts until Merrin joins anyway) and they have similar stats, with Kagetsu edging out a bit more Str. But Merrin is also very comparable to Pandreo, only having 1 less base mag than him and -5% growth. While these two are your plug and play godphys or godmage respectively, Merrin said to getchu a girl who can do both, and I really like the flexibility she brings because of it. She can be a second Kagetsu or a second Pandreo and performs on par with either of them(neither -2 Str or -1 mag are particularly hard to fix, being as simple as a tonic, though my lack of experience with Maddening means I don't know if those breakpoints even matter) but her being uniquely stronger than either in mixed roles like whipping out a levin sword/radiant bow on a phys build or whatever melee weapon you slot on for a mage knight/griffin build and being flexible in going either way depending on army needs would actually make me give her the shout over either of them. 

The comparison with Pandreo seems a bit hard too me, because She cannot get tome/staff prof. for quote some time. So i dont know witch magical class should you compare with him. But She is definetly a good lewin sword user on a non magic class.

[Ether]

48 minutes ago, Alogeo said:

The comparison with Pandreo seems a bit hard too me, because She cannot get tome/staff prof. for quote some time. So i dont know witch magical class should you compare with him. But She is definetly a good lewin sword user on a non magic class.

Honestly I'm so used to the dlc emblems that I forgot Byleth doesn't give tome prof. That does hamper magic merrin a bit, yeah, but Levin on wolf knight is still good for magic damage.

[Barren]

This is cool is it not? Merrin! Oh hey the voice of Shantae!

 

Anyways, this is assuming Maddening. Though I have used her more on hard mode so my knowledge on the other units on maddening for now it limited.

 

She joins you turn 1 of chapter 14 along with Timerra and Panette. Wolf Knight is a class I find to be intriguing. It’s a mounted unit with dagger utility that is essentially a pegasus knight but no flight. That said, Hobble can be useful against high move enemies in addition to poison from the daggers. Merrin is essentially Kagetsu lite in a sense that her combat prowess is the same as Kagetsu just a few minor differences. Kagetsu has better strength even though he’s a swordmaster while Merrin is definitely faster and has higher move. Plus Merrin could use Levin Sword effectively with magic tonic support. 
 

Wolf Knights low strength growth could hamper Merrin’s performance overtime. But you can still forge a silver dagger to like +2/3 and her damage will be mostly fine for the whole mid game and some of the late game. 
 

As for emblems, Erika, Ike, Corrin all can help Merrin function as a debuffer that plays a role at making kills easier to achieve. Ike helps Merrin patch up her weaker areas like hp, strength and defense. Erika improves damage thanks to Lunar Brace. Corrin offers Draconic Hex and when engaged dreadful aura. Even canter because who doesn’t love canter is useful for Merrin. If you want to dodge tank for the late game there is avoid + x from Marth as well as dagger precision for better avoid bonuses are also decent choices.

 

You could also reclass her as a Wyvern Knight or Warrior if you want to improve her strength. Hero gives her brave assist utility with chain attacks.

 

Overall, she gets a 8.5/10 from me. Really good unit. Definitely recommended to bring along including others have mentioned like Panette, Chloe, Fogado and Pandreo.

[Hrothgar777]

I believe I posted Merrin's stats as of the end of my Hard Mode run. At the time my impression of her was overwhelmingly positive; I gave her Silver Dagger the Fates special effect, which turned her from a mediocre novelty of a unit into a dodge and critical hit tank who rose the ranks of my party overnight.

Since I gave up after getting stuck on Chapter 5 of Maddening, after which I just moved on to a replay of Three Houses, I have nothing new to add. In grand total I've made use of maybe half the roster of Engage, and of these I've made use of but a puny fraction of their possible builds. Those who say Merrin has less overall potential than certain alternatives are probably right. But on the lower difficulties you can have a great experience with any unit, and from that limited experience I have nothing bad to say about her.

[Alef Zero]

Will photos be enough?

She's cool (heh). Great stats, great design, decent personality (as far as engage goes). I made her bow knight, and she was destroying enemies left and right. Thanks to her high magic, she had great success with radiant bow. Fast enough to double most enemies without Lyn or passive speed bonus.

Rating: 8/10

Edited October 9, 2023 by Alef Zero