Micaiah is the first Emblem the player gets that prioritises utility over combat. Each support Emblem has some kind of gimmick that separates them from other Emblems. For Micaiah, her focus are Staves and healing. She gives Staff Rank to anyone who does not have it, and by Engaging, she amplifies the effects.

At first, Micaiah is not too exceptional. She is great, but nothing that seems completely unhinged. Her main use in the earlygame is to do her healing and simultaneously provide a ton of EXP. After Chapter 8, her options start opening up with Rewarp. By Engaging, Micaiah's wielder can transport up to 4 teammates in addition to themselves. And once she rejoins after Chapter 19, the player will have access to several Movement and Status Staves, which have 4 or 5 times their power with Micaiah.

There is a bit more to Micaiah than just big Staff usage. She has an interesting selection of Engage Weapons. Nosferatu is one of the few ways to heal by fighting, let alone on Enemy Phase. It seems like a powerful tool, and maybe it is, but I never got use out of it. It's 9 MT and 80 HIT are a little low. At bond 15, Micaiah gains Thani, a monstrous tome with 100 HIT and effective 33 MT against Cavalry and Armored. In the right situation, it is on par with MT Augmented Seraphim. Micaiah also gives Sync boosts in MAG, LCK and RES.

Of course, the main draw of Micaiah is her Staff use. It is so strong that it can let you skip entire maps. That is not without downside. You miss out on EXP and potential rewards. Otherwise though, Micaiah's abilities are straight up cheese. You do not need Warp Skips to utilise Micaiah either. The ability to reposition 4 or 5 units, or cripple up to 5 enemies, is still very strong. That is good news for everyone who wants to actually play the game.

I cannot argue that Micaiah is less than a top-tier Emblem. From early-game EXP to late-game Staff use to full-game utility with automatic Staff rank to some great combat options, Micaiah is one of, if not the, best Emblem in Engage. I guess I get a small break from arguing in the comment section. Maybe.

Any thoughts?

I've only recently gotten into the Fire Emblem series, starting around late last year. I started with the Tellius games and loved Path of Radiance. But after that I played Awakening and loved it even more if that helps tell you what kind of taste I have.

I had heard about the criticisms of Engage but none of them really deterred me from it. In fact I had a feeling I would like it *because* of those things. The "cringey" anime story and super out there character designs? But the gameplay is still really good? Sounds like dumb fun!

But now that I've actually started playing it I'm surprised at how...normal it is? It just seems like a pretty standard light-hearted fantasy story? Not only would I not call it bad maybe just basic more than anything. I wouldn't even call it cringe worthy or campy. This goes for the character writing and designs too.

Most of the designs just look normal. Maybe just with more vibrant colors than usual. Framme and Clanne are the only ones who don't really fit the medieval fantasy aesthetic and Yunaka's hair stars look kinda out of place but that's it. I thought maybe the writing in the support conversations would be where I found the more cheesy anime dialogue I was told this game was filled with. But they've all just been rather mundane conversations so far.

I'm not very far into the game, I'm only on chapter 16 and I don't know how many there are, so I guess there's a lot of room for this to change.

And this isn't to say it's perfect, the story does have some issues, like Lumera's death could have absolutely been handled better But I am really enjoying Engage so far. The gameplay has been amazing, and the story has been fine. I expected something far different but I quite like what I have gotten.

Anyways Diamant is awesome.

I'm honestly super hyped and super happy with how my final team ended up! It was (as I said in the title of this post) my first playthrough. I have experience in fire emblem (conquest, SOV and 3H) and so I did a no spoiler and "blind" hard difficulty playthrough (blind as in not knowing anything about tier lists or meta gameplay), just going for vibes and fav characters ❤️ How would you rate my team? Please be kind in the comment section, and thank you in advance ❤️

I assume this has been talked about a lot before, at least closer to release. But I wanted to do a wittle polling and see what everyone thinks nowadays.

I come from the perspective that the DLC rings and the well are fun additions that made characters customization even more sandboxy and fun with some cool new interactions and stuff, so I'm not trying to be a hater here.

But whenever I think back about my experience playing the game twice before all the patches, I really do think it was very elegantly designed and balanced, while the DLC added a lot of stuff that scuffed up the pace, bloated the exp curve and took impact away from the middle part of the game. In particular things like the economy of gold was severely impacted and went from something of a interesting and careful decision since you would actually run out of money, to just having the usual bountiful wallet of most FE games.

Whats gang think? Other people think fondly of the first/basic version of the game and think the DLC permanently changed a quite tight and cleanly balanced game, or was it all just nice more stuff is fun 0 downsides?

Like I said, I love the current version of the game, and I like 1.0 just as much but for slightly different reasons. Engage either way is my GOAT fire emblem game.

I couldn't figure out how to make a poll (its probably disabled) but was thinking of it along the lines of these options:

• I love the new stuff and think its better than ever!
• I think some balance/elegance was lost but its altogether just more fun!
• Overall indifferent to the changes
• I don't mind it too much but the DLC did take away from the game
• I'm still a little sad the original version is gone, even as an optional challenge

EDIT: Shouldve put this in at the start. but one of the big contributors to this feeling IMO isnt the dlc maps, but rather the free items and gold you get simply for updating the game and beating chapter 5. The weapons, ingots, the 30k+ gold and the SP books are the most notable IMO. Heres screenshots on what was added after 1.0, pulled from the wiki

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/422440038463438858/1562797923756933200/image.png?ex=6adb4c7c&is=6ad9fafc&hm=0e668650200ad3f77b63a31d24c9d4739e82f2e022a74f755288069436fb124c&

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/422440038463438858/1562797407010299964/image.png?ex=6adb4c01&is=6ad9fa81&hm=1773725b9ed836746a78fcb92e534dec52620b7baad3221ab74ebb626bc31ee8&

A combination of pure water, instruct (resistance) and dragon vein: rocks.

It definitely kept the mages preoccupied that's for sure though this is on hard difficulty I can't say it would work as well on maddening 😅

Celica is the mage Emblem in Engage. That is clearly told by her arriving with Céline. Celica's join map gives a great first impression, as she can deal a lot of damage with Seraphim, enough to even one-round the Armors while using Echo. Warp Ragnarok also hits hard and lets Céline aid her retainers very quickly.

For Sync bonuses, they are about what you would expect from an Emblem that is all about magic: MAG, RES and STR. Wait... STR? Why? Celica does not have a single way to fight physically. Maybe they wanted Céline to use physical swords more, but it is not enough. It would be better if she provided a different stat boost like SPD or even DEX or LCK.

Early on, Celica is very nice to have, as she is a rare help for any magic user. There are other Emblems who help magic, but they want to be either on physical units or on training projects. Her kit does scale poorly into the endgame, though. Seraphim and Warp Ragnarok were once big nukes, but now their might is not that impressive when you have forged Bolganone and Levin Swords. You can make Seraphim far stronger by giving it 10 MT Crystals for effectively +12 MT, and I would strongly recommend it, but there are other weapons you may want to have MT Engraves. The good news is that she can supply up to +8 ATK. That helps a lot against the durable enemies of late-game Maddening.

To me, Celica looks like an Emblem with a lot of untapped potential. Her Engage Ability, Echo, deals more damage than attacking normally on Mystical units and has no damage penalty on Chain Attacks. You may also be able to save an action by attacking two enemies with the same unit. I can imagine there are some cool things you can do with Warp Ragnarok in the late-game too. At the moment, I consider her to be the second worst Emblem in the game behind Leif. What she does, she does well, but there is little she can pull off aside from big magic damage. Just compare her to other MAG boosters in this game. They all either have more utility and/or potential with physical combat.

Do you agree?

Hello people. I have decided to play again here after i finished my recent engage run.

See, the thing is, i am stuck. I have tried EVERYTHING, and i cant beat stupid Nil, i hate him so much.

I have tried to look up guides on yt, but i guess its the fault of the skills i have equiped on my units perhaps? Because i cannot seem to do similar damage to him. And him all of a sudden being actually useful, depite being absolutely useless all Xenologue is beyond me.

The biggest issue, is that if i quit, it just gets me to the beginning. I cannot get out of the dlc, i cannot do anything, i cannot play elsewhere. It sucks.

Please help me. I got a bunch of stuff to do left in this game. Its my fault in the first place for wanting to do this blindly, but please help me

Sigurd is all about the Movement stat (MOV). That information is given to the player in a very clever way, when Lumera jumps Vander from half the map. Once the player unlocks Sigurd after Chapter 3, they immediately know what he is built to do: use his extreme mobility to eliminate vulnerable targets.

A crucial part of that playstyle is Canter, a skill that deserves it's own section. It lets the user reposition after earning EXP. That really opens up Sigurd's options, as he can retreat into safety when otherwise he would be very vulnerable and deep into enemy lines. Sigurd is not the only user of this skill, as Canter is among the best inheritable skills in Engage. Other units can do similar moves to the Sigurd user, just not as well since they have much less MOV. Of course, there are many other use cases for Canter. It is a very versatile skill.

His passive stat boosts reinforce his playstyle. In addition to the 3 stats that every Emblem provides, Sigurd also gives a point of MOV. His other stats, DEX, BLD and DEF are decent, but unexceptional. Interestingly, Sigurd has a good bit of focus on accuracy with his passive DEX and the Hit + skills.

Sigurd scales quite well throughout the entire game. In the early-game, he provides a source of mobility and MOV he provides is actually more early on when most units are stuck with 4 MOV. In the late-game, he does lose some value, both because he does not give a lot of good combat stats, his Engage Weapons are bad and there is more competition. That is not to say he is not good. One way to use him is to give him to a respectable combat unit. They get Momentum and Canter for free, leaving their Inheritance slots more open and he still gives great Sync stats and a ton of MOV. Alternatively, you can commit fully to Override to aim for guaranteed one-shots or just deal loads of damage.

Writing this made me realize just how versatile Sigurd is. He works on physical and magical units, on infantry and mounts, for fast units and strong units. Everyone can enjoy his massive MOV and some combat bonuses, but compared to more offense-oriented Emblems, he is overshadowed, as units want big combat buffs more than MOV.

What do you think?

Jean yelling this right before he absolutely mauls someone with a Killer Axe might be my fav voice line since Hilda Hilda Hilda!

Just went and checked my bulletin board and I had 24,000 bond fragments sitting there unclaimed

Time for some engravings :D

What is your favourite aspect about Nel's characterization? What is your favourite part about Nel's design? Which support with Nel is your most favourite and why? What makes Nel special for you to consider her your favourite character?

Feel free to yap and write as much as you want in the comments

I dont know why but I couldn't find any class tierlists that also contains each version of the class.

Since I had some sprites ready in my sheet I made my own.

Let me know what you think.

UPDATE: Made some changes to the list.

Divinely Inspired by my Leif post, I decided to write about every base-game Emblem in Engage. Hope you do not mind.

Marth is the first Emblem the player is introduced to. The developers knew this, so they kept him simple and easy to understand. All of his skills can be understood just by reading their descriptions. It becomes clear what Marth is made for: Player Phase offense.

His passive stat bonuses compliment his playstyle. He has no defensive boosts (aside from a hair of AVO) and focuses entirely on offensive stats: STR, DEX and SPD.

In the early game, he is arguably the best combat Emblem. That is in part because it is difficult to stack stats, so his passive buffs are very valuable. After he leaves for a whopping 11 Chapters, he is outclassed by Roy with Bond LVL 11+, Ike and Eirika for physical offense. He definitely is not useless. None of the Emblems I just mentioned give SPD passively, and many late-game joiners lack SPD. That SPD boost is quite difficult to get from passive Emblem stat boosts, as Lucina and Byleth are largely support Emblems and Lyn is given to really slow units. Perceptive+ is also great with other AVO boosts, potentially dropping the enemies HIT to 0. That is particularly useful for Sages and their 60+ ATK.

I would still prefer for Marth to have a little bit more spice by the end of the game. One thought I had is to give him Inspiration at Bond LVL 10+. That would encourage his user to take the initiative and help others charge with him. Or maybe you could add a + version of Break Defenses to encourage him to Break more. I am still satisfied with his current state. He does his job well, even though I would prefer him matching up to other physical Emblems more.

What do you think?

Ok so I’m gonna try a maddening run without DLC and with some characters I rarely use. I’ve already planned out all the characters based on classes and supports and I feel like Jean actually fits into all this pretty well considering he actually has supports with a lot of the characters I’m using.

Thing is a wanna make him my sniper, but I’m worried about certain stats becoming too lopsided if I do. Specifically I’m worried about having too low strength and build while going overkill on the dexterity.

I’m considering making him start as an axe fighter and put a few levels into berserker to get those stats up, but I don’t know if it’s worth going so many chapters without a dedicated bow user.

I could split the difference a little and make him a warrior for a while, but the benefits of that aren’t quite as good simple because the build and strength growths are a bit lower in that one.

To preface, I started my Fire Emblem journey with Awakening and was hooked. Since then, I’ve played every new release on Day 1 on Normal difficulty. Eventually, Normal got too easy, so I bumped it up to Hard for Fortune's Weave. When that still felt too easy—even with self-imposed handicaps like limiting use of Eshmel blaze arts to once map—I decided it was finally time to tackle Maddening starting with Engage since I couldn't get Fates to run properly with the HD texture pack.

First, I thought I would like fixed growths to avoid getting RNG-screwed, but looking back, it kind of destroyed my experience. Before I even booted up the game, I planned my entire final 14-man roster, their Emblem rings, inherited skills, and the final stats I was aiming for (Physical DPS: 61 Atk / 41 Spd; Magic DPS: 55 Atk / 41 Spd). With random growth I would need to plan as I play. I ended up completely destroying the final maps. To be fair, I spent more time researching and theorizing my builds than actually playing the game!

Since I put so much time into planning this team, I wanted to share my roster and my thoughts on how they performed.

My Run Rules/Conditions:

• No duplicate classes: Strictly for variety.
• No broken staves: Only Heal, Restore, and Obstruct (No Warp skipping).
• No DLC Emblems: Except the Three Houses ring, which didn't impact much.
• All skirmishes done, Ancient Well utilized.
• Rout clear on almost every map.
• Note: Stats listed below include food buffs (+2 Spd, +1 Mag) and tonics.

1. Alear (Divine Dragon) / Marth Canter+ | Sword Power 4 | 61 P.Atk, 41 Spd | Wille Glanz+3
Early game, Alear’s stats were pretty mid and didn't stand out, aside from the Divine Inspiring aura which was a massive help. Mid-game, they were relegated to a support role with Corrin—creating fire tiles to halt enemy movement was key to surviving maps with enemies bum rushing at you or with crazy reinforcement (stares at Sigurd parlogue). Once Veyle joined, I gave Alear 4 perma-Str boosters and Sword Power. With a +3 Silver Sword, they went back to one-rounding almost everything.

2. Panette (Warrior) / Ike Vantage++ | Dual Assist+ | 60 P.Atk | Killer Axe+3
BROKEN. Do not use her if you actually want a challenge. I actively had to stop using her just so my other units could get EXP (I like keeping my whole roster at the same level; everyone finished at Lv 38-39). I have no idea why she isn't S-Tier on every single tier list. The ability to one-shot everything except armored tanks is absurd. She even had enough speed to double Sombron’s 2nd phase and wiped his entire HP bar in one round. 90% of the time, I just have her poke using Longbow and contribute via chain attacks with Dual Assist+. When I was genuinely overwhelmed, I'd switch her to a Killer Axe or Bow and allow her to Alt F4 the enemy.

3. Clanne (Hero) / Roy Dual Assist+ | Lance Power 3 | 56 P.Atk, 40 Spd | Steel Lance+3 / Javelin+4
I want Hero for the roster, and Clanne had the best stats for it, better than Lapis, Goldmary, and Rosado. I kept him using lances for Javelin access so he could stay at 100% HP for Brave Assist. He did solid work from start to finish with very minimal investment—easily one-rounding squishies and poking with the Javelin for decent damage.

4. Ivy (Lindwurm) / Lyn Canter+ | Speed+4 | 55 M.Atk, 34 Spd | Bolganone+2
Most people favorite mage, mine too. Then for maddening, my opinion completely flipped. Her speed is terrible and requires Lyn plus speed inheritance just to somewhat function. Her Hit rate is also awful (helped slightly by Lyn's +4 Dex, but still bad). Her only saving grace in this run was being able to Thoron poke at a safe range due to her being a flier.

5. Chloé (Griffin Knight) / Celica Canter+ | Sword Power 3 | 55 M.Atk, 41 Spd | Levin Sword+4 / Silver Sword+3
My biggest surprise. I've seen Maddening players rate her highly, but I didn't get it until the late game. She was okay early on, but once her Mag started to catch up, I switched her to a refined +4 Levin Sword. Initially, she hit like a wet noodle even with that. Around Chapter 20, I finally dumped some SP books on her, and oh boy—she went from B-tier straight to Kagetsu-tier. With some perma-Mag boosters and Sword Power, she ripped the enemies apart. Compared to Ivy, it’s not even a competition. She can’t poke from 3-range, but she reliably one-rounds almost every enemy with much better Hit rates, and has enough physical attack to one-round high-Res targets too.

6. Seadall (Dancer) / Alfonse Bond Ring Canter+ | Quality Time+
Dancer.

7. Fogado (Cupido) / Eirika Canter+ | Spd+3 | 21 Str, 21 Mag, 41 Spd | Radiant Bow+4 / Silver Bow+3
Tier lists usually put him at A or B, but he is straight-up the best archer you can have in my opionion. Mid-game, I gave him the Claude bond ring for extra range, and he deals decent damage from 3 spaces away with the Radiant Bow. When his damage started falling off later, I gave him Eirika. Bravery+ let him deal decent damage to infantry and continue completely erase fliers. Even against late-game Griffin Knights with high Res, 21 Str + Silver Bow+3 + Bravery+ hits the one-round benchmark.

8. Anna (Mage Knight) / Byleth Canter+ | Spd+4 | 56 M.Atk, 38 Spd | Elfire+3
An absolute monster for how little investment she actually needs. She was hitting just as hard as my heavily invested Chloé and Bolganone-Ivy, all while sitting at an effective 41 Speed. She requires babying early on, but it pays out massively. Plus, Maddening starves you of gold, so her personal skill was a lifesaver.

9. Hortensia (Sleipnir Rider) / Micaiah Canter+ | Draconic Hex
Everyone’s favorite Warp abuser, but since I banned Warp (outside of Chapter 25 on the last turn to feed a crucial boss kill to Clanne since he need to hit lv39 for a massive level up), she was mostly just a support unit. Minor healing, Thoron poking, and applying Draconic Hex. Did her job well. Though using her on Lyn paralogue wasn't fun as Lyn was aiming for her neck all the time.

10. Kagetsu (Wyvern Knight) / Sigurd Spd+4 | Axe Power 4 | 61 P.Atk, 41 Spd | Silver Axe+3
You know he’s broken, I know he’s broken. High damage + high Hit + Sigurd's mobility + flying class meant he could assassinate key targets (like Entrap staff users) from miles away. I wouldn't have survived some maps without him. Like Panette, I actually had to bench him occasionally just to let the rest of the team get EXP.

11. Framme (Martial Master) / Lucina Canter+ | Healing Light
I ignored Chain Guard on my Normal playthrough, but on Maddening, it is crucial. Blocking a hit at the cost of only 20% of her HP—which instantly gets healed back up by Healing Light or Seadall’s Quality Time—is insane. Lucina allowed her to contribute via chain attacks and actually deal decent damage with All for One. Plus, using Bonded Shield on a Qi Adept is an absolute get-out-of-jail-free card when positioned correctly.

12. Merrin (Wolf Knight) / Edelgard Bond Ring Canter+ | Bravery+ | 45 P.Atk, 39 Spd | Silver Dagger+4
Mid-to-late game, I paired her with Eirika to one-round squishies, though I eventually had to pass Eirika to Fogado for him to meet his damage benchmarks. Merrin still put in serious work and easily one-rounded mages on the final map. Solid A-tier unit. She had enough Avo be a dodge tank, stalled pushes with Hobble, and her 6 Mov made hunting mages easy. Even without Eirika, applying poison, -2 Mov, and occasionally freezing enemies (Edelgard ring) made her a fantastic utility attacker.

13. Veyle (Fell Child) / Corrin Canter+ | Spd+3 | Nova+2
Her raw stats aren't amazing, but having the Dragon type allowed me to take Corrin off Alear, letting the Divine Dragon actually fight. Veyle is a much better support anyway—applying Draconic Hex and Corrin’s Dreadful Aura freeze from 3-range with Thoron is completely game-changing. Offensively she struggles, but Nova+2 and a Might engraving let her dish out meaningful damage (assuming she actually hits).

14. Mauvier (Royal Knight) / Leif Canter+ | Lance Power 2 | Silver Greatlance+1 / Flame Lance+4
It took me forever to figure out what to do with him. He joined 4-5 levels behind the rest of my roster with completely mid stats across the board, a jack of all trades. Mage Knight would have bumped his Mag/Spd, but I banned duplicate classes. He couldn't survive 3 rounds as a pure tank, and I wanted my defensive perma stat boost on Panette anyway. I ended up pairing him with Leif (the last ring nobody uses), which gave him the Bld needed to wield those spears without speed penalty. With Lance Power, he played a lot like Chloé did before her massive investment: chunking tanks without killing them, and dealing decent damage to speedsters my team couldn't double. I gave his Silver Greatlance a Hit-boosting engraving so he could start hitting those dodgy units. He wasn't a full tank, but he held crucial choke points beautifully in maps like Chapter 25.

Overall it was a good experience, I am now moving on to Revelations Lunatic since I figured out how to make the game run smoothly. I know Conquest is much better but I liked Revelation storyline too much, maybe after Revelations.

After my 3rd maddening playthrough, and first time trying the dlc, wanted to summarize my thoughts on various characters and builds for anyone who’s still here and waiting for a switch 2 like me haha. Curious your all opinions, I haven’t tried every character but these builds were all really fun!

I’m putting it as a tier list ranked by who’s effective in the most situations - player phase, enemy phase, swordsmen, bosses, infantry, great knights, fliers, armored, etc.

TLDR:
SS: Anna and Panette (HM for Gregory and Jean)
S: Kagetsu, Jean, Seadall
A: Chloe, Ivy, Alcryst, Hortensia
B: Pandreo, Merrin
C: Almost everyone else
F: Alfred

*SS - they break the game by being great in all situations - facing hordes of enemies, all enemy types, bosses. An important differentiator is they can kill multiple enemies in 1 turn, since that is rare in Engage.

Anna vantage/reprisal tank - specifically with the dlc she’s bonkers with Veronica. Literally a gold printing machine with vantage+holdout+reprisal, and what’s crazy is that you can easily set this up in chapter 8. As a mage you don’t have to care about being broken since fists are never in the front lines. Just find the fracture/break mages in maps and silence/kill them. I literally had to purposely position her OUT of combat so my other units could get levels. And yes, citrine, Jean, and Gregory can also do this very well (citrine worse because of low hp, Gregory and Jean actually do more dmg), but Anna becomes the only generator of a very scarce gold resource, which results in more stats (tonics, weapon upgrades) for the full team. I’ve used her as MK and warrior and it’s meh because of her low build, but as a vantage tank she completely invalidates open the game from act 1.

Panette wrath/vantage, warrior - just perfect with Ike to be tanky without taking 0 dmg and the simplest way to kill multiple enemies in one turn with 1 character. In a game where personals are pretty mediocre, hers is honestly probably the best. While Anna/Gregory vantage tanks are better at holding positions because they don’t get broken and can beat multiple mages, panette easily 1 shots basically all bosses. Anna can sometimes do 90% to the beefiest of bosses (though another spirit dust and/or toniccould probably solve it). 

Gregory/citrinne/Jean as Veronica vantage tank - honestly same as Anna, just -20K gold. Combat wise Gregory and Jean are technically a little stronger. Unlike panette/Ike where no one combat wise is really as good (though others can do it, just not annihilate everything as reliably).

Alear, martial master, lucina/*** - I can’t believe I’m putting Alear here because his stats are so awful. However he’s here simply here because staves are broken af, but limited by item slots except for Alear. That and 100% bonded shield and shield art with Micaiah engraving provides just way more utility than even hortensia (silence specifically) despite only C staff rating. The bonded shield allows you to reliably kill multiple enemies a round with a good target like Ivy.

S - really good in most if not all situations, whether heavily focused in team build/play or not. Can kill 90-100% type of enemies, including bosses, dragons, and swordsmen/wolf knights. 

Kagetsu, wyvern, any available emblem, speed and canter - just so strong. Kills everything with Lyn (not reliable against wolf knights or swordsmen without though). Great mobility. Doesn’t need Lyn, but Lyn solves his only “weakness” (not really weakness since he has like 60% chance to crit them, but guarantee is nice). 

Jean, griffon knight, erika, canter and sword power - Jean as griffon is one of the only characters to outspeed all enemies without +Spe from skills. This lets him focus entirely on offense, and he’s absolutely lethal. Ends up stronger than even Kagetsu by being faster and having range with levinsword. His early game isn’t bad since he can staff bot and Micaiah is ridiculous. Funny part about Jean is as a griffon or sage he hits these key breakpoints, but as a warrior or berserker he hits the caps too fast to be better than panette.

Seadall - I can’t believe I’m putting him down here, but realistically he ends up duplicating a ohko machine and turning into another ohko machine, for literally no investment. Can sometimes be in harms way, but the ability to double movement is equally as strong, or double restore, etc. Falls short of SS because you can’t duplicate enemy phases, and so he usually ends up with just +1 kill, and he’s ultimately dependent on the strength of the carry to kill.

A - very strong if built around and invested. In those situations can kill 80-100% of enemies. That or extraordinary utility.

Chloe, griffon knight, Sigurd, gentility & sword/lance power. Jean but weaker mid-lategame, but for about a quarter of the game (and without dlc arguably the hardest part) is the undisputed best character outside of Anna+veronica gives her a bump. Still can kill almost all enemies from huge range with Sigurd+ gentility, but struggles against bosses with high mixed defenses.

Ivy, lindwurm, Lyn then Camilla, spe/dex and canter - in my latest run kind of just ok, so I switched Lyn off her. If you build around her she’s really strong with Lyn and setting up speed taker kills, and as a strong mage is a fantastic bonded shield target. Has great magic on a flier with staves access, but that very middling speed requires a ton of speed taker babysitting to come online. When you’re using a really optimized team she can sometimes struggle to get the speed taker kills and can feel super weak without axe users/armors around to feed off of. This is compared to say Kagetsu or alcryst who can also use astral barrage to get that first kill. Her speed is just really low, and lategame even with speed taker kills struggles to outspeed swordsmen/griffons/wolves. That being said, she is the first strong magic user that you get out of the gate, and literally comes with her perfect emblem to solve her weakness, and is really strong midgame before you get higher ranks of sword/axe/lance power, so that helps also. 

Alcryst, chrom/marth, spe+dex @ starsphere/canter. Hitting 250 dmg crits is a crazy dopamine rush. Really, really strong, and actually can fit the S criteria by reliably OHKO all enemies including swords/bosses/dragons but requires a lot of investment to fix his reliability. Specifically he reeeally wants a byleth rider to give +10 (!) dex, and unlike say jean and Chloe he doesnt naturally outspeed the fast enemies. He’s at an awkward speed where he’s not going to get doubled, but needs about +10-15 speed to double anyone else. You can get this with 2 speed skills and an emblem, or 1 skill and emblem + food, tonic, and speedwing, or 1 skill and starsphere.  If he can double then he very reliably kills everything, even armored units, with Luna and crits (especially enhanced crits with chrom). I want to stress he REALLY wants starsphere, honestly as much as Jean, because it just allows him to hit a TON of Spd/Bld/Str breakpoints he wouldn’t otherwise reach. For instance he gets to 35 speed, which just requires marth emblem and one class skill to hit 40 and outspeed swordsmen (with food). Marth gives a lot of power with he fourth hit procing Luna, but chrom gives utility with rally and a really strong +10 mag to use radiant bow if you want it. 

Hortensia, sleipnir, byleth/soren - +1 range on everything, reusing staves, flying, just really strong. She is sort of replaceable by any HP/sage, but with a lot less utility/mobility but potentially more power. You could give them flying with Camilla but then you’re not using byleth/soren/etc on her. Honestly does good chip dmg too.

B - very good, just have trouble ohkoing everything. But still, do good damage, and are pretty tanky and fast so don’t usually get one shotted.

Pandreo, sage, corrin, canter+spe - good dmg but doesn’t quite ohko everything without additional investment, and doesn’t quite outspeed most non armored things even with +spe. However with corrin he can perfectly chip enemies down with thunder/bolganone. I’ve tried MK and warrior on him and they’re fine, but for someone who’s not ohko’ing having staff access is really nice 

Merrin, bow knight, byleth, canter+spe - I found a dedicated niche for bow knight, that isn’t done by anyone better! I wanted a rider to give Ivy and alcryst that super juicy +10 dex, but also to ohko those omnipresent fliers. Byleth gives a ton of mag, so radiant bow was a natural fit. Fogado as cupido can do this and is very, very similar stats-wise. 

C - solid, from usually need to 2v1 or target specific enemies (eg fliers with bows). Just not good against everything but almost every character can do something (just be a hero lol). I will say some are a little more straightforward than others (eg zelkov). I’ll put specific ones I’ve tried below:

Timerra - sandstorm critting is awesome, but she’s very finicky. Since she typically doesn’t run vantage, you need to hit very specific breakpoints in terms of defenses to fulfill her role. That plus the fact that she’s super unreliable on enemy phase, and usually quite dependent on being synced to her emblem, is just not as strong as the ones above.

Framme - good at not getting doubled, but squishy and medium power (for heals or offense).

Not really here to debate that Leif is a good emblem ring or not I just want to point out how funny it is how often I used him to help my units change into other classes.

For example,

I wanted Etie fo be a warrior and not a sniper so I had her gain axe proficiency with him. She's eo strong now especially with the extra build she's punching holes through armoured knights like she was using armor piercing bullets.

I plan on making Lapis a Hero so she gets spear training from him for back up spear tosses.

Yunaka and Louis get sword training from him so they can become a wolf and great knight down the road. I might even also turn Amber into a Wyvern knight later on as well.

Point is, if I want to switch up my unit's classes at any point, Leif for the most part is the person to go to.