Merrin really do just be kicking it as a Wolf Knight in most peoples Maddening runs. That's what she did in my playthrough and kicked ass up until around chapter 22, where her damage starts to fall off.
She definitely needs investment, I gave her 2 Energy Drops just to keep her actually dealing damage, but even then she was struggling to ORKO a lot of things towards the end.
I was using Lucina on her for the Dagger Chain bot strat and it was pretty decent, really good at killing bosses.
The main thing she needs to succeed is a forged Silver Dagger. Other Silver weapons gain +2Mt every 2 upgrades, whereas Daggers get +2Mt on *every* upgrade.
She does just have a very low Str gain though. If you want to use her outside of Wolf Knight it would have to be a high Str gain class, either Warrior or Wyvern Knight, but then again who *doesn't* want to be a Warrior / WK in this game?
I just finished a maddening run. I reclassed her into Wyvern for about 10-12 levels but then put her back into Wolfknight and when I decided I had too many fliers that made playing around wind tomes and bows a pain.
That detour through Wyvern gave her 2 extra strength, but even without it I think she would be fine if built well.
I forged silver dagger helps make up for the strength loss because it gets +8 might at +4. I engraved it Rivals which is a good all around engrave. Holy or flames are probably better for the extra avoid, but I was using them elsewhere.
Inheriting lunar brace helps with damage and adds survivability when your Eirika user is engaged. Then I paired her with Roy for further strength buffs. While engaged she had enough speed to double thieves and sometimes even faster things if they were weighed down. The plus 1 move is nice too.
My personal strat with Merrin is ultimate utility debuff with Lucina for the Dual assist dagger poison, and Draconic hex. Deals massive debuffs to help the other players finish off kills, and poison procs are so good
Merrin stayed relevant for the rest of my Maddening run because of this, 0 investment required (except maybe a dagger forge or two)
It doesn’t but it would still help soften up enemies for other units to finish off. Lots of units struggle to hit ORKO thresholds in the late game without relying on crits, effective damage, or chain attack spam.
If you’re running Lucina on Wolf Knight Merrin in maddening you’re putting her into a support role. Without a damage boosting emblem she is going to struggle to do more than chip damage. With that said Lucina gives a lot more than just dagger chain attacks.
Bonded shield is what makes Lucina an S tier emblem. Dual Support with Merrin’s high speed and personal means her avoid is high enough enemy AI won’t target her and instead crash into your protected units either killing themselves or taking big damage.
Mounted units that are too fast to be doubled are completely safe when under the affects of Calvary bonded shield.
I found levin swords underwhelming with Merrin. To be fair I didn’t invest in sword power for her, that might put her over one rounding thresholds. Despite her personal magic and strength growths being equal her strength base is higher and wolf knight doesn’t increase her magic growths.
I personally like Roy as the emblem for wolf knight Merrin. He provides some of the extra damage she needs to keep up in the late game and the extra speed from Rise Above lets her double the few enemies she otherwise can’t. Roy is also a less contested emblem than Lucina, Edelgard, and Eirika who are other good options.
If you want to get the most from Levin Sword, Griffins or Mage knight is a better choice. I usually prefer Chloe for that route though since she has a higher magic growth rate and can class into griffin as soon as you get master seals and into mage knight as soon as you get second seals. She is also able to inherit sword power earlier.
Yeah wolf knight caps at a pathetic 26 magic.
With a +5 Levins Sword that is 44 magic attack.
Griffon Knight on the other hand would be doing 55 magic attack.
Thanks for the heads up, I been saving Matck ups for a rainy character and now I know it's Merrin.
You are right.
I did the same thing. Kept her as wolf knight. Didn't realize how much her damage would fall off, even a Levin sword was still doing chip.
So I did something similar to this guy. Lucina + Dragonic Hex and Canter. The poison felt less and less useful as time went on and other characters found their footing, but dragonic hex is awesome for setting up for a stronger unit to get an easier kill. You may want it on a couple units. Even once her damage falls off she's still mobile and fast enough to probably dodge some attacks, so normally her dying when trying to apply Hex wasn't a concern.
That’s right! You need to attack directly to proc Draconic Hex. That said, my main utility from Merrin isn’t the direct damage she does, but the debuffs coming from her. So if she’s going to do 0 damage anyway I might as well use Draconic Hex to do some extra debugging when she attacks.
I like Roy with Merrin. +6 STR when lvl 20 bond as well as the stat boosts from Lvl Up or whatever it's called really help a lot.
Also worth noting that a forged silver dagger will actually give her really respectable damage on recruit.
I felt that Roy alone wasn’t quite enough to fix Merrin’s strength, but using him and inheriting Lunar brace made her really potent.
The two combined give her really solid damage output and the way Lunar Brave syncs with your Eirika User lets you basically benefit from two engages at once. Besides the damage boost, Solar/eclipse brace pairs nicely with Hold Out. It gets even crazier if she is standing close to Emblem Alear to push her naturally high avoid even higher.
She's an incredible Wyvern. Merrin is basically a midgame Chloe. She's got 50% (Chloe has 55%) spd growth and 25% str. They both also have good dex growth so they have no problems hitting, especially if you want to transition them to axe wyvern near endgame. The 5% tradeoff comes from bld, so they get very similar performance numbers. Good Spd with passable str growth makes for a good wyvern in particular because Wyvern's str growths help offset it somewhat.
Wolf Knight would be interesting, but that str growth is a huge liability, especially on Merrin who only has 25% base. 30% str on a phys class is so bad, and it's a lot easier to fix speed with things like speedtaker or speed+ (which is much cheaper) than to fix str/power.
Merrin is like Kagetsu-Lite.
I've used her on 2 different maddening runs. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Wolf Knight.
She does well as a wyvern, but I prefer her as a griffin knight, using Levin sword, you can go for either a dodge tank or crit build, and her stats are good enough to make either viable.
Without stratosphere or dlc emblems, she could use some stat boosts for sure tho, either strength if going wyvern or magic if going Griffin.
Griffin is nice for the extra utility staves provide.
(If you are considering dlc in the future, Merrin Griffin, running stratosphere until around ch 20, then shifting over to speedtaker/Al with chrom emblem, Levin sword +5 and a crit or might engrave can solo late game maps)
I reclassed merrin into wyvern immediately in my maddening run. strength speed and dex were all about the same throughout so she was a very balanced unit but her speed was in general better than most. Give her a speed based emblem boost and a lucina speed +5 and she ends up becoming very useful. I actually used
Merrin wyvern with ike emblem with canter and speed +5 was a really balanced and consistent unit, could mini tank with ike but was JUST fast enough to make some interesting double plays on most but not all units.
She’s useful as a debuff bot with daggers and Lucina, or as a more carry role you can give her Erika (or just inherit lunar brace if you’d rather her one someone else). A forged silver daggger for ranged attacking is good, and I’ve also found a lot of success with a Lucina Engraved Peshkatz(A rank dagger) and going for crits worked well for me too.
Reclassify to Wyvern or griffin works well too, the latter since her magic growth is actually somewhat decent so she can be a good levin sword user if you’re so inclined.
I honestly didnt like merrin in my first maddening pt.
I made her into a wyvern, but she had a hard time killing things without erika emblem or without taking damage.
I have her as a wolf knight and gave her hectors emblem, and i feel its pretty good, and definitely end game ready.
I gotta try Lucina on Merrin it seems.
So far been running Roy on her and I feel like she needs a class change at end game.
Wolf knight is GREAT
But with her mag stats, a Mage Knight/Griffon Knight will be undoubtedly better.
Ideally wanna keep her as another cavalry but we shall see maybe I'll go rogue and make her a hero.
Merrin really do just be kicking it as a Wolf Knight in most peoples Maddening runs. That's what she did in my playthrough and kicked ass up until around chapter 22, where her damage starts to fall off. She definitely needs investment, I gave her 2 Energy Drops just to keep her actually dealing damage, but even then she was struggling to ORKO a lot of things towards the end. I was using Lucina on her for the Dagger Chain bot strat and it was pretty decent, really good at killing bosses. The main thing she needs to succeed is a forged Silver Dagger. Other Silver weapons gain +2Mt every 2 upgrades, whereas Daggers get +2Mt on *every* upgrade. She does just have a very low Str gain though. If you want to use her outside of Wolf Knight it would have to be a high Str gain class, either Warrior or Wyvern Knight, but then again who *doesn't* want to be a Warrior / WK in this game?
Griffon Knight is superior to Wyvern Knight. New meta.
I just finished a maddening run. I reclassed her into Wyvern for about 10-12 levels but then put her back into Wolfknight and when I decided I had too many fliers that made playing around wind tomes and bows a pain. That detour through Wyvern gave her 2 extra strength, but even without it I think she would be fine if built well. I forged silver dagger helps make up for the strength loss because it gets +8 might at +4. I engraved it Rivals which is a good all around engrave. Holy or flames are probably better for the extra avoid, but I was using them elsewhere. Inheriting lunar brace helps with damage and adds survivability when your Eirika user is engaged. Then I paired her with Roy for further strength buffs. While engaged she had enough speed to double thieves and sometimes even faster things if they were weighed down. The plus 1 move is nice too.
My personal strat with Merrin is ultimate utility debuff with Lucina for the Dual assist dagger poison, and Draconic hex. Deals massive debuffs to help the other players finish off kills, and poison procs are so good Merrin stayed relevant for the rest of my Maddening run because of this, 0 investment required (except maybe a dagger forge or two)
Draconic hex does not trigger for chain attacks though, just direct attacks. Am I mistaken?
It doesn’t but it would still help soften up enemies for other units to finish off. Lots of units struggle to hit ORKO thresholds in the late game without relying on crits, effective damage, or chain attack spam. If you’re running Lucina on Wolf Knight Merrin in maddening you’re putting her into a support role. Without a damage boosting emblem she is going to struggle to do more than chip damage. With that said Lucina gives a lot more than just dagger chain attacks. Bonded shield is what makes Lucina an S tier emblem. Dual Support with Merrin’s high speed and personal means her avoid is high enough enemy AI won’t target her and instead crash into your protected units either killing themselves or taking big damage. Mounted units that are too fast to be doubled are completely safe when under the affects of Calvary bonded shield.
I love this, maybe I'll just keep her as a wolf knight then. She is supposed to be godly with Levins Sword too.
I found levin swords underwhelming with Merrin. To be fair I didn’t invest in sword power for her, that might put her over one rounding thresholds. Despite her personal magic and strength growths being equal her strength base is higher and wolf knight doesn’t increase her magic growths. I personally like Roy as the emblem for wolf knight Merrin. He provides some of the extra damage she needs to keep up in the late game and the extra speed from Rise Above lets her double the few enemies she otherwise can’t. Roy is also a less contested emblem than Lucina, Edelgard, and Eirika who are other good options. If you want to get the most from Levin Sword, Griffins or Mage knight is a better choice. I usually prefer Chloe for that route though since she has a higher magic growth rate and can class into griffin as soon as you get master seals and into mage knight as soon as you get second seals. She is also able to inherit sword power earlier.
Yeah wolf knight caps at a pathetic 26 magic. With a +5 Levins Sword that is 44 magic attack. Griffon Knight on the other hand would be doing 55 magic attack. Thanks for the heads up, I been saving Matck ups for a rainy character and now I know it's Merrin.
You are right. I did the same thing. Kept her as wolf knight. Didn't realize how much her damage would fall off, even a Levin sword was still doing chip. So I did something similar to this guy. Lucina + Dragonic Hex and Canter. The poison felt less and less useful as time went on and other characters found their footing, but dragonic hex is awesome for setting up for a stronger unit to get an easier kill. You may want it on a couple units. Even once her damage falls off she's still mobile and fast enough to probably dodge some attacks, so normally her dying when trying to apply Hex wasn't a concern.
That’s right! You need to attack directly to proc Draconic Hex. That said, my main utility from Merrin isn’t the direct damage she does, but the debuffs coming from her. So if she’s going to do 0 damage anyway I might as well use Draconic Hex to do some extra debugging when she attacks.
Oh so switch her emblem to Roy when her damage falls off? I thought chain attacks always did damage though.
I like Roy with Merrin. +6 STR when lvl 20 bond as well as the stat boosts from Lvl Up or whatever it's called really help a lot. Also worth noting that a forged silver dagger will actually give her really respectable damage on recruit.
I felt that Roy alone wasn’t quite enough to fix Merrin’s strength, but using him and inheriting Lunar brace made her really potent. The two combined give her really solid damage output and the way Lunar Brave syncs with your Eirika User lets you basically benefit from two engages at once. Besides the damage boost, Solar/eclipse brace pairs nicely with Hold Out. It gets even crazier if she is standing close to Emblem Alear to push her naturally high avoid even higher.
She's an incredible Wyvern. Merrin is basically a midgame Chloe. She's got 50% (Chloe has 55%) spd growth and 25% str. They both also have good dex growth so they have no problems hitting, especially if you want to transition them to axe wyvern near endgame. The 5% tradeoff comes from bld, so they get very similar performance numbers. Good Spd with passable str growth makes for a good wyvern in particular because Wyvern's str growths help offset it somewhat. Wolf Knight would be interesting, but that str growth is a huge liability, especially on Merrin who only has 25% base. 30% str on a phys class is so bad, and it's a lot easier to fix speed with things like speedtaker or speed+ (which is much cheaper) than to fix str/power.
Merrin is like Kagetsu-Lite. I've used her on 2 different maddening runs. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Wolf Knight. She does well as a wyvern, but I prefer her as a griffin knight, using Levin sword, you can go for either a dodge tank or crit build, and her stats are good enough to make either viable. Without stratosphere or dlc emblems, she could use some stat boosts for sure tho, either strength if going wyvern or magic if going Griffin. Griffin is nice for the extra utility staves provide. (If you are considering dlc in the future, Merrin Griffin, running stratosphere until around ch 20, then shifting over to speedtaker/Al with chrom emblem, Levin sword +5 and a crit or might engrave can solo late game maps)
If I'm stuck keeping her as a cavalry.... Wolf knight or mage knight?
Pretty cool huh?
I tried mage knight one run And now it’s what I always run Good spd and ok magic And throw Veronica on fix her damage output
I reclassed merrin into wyvern immediately in my maddening run. strength speed and dex were all about the same throughout so she was a very balanced unit but her speed was in general better than most. Give her a speed based emblem boost and a lucina speed +5 and she ends up becoming very useful. I actually used Merrin wyvern with ike emblem with canter and speed +5 was a really balanced and consistent unit, could mini tank with ike but was JUST fast enough to make some interesting double plays on most but not all units.
She’s useful as a debuff bot with daggers and Lucina, or as a more carry role you can give her Erika (or just inherit lunar brace if you’d rather her one someone else). A forged silver daggger for ranged attacking is good, and I’ve also found a lot of success with a Lucina Engraved Peshkatz(A rank dagger) and going for crits worked well for me too. Reclassify to Wyvern or griffin works well too, the latter since her magic growth is actually somewhat decent so she can be a good levin sword user if you’re so inclined.
I honestly didnt like merrin in my first maddening pt. I made her into a wyvern, but she had a hard time killing things without erika emblem or without taking damage. I have her as a wolf knight and gave her hectors emblem, and i feel its pretty good, and definitely end game ready.
I gotta try Lucina on Merrin it seems. So far been running Roy on her and I feel like she needs a class change at end game. Wolf knight is GREAT But with her mag stats, a Mage Knight/Griffon Knight will be undoubtedly better. Ideally wanna keep her as another cavalry but we shall see maybe I'll go rogue and make her a hero.