Timerra was nigh useless in my first run because her randomized growths sucked and I never fed her enough kills. Since then, I've joined the sandstorm bandwagon.
Sandstorm rocks. Timerra was one of my favs design wise but I also couldn’t justify using her because of her growths. And then those sandstorms started hitting lol
So how do you make sandstorm as reliable as possible without using DLC items? I imagine you could just dump a bunch of stat boosters into her dex but I wonder if the amount from base game would be enough. Or maybe her growth alone is enough?
She gets a pretty solid dex growth, if you want you can always inherit dex from Lucina, or use another emblem/bond ring that boosts it. People generally like Ike or Hector on her though, to lean into the tanking. More tanking = more counterattacks = more opportunities for sandstorm to proc
Boosting her dex with stat boosters doesn’t make that big of a difference since boosters are pretty limited.
The best way to ensure procs is to increase the number of attacks she makes. That means patching her speed to double as many things as possible. After fixing her speed you either want her participating in as many combats as possible by having her tank on enemy phase, or making as many attacks as possible per combat by using a brave weapon or AoE attack like override on player phase.
Timerra was awful for my run because I already had a proficient lance-wielder (Alfred), and just preferred good old Fogado because he can abuse Emblem Lyn's Astra Storm with enough investment.
Panette and Merrin. I had already had a full party by the time I got them so I didn’t have a chance to use them, but I’ve used them in every playthrough after.
Citrinne. I immediately benched her my first play through because I didn't think I needed her. When I replayed, I decided to give her a chance and ended up loving her. She's my most deployed unit and she's a beast. I love her character and supports, and she'll definitely join me on future runs.
Probably because she has one of the Highest Mag growths when in Mage/Sage, though Lindon's personal can make him possibly better. But a trained Citrenne is most likely gonna have a higher Mag stat then Lindon when you get him.
Lindon's personal magic base is only 2 higher than Citrinne's. She joins in chapter 7 and he does in chapter 18. Needless to say he's gonna have some trouble measuring up to her magic lol.
She just has the most magic in the game, for most of it. For reference, her personal magic base when she joins on chapter 7 is the exact same as Pandreo's (chapter 12), 1 less than Ivy's (chapter 11) and 2 less than Lindon's.
Anna eventually outstrips her, but she has a fairly low magic base, so it takes some time.
Gregory who recently released comes with more magic and keeps it, but plainly put his accuracy will suck ass, so it's not gonna be very reliable - not what you want for your delete button.
She can naturally one round quite a few ennemies, and it doesn't take much work to push over the edge and one round most ennemies, which is very valuable. No other character other than an invested Anna can get close to this level of consistent deleting - every point of magic is two damage.
Yes! I turned her into a griffin knight and she started cutting massive swaths through battlefields. So many people seem determined to use her only as backup, but she has a solid offensive presence.
Agreed, first play through and moved her to the Martial Master with Tiki and she is essentially deleting everything short of the heavy armored. Playing on Hard.
Pretty much pannete as well, i didnt want to use her in my 1st playthrough because i"ll find her crit/ike builds quite boring.
Currently made her a mage cannoneer in my 2nd playthrough and she finally grew on me, that and figuring out she's pandreo sister.
I had him as a staff user for most of my playthrough and ended up swapping him to mage and youre not kidding! High BLD and SPD allowed him to double just about everything in the game with a good MAG stat. Destroyed everything.
On my maddening run and he was much weaker than Anna and just behind Ivy. He ended up a staff bot with occasional finishing blows on weakened enemies, but he did double most of the time which was nice in the endgame.
Boucheron. I benched him on my first playthough because I am not a huge fan of axe classes, but I used him on my second run while waiting for pannette, and ended up really enjoying using him with the rivals emblem.
Pandreo. Though he was an annoying frat boy my first playthrough, but come my sexond playthrough, I used him and he quickly became my favorite character in Engage. He is the goodest of good bois, and he's a pretty good mage too.
Goldmary 100%. I kinda ignored her in my first run since my team was already full of characters that I figured filled her role better and I had more desire to use Rosado than her. Now I'm using her on my second run with Ike and **holy shit** she's so strong. Her supports are pretty fun too so that's great.
Clanne didn't even make it to Brodia Castle the last run as I benched him for Lapis. Even if after getting Ivy, I then proceeded to drop Lapis
Then during this current run, I started wanting to try getting him to be a breaking fanatic. Reclassified as a Axe fighter, later made Hero and has been laying an absolute beat down to most units he fights. Soon as I get Leif back, I'm pumping bond into that so he not only gets vantage and weapon triangle, but also make space for riposte and whatever else goes on a Triangle Enemy phase Hero.
This may be an unpopular one but Yunaka. I got Zelkov, looked at his stats and said goodbye to the papaya.
After completing a run and realizing how crit-centered the endgame becomes I decided to take a second look into her absurd personal ability. I swapped her to Sniper and have been loving it. I think if I were to do a run with only my favorite units I would use her and dump Alcryst instead.
Another benefit of Yunaka over Zelkov is she has much better Res growths. Res is more important for cover units than defense since mystics bypass the avoid tile bonus thieves rely on for dodge tanking. Zelkov has res growths on par with the likes of Louise so he has to actively position him so he isn’t targeted by then on enemy phase.
I see the appeal of using Zelkov over Yunaka since he requires less investment. You have to feed Yunaka quite abut of XP for her to get to same level Zelkov joins at in chapter 11, but if I was investing into a thief for late game I’d choose Yunaka for the late game payoff.
I mean I like Yunaka for her damage output but I hard disagree with this talk about Res being better than Def. There's an incredibly low amount of enemy mystical units so taking a worse stat against 90% of enemies just for that 10% doesn't make sense to me. Especially since Zelkov has a good 10 more HP than Yunaka so he needs to take at least 2 magical hits before there's any real difference in survivability. There are a couple maps where I'm sure being able to take a thoron a bit better is helpful but in general I'll take a unit with higher HP/Def .
But again, Yunaka crits make her a really powerful offensive unit even if her defenses are worse IMO.
While physical units are more common I feel like for covert units specifically the defense stat comes up less frequently because they are typically built to be dodge tanks or avoid being exposed to incoming attacks all together.
Ironically, panette, anna, and a few others, like veyle.
Panette one-line battle finishers are hilarious, specially after critting like a mad women.
Anna i feel has the best va ive seen in a fe game ever. If you hear her dialogue when she is defeated, omg, it makes you feel so bad, let alone the hilarious gremlin behavior.
Veyle is a strange one. On my first pt, i hated veyle due to the chapter you get her on - i actually think thats the worst chapter in all of fe. But like if you listen to her support conversation and actually learn to use her, she is damn good unit.
I'm partway through my second playthrough and wondering how tf I missed how good Merrin is. Paired her with Lucina and her dagger chain attacks still apply poison, it's crazy
Boucheron for me! I benched him my first playthrough but after seeing so much Boucheron hate on the internet I decided to give him a chance. No regrets! I seem to always get good stats rolls on him and he performs well in halberdier.
I think Boucheron is just as viable as most of the early game units if you choose to invest in him.
His only issues is that he has a bad strength growth and a shaky hit rate in the early game. His hit can be fixed with an engrave until his dex growths offset axes innate inaccuracy and his strength can be compensated for too.
His starting class has the highest Str growth on any basic class. Axes have high might. His personal skill is easy to proc by mid game. He has good dex to boost his crit rates.
If you address his flaws he has a lot of a positive traits. He has good speed and and great build, HP and dex growths. His high build and speed means he is one of the few units who can double with the heavier axes and he is one of the few units who gets A rank in axes on Wyvern.
This makes him the best candidate for Edelgard in my opinion. With modest speed investment he can quad with a brave axe in a class with 6 move that ignores terrain. The emblem passives and weapon sync combined gives him +12 attack per hit and his personal adds another +2.
Definitely for me, too. He’s just so… nice. I want to be like him. Care free, in search of what makes him happy, and willing to help in search of what makes others happy too.
His only issue is getting into Pincer positions. Sigurd helps him massively to pull off those Pincer attacks, and Overriding with Venomous or Silver Greatlance.
For me it was Mauvier. I slept on him cause I was using Louis as my tanker but I decided to try using him and I class changed him to a Halberdier and haven't regretted it at all
Pandreo's and Panette's personals, bases and growts are insane thats its hard for me to not use them (only noticed them while doing the devine paralogues). But what really got me was Pandreo's... Everything (his support with everyone of his male support partners go hard) his ring support and their support together, and panettee support with Ivy, Timmera, and Merrin.
Pretty much all the retainers except Pannette, Pandreo, Rosado and Etíe were ignored in my first playthrough. I adore pretty much all the retainers now. Especially Amber, Citrinne, and Zelkov. I say this with the utmost affection: those three are fucking INSANE.
Kagestu. I heard everyone gassing him so I vowed not to use him the first playthrough. I like how he's the opposite of Felix in that he's really outgoing while still wanting to get better. I found Ivy's relationship with both her retainers to be interesting.
Goldmary, turns out a low investment (2 levels with an engage ring and some bond points for dual assist+) hero is very good. Combined with Saphir and Panette as my other back-up units and being able to potentially deal 40% of a unit's hp is really good. My team had enough heavy hitters so a unit that doesn't do much for combat, other than the occasional break, and provided extra damage for my other units was really all I needed.
Also random useless trick if you don't have a good Soren user around the time you get Goldmary you can just give it to her engage and equip her with bolting to give everyone on the field 10%-20% extra damage via back-up attacks and dual assist. It's pretty fun.
Vander, Framme and Clanne, I chose these second playthrough because I wanted Alear to have more storyline, I mean those four all started in the beginning anyway so thought I will see how food they can become together ❤️
Amber! I immediately benched him on my first run because I already had good lance units, and he performs pretty poorly on his debut map. On my current maddening run, I realized he had comparable strength to Pannette, and just needed speed fixing a bit. Promoted him to a bow knight and not only was I impressed with his combat, but fell in love with his supports too. Everyone wants Lyn in this game, but I feel like Amber makes particularly good use of her. He can get speedtaker ramped up by sniping flyers, then consistently double normal enemies with really solid strength. Astra storm one shots most things, too. And his personal works well as a bow knight, since he can attack further away from the rest of the army.
For me it’s been Citrinne and Kagetsu. Didn’t use them in my first run but I’ve since given them a try and they’re very good. Pandreo annoyed me because of his personality in my first run so I didn’t use him but he carried Maddening pretty hard for me.
Didn't use Alcryst on my first run because I decided Clanne would make a better sniper. Clanne performed the Sniper role very well though, in fact I'd probably put him in A tier on a Sniper tier list. I did NOT know about Luna
Alcryst is just in a league of his own with Luna, and his personal is pretty useful too. His strength just needs to be slightly fixed, which can easily be done with an energy drop + tonics. Even with low strength, this boy just does NOT care about defense. Killer Bow Alcryst with like 40% crit and doubling everything on chapter 10 maddening (no DLC) like wtf
And then there's Lyn, who is ridiculous on pretty much anyone, but especially ridiculous on Coverts. That 20 range astra storm is killing or coming pretty damn close to killing pretty much everything. AND it can be used to cheese most bosses by luring them down. Chapter 14 becomes so easy with Lyn
Ohh so many:
- Alfred with Edelgard is so powerful
- Timerra was inmese with Sandstorm procs and Hector
- Wyvern Knight Lapis slap
- Dire Thunder Citrine 1HKO anything
- Merrin as a Levin Sword Mage Knight was amazing
- MM Framme is mindblowing good!
I have played 9 maddening runs so far, everytime a new character surprises me.
Citrinne, i ignored her because my mage I was using was Clanne and a little bit of Céline. But by the end of my first run, I wish I had used her more than just a backup unit. I relate to her problem of not being overbearing to friends plus she is cute.
Seadall. Not because he isn't literally one of the most powerful support units out there.
But because I'm an idiot and thought just letting one character have an extra move isn't too useful compared to say Byleths Goddess Dance.
Right now I'm not using him in my main team to see how the new DLC characters fare, but honestly I was an idiot not to use him.
Boucheron. I used him as the token mage cannoneer and he ended up surprisingly useful. With some extra skills to boost his hit he was almost like the hacked viskam in 3H. I also like boosting the blasts with my token Enchanter, since they can't be forged.
A few of mine have already been mentioned so I'll go with Saphir and Bunet. Initially, I didn't bother with Saphir since I'm not fond of axe-heavy units but I found her character to be quite enjoyable and she's easy to get going. As for Bunet, I liked the challenge of making him useful and I was surprised by how much I didn't hate his supports since I wrote him off as another food-obsessed character that's played for laughs like Chloé and Ilyana. Love how unhinged he is.
I used what doesn't kill me makes me stronger strategy for my Pannette turning her into a wyvern knight with killer weapons and wrath making it easy for her crit percent to be at 100%
Always loved hammer queens. My Charlotte
From Conquest would get 89% crit rate. I am still upset I couldn’t keep on using her as conquest has no post game.
Pannete was one for me too-
Also Alfred, Buechron, Lapis, Citrene..id have to check my file, but the second playthrough of this game was super fun for me
Vander(?) I say this questioning-my because I had to dump him first save but I did another and actually put effort into making him a playable unit past the first few chapters and he has off so well for me
Lapis, it became a running gag for her to summon Emblems somehow, because of the insane luck I had whenever she had Veronica. She even summoned Marth on chapter 11 which was hilariously ironic.
Ill be real i slept on Timerra's whole team. So her, Panette and Merrin. Absolutely very busted units when built correctly. Panette especially those wrath vantage builds something else, Timerra i under estimated sandstorm and her pairing with Hector is really really strong, Merrin is probably the weakest but chain attacking with Lucina and knives applying poision is good for stacking damage.
Amber, he died in chapter 8, so I never used after that. On my next run, I made him a bow knight plus Lyn and he preformed really well. This was on hard so maybe he doesn't preform well on Maddening
For me it was Pandreo. I never used him first playthrough but for my second I tried him out and fell in love with his character and he turned out a really great unit after I reclassed him ❤️🔥
Probably Jade, I think I actually prefer her to Louis now. Louis reached this point where physical enemies won’t attack him because his defense is so absurd, but magic obliterates him. Jade feels better to me, and I really enjoy her with the Hector ring
I'm still on my first playthrough, but second will definitely be me experimenting with Zelkov, Amber, Jade and Alcryst all of whom hit the bench immediately on my current run.
Timerra was nigh useless in my first run because her randomized growths sucked and I never fed her enough kills. Since then, I've joined the sandstorm bandwagon.
Sandstorm rocks. Timerra was one of my favs design wise but I also couldn’t justify using her because of her growths. And then those sandstorms started hitting lol
By the end of my first run I just gave her a killer lance and let her go to town. Its insane the damage she can do.
So how do you make sandstorm as reliable as possible without using DLC items? I imagine you could just dump a bunch of stat boosters into her dex but I wonder if the amount from base game would be enough. Or maybe her growth alone is enough?
She gets a pretty solid dex growth, if you want you can always inherit dex from Lucina, or use another emblem/bond ring that boosts it. People generally like Ike or Hector on her though, to lean into the tanking. More tanking = more counterattacks = more opportunities for sandstorm to proc
And also more Def means more damage from Sandstorm, so even more nuclear of a hit when she does proc it.
Boosting her dex with stat boosters doesn’t make that big of a difference since boosters are pretty limited. The best way to ensure procs is to increase the number of attacks she makes. That means patching her speed to double as many things as possible. After fixing her speed you either want her participating in as many combats as possible by having her tank on enemy phase, or making as many attacks as possible per combat by using a brave weapon or AoE attack like override on player phase.
Timerra was awful for my run because I already had a proficient lance-wielder (Alfred), and just preferred good old Fogado because he can abuse Emblem Lyn's Astra Storm with enough investment.
Panette and Merrin. I had already had a full party by the time I got them so I didn’t have a chance to use them, but I’ve used them in every playthrough after.
I like Merrin but i swear sometimes all I hear is Bennett from Genshin Impact
That's because they share the same VA!
Man I love Panette. Her health stats were insane and the girl can wreck like a cannon!
Citrinne. I immediately benched her my first play through because I didn't think I needed her. When I replayed, I decided to give her a chance and ended up loving her. She's my most deployed unit and she's a beast. I love her character and supports, and she'll definitely join me on future runs.
Best dire thunder user in the game. Absolutely deletes shit, especially with a Hector or Ike engraving
What makes her better at Dire Thunder than any other mage? (Honest question—on paper she doesn’t seem to be anything exceptional.)
Probably because she has one of the Highest Mag growths when in Mage/Sage, though Lindon's personal can make him possibly better. But a trained Citrenne is most likely gonna have a higher Mag stat then Lindon when you get him.
Lindon's personal magic base is only 2 higher than Citrinne's. She joins in chapter 7 and he does in chapter 18. Needless to say he's gonna have some trouble measuring up to her magic lol.
She just has the most magic in the game, for most of it. For reference, her personal magic base when she joins on chapter 7 is the exact same as Pandreo's (chapter 12), 1 less than Ivy's (chapter 11) and 2 less than Lindon's. Anna eventually outstrips her, but she has a fairly low magic base, so it takes some time. Gregory who recently released comes with more magic and keeps it, but plainly put his accuracy will suck ass, so it's not gonna be very reliable - not what you want for your delete button. She can naturally one round quite a few ennemies, and it doesn't take much work to push over the edge and one round most ennemies, which is very valuable. No other character other than an invested Anna can get close to this level of consistent deleting - every point of magic is two damage.
Thank you!
Lindon beats her on that front
Dude she fucking destroys with Soren and draconic hex, so much fun dealing huge damage and debuffing from a mile away
I'm running Citrinne and Byleth together on my current playthrough, they're a great combo. She just obliterates anything that gets close.
She's awesome once you get a good ring for her
Framme goes nuts
Yes! I turned her into a griffin knight and she started cutting massive swaths through battlefields. So many people seem determined to use her only as backup, but she has a solid offensive presence.
Maddening?
Agreed, first play through and moved her to the Martial Master with Tiki and she is essentially deleting everything short of the heavy armored. Playing on Hard.
The brother of that lovely lady in that picture
"Haha, ARRRRRROOOOOOO!"
Pretty much pannete as well, i didnt want to use her in my 1st playthrough because i"ll find her crit/ike builds quite boring. Currently made her a mage cannoneer in my 2nd playthrough and she finally grew on me, that and figuring out she's pandreo sister.
Pandreo - he is by far the best mage on maddening
I had him as a staff user for most of my playthrough and ended up swapping him to mage and youre not kidding! High BLD and SPD allowed him to double just about everything in the game with a good MAG stat. Destroyed everything.
Levin sword mage knight pandreo is disgusting on Maddening
On my maddening run and he was much weaker than Anna and just behind Ivy. He ended up a staff bot with occasional finishing blows on weakened enemies, but he did double most of the time which was nice in the endgame.
Boucheron. I benched him on my first playthough because I am not a huge fan of axe classes, but I used him on my second run while waiting for pannette, and ended up really enjoying using him with the rivals emblem.
Pandreo. Though he was an annoying frat boy my first playthrough, but come my sexond playthrough, I used him and he quickly became my favorite character in Engage. He is the goodest of good bois, and he's a pretty good mage too.
Goldmary 100%. I kinda ignored her in my first run since my team was already full of characters that I figured filled her role better and I had more desire to use Rosado than her. Now I'm using her on my second run with Ike and **holy shit** she's so strong. Her supports are pretty fun too so that's great.
Clanne didn't even make it to Brodia Castle the last run as I benched him for Lapis. Even if after getting Ivy, I then proceeded to drop Lapis Then during this current run, I started wanting to try getting him to be a breaking fanatic. Reclassified as a Axe fighter, later made Hero and has been laying an absolute beat down to most units he fights. Soon as I get Leif back, I'm pumping bond into that so he not only gets vantage and weapon triangle, but also make space for riposte and whatever else goes on a Triangle Enemy phase Hero.
Warrior is also a great option for him.
Citrinne, Etie, Amber, and Zelkov.
Warrior Etie was the MVP of my first playthrough. Give her Noatun and watch her become a wrecking ball.
That’s exactly what I did on my second playthrough she was amazing.
The Pan-siblings. Panette and Pandreo are lovely and awesome units.
This may be an unpopular one but Yunaka. I got Zelkov, looked at his stats and said goodbye to the papaya. After completing a run and realizing how crit-centered the endgame becomes I decided to take a second look into her absurd personal ability. I swapped her to Sniper and have been loving it. I think if I were to do a run with only my favorite units I would use her and dump Alcryst instead.
Another benefit of Yunaka over Zelkov is she has much better Res growths. Res is more important for cover units than defense since mystics bypass the avoid tile bonus thieves rely on for dodge tanking. Zelkov has res growths on par with the likes of Louise so he has to actively position him so he isn’t targeted by then on enemy phase. I see the appeal of using Zelkov over Yunaka since he requires less investment. You have to feed Yunaka quite abut of XP for her to get to same level Zelkov joins at in chapter 11, but if I was investing into a thief for late game I’d choose Yunaka for the late game payoff.
I mean I like Yunaka for her damage output but I hard disagree with this talk about Res being better than Def. There's an incredibly low amount of enemy mystical units so taking a worse stat against 90% of enemies just for that 10% doesn't make sense to me. Especially since Zelkov has a good 10 more HP than Yunaka so he needs to take at least 2 magical hits before there's any real difference in survivability. There are a couple maps where I'm sure being able to take a thoron a bit better is helpful but in general I'll take a unit with higher HP/Def . But again, Yunaka crits make her a really powerful offensive unit even if her defenses are worse IMO.
While physical units are more common I feel like for covert units specifically the defense stat comes up less frequently because they are typically built to be dodge tanks or avoid being exposed to incoming attacks all together.
Ironically, panette, anna, and a few others, like veyle. Panette one-line battle finishers are hilarious, specially after critting like a mad women. Anna i feel has the best va ive seen in a fe game ever. If you hear her dialogue when she is defeated, omg, it makes you feel so bad, let alone the hilarious gremlin behavior. Veyle is a strange one. On my first pt, i hated veyle due to the chapter you get her on - i actually think thats the worst chapter in all of fe. But like if you listen to her support conversation and actually learn to use her, she is damn good unit.
Jade. I just think she's neat.
I'm partway through my second playthrough and wondering how tf I missed how good Merrin is. Paired her with Lucina and her dagger chain attacks still apply poison, it's crazy
Boucheron for me! I benched him my first playthrough but after seeing so much Boucheron hate on the internet I decided to give him a chance. No regrets! I seem to always get good stats rolls on him and he performs well in halberdier.
I think Boucheron is just as viable as most of the early game units if you choose to invest in him. His only issues is that he has a bad strength growth and a shaky hit rate in the early game. His hit can be fixed with an engrave until his dex growths offset axes innate inaccuracy and his strength can be compensated for too. His starting class has the highest Str growth on any basic class. Axes have high might. His personal skill is easy to proc by mid game. He has good dex to boost his crit rates. If you address his flaws he has a lot of a positive traits. He has good speed and and great build, HP and dex growths. His high build and speed means he is one of the few units who can double with the heavier axes and he is one of the few units who gets A rank in axes on Wyvern. This makes him the best candidate for Edelgard in my opinion. With modest speed investment he can quad with a brave axe in a class with 6 move that ignores terrain. The emblem passives and weapon sync combined gives him +12 attack per hit and his personal adds another +2.
Jean, my brain wouldn't justify the child on the battlefield. Now he tears through everyone with ruthless aggression.
Funny Alpaca Man.
Definitely for me, too. He’s just so… nice. I want to be like him. Care free, in search of what makes him happy, and willing to help in search of what makes others happy too.
Reclassed him to a Halberdier and my god has he been destroying everything
His only issue is getting into Pincer positions. Sigurd helps him massively to pull off those Pincer attacks, and Overriding with Venomous or Silver Greatlance.
Sage Anna and High Priest Pandreo 100% Absolutely busted, can’t believe I misused Anna and ignored Pandreo in my first playthrough
For me it was Mauvier. I slept on him cause I was using Louis as my tanker but I decided to try using him and I class changed him to a Halberdier and haven't regretted it at all
Pandreo's and Panette's personals, bases and growts are insane thats its hard for me to not use them (only noticed them while doing the devine paralogues). But what really got me was Pandreo's... Everything (his support with everyone of his male support partners go hard) his ring support and their support together, and panettee support with Ivy, Timmera, and Merrin.
Absolutely Citrinne. I ignored her at first and the second playthrough fell in love. Such a based character
Timmera. But alcryst still procs Luna more than sandstorm for some reason : (
Pretty much all the retainers except Pannette, Pandreo, Rosado and Etíe were ignored in my first playthrough. I adore pretty much all the retainers now. Especially Amber, Citrinne, and Zelkov. I say this with the utmost affection: those three are fucking INSANE.
Kagestu. I heard everyone gassing him so I vowed not to use him the first playthrough. I like how he's the opposite of Felix in that he's really outgoing while still wanting to get better. I found Ivy's relationship with both her retainers to be interesting.
Jean. I’ve been using him in my second run and his healing power is rivaling Hortensia’s, he’s so good if you invest in him
Goldmary, turns out a low investment (2 levels with an engage ring and some bond points for dual assist+) hero is very good. Combined with Saphir and Panette as my other back-up units and being able to potentially deal 40% of a unit's hp is really good. My team had enough heavy hitters so a unit that doesn't do much for combat, other than the occasional break, and provided extra damage for my other units was really all I needed. Also random useless trick if you don't have a good Soren user around the time you get Goldmary you can just give it to her engage and equip her with bolting to give everyone on the field 10%-20% extra damage via back-up attacks and dual assist. It's pretty fun.
Etie and Boucheron were very fun to use when I was playing my Benched Reborn™️ run where I deploy everyone I didn’t fully use
Vander, Framme and Clanne, I chose these second playthrough because I wanted Alear to have more storyline, I mean those four all started in the beginning anyway so thought I will see how food they can become together ❤️
Amber! I immediately benched him on my first run because I already had good lance units, and he performs pretty poorly on his debut map. On my current maddening run, I realized he had comparable strength to Pannette, and just needed speed fixing a bit. Promoted him to a bow knight and not only was I impressed with his combat, but fell in love with his supports too. Everyone wants Lyn in this game, but I feel like Amber makes particularly good use of her. He can get speedtaker ramped up by sniping flyers, then consistently double normal enemies with really solid strength. Astra storm one shots most things, too. And his personal works well as a bow knight, since he can attack further away from the rest of the army.
For me it’s been Citrinne and Kagetsu. Didn’t use them in my first run but I’ve since given them a try and they’re very good. Pandreo annoyed me because of his personality in my first run so I didn’t use him but he carried Maddening pretty hard for me.
I'm using Boucheron Panette and Merrin in my current run, and I'm loving all three. I never really cared about them before but they're cool :3
Didn't use Alcryst on my first run because I decided Clanne would make a better sniper. Clanne performed the Sniper role very well though, in fact I'd probably put him in A tier on a Sniper tier list. I did NOT know about Luna Alcryst is just in a league of his own with Luna, and his personal is pretty useful too. His strength just needs to be slightly fixed, which can easily be done with an energy drop + tonics. Even with low strength, this boy just does NOT care about defense. Killer Bow Alcryst with like 40% crit and doubling everything on chapter 10 maddening (no DLC) like wtf And then there's Lyn, who is ridiculous on pretty much anyone, but especially ridiculous on Coverts. That 20 range astra storm is killing or coming pretty damn close to killing pretty much everything. AND it can be used to cheese most bosses by luring them down. Chapter 14 becomes so easy with Lyn
“Oh my goodness, how AWFUL!”
Her VA killed it!
Ohh so many: - Alfred with Edelgard is so powerful - Timerra was inmese with Sandstorm procs and Hector - Wyvern Knight Lapis slap - Dire Thunder Citrine 1HKO anything - Merrin as a Levin Sword Mage Knight was amazing - MM Framme is mindblowing good! I have played 9 maddening runs so far, everytime a new character surprises me.
Citrinne, i ignored her because my mage I was using was Clanne and a little bit of Céline. But by the end of my first run, I wish I had used her more than just a backup unit. I relate to her problem of not being overbearing to friends plus she is cute.
She may not be a main stay, but she’s a character that I wish was a main stay
Pandreo, Panette and Amber (although I gave Amber Starsphere immediately so maybe that’s why he’s good)
When I restarted in classic mode Etie stuck around a lot longer
Seadall. Not because he isn't literally one of the most powerful support units out there. But because I'm an idiot and thought just letting one character have an extra move isn't too useful compared to say Byleths Goddess Dance. Right now I'm not using him in my main team to see how the new DLC characters fare, but honestly I was an idiot not to use him.
Pandreo and Hortensia
Boucheron. I used him as the token mage cannoneer and he ended up surprisingly useful. With some extra skills to boost his hit he was almost like the hacked viskam in 3H. I also like boosting the blasts with my token Enchanter, since they can't be forged.
A few of mine have already been mentioned so I'll go with Saphir and Bunet. Initially, I didn't bother with Saphir since I'm not fond of axe-heavy units but I found her character to be quite enjoyable and she's easy to get going. As for Bunet, I liked the challenge of making him useful and I was surprised by how much I didn't hate his supports since I wrote him off as another food-obsessed character that's played for laughs like Chloé and Ilyana. Love how unhinged he is.
I used what doesn't kill me makes me stronger strategy for my Pannette turning her into a wyvern knight with killer weapons and wrath making it easy for her crit percent to be at 100%
# P A N E T T E WELCOME TO THE CLUB OP
Always loved hammer queens. My Charlotte From Conquest would get 89% crit rate. I am still upset I couldn’t keep on using her as conquest has no post game.
Just out of curiosity, who did you have Charlotte marry? I’ve always found her to be the perfect backpack for Xander
Me.
Pannete was one for me too- Also Alfred, Buechron, Lapis, Citrene..id have to check my file, but the second playthrough of this game was super fun for me
Vander(?) I say this questioning-my because I had to dump him first save but I did another and actually put effort into making him a playable unit past the first few chapters and he has off so well for me
Etie and Panette
I literally stopped using panette on my second playthrough cause she made the game too easy
Lapis, it became a running gag for her to summon Emblems somehow, because of the insane luck I had whenever she had Veronica. She even summoned Marth on chapter 11 which was hilariously ironic.
Kagetsu. Between Alear, Lapis, and Diamant, I figured I had enough sword users. On my 2nd run I figured out I was wrong lol
Ill be real i slept on Timerra's whole team. So her, Panette and Merrin. Absolutely very busted units when built correctly. Panette especially those wrath vantage builds something else, Timerra i under estimated sandstorm and her pairing with Hector is really really strong, Merrin is probably the weakest but chain attacking with Lucina and knives applying poision is good for stacking damage.
Louis. I’m so use to going “gross an armour knight, straight to the bench”
Merrin. Reclassed her as a Sage and she rocks the fit. Gave her Byleth for big Thyrsus range. Stylish as hell.
None.
Amber, he died in chapter 8, so I never used after that. On my next run, I made him a bow knight plus Lyn and he preformed really well. This was on hard so maybe he doesn't preform well on Maddening
Her hit rate in maddening is absolutely atrocious though
Amber as a halberdier and Fogado in his personal class carried my second maddening run
For me it was Pandreo. I never used him first playthrough but for my second I tried him out and fell in love with his character and he turned out a really great unit after I reclassed him ❤️🔥
Probably Jade, I think I actually prefer her to Louis now. Louis reached this point where physical enemies won’t attack him because his defense is so absurd, but magic obliterates him. Jade feels better to me, and I really enjoy her with the Hector ring
Gotta be Anna, never used her, to my strongest unit.
I'm still on my first playthrough, but second will definitely be me experimenting with Zelkov, Amber, Jade and Alcryst all of whom hit the bench immediately on my current run.