Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia Character Guide - NOT A Tier List!

[@armourslayer8942]

Character timestamps: *Alm's path* ~ No Brainer ~ Alm 3:29 Silque 7:12 Tatiana 9:40 ~ Good Investment ~ Lukas 11:05 Python 13:03 Clive 14:54 Matilda 17:09 ~ Ram Villagers ~ 17:45 (Goes over all of them) Mercenary 18:10 Archer 18:45 Mage 19:15 Cavalier/Soldier 21:00 Fae 21:15 ~ Filler/Temporary/Utility ~ Clair 23:26 Luthier 24:40 Delthea 25:23 Zeke 26:44 Mycen 27:40 ~ High Effort ~ Forsyth 28:16 *Celica's path* ~ No Brainer ~ Genny 29:58 Saber (and Dread Fighters) 31:00 Lyon 34:19 Palla 37:27 ~ Good Investment ~ Mae/Boey 40:18 Kamui 41:27 Catria 42:24 Deen 43:29 ~ Bow em down ~ Atlas 44:24 ~ Filler/Temporary/Utility ~ Celica 47:47 Valbar 50:02 Est 51:47 Conrad 52:57 Nomah 54:05 ~ High Effort ~ Deen vs Sonya 55:30 Sonya 55:53 Jesse 56:55

[@shiina4826]

aha thanks for the gaidence

[@slushisimcambi2521]

Nice

[@burningprism3791]

Beautiful, just absol-utley beautiful

[@socobambaspis145]

shut up and take my like

[@JlBUNROCK]

How to like and dislike a comment

[@lc_neighbour1100]

Oh its so nice to see Mathilda so high up. She's so good!

[@robinksuo2929]

mathilda is queen

[@asmontosborne3111]

I honestly find Archer Kliff to be sorely underrated. He has the best growths out of the Villagers by far and Archers are pretty broken mechanically but lack stats. The opposite is true for Gray, he has the worst growths but Mercenary fixes his issues. And I find it ironic that I used Archer Gray, Cav Tobin, Merc Gray and Mage Faye on my first playthrough, none of them ended up being good lol

[@mysmallnoman]

He's also the best mage killer because of his 8 base res and very good luck His atk, def and especially spd are also pretty good, Albeit his start in them isn't

[@PeevedLatias]

The problem with archer Kliff is that his base speed is god-awful and you don't get a good bow until the last map of act 1. You're better off *not* using a villager archer, using python instead, and just dread looping your merc (preferably kliff because as you said he has the best growths and therefore benefits from the extra levels). Additionally, Kliff makes the best mercenary by far because he has the best res out of the villagers, making him able to tank the most mages out of the DFs, and giving him significantly better performance in Nuibaba for instance, even without looping being taken into consideration. Gray these days is made a mage. It performs way better in act 1 than archer does, while still contributing through chip damage in other acts, and allowing you to funnel more exp into your other more important units like Kliff/Python/Clive/Tobin.

[@ChromeBirb]

@@PeevedLatias If you assume little to no grinding, you'll never have a bow knight in the main story if you have to wait until act 4 just to have an archer. A middle ground could be promoting someone into merc (mainly Gray and Tobin) and turning back them into villagers with a fork to choose any other class while keeping the Merc bases. This is also neat for mage kliff because you'd give him the speed base he needs to start snowballing. DFs don't really care about res since they get diminishing returns from it, apotrope cuts damage taken in half so two points of Res only blocks one point of damage.

[@PeevedLatias]

@@ChromeBirb Most guides/lists don't assume forks since it makes things weird. For instance knight into merc is broken since you get 16str/12def/merc line speed. That aside, the idea behind not doing a villager archer is that you can use python as your primary archer, and then the DF loops into sniper. The hexlock shield fight can be 1-2 turned (depending on how reliable you want it to be) and will turn an archer into a sniper. The sniper will then be earning a ton of exp because he's *still* underleveled, and reach bow knight around the time you hit act 5. Remember that you already have a bow knight in Python, and that snipers can still counter at 5 range, making them still really good at dealing with countering enemy bowknights in last bastion and rigel falls. Another issue with running villager archer is that you're severely hurting your early game. Your first good bow is in Zofia gate. Even if you didn't mind that, it means only one of your two archers would have a good bow while the other one uses... Like, fucking steel. Regarding dread fighters, I would present the following. Kliff with 13 resistance takes 7 damage. i.imgur.com/3LenMg6.png This is because the calculation is (27-13)/2=7. Gray has 2 res, so 7 with res+5. (27-7)/2=10. This is a 3 damage difference, just as you said. Where the difference lies is in how many hits they can take. DF base hp is 36. Kliff gets 6HKO'd, while Gray gets 4HKO'd. When you add in the physical damage coming in as well, it makes Kliff a lot bulkier, as he's effectively taking 30% less damage.

[@yellownomadglitch3309]

Mage Faye in my first playthrough was something else, she is pretty nice in damage with A Alm support her spell don't miss beside the -80 hit ones and get some crit too sadly she doesn't have Excalibur but still I can't see her being good in the other classes, beside Cleric and Mage, on a note her having high def with a shield made her even better to use.

[@SharurFoF]

"They (the villagers) are all really fun character-wise" *Stares at Faye*

[@BurningFyre]

Im like, 100% sure they only added Faye to be a heal bot until Alm gets to Silque. She has absolutely no character and her stats are built around healing magic.

[@murillobonson7978]

@@BurningFyre you're probably 99% correct

[@epicgamer6678]

@@murillobonson7978 The 1% is the fact that you get Silque and Cleric Faye in the exact same _room._

[@MiyaoMeow588]

Including Faye, yes

[@MagicianCamille]

I love Faye

[@ReunionMana]

9:21 One thing I will say is that ai attack priority ALWAYS focuses on summons > player units, so while having more survivable summons does mean the enemy priority of attacking them without killing might go down, it's still a higher priority for the enemy than any actual player unit. I generally find Genny's invoke to be the best tho because she summons iirc 8 soldiers which can do as much as double the number of units for the enemy to attack i.e. unless there's 8 enemies in range of those 8 soldiers, you basically can have a free turn to not take any damage.

[@Mekkkah]

Final chapter enemies rekt my Silque instead of attacking the pegasi I summoned, and they could ORKO either.

[@squidaccus]

Not true. Enemies just go for possible kills. Specters are just the easiest, generally.

[@shinvertigo8410]

Not sure why nobody ever mentions mage Kliff. He has a pretty solid spell list, which I believe is the longest of all the villagers in general. I've always found him to be fairly strong as a mage in my playthroughs

[@vanjagalovic3621]

He has 1AS as a mage, which is a problem as it means he can't double soilders in act 1.

[@estyboi5927]

Even though he has the longest spell list, the problem is that he learns his later spells very late and Excalibur at level 9. He struggles in act 1 due to poor base speed and even giving him 2 speed fountains doesn’t stop that problem for him. By the late game when he does learn his spells, I think mages in general start falling off due to poor movement. That’s why mage Tobin works better. Earlier Excalibur, better base speed for act 1, and physic which will always keep him relevant

[@leargamma4912]

In gaiden this was 100% the case, and he was extremely viable. But in Echoes, he is slow as a mage and people like to not be patient for some stupid reason. Anyways, the game was built with grinding in mind, and the same is true here. If you get speed upon promotion to mage with Kliff, then you're using him wrong as a mage. Simply put: as a mage, Kliff was meant to be grinded out early due to his high speed growth. Not to mention the class growths fuck him over in the speed department. That said, Kliff is good as anything, with Cavalier being his worst option (although it is worse than mage by a very small margin).

[@kyacase1109]

Yeah his speed is crazy so if you give him a dracoshield he’s pretty much a god

[@evansmith2832]

There are no bad choices, but the limited movement and low base AS of mage makes it his worst choice short term and arguably worst long term as well. In my opinion he's the most valuable of the ram villagers in the long term because of his good speed growth so you'll want him in a class with high movement like gold knight or bow knight to make use of it. Tobin works best as a the early game mage in the short term and has the added utility of physic in the long term, and you'll get Delthea and Luthier to match Kliff's spell list eventually anyway. I personally prefer going archer because you're really not supposed to have an archer with good speed, and paired with his unusually high resistance and ok defense he becomes really uniquely good at enemy phasing opposing archers and mages.

[@VanguardJohnson]

I think Celica is good investment. The ability for sword and heal each turn of the turn as a magic caster puts her above mad and boey. She's bulkier than Mae.

[@randomderp8457]

Obligatory comment about Mathilda having a ridiculous Res base in a game where Res growths don't exist, I always find that once she's a Gold Knight she's one of a few (non Dread Fighter) units that can take both physical and magical attacks if needed. She's my favorite Gradivus user tbh

[@gameboyn64]

I will say that i think Clive should be in temp. His best chapter in my opinion is the final chapter in act 1. He is kind of middling for act 3 and really falls off in part 4. The problem i feel about Clive is that his act 3 performance is almost entirely dependent on the act 1 speed fountain. Without it, he typically gets doubled by act 3 enemy paladins, especially when equiped with the ridersbane which really undermines his bulk. Its been a while since I've done the calculations but i believe he is one of two units in alms army that dies to the combination of miasma+mire. Everyone else takes two mires or two miasma + one mire. His atk, while higher than average still isn't enough to deal with knights effectively. In part 4 as a gold knight, he still suffers from getting doubled by enemy gold knights, struggling to damage barons, and getting wrecked by witches. While i do think he is drastically underrated by many in the community, i think it's a hard sell that he is one of the better long term units.

[@ferintown6628]

My Clair was cracked Super cracked, and I didn’t give her fountains She had 16 attack at level 9 Pegasus Knight

[@thebladeoflight]

I really want to see a WAIFU episode on Clive after reading through these comments.

[@Kotenekrazy]

For whatever reason, Leon always gets stat screwed in my playthroughs aa well as clive to a lesser degree

[@ethanvanderbeke7445]

That's me with Python sadly...

[@CodyTheBlackChickenSubscribe]

Clive is actually useless

[@PeevedLatias]

@@CodyTheBlackChickenSubscribe Clive has enough attack at base to OHKO every relevant cav with a forged ridersbane in 3-5, while having better bulk than Mathilda at base allowing him to take more hits. He gets 3HKO'd in the arcanist forest, while combining with literally anyone for a kill, making him a strong player phase tool (especially with that 8 move). In the first Fernand map, he completely destroys the left side with ridersbane. These are all things he does *at base stats*. He then promotes to gold knight faster than Mathilda due to his higher availability, and ends up with better stats than her in early act 4. Zeke then joins and completely destroys both since he only needs +2 speed (there is +5 speed worth of stat boosters in alm side) to literally one round every Gold Knight in the game, minus Berkut who he *almost* one rounds.

[@CodyTheBlackChickenSubscribe]

@@PeevedLatias he is useless. Everything about him is inferior to Matilda in literally every way

[@PeevedLatias]

@@CodyTheBlackChickenSubscribe This is literally factually wrong. He has a higher hp base and growth, a defence base (due to paladin class bases), and will have higher strength than her by the time she joins due to him being around for longer. He can also promote earlier - if he even gains a single level in every map before Mathilda joins, he can be level 4 by the time Mathilda joins at level 1, making it easier for him to reach lvl 10 for gold knight bases. Clive over Mathilda is basically bases over growths.

[@samkeiser9776]

This isn’t intended to be advice, or an argument for using any unit, but in my current run, for fun, I made faye a mage, (I know cleric faye is WAY better, but I’ve used faye cleric before and I guess I wanted variety.) and I don’t know at this point if it’s because I gave her defense buffs, or if she got rng blessed or both, but her defense is 22. in comparison lukas, who I also have trained, has 21 defense, granted I didn’t feed lukas defense buffs. But the end result is that I can give her a silver shield and she becomes super tanky. It’s very fun to have enemies clink against a priestess.

[@MidoCounters]

The first time I played I thought Clive was unredeemable. The second playthrough he was doubling everything and tanking everything, it was hilarious 😂.

[@lanceareadbhar]

Speed is all he needs to dominate most enemies. He needs to stay away from more than two mire mages.

[@VallaPhantasm]

I feel like Sonya's at least somewhat underappreciated, though I do wish she was at a higher level at recruitment, but training on Terrors is pretty easy anyway, but I usually get more mileage out of her than Boey. 4 Move is pretty underwhelming, true, but she does get Rewarp to help alleviate that if you really need to get her somewhere else and Entrap can help grab an enemy you really don't feel like approaching to deal with (or risk sending someone out to go take out) and slamming them in safety. She also starts out with Excalibur, which can also help with training up, and still has use in the long run given most enemies tend have a lower Res than Def. Even if she doesn't strictly use magic and doesn't have the Mage Ring, Ladyblade is also a VERY powerful weapon for Priestess units (granted only being obtainable regularly at Duma Tower), having a whopping 20 Might and no weight at max forging (and the art Flamberge can also auto-double as well) or can run another powerful weapon like Brave Sword (since it kinda feels like the game hands them out like candy). Deen is assuredly stronger out of the box and regularly than Sonya, I'll admit, but I don't typically see the need to get him since Saber and Kamui are usually just as, if not better when you get him (and if you beat Deen you can get a free Brave Sword sooner to help out with Grieth's map) and Sonya can at least provide some healing support if she's not in combat regularly. The note about still being bogged down by desert terrain hardly matters much when you get her at the end of the desert section and seems like a weird con to add about her (Unless you mean for like, Thabes, but I tend to find the sand terrain a slight annoyance at worst there). Also is it just me or do archers just not get a lot of stats in anything but Skill? Archers I've trained always get screwed in Atk to a degree...

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Rewarp and Entrap come really late so you aren't getting them on a faster playthrough

[@thereaIitsybitsyspider]

You get Rewarp as a level 5 Priestess, and it lets her be the most mobile mage in the game by a longshot

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@thereaIitsybitsyspider Still not getting them on a faster playthrough

[@squidaccus]

@@thereaIitsybitsyspider That is REALLY late. She already starts 9 levels off from promotion. At best she'll be useful for an extremely small portion of the game, while Deen will be useful from the moment you get him.

[@alessioscoppa1745]

I love Clive as a character but on a gameplay prospective I'd never put him above characters like Mathilda, Delthea, Zeke or Clair, in Echoes he's possibly the unit in Alm's route that requires the most effort to become decent (not really different from his Gaiden counterpart).

[@Docaccino]

Honestly, Clive is one of the most self-sufficient units in Echoes. All he needs is the ridersbane (which he's the best user of thanks to his combination of bulk, mobility and Spd) and maybe a single point of Spd from the thieves shrine fountains if you feel like it. He's by far the best at fighting cavs so there's no reason not to let him take them all, which gives him a huge chunk of pretty uncontested EXP. By the time Mathilda joins he should already be at least level 5 or even close the GK promo without much favoritism. Compared to some of the best units in the game, Leon and Palla, Clive needs less investment than either of them (though he's still overall worse than them).

[@alessioscoppa1745]

@@Docaccino Idk I'm obviously talking by personal experience and playstyle but each time I play Gaiden or Echoes Clive becomes good a bit too late and I end up almost never using in the final maps of the games, I always found Mathilda and Zeke more useful but hey different experiences mean different thoughts at least we agree that he isn't the worst unit in the game like he's generally considered XD

[@Docaccino]

I mean, Clive obviously isn't the best endgame unit but if you're using him optimally he dominates until mid Act 4 where Zeke joins and Mathilda finally promotes. Though Clive still keeps up pretty well with them as he'll probably have higher bulk and Atk than Mathilda and the same Spd as Zeke, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[@Aerynnh]

@@Docaccino Clive has really bad issues with getting doubled and I don't really consider him a good investment. Not nearly on the same level as Mathilda or even Lukas. Mathilda requires zero investment and is one of your best as soon as you get her and remains that way due to very high growths. I don't think he's even as good as Claire. Because Claire has frailty issues but she puts in tons of work if invested into. While I see Clive as just really bad filler who I constantly had to worry about him dying if he was fielded.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@Aerynnh Clive doubles and one rounds every cavalier in act 3 with a promotion (he's really close to promotion at base) and a single point from the thief shrine. While the speed is higly contested due to the large nimber of cavalier in act 3 Clive becomes one of your best combat units as he can reliably one round a lot of enemies with a forged ridersbane, unlike Clair who has durability issues and villager cavalier who is hard to train up. As such Clive is one of the best units on Alm's route.

[@christopherbecerra5206]

I just happened to buy Shadows of Valentia and happy to find a tierlist like this! Was very hesitant on how to promote or who to reclass so this helps a lot!

[@hansgretl1787]

Boey gets a certain Skill upon promotion that all male Sage's get, but I forgot its name. But what I do remember that it gives +10 hit across the board, which is useful.

[@leargamma4912]

80 hit 3 range sagitae with good attack and support that increases crit means death to the enemy. IT's also why Mage Gray is more than just a temperary fix

[@loudradialem5233]

I promoted the three male villagers to mercenaries. I moved them together and traded the levin sword around to attack. It worked well.

[@CarbonMalite]

I somehow never have good cavaliers that aren't Matilda. They typically wind up slow or with low attack. Clive always winds up being unable to one round unlike Matilda whenever I try to use him

[@lanceareadbhar]

Ironically, I had a bad Matilda and a great Clive, but I did feed him Pegasus Cheese after each promotion.

[@michaelarambula5319]

11:36 Ah yes, as long as he's not fighting like an ARCANIST WITH MAGIC he's fine.

[@leargamma4912]

Which is extremely rare, because you only face like.... 4 of them on alm's route in boss form. And the others already get doubled by lucas anyway. People act like magic kills low res units instantly, but the weight makes enemy arcanists and cantors a joke if you have high enough defense and a speed stat that isn't 5

[@Bunnymafia8150]

You know, first time I played this I went in blind and absolutely hated it. But when I think about playing it now after seeing some of the tricks you used I feel really excited, guess I’m gonna give this game another shot!

[@kutolahsensei8216]

Echoes is very different from both the pre-Awakening era AND the "Skill Emblem" era, being a mix of many ideas and pretty much a beta for 3H's weapon skill system. I can tell you, after three playthroughs myself... The game does grow on you! I am deeply saddened by the price of the DLC tho, for the Deliverance DLC has some killer supports and the only defend map in the entire game. Hell it finally gives Lukas and Forsyth a support, embracing the Christmas Knight archetype...

[@leargamma4912]

Mage gray is better than people give him credit for, and Saying that celica is hard to use is a freaking lie, because movement is not as big of an issue as everyone says. half the maps on alm's route are just letting the enemy come to you anyways, and the only thing you get for LTC play is a medal that does nothing... so.... Think about that for a minute.

[@Bunnymafia8150]

@@leargamma4912 efficient play is the standard we all use for rating units. If you wanna play slow that’s fine but if a unit is only good when playing slow then they’re not good. We don’t care about what you get for playing quickly, we care that when you play slow that anyone can become good

[@leargamma4912]

@@Bunnymafia8150 I don't think you understand. Celica's 4 move is hardly a hinderance. Same with most other units. The maps are small, with simple objectives. And if you play fast, you won't use anyone who doesn't fly, or will turtle anyways. Because half of these maps are best completed without taking under 3 turns. If Celica can learn the best spells in the game with even moderate use and still mow down hoards of enemies on EP, then she is far better than everyone says. Sorry, but a unit cannot become good if you don't use them. And keeping a unit out of combat because he doesn't gain anything when he is good, is the very reason the jagen type characters were benched by many players. So you end up in this circle of not using good, perfectly viable units just because you complain about shit that doesn't matter at all.

[@Bunnymafia8150]

@@leargamma4912 she’s helpful sure, but she’s not that good. I don’t think you understand how truly horrendous 4 move is until you attempt an LTC. And with the complete abscence of rescue drop, she’s stuck at 4 move until promotion. With the added hindrance that she doesn’t get a warp user for a long ass time, and she just doesn’t make it to the front lines when palla and catria have almost double her movement. As the game goes on people like lyon, saber, and kamui will be easily outpacing her with promotion bonuses. So it’s not that I’m not using celica because I think she’s someone who can never be good, but why would I bother when palla, catria, Lyon, saber, and kamui can make it to the action twice as fast as her? Also that Jagen comparison was so dumb, oh my god. Jagens are great from the start and dominate the first half of the game with 0 investment, while celica only becomes decent at the end when everyone else is already good.

[@GobaGNon]

Hearing Mekkah sing Alms praises just makes me happy

[@samkeiser9776]

I do want to say a few things about the DLC and postgame, I’m not sure exactly if everything I say will be 100% true, but I’ll still give it a go. First off the DLC units. You can recruit these units at any point in the game where you can complete their maps, I’m not sure when it becomes viable to complete their maps, but I’d say sometime during chapter 3 is around when you units will be ready. Either army can do the maps. I suppose all of these units will be great if recruited early enough, just because all of them are pre-promotes, Shade and Yuzu come together, and Randal and Emma come together. Shade is a saint, she joins at lvl 3 and starts with nosferatu and physic (no seraphim) she does learn seraphim after getting to lvl 7. Physic makes it very easy to use her, as she can just heal from a range and stay completely safe. She does learn silence (lvl 5), freeze (lvl 10) and rescue (lvl 15). Silence and freeze both have rather niche uses, but rescue is pretty nice, though hard to get without grinding. She still has physic, so no matter what she is easy to use. Yuzu is a priestess, she joins at lvl 1, the spells she knows are fire and recover, and the only spell she learns is sagittea. She has good speed, but really low defense and really low hp, not a great combo. she also only has 4 mov, training her is difficult and generally not worth it. At least she has recover at base. Randal is a paladin that joins at lvl 5, I’m not sure what to say about him, I’m sure if you recruit him he’ll do fine, his base defense is 8, but he can promote in 5 lvls and get gold knight’s base 13 def. Emma is a lvl 1 falcon knight, she starts with bases that are a tiny bit higher than palla’s in every stat, except strength, which is one lower, and resistance which emma has 14 points in. Recruiting her around chapter 3 ish, is bound to let her be a useful addition to either army. It is also nice to have a 14 res unit. fun fact, Emma has a 10% res growth, the highest res growth in all of SoV, not that that really matters. As a side note, this doesn’t have to do with how good emma is, but the lance that Emma has equipped when she joins is also potentially very powerful, anyone who can use lances can use it, but it learns a combat art that allows a unit to attack 3 times before an enemy can counter. Though without being forged, the trainee lance only has 2 mt, when fully forged with 1 gold mark and 500 silver marks, it has 8 mt. Now I’m going to talk about the post game and about how the viability of units shifts in it. Thabes labyrinth starts off with pretty typical, albeit high level enemies, but the further you go on the more bonkers the enemies get. Floor 6 is when the first batch of enemies that have about 80 health each appear, and later then that enemies with really high atk, and spells start appearing. Even units that have particularly high res will take lots of damage from the magic enemies that start appearing. And then there are dragons, with attacks that can completely ignore defense and resistance. Thabes is filled with enemies with really high stats. I’d say that the archers (as in leon and pythons, or whoever you made an archer) fall off in thabes a bit, just because they don’t have high enough damage to kill high health enemies even with hunter’s volley. Thabes only allows you to bring 10 units, but you have access to either army. One of them has to be alm or celica. Even without overclasses, alm is a good unit to have as the leader, because he can more effectively utilize the convoy, and he also has falchion which is super effective against terrors, which a fair amount of exist in thabes. It has like 30 might against terrors. With his overclass, he gains bowrange +1 which is nice to have, as it can actually allow him to counter archers with 1-4 range, which there are some of in thabes. any dread fighters you trained will be really good in thabes, especially when they get to dread loop level. Because they can gain tons of stats quickly. The overclass for them is basically negligible, the one meaningful benefit it has in comparison to dread fighter is a skill % chance of inflicting a status aliment on an enemy if they survive a combat, but an enemy likely won’t survive a combat with a dread looped unit. most units that were good in the normal game will seem like they are falling behind, especially compared to dread fighters. Just because there is such a high increase in enemy stats. However you really only need a few units that can take enemies on directly in thabes for bow knights, mage ring sages or priestess, and saints to be able to contribute. Seraphim is pretty valuable in thabes as well. Barons, Gold knights, and falcon knights, aren’t really good without grinding. Overclasses are hard to get to, especially without grinding to them, however some of the more feasible ones are saint priestess or sage, alm, dread fighter, and bow knight I already went over dread fighters’s and alm’s. So I’m just going to go over the one’s I haven’t already. Priestess: enchantress learns mire and death, two really good spells, especially with the mage ring. Saint: exemplar learns restore and ward, restore can curse statuses, and has fortify range, statuses aren’t uncommon in thabes, and ward gives an adjacent unit +20 res for one turn. Both have situational uses. Sage: guru learns what is basically invoke, but with random terrors and the occasional witch. They will mostly all just be fodder, but the witches can hit res, and can attack from range, and some of the terrors can inflict statuses, other than that, it’s a typical invoke. Bow knight: oliphanter learns bow range +3 but loses 1 mov, still pretty much nothing can counter from 1-6 range, and it makes it easier than ever to get free attacks in. Losing 1 mov isn’t too bad either, because the thabes fights are all in pretty small maps that 7 mov works fine in. Also again take all of this with a grain of salt, because I could be completely wrong. But those are my thoughts. P.S. if you continue training delthea, she learns rewarp, which can help with her bad mov.

[@EmperorEmblem]

On the case of the DLC units: Randall is either no-brainer or good investment, simply put, he's the best cav in the game, he joins as a level 5 paladin with all stats meeting or above the class bases, and due to the nater of how DLC recruitment works can be obtained super early and dumpster much of the game with little effort. Shade is in utility, she has a fantastic spell list full of nice utility options (rescue, freeze, silence, physic, seraphim), she joins as a level 3 saint, which means she has nosferatu, physic, and silence at base, and learns freeze within 2 levels, just a very nice utility magic unit. Emma is a very nice temp unit if recruited early due to joining as a fully promoted falcon knight, her bases are below the class bases, so she falls off as the game progresses (really good for Celica route). Yuzu... well, her weapon is nice, she has solid bases as a level 1 priestess and decent offensive growths, but is limited by her class and poor spell list, she just has sagittae alongside the default fire and recover, but unlike Boey or a mage Atlas, lacks bulk, making it much riskier on her, she's either high effort or filler depending on when you recruit her and the other DLC characters. If Echoes had female mercs/myrms, she likely would've been one.

[@thomastrautman5855]

Randall is definitely a no-brainer on Alm's route, not as good on Celica route but still better than most. I would probably put Shade in no brainer based on other ratings, has Physic at base= good Emma is pretty much a no brainer on Celica's route but more of a temp unit on Alm's route. Just a big difference on how important fliers are. Yuzu probably filler on both routes, she's probably a bit better with Alm because of the lack of good mages there. She's maybe better than Luthier.

[@JetBlack2024]

Actually just bought this game and waiting for the delivery tonight. I hope it’s good. Just thought this video was interesting enough to see.

[@SL-dt3lv]

Its pretty good in terms of visuals and art, gameplay-wise some maps are either too bland or too restrictive. But if you want to play the most beautiful FE on the 3DS then you're in for a treat. Also kill Deen and recruit Sonya. She is actually more useful than it seems, plus, she can support with Genny! Good luck.

[@mariano1995ful]

In love with the Golden Sun music!

[@mega77]

Imo after finishing the game, hard mode, no death, trained almost every units: - Alm, no Brainer but gets weaker at the end. - Silque no Brainer. - Tatiana comes late, good unit, shines on the last map, but not mandatory. - Lukas is a good tank, quite bulky with the anti magic shield equipped. - Clive is medium as knight, might be interesting with a leveled up silver weapon. - Forsyth is hard to train. But is a killer as a tank at the end of the game. Totally worth the investment, he hits like a truck and deals big damages, even against armored foes. - Python is a great archer when baby-sitted. Good speed and attack powers, really strong at the end. - Matilda best knight and snowballs like crazy. - Gray is OK as a terror, nothing fancy. - Tobin is a good archer too. -Kliff is quite meh, not super fast or powerful. - Faye is medium. Not super strong and quite fragile. - Clair is a better Pegasus knight, fast strong and better overall. - luthier is a good unit. As a sage he did a good job. He wasn't in my main team at the end but when he showed up he still had a good range and punch, not bad. - Now Delthea is a killer, Super strong attack. Good speed. Give her the ring of +1 range and enjoy. - Zeke is quite meh. Comes late, can't level up strong skills. Quite meh. - Same for Mycen Now Celica's team. - Celica's is INSANE. Very powerful magic attacks. Can deal with monster very early. Fast and bulky. Can heal early too. Very strong from start to finish. - Genny is good from start to finish. Has access to holy magic against monster early. - Saber as great as a terror, but maybe not the best! - Leon is a great archer, serious damage and speed. - Boey isn't worth it when you have caster such as Celica, Mae, and even Genny against monsters. -OK so the 3 Pegasus sisters. All of them are great. - Palla is an all rounder, very good with her javelin. - Est is quite fast, and is the strongest, but she's quite fragile. - Catria is more defensive, good luck, good crits and good survability, even at the end of the game. - Didn't played Kamui much. I feel there are better swordsmen than him. - On the other hand Atlas is probably the best swordsman of the game when equipped with an hero sword. He hits like a truck, is tough to kill and becomes a crit god. - Jesse, don't bother when you have Atlas and Saber. - Sonya is a good mage, good attack, speed is fine. She can also warp characters. Better than Boey. - Conrad is fine when trained a bit, does the job. Here are my MVP's: - Nobles : Celica / Alm - Mages : Delthea / Mae - Tanks : Forsyth / Valbar - Swordsmen: Atlas / Saber - Archers : Python / Leon - Knights : Matilda / Clive - Pegasus : Clair / Palla - Healers : Tatiana / Genny / Silque Theses characters are super efficient when well trained and equipped. Thanks for reading 😊

[@leargamma4912]

Catria better than palla with better based and forges to make her hit harder

[@LeonisBraefer]

Hey Mekkah, have you ever thought about doing a class guide for these games? Like I know that you will usually just place Mounted units at the top but it would be nice to hear your input on why they are so good in their specific games.

[@funninoriginal6054]

1 year late here but in this game in particular i honestly think both Falcoknights and Dread Fighters are better than Gold Knights tbh, since the former can nuke terrors and the ladder can nuke Mages, both of which infest this game (Alm's path less so but there's still quite a lot of mages)

[@Nefaliss]

Awesome List Mekkah, really happy to see more Echoes content from you. TBH, if you know how Echoes as a game is structured, you can (somewhat almost) make any class choice or investment work nice and efficiently. There are obviously some better paths/combinations, especially for fast-paced Blitzkrieg Playthroughs but I do think Echoes is in some ways more flexible in unit paths than what a lot of players think. I say this after 350+ hours with the game.

[@leargamma4912]

And blitzkrieg is literally pointless, but if people want to go for it, there's hardly any reason not to. The game never punishes you for anything

[@spacedoyster7686]

I tried Mage Atlas once, thinking it'd be good for him since his hit rate tends to be low and he can hit on Resistance with his massive attack, but it didn't go very well. Atlas is very slow and Mages will always be weighed down by a spell, so he's less durable than his high HP would suggest, and I don't think he gets a lot of good spells.

[@akalin2002]

I overall agree with the Alm list, but have 1 minor gripe. I don't think python is a good investment, I'd argue he belongs in high effort. He joins as a level 3 archer with 1 map left in Act 1 and has low hit rates that map due to his low skill and the floor tiles giving 20 avoid. Unless you feed every kill to him (he gets around 30 xp per kill iirc), I don't think getting python to promotion is viable in Act 1. In Act 3, you probably won't see a Shrine until the Sylvan Shrine (assuming no backtracking partway). By that point, he is a level 1 sniper and needs 10 levels to get to bow knight, which probably won't happen until Act 4 Fear Mountain at the earliest. Once he gets to that point, he can be pretty good, but getting him there is troublesome And as for the Killer Bow, it is definitely a great weapon for Python and in general. However, you have 3(4?) maps left in Act 3 by the point you forge it. There is the Desaix map, 2(?) filler map and the Delthea map which has a lot of mages that will just shred Python who has little res. He is very unlikely to get Hunters Volley in those few maps, which makes him more of a liability than anything in the Delthea map. I hope I got my ideas across, but I think the promotion benchmarks and timing make Python more of a high effort unit than a good investment unit Edit: Est should also be Higb Effort instead of Filler/Temp/Utility. At base with a potentially forged Silver Lance that you'd normally give to Palla/Catria she can start 1RKO or 2 hit KO most Act 3 Celica enemies in my experience. Her fast xp gain should get her caught up with her sisters and promo early/mid Act 4 and could act as a replacement for her sisters in Duma's tower if one of them gets stat screwed. I think she should be categorized as high effort instead

[@thomastrautman5855]

I think Python is a good investment, but only if you don't make any of the villagers into an Archer. They just have better exp (can promote by the end of Act 1), better Spd etc. and forging more than one Killer Bow is too expensive.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

The major advantage of Python is that he permits the use of Mage!Gray and Merc!Klfif, since Archer!Kliff+Merc!Gray creates worse mercenary and a worse support unit (archer!kliff is worse early than mage!gray, and support Python is about equal mid/late as Mage!gray). Of course you can match Python's contributions with a villager archer, but he's still an archer and he can still do work with a killer bow.

[@thomastrautman5855]

I'm curious what you do with Tobin in this scenario.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@thomastrautman5855 Usually most people put Tobin in the mage classline due to his high base speed being great in act 1. He can also work in the archer and mercenary classes as well.

[@codester269]

To be fair, it's usually better to *not* promote Snipers before Nuibaba's, since they lose the ability to scale the cliffs.

[@dorcasmutton6335]

I'd but gray in good investment because he really doesn't need shit

[@davidswart4247]

Both times I've played the game, my main use for Delthea was ending the act 5 finale in one round. No regrets

[@codester269]

U wot m8

[@carpediem6841]

For Mae vs. Boey, one thing to mention is that if you decide to exp boost their way to promotion, Boey requires significantly less effort to get to level 9 than Mae does to level 11, requiring only ~70% of the exp Mae needs to promote, despite her higher exp gain. The reason is that exp gains drop swiftly the closer you get to level 10, so Mae's last 2 levels require much more exp to get through than Boey's. It's not really comparable the amount of exp required to promote them, despite it seeming similar on paper. Of course this isn't a huge deal, since it is possible to promote Mae by the end of act 2 with minimal grinding, but it's a noteworthy benefit Boey has over her.

[@codester269]

The thing is Mae's Seraphim is probably a bigger deal than either of their promotions are

[@andreynikolaev5802]

Absolute insaaanity. My first and only playthrough in echoes Celica was from beginning to end the most broken unit I had. She had the highest stats of any of my units and was the very best in the end game, only surpassed by Alm when using his combat arts. Take it with a grain of salt of course since I’ve only played the game once, but it’s just crazy to me to see her in the filler category. Guess that’s how much playthroughs differ from one another. I just love my pretty princess ❤

[@lanceareadbhar]

I think Clive, Matilda, and Clair all need help to get going with Matilda being the most ready but still falling off without help unless you just use her as a mage shield. I've found Clair so useful getting to hard to reach Mages or witches and one rounding them. The 2-3 range spear is great for her to sit just on the edge of Mire range, but is only situational since it doesn't attack at 1 range.

[@thomastrautman5855]

IMO Lukas is more Filler/Temp. He's really only good for the first half of Act 1, he's too slow for the Cavs in the second half of Act 1/Act 3 and is bad against mages. He can use the Ridersbane, but why would you put it on him rather than a character who can double Cavs (even Clair will clear maps faster)? Just has traditional slow/low movement armor problems. Saber and Kamui being in different categories is a bit odd since they're so similar, Saber just has a small availability and exp lead really. Kind of the same with Palla/Catria, you do still have to promote Palla for her to be good statwise. I would never call Boey 'Good Investment', making his Spd good enough to double hurt Mae's ability to ORKO in Act 2, and he's never good in Acts 3 and 4, he's a Filler unit because you have limited units in Act 2. Even though Mae is better than Celica in Act 2, I'm not sure she's a 'Good Investment' over Celica in the long run, I don't think the categories are very helpful here. Leon is way more of an investment unit than Mae in reality. Valbar is just not good without Pitchfork and should be in the bottom, too slow low movement etc. He like maybe chips a unit or two in the Sea Shrine? I don't think Nomah being able to heal at 1 range makes him a notably better filler unit than Sonya.

[@yukotrey9422]

I think people put gray into mercenary because his speed and skill bases and growths are dirt low, and the mercenary bases are so good they just patch that right up Also I reclassed python into a merc as well and he was fucking incredible.

[@XellosNi]

Bruh. I WANTED to like Clive as a unit. And I was surprised how stupidly useful Mathilda wound up being. And that she was voiced by Caitlin. Glass. I didn't expect we'd ever get Caitlin Glass Emblem.

[@javahikage]

I think I got a super-blessed Jesse because he's my best Merc/DK of the game. I can throw him in the middle of a dungeon and he can clean most of it by himself. And he's not super ahead in lv, just like 1 or 2 levels above Saber most of the time.

[@chunninglibra9553]

Yeah Jesse is underrated as hell

[@Arkholt2]

Can't believe you forgot about Atho- uh, I mean Nomah

[@notfabio9858]

Now this is one I’m really interested in seeing, I think echoes is the game I know the least about when it comes to what people say is optimal or good

[@leargamma4912]

Echoes is the one game where catria>palla

[@jonahj9519]

I don’t understand this “only use one dread fighter” concept. You get plenty of good swords, especially on Celica’s side. I think at least 2 is just fine.

[@foxx_2]

what units would be good to use pitchforks for??

[@SpookifyVA]

Did you swap Clive with Zeke? :o

[@estyboi5927]

Zeke joins really late into the game at a point where Mathilda and Clive should already be your go to Gold Knights. Clive with a ridersbane in act 3 just makes life so much easier.

[@estyboi5927]

Zeke is still good, especially if you give him a pegasus cheese, but Clive’s Act 3 and Zeke’s late recruitment can’t be overlooked imo

[@SpookifyVA]

@@estyboi5927 Yeah that's fair. I've just always had an issue with Clive's speed, and he doesn't tank as well as Lukas either. Maybe I've just been speed screwed with Clive, because he just becomes witch food for most of the game.

[@estyboi5927]

Nah it’s not just you. I think Clive has like a 30% speed growth or something really low? But you give him one speed from the Thieves Shrine after he promotes and he’ll make quick work of most cavs in act 3. Hope that helps if you ever play this game again :)

[@slushisimcambi2521]

@@estyboi5927 or you could give Clair or anyone else the ridersbane.

[@joshraftis4186]

I like the explanations you provided on why each unit is placed where they are. I do disagree that there is no major benefit in deploying more than one Dread Fighter on Celica's route. Both Kamui and Saber are on equal footing imo and provide a lot despite being the same class. Also agree with some of the other comments around Boey being overvalued a bit - his speed requires shrines to be able to double which Mae can do by default (or with one shrine use).

[@melanchorus5593]

Absolutely blessed soundtrack used here

[@seanhayes8204]

All mercenaries is great for the villages. It lets you trade the lightning sword and get the dracoshield more easily.

[@gameboyn64]

I really think mae/boey should switch with Celica or atleast moved down to temp/utility with Celica. At base Celica has the bulk of boey -2 hp and the offence of mae -1 atk and -1 spd. She does have equal to better growth rates than both of them in just about every stat. The princess promotion is also better than the priestess. Celica's spell list is also better other than getting thunder a little later than the other two. She gets earlier seraphim than mae, significantly earlier recover than both, and earlier excalibur than boey. She also gets ragnarok for a hard hitting accurate attack in the later parts of the game.

[@malusvir]

But you forgot to account for bias, which is totally worth funneling kills into Boey in Act 2 and then pretending like Celica can't keep up because you held her as far from the front lines as possible.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@malusvir That's a pretty bad take overall, Celica just isn't as good as Boey and Mae on faster playthroughs. Why? Well, She uses swords on enemy phase, has 1 move in the desert and her start position is terrible in most maps. Enemy phasing with swords makes celica much worse than Boey and much worse than Mae. She offers some pretty good supports which is especially helpful to boey who gets to 85 accuracy with fire. Her early access to the seraphim spell is extremely useful at killing fiends in act 4 and killing the necrodragons in act 2. With shove/swap she's really helpful, and she can kill/weaken a surprising number of random enemies just by existing. (my celica's typically end with over 50 battles and 5 kills, she just has so much chip utility with fire and some nice ORKOing with seraphim), but she's still not a fantastic unit. And before you counter with funneling kills into Celica let's compare Super Boey to Super Celica For comparision a Super boey run has the following turncounts (N/Y%) is the probability you get a faster clear due to good luck 4/4(3/50%)/4(3(33%)/5(3 15%, 4 5%)/4/3/3 so boey's expected turncounts for these maps is 4/3.5/3.67/4.65/4/3/3 Super Mae is cleaner except she has some janky possibilites of saving the merc boat turn and is much less likely to crit barth. 4/3/3/4.87/4/3.4/3 So Celica is 30 turns act 2 while Boey/Mae are both barely over 25 turns in act 2. (less than 26 on average but more than 25). The thing is Super celica is slower than all of the following: 1. Cavalier gray 2. Knight/Baron Forsyth (as main lance) 3. Main peg Est 4. merc gray with mage Kliff Basically a bunch of fairly inefficient characters are all faster than Super Celica, relative to the truely fastest route.

[@malusvir]

@@vanjagalovic3621 First of all, formatting your response with so many spaces between lines makes it really difficult to reply each of your points. I see these arguments a lot and I disagree a lot. I understand the general community thinks this way, and I'm planting my flag on this hill - Celica isn't just better than Mae or Boey, she's one of the best characters in her route. I'll answer your points first. Just about everyone has poor movement in the desert (and swamp). That's not a strike against Celica, it's a fault with Gaiden map design. If all you care about is low turn count, then I guess you're just playing Celica's route with the whitewing sisters because they're the only ones who get to ignore slow marches across maps... But the topic of this video isn't LTC, which is a very specific style of play that uses very specific strategies. The topic of this video is for a standard playthrough with a standard, not-excessive level of grinding allowed. Celica only enemy phases with swords in melee - neglecting that 'in melee' part is disingenuous. She HAS a melee game, which Boey does not, and this makes her more flexible (read: viable) against the occasional low-defense high-res enemy. In fact, with one of the better resistance stats in the game, she's ideally suited for challenging these enemies (though admittedly peg knights often fill this role better). And since Echoes characters use a single stat for all damage calculations, whether melee, ranged, or magic, she's no better/worse at either. Still, she isn't a fantastic enemy-phase unit due to her defenses... but neither is Mae. And in most cases, neither is Boey, because even though his defense trends toward being passable, it still isn't great, and he lacks the speed to avoid getting doubled. Except wait... Celica has the SAME base defense as Boey! In fact, Celica and Boey have the same defense growth after you factor the mage penalty Boey gets. Meanwhile, Celica is ahead in attack, speed, and resistance. But I digress... it turns out Celica can, on average, take a hit just as well as Boey. I'd still prefer to not leave her exposed... and I don't have to, because she's more likely to kill what she attacks with a gap that widens substantially, on average, if you train both characters equally. And I'm not talking about funneling kills to Celica - I just mean allocating them a roughly even number of battles as often as is feasible. Except in that case, you DO have to funnel kills to Boey for him to keep up, because if we're talking chip damage, Boey is the one less able to kill. Now, as I stated above, I'm not particularly interested in LTC for purposes of this discussion, but allow me to address your numbers. Primarily, where are you getting these numbers from? Base stats and growths are open knowledge, but you can't just list probabilities for turn counts without providing a method for your reasoning. Until you do, there's nothing to discuss, here... but let's assume your numbers are correct. Even so, your math is still wrong, because you can't have less than a turn. Yes - I understand your results are averages, but this skews the numbers in Boey's favor. Whether or not he's still faster/slower than Celica in a LTC run is impossible to discuss without your methodology. Likewise, we can't compare Celica to your other examples, but neither should we have to... Gray and Forsyth (and usually Kliff) are on Alm's route, while Est is on a pegasus, which makes for a muddy comparison to begin with. If you want to discuss supports, Celica supports more characters than Boey, and receives more supports than Boey. Importantly, she's the only support for Atlas and Conrad, but ignoring them, the same hit bonus Celica gives to Boey is reciprocated by him so neither is necessarily more accurate than the other. So Celica has better base stats, better growths, better supports... how is Boey better, again? He gets to cast thunder sooner? If that's the pillar of any argument about which horse to bet on, why dismiss the fact that Celica is the only character on her route that gets Seraphim early enough to make a difference? Boey doesn't even get Seraphim at all. Let's talk about promotions. Celica gets to promote for free, without any investment at all. If you're going to call that a big boon for Alm, you have to acknowledge how good it is for Celica. Meanwhile, promoting Boey takes a lot of work... and for what? To have worse bases than Celica across the board? To finally learn recover? We have to discuss the convoy. It's horribly biased to ignore one of Celica's best perks - she can adapt to situations on demand, and share this ability with the rest of her team. How does that not rate her higher? She's one of only two users of Ragnarok - the sole user in her route - and the only character capable of using Ragnarok Omega. She gets extra healing utility sooner than any other mage. She has perfect availability. She has all of this, while having better offensive growths than Alm, yet you and members of the community that think the same way demand she's a worse unit than freaking Boey. Celica's only real sin is being in the same route with Palla and Catria, and that doesn't make her "bad", it just means the peg sisters are ridiculously good. And as good as they are, they only stand out so much because of the maps they get.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@malusvir The utility of using swords on EP if far worse than using magic most of the time, so it comes as a downside esepcially in act 2, where Celica's utility is most prominent. Another thing is that unlike Boey or Mae, Celica can't promote so for strategies on faster playthroughs. While promoting isn't too relevant for Mae as her promotion is pretty meh, it's really relevant for Boey as he becomes much stronger after promotion in act 3. The thing with Celica is that she has 1 movement in the desert unlike unpromoted Mae and Boey, which makes her a worse shovebot as the desert is usually dominated by Leon or the Whitewings. So, yes, while Celica is essentialy as bulky as Boey, Boey has unique advantages and takes less work to promote than Mae and can promote sooner than Celica and Celica's promotion is pretty meh, sure it's free, but it's not particularly good. Also, you seem to be stuck in the old meta for the desert and while it still holds up the new strategy mostly revolves around Leon. (Unit analysis here: www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/nd2rh4/local_twink_obliterates_game_sov_leon_unit/) Celica having access to the convoy is nice, but not something amazing. I wouldn't call Eirika an adaptable unit due to having access to the conovy Celica does undeniably have more support thoug. I'm not gonna argue with that, besides Conrad not being a very relevant unit for the most part. Ragnarok and Ragnarok Omega both come so late that they're rarely ever relavent and Celica's healing utility isn't that amazing compared to Genny by the point she gets it, though it can be helpful. Celica does have perfect availability. That's nice, but not the be all, end all. I do agree, that on casula playthroughs the difference between Boey, Mae and Celica is miniscule, but on fast playthroughs it definetely becomes noticable. If you want to know where I got my numbers you can take a look here: www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/kh8pjs/shadows_of_valentia_tier_list_with_explanations/ and here www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/m253m1/sov_tier_list_redux_round_10_celica_and_genny/, also here www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/m2xsw5/sov_tier_list_redux_round_11_mae_and_boey/

[@Zorafin]

In my last playthrough, I trained every unit to 20 before promoting them, to see how insane they were. Mycen and especially Nomah obviously ended up as the worst characters, as you would expect. They're barely useable at base, though the get the job done. But they also have no room to grow. You may expect for the villagers to have been the best in the end, but that's not actually what ended up happening. Conrad ended up as the best Skogul, and Jesse the best Yasha. Sonya was my best spellcaster, because she had the best survivability while still having a good spell list. I couldn't tell you my best archer, because when all of them have the same range and can one round any enemy they all end up looking the same. Forscythe did end up being the best Spartan, but even he was worse than most of my other units. His defense wasn't any better than anyone else's, nor his attack. And while his speed was good enough to double, he just couldn't be anywhere useful while everyone else was flying everywhere.

[@aaajeear8654]

Now combine this with a Star Jacinth and you'll start training gods that annihilate anything that comes their way, Star Jacinth is an absolutely insane item that gives whoever holds it +30% growth rates on every stat save resistance (which is increases by 5% instead).

[@Zorafin]

I didn't know that item existed. My units were already insane just with getting them to 20. Like the final bonus dungeon wasn't a challenge. I can't imagine another...30 stats across the board, if leveling from Villager into a three tier class with an overclass? Jesus. Isn't the stat cap like 40? Jesus, that's just overkill. Make everyone into archers and oneshot everything at that point. It's very definitely not worth doing this, but you could stick that to a late game unit like Jesse or Conrad and have a late or endgame powerhouse. There's...absolutely nothing to use them on, but you could.

[@yukotrey9422]

also something very very under appreciated. Alm gets subdue. Good lord you miss how easy it is to set up kills for other units without it.

[@ScootsLounge]

Been playing Echoes again, been rigging Silque for Atk levels. 16 Atk by the time she learned Warp (2 Atk fountain uses)

[@ScootsLounge]

Also been trying to rig Faye's Atk for Physic/Rescue, but not as hard as Silque's.

[@brandonpaine1032]

Love the Golden Sun music so much

[@raidoukuzonoha883]

I'd put Delthea in good investment tbh

[@lanceareadbhar]

I would take out Lukas from good investment as he's pretty useless around the middle of Act 4 even with extra training and move him to the Temp group. I would add Clair and Delthea to Good Investment as they are very useful through the final battle as long as they got proper training and some of the many stat boosters available.

[@therealzeno2487]

Huh. For alms route I gotta say I disagree on Clive, delthea and Forsyth. Clive is a decent enough unit up until witches become common his lack of res often made him a huge target and he always got destroyed by them. For delthea. If you train her yeah she becomes a nuke but at base she dies to melee rather easy and the enemy arcanists and witches double her and she doesn't retaliate with too much damage. And Forsyth i agree he does take a little bit to catch up but with having a warp user in silque and most likely rescue in faye, once he becomes an armor knight let the boy tank and he catches up extremely quickly. Regardless these are my opinions and the experience I've had. All the others I agree with almost 100% though.

[@codester269]

Delthea works as a Player Phase nuke, but yeah she dies to a stiff breeze if it's not an enemy mage. I think the argument against Forsyth is just that he doesn't offer much that Lukas doesn't already.

[@jhon1406]

have your opinions changed on the best classes for each villager ? i'm think merc gray, mage tobin, archer kliff, and cleric faye for my 1st playthrough

[@voidroad]

I find it really weird to see boey and mae on the same tier maybe I get RNG screwed but every single playthrough boey just doesn't double anything relevant making him super weak compared to mae who quickly kills in a single double attack

[@scottallen4569]

I always go Merc Gray, Archer Tobin, Mage Kliff, and Pegasus Faye. I wanted the 'canon' classes ig.

[@RSimpkinuk57]

I've done the same and have just completed the Act 5 end boss battle (hard difficulty). My final tally credited Alm with 150 victories, Celica 140, next Faye 100, Clair 98, Tobin 93 (with steel bow throughout, I made only one killer and Alm has that, forged from Celica's Act 4 silver which she peddlered to him), Delthea 89, Mae 88. I don't think there is a 'canon' class for Faye but her support convos with Alm fit a combat unit better than a healer/utility. Knowing her spells, cleric Faye does look like a good choice for normal difficulty [if uninteresting] but waters down hard too much, should we like our liquor neat. First time blind, going from no healer straight to two seems odd, and pegasus rider being girl-only is the obvious choice for a unique role. On Alm's side, when we have to bench people for Act 5, I benched Mycen, Zeke, Luthier, Clive, Python, Forsyth and Lukas. Their low RES and LCK (when LCK needs to exceed enemy SKILL for crit immunity) were my reasons. For the end boss, I left both teams unchanged. It worked. On Celica's side, when her Act 4 finale dungeon requires six people be benched, I decided that to be 'canon' it must be all three whitewing sisters, or none. Palla's stats made her a definite bench so Catria and Est were out too, with Kamui getting the nod as tenth choice to stay in. Boey having been with Celica from the start, and being Mae's support partner, puts him higher up the list.

[@gutsFunnyman]

this may be the first guide i've seen that doesnt reccomend me to reclass Clive

[@GameNut1811]

Tbf, Mekkah did say that pitchforking anyone makes them really strong at the beginning of the vid

[@mrtobstah101]

Delthea is so useful with almost no investment. She's fantastic in act 4 and 5 and basically one rounds everything, I'd put her in the good investment tier. Clive is awful, played through hard classic 3 times and he's very much a temporary unit with very little reason to use once you get Mathilda

[@FasterthanLight11]

Using Golden Sun music threw me off for a second. Always a trip down nostalgia to hear it though

[@IssunEmbersong]

Golden Sun music

[@GodleyX]

Well since we aren't getting a new remake, I guess I am replaying this game now! As soon as I finish my fe4 run anyways.

[@ModernMind18]

8/10 would watch in DQ again -2 points for celica placement

[@ScootsLounge]

Ok, Tigerstance is so busted tho. Dread's base Skill is 16. Their *BASE* Skill. Every Dreadfighter gets an extra 16 Atk with Tigerstance, and that's how I managed to kill Jedah and get his Dracoshield. Also utilized it in the final map for the purple bozo.

[@roboot3342]

I’ve never understood the hype for python, he’s always come out as below sub par when compared to my archer kliff.

[@TheMightofDab]

currently playing the game and i'm finding Python REALLY hard to justify. thought he'd be good by the time i got him to sniper but he's so much worse than Tobin

[@toineh]

Another video, another Golden Sun OST :)

[@squidaccus]

Pretty much same opinion on Deen here. I'd argue he becomes better than Saber once he promotes, but obviously he's still a few levels off from that. Overall, Saber is better since he's there for a much harder part of the game.

[@ussgordoncaptain]

Mathilda belongs in "High effort (but good)" Same with forsyth. Forsyth is basically lukas but with better speed and res but a lower join level, he takes a bit of grinding but once you grind him he's gonna be good. Mathilda has a join level of 1, you have to grind her up to get her to be a gold knight before act 4, (remember paladin has a class power of 3, so they REALLY have slow EXP gain (knights have a class power of 5, which means knights have 66% faster EXP gain compared to paladins) if she isn't promoted before act 4 she struggles massively. vs armorknights she just gets 2 shot I think this is the perfect example of "high effort" it takes a lot of wrok to get them going but when they do get going they are very good. Ram Villagers: Good on reccomending 1 merc all of them work, it's just that kliff has 8 res in 3-2 (The hardest map in act 3) Soldier!Tobin works, He's basically better Lukas, Knight bases are big and Tobin's 6 base speed is really nice. with 8 speed he doubles basically everything until act 4, and in act 4 he can double the knights in 4-1 with only 8 speed. So even though he only has a 15% speed growth that slow growth isn't FELT since he'll double all the things you need/want him to double with his base speed (+2 from shrines/levelups) Delthea: You can give delthea a Steel shield and have her use the skill "defensive" which let's her fight a physical unit on enemy phase. worth noting that she cannot one round armorkngihts but she does have pretty strong chip damage. Forsyth: forsyth doesn't requrie much grinding to get to promotion, Soldier has a class power of 8, so they get significantly increased EXP gain compared to other units. overall Pretty good guide for alm's route, my main objection is that forsyth should have been in temp/filler or you should have had mathilda/delthea also in high effort What tier do you put "high effort but good"? Celica One thing to note about Celica's route is that lategame (Bow fort and beyond) you almost exclusively encounter 4 types of enemies Arcanists/WItches Mercenary/myrmidon/dread fighers Cantors Archers/Snipers So when talking about a unit it's probably best to discuss what of the 3 main enemy types (magic/Swords/Archers) is the unit good/bad against. Saber: Saber is going to get doubled by enemy mercs most of the time, the only time he isn't in celica's route is bow fort. If you don't give him the pegasus cheese and a brave sword after dread fighter he isn't going to double enemy dreads. (you need 20 speed to double them and dread fighter base is 18, saber's speed growth sucks) Saber belongs in good(investment) with the other 2 mercs, since you generally pick 1 Merc and 1 Mage to invest in as your main combat units (Personally I like deen the most) 32:40 Dreads can 1 round other dreads if you give them the brave sword. Good Combat arts come with the huge downside of taking forever to get to most players won't get roundhouse until Jedah (and if you're using a silver sword you're probably getting doubled by enemy dreads) , Zweihander's tigerstance probably won't be used at all since getting a Zweihander isn't realistic until after grieth's citadel. Palla: you said palla runs over grieth's citadel, what of the enemies is she good against 13 attack 13 speed Mercs (2) 14/17 attack 15 speed myrmidons (2 of each) Grieth himself Mire arcanists (4) w/20 total attack Fire witches (3) Brigands (2) cantor (1) Snipers (3 2 w/Iron bow 1 w/steel bow) The Brigands/Witches are kinda joke enemies so let's ignore those, what of the other 14 enemies is palla good against? 38:41 Straight up false, Most 1 range enemies double palla. there are precisely 14 enemies on celica's route (after bow fort) that don't double palla and don't have range. Those are 2 brigands in Greiths citadel 5 necrodragons in Skrimish! (Not a real map but whatever) 2 fiends in Duma gate 5 fiends in Duma swamp Mae/boey: actually they can frontline pretty well with the leather shield. Boey especially has better bulk than Saber after the leather shield (7 defense vs 4) The major issue of course is that they burn themselves with their own spells, but boey is still only going to get 6HKOed which is a lot of kills. in act 4 mae/boey can use the Mage ring which lets them have the same range as Leon and due to swamps their move will be quite similar. They both hit really hard arcansists frequently have 0 AS so boey with saggitae or mae with aura can double and ORKO them from a safe range. Against snipers they'll need to use faster spells, but even with thunder they'll probably double due to low speed thresholds (6 speed to double) Catria: should be no brainer, basically the same unit as Palla, decent but not amazing however she does have flight in a game with swamps and deserts so that's really nice Celica: She's really good against Fiends with the seraphim spell. Also she's your best unit in 2-E since she's the only unit who has an enemy phase. She's worth investing in in part 2 just for 2-E (2-E is pretty hard) agree otherwise Saunion: Saunion is good for 2-3 range conrad in duma gate, but other than that it's mostly a meme weapon for poking enemies from afar Conrad: he's good in tower since he has 8 movement. Tower has 10 available deployment slots which probably will be taken up like so 1. Celica, 2 Main mage 3. Genny 4. dread of choice 5. Palla 6. Catria 7. leon 8/9/10 Uhh uhh uhhh Conrad's good in the uhh uhh uhh slots since he has a decent base level and actually quite good speed (doubles all the duma tower enemies except dreads/gargoyles. Overall Alm No Brainer Silque/Alm/ Tatiana (warp not reccomended for tati it takes way to damn long) Good (investment) Clive/Python/Lukas Ram's Woods Vills: gray/tobin/kliff/faye Temp/utility Clair, Luthier, Zeke, Mycen, High Effort : Mathilda, Forsyth, Delthea Celica No Brainer : Genny/Leon/Palla/Catria Good (investment): Mae, Boey, Saber, Kamui, Deen Bow em down : Atlas Temp/utility: Celica, Est, Conrad, Nomah, High effort; sonya/Jesse

[@Azardea]

Man, that Golden Sun music...

[@jabbathehutt2774]

I prefer to grind for the star Jacynth and train everyone to God level at very early points in the story.

[@theAmazingJunkman]

May just be bad luck, but I have never had a decent Clive without using a pitchfork to reset his class

[@lanceareadbhar]

He needs some Pegasus Cheese to fix his issues after promotion.

[@yes1667]

Pick a God and pray! Wait wrong game...

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

On Alm's Route, I think Lukas is only Good Temporarily, as the low move really does Hinder him late Act 4. Apart from the fact that He lacks Good range Attacks, almost always gets 1 rounded by Witches if not speed, He just stays behind. I think Forsyth can be better than Lukas just because he has higher res but he gotten too late to stand out. On Celica's route, I still don't see the appeal to Archer Atlas other than Killer Bow Plays as Most bosses in Celica'a Route are in 40+ Avoid Terrain, Which makes me tempted to use Magic against them instead. Also I think Placing Sonya on High Effort is a bit excessive and I would rather place Valbar there because Valbar is a Liability to anything that is Magic, which is a lot in Celica's Route. Sonya starts off with The most accurate Spell: Excalibur. It makes her more reliable than Maye when it comes to magic damage but at that point, Maye may have supports and Good magic to never give sonya the time to shine. Conrad gets Hindered too much by Swamp Terrain and while he has Decent Stats, I have never bother to use him as a Gold Knight. Overall, This guide is good. A bit of a "potential Bias" here and there but it is mostly accurate.

[@Mekkkah]

I don't disagree entirely with the rest but Valbar is in Temp for his contributions in early Act 2 when there are no witches and he's just a good chokepointer with equal mobility to the rest of the squad.

[@thomastrautman5855]

I think chokepoints actually hurt Valbar more than help him- you have limited spaces to put melee units and Saber/Kamui have better offense and are better exp investment. Everyone else can do stuff from range.

[@thebladeoflight]

Conrad actually joins right after the swamp maps are over (not counting Jedah here since that's barely a map at all), and he's useful at Duma's gate and in Duma's tower. And it's not like you have to get him to GK either, he can do things like fighting the Duma's gate witches as a paladin just fine.

[@Blarglesnarfe]

I'm... surprised how kind you are to Clive.

[@karmamoment]

clive haters are weak

[@Mekkkah]

yes

[@ninjakirby777]

I feel like Clive should be in the same tier as Forsyth, he’s the worst unit in the game imo (for alms route at least), he’s really just has nothing going for him gameplay wise, his combination of having terrible Hp, speed, Res and 1 range make him terrible against the many mages on alms route, especially Witches who can warp cross map and ohko him.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Witches don't join until later in part 3 and most units don't have very good HP anyway. Another notable thing about Clive is how if he is promoted and give a single point of speed from the act 1 speed fountain he can double every cavalier in act 3 and even one round them with a forged ridersbane. This is notable as cavaliers are some of the most common enemies in act 3 which essentially makes Clive one of your best units in act 3 as he can one round them reliably while having good enough durability compared to Lukas and Forsyth who lack mobility without warp and Clair who lacks access to defensive terrain and lacks Clive's excellent bulk.

[@alexpowell1184]

@@vanjagalovic3621 or you can just give it to alm and let him do it lol

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@alexpowell1184 Alm can't use the ridersbane and needs warp to match Clive's movement

[@BurningFyre]

@@alexpowell1184 Alm, famous lance user of Valencia

[@alexpowell1184]

@@BurningFyre doesnt need ridersbane to oneshot them tho lmao

[@monadoguy7807]

...yeah Clive is basically guaranteed to get a WAIFU after this comment section LOL

[@randomdude428]

Nice tier list

[@Thurmanator]

So anyone else confused why hunters volley is seen as good when its litraly worse then other options like enclosure most the time

[@Mekkkah]

why seal their move if you can seal their life?

[@Thurmanator]

@@Mekkkah because 90% of the time you double anyways?

[@ebicbarton]

They don't know

[@quickpawmaud]

Most people I have seen talk about Boey being terrible and how they just ditch him. Mainly because of his speed and how he can’t double at the start so he can’t level up. I just grind him up but he is pretty weak I got screwed on him more than any character in any game. Like 10 level ups of only HP. I grind enough to promote everybody though and use everyone. I vehemently disagree with Conrad and think he is definitely a No Brainer. He doesn’t require much investment at all to be good he has great resistance and sure the swamps are bad for him but most of this game is dungeons and he is the best unit there. Just give him a forged lance and he slays. I even gave him all my wells because he was so godly. I didn’t grind Conrad at all and he was better than a lot of my grinder units. Only thing that is bad about him is his availability I think.

[@LancasterAJ]

Just got this game a month ago and echoes discussion is dead-I’m on my third playthrough and Palla has been horrible each time. Am I doing something wrong? Celica route-Maye, Saber, Catria are my no brainers

[@Mekkkah]

Palla's fine just with her bases really, but there are some advantages to Catria and some parts of the experienced SOV players do rate Catria higher than Palla...I think they'd still put em right next to each other on a tier list though. I have a whole segment on it in my tier list review series.

[@mysmallnoman]

Celica Should be with mae and boey, they have the same performance with magic and her physical atk are literally on par with saber except having slightly worse spd/atk, nevermind she has healing Leon can go down with atlas, he only has availability on him and both have meh stats

[@twigz3214]

being the only archer in her route bumps him up a lot, archer/sniper/bow knight is the best class in the game only potentially behind dread fighter. He also joins higher level a lot sooner than Atlas

[@mysmallnoman]

@@twigz3214 i mean i do agree he's better than atlas but being the only archer doesn't make him that spacial given his bases, growths, and the fact that due to Celica route being shit for footie units who are not DFs, he only shines in archer fort and Greith's catidel but that's it, he's still inferior to the fliers who aren't est and deen/saber And no, shove/swap doesn't help him much

[@twigz3214]

@@mysmallnoman I mean he can use the killer bow fairly quickly to just one round things with his decent str and good dex. his stats are not great but the killer bow is that great.

[@mysmallnoman]

@@twigz3214 well you have a point

[@Docaccino]

Mae and Boey can ORKO brigands on enemy phase provided they got the fountain boosts (Boey also needs an Atk level up) while Celica can never do so since she counters with swords at 1 range. They not only makes maps go by faster but can also powerlevel very efficiently and trivialize most of Act 2/early Act 3. Leon has killer bow and is literally more reliable at killing anything than any other unit. Dread fighters? Saber doesn't always double and pull reliable hit rates on them. Mages? Saber can't counter them, Palla's Res is meh and she often faces crit, none of the pegs ORKO arcanists with javelins and can't counter mire/thunder. Archers? Leon is the only one who can even fight them on enemy phase. Necrodragons? Palla doesn't always reach the ORKO benchmark and Catria needs to be even luckier. Leon can also ORKO Grieth with a hit+crit at base (or with just a crit if he reaches 15 Atk) so he's by far the best option for one of the most notably difficult bosses in the game.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

This is the greatest service anyone can do to the community, good job. Aside from refunding Dark Deity, that probably supports the community even more.

[@Mekkkah]

Refunding DD supports the community? wut?

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@Mekkkah It lets the devs know you aren't happy with a game tgat constantly crashes on you and you need to wait for updates for it to get into a playable state.

[@inexpertsoul1041]

Delthea as a gold knight will destroy anything very fun

[@Gothaman1]

delthea is crazy damage

[@bruyeretv]

yo am i hearing golden sun ost?

[@IsiahValle]

Good tier list 👌

[@grayfox8310]

Here for the voice

[@JosephHk743]

Thanks for this guide! If you do get the Cipher DLC characters, Would you go through the factors where they can be useful on each army?

[@codester269]

Shade is probably best on Celica's side, and Yuzu isn't very useful on either without a pitchfork. Emma and Randal can work on either.

[@JosephHk743]

@@codester269 my most recent run of echoes really make me appreciate their usefulness based on map size and dungeons. I actually now prefer Emma & Randal on Alm and Yuzu & Shade on Celica. Yuzu with mage ring or a high crit weapon does the job just fine from my own experiences. Pitchforking would be okay if she wasn’t too frail.

[@easchole9410]

Every single playthrough ive had forsyth has turned out better than lucas

[@SnowballK4T]

Lukas in good investment and Clair in filler? Bruh.

[@shiina4826]

clive waifu please

[@Docaccino]

yes please I want a video I can link to every time someone shits on clive instead of having to write a 300 word essay no one's going to read anyway

[@shiina4826]

@@Docaccino you forgot how they also reply "oh wel mathildas way better clive useless" with no backup

[@Docaccino]

and then they proceed to mention how clive gets destroyed by witches that only appear on like half a dozen maps in alm's route

[@shiina4826]

@@Docaccino except you realize a lot of units would get destroyed anyways because res is so low on so many people anyways

[@Docaccino]

it's honestly baffling how much shit clive gets for things that apply to most units in the game

[@RangerJackWalker]

All these people in the comments being so completely wrong about Clive…

[@PikminWarrior454]

What exactly makes Celica worse than Mae/Boey?

[@francislawd]

Her enemy phase is weaker due to using a sword instead of fire

[@cross7679]

I was not prepared for all the Clive haters lol Clive Waifu when