Fire Emblem Engage Unit Tier List!!!

Thanks for watching friends! Make sure to share your thoughts in the comments. What is wrong with this tier list?
Become a Member:
/ @adamwithfed
Discord: / discord

[@loganrehbein7610]

Armor knights feel good in engage which is an achievement for the fe series

[@Neucher]

Panette is definitely as good as people say. Just a lot of strength.

[@nhall129]

Not to mention her unique skill

[@rulan2260]

@@nhall129 currently using her as a General after I lost Louis in Chap 17 (where you have to fight the 6 guys). Pairing her with Ike and a Greatlance makes her a great countering unit. Rn, she and Kagetsu are my main tanks. (Edit: blind first playthru hard classic)

[@nintonintendo1]

Her con is so low tho

[@nintonintendo1]

@@rulan2260 you know that you don't really have to fight them in that chapter? You can, but the game expects you to escape, you are not forced to fight them.

[@rulan2260]

@@nintonintendo1 I meant 17, not 11! My bad

[@sooehn]

I had to stop using Louis because he was stomping everything, and I wanted to test out the other units

[@Smuggers.]

I know the feeling

[@minecraftxp123]

Panette single handily carried the last half of my maddening run. She's definitely in the top tier in my eyes.

[@kkyzs]

What class did you use her in?

[@minecraftxp123]

@@kkyzs Warrior

[@ChanceBolt21]

Her with Ike was a cheat code

[@nintonintendo1]

She has such low con for an axe user.

[@dent5672]

Same. Kept her as a berserker. I gave her lyn so she could double attack with speed taker and use alacrity to not get hit. Gave her a steel / silver great axe for 1HKO when I needed it and a silver axe for normal use. Then added Ike’s Axe skill that raises damage for axe users. Had trouble with the second skill choice but went with canter so she wasn’t on the front lines. Absolutely insanely good.

[@csmhpiano5193]

The secret for Goldmary is to reclass her to Armor knight, she comes with base defense of 29, with one extra booster and inherit a from Corrin to negate chain attack and she essentially function as an end game Louis in my maddening experience

[@nah4467]

Just like Lapis needs to be reclassed to Warrior with Bows because she'll do backup and gets a better strength because she'll otherwise do nothing. She has a lot of speed and hit.

[@traceyrice4978]

I think Louis belongs in "needs work but good." You start to run into situations where His defense doesn't matter. Chain attacks and attacks that ignore defense and resistance become more common. Also, on maddening I feel like you shouldn't be turtling. If you aren't quickly killing enemies and securing objectives, you're gonna get overwhelmed. It's usually better to have your units trade big damage with the enemy, come out on top, and push forward quicklythan it is to move slowly and hide behind the tank. Louis is really good early game, but he requires some serious SP investment and likely bond fragments to get the skills and emblem ring effects you want to keep him viable throughout an entire playthrough.

[@kl271]

You could just give him an emblem that negates Chain attacks

[@traceyrice4978]

@k l yeah, then you lose sigurd and your mobility sucks. You cant equip every emblem at once. For louis to be "great," he has to inherit some of the more expensive skills in the game. Otherwise, he's going to wind up somewhere between "meme" and "okay" quicker than many realize.

[@InkWavve]

​@@traceyrice4978 You could just buy Corrin's skill for him and keep Sigurd on him, though if your Louis is taking so many backup attacks that he dies, you're probably just mispositioning him. Also, he can have good mobility without Sigurd if you make him a GK. I had the opposite problem with Louis where he scaled so well into the late game that enemies were just ignoring him, even when he was the only available target. Also, I agree that advancing quickly is important in Maddening (and in general), but a good tank is a huge help when you want to push forward, so the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

[@ironx98]

If this is considering every character in their "cannon" classes without emblem rings I agree with a majority of this tier list. And while I think that we should avoid ranking characters with emblem rings we shouldn't rank them without the possible use of second seals in which many characters shoot up on this tier list. One of particular note I would point out is Goldmary. Goldmary when second sealed into a great knight or general has just as much defense and hp as Louis while having slightly less Strength, that being said she has much higher Speed and Res due to her bases. She has very similar growths to Louis actually having better defense growth the highest in the game in fact. This along with her personal ability which can give her +20 avoid when facing male enemies makes her arguably a better tank than Louis.

[@AelfricBlack]

That’s exactly what I did in my hard/classic blind run after luis got nuked by hortensia, goldmary held up the frontline alongside jade right up to the final boss

[@nah4467]

Yeah, as someone who played maddening, Lapis is really good if at one point you convert her to Warrior because of he bonus to her strength which goes really well ontop of the speed she gets already

[@Lyhila]

Kagetsu is clearly top tier imo, his growth are really good It is almost impossible for him to miss an attack And it is almost guaranteed to make a critical hit without having a garbage str

[@bywhiskey5789]

I used Kagetsu with a Killer Sword +5 with the Fates engraving, and he was doubling everything to the end of the game with a ~90% crit rate. Probably the best FE unit I have ever used.

[@panprachwaiwong6386]

Mine dodges, doubles, hits, and crits with a killer axe everytime. He’s an absolute beast.

[@Krizzah47]

Problem is hes innate sword. There are too many good innate swords in the game. Alear, diamant, kagetsu, lapis. His personal skill amd his growth rates are amazing. But yeah thats it

[@Krizzah47]

@@roadrunner8608 i dont know about that. Because axes have misserable hit chance. Thats a huge problem in maddening

[@gamefreak173]

@Road Runner i can still solo the game with kagetsu using his swordmaster class i literally have my team together and just warp kagetsu in to solo rooms speed is so valuable and going to other classes he loses that ability. He caps out at 51 speed as a swordmaster unless he has a faster alt than that i see no reason to change him

[@marcgomez8391]

The biggest outliar in the tier list compared to my Hard and Lunatic playthroughs is that Diamant is really, really good. Being able to use almost any sword or axe in his personal class is great, he has good Build and Build growth to use those axes effectively, Sol gives him survivability, and he has very respectable Spd and Def to work well as a frontline unit while being a backup unit type on top of that. I find him useful with either Leif, Roy or Ike, but others like Lyn, Lucina and Eirika also go well depending on how you want to use him. He does have lower Dexterity and Res, but those can be patched with engraves and pure waters. I just think he's extremely versatile and reliable.

[@InkWavve]

This is true. Diamant is a really well-designed character because he's not outstanding at first glance (except maybe his Bld.) but the different parts of his kit work so well together.

[@Commodore468]

The build was great silver sword with no speed penalty, also his personal skill makes up for his poor dex

[@aninymouse1651]

I gave Diamant Skill and Res items (Secret Book & Talisman), and that +2 in each was enough to patch him up.

[@AcornPlays]

I found that Diamant was mid when I first got him, but once promoted, given some Res items and the Ike ring, he was a god. I have the new DLC Hector ring on him now which is disgustingly good

[@aninymouse1651]

@AcornPlays Yeah same, except without Hector... I'm tempted to get it though

[@MarwN1]

Panette is a top tier unit for sure. Reclass her to warrior, give her Ike's ring, give her a killer axe, a tomahawk and a killer bow, and finally have her inherit Vantage+ from Leif, and watch her solo entire sides all by herself in maddening, crit'ing every time. Definitely the best Ike unit imo.

[@Eliholz]

Wouldn't it be better to put her on Leif so she auto-switches between killer axe and killer bow? 2000 SP for Wrath is close enough from her starting SP.

[@gamefreak173]

@@Eliholz lightbrand would most likely get her killed

[@Eliholz]

@@gamefreak173 Oh, right. It'll probably switch to Lightbrand against axe users. That's a real bummer then cause the 10% crit from it for backup units would've also been nice.

[@nintonintendo1]

Every character would be op with that much optimization. You could swap panette with Lapis and nothing would change.

[@fe_three_rosses]

i was really excited to use Panette once i saw her, but for me she missed a 98% hit on the chapter where she joins, and that made me salty enough to put her on the bench until my next playthrough

[@just_mizzle_c170]

I completely agree with putting Louis in s tier

[@andrewcortez4360]

And if you have the dlc and slap tiki on Louis most enemies do zero to him.

[@kilaquill2537]

Seeing him resist every single attack always makes me think of Dedue's "INEFFECTIVE" quote lol

[@naeonixion]

I tried really hard to sandbag Louis and he's still unstoppable.

[@theshinypeliper8813]

FINALLY PEOPLE WHO SEE WHAT IM SAYING

[@donk3618]

He absolutely hard carried me in the early game. I would have lost my mind playing maddening without him

[@Ethan.]

For me, Diamant was easily my most broken unit. Insane strength for a sword unit and enough speed to back it up, once he gets axes give him a tomahawk and he can enemy phase aswell

[@bitesizedmath9686]

Totally. Pairing up Diamant with Ike lets you just roll into a sea of enemies and use great aether, one of the few AOEs in all of fire emblem. As long as you can pick off a couple of the enemy mage/backup units around him, you can easily get 4-6 enemy units to near death in 1 turn without taking any damage (after GE heals him).

[@nick3805]

@@bitesizedmath9686 That's what I usually do with Alfred.

[@Smuggers.]

Yunaka, Panette and Louis were my big three on hard classic, I'll be doing maddening now and curious to see how that'll shape my opinion on various units and give others more of a chance. At the end when it was showing my MVPs 2/3 of them were just solid Panette and Ike, I had to bench her for some paralogues just so my other units could get exp.

[@bywhiskey5789]

I used Louis on Hard first and he was amazing. But then on maddening enemies will straight up not attack him because his def is too high. Still really good, just funny that hes too good. I think on Maddening he is definitely better as a GN because any more defense is overkill. Im also considering trying him out as a Lance Paladin.

[@Smuggers.]

@@bywhiskey5789 Yeah, it's going to take getting used to that mechanic. There were certainly a lot of 0 damage or 0 hit moments for me in my hard playthrough.

[@elk6008]

Timerra is really good with sandstorm she does great damage for me and also panette is outstanding due to the combination of her personal skill and her high hp/attack.

[@naeonixion]

One time I used fire breath with timerra and it procced Sandstorm and obliterated 4 units from full HP. My jaw dropped

[@albedoasura3872]

Can also use Timerra with Leif and Sandstorm can proc on all 4 hits of quad attack. She gets high dex so it starts to proc often

[@omgstopturd6566]

I think you gave Vander too much. Even as soon as chapter 4 he starts falling off. If you look at his stats they're hot garbage except his HP. And anytime you use him, exp that coulda gone to literally ANYONE else is falling into a black hole. His best use taking off his weapon and tanking hits or using him to soft up people for anyone else to kill. I got rid of him after chapter 5.

[@sinisterdesign]

I actually really like Jean--having a Donnell/Mozu style unit who starts with staves means he's comparatively very safe and easy to get started leveling, and the existence of the Arena at the Somniel makes it even easier. He deserves to be ranked much higher than Framme, IMO

[@aninymouse1651]

Framme is pretty great, though. And not just for staves. With Flashing Fists, she is arguably the strongest player phase attacker, at times. You can get that as soon as you get the Silver Art.

[@samkeiser9776]

That said the difference between their growths isn’t that significant when both are in the martial monk classes, Jean has low base growths and is really dependent on his exaggerated class growths, while Framme simply has higher base growths. When both are martial master Jean ends up tying her strength growth, having 15% more magic growth, 15% lower speed growth, 15% higher def growth, and 25% higher res growth, and 10% higher luck growth. He grows to be way more defensive than Framme does, while she has better offense due to her speed. And speed is a better stat than def res and luck. But really the question is why train Jean to be a martial monk when Framme fills that role fine and has better availability, and doesn’t lose out on essentially anything aside from bulk. Yes you can reclass Jean, although I’d still argue that his personal doesn’t actually do that much for him. We can compare him to Chloé’s growths, if both are griffin Jean has 25% lower hp growth 5% higher strength growth, the same magic growth, 10% higher dex growth, 5% higher speed growth, 5% def growth 15% higher res growth, and 15% higher luck growth. So his growths are marginally better than hers, but she comes with better bases and a base level.

[@itsaIIgoodman]

Bad Diamant take, bad faith tier list. You didn't discuss his passive, or how his high build allows him access to axes which the other sword units would likely not spec into. Whatever biases you can use for Lapis is applicable for Diamant. Also Kagetsu not in S Tier is a bad take.

[@Draconated]

I find Louis to be amazing on hard, and borderline useless on maddening. If enemies deal no damage on maddening, they simply won't attack him. This is a huge problem with him doing his job early on, and I usually just found him being completely ignored by 90% of enemies, while still needing to avoid mages who one round him. He can still be of use on the offensive, but when he doesn't function at his main job, I dunno, I don't find him to be very reliable. He was incredible on my first hard run, though. I think that sentiment of him being good comes from people who used him on hard.

[@sainaaron1595]

Definitely think a lot of the “I don’t have much use with these characters” placements shine true. Which is fine you stated clearly it’s the first playthrough. It wouldn’t be a Month 1 tier list without disagreements

[@aninymouse1651]

I stuck by Etie and made her a Warrior, and gave her Lyn. Now she is doubling enemies with a +3 Longbow and doing 30+ damage x2. Nothing can stop her on player phase. Her strength growth is insane. That said, yes, that took me actively babying her all through her Archer phase into Bow Knight.

[@probablynick8201]

Honestly, I really liked using Etie. I did the same thing as you and she was unstoppable. It’s kind of a bummer most people I’ve talked to haven’t had the same experience

[@user-yc5lb8fw5r]

It’s true but Lynn makes everyone good 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@aninymouse1651]

@@user-yc5lb8fw5r That's fair. You could put any Emblem on Warrior Etie, though, if you inherit Build from Leif & Speed from Lyn (both less than 1,000 points).

[@CrazyBreadWithSauce]

Howd you get her through axe fighter? I cant promote mine into warrior without it.

[@JinJinJinJinJinJinJinJinJinJin]

@@CrazyBreadWithSauce If you promote a unit to any of the Master classes with a Master Seal, you can then use a Second Seal to swap into any other Master class. So basically: Archer --> Master Seal Sniper --> Second Seal Warrior

[@iridiumessence2958]

I think you're mostly about where i am on your evaluation, but i think there's a few things worth noting. Alfred is really good early; he has decent bulk and a personal that gives him +2 str when you use him to pull enemies, making them easier to pick off. he does fall off by midgame but early he's really essential to a lot of lines of play, even if you don't give him Sigurd. Kagetsu has insane bases and strong enough growths to do any physical class well. personally i immediately made him a sword/lance Wyvern Knight, but he's also pretty good as a hero, general, great knight or anything else really. Etie needs babysitting until you get a master seal to spend, but her Str is good and her speed can be patched with a promotion to bow knight. Also, since she does effective damage to wyverns she's ESSENTIAL if you want to survive the tiki paralogue if you jump into it right away after Ch5/6 Diamant is also very good. on my current run he's my strongest unit by far. i have hold out + vantage inherited and that alongside sol + a killer axe/killing edge make him into a total monster. I'm thinking about swapping him from his personal class to a sword/axe hero to get access to brave assist and a better dex cap though Louis i feel is a bit of a trap. he's very good early and can freely take Sigurd if you have the DLC and can give Chloe Edelgard. He has awful res and will basically never double so for me he ended up getting dropped around Solm. Chloe seems amazing to me, but i got burned by her shaky str growth so she only had 12 str as a level 6 griffon knight (promoted lvl12) by the end of ch11. she leaned pretty heavily on a forged steel lance with an engraving to do any damage whatsoever for me

[@SeraviSays]

Some comments from my in-progress Maddening: Etie: My target for super favoritism, used Energy Drop, Sigurd in early game, inherited Canter, promoted and then changed to Warrior. Damage is pretty respectable but can struggle to double when enemies start getting promoted (Lyn/Speedtaker helps). Unfortunately she kind of clashes with Bow Knight and Sniper, so Warrior helps a lot with the extra STR and Build and this goes for anyone who wants to go Bow. Even without, early game has a fair few fliers before Alcryst. The one big caveat to Anna is that you really want to give her Tome and probably Staff proficiency before finishing Ch10, as you lose access to it for a long time and even the wave 2 DLC doesn't fix that very well (Soren/Camilla have it but at bond 16 or 17). High Priest has good luck and slightly less magic than Sage but you'll also need to pick up Arts from Byleth or (if you have DLC) Tiki. Kagetsu has the raw stats to be literally any physical class you want, proficiencies permitting. Uncoupled from his Swordmaster class he starts with 11 STR, 13 DEX, 11 SPD, 10 DEF, and 3 Build. 3rd highest personal growths and distributed rather well including a 30/50/50/40 in STR/DEX/SPD/DEF. The Build is mainly worth mentioning since likely none of the characters from before this point will have acquired any additional Build from levels and only a few (Vander Bouche Diamant at 2 each) even start with more than 0 or 1 native Build, subtracting their class. Most of the units that join after him and Zelkov have pretty good Build and flexible stats (except Bunet), but Kagetsu is on another level. Zelkov as an aside comes with a comical 5 native Build which is ridiculously overkill for a dagger-user but you'd unfortunately have to wait a bit to Second Seal him into an Advanced class. Pandreo is a great out of the box RES tank in addition to have good MAG SPD and staves. Definitely great.

[@travispalmer1733]

I love running double tank with Louis and jade but love diamant so much but good to know for another play thru who might be better than some of the ok units I chose but the game is lots of fun so there isn't a wrong answer if your having fun

[@Blaze0070]

I've never complained about Ivy's DPS. She and Panette were my highest hitting units. Plus, she is the perfect speed tier to use Sppedtaker and Alacrity.

[@jackmanleblanc2518]

Boucheron can be stupid strong. Put him on a team with a lot of chain attacks to take advantage of his personal and there isn't a single enemy he can't one round, especially if he's doubling which he can do pretty easily with his high build stat. The importance of high build units being able to use a strong weapon without a speed penalty is hugely underrated. Pair him with 2 heroes doing 2 chain attacks each, 4 total, and that's an extra 8 damage. 16 damage if doubling. 32 damage if quadding with a brave weapon. And that's only with 2 heroes and no other backup units.

[@OnlineVideoSurfer]

I really need to try him properly on my next Maddening run. I still don't have a good read on whether he's wonderful or a meme yet, and I probably won't until I try him myself.

[@jackmanleblanc2518]

@@OnlineVideoSurfer I haven't tried it yet, but since his personal is so good at stacking free damage on for him then Eirika might actually be a good fit for even more free damage depending on the opponents defense stat. Should be able to take out armors that way too.

[@knivy6160]

Maybe biased here, but I think zelkov/merrin should be right next to each other wherever they are on the tier list. They're very similar statwise, if you were to swap their classes their stats would be almost mirror each other except merrin has a slight speed lead and large magic lead, while zelkov has a slight str/build lead which won't really matter until later on, but it's still something. Merrin also has slightly higher consistency due to higher dex/luck, but it's marginal. Effectively they're the same unit at base just in different classes with different class types. I'd just put Zelkov directly under merrin wherever she is on a tier list cause her 2 point speed lead at base and higher base sp, there's no reason Zelkov should be as low as he is.

[@gligurr]

completely agree but also worth nothing zelkov cant second seal until he gets some levels but hes fine in the class that hes in

[@hatarihell2523]

Zelkov is absolutely a great unit. Agree with him being very similar to Merrin in terms of stats - and Merrin has the capability to be a strong carry. Comparing Zelkov to Yunaka in the tier list is a disservice to just how good he is.

[@keystonerecords4541]

thanks for sharing Adam. Disclaimer that I got to ch24 on maddening (base game / no DLC) before giving up: Alcryst for my money is the best player phase unit in the game. boost his dex a bit, with an engraved killer bow, and he gets upwards of 85-90% crit rate, with Luna proccing about 40-50% of the time. with a little luck, he can kill anything no matter how tanky they are. you can give him Eirika's Lunar Brace skill to double down on this, or Dexterity+[X] to help the odds. as you stated, great with Lyn since Luna procs on Astra Storm, and because of the free Alacrity and Speedtaker.

[@jmagicd9831]

Hey Adam, I really appreciate you going in order of appearance here. It’s helped me avoid spoilers. I’m mostly playing through the video by segments to check that I’m making good investments. Everything you said about Chloe so far checks out. She got my first Master seal and I have not regretted it. When I saw Alfred as low as he was, I was a bit surprised, but now that I’m on chapter 9 and starting to promote units, I see your point. I did give Anna my first second seal. Idk if promoting her to warrior and then second sealing sage is better for her since she’s a level 1 mage now. Citrine and Lapis got Master seals 2 and 3, and I hope I don’t live to regret promoting them over Celine or Alcryst. Also when did Yunaka fall off for you? So far I have not had to choose between dodging and doing damage with Dawn Engraved Steel Dagger+2. Idk if that’s too much investment for her to be higher, but I also don’t know what other weapon can take that engrave since daggers get +2 might each refine

[@spiderluigi866]

Due to the way internal levels work second sealing Anna into a level one mage does nothing but make it take longer for her to become a sage. Her stats as a Sage from mage are the exact same as a lvl 4 sage from warrior all while taking the exact same amount of experience.

[@LewisDruid]

Glad to see support for Clanne, he’s def my favorite mage unit in terms of fun factor as the best Mage Knight imho (in terms of being viable to use physical and magical weapons effectively for Chaos Style and coverage against low Def units and low Res units). He may not be the best mage but he’s super fun to use and I have always enjoyed mages who can double reliably over those who can only usually attack once. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve heard he can also be reclassed into a fairly solid and fast physical unit which also sounds like it could be really cool. Overall a pretty fun unit that I keep around even if there are specialists who could replace his more balanced style.

[@shadowmetroid18]

Clanne is the mage that didn't fall behind for me. Celine fell off HARD and Citrinne I had to work to salvage but clanne has stuck with me through it all. He's a goat with a Levin sword as a mage knight.

[@fatalhope7945]

Yeah I put Panette on sniper and gave her a killer bow +5 with Corrin engrave which got her to like 85-100% crit chance vs almost everything depending on if her personal and class extra crit change passives were procced or not. Put Lyn on her and she doubles everything giving her even more chance to crit lol it’s insane

[@Realag666]

I don't think dodgetanking is super reliable. Even if the enemies have 26-35% hitrate you get fairly often and if one Greataxe/Greatspear connects your unit is mostly screwed

[@Dragonboy55564]

Avoid tile + avoid engrave (e.g.marth / Lucina) + avoid class (thief) + avoid weapon (usually lowest might) + avoid passives (marth). It's very possible to hit 0% chance to hit. The main issue is chain attack spam (guaranteed 80%) and maybe magic bypassing avoid tiles, but thieves generally have good res anyways + pure water exists.

[@fd2552]

My Diamant and Alfred have been cleaning house. Stuck a lucina engraved killing edge on Diamant and he both has no hit issues and crits all the time. Alfred I kinda focused on but found his growths to be solid and movement is nice. EDIT: Not saying Alfred is great. Just fun. Diamant MVP tho

[@destinyshand2049]

I love using jean with Tiki and high priest. The 100 luck means he won't be missing any time soon, 95 res and 85 mag makes him anti mage anti armor.

[@traceyrice4978]

I've been waiting at least 3 weeks for this video

[@VangolaGear]

21:12 you’re looking at him from a crit/dodge perspective. You’re not supposed to be throwing him against agile foes. He is a bruiser character. He has high durability, that is just enough to still take damage but not an insane amount and supplement it with Sol drain. You shouldn’t be trying to hit thieves with him but aim for Armored or mounted foes with Armorslayer, Hammer, or Poleaxe. Alternatively you can use him against those beefy Warriors and Berserkers to do good damage on them while breaking them. THAT is what he is used for, not hitting enemies like thieves or sword masters.

[@InkWavve]

Yeah, IMO Diamant is one of the most well-realized "bruiser" archetype in the series.

[@KDill893]

It's interesting to see the difference in evaluation for some units. I don't know how their growths work at all and haven't done maddening. I found a lot of units were very usable and hard to choose between on Hard. I wonder how my opinion changes on more plays.

[@unhingedmanchild]

Chloe strength, def, and build are too ass to be top tier. Great at best IMO. You almost HAVE to forge +5 weapons for her to be solid in combat. Fliers are good though. Kagetsu goes amazing. Dummy OP bases and his growths are still great. Arguably even easier to use than Ivy cuz he contributes if you just use him, no seal needed, but IMO reclass to wyvern, bow knight, or hero makes him that much better, although bow access is the only thing immediately available to him for a few chapters due to ring shenanigans. Swordmaster seems kinda meh as a class cuz swords lack 1-2 other than Levin, and his mag is not so good. I don't believe the panette hype. Her speed is buttcheeks and almost every unit that isn't an armor will live or die based on their speed. Panette warrior w longbow seems reasonable though. Speaking of warrior, Saphir is surprisingly ready to go out of the box. Give her longbow and dual assist+ (she has 2k SP at recruit) and she contributes plenty, although is a little low on speed. IMO belongs in joins late but ok or at least any "this unit is ok" tier. Celine is just way too middling in all stats to be a standout, no way in hell she belongs in the same tier as merrin, alcryst, and jade. "Ok unit" seems more appropriate to me. Boucheron probably would have been a great unit if he wasn't an early join. His skill is effectively useless for so many chapters cuz nobody can proc it for him, and by the time somebody can proc it, he is falling off. But, he is a very usable unit because he is the only chain attack unit for the early game. Hand axe = profit. I might be high af, but pandreo seemed outclassed by ivy, hortensia, and anna. Dude doesn't belong in top tier, but he is definitely pretty good. Great tier seems appropriate. Anyone reclass veyle into griffin immediately after getting her? Griffin patches up so much shit for her, including giving her 4-5 more speed just by changing class. Veyle base class has such terrible bases, and her knife/tome are both worse than bolganone (fucking rofl?)

[@sparkleprizm199]

Poor Jade is so underrated, but I’m glad you acknowledged her potential. 💖

[@sinisterdesign]

She's good--I used her for a while--but she just can't match Louis's insane defense. She'll take single-digit damage from attacks that tink off of Louis, and her Res isn't high enough that I can use her as a tank for both physical and magic damage. Bunet offers similar results with way greater mobility.

[@gamefreak173]

@@sinisterdesign i gave louis all the talismans a bit crazy but he capped res early with it being like 14 or w.e dumped all the draco shields into him too. To make him over the top i just added base stats to him like 5 def from ike and 5 res from micaiah, with a pure water and stat booster he will go from 14 res all the way to 30+ res and like 60+ defense. Looking back at it i feel like if i gave him laguz friend as a skill he would be even more ridiculous and wouldnt even take serious damage from anybody. almost had him at 100hp too

[@infantrypulse]

I’m on my second playthrough, and Diamant has been my rockstar both times. I haven’t really had an issue with him missing frequently? I might just be getting lucky with Dex growths, though.

[@chipbannatyne]

Also the thing with diamant is that his hit rate is counteracted by his personal which gives him +15 hit when initiating

[@greg6434]

I know we are early in the games life cycle, but there are some definitive comparisons when comparing stats Chloe and Lapis are basically identical units, Lapis comes at level 10 with 11 str and 14 spd. When Chloe reaches level 10, she averages 9.4 str and 15.6 spd. They also have the same str/spd personal growths of 25%/55%. The only real difference between them is their personal skills so they probably should be next to each other. Zelkov is significantly better statistically than Yunaka. Comes at level 17 with 15 str and 19 spd. Yunaka averages 13 str and 18.6 spd upon reaching level 17, but the difference is Yunaka is likely nowhere close to 17 by the time you get Zelkov (on maddening), so with current knowledge of the game they probably deserve some separation. There are going to be more examples, but those are 2 that stuck out to me. Note on Diamant, his personal class does have that low dex cap, but if he is used as a player phase unit, his personal skill completely makes up for it. Also if he insta promotes into successeur, and reaches level 20, he averages 19.7 dex, which is under the 22 cap anyway.

[@Katie-hb8iq]

Some thoughts to refine this list. First, second seals are not free - they do slow down xp growth a bit by 2 levels. Second, I don't think it's fair to punish characters for getting refines - you want refines on everyone. I think one criteria should be "Does the refine they need cost a lot of Silver?" If no, then it should not penalize them. If yes, it probably should because that cuts into your Silver for the end-game. I think refines have a lot to do with who is good and who isn't due to the nature of snowballing, which is similar to the past games. Alear has 4 build and their personal weapon, Liberation, has 4 weight. Realistically, this is the only sword Alear can even use. This can be refined to +5 very early on, which causes them to snowball pretty hard in the first act of the game. I feel like anyone saying Alear is not good did not refine the weapon when they honestly should have - it's super cheap to do because it's D-rank. It only costs 1 silver for the entire refine and it lasts nearly the whole game. The biggest outlier for me is Diamant. He should be Great to Amazing. Diamant has access to a Killer Axe in Chapter 9, and a Tomahawk in Chapter 11. With his personal skill, his hit rates are better than Jade or Boucherons. That Killer Axe can be refined to at least +3 with one of the original 6 engravings before Chapter 10 too, which allows Diamant to snowball the game pretty hard at that point forward. Due to his build and build growth, he should be doing a lot of damage even compared to units like Kagestu because axes have a lot of might on them. Even if you have to change his class towards the end of the game, he has snowballed so hard, he should be 5 levels ahead of many other similar characters. He is always the first to reach 20 in his promoted class for me, and I always promote Alear first. It's also pretty easy to get him into a situation where he has 60-100% crit. I don't even like Yunaka because she needs to be level 22 to have the same strength as Zelkov, and her defenses are also worse. I don't see how she gets anywhere near level 22 by Chapter 11. I'd even be tempted to put her in "Needs work but Ok". The dagger refine is the real killer because it costs so much Silver to do it, and you'll have to do it AGAIN when the Silver Dagger arrives with Merrin. Definitely not worth it. I definitely agree that Anna does not belong in Great tier. She requires a Second Seal to even get into the class she works well in, and to be honest, I don't find her any better than Celine or Citrine. Her speed advantage isn't as great as you might think because when enemies retaliate she probably dies, so she is forced into Thunder-based spells a lot of the time. Also, her money-making ability didn't trigger enough to justify the hassle. Definitely agree with Alcryst - was an mvp for like 10 maps for me. I like this list. I think it's pretty accurate. Diamant is the only massive outlier.

[@Morkwall]

Agree with Pandreo being amazing. Hortensia was my main staff user so when I reclassed Pandreo to sage he was great. Much more reliable/useful than ivy for me.

[@moonlight2870]

I think Etie is a "need work but good" unit. Her strength growth is massive. If you make her into a warrior she can ruin people's lives.

[@iButt]

Main problem with Etie is her abysmal HP/Def/Res and below average Speed. She can just about one-round stuff with the right class, but she blows up if she ever gets hit and isn't fast enough to consistently dodge like Kagetsu and Alear. Also Maddening exp is lol so she's a pain to raise. You can slap Lyn on her if Alcryst dies tho, Astra Storm-ing a Griffon from across the map is always fun.

[@evanwhite5704]

getting yunaka's avoid too high is only a problem on maddening, the AI still targets you in hard and normal

[@magegeneral6988]

Kagetsu is undoubtedly S Tier. He has the 3 highest combined growths in the game with the best bases in the game at his join time.

[@aleisterleopold6229]

On hard mode, I made Etie into a warrior with Claude's bond ring. That is fun to use. I also made Lapis into a berserker. Has tons of strength and a capped speed at 32. Fun to use

[@chillinon3263]

I think Lindon looks like a meme because he joins really ill equipped as a Sage with Thoron which will get him doubled and killed by pretty much everything in his chapter. Outside of dire thunder though, I noticed he has naturally great build so I reclassed him into Mage Knight as he can use Levin Sword without penalty and benefit from its low weapon rank to be a really good "magic swordmaster" with his personal. Definitely would place in "needs work but ok", given the resources needed

[@Ramperdos]

- I've been using Celine on first Maddening run and using a Levin Sword kills her Speed completely. She's ok, but I kinda regret using her in this run. - Louis has a funny problem on some maps and that's the fact that his Defense is so good the enemy straight up tries to ignore him, because they'd deal 0 damage to him. - I heard good things about Yunaka so I decided to try her in Maddening and she's been kinda awful. The biggest impact she has is Corrin's fog area, but she can't hurt most enemies and the more powerful daggers kill her Speed super hard. - Ivy's hit rate is kinda bad most of the time, especially because she isn't Mystical so anything that grants avoid makes her miss all the spells. - I reclassed Zelkov into a Swordmaster on Maddening and I had to spoil him with all the upgrades so that he started to deal some actual damage. Not recommending that career choice for him. - Fogado on Maddening has trouble hitting anything as a Warrior so he has been kinda weak. I'm playing right now and he has a 60& chance to hit a Griffin with a Silver Bow.

[@oranje525]

Very shocked to see Kagetsu and Lapis so low, they were my best units in my first run

[@dent5672]

Turned zelkov into a sniper and it was absolutely fire! Took a bit of work to do. But it was awesome, amazing crit rate.

[@Ramperdos]

@@dent5672 I'll try that during my next playthrough!

[@veerigo]

i think that veyle as a mage knight can actually put in work, chaos style is a really fun class ability :)

[@IWish2500]

Turned Louis into a great knight and he absolutely carried my first playthrough

[@Ai-jr4ou]

Anna is bar non the best mage in the game and likely the best character from early impressions. Once reclassed to mage or wait five levels into promoted magic class she sits at 75-80 magic growth and begins a snowball that makes her your best magic unit but her speed is also good so she leverages her damage with doubles (or dire thunder).

[@pepeelghetto1231]

Ready to see half of the low tiers turn out to be good in some months lmao

[@xenofes2]

Jean really isn't that hard to raise since he has access to staves for easy exp. I personally thought Etie was really good. She has really high strength, and her personal skill makes her more useful for enemy phase, which a lot of units in Engage really struggle with.

[@milkboi2765]

As someone who used Jean with mostly the micaiah ring and turned him into a high priest I say where you put him is fine.

[@lildragon6415]

You're using Diamant wrong if he doesn't hit things for you. Just give him a Hand Axe or Tomahawk engraved with added Hit. He doesn't need the extra hit when using swords.

[@dadbodenvy4247]

Engraved tomahawk pretty much half the game for me. It even did great damage into the last boss and kept Diamant at range for Hortensia heals.

[@meguca201]

Honestly Celine is not great. Her strength Stat is useless on maddening since enemies have insane Def and only the strongest physical units can even keep up. Her mag growth is kinda pitiful and there's just much better mages in the game.

[@herbertortiz9159]

Anna should be Amazing, not Needs Work. She’s very good as a Warrior as well as Sage/Mage Knight

[@snarkygoblin7894]

Magic knight Chloé was a ton of fun to use

[@chriskagamine358]

I never used Bunet, but his personal skill sounds amazing if you inherit Celia's skill that refills your engage bar when you eat a packed lunch

[@dent5672]

I thought about doing this. His speed is kinda low and strength isn’t crazy. So what I did was give him Erika’s skill that makes attacks to more based on enemy defense and the corrin skill that lowers enemy stats by 4 after battle. Not perfect but he ranked everything and weakened them during enemy phase to finish off with my other guys on my turn. Turned out to be a great support unit

[@coltonmarples4269]

I think Goldmary should be moved up to at least great. She needs to be reclassed to a Great Knight but she will be a second Louis with slightly lower HP and Str for much better Spd and Res to avoid melting to mages.

[@yerba_morte]

i reclasssd Zelkov as a wolf knight w the Lyn ring and he's been an mvp unit for most chapters since then

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Unfortunately, my Vander got extremely stat screwed and died in one hit to every unit after chapter 10 so I just kinda gave up and used Louis for that niche. Whoops.

[@isaacnorwood4463]

Pannette is probably the most op unit. Give her wrath/resolve and equip with lief for vantage with a +5 killer axe. I you will 100% crit almost anything even final boss. Giver her the divine blessing every map just in case.

[@julesrigdon5382]

I'm thinking should I change alear to general or keep him as a dragon

[@2265Hello]

So thoughts on the game and it’s difficulty compared to previous games?

[@ungabungus01]

It's about the same as the gba games (except binding blade) on normal. On hard not sure, as I didn't play any of the others on hard but it felt similarly challenging to radiant dawn, genealogy, and binding blade all on normal. So on the tougher side of average but nowhere near thracia. That's just my take

[@kilambrown4302]

Anna is definitely a Top Tier unit. But not as an Axe Fighter. She has THE highest Magic Base Growth at 50% as well as 50% Dex, and a high 40/45% speed I believe. Meaning she is inherently one of the best Magic Units. She is Definitely a Unit that needs effort to raise, but if you do, she's is arguably the 5th best unit in the Game. Best as either a Sage, or a Levin Sword User Griffin.

[@TheTyranex]

Radiant bow warrior also deserves a shoutout. Great utility in being a back up unit and all you need is master seal so you can start it early

[@xxxxpower2449]

If you want a pure damage mage just use Lindon with a crit build. As for utility and mobility Ivy and Veyle are just better

[@TheTyranex]

@Xxxxpower availability does matter though. You get Lindon pretty late. Citrinnebis the better option for nuking.

[@xxxxpower2449]

@@TheTyranex honestly i'm not a fan of Citrinne, but yes you got a point. I guess there are little to no differences between keeping Citrinne or switching to Lindon in late game

[@lanceareadbhar]

This is a really hard list given how early the game is and the fact that emblem rings can make bad units pretty great. I gave Rosado the Lyn ring and was dominant. I also left the Ike ring on Timera and she held down one quarter of the final map by herself occasionally getting kills with sandstorm. Fogado also dominated with his natural speed growth that made Alcryst disposable when unit slots were low. That said, I like your S rank and would probably add Merrin and Kagetsu as well as they dominant right when then show up and I didn't actually use Kagetsu due to the low deployment slots. Finally, it did require work so I think the rating is fair, but my Framme went from a healer only, to knocking people out left and right with forged equipment, to a dominant mage/healer that had Corrin's ring so she came up clutch freezing multiple people from two range with 58 HP while engaged. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this game over just using the best skills on the best units.

[@lanceareadbhar]

For the record, my feelings above were regarding hard mode as I see that some units are much worse on Maddening. Also, I didn't realize how broken Alcryst can be with the Lyn ring and Luna so I think he's rated appropriately. I still think people are sleeping on Fogado in his advanced class with a forged Radiant bow since he has a decent magic growth and amazing speed growth.

[@superape013]

Etie is a super solid archer if you promote her to sniper she gets a good crit boost and is great at taking out problems form range what makes her stand out for archers is her high str she has which makes her shots just hit harder then the other archer units

[@enny7377]

You have this magical talent of saying the most important thing ever and then treating it like a passing breeze in the wind. Just thought it was a funny pattern

[@leonardwashington7189]

Doesn't female Alear also start with one extra base point in defense?

[@USPSArtoria]

Gave Anna edelgard and she's one of my best units still using her as a physical axe unit chapter 12

[@aidangoodwin7031]

I classed Etie into the axe variant of bow knight, and she absolutely slapped. Her super high strength growth let her one round most enemies, and then I would use Hortensia to rescue her.

[@pralenkaman8105]

really interesting to see fire emblem tier lists, because my céline got magic and speed screwed so she's pretty useless in nearly every situation, she can't kill anything and gets doubled by nearly everything on the other hand, my diamant and alfred are jugernauts that are only weak to magic damage and one round nearly every enemy

[@CHAINSAW2HERO]

Alfred was a stand out unit for me, but my run was on hard-mode, and also I put a lot of effort into him.

[@Raigia-]

I stuck lapis with Ike and they really dominate in my playthrough. I have put no work into her other than that and she hits like a truck and is a dodge tank. I got really lucky with her growths. But then again I’m only playing on normal. We will see how hard goes

[@nah4467]

It's either that or reclass her to warrior on maddening because her 25% growth in strength +10 with swordmaster will hurt otherwise but she's a solid A tier imo with that. I say S should be reserved for units that stick into a class or because of the game and how it is why you need to train them to make it easier.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

MR DIAMOND HERE. Solid list :)

[@MasterJP28]

With Soren released, Ivy has become my Enemy Phase sweeper. She basically has Nosferatu when engaged.

[@robby6382]

I benched Louis and that blue haired swordsmaster guy for like 6-8 chapters on hard and they where great when they returned

[@shadowmetroid18]

I think having our aptitude unit be a cleric is really good, especially in a game where staves are so powerful. Compared to mozu or donnel it's so easy to babysit Jean and his stat growth gets nuts.

[@bartholomew3436]

Thank god we didn’t get another Cyril. I was really worried going in that Jean would have bad growths to compensate for his personal, but instead they gave us the best iteration so far

[@cooperm4185]

​@@bartholomew3436 Cyril is good by virtue of Vengeance, PBV, and his ability to easily slot into Wyvern or Bow Knight alone. On recruitment in BL and GD he's actually one of your best units at base because of his ability to one round in Chapter 5 which no one else can do except Vengeance users, Thunderbrand wielders, and Catherine (with or without Thunderbrand)

[@bartholomew3436]

@@cooperm4185 sure, but I meant that Cyril’s personal is useless because all it does is put his growths on par with the others bc his base growths are bad to compensate. Jean’s growths are good by default and made better with his personal (which helps build diversity since it affects his class growths, not base)

[@andyabramo4848]

Etie definitely needs work, but she was a solid sniper in my madenning run, also great corrin user. Diamant with Lyn carries through mid-game easily (Mulagir is broken), but falls off on the last couple of chapters. I would only move Timerra to S tier, Sandstorm + Ike Ragnell is just broken and she can pretty much Tank everything if she has the pair up skill.

[@leogi7]

Great video

[@bryzzo4380]

I think the emblem you pair the unit with has a huge influence on how you view a unit in this game lol. I had the three lords on Alfred and he carried me all game

[@illusionfoxx4196]

Yeah basically any unit using Tiki or Three Houses can do some serious work

[@yes1667]

If every unit carries with 3 houses emblem ring then you can't attribute that to Alfred. Hence why we don't factor emblem rings despite it being a core and strong mechanic.

[@mqlando9480]

if you put Jean and Anna into correct classes like Griffon for Jean and Sage in Anna in terms of stats they become best characters in game so S tier? I was running into stat caps just as they hit character level 32-34 or so in important stats like magic/ speed. Also Etie is better archer than Fagado as Warrior and Citrinne is a better Radiant Bow bow user than Fagado. Chloe and Louis are great units but they are not top tier by the end of the game.

[@theshinypeliper8813]

Love for Louis… I’m glad I’m not insane for thinking he’s good 😭😭😭

[@Werkzeug-100]

Frammes growths get slept on. They are way better than chole but everyone loves her.

[@twigz3214]

Framme's growths are worse than Chloe's in most stats except res, also Chloe has better bases in every stat and can fly.

[@Werkzeug-100]

@@twigz3214 you right but in the context that only strength and speed matter

[@pockets_sb4238]

Played on hard, diamant was my best unit by far. Paired him with Ike tho. Didn’t have problems with low hit. My other best units were merrin ivy and alcryst. Luna is extremely good and paired with lyn alcryst is crazy good.

[@shivsunil9984]

Amber was my MVP on Maddening besides Alear (who overtook Amber after I got Roy's Binding Blade), super strong and great movement, especially with Javelins/Spears/Brionac

[@jakksonkobalt]

Panette is the only character I have seen land crits dealing 201+ damage.

[@aninymouse1651]

There's no way Goldmary is that low. The others I could chalk up to preference, but she is just good out of the box. You don't even need to use a seal on her. Her only downside is low Build, but you get Leif back not long after she joins & Build is cheap to inherit.

[@matthewsimon6170]

Saphir with Roy and standard levelups snowballs really freaking hard as a Paladin, like my god, she started outdoing freaking Lyn-stacked Critking Diamant, and lord she's just so resilient with Roy as well, so unwilling to die. Besides that, a pretty fair tier list, apart from having Timerra anywhere but garbage can Tier, she can't hit, can't double, cant take a hit, literally a waste of a character slot. Least Fogado is good.

[@rykyia2414]

idk how true this is for maddening but on my hard playthrough timerra was one of my best units she was always one shotting everything

[@meisterschwert]

alfred above diamant is... a choice, to be sure

[@zekebowl]

Bucheron is amazing tier in maddening. His hp is nuts and his speed and body keeps him from getting doubled result wilding big bulky axes

[@bluevalor491]

Wooooooottttt Yunaka was the MVP of pretty much every single map ? Also was by FAR my fastest unit all the way thru idk if u got unlucky or I got lucky with growths but that’s how it was for me?

[@Brelicity]

Louis and yunaka saving every encounter I'm in. Absolute killers

[@AceGamerValen]

Diamant up over Lapis/Amber for sure. Sol is pretty good and he is best user of Ike. Hector also silly with him but that's for another day

[@everdash]

“I have literally zero experience with Jean, I don’t know anything about him…” Then why are you making a Tier list?

[@auraguard0212]

Saphir is pretty good! Granted, I neglected or lost every other option.

[@AelfricBlack]

My experience with saphir: recruited on turn one with a rescue staff, dead on turn 15 same mission to lure all the reinforcements into a chokepoint

[@thealmightyultimus3832]

Goldmary actually has a rather high def growth rate of 55. Reclass her to Great Knight, which gives her an extra 25 growth to def, and that equals a frankly crazy high 80 def growth. And with Sigurd? She's takes no damage from physical attacks and can jet across half the map whenever she Engages. Was definitely one of my go to units for my first playthrough

[@christophelopes7681]

Lapis make a amazing warrior her personal help for axe and long bow accuracy and have good speed and strength not to mention the build growth