HARD CARRIES?

[@TheHadesHand]

just from the beginning of the video, I've never considered Ivy being playable as a spoiler just because she's literally an ally in the opening cutscene of the game lol

[@Dominik-K]

Yeah same for me ... I mean she's directly in there. There are other characters be more of a spoiler myself, which is good (I like surprising allies, and there aren't many surprises in this title)

[@MogofWar]

The promotional material stated that she would start as an enemy then become playable.

[@sveipr]

Yea Ivy being playable isn't a spoiler cause they showed it multiple times in advertisement and in game before it happens lol

[@tqhung169]

I'd only consider very late characters like Lindon, Veyle and Mauvier as spoiler, the majority of the cast were introduced in different trailers already.

[@Dominik-K]

@@tqhung169 yeah those three are basically what I'm thinking of too

[@unknownff15]

Kagetsu was my hard carry last run with a crit build/avoid tank. I'm currently doing maddening and I'm glad I found your channel since I'm about to get to the point where I get timerra/ivy etc with the increase in master seal availability.

[@williamt8234]

This is one of the clearest demonstrations of how to play offense and understand tier lists I have seen for any FE game, nice. The only thing I would add is suggesting reposition on the other units so that they always have a useful turn (moving carries in before they attack, not just out). Also one Swap to get around corners.

[@williamt8234]

One question I always have when it comes to hard carries is what the best attack to speed ratio is. Is it best to have them balanced, or make one as high as possible once the other is sufficient? I usually end up doing a mix but I wonder if there is one best in general. My hard carries were Ivy (dire thunder and movement best for poking but worst carry without Lyn), Anna (best pure damage and enough speed to double most or even dodge tank, but not a wall and stuck on land), Panette (by far the best wallbreaker and most often dance since Anna split with Ivy; did not dodge tank but could vantage wrath and was the best with Lyn due to lowest speed), and Kagetsu (did not one-round as easily as the rest but was invincible on EP even without terrain). It is really hard to say whether Panette or Kagetsu was more useful in the end, for example.

[@izanagiforsmite4365]

While I still think Racket of Solm could be better, I've come to appreciate it more thanks to the number of times I've been crit by 3 percent chances

[@flip9118]

I commented about this build in another of your videos, but my hardest of carries is Warrior Jean + Ike, and I'm on chapter 20 of maddening. The build utilizes Resolve and Wrath to their fullest potential, and we give Jean Vantage from Leif and Pair Up from Corrin (to prevent stacking chain attacks from killing him). I have him equipped with a Killer Axe+5, a Silver Greataxe, a Tomahawk, and a Longbow+3. Resolve is fantastic with high-HP axe users because it takes several rounds of combat to actually kill them. On top of that, after your HP drops some, Wrath and Vantage come online, meaning that you will often just instantly crit-kill an enemy unit that approaches you to attack if you have the Killer Axe equipped. So a common play pattern is to have the first enemy (or 2 if you get broken) do decent damage to you, but then 2 more enemies walk up and die. But the best part is Great Aether. My favorite opening is to warp Jean into a group of enemies, engage and cast Great Aether with the Greataxe equipped. Laguz Friend halves your damage when engaged, but the downside of being unable to avoid doesn't matter because of your insane health total and defensive buffs. It's nearly impossible for an average group of enemies to kill Jean in a single turn with Resolve, Pair Up, and Laguz Friend all active. As long as you're not getting hit with something ridiculous like multiple crits, you're fine. The enemies all crowd around you, and then your nuke goes off -- Great Aether murders them all in a single hit, healing Jean to full in the process. It's absolutely disgusting.

[@SparkBlazeWarriors]

Fast crit builds do seem pretty good for carrying, albeit I haven’t tried to actually apply it in Maddening yet since I wanted to spend theorycrafting time in hard before wasting a Maddening attempt. There’s multiple +20-30 crit engraves, and an additional one with Camilla, so you can pump up half a squad with big crit rates. Dire Thunder is also pretty low investment if you can get the bond ring. I put it on High Priest Anna as a support/carry hybrid. You don’t really need high rank spell access from Sage, since Thunder is all we need, so High Priest gives access to all staves which is more useful. So we end up with a unit who is no slouch in damage while also being able to equip any utility staff you want.

[@Bobbynohobby]

I’m on chapter 22 in my maddening run with a crit build going on Kagetsu and it works fairly well though I had to reclass him to wyvern for some more base strength so he could actually do damage with his crits and for a time I had him with sigurd because momentum crits were sometimes just enough damage to one round enemies. He just became this menace dashing around (most notably on the boat map you recruit the old guy). He’s got a consistent 65-77 crit range on most enemies with a killing edge+5 and corrin’s engrave and with the class change and some strength boosting items, he’s now able to one round most of what he fights if he crits on 1 of his usual 2 attacks. I’m not sure who his final pair is gonna be yet though I’m liking Roy for the massive strength boost. My only issue has been when the rng catches my ass and I start missing the crits in crucial moments but it’s definitely hype when it works

[@Aqalex]

Camilla engraving on a bow for Alcryst with Speedtaker or Lyn ring makes him a hard carry with little investment. Anything that is hit by a Luna crit dies and it is pretty reliable.

[@Smuggers.]

Crit in general just seems really strong in this game due to things like refines and priority. Strength stacking and crit can also be really strong with someone like Panette.

[@django3356]

Fun build for Saphir I don't see talked about is wrath vantage with Leifs adaptability, with +4 killer axe and bow adaptability will always choose those weapons over his engage weapons and because of Saphirs personal skill she doesn't have an accuracy problem. Also, adaptability also gets +10 crit when on a backup.

[@Kevo1492]

Honestly saving the sp Ivy comes with and learning speed taker and then giving her an mage emblem is way better imo, giving Lyn to Alcryst is so much better, he just snowballs into free kills, also you can always start an map off with him killing a target of your choice with Astral barrage, luna can proc on barrage hits which in turn will usually mean you kill whatever you aim at, this can work on bosses too.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Do you run speedtaker and + speed on her/position her well?

[@Kevo1492]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming i like speed taker and Canto, she will be lower speed than if she had Lyn but she only really needed 2 kills to double most things sword masters and griffin knights are the really annoying ones. Also on my second run i ran her with Camilla and its better than Lyn. Speed taker + Camilla is S tier.

[@Kevo1492]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming i also want to add i fed my ivy all my speed wings just like i have timerra all my dex books, so i could get this build to work. Feeding her speed wings opens another carry unit.

[@izanagiforsmite4365]

My end build on Ivy (granted, this was in normal, but I want to try this in harder runs) was speedtaker & assembly gambit

[@Novalisk628]

Feeding kills to optimal carry builds like timerra is great but you want to make sure your other units stay relevant with utility. Staff users and Lucina protectors for example. Staff units are great in general as they can keep their xp going without kills.

[@OhRayL]

My best unit in my first maddening run was Alear which was allowed to be above the normal xp curve with Mercurius (the marth engage weapon) in the chapter where you get yunaka him and her are isolated at the top of the map, with marth and a bush tile alear was able to solo half the map with Mercurius (didn't use yunaka to help on this chapter so Alear can get all the xp, she can be replaced by Zelkov anyway), this gave Alear crazy exp, I also gave him all the stat boost exept magic ones and now with Ike and the Ragnoll engage weapon (1-2 range physical sword) he becomes a monster of an enemy phase unit and he can basicly go solo to clear a side of the map (give him pair up so he can ignore chain attacks), the rest of my team can handle the rest of the map that Alear can't aggro. I think other units can become crazy good ennemy phase unit with high defence, avoid or crit but this particular chapter gives a unique opportunity to power level Alear which is a forced deploy anyway and from there he never falls off if you keep using him which you pretty much have to anyway.

[@wherelamb0]

I agree most units can be forced into a 'hard carry' role with some planning, even with the limited experience in maddening, 4-5 well built units can easily carry a whole maddening run. I have just completed my 2nd playthrough and found mages to be the most consistently easy to build with canter+speedtaker/ olwen ring/ lyn+mage, they are very reliable and easy units to snowball. Regarding Zelkov, I have never tried a 'hard carry' thief build yet. I dont know if the dagger damage scales into late game unless you personally feed them exp into the lv40s + stat items. Both of my runs had yunaka+corrin avo tank as one of the 12 units, I feel she is a super low investment unit that could solo avo tank ch20+ melee enemies with under 10% hit chance even at lv20+ very reliable and allowed me to play very aggressively along with Lucina bonded shield.

[@erikbell1723]

The way I’ve been looking at the growths and what not in this game. I don’t think any units are unsalvageable except maybe Vander. (With Tiki i think even Vander can be saved) Some units you don’t need any scheming to make good, you can just go straight class and they will be fine. Some characters like Anna especially have a stat growth that hides their true potential and a second seal can find them The biggest hurdles are planning your master seals and knowing who you want to keep going forward with. I’m thinking about using all the royals my first maddening run

[@erikbell1723]

Like looking at Boucheron for example… people see his Strength growth and go ewwww Yeah 20% is pretty bad but with his high dex and speed growth and even build he’s going to probably be the only guy with the potential to reliabily double with a silver axe. You might need a round of Bezerker and then take him elsewhere for a better dex cap after you get your strength up a bit, but I’m pretty sure he can be good if not great

[@DandDgamer]

@@erikbell1723 currently using him on maddening. Chain attack utility is good and silver axe is good. He's not a monster but he's a good boy and does a good job

[@vivil2533]

@@erikbell1723 there is a big debate on if you should use Stat boosters on characters that are already great, or use them to cover unit weaknesses. In this instance using that first strength boost you get in Jean's paralog on Boucheron could be the single thing he needs to get the ball rolling in the early game. Of course that's not a perfect solution, but Stat boosters are known to have a huge impact on long term performance, especially if used early. Since the better a unit is the easier it is to feed them exp, thus the stronger they become.

[@JohnDoe-kn7ex]

@@vivil2533 Generally the best use for a stat booster is to boost a middling stat or to reach a certain benchmark (or both).

[@vivil2533]

@@JohnDoe-kn7ex that's sorta what I meant by cover unit weaknesses, but yes yours is a significantly more verbose, and accurate description. Speed wings are the most obvious. +2 speed won't make a difference if the enemies have 7 more speed then you, nor will it make a difference if your unit already doubles enemies. Although strength is a bit more complicated, if your unit kills in one attack +2 str does nothing, but otherwise +2 strength always does something. At the end of the day Star boosters can really just be used on anyone you want to perform better, and like I said the better a unit is the easier it is to train them into an even better unit.

[@tationotaliaferro8418]

I always found it funny how much defense Timerra got because you don't expect her to be bulky. And Ivy with speedtaker is broken.

[@thatoneguy78228]

Have not watched full video yet but Hard carries imo Timerra, Rosado Griffin Knight with Killer Axe Lyn engraving with Marth Emblem, Sage Anna with speed taker, Kagetsu with edge Corrin engraving and Alcryst with Speedtaker are top of my head and I ran all of them my last run all speedy units lets you shred everything. My only character who fell off for me was Chloe and Ivy with Lyn for a while my last run.

[@Feed_Matt_Steak]

Did you fall into the trap of making Chloe a lance Griffin Knight? With the 5th highest magic growth in the game, it's a waste to give her lances and lock her into using a Flame Lance. It's 5 points heavier, 3 points weaker, and 10 points less accurate than a Levin Sword. It's worth it to forge a Steel Sword into a Levin Sword and give it Sigurd's Holy engraving after chapter 8. It's probably also worth getting at least one S rank Osian bond ring before clearing chapter 10, especially if you plan on teaching her Canter and can't afford Build +3.

[@thatoneguy78228]

@@Feed_Matt_Steak Lance Griffin Knight was indeed not the play will prob try that out next run it sounds much better

[@Cr4nched]

The best ability for a Hard Carry is Speedtaker, IMO. Having Lyn and a separate Speedtaker unit tag team a map is my go-to strat. I've seen so many people say "BuT YoU haVe To FeeD thEm KiLls or It SuCKs!" Well yeah, they are your hard carries. They are going to be getting kills regardless. Speedtaker is at its best at the END of maps so by the time you get to bosses they are speed-juiced demons

[@darklordliam]

You don’t even have to kill that many enemies to max it out either. I believe it’s +2 speed at a max of +10 so you just kill 5 enemies and you’re good to go.

[@weifu6656]

I kind of feel, including Lyn, a team should have 3-4 speed taker. Other units just give speed+

[@MrWingzeroo]

😂😂😂 yeah that’s true. And no you don’t need to feed them that many kills. I think once my ivy gets two she’s good to go with the exception of wolf knights

[@timjanssen5889]

My most consistent damage carry is ivy but she needs some work in speed for which I always use lynn. Cloe is good too but she starts doing less damage on the later chapters. Kagetsu is really godtier imo. He doesnt even need a emblem, just give him a killing edge and it will destroy everything. His crit rates are just so insane in his default swordmaster class and with his natural insane dex growth.

[@JohnnyRamirez86]

Always love me some Timerra. Great video 👍

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

I'm just gonna throw it out there. Rosado comes prepared to do this right when you get him. Basically no further cooking required, he even makes solid use of mediocre Emblems if all your good ones are already accounted for. Kagetsu too, though he would probably appreciate being reclassed out of Cringemaster

[@nxgrxmxncxr]

Jade on Halberdier did really well. Took advantage of her Def/Str and having access to lances really improved her accuracy. She always tanked a hit when needed and almost always killed with either Brave Lance or Brionac

[@chaseong9560]

She also has 25% mag, so she can actually use a flame lance too! Base mag may be meh but a guaranteed double is big.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Jade is solid. She probably wants a few levels of armor/general before you reclass her into imagination, but is a very nice platform to build off of.

[@takarahayashi4124]

The problem with the Sage class is that they have a SPD cap of 30 (Anna as a sage has 31 spd cap due to her boost to +1 mag dex spd and lck to caps) , you'll have to build around that if you need her to double late game. She'll definitely double majority of the game, the class cap will hamper her late game. There's many ways to do it, just as reducing the weight of the tomes from forging, inheriting skills that boosts spd, giving her an emblem that adds spd, such as Lyn. Or better yet Camilla would be much better for mages in general, if you have DLC.

[@Cr4nched]

I prefer taking Anna through Sage and then switching to Mage Knight after she's gotten enough MAG growths

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

I keep hearing of stat caps but I don't know how people are hitting these caps on maddening, how do you level up so much in the game to hit caps? I am doing fixed maddening/every paralogue/skirmish no tower of trials.

[@takarahayashi4124]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming low deployment, I don't deploy more than 8, since like 75 ~ 80% of the maps are 8 deployment slots. In the early game, Only Alear, Cloe, Anna and Framme get's the bulk of the exp until I get more units to use.

[@shadowfate05]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming Is your Anna not at 29 speed? 32 speed with Vajra-Mushti and Sword of the Creator, no +SPD skill, and Byleth gives you +3 at max bond. That's only 3-4 levels or a single speedwing to hit her cap. Some people also start her out as a high priest instead of a sage, because it has 15 more luck growth at the cost of 5 mag growth, but also swaps sage's 5 dex for 5 spd growth, which after leveling through to 20 once will get you ~1 more speed. Or people with the DLC slap Tiki on her and she caps a lot earlier because of the enhanced growths (and Tiki gives +10 luck at max bond, so it makes her a really good fit for Anna)

[@markdavies9634]

Crit build panette was a hard carry on that last map

[@baltemys6097]

Panette with Vantage++, Canter and Ike (Wrath) was my hardest carry. I put her on Wyvern for the mobility

[@kpaekn]

I had Panette as Warrior with engraved Killer Axe and Killer Bow with Ike and Vantage++ and Dual Assist.

[@Smuggers.]

Panette carried my hard playthrough to a ridiculous degree, she consistently 1 rounds bosses throughout the whole game and Ike can fix her issues enough to basically remove her downsides she starts with and allow her to do her job.

[@Biggles_mets]

The game spoils ivy on your team right off the bat. She might be the first character you see even when you start the first mission

[@jonunciate7018]

Those random crits make me so thankful for that divine pulse turn wheel crystal time warp thingy.

[@yoshihayata1611]

you can kinda make most units into hard carry with tiki's growth rate increase

[@markdavies9634]

Also here to praise the Louis. I understand maddening may not be viable due to stats but on E phase whoever attacked him got sent to 1/4 health and was able to get swept up by the B squad in Pphase

[@vivil2533]

Louis is always useful. A unit who can take multiple hits, is good for stalling or baiting, at the minimum. Also his Hp Stat, in my experience allows him to take a hit from late game dragons on maddening who ignore Def for horrifying damage. Making him able to chip them safely.

[@MasterStacona]

Dex is Skill, which is accuracy and crit rate Speed determines being doubled, 1 for 1 hits, or doubling the enemy and grants avoid Luck is reducing enemy crit rate and affecting luck scaling skill chance (just put all luck growth items on Anna)

[@lazpevbendez3888]

Currently at chapter 16 maddening and Framme and Alear are my hard carries. Framme is my best hard carry right now though and she just destroys 9/10 enemies in one go, some bosses included. She's a martial master with a +5 flashing fist arts with Lyn. I gave her 2 energy drops and one of the magic growth item and the rest is history. Gave her some avoid and a little extra might with engravings. Got +3 build from Leif (because I don't plan to use Divine Fist Arts) and I may just give her Canter when I get the chance again

[@willytan12]

My issue with unit diversity in this game is that so many of the early game units are just outclassed by another unit later in the game who either needs little to no investment to be good or scales better. For example, you can feed exp into Etie OR you could use Etie for a bit but minimize her kills since you get Alcryst in a few chapters, who scales infinitely better. For min-maxing purposes, there's little reason to feed XP to some of the scrub squad.

[@SH1NK1R01]

Etie can second seal in to warrior and become a backup unit that also can use most of the bows in the game. She needs speed from Lyn or other skills to patch that weakness but then takes off as a nuke shooting archer with her significantly better str than alcryst.

[@Smuggers.]

@@SH1NK1R01 I'll have to try this another run, she's already fallen behind in my second run just due to really small unit caps early on.

[@kamui25]

Ya the early units have to be heavy invested to be brought up to speed. Kagetsu is pkged rdy to go as a combat carry. I have to restrict getting kills with him so I can round out the rest of my army.

[@neogeoh1]

I always put Louis in armor and inherit Res from Micaiah and Resolve from Ike. Then, put Camilla as the ring. My man put the chest to anything

[@WakeUpUniverse66]

Alcryst is Timmera at Range

[@averageman7769]

Timerra is interesting, imo her downside is her personal bases (the stats a character adds to the class bases) aren’t great, but she seems to scale well due to brave weapons + sandstorm. Generally in engage any unit can be a Hard carry with investment, barring maybe Vander. It can be a good question to ask who does the best with the least investment. I think some units like alcryst get overrated because, in his case, a lot of people give him Lyn. Imo on his own his stats aren’t anything special, but give him Lyn and he’ll be the best unit in your run. A good example is jade in your recent run. I’ll save the long winded explanation but her stats are middling at best, it’s really the armor knight class the makes her look particularly strong/defensive. She is naturally slow though, with a personal spd base of 4 and a 30% growth, so if you do want to use her giving up on speed is smart. TL:DR Any unit can become good with investment, and engage has more avenues for investment then any previous fire emblem game. It is therefore important to remember that just because a unit was the best unit in your run, doesn’t mean they are the best in the game, or are even particularly good.

[@alvinrx782]

ivy with Olwen bond ring and +5thunder is a hard carry. Easily one of the lowest investment OP unit out there.

[@dave9515]

If you make clanne a beserker he gets more crits than kagetsu and can murder every unit in the game with ease and even bosses have their healthbars melted by him. Clanne is super underrated and feels like the physical version of anna where he starts as a mage but was built to be a beserker. His high dexterity also makes it so he pretty much never misses when using axes making the weakness and issues many have with axes in fe in general not an issue for him. If you ever do a no flying unit run i recommend trying clanne as a beserker. Clanne also having 50 speed means he can double with ease. With all that said though there really aren't much physical carries and the game heavily favors mages right now imo. There are so many mages who can be set up as carries but not many physical attackers and thieves like zelkov and yunaka are not carries but evade tanks. Kagetsu can carry but his best class involving swords makes him not scale too well endgame as swords hit like a wet noodle endgame and that starts to become a problem towards the end of midgame too while mages never have magic scaling issues and there is an abundance of choices out there with celine, anna, ivy, veyle, citrinne and jean who can use anyone's class because of how he works as a unit. Lindon too according to some but i don't see how lindon is good personally.

[@SH1NK1R01]

Clannes high dex doesn’t really matter though as berserker has the lowest dex cap in the game. Being the best at one of the worst classes isn’t really a plus. It’s just more reason to bench him.

[@Kadooonz]

@@SH1NK1R01 that's why you should actually put clanne as warrior, higher dex i think

[@SH1NK1R01]

Also Lindon is a pre promote stat stick. His base stats are actually massive and outside of the high performers like Ana and Ivy he will often just be stronger than whatever sage you have at that point. He also has a really strong synergy with the Olwen ring. As his personal grants plus 20 crit whenever his weapon is a lower rating then the enemy and that ring makes thunder a brave weapon. So you give him a plus 5 thunder and he will one round almost everything at a range that only a few enemies can even retaliate from. And since it’s brave even if they can retaliate they won’t get to before he lands both hits.

[@SH1NK1R01]

@@Kadooonz if you are going to use him, yes warrior is good for him. But why use him at all. He wouldn’t even be that good compared to other warrior. Etie for instance can leverage her innate bow aptitude to be a warrior that has access to silver bows. Panette can use the higher dex cap to leverage her passive with higher crit and accuracy. He just gets to be….a character. But won’t actually excel. Sadly the somniel and firene characters are mostly auto bench. Chloe is the only real stand out and it’s mostly because of how early you get her so she can snow ball quickly. Etie is salvageable but also not great. And everyone else is just garbage. By the time you get them rolling another person joins and is better then them instantly.

[@dave9515]

@@SH1NK1R01 You just proved why his high dex matters lol. Also no beserker isn't one of the worst classes in the game. That would be archer, swordmaster etc. Any sword class not hero or griffin knight sucks. Etie sucks imo and dies far too easily to reliably use a bow even. Clanne's growths make him shred as a zerker without a broken emblem ring. Warrior i never thought of trying but one comment suggesting that is interesting since warriors get access to bows but i mean an engraved and refined tomahawk which you can get for free in chapter 11 killing a corrupted and then refine a bit and engrave can also kill flying units with ease and the fact zerker clanne can heavily damage armored units with a tomahawk is pretty insane actually. You get anna as a sage before lindon joins and anna is a requirement to run in the game due to gold issues. Alcryst having luna as a tieur de lite makes him amazing no matter what part of the game if you use him. I wasn't too confident in clanne at first but he actually can carry maps in the game unlike some characters and never falls off. Panette has awful speed and requires a certain team comp to work from what i have seen of her and her innate stat growths aren't amazing looking at her speed. When there isn't as many good physical carry options clanne stands out being fast and accurate and bezerker gives him a good amount of strength and hp and with natural high dex growth there is no need to increase it drastically further and if you don't value dex then that must mean you are rng blessed because enemies dodge a lot in engage and it gets annoying at times. Now me saying this would mean i would think beserker is bad but swords exist so there are worse classes imo. Even if clanne is the best with zerker if one can use it as well as clanne does then it can't be one of the worst classes imo. Gonna have to try warrior sometime too now. Jean would make a better mage than lindon but i mean jean is basically a make whatever you want to make him unit given his skill and you haven't touched him when he joins. The idea clanne is a bad unit makes no sense when he has decent strength, high speed and good dex. Its insane to think he is bad imo. Not a lot of units get good growths in speed, dex and strength. Etie is very strong but she is so frail a wet noodle kills her and she can't double with her low speed and gets doubled. The most important stats in engage have to be speed, dex, strength/magic, bld and hp. Mobility is tied to classes and can also be a reason to say x class is bad but going that route then everything not flier sucks and if x character can't adapt to become a flier they aren't gonna be great. Clanne could probably be a great wyvern knight too. Would have to test but i bet he could and it would bulk him up just like a class like zerker does. I have looked at growths of classes and characters so much and i gotta say not a fan of how strong magic is and weak swords are. By the time you get lindon you already have ivy, anna, celine and citrinne who all hit harder than him starting off so even if his growths are great and even if his base stats are excellent which i fail to see how they are the investment and timing of his arrival in the game offsets it because of how bad the economy is so by then you usually have a full team built most of the time and if not wasting precious resources like silver on him or skirmishes if you play maddening probably won't be worth it. A lot of units can work in this game but etie imo is the worst unit in the game. If she wasn't so frail and slow starting off and could survive hits like alcryst who joins soon after can she could be workable and worth investing into. Clanne like i said you can throw zerker and not invest much and make him busted. You don't even need to have skills to shred with clanne and thats another huge plus in this game given the state of the nonexistent economy that makes it impossible to run some units given their extremely high investment to make work taking away from the player choice. The only unit i would try to forcibly run is the last recruitable in the game because i liker her character and her class stuff is cool as well as having the best dagger in the game and good synergy as a support and could be forced into a carry even if its not the best since she has low speed and her class doesn't have amazing mobility either just more so average i guess? Unless you find a lot of classes in engage bad then zerker isn't one of the worst. If anything zerker is like maybe mid to high tier because of its strength and hp growths at the very least. Being able to double with axes and critting a lot like 90% of the time with an engraved refined killer axe doing absurd amounts of damage and being able to survive and tank a couple hits while also evading lots of hits is pretty insane for a unit especially for one that can melt healthbars of bosses. I have a hard time seeing bezerker as a bad class when it gives good strength and hp growth as well as 10 extra build making it easier to wield heavier weapons and if its because of speed growth fair but already speedy units don't need a lot of speed growth so min maxing their damage more and their tankiness is far better especailly when it doesn't take a whole lot of speed to start doubling enemy units. This is just my take on units mentioned here though and that i mentioned. Thanks for at least sharing why many find lindon good but to me it seems like by the time he joins you have already invested into one of the older ones by then like ivy for example who is one of the best lyn abusers in the game as with 2-3 speedtakers she can double enemies on their turn phase before they even attack usually too. Anna like i said is mandatory on every team. I value low investment and strong and fast hitters a lot especially with how bad engage's economy is and i would love to use sword classes not griffin knight and hero but swords feel as weak as they did in fates. I might try lindon in a future run i do of the game but the economy has been bugging me more and more recently so i finally said screw it and am now playing 3 houses again. Hopefully the next wave of dlc fixes the economy but i doubt it at this point.

[@travisgraham0524]

Etia has been soo helpful in my runs as a warrior lol

[@catelinb.3273]

My Timerra isn’t necessarily a hard carry, but I paired her with Tiki and she is an absolute enemy phase MONSTER. Crits or Sandstorms most of the time. I’m only in the beginning of the endgame so she may fall off but she’s really good.

[@pogo3593]

I wish ivy's skill could trigger on any weapon type. It would make using astra storm way more fun for her to use since it would have a chance to proc on every hit like the other dex trigger skills

[@Tsuki_Itsubi]

I've never tried Maddening but Yunaka and Alear were my hard carries in Hard mode. I kept them as a Divine Dragon and Thief respectively. Alear used Tiki until I got her original emblem back that just didn't benefit any of my other units as much. Yunaka had Corrin, making her a death machine. The last fight against Veyle with endless corrupted spawning in every turn, Yunaka stood and tanked everything by just setting up the mist every turn. Made her untouchable with a high crit, she went up about 10 levels in that chapter while Alear soloed the upper half of the map. With them I was also able to one-turn kill the final boss after his shield dropped.

[@Smuggers.]

Yunaka is quite good early on in maddening so far, I could see her falling off later though damage wise, she was even in hard.

[@unknownff15]

....anddddd a few chapters later and Timerra used all my bulk items (+res, +Def, +hp) with a +4 steel lance and she is hard carrying. Gonna go the brave lance route but my god she is unironically better than any tank I've run

[@bakad5458]

Alcryst and Clanne were my hard carries in my maddening run. Granted I invested highly into them with the stat boosts lol. Alcryst with Lynn killed ANYTHING that didn’t have insanely high def, he could also one shot annoying units and even bosses with Lyn’s astra storm. Which actually helped a lot. I turned Clanne into a mage knight with Levin sword, gave him roy and the sword power skill. He was really versatile, he mostly killed high def units Alcryst couldn’t but he could easily kill most units as well. He doubled less than Alcryst but he still did more often than not. Plus I didnt give him a speed skill so he could still be faster

[@louiesatterwhite3885]

Lol, Clanne is one of the worst mages in the game. A whole 10% base magic growth

[@bakad5458]

@@louiesatterwhite3885 Thats why I gave him all my mag stat boost items haha, and the sword power skill, I definitely had to invest a lot in him but it was worth it at least for me :D

[@sseebys]

i used merrin a LOT but i made her a warrior and i gave her killer + brave axe with a steel bow with emblem eirika and she destroys EVERYTHING

[@NaroLucian]

I made Celine my hard carry in my maddening run. It does require Soren dlc emblem ring, but Soren essentially gives all your tomes a nosferatu effect. The issue with most mages is that they are slow with low defense. A sage's speed caps at 30. Celine however has a unique class with a speed that caps at 41. Aside from Hortensia, Celine is the fastest mage in the game with higher defense than usual and pretty good growths. I can literally throw Celine in front of a crowd of enemies and she will heal up the damage she takes as she kills off foes. Her speed is fast enough where she does not get doubled by sword masters either. She is the best user of the Soren emblem. Very fun. She can 1 v 1 bosses that have emblem rings and take out their three health bars herself if I really wanted her to.

[@jonunciate7018]

Early game Alear. Alear is surprisingly good with the right weapon. I figure the game forces me to use them so might as well make them good. I leveled them in Divine Dragon until 5 before going to Wyvern Knight in case I want to switch back later. Chloe is also a monster. I'm only on chapter 12 currently and have made the potentially poor investment heavy choice of trying to run both Jean and Anna... but I'm also running DLC so it's a bit more forgiving, especially with Lineage.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

I think Liberation is honestly a bit of a trap. It's a meh weapon with a kinda sucky extra effect. Early on it's just another option, but I think trying to refine it and keep using it over effective weapons or just a Steel Sword or something is a mistake. Definitely don't waste your like Marth or Sigurd engraves on it. Especially since Pepsiman owns pretty much all the swords in the game as personal property anyways until mid Brodia.

[@jonunciate7018]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I had Alear using Folkvangr, the free FEH sword you can download. It's better damage and lighter than a steel sword. Did I mention it's a FREE DOWNLOAD? I personally think, if it's free, if should be included in non DLC guides. Just sayin.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@jonunciate7018 I mean. If the cost is having to play FEH then the cost is too great

[@jonunciate7018]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 🤣🤣🤣 It's actually pretty fun, especially when waiting for a new title to release. You only have to play past the tutorial to get free stuff anyway. It's honestly worth it, especially for the free bond rings so more characters can start gaining sp before you can make bond rings.

[@feripuu]

Panette Ike. Best killing machine. My maddening MVP and boss delete button. The center of my strats. The waifu of Engage waifus. Paralogues in 5 turns or less.

[@PKRockin7]

Timerra is disgustingly underrated She's only overlooked because she admittedly starts out rather weak, but nobody can really replicate her niche

[@SparkBlazeWarriors]

Having seen her in action now I think it also requires some game knowledge. She starts out weak, the passive for Picket didn’t sound like anything special on paper, and you need to invest a little bit in her to make it really good. Or, you could use Merrin and/or Panette who are more immediately useful. Lots of people probably just used one of Merrin or Panette instead since they give more immediate value.

[@erikbell1723]

I think her design probably turns people off… because let’s face it she looks ridiculous. I wonder how bad her English voice is… I saw a clip of Fogado in English and was embarrassed

[@degreeskelvin3025]

What IS her niche though? Because tbh, almost any unit is really powerful with Ike on

[@PKRockin7]

@@erikbell1723 Her design turns you off if you're an idiot... she's cute as hell. Her dub voice is about average. I felt Fogado had a good voice in the dub though

[@erikbell1723]

@@PKRockin7 if you think balloons are a great fashion statement more power to you

[@allyrose9494]

Alcryst and Kagetsu tend to be my hard carries, though if we're talking about support carries no one tops Hortensia

[@RenegadeVash]

You have thief corrin crit spam with yunaka panette can do crit retaliation build with vantage wrath there are certain builds with fist spamming engage like jean martial master + sorrin diamant can do similar temmera build with sol but leans to be very defensive with self healing

[@Dokgo22]

The problem I've seen ppl complain about uvy is she's good Midgard buut end game she falls off not able to 2x and even getting crit spammed lol. Other ppl say she's go's crazy, but I've seen ppl love that of goldmarry Tamera etie surprisingly celine and Alfred alear and obv the top 3 in game is Jean Anna and kagestu as the true carries

[@mikec4964]

I find it interesting with "tier lists" and peoples opinions on who is good and who is trash. There is a BIG difference in Casual/ Easy tier lists compared to Maddening tier lists, and it all comes down to unique skills, damage output and knowing you can't really grind on Maddening. Having unlimited skirmishes on casual/ easy means you can invest time in a unit for no reason other than you just like them.

[@AnimeSquirrel]

Maybe, just maybe, I can make Jade carry if I shift her to warrior and give her Erika, maybe. Idk. I'll wait for when your guides get to her and see.

[@TheShiningEnergy]

5:05 This was probably one of the more frustrating maps for me on my normal playthrough. NORMAL. can you believe that? So many soldiers had Smash weapons, and could 1-round my guys. i had to play defensively.

[@joshuagabrielcatindig7607]

Just glad that the meta isnt concentrated on everyone physical getting Wyvern Lord, unlike back in Fodlan.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Some more variety this time around :)

[@JevonSwallow]

Ha, Night and Day, just like Erika's emblem swap

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

You mean Night and Night

[@evrys3221]

Im having more fun on my 3rd run not using special classes. I'm gonna try Halberdier Timerra.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Halberra

[@jamesgordon1446]

Why build plus 4 and not speed plus 4. Build may help the brave lance. But speed will help the brave lance by the same amount. And will also help the steel lance to reach or avoid doubles ( build will not help steel as she can use natively without peanalties )

[@jamesgordon1446]

Ah wait nvm. U pointed that out on Anna. 🤣

[@ArikGenerick]

on maddening i'm getting carried by thoron sage spam + hero links and flyer/cavs killing stuff with killer weapons. but triple dancing my sage with forged thoron with + hit and crit really invalidates a bunch of the maddening bosses

[@chachan6044]

Quick question: Do you feel like its recommended to have half physical attackers and half magic attackers when you deploy? Been noticing i've been wanting to have a good amount of backup units for chain attacks, but at the expense of having less magic users. Curious what you feel is a good composition of units.

[@icezantthatoneguy6042]

I only bring 3 magic users being Ivy hortensia and Jean. They have been more then enough on hard at least

[@Starwars-Fanboy]

I usually only have 3, 4 at most. That's including magic and staves. That ratio stays the same for pretty much every FE game I've played.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Just depends on the units. Magic vs nonmagic isn't really that hard, just look at the stats of the unit and decide if they're good independently of that alignment. The main limiting factor of magic units is that they usually have frailty issues, but if you have a tanky caster, just roll with it. The main benefit is shutting down and often one shotting armors. If you have several solid units that can do that with Armorslayers or Hammers as is, then that niche is probably covered. It's also totally valid to just slap one of the magic weapons on a physical unit with passable Magic to get the same net effect. Just so long as you have a decent number of units that can face at least one attack per turn and be fine, and a decent number of units that can effectively deal with armors, the details of magic don't need to be fussed over. Celica is more or less the only Emblem that just kinda doesn't work on physical units, and isn't very good past the early game anyways, while most emblems, even very physically biased ones like Roy, are at least partially useful on more pure mages.

[@Popinazo]

what do you think about doing a video about every main FE game's strongest character? (Hard carries) for example, in Awakening it should be Donnel, or in Path of Radiance it should be Astrid, etc.

[@Byakurenfan]

Without grinding Donal is not a hard carry

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

I haven't played a lot of those games

[@Popinazo]

@@Byakurenfan yeah, but at level 10 it can kill all the enemies by itselt, sorta pays out

[@Byakurenfan]

@Christian Fuenzalida but thouse 10 levels are better spent on chrome and Robin

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Donnel is terrible. Just use an actually useful unit, you're playing Grind Emblem Awakening. Chrom, Robin, Frederick, hell the Wyvern whatsername, so, so many better options before putting up with Donnel. PoR the best unit is definitely Marcia or Jill, Titania is also the breed of Jagen that doesn't fall off, they just get angrier. Astrid... exists? Not bad if you want her, and if you have no plans for BEXP then sure, but...

[@Michatku]

Really interesting video, was wondering how come that Anna had above 2 range with bolgannone ? Is it her class or a skill ?

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Byleth Thrysus

[@Manslayer-eo1nh]

Lapis and Chloe have carried hard on hard and maddening.

[@AM063094]

I am curious what build you are running on Lapis / Chloe. I am on my 2nd maddening run and want to try new characters / skills. My Idea for Lapis is inheriting Lunar Brace to help with her low str and equipping Lyn ring + brave sword (get 4 hits in with Alacrity before enemy counter). I got a similar idea for Amber as Halbardier w/ Lunar brace & brave lance, Halbardier can force the quad attack with brave lance & their class skill and get 4 Lunar brace procs. I've picked Amber for this role because he's got very good strength growth to mitigate the low MT of brave weapons.

[@Manslayer-eo1nh]

@@AM063094 My Lapis was running sword master and for the longest time the tiki ring. The skills from the ring made her almost unkillable in early and midgame. She later got speed taker from Lynn and switched to the Roy ring for higher strength and range counter sword. My Chloe was Griffin Knight the entire time. Strangely her stats became of the highest in the entire army. Even without the skill from tiki she had the highest overall stats from everyone until Veyle out numbered her. What works really well for Chloe is the three houses bracelet. The later 5 strength and skill is huge and the weapon selection is absurdly good. Especially when the dragons start appearing in maddening, she was my designated dragon killer. In my eyes, Lapis works well in any class that can make use of her high speed a d skill growth. She only received 2 strength drops early in the run to help her.

[@sonictelephone1526]

Seems the usefulness of the units in this game can be broken down into: female = good. Male = bad. With some notable exceptions like Etie and Kegetsu

[@OG_McLovin]

Only thing hard carry about Ivy for me was having to carry her ass in every single fight. She couldn't one-shot anything and if I forgot about her for a split second, she'd get one-shot herself. She was an awful unit for me but I had beasts like Louis and Anna and Yunaka wiping out armies for me, while Ivy was benched.

[@WakeUpUniverse66]

Ivy is the Hardest carrier in the game with pretty much no investment

[@The.ModernMan]

Female units in this game wreck compared to male. Ivy, Anna, Hortensia, Merrin, Timerra, Chloe. For male, I just had Alcryst. Diamant and Louis were aight.

[@vivil2533]

I played with Diamant through the whole game, but somehow when I recruited Saphir she was better than him in every stat... I don't know if he just got Hella rng screwed or what, but it was rather humiliating. Also in the same playthrough I used Alcryst with Lyn, but he also fell of, and I just use Panette who I reclassed to a warrior so she can use killer bows. Louis is the only male character I've used who hasn't been easily replaced by a better woman. Jade isn't as good seemingly. Jean too but he's a healer so I don't think that counts. Anybody can be a good staff bot, thanks to Micaiah.

[@The.ModernMan]

@@vivil2533 Louis was solid for me, but more so for defense and formation strats. Alycryst with max killer bow is a god. My best or 2nd best offensive unit next to Anna’. 76% crit with 30+% chance Luna proc and he had speed taker, so doubled nearly everything and about half the time would get a Luna Crit and be able to kill armor units and bosses. Yeah, Diamant was weak in my first play through due to lack of investment and he was looking good on 2nd, but really fell off after mid game and was def one of my weaker filler units. Female chars ftw in this one.

[@vivil2533]

@@The.ModernMan that's fair, I'm just referring to my most recent maddening playthrough. I'm sure Alcryst can be great, he just fell off hard for me. Maybe I'm just shit at using archers. Maybe I should try reclassing him and seeing if I can use him better. Do you think he would make a good Vantage+Wrath sword master cause that sounds funny. Also I wasn't saying Louis is a great carry I was just saying, to my knowledge, no female character has outclassed him, in his role as stupidly high Def, Hp tank.

[@The.ModernMan]

@@vivil2533 is he like actually killing units for you like that though? My Louis was solid, could kill some stuff and was a core contributor who only died it I misplaced him badly. I haven’t played around with reclassing much like that. I feel like I’m just now getting a strong understanding of detailed strategy and planning in this series. Before I was just like Gimmie who has the best growth rates and a tier list. Ice has me really wishing I tried out Timerra.

[@vivil2533]

@@The.ModernMan Louis can do good damage. I accepted that he will always be doubled, so I gave him a forged, Ike engraved silver greatlance. Which allows him to one shot some enemies. Accuracy is a bit bad, sometimes, but the damage is pretty nutty. He might be even more insane now that the Hector ring exists, but IDK. Might have to just use a normal silver weapon so he can follow up. Really the best use for Louis is a more durable version of the obstruct staff. Enemies typical won't target him if someone less durable is in range so he can help create choke points for you other characters. He's literally a wall. Put him, another tank, and a Vantage+Wrath enemy phase killer in a three wide choke point. Now you're entire army can stand right behind them safe and sound. You would be surprised how any 3 wide choke points there are in this game.

[@MasterStacona]

timerra is a decent unit, no where near a hard carry level though so far hard carries in Engage have been for me Louis as a General Panette as a Wolf Knight Lapis as a Wolf Knight Pandreo as a Sage Anna as a Warrior and Bow Knight (Anna's growths are so insane she hits cap stats as a Warrior so Bow Knight ended up being better with higher stat caps) [have not tried Sage Anna yet] Levin Sword Alear as her default class (and her special weapon very late in the game) Chloe as a Griffin Knight Framme as a Sage was very good Citrinne is very good, but insanely squishy Etie as an archer Ivy is decent at times Hortensia as more of a support role Seadall because dancers are OP Jean as whatever you want him to be Merinne as a Wolf Knight is insanely good Engage is by far the most balanced Fire Emblem has ever been and really has no true hard carries because you are very reliant on using your entire army this time around rather than solely rely on a few carries (Nowi wins!) also, Sigurd is best on the archers and Lyn is best on whoever has the most strength on your army

[@evieeevee]

What differentiates a hard carry from just a powerful combat unit? Are they synonymous?

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Yes they are basically the same thing.

[@C5Dynamite]

just finished chap26 in 8 turns using warps, cause f killing 12 dark emlbems. Still thinking wich new units I want to use on my secound run. Wanna try Anna and Jean.

[@Biggles_mets]

Diamant is my hard carry I have beaten maps with just Diamant

[@JimHamiltonIII]

You compare Sandstorm and Luna as very similar (you say the words "exact same thing" in this video). However, in a subsequent video, you specifically compare the two units side by side, to include those abilities. Your conclusion is Sandstorm is superior (which I think it is too). FWIW.

[@RobComRobCom]

Card Harry

[@merentori]

Haha nice one

[@sveipr]

Was Chloe anyone else's carry? She could've taken on any map on her own lol

[@toxicteapot7941]

So glad Timerra is getting love now. She was my favorite character in my first run and saw everyone say she wasn't too good due to low bld. I personally never cared because her 2837273 speed was fine to take a -3 penalty every once in a while.

[@boulangerdelextreme]

Could you give Timera speedtaker from Lyn instread of +4 build?

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Yes, this would be great on longer maps where she can build it up

[@SH1NK1R01]

Build and speed are the same as long as the character is over encumbered. So in this case it’s better to get build as it will always be actively making her faster instead of speed taker that only begins after the first kill and onward.

[@boulangerdelextreme]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming Yes it's more of a short term / long term tradeoff, tho I think speedtaker costs more to inherit

[@brendodo9319]

wave 2 of the dlc is out, stop worrying about character spoilers the game isn't new anymore ^^

[@michaelpaul92]

boucheron isn’t the best but i made him into a hard carry anyway

[@padamoce7642]

Am i the only one thouroughly dissapointed by jean? One would think he would be an untouchable monster but reality is, he just isn’t

[@doc6161]

in my experience putting lyn on pretty much anyone makes them a hard carry

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Makes sense lol Lyn is insane

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Pretty much. As a haha funny meme I put her on Louis with a Brave Lance and he was quadding people before they could hypothetically hit him for 2 damage by like halfway through a map. I don't think Louis is the best way to use her, I'm just saying she makes the man not only double, but occasionally double FIRST. Also his illusions are funny.

[@t1geridingh0rse1]

am i missing something but how your annna have so much range

[@laxur1312]

Thyrsus from Byleth

[@t1geridingh0rse1]

focusing on a few units is actually pretty OP. Just look at all those Alear only runs

[@shiniselune399]

I mostly agree with you but i have a small issue with the way you judge the innate power of a character. Take timerra. "she's lowkey an S tier character" Let me ask you a simple question: why would i use her with her unique class instead of another character (not naming anyone i'm just approaching the problem on a theorycrafting level here) with the Halberdier class? Both classes are lance specialist. One is specific to Timerrra, a character who is uninpressive statwise and growthwise (objectively that's a fact and her strength supposedly comes from other things like sandstorm), the other can be used by anyone. Halberdier is a high strength, high defensiveness class, with very high dexterity and somewhat high speed. it caps out at 36 which can double most ennemies in the map you showcased. It gets a skill that is not always easy to use, but who guarantees that your unit will double anything regardless of speed if you position your units well. Its a strong frontline class with almost no downsides other than the fact that it's stuck with lances which is not a big downside. I will end its analysis by saing that the raw strength cap of the class is 46 which is very very high. Now lets look at Picket, Timerra's unique class. Its a class that shares a lot of similarities with the halberdier since its a unique spin of it. Its less defensive overall that the Halberdier save for an extra point of resistance when stat capped and for marginnaly higher defense growth. It has higher speed, allowing it to double even the Halberdier class itself, but if you look at the map showcased it only allows you to double a single ennemy more than the Halberdier, the boss himself, which the Halberdier can double thanks to its skill anyways. Also it can't double the swordmasters except if you pump its speed stat a lot unlike the Halberdier who can thanks to its passive. Offensively speaking, as a base its lacking. 35 strength at a maximum that's riddiculous. However it gets a very cool skill, Sandstorm which allows it to use 150% of its defense instead of strength when calculating damage. At stat cap its an impressive 49,5 damage, so 3.5 damage more than what the halberdier can output. but you only get to do it half of the time. The other half you are way under what the halberdier can do. Now your argument for this problem was as follow: it triggers most of the time because you can double, which is true but the reality is that Halberdier can not only double itself, and thus ORKO the ennemy just as easilly, but it can do so everytime (no RNG abuse needed for tough situations). your second argument to address the problem was the following: you can equip highger might weapons. And that's where you're wrong. Picket caps at 12 build. Halberdier at 15. The brave lance weighs 14 and the legendary lance 17. If Timerra equips higher might weapons, which is something the Halberdier can do, and can do better, she loses her edge in speed. "But you can fix that with such and such". Sure. Alternatively i can pick the class who doesn't need a crutch to work (Sandstorm is not a bonus, its the mechanic the class revolves around, thus it becomes a crutch) and use "such and such" to make it even stronger. TLDR: So to summarize; Timerra's stats are mediocre. Its fixable (thanks tiki) but you can use a stronger character. her unique class is, if you look at the math in detail an unipressive (janky is the right word) spin on the Halberdier. She CAN be a hard carry if you invest into her. However my thinking of hard carries is that you can just take the better character, the better class and push then even higher. Now i'm not saying nobody should play Timerra but if we look at the problem from a pure metagame perspective, Timerra is nowhere near S tier. she's in fact a mediocre character.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/lajFZql4mM-oq8U Hard disagree. One round machine. Too much emphasis on caps you will never hit, Halberdier has worse defense, speed, and can't bypass huge def values on enemies or one round by itself. It needs A SECOND UNIT to double consistently. Timerra is fast, has high def, good res, reasonable STR that isn't the main upside. Sandstorm out damages her crits at mid-endgame and it is reliable enough to 1 turn bosses as the primary damage on CH25. Kind of hard to see how Halberdier would pull this off.

[@shiniselune399]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming i never said she couldn't be strong. or even a killing machine with the right investment. Just that a LOT of other characters/classes can do the same thing with less. To be perfectly clear, a hard carry in most competitive games is not a character who can simply carry the game. Its a character who does it better (faster, more etc...) than the others with similar investment, and who can sometime even do it without any investment. She can't carry without any investment (in fact she needs a metric ton to just be on par with what your lineup is supposed to look like if you optimise the game), and when you invest in her she doesn't do it better than the others. You're showing me a clip of her doing her job. That's not a proof she's a hard carry. That's a proof that she works as a unit. If fire emblem was a competitive game like say league of legends, she would never be picked like a lot of characters in this game. But i can show you a video of X character in league who is an F tier character, destroying the ennemy team. I wont be proving that this character deserves a better spot than F tier. Just that they are playable in the right circumstances. I'm just going with the basic definition of what is a hard carry and looking at the spreadsheets of every character in fire emblem engage. I'm not trying to push an agenda to say that X unit is stronger. Just that objectively, if you looked at the game from a competitive standpoint, used machine learning to make AI's optimise the game to its limit and get the definitive tier list of it, She wouldn't even graze A tier.

[@candybunny2462]

1. She has Sandstorm 2. Her Dex cap is ridiculously high (50)

[@shiniselune399]

@@candybunny2462 yeah but if you bother to read my essay on why she's not good, when sandstorm triggers with 33 defense she gets the equivalent of 49 strength, which is 3 points higher than the cap of an halberdier. when it doesn't trigger (so half the time really) she gets 35 strength which is 11 points below the cap of halberdier. Half of the time the class deals 3 points more damage, half the time it deals 11 less. furthermore its less good at using heavy weapons due to a lower build cap. so you have to sacrifice your speed to get more damage. so you don't double more than halberdier. so the class is bad. her dex cap is the same as if she was using halberdier. 1) Sandstorm => Allows the class to simply work. Not destroy the ennemy. Just function properly. 2) Irrelevant

[@Peter-wb7he]

@@shiniselune399 The main premise of your essay revolves around stat caps that are effectively irrelevant in a maddening play-through. In my first run across all 14 units I maybe hit 4-5 stat caps total, and it was on ridiculously low stat caps on certain units. Units should be evaluated on their base stats upon recruitment, as well as their growths and skills. Caps really don't matter until post-game content which is something a lot of maddening players probably don't care for.

[@TheBoodercg]

Anna is legit the only hard carry of the game since if you don't use her you can't play the videogame. Until a gold dlc releases, if you don't use her you just will not have enough resources endgame. But it's cool you can make any unit you love strong. Griffin Anna > Priest/Sage Anna since infantry tome classes only cap at ~34 spd for her, you can avoid spending SP on spdtaker and just go into a class with just as good Mag/Luck growths, but with a speed cap that skyrockets by atleast 10 (Which speedtaker can only take 10 speed MAX per map.) After three playthroughs I can say the Growths/Effectiveness is at her best when changed to a griffin as soon as she can.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Ah, yes, the additional 1500 gold completely changed my playthrough