Is Mercedes Actually the WORST Unit in Three Houses?

I put Mercedes on my Bad Unit Tier List and many people disagreed with me on this, so I wanted to do a deep dive into just how bad (Or Good) she actually performs in Three Houses. Was I wrong, or is she actually trash? I won't have any "Mercy" when discussing her performance.
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[@DaniDoyle]

Please do not post links to other youtubers who think Mercy is god tier for me to "laugh at", that is not the energy I want to put out there. The point of this video was to break down the problems with Mercedes as a unit, not to laugh at people who play the game differently.

[@eaturgrns]

Imagine attending Fhirdiad's Royal School of Sorcery and graduating not having learned any combat spells.

[@zachmadden9077]

and only having 10 magic, she was SLACKING

[@cryguy0000]

Is she at least serviceable with reason spells in maddening?

[@gurucheeks4510]

@@cryguy0000 she is anything but serviceable combat on maddening. but base D+ in faith is nice for earlygame

[@maximeminassian6002]

⁠@@cryguy0000not really. Her Reason spell list is actually pretty bad for a reason-proficient student. She has the three fire spells almost half the cast had access to, plus thunder which really isn’t anything to write home about. Sure she has good magic, meaning she’ll do reasonable cheap damage, but just about every other magic oriented student makes for a better offensive mage than her, and even some none-magic oriented students like Ingrid are better because of the better speed and access to more useful spells like Thoron. Overall Mercedes is probably the worst combat unit in the game outside of MAYBE Flayn, but the girl has rescue which is better than anything Mercedes can do as a support unit.

[@DaniDoyle]

She does not have d+ faith, she has D faith, as I explained in the video.

[@Daniel-wr9ql]

Honestly it's kinda hard to call Mercedes the worst when Ashe exists

[@DaniDoyle]

Ashe is has significantly better boons (allowing for long term use without investment) and ch2 curve shot, both of which are more utility than mercy can offer.

[@evanherynk5863]

Mercie is doing her best. Is she the best? Maybe not. She's still one of my favorite Three Houses units anyways. If she was a ruthless murder machine who excelled at combat I think it would actually detract from her character.

[@DaniDoyle]

Its very in character for her not to have any offensive spells at base, but i wish they had made her get physic faster to compensate for that :/

[@evanherynk5863]

@@DaniDoyle very true. Healers are very useful and always have a spot but Three Houses anyone can splash faith at any time so her niche gets encroached on even more.

[@nonemo138]

I went through the trouble of making Mercie a war cleric with Aura gauntlets. It was fun in a meme-y way but it wasn't really viable due to her extremely poor enemy phase.

[@dedrick43]

Answer: She can be a Gremory. No.

[@nuclearbirds]

I forget which creator said it - but Mercedes is the best healer in a game that actively punishes healing. I strongly believe that in 90% of other fire Emblem games she would be a monster.

[@DaniDoyle]

Don't even think she's the best healer in the game as I explained in the video she fails to do the most important healing jobs

[@vickypostsstuff]

Hear me out: Fortress Knight Mercedes. Think about it, she has high res and once you get her in a fortress knight class it will boost her defense. She should be able to take some hits.

[@CostabiIe]

The thing I find sad about Mercedes isn't even her mediocre spell list. Units need variety and not everyone can have warp. Or how the game is designed in a way that handicaps the utility of healers in general severely. What I find sad is the lower base Faith rank than her counterparts (Lin and Marianne). Somehow they decided to give the closest thing the game has to a nun character lower Faith than Linhardt. I understand how you'd come up with her spell list and think you've made a good healer, because in a lot of other FE games that'd be true and I'm sure there's a universe where pure healing utility is good in 3H. But I'll never understand that D Faith rank.

[@DaniDoyle]

Yeah the lower faith rank is really the nail in the coffin.

[@philithegamer8265]

@DaniDoyle Mercedes totally sucks in combat (like how Mercedes-Benz vehicles suck off road and rugged), but man, I wouldn't mind riding that Mercedes anytime of the week after she's done saying ghost stories.

[@crenando288]

​@@philithegamer8265thanks i hate it

[@lorddelibird]

My first instinct is “no! Come on there has to be worse than Mercedes she’s….fine?” And then the more I think it’s like “every unit is at least fine” and then you do a niche comparison between the students and she really comes up short.

[@DaniDoyle]

3 houses is such a strong cast that the "fine" units lile Ashe and Anna really stand out (not in a good way)

[@cosmictraveler1146]

@@DaniDoyle Anna is rage inducing about how…*that* she is, and a dlc character???

[@alexisdipoalo9443]

personally i think the worst unit in 3 houses is likely either Anna because she can't really use the full resources the game gives you with supports, Ashe because he has almost nothing going for him and his personal skill is litrally just the skill you get from mastering theif or Ailois for no fault of his own but being the hardest teacher to recruit often meaning you get him when you don't need him or he's already out classed, just my 2 cents

[@hellothere2570]

It definitely isn't alois, he has battalion wrath, war master ranks at base, and can easily slot into a strong wyvern lord

[@alexisdipoalo9443]

@@hellothere2570 your not wrong but he is extremely outclassed as you can't get him till basically part 2 and he has no time to get any training done realistically why I mentioned him despite being serviceable

[@hellothere2570]

@Alexis Dipoalo he really isn't though. He joins with good stats, and really high skill ranks. Seteth and Jeritza join even later than alois but no one is ever gonna place either of them anywhere near bottom tier, and alois (and by extension also gilbert) are in the same situation

[@alexisdipoalo9443]

@@hellothere2570 you make a good point, yeah it's between ashe and Anna than 😂

[@duetopersonalreasonsaaaaaa]

Flying lockpick go brrrr

[@shansheenly]

I feel like they wanted mercedes to seem more pacifist, hence having a lower rank than the others so no nosferatu at base, so i honestly wonder how it would have been if they had just switched physic and nosferatu instead and set her to d+. Kinda has the issue of getting overshadowed by the other healers but at least she'd have a usable earlygame

[@maximeminassian6002]

I think Mercie is a unit that’s pretty useful in the Maddening early game, since healing is really needed here. However, once you start recruiting other faith-proficient students such as Linhardt and Lysithea and starting to invest in the broken low-health build, she drops off a cliff and really isn’t needed anymore. In an optimal playthrough, you should probably bench her as soon as chapter 7 or so unless she’s either incredibly stat blessed or she’s your dancer for some reason. But I’m still going to use her because she’s so precious it’s not like you need to be fully optimal to beat Maddening, especially with NG+

[@DaniDoyle]

I don't think it's optimal to use her after chapter 2, due to the investment needed to reach physic, which could be replaced by Hapi or MA Marianne/Lyndhart (and have more uses)

[@DaniDoyle]

But like I said in the video you don't need to use optimal units to beat games even on the highest difficulty, as you can see from the background footage I'm using both mercy and Anna this run, neither of whom I think it's controversial to say are bad

[@amadoromero4823]

​@@DaniDoyle Anna Wyvern Lord with lightning axe is pretty fun, not meta or anything tho

[@gabrielstafford5174]

I think she is arguably a better healer unit than Linhardt or Marianna due to access to Fortify. Also, Anna and Manuela are much worse than her.

[@maximeminassian6002]

@@gabrielstafford5174 1. She’s not a better healer, her base faith rank is lower than the other two which is really bad and fortify isn’t good for optimal runs 2. Even if she was a better healer than them, that’s basically it. She has no utility besides healing unlike Linhardt neither does she have Marianne’s offensive tools.

[@LadyViolet1]

For the early chapters I don't think it makes sense to compare Mercedes to Lin and Marianne simply because they *do* exist in a vacuum there. You literally can't use them yet unless you picked their route. But comparing her to the other blue lions makes perfect sense. And as soon as you get access to mission assistance (chapter 3) she has actual competition. Personally I value the 5 heals and 3 physic uses over 10 regular heals from Anna just because it's a fog of war map (it's only 2 less heals and the range is there if needed), but it's still pretty whatever. All that said does this make Mercedes any more than just OK? Probably not. I tend to make her my dancer out of house, because I'd rather have my better physic users not be dancers. And I like her so a generic dancer + physic role works alright since I don't need to train her at all.

[@DaniDoyle]

The reason that I compare Mercy to the other healers in chapters 1 and 2 is to demonstrate that this is an issue uniquely applicable to her, rather than simply an issue of healers in general. While she is not able to be replaced by them if you choose the blue lions, she still performed significantly worse than they do in those chapters.

[@SleepyBrady]

There is no such thing as a bad unit in three houses. Even Mercedes who's niche is not really that helpful is still able to turn out fine be it as a gremory or sniper. She is a serviceable unit and every unit in three houses is basically a growth unit. You build them up early on and get them to new heights. I love three houses and how we train these units from zeros into killing machines at the end. And isn't that what fe fans love? Units that start bad but end up great with tons of favortism

[@Eshyyyyy]

It's really funny to me that Mercedes is a pretty devout follower of Seiros, and yet she has lower base Faith rank than the other two in house healers. A big issue I have in most FE games with healers is that, at some point a unit could be self sufficient enough to just be fine with Concoctions or Elixirs. So I value their extra utility beyond just having staffs/heal spells (Linhardt/Lysithea have warp, Felicia and Jakob in Fates have access to Daggers, Jean and Framme in Engage have chain guard) but Mercedes feels like she is going all in on healing.

[@biandanxious3438]

Mercedes must feel so loved! She got a 40 min video dedicated to her 😌

[@DaniDoyle]

She'd probably be happy for the attention, shes too nice to be mad at the criticism

[@biandanxious3438]

@@DaniDoyle lmfao so true 💀😭

[@rugvedkulkarni1593]

Mercedes' fortify spell saved me multiple times in Blue Lions maddening. She has some unique utility. I don't understand how Mercedes can be the worst when Ashe is right there, getting overshadowed in everything he does.

[@browserjunior4707]

Because for every instance you use fortify there’s another instance where you keep them at low HP and make a vantage wrath build out of it. Healing in 3H is very very easy to get, from Healing Focus, Heal Battalions, combat arts, heal tiles, and adjutants. Early game yes healing is awesome, however because she starts at D faith, like Dani said she won’t be able to get Physic by chapter 2 without excessive favoritism. Late game maddening your builds should already be completed and your mages should almost all have some Faith rank considering everyone gets heal at rank D. This leads to another issue, how easy it is to get the heal spell. D Rank faith is something you’ll always get from your mages as you need it to get into Gremory if you use female mages, and even for the male mages that can be used, heal is still useful as it provides EXP outside of combat. This means that for every Merce that you use, you have around 6 mages that can learn heal but also heal more due to their higher magic growths. While Fortify sounds good, if you are in a scenario where your team is all massively chipped down in HP to require to use it then that’s a problem in regard to positioning. While 3H has AoE to watch out for like enemy gambits and monster AoEs, a majority of damage isn’t from an AoE but rather counterattacks from units with more than 1 range. Being a dedicated combat unit surprisingly reduces total damage received as a result of defeating an enemy outright, lowering the amount of attacks permanently by 1. There’s also the issue of damage mitigation/reduction you’re able to do. There’s multiple ways to reduce damage from the enemy, whether it’s dedicated stat lowering from Impregnable + Seal skills, personal skill usage, rallies, offensive gambits, and guard adjutants. There’s also class certifications providing flat stats that match the class certification, like the free 17 defense base for certifying into Fortress Knight. This lets you add tons of defense to your units, thus again lowering their damage output, and this is without acknowledging the copious amounts of stat boosters from the Monastery. TLDR; Fortify is overkill and the game rewards low HP Strats more than having your HP topped up, and there’s way to have high HP without resorting to Fortify usage with reclassing, skills, gambits, and adjutants.

[@johnzin6447]

I listened to 40+ mins of Mercie slander! You have convinced me she is worse. Day ruined! I find she has a niche of soaking up damage in chapter 2 since her personal allows her to heal herself, shes good bait on some hits in that chapter. For 5 heals...

[@tationotaliaferro8418]

I know a unit's bad if I instinctively make them a dancer.

[@brunaolinto560]

Well, since I have 16 save files of Three Houses on Maddening, I finally found a niche I can give my opinions on 👀 I definitely agree that Mercedes is significantly worse than the other House healers - both in healing and in offence. Linhardt has the super light Wind for doubling low AS enemies, Cutting Gale for accurate damage with decent mignt and a heavy hit on fliers in Excalibur. Marianne has 1-3 range in Thoron, accuracy in Cutting Gale and many options for offence like Dark Knight, Frozen Lance Falcon Knight and Mortal Savant (yes, there is 1 unit who’s good in the class and that’s Marianne lol). Hapi has all the utility and higher might that Dark Magic spells provide (Swarm for -Speed on enemies, Banshee for locking down early enemies, Death for 1-3 range), plus monster effectiveness. Mercedes vs Manuela is interesting because Mercedes lacks Manuela’s Warp, but Manuela lacks Mercedes’ Physic, Reason boon for Fiendish Blow and earlier join time. Triple Warp can lead to very fun strategies for either skipping or routing maps, but I don’t think it’s necessary to beat the game outside of non-DLC LTCs. If you do have DLC, there’s no utility for Manuela and so Mercedes is better, but I tend to lean on a 50/50 split between those two if there’s no DLC involved. Manuela’s Reason bane and no Physic suck, but a 3 range Warp is still a Warp and Hexblade is fun. Hmm, can’t put my finger on this one, sorry. Maybe Manuela has value for her higher speed? Flayn is also an interesting case. Flayn has no Reason rank for Fiendish Blow, no Authority for magical battalions, no Physic and still needs investment for a simple 3 range Rescue. On the other hand, a 3 range Rescue is still a Rescue, her offensive spells are in the same vein of Linhardt, she has automatic Pegasus certification for Darting Blow and gives two excellent units (Byleth and Seteth) +3 Might in any adjutant form at A support. If DLC is involved, Flayn is significantly better because she’s the 2nd best Dark Flier after Cosntance. If no DLC, I still argue Flayn retains unique Rescue utility (iirc only Bernadetta gets it in the base game) and is better. I think one of the best uses for Mercedes is as an Annette or Jeritza adjutant. Jeritza is one of the best combat units in Three Houses due to insane bases and proficiencies and Wyvern Lord Annette is a nice mix of magical combat + Rally utility. Mercedes gives them both not only +15 Hit, but also +3 Might at A support, which is really strong for units looking to deal heavy damage. As for early game, she can actually get Fire with a Reason/Faith goal setting and tutoring in Reason (no seminar needed). This means you have 2 mages rather only Annette, which is good for dealing damage on the low Res enemies. She can then go all in on Faith for Physic for chapter 3, but I do agree that Linhardt, Marianne and Hapi are better. Anna, though? Absolutely not. She has literally no supports, and support matters a lot in early game. Your hitrates are not going to be perfect due to high enemy Avoid (or Charm for gambits) and lower player Skill/Luck, so getting early supports is crucial. On top of that, Anna has a Reason bane, so they can’t contribute to chipping the bulky enemies of Maddening. Mercedes only has Fire, which is kinda basic, but this is still better than no offensive videos at all. For mid/lategame, I don’t agree with the notion that there should be a mage that only heals. I think every magical unit in the game *needs* Fiendish Blow to either kill enemies (Lysithea, Hapi, Constance, Annette/Linhardt/Flayn with Excalibur vs Wyvern Lords) or chip them (rest of the cast). Mercedes absolutely wants C Reason for Bolganone chip and Fiendish Blow, which are easy to get thanks to her Boon. She’d still only chip with it, but chipping is important even on mid/lategame because of Monsters’ health bars or absurdly tanky enemies. I do concede that other mages chip much better due to better accuracy and/or damage output. Mercedes has an easy path to Dancer IMO. Her Charm is pretty good, Magic synergises better than physical damage on Dancers and she doesn’t require you to recruit Dorothea or to give that role to Ingrid. Overall, I do agree she is one of the worst units, but I still rather have her than Ashe or Anna. Anna is an active detriment to a team in either short or long term and it’s easier to find physical units to fill the role of Sniper or Wyvern Lord that Ashe can offer.

[@DaniDoyle]

Both Ash and Anna can do more in the short-term and long-term, while the lack of supports on Anna and the lack of any standout trades on ashe definitely hurt them, Ashe has ch2 curve shot for free, and Anna is a free level five on ch3 or could be a pass/rescue bot if wanted long term, both of which are better than Mercy's general lack of unitiligy

[@Edelweiss1102]

Nah just put her on Mage Knight and give her Levin Sword +5 with Lyn engraving... wait wrong game. I feel like the strong rosters in modern FE games are both the boon and bane of her existence. She's perfectly viable and fine. But in a game where everyone is at least fine, that's really not much of a selling point. If your strongest build is one that's entirely based on the strenghts of the class and weapons used and you get outclassed by underwhelming DLC characters in what's supposed to be your strong point, that really doesn't look great. I like Mercy as a character and have used her in runs before, but strictly combat speaking, she really falls off a cliff. Reminds me a bit of the whole Etie discussion in Engage. Yeah she is fine and perfectly usable, but most of her strength comes from how broken Warrior is in that game and she will never be a Panette or Fogado even with significant investment.

[@g.n.s.153]

I appreciate what Fortify brings to the table: action economy. When I have access to it I tend to use it a decent amount since it frees up the action of X number of units for the turn. That being said I'm someone who's very so-so on Vantage Wrath (other than Dimitri obviously) but I will use Vengeance from time to time. Bernadetta really doesn't like setting up again with how restricted Blessing is but in the context of Blue Lions Dedue has a very easy time getting to low HP if he wants using relics self-damage and in fact there's a lot of times where I want him to take another hit for the EP and I'm glad to heal him up for that. Cyril I mostly use for PBV. I don't think she's amazing, her bad weapon ranks are pretty damning and she's not very flexible especially early game but I don't mind the role of a healbot. Prowess skills makes it easy not to get critted so trading blows with the enemies isn't something I'm afraid of.

[@GaiusTulliusCatallusXXC]

I submit that Ashe is worse than Mercie. My reasons? No early Physic at all, horrible bases (less bulk than Mercie 🤢), no unique tools other than Deadeye which is extremely inaccurate, inability to contribute at all without favoritism. Both are extremely bad but Mercie has early game healing while Ashe does not. You mentioned Ashe starting with Curved Shot. The problem with that is he does single digit damage (often around 5) which is rarely enough to matter. He also has two less HP than Mercie and the same Def so he gets one rounded more somehow. This has been a big issue for me in my LTC. both of them are really frail but there are a surprising number of combats that Mercie survives and can then heal up using Live to Serve that Ashe simply dies in. Also, Mercie having quick access to Nosferatu gives her bulk Ashe simply doesn’t have. Now Mercie is definitely terrible. She ends up contributing less to my run than Ashe because of Armor bane and Ashe’s Deadeye access mattering exactly once (he gets a single digit hit/Crit boss kill in 4 theoretically but I don’t count that in normal play since it’s like 1 in a million.) Ashe’s lack of bulk has been a real annoyance in the early game though, especially in Chapter 3 where things sneak out of the bushes and one round Ashe while Mercie can survive one combat.

[@DaniDoyle]

Even 5 damage from curved shot is helpful, as it allows you to attack mages without counter, or simply position better. You usually have to team up to kill enemies, so this chip is helpful in that regard. Long term, Ashes set of Boons/Banes gives him very good class access meaning that he can slot into either vantage/wrath wyvern or hunters voley sniper basically for free, allowing you to invest tutoring in other units. Both of these builds are relying on the strength of the classes as opposed to his inherent strength, but being able to get them "for free" is nice. The real selling point however is free curved shot.

[@OperaQueen85]

Heartily agree and can’t wait for the sapphic series. The real problem with magic bow sniper is that you don have a steady supply of Arcane Crystals until, I believe, ch16. I ran sniper Hubert and he sadly only had a couple of chapters of magic bow spam. And he makes an infinitely better magic sniper because at least he’s useful early on.

[@felikatze]

mercedes is good actually because three hopes death priest mercedes with a levin sword shreds. oh wait, that's a different game... eh, she's cute. that's what REALLY matters.

[@DaniDoyle]

BASED

[@maxyaju4293]

Can't believe how wrong you are smh smh. Maybe I could believe if I had played the game

[@DaniDoyle]

I've actually never played any fire emblem game I face all of my videos on the Wikipedia page

[@implying8903]

​@@DaniDoyle relatable😊

[@raikaria3090]

Mercedes is bad. But TrAshe literally has no justification to use him.

[@DaniDoyle]

CH2 curved shot and an easy path into Sniper, Wyvern or Vant!Wrath are more than mercy has going for her.

[@pacmanpowerghost]

Fire Emblem is not designed to softlock you, I think Chapter 13 for Verdant Wind, Silver Snow and Azure Moon would like to speak to you. Though in saying that only really applicable on a first playthrough.

[@DaniDoyle]

That Chapter is the exception, yes! (Although Mercy doesn't help much other than her deployment position being optimal for stride)

[@LunarBoo]

What's interesting about Mercedes is how well her "mommy" type character translates to her performance in Gameplay. She is an amazing healer and can be great for first time players to get into the game since Normal Mode doesn't rely on dedicated enemy phase units and thus her healing spells are actually quite useful along with her personal skill. But the more you get used to the game, try crazy builds or strategies and play on higher difficulties, you start to see her shortcomings and replace her with other healing options. I also stand by one thing: Mercedes is the best healer in the game. Unfortunately, Three Houses really pushes you towards looking for more than just healing from units. Magic Bow Sniper is honestly my favourite Mercedes build lol

[@DaniDoyle]

Mercedes cannot get physic for chapter 2, which is the most important chapter to have it online for, requires favoritism to get it for chapter 3 or 4, and cannot provide it as an adjutant until chapter 6. She is absolutely the worst healer in the game.

[@Ballard258]

Havn't play in madening jet. But in hard she was my dedicated healer and mage tank for most of the game. Unlike Annet Mercy can take a hit and do allmost as much damage in the early game. her personal skill meant she cud heal others and herself on the same turn. Her reason spells are bland and lacks range and utility beside healing but her magic stat make her a good damage dealer when in needed. In tournaments she won loosing very little health thanks to her high recistence. Not Strong or flashy but she got the job done. Phisics, Fortify and restore were a godsent in a lot of maps. She is arguably the best healer In the game. Havn't tryed Lynhearth outside the dlc jet. Mariane its slightly worst at healing but its a better unit. It has more offensive potencial and utility. Frocen lance. Silence, thoron, aura heal and phisics she is a multy roll utility mage. But i rather have Mariane in a more flexible roll and have Mercy as my dedicated healer.

[@MythrilZenith]

Yay I'm you're friend

[@Hawlo]

This title caught my attention because besides the low Faith rank Mercedes never really stood out to me as a bad unit, probably because of how flat out useful healers are in TH for me, but for her utility she's definitely the worst of the three house healers.

[@duplicitous0169]

I think you overestimate the early game cost. In chapter 2, you can tutor 6 times, but there are probably only 4 students worth using. So she isn’t stealing anything. As for needing kills to get level 5 by chapter 4, this cost isn’t unique to Mercedes- every other in house mage has this problem. Anna gets level 5 without kills, but costs $25. Also- discussing units that don’t take damage and not mentioning Dimitri or Seteth is questionable, as those are the 2 most centralizing combat units for part 2 of Blue Lions.

[@DaniDoyle]

The point of me listing units that don't take damage wasn't to talk about those units simply to give an example of why licking healing is not especially valuable. I also disagree with the notion that the investment in Mercedes is not cost. Felix sylvain Dimitri dedue and annette all want tutoring, and any units you plan on early recruiting want to be brought to meals. Your team isn't going to collapse on itself if you invest in Mercedes but that investment is significantly better spent elsewhere. The point of highlighting the needed investment isn't to say that it makes Mercy unusable just the worst Target for the investment.

[@hexmaniacciaran]

Mercie is for sure a character that's very valuable as a new player on lower difficulties, but yeah...healing is just generally less valuable. Maybe rescue as a tool would reverse her fortunes a fair bit, as Flayn has wind tomes and things like frozen lance so they're not too samey?

[@haveagoodday7021]

Tbf I've never noticed just how mediocre she was until I played BL Maddening. Which is weird because you'd think she'd be great for early game, but I found that once my other mages tapped into faith, she got left behind. It also doesn't help that if you really want Physic you can pick up Lindhart who also has the benefit of warp. Sure it might be hard recruiting someone out-of house early on, but I honestly find him to be one of the easier recruits. If it weren't for Anna, I'd agree that she's the worst in the game as a whole, and without DLC, she is.

[@DaniDoyle]

Anna has a lot in her kit that elevates her above Mercy. And is definitely still a bad unit (Bottom 5 for sure) but things like free level 5, early curved shot, magical combat arts, and rescue/pass are all quite valuable.

[@haveagoodday7021]

@@DaniDoyle Tbh that makes sense. I still dont have the dlc so I never really got to fully utilize Anna.

[@vicentesanchezjr.3877]

Nah, it's ashe

[@DaniDoyle]

Ashe has Ch2 curved shot and free access to Sniper Brigand and Vant-Wrath. He's a bottom tier but he offers more than Mercy and does so without needing any investment (not even tutoring)

[@TownieSimBuilds]

Honestly, Mercedes *rocks* as a Dark Flier. My partner and I have used her on Maddening multiple times with much success. Her build looked something like this: -Reason Prowess -Black Tomefaire -Fiendish Blow -Darting Blow -Hit +20 Overall, the mobility gives her much better healing range while allowing her to move/retreat safely. Mercedes also becomes quite fast, with the ability to double and kill several enemies especially with her lighter spells. We've had her take down fortress knights, great knights, bow knights, snipers, paladins, warriors, wyverns, and even other magicians. Additionally, if you worry about spells running out, her magic bow utility is great, especially with Curved Shot making up for any accuracy issues. Transmute just further enhances her stats and plays off her solid resistance. I certainly recommend giving this build a try if you have the DLC!

[@JonoabboFE]

Pre watching the video: Yes, she is. I regret putting her above Ashe in my 3h Tier List, and it's one of very few placements that I'm overly confident I was wrong on.

[@pacmanpowerghost]

Welcome to the dark side of FE3H the Mercedes Benchers.

[@noishfanboy1141]

It's the goat jonoabbo Fe🔥🔥

[@cosmictraveler1146]

Oh hey you’re here!

[@andrewcasias2676]

I think Mercedes is fun to experiment with, even if her spell pool isn’t THAT good. I’ve thought about trying an archer Mercedes at some point, since she has a Bow proficiency and can use the Magic Bow really well!

[@matthewsimon6170]

When you brought up Mercie as queer representation, I was so confused and like, "what, she is?", completely forgetting there's multiple bi ladies in three houses, Mercie being one of them. Also, god dammit Dimitri, Claude, and Sylvain are so bi-coded to Male Byleth it freaking hurts.

[@SethJV]

She's the best waifu AND the best FE3H character, and I will not accept any other answer.

[@briangruenewald7536]

I’m not super huge into the battle mechanics of FE3H, but I just f*cking LOVE Mercedes! She’s my favorite character, and best FE3H girl in my opinion ❤️

[@FabschOblivion669]

Anna in 3H is far worse, but okay.

[@themissncfan]

So, I recently finished a replay of Azure Moon. I wasn't playing it on Maddening, or even Hard. I was doing this replay so that I could refresh myself on the cast's characterizations and exactly what went on in the plot in preparation for fic writing, so I played on Normal so I could have the leisure to unlock all of the relevant support chains and I didn't have to worry about accidentally softlocking myself. I used all of Azure Moon's core cast, since this fic is based off of the Azure Moon route, and that involved using Mercedes. Erm... Yeah, I found Mercedes incredibly bland and boring to use this time around. Linhardt and Marianne were also on my endgame team for the playthrough, and they both felt so much more useful than her. Linhardt's utility is so much higher than Mercedes's. Linhardt is the least flexible of the three in-house healers in terms of reclassing options, since he only learns the standard combat arts and magic is the only thing he excels in, making him feel incredibly generic in any class other than Warlock or Bishop, but still, Bishop Linhardt vs. Valkyrie Mercedes (who was in Valkyrie just to make her feel a little different and make her and Linhardt less direct competitors) was just SAD. Even leaving aside Warp, Linhardt's Reason spells are so much more accurate than Mercedes's, and their lighter weight ensured that he was doubling fairly consistently, whereas Mercedes didn't double anything in the last three maps of the game. Marianne is kind of weird to compare to either Linhardt or Mercedes, since unlike them, she doesn't feel like a utility unit. She is, I'd argue, the only unit in the game who really excels in a hybrid physical-magical class, and as I had her in a hybrid class, Holy Knight, this playthrough, her combat was much better than Mercedes's. She gets Blutgang, she gets Soulblade and Frozen Lance, her spell list is a lot flashier, and here she is popping crits left and right whereas Mercedes is struggling to secure kills, even on Normal. On the final map, she could cast Silence on the Meteor mage in the throne room and take some of the pressure off of my team as they advanced. Meanwhile, Mercedes's primary contribution in the final map was to take control of the Fire Orb on the western half of the map and do chip damage to whatever got in range. I just... I love Mercedes as a character, but as a unit, I've lately found her really unrewarding to invest into. I found myself wishing that this wasn't a "brushing up on characterization" run, and that I could swap her out with a unit I enjoy using more. She doesn't have anything other units don't have, too. Flayn has Fortify if you want that, and as you pointed out, Fortify is an active liability to the player if they're employing low HP strategies. Her Reason spell list is completely replicable if you field Annette+Sylvain in magic-wielding classes. I feel like giving her a spell like Meteor or Agnea's Arrow to learn at A-rank, or putting in a magic damage Bow combat art and letting her learn that would have been all that was needed to make her more rewarding to use, but they just didn't, and she winds up feeling, sad to say, like an extremely generic mage. Her good Magic growth aside, she feels like a typical non-magic oriented character when running magical classes--which is to say, it feels like a slog to use compared to other natural mages and healers--but when you put her in a physical class, she feels really generic there, too. It's just kind of sad.

[@yoshi2398]

I think the funniest thing is that even in FEH both of her versions are still awful like summer Mercedes has the awful trait of 5* locked seasonal with awful stats and when Arete is a huge upgrade you know you're bad I also think she feels like a unit like Felicia but with none of the traits or enviroment that make Felicia decent, no dagger debuffs, less competition for healing and no access to a strong magic weapon where there's enemies with little res

[@brunoa.c.8748]

Mercie is supposed to be a Fe Fates priestess in a game that doesn't have that class, that's her main issue imo

[@maylucky8660]

damn this aged poorly after i modded the game and turned mercedes into seteth /j

[@DaniDoyle]

😭

[@naotoueda2838]

a great analysis. I always thought it was strange a lot of tiers putting ashe in the last place. I'm a mostly in-house player no dlc so Mercie still is my main healer.

[@DaniDoyle]

completely valid! In house only is a pretty fun challenge run esque ruleset i did a few times on Hard Mode, havent tried it on maddening but i imagine it would be even harder

[@joeyjose727]

Slay I’m so excited for the saphics women gaming series you talked about

[@pacmanpowerghost]

Great video, I will like to comment on a few things. I like to think healers are pretty much the low investment HP pools, in saying that anyone in the game can be a healer and pretty much any unit with Physic can excel with healing. Healing while not required in Three houses does at least provide players with a fallback option to those would like to use an action and still be healed. In saying that I find that vulnerary's and concoctions are the king in the early game but come at the cost of cash. If you did use her beyond the early game at least you can continue to do this role with some success with little to no cost other than a deployment slot. Optimally I will never feed her EXP and after I have more units than deployment slots Mercedes is going straight to the bench. This besides your other takes is pretty much her only use in my mind in the eyes of a competent Fire Emblem player is If for some reason I was doing a Iron Man I would like to have a backup deployment slot, even than that's stretching her use case. While using her isn't terrible your much better off using other units who can accomplish the same thing but better. I would never rank her anything above and bellow a D on a tier list. I like to comment on Fortify having a interesting EXP yielder and can catch her up a little bit once she learns the spell passively through tutoring. I never use her by choice but I wouldn't complain if I had to use her.

[@Luisar-ox3nb]

Starting with D faith instead of D+ legitimately feels like sabotage, there was no real reason to break consistency between her and lindhart/marianne unless they either strongly overvalued the potential of fortify or they just thought it would be funny to screw her up in particular. Btw another role that wasn't mentioned on this video is being a dancer, which as far as i'm concerned is a title that you want to give to a unit that you're not doing much with anyways (unless you plan on doing some sword avoid +20 shenanigans), so might as well give it to the character that's not going to do anything significant regardless of investment

[@DaniDoyle]

The reason I didn't talk about dancer is anyone can be a dancer and they will all perform exactly the same. I don't think units get credit for being good as dancers since it's not them doing the legwork, its the class (and they don't even get some sort of half credit like some units do for sniper wyvern or brawler since boons don't Factor your ability to get it either)

[@nickchabot1302]

I have fun with mercie as a midline battle cleric. It’s not optimal, but it makes her personal and fortify useful. Also, on the final map of blue lions, the map wide snipes make a convincing case to give mercy her relic and heal the other target. It lets both units survive mostly risk free while dimitri sweeps

[@user-KLART]

Objectively incorrect. Magic bow sniper Mercedes slaughters enemies even on maddening. She can one shot any non magical foe with fiendish blow + hunter’s volley. Otherwise, she’s great for stride gambit + healing. Just slap stride on her and have her heal stuff. At least she’s not Anna. The devs gave Anna a middle finger in fe3h. No supports, trash offensive growths, low defensive growths, her high speed growth is useless on maddening, and she has a bane in reason and authority just because. Anna is seriously bad in fe3h. Only Ashe can compete with her awfulness. What a pity since Anna is my favorite FE character.

[@DaniDoyle]

I actually talked about magic bow sniper in the video and went over the reasons it isn't especially valuable. As for stride and heal, literally anyone in the cast can do that.

[@drmajalis1583]

Like many, I blinked and was curious why you'd list Mercedes as "greatly outclassed" but after hearing all the explanation I can't really help but agree I don't really like playing fe on the hardest difficulty or doing ltc stuff but that doesn't make any of the points you made wrong Its all very well reasoned (unlike Mercedes, seriously how is she a graduate of a magic school and starts with lower faith than two other faith specialists and no combat spells?!)

[@stevenburgin7422]

No one is ever going to be as bad as Cyril. He is the single worst character in Houses.

[@DaniDoyle]

Cyril is one of the strongest units in 3 houses. His ch5 access to Point Blank Volley and very fast access to vengeance, as well as extremely easy pathing to every good physical class is unmatched.

[@e.sanghvi5657]

@@DaniDoyle Easy pathing to every good physical class doesn't matter when units who also have easy pathing exist and don't have dogshit bases. Cyril is a Kliff without the the perfect availability that makes Kliffs actually work.

[@MetalGearRaxis]

Just wanted to point out, there is a valid reason to deploy Linhardt in ch1 for the Black Eagles. See, he at least can use Nosferatu, and while that spell isn't great, exhausting all his heals and nos spells in ch1 enables him to hit D reason and C faith for ch2, letting him have both Physic and Wind for the Red Canyon, which is a pretty big deal. That's not particularly relevant to Mercedes, but I just felt like mentioning it lol

[@renren5660]

For no money run fortify was kinda nice but yeah it was very situational. Maybe fortify was also good for iron man. Restore was nice for tricky situation in iron man. Edit: even if we built sniper mercedes, there was no flier in blue lion end game. So actually it was worse to make her sniper than dedicated healer for last chapter.

[@Hyu-n7d]

I really appreciated how you went through basically everything brought up in my comments and actually played through the early game of AM for this video. A lot of these points were more than viable and something like Monk Anna inst something I thought of due to how Beginner seals are actually important resources in chapter 3 but its still a thing you can do for favoritism. Using both Anna or Merceds is in the realm of favoritism so I couldnt completely invalidate that. That said Id like to add 1 more thing against Mercedes and few others for her. In the early part of the video you did mention that 3H doesnt have a Jagen but AM is kind of the route where you do and thats Dedue. With proper setups he never dies to 3 enemies in an enemy phase since he takes like 3x2 against the axe users and 1x2 against sword enemies. While AM does give you the least amount of healing, this along with 2 other bulky units, Dimitri and Sylvain, means that you are also fine without as much healing which really makes Mercedes unimportant to say the least. The most she does is saving you a turn by letting Dedue not take the vulnerary and use the wait command or the Tempest Lance. She does get some healing exp which is better than chipping exp iirc but its been a while since Ive last played 3H so I could be wrong. In Mercedes's defence you also get Dedue Rally Str combo and 2 12 base str Tempest Lance users 1 11 base str Tempest Lance user and 1 15 base str brawler / Curved Shot user. Dedue with Rally Str should allow any of these units to follow up and finish off enemies which means your curved shot chipping is much less important as well, especially if you only have 8 base str among these big boys. When you do need occasional Curved Shot chipping there is Felix who can do actual damage as well. The class is basically saturated with juiced up physical units making its early game relatively easier. 1 minor detail with Mercedes is that shes a girl that can activate Sylvains passive in ch 2 and you only get 3 as a base roster. This along with her bond supports with Annette and Jeritza boosting their offense might be more important than anything Ashe Anna or Mercedes does throughout the game given that reaching lvl 10 for adjutant purposes can be done in like 1 aux battle later on. Another thing going for her is how healing exp is kind of free. This is a boon for mages in general which makes using bad mages more tolerable than bad physical units who constantly have to deal with subpar combat to be fed kills. Given how maddening exp curve works getting Physic in chapter 4 or even chapter 3 will allow Mercedes to catch up pretty well while doing some usefull things especially when chapter 3 is a fog of war chapter. Id say early game exp is a more competed resource than early game tutoring since turning your in house frontline units into beginner classes by ch 3 and intermediate classes by ch 5 by funneling most exp into them allows you to juggernaut through the early-mid chapters. And as for the whole Magic Bow thing you only need it against the enemy Generals that even the best Snipers struggle to kill. Most other enemies can be dealt with Killer Bows. The cost shouldnt be too bad. The problem is rather that there are few other characters that can do that better or equally. Thats basically all I have to say about Mercedes I guess. I often tell the newer players that shes bad for multiple reasons and the more experienced players that shes better than they think since its 3H. Shes still pretty bad and is a contender for one of the worst units but I dont really think shes the worst. I also dont really think 3H needs a D tier in a tierlist given how the worst units are reliably 1 rounding most enemies from lvl 20 and onwards without stat boosters or too much favoritism. I can say this from my experience of grinding Mist to 20 20 and failing to even scratch Dheginsea in fe10 hard mode.

[@DaniDoyle]

While healing experience is "free" it's very low, and will not be nearly enough to make up for mercy's difficulty naturally getting kills, meaning that without a significant amount of favoritism she will be lagging behind experience wise. One thing I forgot to mention about the magic bow as well is if you really want a magic bow sniper, Hahnemann is an option that comes for free. I don't think he's a particularly good unit either (hes somewhere in the bottom 5) but you don't have to drag him through the early game or leveling up using an agitant spot to reach it. I still don't think magic is particularly worthwhile though, as your team should have other units who can handle generals so your snipers can handle someone else.

[@Hyu-n7d]

Healing exp will start to be more relevant once she reaches Physic. Before that its more of a bonus. If you actually want to use Mercedes you should rather go for Fire asap and that allows her to have similar leveling curb as your other mages which is better than archers who dont get heal exp and only get chip exp. This will delay Mercedes's Physic but that still comes online in chapter 4 at the latest. As for the whole Hannaman point thats why I said shes often outclassed. In house she can still surpass Hannaman by his joining chapter and early healing and chiping is still more than just self improvement but on other routes hes better. While magic sniper isnt that good its still an upgrade from snipers that only live off of sniper toolkit with no extra niche because they can reach all the physical kill thresholds as well. You need like 2 str level up to be endgame ready and 25 percent growth can get usually you there (or 30 for Hannaman and Hubert) Ive also always mentioned that Mercedes is pretty bad, its just that I dont think shes the worst.

[@raditzace]

Is it funny to me that the way my luck worked, mercy was always my 2-3rd strongest unit because every lvl she got all but 1-2 stats while everyone else, including candy baby lysethia, might get 2 stats if they are lucky? Because of my bad luck is why i avoid the higher difficulties lol but hearing how you laid out the info, i can easily see why you would say it. I wonder if a balance mage would have helped her out a bit with lvling and raise her viability. But knowing maddening, probably would be massively detrimental lol

[@euclidYT]

Honestly, if they didn't do magic so dirty in this game, she'd be a much better unit automatically

[@chimeradivine]

Oh my goodness I'm SO hype for your queer women in FE series! I'm actually considering making a vid on Mercedes in this light on my channel as well, particularly about her being a queer member of the church. I'm a practicing Christian who's asexual, so seeing pious characters that are openly LGBT+ in media is a huge breath of fresh air for me, especially in the context of my own life where a lot of people I know wrongfully see being Christian or otherwise religious/spiritual and being LGBT+ as mutually exclusive. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got in store for your series :)

[@JoeShmoe102]

One random niche I've always used her for is in the non-CF routes during the chapter you're attacking Enbarr. I usually have her equipped with the Rafail Gem so she can tank Hubert's meteor spells with her high res and without the risk of getting crit'd. I typically use her as a Gremory for Fortify, which I actually do get some use out of fairly consistently.

[@troyii435]

Yeah, I think Mercedes actually isn't considered enough for her ability to tank. I mean she isn't an actual tank like Dedue or something, but she's arguably the safest and most efficient unit to give a guard adjutant because of her personal skill, rafail gem, and the benefits of defiant magic from gremory on her

[@afgcinc7206]

Well, I'm glad SOMEBODY mentioned that Mercedes is a great Res-tank, even early, unless you get absolutely stat screwed. Early game 14AS mages can be cancerous, but not if you can soak them...oh wait this is a "Mercedes worst unit" video I guess I shouldn't be actually stating experience I've had contrary to it.

[@hedreamt9455]

at least the devs were nice enough to not shaft mercedes in story. reason i still use her is because of her supports. one of my favorite written characters in probably the entire franchise. yes she isn’t the greatest but she makes that up in personality. however i feel like if the devs were consistent enough with their story building in 3h, they should’ve made mercedes the more offensive healer since she apparently graduated a whole magic school but doesn’t have the tomes to back her up. meteor/bolting, thoron, and abraxas/seraphim would’ve been good additions to her kit and made her feel more competent to her other allies. rescue would’ve been great too if they wanted her to be more different than the other “healer” picks, especially since constance could learn it. still love my girl though

[@SnowballK4T]

This is reminding me of the level of insanity that chapter 1 and 2 of Three Houses Maddening have going for them. I beat them but I got so burned out I abandoned the playthrough completely, and knowing how Batallion Wrath and Vantage break the game afterwards is just laughable. I enjoyed this game but in hindsight I'm impressed at how badly designed it is, Engage really blew it out of the water.

[@maylucky8660]

😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 I agree 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

[@DaniDoyle]

You forgot about the lasagna please revise

[@maylucky8660]

@@DaniDoyle Stay mad, Mercy is losing 😜

[@thesuperdk513]

Ok but she gets some really good healing spells that I feel makes her a close contender for the beast healing unit in the game.

[@sonyianstudios8398]

You made a lot of excellent points throughout the video. As much as it PAINS ME. And I truly mean PAINS ME, yeah she does have a lot of flaws. But, we can all agree she’s a great character in the story. Right?

[@Excadrill-lo5sh]

The video was really good! I've heard of Mercedes being bad but when you break it down like this, wow. She just always falls short and she seems so aggressively mediocre that it's aggravating. I think just having physic in time for ch2 would make her fine enough to not be annoying. I thought your analysis was really well paced and went into ample detail which is always nice. I'm not sure if you ever plan on doing more unit analysis videos, but they'd definitely be interesting to see if you were ever up for it. I'm also interested in seeing your sapphic video series. I've heard mixed things on Heather and I haven't played RD in years so I have no opinion on her besides she has a cool design. I think the bi gals in 3H are awesome but I know some lgbt rep in FE can be contentious. I know Niles is contentious but ngl as a rambunctious bi person with a bit of a troll side with friends, I honestly love him.

[@AdamTheGameBoy]

You know at least among mages, probably. If I was to tier the mages from my 3 playthrough it'd go 1. Lysithia: You can't screw her up unless you make her pure physical, she's gonna be magic critting everything and then she gets warp?! 2. Marianne: She'll crit a bit less, but still just slaughter entire maps. 3. Annette: She can almost reach the same point as Marianne. 4. Dorothea: Meteor is too freaking good, outside of that she's an ok healer and magic fighter, but mostly you want to be moving her to use her 2 meteors as effectively as possible. 5. Hubert: He hits like a truck without critting and is tanky for a mage, but is pretty slow so he can be risky to let attack and his resistance to faith makes him blossom late. 6. Linhardt: There's nothing wrong with him, but he can heal well and is ok offensively. 7. Flayn: She joins too late with too low of stats, so she's got rescue which can be useful, but you'll usually be benching a better mage to train her up or keep her far behind the rest of the army. She can come in clutch if things go bad or you play badly, but generally is a wasted deployment unless you are doing grinding on the generic maps. 8. Hanneman: He joins too late with low stats and his growths make him a slightly tanky mage 9. Mercedes: She's Linhardt, but worse and takes forever to gain any momentum. 10: Manuela: Actually, I think she's a worse mage. Unless she was getting RNG screwed for me, I can't understate how garbage she is stats and growth wise. I think overall Lorenz and Ignatz. Ignatz could be good if he got more power and Lorenz is not good at anything, he's not even likable, but he doesn't have the stats to excel at anything. I don't think the devs even knew what they wanted him to be. Cavalier? Mage knight? He's going to be your most mediocre choice, just recruit Sylvain or almost anybody else and put them down the horse or flyer route.

[@DaniDoyle]

Frozen lance is Lorenz"s selling point, and its actually quite powerful, i recommend trying it in your next playthrough, it might surprise you

[@AdamTheGameBoy]

@@DaniDoyle Interesting, I don't think I used combat arts properly. I thought they were passives you just accrued, not things you equip until my last playthrough. Combat arts are more useful than I thought my first two runs. I kind of doubt I will replay it though. The thought of doing part 1 a 4th time gives me anxiety.

[@maximeminassian6002]

Manuela’s clearly better than Mercedes imo. Yes her stats aren’t good, but she gets warp at the very least which is a really good tool

[@noodleh945]

This was a really great video! I'm not all that knowledgable 3H's meta or the optimal ways to play(hell I'm still trying to beat maddening), so I found this video rather interesting. I'll definitely try to apply what I learned to my own playthroughs. Oh, and Mercedes is one of the few Blue Lions I think I've benched when playing through the Blue Lion route, so I've always thought she was underwhelming.

[@owen9456]

I think your logic here is a bit flawed. I think you assume perfect play too often (No units other then your dedicated tank units will take damage), and you assume that any experienced player will rely on % chance RNG (dodge tanks, wrath / vantage low hp builds) regularly enough to where fortify would be bad. I think your opinions are likely probably very biased by maddening mode, which has extremely poor design that actively encourages people to look at the game this way (most units who arn't built to tank die in one round, units are put in very specific boxes they can't ever leave, the lack of a jaigen or early game crutch to alleviate the pressure put on you early, you are forced to rely on RNG strategies to suceed). Fortify is a strong action-economy option when multiple units have taken several amounts of chip damage, which is much more common in fire emblem games or easier difficulties of 3h where you arn't having to play ludicrously slow and are able to expose more of your units to combat. I don't think mercedes or fortify are bad - I just think maddening (and 3h difficulties in general) is poorly designed.

[@pepeelghetto1231]

You don't adapt the game to your playstyle, you adapt your playstyle to the game. Unless you are a hacker or something lmao. Also madenning isn't slow past the early game, wrath vantage units can pretty much wipe out big portions of the map by themselves, and then there's multiple warps per map + stride... So no, madenning is slow for those who don't know how to play 3H, or just don't like using the broken builds (Like myself lol).

[@owen9456]

@@pepeelghetto1231 Well I disagree and I see a lot of the FE community which dislikes 3H maddening for the reasons I described above and more. You can say 'skill issue' all you want though. Also, again, wrath vantage isn't reliable unless your hitting 100% crit chance and your crits will always kill. There are better strategies - but maddening mode funnels you into specific strategies, units and setups because its bad, which is my point. I think using maddening as a bar for any unit will be a mistake.

[@pepeelghetto1231]

@@owen9456 Wrath is 50 crit, killer weapons add 35, and battallions add up to 20. That's BEFORE any abilities and without even considering unit stats. If you used wrath vantage you'd know 100 crit is guaranteed. And also class bases, battallions and abilities make It impossible for most units to not grab a kill with wrath against most enemies. Anyway, elaborate. What are those "bettet strategies"? And also how would you rank the units then, going by hard mode? That mode is LITERALLY "fast unit good, slow unit bad" bc any unit with decent speed doubles everything, AND also, how is madenning worse than that?? Ffs I cant even set up kills in hard mode most of the time bc any unit on my team just kills with any weapon, It's pathetic...

[@pepeelghetto1231]

@@owen9456 Also no there's no rng here. You can easily get 100 hit and crit, and if not (The hit part, bc the crit is guaranteed if you are semi competent at the game), there's the avoid wrath or protection wrath variations, AND then there's the turn wheel. The problem most people have when talking about 3H is that They pretend It is like classic FE when It's not. Stats and weaponry are almost irrelevant (Imagine using 1-2 range lances or axes in 3H lmao...). It's all skills, classes, battallions and combat arts. You beat three houses in the monastery grind and unit builds, not in the battlefield itself.

[@owen9456]

@@pepeelghetto1231 You've put too much thought into this, lol. But you've adequately summed up the problem: Hard mode is too easy, and maddening mode is much too punishing and, judging by what many other people have said and my own experiences with the mode, often results in maps becoming a slog of trial and error. Then again, 3h is one of my bottom tier fire emblem games due to its plethora of issues gameplay wise, bad difficulty balancing only being one of them. As for mercedes - I don't think shes bad, I think the game she's in just punishes her with its design. If healing was good, and fortify was good, mercedes would be good. If in any other fire emblem game you gave someone a fortify personal staff that refreshes every chapter, that unit would become an easy S-tier.. its just 3 houses man.

[@254zero]

I love Mercedes because in my opinion she's the perfect heal bot. Getting her to rank c isn't a big investment (as long as I have it by the tower level I'm fine) and once she has physics I basically ignore all teaching for her and let her just heal nonstop and I can invest into other units. I also really just like her personality so much more than the other 2 dedicated healers. But after watching this video, there's no defending that she's any good and once recruitments get added into the army, she gets benched for lysithia

[@DaniDoyle]

The thing is if you love her you can still use her the point of the video wasn't to try to convince people to not use her, after all the video just before this started with me saying "I love bad units" and I have certainly dragged people much worse than Mercedes through harder games than three houses. I'm glad that you enjoy using her and hope that you still do :-)

[@evieeevee]

Mercedes is still top tier wife, so my love is unabated🥰

[@envan7865]

Great video! I love the Blue Lions, including Mercedes, but this definitely enlightened me on some things. There are kinda 2 things I want to mention though. One is, although extremely slight, the Crest of Lamine could potentially conserve uses in the early game. You've got about a 41% chance of it activating at least once across 5 uses, 67% across 10 uses, which could potentially give her more heals that her contemporaries. The second thing is, I think Manuela may be worse, that woman has absolutely nothing sans Warp, which she is the far and away the worst user of. Manuela joins 7 chapters later with only 4 more magic, her abysmal stats, complete unability to kill and being outclassed to a degree I'd say is worse than nearly anyone else.

[@DaniDoyle]

I don't think I've ever run out of heal casts, so I don't think the crest of Lamine is especially important. Additionally while I agree that Manuela is overrated, she doesn't at least have warp, something that only three other units have, while mercy's claim to fame is physic, which she gets late and half the cast can acquire as well.

[@FuriousHaunter]

But... but... Tathlum Bow! Joking aside looking forward to that new series, I find discussion of that stuff neat!

[@aegisScale]

Bro IS really said "Let's make the Blue Lions' healer have worse important ranks than every other healer in the game" for no particular reason💀💀💀

[@DaniDoyle]

Not a bro, but yeah basically 🤣🤣☠️☠️

[@aegisScale]

@@DaniDoyle Oop, sorry, I use "bro" like gender neutral "dude" instinctively, I wasn't trying to imply you were a guy.

[@e.sanghvi5657]

Huh? Mercedes isn't even the worst caster. Mercedes isn't even the worst in her own house. Cyril has dogshit bases and is hurt by his late availability. Annette has a vastly worst spell list and can't hope to match Mercedes' healing abilities. Ashe has a completely useless personal, can't tank, can't do damage and is only salvageable by running Wyvern for the class bases, if you are for some reason still bothering with him by the time Advanced classes are an option. Mercedes being the only caster with default Grem goals makes her incredibly reliable across all routes even when recruited late, while Dorathea (who I do love as a unit, to be clear) comes with worthless Sword levels and a Faith bane you have to work to overcome. The sheer convenience of having a second Grem to run in Black Eagles or Golden Deer with minimal investment makes Mercedes worth fielding.

[@DaniDoyle]

Cyrils bases are deceptively good. On Maddening mode he is capable of one rounding every enemy on his join map at base, and it only gets better from there. This is because of his access to good combat arts in the form of vantage and point blank volley. Stats in three houses are probably the least important part of a unit's kit, and Cyril is the perfect example of this. Despite his unimpressive stats, He's legitimately one of the more useful units in the game, even within a 0% growths context

[@hellothere2570]

If we're talking about no dlc, then there is a case to be made for Mercedes to be the worst, but with dlc I think it's pretty unambiguously Anna. Her early game is pathetic, with the only thing she has going for her being that she's level 5, and it only gets worse from there. She has the boons for wyvern but not the stats or arts, she has a decent spell list but a reason bane, and her best role is generic sniper, which she is outclassed at by quite literally everyone with a bow boon, including Ashe because he has defiant str access. Mercedes at the very least actually gets use in chapter 2 and can use offensive spells in ch3, so there's a reason to actually deploy her, whereas Anna has zero redeeming qualities

[@DaniDoyle]

Rescue and free level 5 provide more utility than anything in Mercy's kit, and anna can more easily slot into "generically good" classes for free than Mercy can. She also has curved shot and wrath strike for free in the early game, which is a nice combo, and access to magical sword combat arts if you want to use her long term. She's still a bottom five unit but she has significantly more in her kit than Mercedes does

[@hellothere2570]

@Dani Doyle The issue is even at level 5 mercedes is better than Anna offensively and is not much worse at healing, so Mercedes is a better deploy early on. Anna's rescue in dark flier (which is the best class for using rescue) is only 4 range with warlock bases, and it's not gonna be much higher unless you feed Anna mag boosters, which... why would you she's Anna. Anna's curved shot and wrath strike are still gonna be weaker than Mercedes' spells early game because Anna has garbage bases and enemy rsl is usually lower than their prt. And while yes, Anna will eventually be better than Mercedes offensively with her magic arts, it isn't by enough to offset how absurdly awful Anna's early game is and how much you have to baby her and invest in her for her to become even somewhat competent

[@afgcinc7206]

@@hellothere2570 I agree, but you can't convince the kool-aid drinkers. I hyper invested into Anna Sniper, and she not just weaker than Shamir despite the recruitment advance but was far weaker, and was just as useless beyond a turn 1 gambit in her Paralogue as she normally is with way less investment. Meanwhile Mercedes did her healing and chip job on that map reliably.

[@richardwilliams9130]

2:45 Unfortunately, considering how much I like Fire Emblem and Pokémon, I, unfortunately, can't play either of those the way I like to play because of other fans of Pokémon or Fire Emblem judging me as not a real fan because of the way I play.

[@DaniDoyle]

Thats silly. Anyone who claims someone is not a real fan based on their play styles is a poop head

[@BigBoyFargo]

Mercie fans in shambles (Im Mercie fans)

[@supervolcanobladerharris131]

I have a lot of questions so I'm going to try and simplify this. At the beginning she is a bit of a liability but I think her early fire usage and healing still is close to Marianne who likely doesn't have a magic spell but can get physic and Annette with a better base spell and rally but no heal utility. I do agree she is worse than the other healers as frozen lance is very powerful as well with soulblade which comes later but likely does more damage in the mid to late game, and Linhardt having warp though she does have a useful magic stat that's worth taking into account. Her spell list isn't good but they are accurate and strong enough to do sufficient damage so I wouldn't take that out of the picture. Also she may have a low rank in white magic she has a sufficient rank at all meaning that you can take advantage of its exp gain later in the game when you spam healing which is why I think fortify is decent particularly for that, and while you don't really find a use for it I don't see how most of your units become invincible in the late game like you say they are. If anything its the exact opposite for most units as units getting one or two rounded isn't rare for anyone, so using Fortify does come in these scenarios. I need an explanation on that particularly, but like I was saying if you work hard to get Fortify by spamming white magic spells you can get much faster exp. I once gotten a lvl.30 Gremory Mercedes on chapter 12 and I always restrict myself from using non-mission auxiliary battles so it shouldn't be too difficult to pull off. Her crest may be only a small chance but you can get a nice bonus of exp from it if it works on Fortify. With this extra exp she should be doing good 2 ranged damage and stays like that for the rest of the game while still being able to spam white magic. She can also tank magical foes which are more prevalent in blue lions. I would not say she is good but they didn't really balance white magic so she can definitely take advantage of that even is she is losing against the other mages and healers. Still I can see your argument and point and it was an interesting video.

[@DaniDoyle]

I'm not sure i understand what your question is. Regarding the units who are not taking any damage, these are your enemy phase units, and they are typically either raising their avoid so high as to never get hit, raising their protection so high as to never take damage, or using vantage + wrath setups to avoid ever taking attacks. These units do not need healing because their hp isn't at risk. As for fortify on the non-tank units (player phase units), most of them are getting one-rounded, so they aren't getting healed because they exist in a binary state of either alive or dead.

[@supervolcanobladerharris131]

@@DaniDoyle I know how to make these unit types as I've done them before but usually your evasion rings, and evasive battalions, sword avoid(which you can go war monk I guess), and Defiant avoid can't be used on all units at once or even at all. A lot of such builds have alert stance which is good but not in player phase focus positions. And from my experience you will still get hit by a sniper or unit with the breaker skill against your unit, and will still die in two rounds of combat. A tank is reasonable but one unit is still not tanking everything. Especially the powerful Mages that exist in lategame blue lions. That unit may also get gambited losing their battalion bonuses, take too many poison strikes or take effective armor damage. It's easier on blue lions due to duscur heavy soldiers but that is a one person only battalion so you have to work with anything else if you want two tanks. Vantage+wrath is broken but it only works with enough strength and crit which can be difficult to raise for all units and sometimes you will reach 90 crit and miss or the attack entirely. Therefore it is not too rare for these units to take damage and others who can't pull them off will so you've gotta be prepared for that. I should also mention that with my mention strategy she was able to one shot enemies on ch.13 and with Gloucester Knights survives the assassin and deals a lot of damage back. It will not stay this way and still is beaten by Lysithea but 2 ranged heavy magic damage is not something to snooze on since its pretty easy to pull off. I'm not saying its better than these builds but they aren't always reliable in all situations and hard to replicate on others so I think giving Mercedes' combat a bit more recognition. I suppose mine has always gotten lucky, but a Gremory Mercedes should still be able to do more than chip damage to enemies.

[@Deoxys_Used_Mimic]

Well, I suppose Mercy is good for *one* thing………….

[@DaniDoyle]

?

[@Gerb8029]

6:42 wtf was that gameplay it looks so funny😂

[@DaniDoyle]

I'm glad someone noticed it, I love slipping silly/dumb/bad gameplay into the background of video essays

[@jotchuaandfriend1067]

It took me a stupid amount of time to realize this was on 3 houses and not 3 hopes 😭

[@DaniDoyle]

In fairness, it has footage from both

[@afgcinc7206]

I kinda feel like every one of these "Mercedes is the worst" videos are all clones of an identical playstyle idiom that encompasses: Linhardt is god-tier because Warp, Vengeance users being viable in every situation, and healing is unnecessary and if you need it then you're playing bad. I mean that's fine, play the game however you want, but for my experiences having done 6+ NG Maddening playthroughs (3 BL) with a good to great Mercedes every single run in variations on the build, I guess I'll just revel in my success at being someone able to use this unit effectively.

[@browserjunior4707]

One thing I also kinda want to add here is that Fortify isn’t as useful when you take into consideration that there’s tons of Battalions that provide AoE healing and at the point you do get battalions, you’re likely slapping a bunch for bonus stats like Protection, Avoid, Res, and Phys/Mag Attack. All of these can lower the damage received in a map, with the defensive stats being obvious, avoid negating all damage if you’re lucky, and the offensive stats providing your units to meet kill thresholds which likely means you avoid a counter-attack. Like you said, if Fortify came much earlier then she’d actually be useful early game. However not only can every mage you have starting off learn heal, every unit in the game comes with a healing item so you have a free 15 hp heal (iirc) which you are using a lot early game to mitigate the lack of healing. Physic is her best trait but the fact it’s locked to C when she has D Faith is really unfortunate for her, having an earlier physic would’ve been amazing. So in every scenario where Mercy would shine like AoE healing, battalions do a better job. Then again, everyone in 3H is simply good so her being the most meh white magic user when your competition are Linhardt and Lysithea, it’s not the worst thing ever. Put Mercedes in any other game and she’ll probably be god tier.

[@sonofaphrodite4461]

I find the beauty in 3H is how different each canon healer is. Marianne comes with Offensive healing spells, Lindhart comes with utility spells and Mercedes comes with more healing. Calling her low tier is I think just a bait. Mercie is fine in every route of the game and performs well as a healer and really holds her own. She’s more viable than flayn. Which I think she’s the worst healer out of the bunch. Not getting Physic is really detrimental and rescue doesn’t really save flayn form being worse because of not having Physic. Not to mention Mercie gets a good hand of offensive reason magic. Bolganonne and Ragnarok are decently good spells in their own rights, along with this Mercie also has decent mag and Spd personal growth rates allowing her to kill and double/not get doubled low/mid res units. But theirs 101+ ways to play 3H on maddening with various strategies and what have you and to some mercy might not be as of use and some might be very useful. All 3 different house healers are there for different things and you pick them for whatever your team or “comp” needs I’d hard argue Ashe,Flayn etc are far less useful than her but I guess to each their own?

[@rattyxoxo7397]

Flayn is the character who benefits most from DLC imo, with Dark Flier making Rescue utility far better on top of allowing her to use her magic and Lily’s Poise to more effect, however even without she has utility in being a great adjutant for Byleth or Seteth, both of whom are some of the best maddening characters, who doesn’t struggle to get into Pegasus so she can fly alongside them unlike Hubert as a Wyvern Edelgard adjutant. Mercedes comparatively provides a damage bonus to Annette, who in most cases is best as a hybrid rally/gambit bot rather than combat - though Bolt Axe Wyvern is a possibility - and Jeritza, who while a fantastic unit, is only available for 6 chapters in one route, compared to Flayn always being able to provide her damage bonus to Byleth or Seteth in all 4 routes (though it’s temporary in CF and only for Byleth). I would still agree that Ashe is worse, as there are far more physical characters who can slot into the role of Sniper offense, including Shamir who defines the whole archetype as a Lvl 9 Sniper who gets Hunters Volley absurdly early, than as Physic bots, and he has less utility in early game than Mercedes, who is the only healer at that point while Ashe has to compete with Felix for Ch2 Curved Shot spam

[@DaniDoyle]

Ashe having curve shot in chapter 2 is important and he has extremely free having to either sniper or vant-wrath wyvern. While these are paths that anyone can take benefiting off of the class rather than bringing anything to it himself, his bones are in just the right area that he doesn't even need any tutoring or meals to reach sniper with death blow, and needs minimal investment to get vant wrath (although I am personally of the belief that even this amount of investment is not worth it for a unit of ashes caliber)

[@davz936]

Personally, Mercie was my best unit in Extreme, i recruited lysitthea and i can say Mercie outperformed her in every aspect, they were my winning duo

[@TheBelt]

She was rude to Lorenz m, therefor all hate towards her is valid.

[@rhettmitchell]

The Lorenz roast was fully granted on her part lol, he had it coming. He fixes it later though and he becomes the goat

[@TheBelt]

@@rhettmitchell I shall brook no slander of Lorenz, he deserves nothing but the best.

[@JJSquirtle]

My feelings on mercedes can be summarized as such: why aren't you using literally anyone else? I'm pretty sure you can make Raphael a more competent healer

[@RaidenKaiser]

Manuela is the worst lol

[@DaniDoyle]

True! I actually just made a video about her

[@LightKing1237]

I now just realized.. I actually never used Mercedes due to how badly she underperformed.

[@xHeigoux]

weeelll, I don't even want to think about beating path of radiance maniac without at least 2 paladins (the only unit type with an actual useful class ability). the final chapter is insanely brutal.

[@pksprite6401]

Really good video. I’ve never really thought about 3H unit viability much since the game came out, but this video made it easy to understand and fun to watch, and made great points. Never knew Mercedes was this terrible.

[@Stachelbeeerchen]

Pros: Healbot Bow proficiency Cons: woops she is dead again...

[@rhettmitchell]

Can’t wait for the Constance Mercedes lesbian propaganda video 🥰

[@madeleineevelinaguekguezia550]

None of this is wrong, especially when you consider that IntSys debuffed her hair pretty badly after the time skip, however I did have soooo much fun on a maddening ng+ playthrough where I ran her as a magic bow sniper 😹

[@MaddMoke]

Great video and very strong argument. I still enjoy using her but can't deny that's completely at a relative detriment. But she's still a great contender for best girl and this will not be disputed;)

[@DaniDoyle]

She is best girl! I made a video about that on Friday actually! If you haven't seen it I'd highly recommend it, because I love her character and that video was really fun to make

[@andrebaxter4023]

Algorithm reading my mind. I played Engage first(almost done). Playing 3 Houses next and was curious about this character. Never even typed her name out. 😳

[@DaniDoyle]

Glad to help!