Leif is the weirdest Emblem - Fire Emblem Engage Analysis

[@SuperEljafru]

leif enabling wrath vantage is ironically the least accurate way of representing his game

[@CyclonSilver]

I actually got kinda mad during the pre-release at how little he represented Thracia. It felt like they had the weapon triangle-centric kit in mind first and just needed someone to put it on.

[@korinoriz]

@@CyclonSilver I agree it sucks Leif got shafted, but it's kinda funny how he became the prof bot as a possible reference to the fact he can use every weapon as a Master Knight.

[@darkstalker696]

Why do ppl ignore that's leifs first appearance is gen 2 of genealogy. Yes he story arc is in thracia, but ppl are not paying attention that when they represent leif its always gen 2 genealogy not during thracia.

[@CyclonSilver]

@@darkstalker696 I don't think anyone's ignoring that, it's just that if Leif doesn't represent his own game, who will ? Emblems are meant to pay tribute to every FE mainline entry, and FE4 is already represented by Sigurd. So as it stands, as a result of Leif being the way he is, FE5 is the one non-remake game that gets shafted in Engage, when it's already historically been the most ignored game in the series ever since Gaiden got a remake. We didn't get any dlc character for it either, although that much was to be expected. There was also a complaint of a lack of accuracy even in his FE4 homage (no mount, his Engage/Quadruple hit weapons aren't in FE4 except a less unique Light Brand, he never naturally gets Vantage, the weapon triangle didn't affect damage inflicted or received in FE4 or FE5), but to be fair, most emblems are very loose in that regard.

[@Localsoupeater]

I feel like they referenced Genealogy too much. His kit is based around his master knight class and adaptable is a reference to bosses in Genealogy doing basically the same thing. They just kinda ignored Thracia and acted like it didn't exist

[@bladerdj3503]

I love how Engage brought back many elements, now even the consideration of not doing a Sidequest.

[@Hazel776FE]

I so wish they could’ve figured out a way to incorporate a capture mechanic into leifs kit but maybe that was a little too complicated

[@hisen3.146]

The first enemy killed while engaged, you make a clone of it. It has the same stats except it has 1 hp. It cannot be controlled and it moves after the enemy's turn. Done.

[@Zanaro97]

When you kill a unit while engaged you “capture” the area and surrounding tiles that give some buff. Damage, def, res, etc : could even allow units to walk all connected captured tiles without using mov. Or something

[@magicball3201]

I mean, if you initiate and kill an enemy while engaged, gain an infinite use version of the enemies weapons you can use regardless of weapon level, usable until you disengage. Capture does recruit you a few units, but it in practice was here's how you get items. Complements Leif's Adaptable this way as well

[@MercuryA2000]

Maybe just stealing an enemy's equipment if you kill them while engaged?

[@Knightgob]

Could have used similar mechanics to Veronica maybe

[@Marz776]

Leif's quad attack is considered a sword attack on each strike, so by giving leif unit sword power 5 he does 40 free damage

[@elbein3833]

Also every hit is affected by Momentum

[@researchinbreeder]

@@elbein3833 Mekkah mentioned Momentum and Sword Power in the video. he didn't give it much of a spotlight, but he mentioned both applied to all hits.

[@thelurker8169]

I think it would've been cool if Engaging with Leif gave the unit the ability to wield any weapon type in their inventory. Maybe they could make it only up to a certain weapon rank before Bond10 and up to A ranks after you complete his Paralogue. But oh well Vantage Wrath is neat

[@theboostedbaboon4586]

One thing I really like about fe engage is that even the worst emblem ring can still be really good. Its just more obtuse.

[@sambosung350]

Hold up hold up hold up lurker here but the legend of dragoon music at 10:00 summoned me to boost the algorithm lol

[@Yossarian819]

Good analysis and excellent showcasing of the benefits and drawbacks. The community can be so rigid in using certain units/emblems, glad you are providing alternate perspectives.

[@NoCryinRyan]

The problem with Emblem Leif is conflicting play styles; everything in his kit is a mix of offense and defense but to a lesser extent than other Emblems. I mostly use him to unlock weapon proficiencies for the early game, a delete button and SP enabler for the mid and late game.

[@neog8029]

Tbh, I think a lot of the issues with Leif come from the devs wanting to make him a very defensive Emblem as like a sidegrade to Ike with Adaptable's intention being you'd always have defensive weapon triangle and Arms Shield, but then put Vantage on him without understanding that Vantage is a hyper-offense skill. So people wanting to use Vantage offensively get screwed over, and people using Leif defensively get to see more of the jank decisions Adaptable makes. I think would have worked a lot better if he had a bunch of effective weapons in his kit, Arms Shield also boosted damage for having weapon triangle, and Adaptable focused on picking the weapon that would deal the most damage. Idk, but that's how most people end up using Leif anyways only they have to fight against Leif's kit's lack jank or by straight limiting his bond level to 9 to accomplish it.

[@samkeiser9776]

I think his biggest flaw is simply that his weapons are super heavy, yeah, the master lance is really weak, and inaccurate, but if it wasn’t heavy it would mean he wouldn’t get doubled so often by anything that decided to attack him. It’s extremely questionable that they nerfed the master lance from thracia too, because it’s already supposed to be balanced by how its an engage weapon, meaning you’d only have it for 4 turns. My biggest complaint with modern FE weapon design is how they seem to be allergic to making weapons that are just, REALLY good. I miss the old brave weapons.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

The problem is literally just Adaptable. Anything that takes player control in a game like Fire Emblem is disastrous, and the potential benefits of Adaptable, even if it worked well, aren't very high

[@JReds-bw9kg]

The funny thing about Master Lance is that those are its stats in Thracia, sans the might. They actually nerfed the might

[@marcgomez8391]

Oh, the Panette usage sounds quite good actually. Last time I used her was with Ike and I had trouble with the lack of a 2-range option for Vantage. I might wanna try that next time I do a playthrough (next time, when I stop feeling so lazy about finishing the last Fell Xenologue chapter in Maddening, that I'm doing before the Jade recruitment chapter in the main story lmao).

[@Ezoroth-fb7gd]

Imo the main issues Leif face are his damage output (mostly because Light Brand use magic damage) and the way Adaptable skill work but you can build around it and have a good physical unit with lvl 20 bond. For weapon, we want to never use Master Lance because of its stats so you can just play a unit that can equip a lance, and if we don't want to use Light Brand for 2 range ennemy (because most of mages have a lot of res) we can just use a 2 range weapon and give it an engrave that give avoid/dodge/crit/hit (for the weapon's stats comparison with Light Brand). Concerning at his damage output, there are a lot of ways to manage it, but the easier ones are giving crit (by using Wrath and by giving Leif to a backup unit for the extra 10 crit) and giving Reprisal skill to our unit (which works really well with the bulk Leif brings). Considering this, i think the best users of Leif are Hero, Halberdier and Picket. I personally use Leif with Timerra because i like her a lot and i think Leif is the best emblem to use with her personnal class. The +5 bld allows her to use Brionac+5 without any speed penalty and with Corrin engrave, Wrath and her high dex stat she has a really good crit stat, even without engaging. She is naturally bulky and the +3 def from Leif gives her even more damage on Sandstorm proc. When she engages, she can vantage sweep with a crit or proc Sandstorm (not when using Light Brand saddly) really often. Even if she doesnt, she still hit hard with Reprisal and when she doesn't one shot ennemies, she can tank them really well (and her speed helps her to not get doubled). Moreover Quadruple Hit will deal a lot of damage thanks to Reprisal damage bonus, and she can proc Sandstorm 3 times (not 4 because one hit use Light Brand) which means she will almost always get a kill from it. Bonus point, with her high skill, Reprisal and Sandstorm she can use Master Lance in player phase really well.

[@ultrose7379]

I’m happy with how in depth this video is on leif since so many write him off, momentum quad hit is soooo good , I think if your not doing leif panette (because your doing something like ike panette instead) then I think a wyvern is one of the best places for leif. With a wyvern you can go lances axes and have a spear take priory over master lance and with how high the build bonus is at later levels you can deal with how heavy the spear is. Normally I would recommend sword/axe wyvern always but because of Leif’s build and his engage attacks not needing swords I find his user doesn’t need them. So your wyvern gets big build, can adapt with lances and axes for arms shield and damage, just be careful with cases that would call out for swords but with 2 weapon types it’s fine for the most part. Just don’t engage in that moment. I think out of all potential wyverns merrin is the best user of him due to her great stats all around and her magic stat letting her use Roy or ike engraved Hurricane to hit really 1 shot thresholds even on endgame fliers with easy at level 35 ( with roy engrave she needs magic tonic but that’s so cheap) and having some of the best stats out of most units in general along with her very good build plus Leif’s build to deal with really heavy weapons. And she can actually deal some damage with light brand before late game if she gets switched to it and you just want her to live. (Enemies get too bulkier even on the res side of things to do good damage without something like sword power which doesn’t help a lance axe wyvern much) Of course if your not doing that then just doing something like leif warrior for crit stuff or trying to abuse light brand plus his huge build is the way to go as you talked about and handicapping him at 9. Also inheritance wise I do like appreciate how cheap arms shield is and it’s nice for units that use 2 weapons in the triangle. I think there is better options but it being so cheap is very very nice if you want some bulk. Engrave is really good. Hit is great in this game and the extra mt is always nice. Well worth the extra weight. Even more so if it’s on something like Hurricane or radiant bow or just effective weapons in general Edit also forgot to mention that I really like leif on amber. I find that panette does just fine with one (or if I need to give ike to someone else she can run something that isn’t leif or ike just fine) panette doesn’t need the extra crit since she already hits 100. But Amber as a warrior is just a bit behind and he really appreciates the extra crit to catch up to panette. Leif Amber is just another frailer, wrath vantage panette and it’s great

[@shadowknuxadventure2]

Leif is also consistently a great utility emblem because, excluding dlc, hes the first (and cheapest) access to axe proficiency you get as well as teaching just about every proficiency in the game

[@WeedleTwineedle]

Before the well making SP abundant, I really liked inheriting arms shield on support Alear because it was cheap and has good synergy paired with shielding art for luring in/tanking knive/bow users.

[@DeePee-vy5vp]

Omg it’s u

[@0bskureference]

Ayyyy!!! Absolutely W on the background music! You legend

[@tuskoub]

I remember being so excited for what they could do with Leif's emblem to replicate Thracia's playstyle. He could've had a TRS style Mug to replicate Capture. He could've had some form of Movement Stars. Vantage/Wratch packed in one as PCC. Nope, none of it. They really botched the references on him unlike every other emblem.

[@hibiki8473]

Even his emblem name feels botched. Like yeah he is in fe 4 but like Thracia 776 is his game. Think he would of been emblem of thracia

[@ryanvandenberg3119]

Great video! I love how you do such a great job of explaining things in these videos. Keep up the great work! On my first playthrough I gave Leif to Chloe, because even after promoting, she was not able to wield even steel weapons without loosing speed. (not sure if I got unlucky with growths, or if her build stat is really that bad...) However, equipping her with Leif made it so that by the end of the game, she was wielding some of the heaviest (and consequently, strongest) weapons in the game without any problem.

[@GaiusTulliusCatallusXXC]

Knife Precision is used in the speed run to increase reliability on Wolf Knight Alear, the only skill inherited in the whole run so it has that doing for it.

[@shannonjones8877]

Or you could just put Leif on a tank to significantly boost their dmg mitigation. Very simple build is to just put him on Goldmary. She already has swords and lances by default so you can choose whichever is most effective for her defense on that turn, and then if you need extra dmg mitigation against multiple weapons in a single turn you just engage to leverage Adaptable. Goldmary also appreciates the hp, def, and bld increase he provides. I'm doing a playthrough now where the plan is to run GK Louis with Leif emblem.

[@ballistic2527]

Having tried to make leif builds work, most effective use imo (maddening) : put on a semi tanky lance + axe class with a forged hurricane axe to completely wipe a section of fliers, and being able to switch off of it to counter other enemy types or a wrath vantage phys char (like pannette) to enable auto switching between killer axe and bow

[@neog8029]

Yep. Putting Leif on a Warrior and capping his bond level at 9 and giving the. Hurricane Axe+5 and a Silver Bow+3 or something is the way to go for taking out Maddening's very scary fliers. But it can't be understated how good and simple Wrath Panette is at also dealing with anything other than armors.

[@MetalGearRaxis]

I just wanted to point out, Celine in particular uses Quad Hit pretty well in a rather funny way. Unlike a lot of units in the game, she has mixed offensive stats, so she's not wasting her off-type swings of Quad Hit like other units might, if you're slapping Leif on her it's probably to correct her Build, meaning she's likely to be using a Levin Sword so it's not unlikely she'll have the aforementioned Sword Power, which boosts every hit in the chain, and Ignis can proc individually on each hit of the chain and unlike with Lodestar Rush or Astra Storm, its damage boost will apply in full, which late game will be an extra ~10 or so damage per proc. Leif is also pretty decent on her if you're going for the early Levin Sword build, since he offsets the heavy weight of the weapon, allowing her to swing for high damaging doubles in the early game.

[@imaginarymatter]

I like Leif on Goldmary as her default Lance Hero class. She has above average speed but she tends to get slowed down by her weapons like Spear, so Leif's extra build helps. She also has high defenses which Leif further adds to and a diverse set of weapons she can use so you can set up Adaptable to use your own weapons (minus Killer Axe against lances and Light Brand against ranged axes). You also get Leif back in the chapter after you recruit Goldmary so it works out almost perfectly in terms of availability.

[@123christianac]

I think Leif was designed with Smash weapons in mind. If you attack an enemy with a Smash weapon, the enemy attacks first. If you use the weapon triangle, you can mitigate the damage using Arms Shield. Since you have taken damage, you are likely to activate Vantage and attack first with your Smash weapon. (Note: Smash weapons have similar might to a unit doubling.) Adaptability is the only weird part of the kit since weapon triangle advantage doesn't help much on enemy phase. With Vantage, it only stops breaks. I guess it can be used to mitigate damage if you somehow fail to OHKO with Vantage. I think Leif's kit functions as it should. The problem is that most people don't find it useful.

[@brett3706]

Great vid! Leif is probably the worst Emblem in the game if you just slap him on someone without thinking about it, but easily one of the best if you have a build catered around him. A few thoughts of my own to add onto your Panette build: 1. Hold Out is a good skill to use for your extra skill slot. It guarantees Panette can get safely into Vantage range, but more importantly provides a bit of insurance if something goes wrong (e.g. it can help her survive a single volley from a Thoron mage or General she failed to kill, survive a single Engage attack, etc.). 2. Eirika is a better engraving than Lyn. The 3 extra weapon Mt will make your one-shots a good deal more consistent against chunky enemies, and the negatives of Eirika are irrelevant for a Vantage-Wrath build. Since you need to Engrave at least 2 weapons (Axe and Bow), Lyn is worth considering for the other weapon, although the -3 Mt will certainly hurt your consistency for whichever weapon gets stuck with her. It's worth mentioning Byleth engraving here for the extra Mt over Lyn, although at the cost of 10 less crit and hit which can hurt your consistency in other ways; still worth considering IMO since Mt will be more of a bottleneck on than Hit or Crit given how chunky enemies are on Maddening. 3. Speaking of Byleth, if you're going all-in on a Vantage build, not a bad idea to use as many stat-boosting methods as you can, including Byleth's Instruct. The +10 Dex from Cavalry is worth considering, as it helps your Hit and Crit, especially considering some late-game enemies have Avoids well into the upper 80s and 90s. 4. As you mention, Longbow can be used to deal with 3 range enemies, although you can't get up to 100% crit. Still worth it if you're going into a mission with a ton of 3-range enemies (e.g. Chapter 21) to give it a +Crit engraving (e.g. Corrin), which should give you ~80% Crit against Thoron mages. Combined with Hold Out you'll probably be fine. 5. It's not 100% necessary, but you should forge your Killer Axe/Bow all the way up to +5 rather than stop at +2 ASAP. Some late game enemies are very chunky and you need all the Mt you can get. Obviously one-shotting Generals and Great Knights is untenable, but even one-shotting Heros, Warriors, and even Thieves can be difficult if you aren't making dedicated efforts to maximize Atk.

[@glowstickofdestiny1290]

I'm surprised you didn't point to Adaptability as a reference to FE4 bosses changing weapons to always counter on your player phase attacks. IG I could've pointed that out in the Discord, but it was a bit late for that by the time I started my current Genealogy playthrough and figured it out myself.

[@Mekkkah]

I mean I can't point out of all of these, it's fine!

[@glowstickofdestiny1290]

Yeah, I guess these would get a lot less concise if you dissected every reference instead of here-and-there shoutouts like the Build thing

[@researchinbreeder]

@@Mekkkah One tiny detail that's kinda funny is that Quadruple Attack's Covert bonus seems to be attempting to reference a mechanic (poorly, but its trying): Luk% chance to gain 1000g if it kills something.

[@theboostedbaboon4586]

Yeah I almost feel like "fire emblem references in fe engage" could be its own video.

[@researchinbreeder]

@@theboostedbaboon4586 tbf that's bc Engage itself is trying to be "FE References, the Game"

[@Emulatedemblem]

my warrior fogado was able to fill in some gaps with a lvl 20 lief. i let him play around in cupido for a few extra magic level ups with Chrobin, then swapped to Warrior+Lief around mid-late game when backup/longbow starts being good support. I never had any countering problems, he always chose his forged axe/bows and he was a solid utility who could provide some enemy phase support from both phys and mag, and quad could nuke. I just gave him Canter and Rally spectrum from Chrobin and he appreciated the extra build + survivability

[@keneor4468]

You mentioned it rapidly, but Leif has this cool concept of "magical-physical" unit. Works pretty well with Anna and Fogado. I got decent results using Leif on Fogado (on hard difficulty though), gave him a good blend of mostly everything, turning him into a jack of all trades that was pretty useful all arround. I have no idea how but he kept being able to one round ennemies up until the very end!

[@aggroincarnate2763]

You know I just randomly remembered this the other day, is this ever continuing?

[@gamesterd5360]

With the power of DLC, I used Leif on Nel which worked out neatly. Dragon bonuses allowed to offset the Killer Axe's iffy hit, Lance access allowed me to ensure Master Noodle never came, and Nel's got enough magic to do good damage with Light Brand. Combined with Quad Hit's Dragon damage bonus, inherited Reprisal (And Wrath), Nel could finction as a decent enemy phase crit tank that also had a delete button at any moment. It was fun working with his kit.

[@renegaderaven3777]

What a bizarre Emblem. You intentionally have to limit their bond level to reap the most benefits from them. I was indeed running a warrior Panette/Lief build and got immediately knee capped as soon as I completed their bonus chapter since it added the master lance and light brand to the mix.

[@michael_betts]

Leif's design includes some of the most baffling decisions in this game I swear. I have gone crazy over the design of the build increase skills. I remember near the end of my first run looking at leif, and thinking I could use leif's build+ skills as a cheaper lyn speed+, then looking at the prices and facepalming. You literally need to exhaust speed+5 and not want speedtaker and have low build, but need more speed for the skill to be useful. I guess a low build unit that already has maxed out the 20 cap speed increase? I am just baffled at who balanced build+ and speed+ to be the same price for point. It might be useful if they doubled the build increase (like a speed equivalent of the weapon power skills) or drastically lowered the cost, but you only get 3 chapters between leif and lyn, so it isnt like you can use build+ super early game and speed+ is super late, and you have a lot more time to build bond with lyn if you dont have resources to spend either.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Or if build did something else. It does not.

[@michael_betts]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 With the DLC it now decreases your damage with hector's heavy attack. It now also increases a flying units damage with giga Levin sword chrom, but that engage attack sucks anyways, and if you want to build around that more power to you.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@michael_betts Eh I'd rather not pay 30 bucks to have Build do something else

[@michael_betts]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I'm saying it is actively worse than nothing with the hector ring and gives +1 damage with a specific engage attack on chrom that does low damage anyways. It is almost worse than nothing.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@michael_betts Aaaah I understand. Apologies, I haven't actually seen what any of Hector's abilities do. That's hilarious.

[@lanceareadbhar]

I'm excited to hear how to make Leif broken as I've not figured that out it six playthroughs. I do appreciate the Build he provides to low build speedy units for Maddening.

[@darkjaden-fe]

wait omg is that Legend of Dragoon music in the bg? !!!

[@BlueWokou]

Yo the Legend of Dragoon music, sick

[@ceruleanvoice3538]

Shoutout to Leif's Build+5 vastly increasing the survivability of my low-build Dire Thunder sage, Citrinne

[@profefortoad]

That was actually a Video with a lot of new Informations, at least for me 👍

[@PShrooboo]

i think vantage, arms shield, and adaptable do actually synergize well to make an enemy phase unit, it’s just that all 3 of the engage weapons conflict. One candidate i thought of would be cupido fogado, who is already a mixed attacker with enemy phase personal + class skills

[@arctic7465]

My first playthrough I put him on Diamant. It was fine during the early part of the game as Diamant would benefit from swaping between swords, axes, and the hand axe when fighting and Quad attack was a delete button. Mid game it fell off as master lance is terrible, Diamant can't effectively use the light brand, and quad attack couldn't delete enemies anymore. I am trying to see if I can make use of Quad attack as a delete button. I am currently going to try it on Celine. I suspect he is good on Griffin Knight Chloe or on the last recruitable character due their hybrid nature and both can get extra damage.

[@Kurtosis7]

Wild Arms music…nice!

[@ModernMind18]

This should have came out on February 24th, 2020

[@Sines314]

Master Lance isn't that bad. Brave weapon might is low in this game so a 7 might brave Lance is the same as a +2 brave Lance. What's more if you have access to it then you have access to Adaptable. Keep a Lance user using him and give him a +2 Javelin or a Spear and he won't use it on EP. So they can use the Master Lance on PP without suffering from it on EP. As far as using the Light Brand too? That's harder. I don't think there's any build that can use both well. Going above Bond 10 is much more situational. Though Light Brand is a pretty good weapon.

[@ebinku]

Also quadruple hit can work very well with Sandstorm, because different from other engage attacks like Lordstar Rush and Astral Storm, the attacks aren't chopped. I think that timerra goes well with Leif because lance users can ignore the atrocious "master" lance, although there are better Engage rings for her.

[@johnathanedwards9054]

Leif is the "Jack-of-all-trades" emblem given he grants weapon proficiency to any units that have bond levels with him and has the kit to be a enemy phase eccentric unit in a game that is mainly player phase focused. Think about it, Sigurd grants Canter for our units to get out of Dodge whenever we attack, Byleth refreshes our strongest units so they can attack again with his Engage attack, and Seadall can get to other units and refresh them so they can finish off an opponent we are having trouble with and then get out of harm's way if he has Canter as a skill after being danced with help of your Byleth user. Leif is a very niche emblem in this game with his biggest draw being the Wrath/Vantage combo which works better on units that can dish out a lot of damage like Panette or Citrinne. I mainly used Leif on Vander or Alfred and just watched them tear the enemy apart with out being slowed down by the heavier weapons. Leif is an emblem that takes a lot of experimenting to use well, but if you know what you're doing, then he can be useful.

[@gameboyn64]

Something I've theory crafted but haven't had time to try is leif on a sword bow knight. The only enemies that become problematic are sword enemies and hand axe enemies but it counters everything else reasonably well. You get to use the better vantage ++ with this build so it's considerably safer and easier to set up at the cost of damage and universally countering everything.

[@stormfallvalkyri8389]

I used leif on etie early game to help with her rly low build and she did really well, quad hit also hit rather hard thanks to her high str. Fun early game build

[@spacedoyster7686]

A very important thing to keep in mind with Vantage/Wrath is that the unit needs to be able to one shot with a crit, limiting the units who can use it effectively to the ones who get enough Strength. I tried it once on Boucheron, but because of his low Strength growth, he couldn't one shot quite a few enemies. Same issue when I tried it on Mauvier. At worst, Leif does have Quadruple Hit for Damage and a build boost, both of which are nice, so I would always recommend finding someone to slap him on over leaving him out, unless you have the DLC.

[@linkbluu321]

Panette should also inherit Hold Out + (2) from Roy. That way you can actually have her in only bond 9 with Leif, so she never gets access to the other fusion weapons... that way you ensure she only will wield the killer axe against close enemies regardless of their weapon instead of switching to the other useless ones. Hold Out will ensure she does not die before she activates Vantage.

[@sombraa241]

I wish adaptability was a sync skill because it would work so well on a crit warrior build with killer axe and bow

[@SpaghettodelaZiti]

I actually thought of using Panette on Leif and inheriting wrath from Ike!

[@novanIV]

I loved Leif on my Alear right up until the point where he got the Light Brand lol.

[@researchinbreeder]

I'm using Leif Warrior Panette on a Draft playthrough (Hard), and I actually had learned the Bond 9 thing the hard way on my Maddening file. My Maddening Panette is actually better not engaging half the time, just bc gambling on 80-90 crit without Adaptable's bonus is better than her pulling out Light Brand and saying she tried. And tbh i dont even remember who Leif was on on my initial playthrough. My only problem i've been having is that, since its a race style playthrough (me and my friend are on different schedules, so we're just going based on final save's playtime), its hard to get her chipped to 25%. It's mostly "throw her at the first formation, quit and try again if she died" for the initial setup. Once she HAS Vantage tho, mindlessly running her forward and mashing + to skip enemy phase is my main strat. My goat is just to see if regular Warp plus Byleth and this Panette can save playtime on simple turns vs my friend who drafted Michiah and Hortensia. But hey, no Byleth on his team, so outright warp-skipping chapters is difficult for him. (Seadall is shared)

[@mattinsula7143]

I like putting him on a Wyvern Lord Chloe with lances and axes. With Momentum+, Quadruple Hit becomes a nuke. And working around adaptable is pretty easy with a forged javelin and killer axe or hurricane axe

[@Sines314]

Is that Wild Arms music?!

[@MegaMaster1021]

Body Ring my favorite

[@donvan-huyck9455]

I tried great knight pandrao with lief to try and fight with hurricane axe, flame lance, and light brand. It didn't work very well because of the low stat caps in speed and magic and ended up being a hurricane axe vantage build against the late game flyers. Wyvern knight's stat caps are much better so I'll try that some time, possibly with Mavier.

[@davidgeorge1943]

I feel like something worth noting is that when equipped by a Covert unit, Quadruple Hit has a chance to give 1,000G, and Engage is incredibly money-hungry from my experience.

[@vitor102]

I found that rosado is the best lief user, enough build to quad stuff with master lance, give him a brave axe(change him to axe/sword wyvern), inherit break defence and lunar brace and you have a dude that hits 6 times with 2 weapon triangle advantage options(boosting shenanigans apply 6x), you need to invest some crystals to improve the master lance, but its a flying brave bow basically so it's worth it

[@llukelcs]

Omg, tell me Saias, Reinhardt and Olwen appears in that paralogue! haha it's a nice reference to one of the most obnoxious maps in FE history. I love it! Haha I never played Engage, but they could have taken inspiration from Leif's implementation in FEH and have have just give him Galeforce! Everything I saw kinda reminds me of his Master Knight class from FE4, but weirdly represented. It's also a crime they have nerfed the Master Lance so hard!

[@jedimasterpickle3]

According to the fandom wiki, the paralogue is based on Ch. 22, with Leif taking the place of Reinhardt. Supposedly another enemy represents Saias. He's a High Priest mini boss with Thoron and Silence. My understanding is that Olwen is not an enemy at this point in Thracia, so she doesn't have a representative. She is, however, a bond ring that gives its user the Dire Thunder skill. That allows Thunder (which is 1-3 range and cannot attack twice in Engage) to become a brave tome and attack consecutively on player phase

[@llukelcs]

@@jedimasterpickle3 oh, thanks for clarifying! Yes, it's the map from chapter 22. In FE5 you either "skip" the map by warping Leif and a boss killer to seize the castle very early, or you'll have to face a very hard challenge. That first bridge falls down if you end turn with any unit after some point in the map so you'll have your army splitted up if you don't have fliers to ferry them or some warp staff, there are lots of very strategically positioned ballistae and lots of reiforcements, Saias has a mechanic specific to FE5 by which he highly buffs the hit, avoid and crit of the entire enemy army and, finally, Reinhardt awaits in the end with Dire Thunder, a Master Sword and Vantage (which is inconditional in FE5! so he always attacks first, no matter what.. he also has a kind of RNG based galeforce, the dude is a menace!) leading an army of very strong mage knights. Olwen is Reinhardt's sister but she's already your ally by that point in the story. They share a very interesting conversation (if you manage to bring her to talk to him) and the most interesting thing is that, even being in oposed armies, the siblings share a Support! Also Reinhardt won't attack Olwen no matter what, so you can have her take down the mage knights with her own Dire Thunder with the support of their own general. Anyway... I'm such a FE5 fan! Haha sorry for that. I'll look in yt for a video of someone playing this Paralogue!

[@jedimasterpickle3]

@@llukelcs The balistae and bridge are returning features of the Paralogue. However the bridge being destroyed is more of a nuisance than an actual obstacle; all units can walk on water in Engage, just with extremely reduced movement (~1-2 move iirc). While Leif takes the place of Reinhardt, there are still a squad of Mage Knights. If you want to see it for yourself, the paralogue is called "The Sage Lord".

[@porygonlover322]

This is basically pure theorycrafting, but I wonder how workable Leif would be on a Mage Cannoneer? Build bonus is obviously useful, and Adaptable would allow one to actually defend itself on EP.

[@joaocisne556]

will you do the dlc emblem too?

[@pheonixmmkc]

I use leif to give a specific unit proficiency in multiple weapon types to reclass them into whatever I want

[@pizzahutkidman8806]

Adaptable could had been so good if his weapons weren't "only barely better than an unforged basic weapon", "BACK BREAKER!" and "Hey, wanna be a mage?". Because it makes a ring who feels like it was entirely bulit around enemy phase unuseable during said phase! (Outside of fun low bond ideas I suppose). I don't even know who I had Leif on in my own playthrough, I barely used him outside of Quad Hit which is okay after draconic hex and alear buffs.

[@durma6924]

It would be easiest to say that they had the weakest idea for Leif as a emblem, but providing mastery over weapon triangle in a box would be much better in a game where triangle did anything on enemy phase. Also Alcryst is clearly leif"s "intended" user. Adaptable is less likely to hurt a unit that couldn't counter in the first place. Arms Shield turns his surprisingly good combat stats into enemy phase death. He has high enough dex to both hit and crit with the killer axe consistently. His lord class is easily the best of the bunch, and he's one of the few characters I never reclass as a result. Luna affects quadruple hit and even halves res for the light brand. Pretty much any engage weapon is a big help for alcryst in the case that you don't reclass him, but this one in particular allows him the powerful player phase one should expect from a sniper and good enemy phase as well. Especially before you get access to wrath I think letting an archer enemy phase and enemy phase good is leif's biggest contribution.

[@rileywm07]

He works well with Timerra for most of the same reasons. Sandstorm can calculate damage for light brand based on her defense, and she really likes the extra build and defense.

[@jedimasterpickle3]

Arms Shield would never activate for Alcryst, though? Bows don't get weapon triangle advantage over anything

[@supervolcanobladerharris131]

​@@jedimasterpickle3adaptable allows him to switch to a melee weapon on player phase. Not saying it's a great combo but it is something you can do with him if you have nothing else to use.

[@durma6924]

@@jedimasterpickle3 it is in fact due to adaptable. my point is that he has as much base def as vander and as much base hp as boucheron. considering high avoid adaptable killer axe is very good enemy phase in a game that doesn't have a lot of good enemy phase, especially early on.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

"Alcryst puts his bow away and dies on enemy phase because of Master Lance" moment

[@tragghyb2673]

I've been using Leif with Jean as a Warrior to carry all the effective weapons with vantage

[@evanb4189]

Hold out is a good option for a vantage-wrath user

[@skynet0912]

I usually play by randomly getting 14 units every playthrough from the entire roster using a random number generator, and then assign random emblems they MUST use if they can, just to do something different every time, and they are NOT allowed to inherit skills from any emblem they aren't given... They can use any unassigned emblem until i get the emblem they must use, but after that point, it's welded to them for the rest of the game... This of course also means that the only skills i can inherit from emblems are the ones that stack with the emblem i already have, which for Leif means i can ONLY get +5 build and Knife Precision. So not Canter and Speedtaker on everyone! But even with that restriction on any character who gets him, he is usually in the same boat as Sigurd and Hector, as an emblem you can't really make "bad", only mediocre...

[@SharurFoF]

Are you planning to continue this series?

[@ashkuhlmann7432]

Hey Mekkah can you credit your background music?

[@porygonlover322]

I dunno why they didn't give Leif some kind of implementation of FCM or Movement Stars (maybe more like Galeforce in the latter case). They could have really leaned in on him as the "weird Emblem" and made him a sort of box of powerful gimmicks that don't synergize well at a glance, but make him a good "all rounder" of sorts. If nothing else, they could have made his Engage weapons not complete ass. As is, he's pretty tragic.

[@davidgeorge1943]

So if this is gonna be a series, might I recommend Lucina next? I can't tell if I'm not using her properly or if she just sucks.

[@naiRISE766]

You put her on a speedy Qi Adept unit be the Bonded Shielder. Have another powerhouse unit be the Bonded Shieldee. Your powerhouse can kill the entire map but there's a catch that they can only take a hit from so many enemies before dying in Enemy phase. And that's where Lucina comes in, Qi Adept bonus for Bonded Shield is making the odds 100%. With Lucina engrave on their weapon to make them a less favorable target than the Bonded Shieldee. You can send the duo in the midst of the enemies for guaranteed survival while sweeping the whole map at the same time. Also Parthia giving double EXP is fun.

[@jedimasterpickle3]

I....I don't think I *did* make him work lol. I think the first chapter I had access to him I gave him to Chloe, thought that was kinda meh, gave him to Louis instead. I don't think I had him on anyone by endgame. There were just better options for what i wanted to do.

[@Prince_Leif]

How 2 Leif: Die in one hit

[@iamthehobo]

Slap that engrave on a weapon as soon as you get Lief just so you don't forget. I see what you did there

[@disciplinedisorder3060]

I think warrior Mauvier is the only character who can use bond 20 Leif without it being too janky or weak.

[@auraguard0212]

Ike can make your unit worse, too.

[@lyme1986]

0:00 - 4:10 song?

[@BlueMageWithSoulEdge]

Leif is a good zoner; just ask Miranda.

[@dodge7246]

So, I haven't bought this game yet myself, so correct me if I'm missing something... Looking at Leif's weapon choice priorities, that means carrying a Javelin (or Spear, but that's almost as heavy as the Master Lance) guarantees he'll never switch to the Master Lance, right? Since it has Bigger Numbers (tm), he loses interest in his own shitty brave javelin Granted, that doesn't necessarily fix much, I dunno how good Javelins are in this game, and doesn't do much for the Light Brand issues, but I reckon for someone who wants to max out Leif's bond level, that might be good to know?

[@Mekkkah]

yeah usually a lance with better stats than master lance will stop leif from using master lance

[@CyclonSilver]

Problem is javelins are pretty meh in this game. Enemies have a lot of durability and good AS(and thus Avo), meaning they very often fail at killing. But beyond that, it works yeah. The Master lance has the worst total stats in the game I believe.

[@freak_mj4842]

another problem is facing tomes while engaged for some reason the game really likes using the Light Brand instead of using for example the masterlance which often results in not killing the mages even if you have enough bld to net get slowed by it ( probably because of the higher hit&crit) so yeah can feel really weird.

[@gameboyn64]

If you can wield lances in the first place, you probably don't have to worry too much about using javelins to offset the master lance as there are very few levin sword enemies in the game. Half of the problem is that there are few characters that naturally want to use both lances and leif.

[@ungulatemanalpha]

It's very funny that the Emblem representing Thracia is unintuitive and poorly designed.

[@Mrjacharles]

At least it's super pretty :P

[@lspuria8440]

I thought this was a Thracia guide/waifu 2.0 lmao

[@Samuel-nj4yy]

Arms shield being cheep has always been a nice bonus that I get for vander. just taking 5 less dmg on a unit that is likely to be doubled and can be strong in some situations when you don't have a lot of strong or bulky units early on. With how I tend to play it allows me to train or heal other units more often as a result of vander being able to take more abuse and not be in threat of dying as often.

[@MugenCannon97]

Leif having Vantage is a reference to all the Thracia and Geneaology bosses that have Vantage. It is also a reference to the skill's association with Reinhardt, the true protagonist of Thracia, as decided by a gacha game that the people who play it pretend to enjoy.

[@Finnland278]

Me watching this video after killing Panette for not liking how she looks:

[@DarrienGlasser]

🍂

[@MasterJP28]

I use Leif to get Olwen 🤷‍♂

[@Cayden.1]

12:34 Leif is the only emblem ring you intention want to keep the bond level low of? Emblem Byleth would like a word with you (higher bond levels unlock more sync terms which is bad since it lengthens the time it takes to try and get the goddess dance again since it happens once per engage)

[@ilovenierreplicant2983]

Leif being a very weird emblem is reflective of the fact thracia776 is a very weird game.

[@manolito.7zip]

Since having canter on everyone is the objectively correct choice, none of your characters will want to inherit both wrath and vantage forcing you to use either Leif or Ike both of them being interchangeable in a build like this since the one thing you can do to avoid all of Leif's downsides is NOT engage, literally, just don't engage, you don't get anything useful out of it and this way you can go up to bond level 20 and use the higher levels of vantage so just don't engage

[@tjbob1098]

Having Canter on everyone is not objectively the correct choice. Actually for enemy phase units canter is pretty bad and vantage/wrath is the "objectively" better choice for enemy phase units. Canter is really good for player phase units that can't make great usage of 2 range. You don't really need canter on your bow users or Levin Sword users. You really want it on your Lance users and some of your axe users but not all. Also, I think engaging on Leif has its merits at the end of a map trying to finish a boss off but that's about it.

[@darkstalker696]

Canter on everyone is not right and it limits the builds. Especially after the well canter is not required on every unit that you have a specific build for. Everyone else yea it's a good filler skill

[@gameboyn64]

Having run canter on yunaka, canter is objectively terrible on her. Would have had a lot more return on speed+4.

[@mauwus4322]

Leif is so terrible designed, you shouldn't have to jump through hoops and read arcana information (the fire emblem wiki) just to figure out how a main emblem works and how to make best use of them.

[@CyclonSilver]

That's the closest he gets to representing his own game, to be fair. What you just said, that's FE5 in a nutshell.

[@ignisbad9158]

I wonder if it was meant to be Alm, he can wield all of Echoes' weapon types

[@gameboyn64]

It's an fe4 reference. In fe4 leif promotes to master knight which can quite literally use every weapon type in the game except dark magic.

[@candybunny2462]

No

[@be2957]

I can’t believe this dude was groping girls and he’s back on his yt grind

[@gameboyn64]

Who?

[@be2957]

@@gameboyn64 do you lack the capacity for context clues?

[@gameboyn64]

@@be2957 care to elaborate

[@be2957]

@@gameboyn64 in this context who in this video has a KZbin channel bc it’s not leif

[@gameboyn64]

@@be2957 yeah i got that. Care to elaborate about your allegation