In my current Blue Lions maddening playthrough Seteth is one of the very few who doesn't suck complete ass. His swift strike and crest combo is too damn useful!
I'm not sure he's as good. On my SS maddening playthrough, he was decent, but he had a hard time KO-ing even with swift strikes. He's about as good as Catherine when he arrives, without the amazing early game Catherine had. The only thing I can think that he has going for him besides the class and swift strikes is rally defense. His stats/skills weren't enough to be anything special on maddening though. But hey, maybe I'm missing something crucial and didn't utilize him properly.
@@blueblade6174 I've only had one maddening playthrough where I used Seteth, but in that one he had a hard time KO-ing even with swift strikes due to accuracy problems and even strength issues. And against the assassins he died about as fast as anyone else.
Ricepatty Well a lot of the sacred stones cast could easily solo the game. Also I don’t think that’s a far comparison because 3houses is highly against solo runs with gambits and player phase just being much more important than enemy phase in this game. It’s not like in SS where I can give Seth a javelin and I’m fine. 3houses says no to that stray because archers and gambits. Maddening is much more tedious and harder than fe8 hard mode. Sorry if any of that sounded offensive. Just trying to state a point.
Ricepatty lol cool for sure Seth can solo the game the easiest by far no question. I haven’t played 3H normal mode either so I can’t really compare it to SS. But yea I agree with all of your points tbh. I just didn’t want to sound like a jerk in my last comment.
So you’re telling me I can have a flying unit with A swords, broken bases, good growths, plus a really good brave weapon, and all I have to do is just have a couple meals with her and level up one of my best units? Sign me up. Also idk if I’d go as far to call Catherine a complete douchebag. Her supports with Shamir, Leonie, and Lysithea all show at the very least a more caring and compassionate side of her and one that doesn’t brag constantly.
She's not a douchebag, but it's sad to see that despite having a will of her own, she follows Rhea's orders regardless of personal opinion all out of loyalty
floricel_112 I think loyalty to a specific person over their own personal desires can be interesting as a character dynamic (hell look at Dedue and Hubert), and she does have a reason for feeling devoted to Rhea cuz she ya know saved Catherine’s life. However, it does get annoying how many times she mentions Rhea.
@@JoenNickforthewin not exactly the best analogy considering Dedue's and Hubert's worldviews are similar to their master's, meanwhile you can't tell me Catherine didn't feel conflicted when she had to arrest her own best friend for Rhea and when she had to begrudgingly set Fhirdiad on fire. Also, their master/servant dynamic is different, having a high degree of mutual trust and a certain level of friendship, while with Rhea, her relationship to Catherine is strictly professional, and she might as well be any other servant of hers
floricel_112 dude Dedue literally says something along the lines of “my views and opinions do not matter it’s only my master’s” right before the timeskip. That’s why I was saying that at the very least they were decent analogs. Catherine obviously disagrees with Rhea but still feels indebted cuz Rhea saved her life. She puts her own opinions and thoughts aside for someone she feels is superior to her to an extent.
@@JoenNickforthewin yes, Dedue said that, but let's be honest, he wants Duscur to be rebuilt, Dimitri wants Duscur to be rebuilt, Dedue wants equality and the end of prejudice, Dimitri wants equality and the end of prejudice, so at the end of the day they both want the same thing, so it's not like anything is done begrudgingly between the two of them
It's nice to see some Catherine discussion, I've tried to have some in the past, but literally no-one seemed to have any experience with her, and figured "Faculty Bad" Catherine is definitely one of the best units in the game, and I hope this video helps people see that. I would love a W.a.i.f.u. on Manuela or Hanneman, as no-one can agree on if they are good or not
I didn’t even know people didn’t like her. I used every character in at least 1 of my 4 playthroughs. Catherine was kind of a beast, but definitely suffered from low hit rates with her gambits. I just ended up leaving her as a swordmaster. It was hard mode, not maddening. I remember she struggled against Rhea in the final map, but overall she was one of my better units.
"faculty bad" There's something to this. Alois is contender for worst unit in the game imo, bottom 3 for sure. Flayn is a healer without physic. (she gets rescue and can res tank...woo...) Hanneman has about 2 speed and no growth. Catherine and Seteth are good, but otherwise, Manuela is outclassed by Ingrid in everything except base Mag (though she is otherwise basically an only slightly worse ingrid) and cyril...well he needs growths and we all know how relying on growths is a pitfall.
@@ioncavegrandma9256 That's just wrong, Alois gets one two punch which alone makes him more than viable on maddening. He and Leonie tag teamed all physical threats on GD maddening up to and including Nemesis himself. He's easily better than say Ashe and Raphael. Unless you overvalue availability he's not even close to how bad they are. Besides even if you do value availability that much he is always going to be better than Gilbert.
Catherine is amazing, I used her in my first run on three houses and she was a powerhouse. I know it's not her optimal build, but I always give her gauntlets to punch everything to death when I don't feel using thunderbrand.
I love Catherine as a unit. She's got insane growths so it's hard to say she ever falls off like the archetype. Her only problem is that people love flying units in this game, and she doesn't start with a flying rank or any weapon ranks that are primarily used by Pegasus or wyvern. However, she's easy to make into a Pegasus knight if you set her goals to Lance and flying. But swordmaster is a great class for her growths wise, if you don't care about the flying utility. As far as her personality, I think people who dismiss her do so for one of several reasons. On the surface she talks about Rhea a lot. But the majority of her supports show that she has other things to talk about too. Her Lysithea support is a prime example of a different side of the character. Her Shamir support is probably her best paired support. And her Ashe conversation directly connected to their paralogue for great continuation of their issues with Lonato from the story. She's also got a great connection to Blue Lions characters like Dimitri, her support with Gilbert is also good for their backstory, and she has a few nice support with other students and church units. Also please don't use Thunderbrand for soulblade. Lysithea is better with like a steel sword + to use a combat art. Any sword can be used with soulblade and it wasted Thunderbrand as a brave sword.
@@mousefire777 She is, and she has a lot to offer support wise. The variety also makes her well written and better than a few others in the game who just repeat the same few tropes in every support.
Leigh Needleman yeah I feel like people are pretty quick to dismiss characters like her, Leonie and Cyril because of their monastery interactions, which are way more accessible, even though they talk about a lot more in their supports
@@notfabio9858 There's a bunch of characters who get a negative reputation for talking too much about certain people. Catherine and Cyril talk about Rhea, Leonie talks about Jeralt, Hubert talks about Edelgard, Dedue talks about Dimitri and Duscur, etc. I think the majority of these characters are better when you look beyond their monastery dialogue only. Because most of them are great units and characters.
Catherine's love for Rhea comes off as more of a tragic flaw than it does for Cyril. I guess that doesn't make it any less annoying if you find it inherently annoying but Catherine's fixation on Rhea is portrayed as ultimately being her downfall and she either manages to move past it and bond with other people (SS/VW/AM) or she decides that burning a city of civilians to the ground is fine and gets stabbed for it. Also: imagine giving Shamir credit for having a brave bow combat art and not Cyril, who can do the same thing with canto and much earlier in the game
Maybe its because his stats are so bad he doesn't do much unless he gets death blow, which is hard to get already in the early game but its even harder for cyril due to his terrible stats
@@huntersmith240 Took all of one chapter on VW Maddening for me to get both Death Blow and PBV. Early Maddening is so slow already that letting Cyril get some chip in doesn't even really slow you down. PBV is so busted that it doesn't matter how bad his stats are, he was my best boss killer by a huge margin in act one and didn't start losing out to Byleth until the very last few stages. This on a run where his overall stat growth was below expectations...
What do you mean earlier? Doesn't Cyril need to grind up a bit? Don't get me wrong I think Cyril is underrated, but I also think people overrate him a ton.
@@korinoriz Cyril can get point-blank volley during the first tutor section you get him if you have dlc (sauna) and your statue has bow +2. Without dlc by the second he should have it. This is chapter 5 the same chapter we get access to forge give him a steel bow + and he one shots everything, just keep him safe during enemy phase and he'll naturally grow into one of the best units in the game. He already has c rank axe so he can go brigand as soon as he hits level 10 which is one level off from where he starts. I don't know about getting death blow that same chapter without grinding but C+ in bows to get point-blank volley is definitely possible
@@arachnofiend2859 What chapter? Also, even when he gets PBV and death blow, his damage output still sucks. He has 11 base strength in Chapter 6 when autoleveled. The defense of myrmidons in chapter 6 is 11.
I wouldn't say she's underrated, but I never hear anyone talk about her even though her early game is ridiculous in a game where maddening early game is really tough
Yeah I’m the same way, on my first run I was playing on normal so I grinded really heavily and was able to recruit her the first time I talked to her. I then proceeded to use her extensively and even chose to S rank her.
I was honestly shocked at how overlooked Catherine was when I looked at unit discussion online. I took one look at that woman's bases and growths and went "holy crap, we have a monster on our hands". I even went the extra mile and pumped enough Axe/Flight XP into her to get her to Wyvern, not that she needed it since she was utterly insane even beforehand. Also characterwise I get the "lady Rhea" stuff can get annoying but her backstory does give a reason for it and her Shamir supports endeared me to her a lot.
Alois much like Shamir and Cathrine starts in an advance class. For Shamir and Catherine this is really good because they can join pretty early when your party are in intermediate classes and you are facing mostly intermediate enemies. This gives them access to great stat modifiers and increased stat growths and they can start mastering their advance class which is really good for Shamir who gets hunter's volley that and they have high weapon ranks. This gives them a massive advantage and it is why Catherine is so good on VW and AM routes but kind of only okay on SS where she joins late. Alois starts with great weapon ranks, in an advance class with good base stats that will likely surpass those of students you to take on the warrior classline. However he joins at a time where the rest of your roster are in advance classes, already have mastered many class skills and have sufficient weapon ranks and generally you likely amassed a full party. Alois while has good stats doesn't enjoy the early game dominance of Catherine or Shamir. Seteth is technically in a similar boat as Alois but he gets to start in a superior class and gains easy access to swift strike which makes him the only church member that is truly above average post time skip.
Still Alois has some merit anyways, he can get to War Master pretty easily which is one of the better non-mount classes. He starts with rally strength and he is an easy recruit. But if he joined around the same time as Shamir and Catherine he would be a really valued character
I recruited Catherine in all 3 available paths, had her in the team since the moment she joins, carried her to endgame, gave her S+ in swords every time, she NEVER disappointed me. Does that mean I qualify as an elitist now for using strong prepromotes? :D
Even if you don’t like Catherine as a unit or don’t want to use her, you should ALWAYS recruit her anyways. She’s a completely free recruit that you can get as long as you’re above Lvl 15 (iirc) and not on Black Eagles (even then you can get her after Chapter 12 of Silver Snow), and she gives you one of the best weapons in the entire game, Thunderbrand, which any unit can use and is broken on units like Byleth, Dimitri, Felix, Yuri, and even non crest bearers like Ignatz and Ashe.
I've always been saying that Catherine is one of the best units in the game. You could have talked about her SS performance a bit, which is significantly worse due to not getting ranks/class exp early and her bases being less ridiculous for her jointime.
When I saw her Bases I couldn't believe that this was allowed, I had to do a double-take, since it was Hard Mode I just didn't use her in any of the actual chapter missions for a good while and when I did she could still kick all kinds of ass despite her basically using her base stats. She's such a good unit, by the Timeskip my Falcon Knight Catherine just couldn't be doubled and one rounded basically everything that wasn't a Fortress Knight. Haven't tried her out on Maddening so we'll have to see how she shapes up since the stat creep goes so high.
she was one of my best units in my blue lions maddening run. so much so that i ended up S supporting her because i liked her so much. she completely eclipsed ingrid as a falco knight. the only annoying part about using her was that i had to backtrack to get death blow and darting blow.
I'd actually love if you could do a video on Fe7 Heath, as me and my friend recently got into a conversation about just how good he is and neither of us were able to come to an agreement about what verdict to give him, ultimately.
Heath is considered the best flyer in FE7 for LTCs as he gains hard mode bonuses unlike the pegasus sisters and can usually double after promotion thanks to the slow enemies in FE7. Also unlike the pegasus sisters he has a lot of strength making his one rounding of enemies quite consistens, along with having the usuall utility a flyer has. Now he's not as good as most wyvern riders in FE, but he will still be very useful.even with minimal investement. TL;DR he's very good
Imagine how cool she would be if she could reclass to grappler to have her crest proc on FIF for a lot of potential extra damage on a combat art that is already one of the strongest in the game. Genderlocking sucks.
@@evansmith2832 Yep. Same thing would happen if Dimi's Crest procced on Atrocity. Sh*t just blows up And you could give Cath Areadbhar and a crest item
@@AkameGaKillfan777 What is it again? Universal Physical Breaker skill? I know he also comes with Keen Intuition for 30 Avo on enemy phase, so that's also really good.
Speaking of Catherine being underrated because she's not a student, it's kinda crazy how much people conflate character opinions with unit analysis when it comes to Three Houses. People will say that Cyril is a bad unit because because he says "Lady Rhea" a lot while ignoring the fact that he gets a brave combat art before anyone else, allowing him to one-round enemies at a time where everyone not named Catherine is struggling to do so. People will say that Dorothea is the best dancer in the game because it fits with her backstory without considering that her actual skillset doesn't really mesh with the dancer class (granted, the optimization gap for dancers is pretty slim). Another thing I've seen is conflating class strength with unit strength, such as people saying "Ingrid is good" when what they seem to mean is "fliers are good." I guess I can't blame anyone, Three Houses is a pretty complex game so it's easy to get confused and the high customizability will make the personal experience factor greater than in other games. At the same time, it's strange to see so much misinformation surrounding such a modern game.
Thenagen I think you’re the one conflating statements here. Yes, people complain about Cyril’s character because of his somewhat extreme devotion to Rhea. Yes, some people prefer to make Dorothea their dancer because it’s "canon" or because they like her PTS outfit or whatever. However, when discussing viability, Cyril’s bases ( especially his Silver Snow bases ) and his auto-levels in the Commoner class are brought up, not his monastery dialogue or support conversations. When people declare that Dorothea is the best dancer, they back up that claim by using Meteor as an argument, not her backstory or her looks. Sure, they are/might be overlooking other aspects of these units ( Point-Blank Volley, Vengeance, Death Blow, Dorothea’s riding bane, etc. ) and end up being wrong, but claiming that the points made by those you disagree with you are purely superficial is dishonest.
Thenagen Although I do agree, Cyril isn't a bad unit (except on SS) He is not one rounding with point blank volley in the early game lol. He joins with like 10 strength and PBV doesn't add that much Mt to the attack. A lvl 10 Byleth (which is the level requirement to recruit Cyril) will be pushing close to 20 strength already. Dimitri/Edelgard would be right next to or behind that. In the Byleths case, get them some training/iron gauntlets and they will start one rounding the steel bow archers as early as ch. 4/5. Whoever the most optimal "dancer" really means shit to me since they all do the same thing anyways, but people do like Dorothea as one because she can provide linked support with Meteor while dancing because dancers can equip magic in this game. Plus she was a singer in her backstory not a dancer Ingrid is good for a multitude of reasons, Flying is super OP but Ingrid synchronizes with it well. She has great boons that complement the Pegasus knight line and a balanced growth spread that includes having one of the highest growths with one of the most important stats, charm. This combined with her perf skill makes her a very reliable unit to hit gambits and her good charm growth means she's avoiding them too. Which is super important for a fast alert stance + dodge tank. I'd argue she's the most evasive unit in the entire game, Flying boon for easy access to AS+ , tied for fastest speed growth in the game (if you don't count DLC Yuri with 5% more) and an amazing charm growth allowing her to not get stumped by gambits. She also has access to the Luin really early and the combat art that only she can use with it. So no, it isn't just flying. It's her also
@@DoTtA1123 >Whoever the most optimal "dancer" really means shit to me since they all do the same thing anyways, but people do like Dorothea as one because she can provide linked support with Meteor while dancing because dancers can equip magic in this game. Plus she was a singer in her backstory not a dancer Yeah, this on Dorothea. The best dancers for me are ones that provide passive support along with their dancing and don't require any effort to raise their charisma. Bonus points if I'm not losing anything I consider extremely helpful that forces a tradeoff between dancing and attacking. Dorothea does feel like the best Black Eagle dancer for those reasons.
@@chucrutedip6034 Exactly. The op is using alot of strawmans. Cyril is bad not because of his nonstop Lady Rhea stuff, but because his bases are trash, his growths with aptitude are still some of the lowest in the the game. Having a brave combat art doesn't change the fact that he's not good, nor worth the investment over units. Dorothea is regarded as one of the best dancers not because she has her unique pts outfit or it's canon. Thanks to her high base charm, plus the dance lesson she is guaranteed to win the dance competition at level 1. This alone allows you to optimize and give more exp to your other units. Her other benefits are combining meteor with all her support chains to help boost link attacks and gambits. Add in physic to allow her to heal on the side and you get a great unit that has amazing support and utility capabilities that can also do decent damage when needed. All this without taking away exp from you other units. Ingrid is actually a really good unit. Sure she isn't the best and yes flying is ridiculously strong. What makes her good is she perfectly fits the mold. She has amazing speed and good charm allowing her to be an extremely good dodge tank with easy access to alert stance. She is really good with offensive gambits, and she also get access to Luin and it's exclusive combat art. Yes flying is great, but that isn't the sole reason Ingrid is good.
the whole 'you can be a dancer without investment' is a kinda weird argument. you get an inherent +5 charm just for trying to be a Dancer in the first place, and *then* you compete. the only people not hitting the dainty 13 charm requirement by default are the very few people with hideously low charm or that are unleveled altogether. in that case, why make a complete nothing character a Dancer, when you can make any more decent unit that happened to fall off and you're not using in your party as much anymore into a Dancer instead. there is no inherent benefit to a Dancer that's incredibly weak, there is a little harm though as they'd be more fragile with less utility overall. also i get the idea of making Dorothea your Dancer but also she can be a very strong unit offensively. sure, if she falls off or you're not using her in your party regardless it makes sense that she'd become your Dancer, but if you want her to keep being a strong offensive unit(especially capable of a lot with Black Tomefaire, Usesx2 and Meteor combo in a more standard Warlock class), then Dancer is only going to hinder her and hinder you by extension by not letting her use her strengths.
I'm actually kinda glad I overlooked Catherine in my first playthroughs because I really needed her on my Maddening playthrough and I try to avoid recuiting units multiple times. She's definitely someone you want to recuit ASAP to help with the hardest part of maddening.... the very beginning.
Finally, someone recognizing her instead of clapping at Felix who joins with worse stats and worse ranks when off main house and is generally much more of an hassle to recruit than Catherine who joins for free.
Felix isn't bad tho as he fills a different niche with his Gauntlet affinity and unlike Catherine actually has access to Warmaster (really gauntlet classes in general but I'm just referring to all of them as Warmaster), and is one of if not the best Warmaster in the game. Unlike the other characters the game wants you to make a WM (Raphael and Caspar) Felix has similar strength, a crest that increases damage that procs all the time, and an actual speed stat which leads him to easily be able to quad/one round a couple of classes on maddening especially with killer knuckles. I'm not saying Felix is better than Catherine (because he's not since Catherine is better and easily available for the hardest parts of the game) just that they fill different roles and Felix will outclass Catherine in part 2 as the video says. To quote Mekkah himself "They're both good so just use both". Edit: forgot to mention his relic which gives him a passive Pavise and Agis and since gauntlets weight almost nothing he suffers next to no speed loss so he's also a reliable enemy phase unit especially in endgame when he gets QR.
@@josephpanno6816 Since you've made somewhat of a constructive argument, let me elaborate a bit. I've never said both were identical in term of playstyle, or that one is straight up better than the other. I'm just thankful to Mekkah for pointing her out major strengths, because she's mostly been considered and portrayed, especially by the more casual side of the community, as a lackluster swordmaster (or mortal savant lol) completely overshadowed by Felix, while there's so much more to her. Finally Felix has indeed the gauntlet niche, which is definitely his best option off main house, as well as some others gimmicks. Though grappler is usually preferred over warmaster, especially on maddening mode because fierce iron fist is such a great combat art.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Effie from conquest. Good availability, great bases and growths and a nice personal skill. Bad movement on armours is mostly mitigated through pair up shenanigans so would be interesting to her your opinion on her.
I'd say shes overrated. Her base class and speed just hold her back so much and she doesnt really contribute any more than genuine early join high tiers like Silas or Niles WITH the extra investment needed to get out of Armor ASAP. That's not to say she isnt workable or doesnt have her uses, especially with an early promo to GK, but I'd prefer someone like Laslow, Odin, or Gunter for a Conquest Waifu of units that are genuinely overlooked or misunderstood by most players.
@@LordWallace As someone who has experience with Conquest efficency runs Laslow, Ghunter and Odin aren't misunderstood, they're just not very good. Ghunter is a Jagen that leaves for a lot of chapters where he would be useful and joins again when even his boosted bases aren't that impressive anymore. He can reclass to wyvern lord and is a very good Corrin pair up bot, but not much else. Laslow comes in an akward time, he joins at the beginning of the only turn limit chapter in CQ, he also cannot be toniced up in his joining chapter so he's mostly gonna be a pair up bot and a rally bot. His bases also aren't very impressive and his growths don't make up for it. Some people say that if you reclass him to a ninja that he's comparable to Kaze and ninja Shura, but that's mostly incorrect as Laslow's combat at base doesn't hold a candle to them. He's pretty much the same thing through the entire game, Xander pair up bot and rally bot. Odin is an interesting case, he also comes mid chapter so you can't tonic him up, but it's more fogivable during the earlygame. Neither his bases or growths are very impressiva and tomes aren't as amazing as they are in most game, but he can be a good Nosferatu tank on the left side of the map. He can also provide nice utility with heartseeker and having somewhat reliable 1-2 range. His personal skill is a meme, but it's not hard to get, just forge every weapon to have a bunch of letters. Don't go for samurai Odin, it's a meme. Overall he's far from terrible, but nothing special either. There's really little reason to use him after Leo joins unless you really wanna get Ophelia.
@@LordWallace Anyway overall I just don't see Odin, Ghunter and Laslow being very interesting to talk about, not to mention how Mekkah dislikes talking about Fates.
you can still recruit and use her early on even if she doesn't stay or be relevant lategame. as mekkah says often, the pitfall is thinking units are 'stealing exp' when they're really just making earlier hard ass chapters more doable for you until your army starts holding its own by itself.
@@thesuperthingymabob8209 Yup. Catherine and Cyril are unique in BE in that you cannot recruit them at all. Instead, they will auto-join in Chapter 12 should you choose to do SS.
I would like to see a WAIFU on Cyril. I find him an interesting unit gameplay wise, compared to other Aptitude characters (Donnel, Mozu) his return on investment is actually really good do to great strengths(lances, axes, bows, flying) and combat arts (vengeance, point-blank volley) the latter of these comes very early on (C+ in bows and he starts somewhere mid C in that) so he isn't completely helpless early on. That is all good and well but he also has bad bases and awful enemy phase for a while and requires a decent amount of tutoring to get the most out of him. This is all my personal experience from hard mode so I don't really know how he stacks up in maddening, but I still think the distinction between his highs and lows would make for an interesting analysis.
Mauwus running him on maddening and he’s my second best unit as a wyvern knight right now, his strength got screwed by rng but the base from the class plus a single energy drop and his guaranteed double attack art makes him one round most things
I mean you literally just described why people tend to think Trainee units aren't good. His start is really rough, and why struggle with that when other units can basically do the same thing with less tedium. Hard isn't that Hard honestly. The thing about Three Houses is there's so many factors that vary between people more so than previous games, so it's very hard to say who's good.
Rogue Slushy I'd argue a trained Cyril offers more than a trained Donnel or Mozu can do to flying and point-blank volley atleast gives him good player face from the start unlike those two. But that's what makes cyril so interesting as a unit to me.
I've used him a couple times on maddening. He has very easy access to pretty much everything you want on a unit in maddening (death blow, hit20, wyvern, brave combat art) so I found him very useful. His start wasnt as bad as some other trainee units either because he gets point blank volley so quick, like you said
In my experience Cyril is probably the best trainee unit of the three because while he doesn't have the busted growths of donnel, he also doesn't struggle nearly as much when he joins. His stats are below par when he joins usually but he can still kills things pretty easily with a smash. And a C+ brave combat art? This is super easy to get after like one battle and dedicated bow tutoring. And once he gets his wyvern (which is his most common class so I'll use that for this example), even if the guy is still squishy he can gtfo of there with stupid 3h canto. I will say this is from my hard experience though, don't have the patient to try out maddening so maybe he's worse there.
10:50 the durability costs for Raging Storm, Atrocity and Fallen Star are only 3, if the unit has a major crest. As there is no playable character in the main game with a major crest of Seiros, Blaiddyd or Riegan nobody will use a durability cost of 3. The cost is 4 for minor crests wielders ergo the respective Lord and 5 for NG+ crest Item uses
Was he one of the unique capture units like Rallyman Lite (Haitaka from Conquest ch. 9)? Gonna admit I never really bothered with them, my Orochi and Niles haven't exactly been stellar in my playthroughs.
He is the capturable boss of Forrest’s paralogue (Leo’s kid). The dude is a Berserker with insane bases and really solid growths. Wait until he’s a Berserker to capture him to get that sweet S rank in axes (I’m talking about Lunatic difficulty here). His other notable assetS are the skills he comes with. Not Good Fortune though, that you can remove, but he also comes with Certain Blow and Pavise. Combined with access to the typical Fighter/Berserker skills, and you have a monster of a unit that can both kill enemies extremely reliably and can take more punishment than you might think. He’s one of the best choices for a Berserker on both Conquest and Revelation, and just one of the more powerful units to use in general.
I wish I could've used catherine and seteth in my maddening run but unfortunately I went crimson flower because it was the only route I hadn't gone yet
If you dip into bow C with broken weapon or dodge tank cheese training, you can really easily get Catherine Hit+20, which basically solves her only damage output problem.
I feel like Catherine is one of the units who suffers the most in the transition from Hard to Maddening. HM Catherine is less vital in part 1 but she's one of the least investment heavy units since her stats are already fantastic as is so she only needs to switch to a better class (i.e flier) to stay relevant MM Catherine helps a ton for a few maps after she joins but once part 2 rolls around she loses her steam. No useful combat arts or magic spells to keep her relevant like other units and she also doesn't really have any other niches like having a high authority base/strength, rallies or easy sniper access for PBV. Catherine's still a lot better than some of the dead weight students like Lorenz, Caspar and Ashe but she's very replaceable.
Honestly just making any unit into a flier without the proper skill build is just senseless grinding that is somehow "acceptable". I even experimented with Falcon Knight Catherine and Shamir and sure it was a fun experience, but that type of stuff make your playthroughs last way longer than it needs to be. Plus none of the flying classes that aren't locked to Claude don't even have Swordfaire and Bowfaire. If you play a mode where you don't get double by everything, Catherine can keep up just as a Swordmaster. Also you can't call characters like Ashe deadweight when he have easy access to death blow and practically the same growth rates as other canon snipers, but I guess everybody gives Bernie a free pass from having a panic attack every second in part 1.
@@travellsylvester Reaching the required ranks to be able to take the exams for classes isn't that high and as Mekkah said, save scumming them is highly recommended. You could say "uh save scum bad" but not doing it is just tedious. Staying in swordmaster is just that detrimental for Catherine when everyone else is running around as high mobility cavs/fliers or long range snipers. I don't really want to get into Ashe/Bernadetta/Ignatz arguments because I kinda value my time even during this quarantine thing so I'll just leave a link to Rengor's 0% growths SS run and a tier list thread discussing these units. th-cam.com/play/PLgXdZD-xbNmkK6L7AOqoMnIO2D9-BNrPn.html old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/eyyxbo/fe16_three_houses_tier_list_round_7_bernadetta/fgk5bpx/ (Most informative post I found in this thread but the others are definitely worth looking into as well)
@@Docaccino If you want to make everybody into a flier, knock yourself out; but honestly for me tho, having my whole team being the same class is boring and also I'm a big fan of realizing a unit's potential within their skill build. Now we could go both back and forth about this, but this quarantine is killing me too; so I will humbly accept your request and thank you for giving me something good to read.
In hard mode she's an arguably superfluous unit in a mode full of already good units relative to enemy stats. Anyone with just class bases can function well in hard. MM catherine is legitmately your strongest unit for a real stretch of time and arguably your most important unit at a time where the game is relatively more difficult (before most of your units have access to all skills and class masteries that make them good), especially for the notorious ch 5. That alone can be argued to be more unique value than anything she contributes in hard. Realistically though if you've been using catherine as if she were one of your more important units then it's not a stretch that she's also one of your more leveled units naturally (without any favoritism) either and her stats will always be above most of your other units' so it's really not a hindrance to use her as a flying statstick (if other people are already using brave arts, that just leaves more brave weapons for the people wihtout them anyways including thunderbrand). Contrast this to units with brave arts like Ferdinand/Sylvain who, while may have a higher ceiling, are strictly worse before having access to Swfit Strikes (same can be said for archers before hunter's volley). I'd argue the difference between Catherine and said units before their combat art is much, much larger than the difference post art when both are in their mid advanced to master classes and that large early to mid game gap matter a lot more in maddening when most units are struggling to survive more than 2 rounds of combat/not one rounding themselves. Her "dropoff" is nowhere near as pronounced as someone along the lines of fe6 Marcus or fe10 Sothe (who, despite such dropoffs, are still rated among the best units in their respective games) as pretty much besides the 5 innate brave art users and 3 lords there's no exactly strong argument for anyone else being better as a combat unit than her in part 2.
I completely ignored her on my first run (blue lions) because i was sure she would leave at some point for being that good. Couldnt believe I could just have this. On my second run im black eagles so no luck there. Gonna use her on golden deer to get back all that lost time.
On Silver Snow I made Catherine into an Assassin with a Brave Bow, which proved to be quite hilarious when in the final mission she could get four attacks of SIXTY damage with the bow given her ridiculous offensive stats. Basically, even IF one attack missed she could still kill almost anything with the other three. As a character, I really like her. She's kind of an asshole at times, but I do like how they kind of explore the other side of combat-related trauma with her (i.e. not SURVIVING traumatic battles but what you had to DO to be victorious). Her supports with characters like Caspar emphasize that, and I find it rather tragic how she basically doesn't think she DESERVES an ending that's not bleeding out on a battlefield.
I remember that in my first playthrough in TH (Sliver snow) I used her for one reason, which was to be bait for Death Knight and other high damage dealers
Used Catherine in my maddening classic NG SS run and she was godlike from getting her until the final boss. I got her +20 hit, death blow, darting Blow, Swordfaire and Sword Prowess. I was able to double pretty much everything on player phase.
I do actually think that Catherines (and Felix's) personal skills are pitfalls. Apart from the super early game, +5 damage or -5 damage taken is not as good as a healthy mix of stats and hit/avo and the utility of a gambit. Also, having them fight without a batallion means you'll have to put some real work into raising their authority, or never equip gambits on them at all, which can come back to bite you when the rest of your team is running around with +6 str def and res from their shiny B and A rank batallions.
I don't think you should use them without batallions for long but I loved having Fighting Spirit in Ch5. The authority gain from battle alone isn't going to get you to higher ranks, you still need quite some tutoring, so that's what really makes the difference.
I never went out of my way to use Catherine because I always had a student sword user and swords aren't the best weapon type in the world for combat. Though I never knew you could technically get her by level 9 which would make some of those early chapters way less bothersome. I hope she doesn't fall off as hard as Shamir does for me
Catherine can falconknight dodgetank in maddening. Having someone that’s mobile and capable of taking aggro is a great boon even if her offense falls of. It kept ingrid useful on my blue lions maddening run despite her dealing single digit damage. It’s not amazing but it’s something
I just found your channel and I've gotta say, mad respect for your mention on Seth he is one if my favorite characters in fire emblem both in personality and viability. Serious he is so useful for so much of sacred stones its ridiculous.
Can you do an episode for Tanith ? I wonder what you think of her really unique skill in PoR, and also I think she's a super cool unit that nobody really talks about (except Ghast)
You say Catherine doesn't have a good gimmick but seeing as how I beat golden deer maddening by relying mostly on incredibly high crit rates, that foudroyant strike she has (which is limited unlike the weapon itself) is ok in my book.
I feel like you should do a waifu on dedue. The stigma around this guy is awful. They think he is awful because he naturally enters armor classes. In reality he is a great unit held down by people saying the only way to play is wyverns for everyone.
Dedue makes for a fantastic Shield Assist which is the best type in the game and is pretty much how you turn Dimitri's almost perfect combo into an actual unkillable one.
Dedue has some uses in the earlygame with easy smite access and one-two punch but he really drops off in terms of combat after a while. He's also in the route with the lowest need for combat units since Dimitri exists.
I would REALLY like to see you do a WAIFU vid on Ingrid. And Cyril for that matter. AND Ignatz. All underrated units in one way or another. You really should do more of these, as you've only done a few of them for Three Houses & that's simply not enough. This series is just too good to stop there!
I used catherine for my entire golden deer maddening run. she fell off a bit offensively in part 2 but she somehow managed to roll really well for resistance.
I would say, pound for pound, Catherine is probably the best overall fighter through the entire game, from early-to endgame. Her absurd skills in offenses absolutely cream all but the most stat blessed/stat boosted of units before this point, and at her earliest recruit time, chapter 4, gives her bases as a level 7 unit that put her well and above to be the most important unit in the Golden Deer and Blue Lion runs. Instant Swordfaire, tons of damage...she basically just runs away with the show until time skip. I don't think she's nearly as good at timeskip then the potential of a Dodge tank Dimitri/Dodge tank Ferdinand, but she can still hurt things quite a bit.
Catherine's personal does make it safer for her to run Battalion Vantage after C Authority since she won't get punished as hard when the battalion gets knocked out, but much like Felix, just about any battalion of at least C rank will offer better stats than her personal ability alongside access to a gambit.
Do Dedue! Give him all the Defense items! Make him a Wyvern Rider by Remire Village! \o/ Watch as he becomes invulnerable to all things physical, even on Maddening! *cackles* Yes, that includes the damage aside from Venom Strike from Snipers *cackles again* Catherine was one of my go to units in my first two playthroughs. I made her into a Mortal Savant, cause banes don't scare me! That said, I haven't made use of her in a Maddening playthrough, as my two Maddening playthroughs were on Crimson Flower(NG+) and Azure Moon(nonplussed). She didn't see use in Azure Moon, outside of being an offensive Adjutant, because I already had a team in mind that I was committed to, that did not generally include her. That said, I tend to take 1 type of each Adjutant, cause I'm touched in the head like that. Currently I'm doing a casual Hard Mode(NG+) run of Silver Snow, and I've taken her Thunderbrand and given it to my absurdly overpowered Byleth. With an S+ in Swords and Warmaster, he has about 55~85% crit against pretty much everything with x4 hits with the Thunderbrand. :D
WAIFU ideas: Knoll from FE8? The summons are really weird and interesting. Rath from FE7? He's kinda a cool and weird mount to have in certain maps. Raquesis from FE4? I saw from Mangs's Let's Play that you think she's pretty good but on my only playthrough of FE4 I only ever used her as a healer.
This game doesn't give you jeralt as a jagen Mekah: I'll find my own. Great Vid. One thing i'll add that make her a lot less good in post time skip is that she doesn't have as much support partner compared to your in-house unit so her hit rates will be shaky. Especially for flying class in Azure moon, their battalions option mostly sucks.
Falconknight Catherine was always a joy to use in my playthroughs. She has so much strength that shes one of the few potential fliers that wont miss the extra bit of strength from Wyvern much and instead will enjoy not having to train an entire extra weapon rank or A flying for Lord (as opposed to B+ for Falco, which means a B or even C+ rank can reasonably get you there). That opens up tutor time to get to a better authority rank sooner for better battalion bonuses/gambits or B brawl for Healing Focus, or even S+ swords. Assassin Catherine is also something I'm a fan of if committing to the sword infantry route. Its basically better than Swordmaster in every respect, from combat to mobility, and Catherine gets it super quick compared to Falconknight. She even makes good use of the bow rank too given that it's essentially a 1-2 range option for her after Close Counter. I've also tried War Cleric when CS came out but it was kind of a meme on Maddening. War Cleric stats just dont hold up and she isnt a good healer either. Also I was unaware until now that people didnt reset after failed exams to get their seals back. Call me an optimization freak but I thought that was the obvious thing to do so you could hail mary all the 30-40%s you want.
As someone who loves dodge tank builds, catherine is perfect for it since she joins relatively early so training up her flying for alert stance isn't too much of a struggle and her fantastic str, speed, and decent dex + her proficiency in one of the most accurate weapon types makes her a great enemy phase unit. Unfortunately, she says "All for lady rhea" 90% of the time after defeating an enemy and so she goes to the bench. 7/10 use petra instead, she had more speed than Catherine at the same level every time I used her and Petra could double and kill enemy fliers on maddening :P (Warning: results will vary and I just love petra a lot ok) For the next WAIFU, I want to suggest my mvp of maddening, Ignatz. He's earned his monikers of Critnatz and Godnatz in all 4 of my maddening playthroughs after I ignored him in my initial Hard mode GD playthrough and with his dex, lethality became much less of a meme against maddening's monstrous damage sponges.
I liked Cath, but I found myself relying far far more on Felix - because in my last Plays he was a God among Men.. I just gave him her Thunderbrand and laughed as he sliaghtert EVERYTHING xD
Big shoutouts to Hoshi for his masterful editing! You can sub to him here! th-cam.com/users/HoshiinoKaabii
Let me know who to feature next down below!
Do a WAIFU on Saias next!
Thank you Hoshi Hero
Lilina
Do a WAIFU on Shamir next.
Do Marianne next pls
Mekkah’s into MLG editing? As they say, you learn something new every day.
He’s expressed nostalgia for the period in a bunch of playthroughs with Mangs. He’s made references to Sacred Stoners by Obsidian Wasp before.
It was a very...Interesting Manuever.
Interesting Maneuver Obsidian Wasp
Mekkah has an editor
Sorkoh I’m well aware. I’m referring to his liking of the edits themselves.
Honestly, could you do a Seteth WAIFU next? I think he might be even more underappreciated then Catherine.
In my current Blue Lions maddening playthrough Seteth is one of the very few who doesn't suck complete ass. His swift strike and crest combo is too damn useful!
I'm not sure he's as good. On my SS maddening playthrough, he was decent, but he had a hard time KO-ing even with swift strikes. He's about as good as Catherine when he arrives, without the amazing early game Catherine had. The only thing I can think that he has going for him besides the class and swift strikes is rally defense. His stats/skills weren't enough to be anything special on maddening though.
But hey, maybe I'm missing something crucial and didn't utilize him properly.
What do you mean?
@@mousefire777 if he's at least surviving a round of combat or killing an enemy in one round then he's above average in maddening standards.
@@blueblade6174 I've only had one maddening playthrough where I used Seteth, but in that one he had a hard time KO-ing even with swift strikes due to accuracy problems and even strength issues. And against the assassins he died about as fast as anyone else.
Catherine is like Seth. Starts good and stays good.
The difference is Seth gets a horse and joins you chapter 1.
@@zigludosama catherine can theoretically get a horse
@@zigludosama but otherwise yeah
Ricepatty Well a lot of the sacred stones cast could easily solo the game. Also I don’t think that’s a far comparison because 3houses is highly against solo runs with gambits and player phase just being much more important than enemy phase in this game. It’s not like in SS where I can give Seth a javelin and I’m fine. 3houses says no to that stray because archers and gambits. Maddening is much more tedious and harder than fe8 hard mode. Sorry if any of that sounded offensive. Just trying to state a point.
Ricepatty lol cool for sure Seth can solo the game the easiest by far no question. I haven’t played 3H normal mode either so I can’t really compare it to SS. But yea I agree with all of your points tbh. I just didn’t want to sound like a jerk in my last comment.
So you’re telling me I can have a flying unit with A swords, broken bases, good growths, plus a really good brave weapon, and all I have to do is just have a couple meals with her and level up one of my best units? Sign me up.
Also idk if I’d go as far to call Catherine a complete douchebag. Her supports with Shamir, Leonie, and Lysithea all show at the very least a more caring and compassionate side of her and one that doesn’t brag constantly.
She's not a douchebag, but it's sad to see that despite having a will of her own, she follows Rhea's orders regardless of personal opinion all out of loyalty
floricel_112 I think loyalty to a specific person over their own personal desires can be interesting as a character dynamic (hell look at Dedue and Hubert), and she does have a reason for feeling devoted to Rhea cuz she ya know saved Catherine’s life. However, it does get annoying how many times she mentions Rhea.
@@JoenNickforthewin not exactly the best analogy considering Dedue's and Hubert's worldviews are similar to their master's, meanwhile you can't tell me Catherine didn't feel conflicted when she had to arrest her own best friend for Rhea and when she had to begrudgingly set Fhirdiad on fire. Also, their master/servant dynamic is different, having a high degree of mutual trust and a certain level of friendship, while with Rhea, her relationship to Catherine is strictly professional, and she might as well be any other servant of hers
floricel_112 dude Dedue literally says something along the lines of “my views and opinions do not matter it’s only my master’s” right before the timeskip. That’s why I was saying that at the very least they were decent analogs. Catherine obviously disagrees with Rhea but still feels indebted cuz Rhea saved her life. She puts her own opinions and thoughts aside for someone she feels is superior to her to an extent.
@@JoenNickforthewin yes, Dedue said that, but let's be honest, he wants Duscur to be rebuilt, Dimitri wants Duscur to be rebuilt, Dedue wants equality and the end of prejudice, Dimitri wants equality and the end of prejudice, so at the end of the day they both want the same thing, so it's not like anything is done begrudgingly between the two of them
Obsidian Wasp called. He wants his intro back.
He wants his everything back with that intro lol
He's dead, why would he want that back?
Well, somebody's gotta do it 🤣
Wow, this guy loves shitposting on Mekkah's vids. Do they know each other or something?
@@AkameGaKillfan777 I think he might be subscribed to him
It's nice to see some Catherine discussion, I've tried to have some in the past, but literally no-one seemed to have any experience with her, and figured "Faculty Bad"
Catherine is definitely one of the best units in the game, and I hope this video helps people see that.
I would love a W.a.i.f.u. on Manuela or Hanneman, as no-one can agree on if they are good or not
Magical☆Sniper Hanneman is no joke absolutely busted and everyone should experience it at least once in their life.
I didn’t even know people didn’t like her. I used every character in at least 1 of my 4 playthroughs. Catherine was kind of a beast, but definitely suffered from low hit rates with her gambits. I just ended up leaving her as a swordmaster. It was hard mode, not maddening. I remember she struggled against Rhea in the final map, but overall she was one of my better units.
"faculty bad"
There's something to this. Alois is contender for worst unit in the game imo, bottom 3 for sure. Flayn is a healer without physic. (she gets rescue and can res tank...woo...) Hanneman has about 2 speed and no growth. Catherine and Seteth are good, but otherwise, Manuela is outclassed by Ingrid in everything except base Mag (though she is otherwise basically an only slightly worse ingrid) and cyril...well he needs growths and we all know how relying on growths is a pitfall.
@@ioncavegrandma9256 That's just wrong, Alois gets one two punch which alone makes him more than viable on maddening. He and Leonie tag teamed all physical threats on GD maddening up to and including Nemesis himself. He's easily better than say Ashe and Raphael. Unless you overvalue availability he's not even close to how bad they are. Besides even if you do value availability that much he is always going to be better than Gilbert.
Catherine is amazing, I used her in my first run on three houses and she was a powerhouse.
I know it's not her optimal build, but I always give her gauntlets to punch everything to death when I don't feel using thunderbrand.
I love Catherine as a unit. She's got insane growths so it's hard to say she ever falls off like the archetype. Her only problem is that people love flying units in this game, and she doesn't start with a flying rank or any weapon ranks that are primarily used by Pegasus or wyvern. However, she's easy to make into a Pegasus knight if you set her goals to Lance and flying. But swordmaster is a great class for her growths wise, if you don't care about the flying utility.
As far as her personality, I think people who dismiss her do so for one of several reasons. On the surface she talks about Rhea a lot. But the majority of her supports show that she has other things to talk about too. Her Lysithea support is a prime example of a different side of the character. Her Shamir support is probably her best paired support. And her Ashe conversation directly connected to their paralogue for great continuation of their issues with Lonato from the story. She's also got a great connection to Blue Lions characters like Dimitri, her support with Gilbert is also good for their backstory, and she has a few nice support with other students and church units.
Also please don't use Thunderbrand for soulblade. Lysithea is better with like a steel sword + to use a combat art. Any sword can be used with soulblade and it wasted Thunderbrand as a brave sword.
Agreed on the personality side. I like the way her supports were written, she's a really fun character
@@mousefire777
She is, and she has a lot to offer support wise. The variety also makes her well written and better than a few others in the game who just repeat the same few tropes in every support.
A Silver Sword+ has the same Mt.
Leigh Needleman yeah I feel like people are pretty quick to dismiss characters like her, Leonie and Cyril because of their monastery interactions, which are way more accessible, even though they talk about a lot more in their supports
@@notfabio9858
There's a bunch of characters who get a negative reputation for talking too much about certain people. Catherine and Cyril talk about Rhea, Leonie talks about Jeralt, Hubert talks about Edelgard, Dedue talks about Dimitri and Duscur, etc. I think the majority of these characters are better when you look beyond their monastery dialogue only. Because most of them are great units and characters.
Prepromote so she's bad. Use Swordmaster Lysithea instead.
Nah, go Mortal Savant Lysithea for the negative speed growth.
I'm going swordmaster with a Levin Sword for my CF run.
"[Insert Character] is so good just buy skills and grind!"
Fuck, your name is Oof, so I can't think of anything else to say.
She's only good because of her prepromotion. If she was a soldier she'd be bad
Wow, that intro was definitely something lmao. That brings me back, I haven't seen MLG edits in a long time.
Catherine and Shamir are staples of my main squad every time I playthrough Three Houses.
What do you do about Catherine whenever you do CF? I guess you still have Shamir.
Catherine's love for Rhea comes off as more of a tragic flaw than it does for Cyril. I guess that doesn't make it any less annoying if you find it inherently annoying but Catherine's fixation on Rhea is portrayed as ultimately being her downfall and she either manages to move past it and bond with other people (SS/VW/AM) or she decides that burning a city of civilians to the ground is fine and gets stabbed for it.
Also: imagine giving Shamir credit for having a brave bow combat art and not Cyril, who can do the same thing with canto and much earlier in the game
Maybe its because his stats are so bad he doesn't do much unless he gets death blow, which is hard to get already in the early game but its even harder for cyril due to his terrible stats
@@huntersmith240 Took all of one chapter on VW Maddening for me to get both Death Blow and PBV. Early Maddening is so slow already that letting Cyril get some chip in doesn't even really slow you down. PBV is so busted that it doesn't matter how bad his stats are, he was my best boss killer by a huge margin in act one and didn't start losing out to Byleth until the very last few stages. This on a run where his overall stat growth was below expectations...
What do you mean earlier? Doesn't Cyril need to grind up a bit? Don't get me wrong I think Cyril is underrated, but I also think people overrate him a ton.
@@korinoriz Cyril can get point-blank volley during the first tutor section you get him if you have dlc (sauna) and your statue has bow +2. Without dlc by the second he should have it. This is chapter 5 the same chapter we get access to forge give him a steel bow + and he one shots everything, just keep him safe during enemy phase and he'll naturally grow into one of the best units in the game. He already has c rank axe so he can go brigand as soon as he hits level 10 which is one level off from where he starts. I don't know about getting death blow that same chapter without grinding but C+ in bows to get point-blank volley is definitely possible
@@arachnofiend2859 What chapter? Also, even when he gets PBV and death blow, his damage output still sucks. He has 11 base strength in Chapter 6 when autoleveled. The defense of myrmidons in chapter 6 is 11.
Is Catherine underrated? I always thought she was really good.
I wouldn't say she's underrated, but I never hear anyone talk about her even though her early game is ridiculous in a game where maddening early game is really tough
@@mousefire777 Yes but the point of the video is because a unit is overrated or underrated.
@@ZER0lPT I mean, I think people would just default Catherine to just being average or below average considering no-one talks about her
Not underrated, definitely overlooked
@@ZER0lPT No it isn't. The name of the series is We Analyze Interesting Fire Emblem Units. Nothing about over or underrating there.
You need this girl in Silver Snow! She’s basically your Edelgard replacement.
I just kinda accidentally recruited Catherine in my Golden Deer run and she really did carry my early game.
Yeah I’m the same way, on my first run I was playing on normal so I grinded really heavily and was able to recruit her the first time I talked to her. I then proceeded to use her extensively and even chose to S rank her.
>MLG edits in 2020
Interesting maneuver
Finally someone said it. Catherine is one of my favorite combat units as she is always an amazing unit.
I love that intro
"WHERE RU AT?! WHERE RU AT?!?"
Mlg edits are the shit
I was honestly shocked at how overlooked Catherine was when I looked at unit discussion online. I took one look at that woman's bases and growths and went "holy crap, we have a monster on our hands". I even went the extra mile and pumped enough Axe/Flight XP into her to get her to Wyvern, not that she needed it since she was utterly insane even beforehand.
Also characterwise I get the "lady Rhea" stuff can get annoying but her backstory does give a reason for it and her Shamir supports endeared me to her a lot.
I made my Catherine a Falcon Knight. What's better than a sword-wielding fiend? A SWORD WIELDING FIEND ON A FLYING HORSE BABY!!!!
I think Finn (mainly FE4 Finn) could be a very interesting unit to analyse given his unique traits within that game.
Alois is also one of those underrated units from my experience. Not really WAIFU-worthy but maybe you can use him in a future 3h letsplay or something
Honestly if he joined earlier he would be very highly regarded but join time really screws him.
@@boredomkiller99 How?
Alois much like Shamir and Cathrine starts in an advance class. For Shamir and Catherine this is really good because they can join pretty early when your party are in intermediate classes and you are facing mostly intermediate enemies. This gives them access to great stat modifiers and increased stat growths and they can start mastering their advance class which is really good for Shamir who gets hunter's volley that and they have high weapon ranks. This gives them a massive advantage and it is why Catherine is so good on VW and AM routes but kind of only okay on SS where she joins late.
Alois starts with great weapon ranks, in an advance class with good base stats that will likely surpass those of students you to take on the warrior classline. However he joins at a time where the rest of your roster are in advance classes, already have mastered many class skills and have sufficient weapon ranks and generally you likely amassed a full party. Alois while has good stats doesn't enjoy the early game dominance of Catherine or Shamir. Seteth is technically in a similar boat as Alois but he gets to start in a superior class and gains easy access to swift strike which makes him the only church member that is truly above average post time skip.
Still Alois has some merit anyways, he can get to War Master pretty easily which is one of the better non-mount classes. He starts with rally strength and he is an easy recruit.
But if he joined around the same time as Shamir and Catherine he would be a really valued character
I recruited Catherine in all 3 available paths, had her in the team since the moment she joins, carried her to endgame, gave her S+ in swords every time, she NEVER disappointed me.
Does that mean I qualify as an elitist now for using strong prepromotes? :D
I thought that was more of a casual thing
Even if you don’t like Catherine as a unit or don’t want to use her, you should ALWAYS recruit her anyways. She’s a completely free recruit that you can get as long as you’re above Lvl 15 (iirc) and not on Black Eagles (even then you can get her after Chapter 12 of Silver Snow), and she gives you one of the best weapons in the entire game, Thunderbrand, which any unit can use and is broken on units like Byleth, Dimitri, Felix, Yuri, and even non crest bearers like Ignatz and Ashe.
I've always been saying that Catherine is one of the best units in the game. You could have talked about her SS performance a bit, which is significantly worse due to not getting ranks/class exp early and her bases being less ridiculous for her jointime.
When I saw her Bases I couldn't believe that this was allowed, I had to do a double-take, since it was Hard Mode I just didn't use her in any of the actual chapter missions for a good while and when I did she could still kick all kinds of ass despite her basically using her base stats. She's such a good unit, by the Timeskip my Falcon Knight Catherine just couldn't be doubled and one rounded basically everything that wasn't a Fortress Knight. Haven't tried her out on Maddening so we'll have to see how she shapes up since the stat creep goes so high.
Thanks Mekkah. Very well made video.
I would recommend a Geese WAIFU.
His fancy pirate hair is irresistible.
Catherine is like a MINI JAGEN bruh
she was one of my best units in my blue lions maddening run. so much so that i ended up S supporting her because i liked her so much. she completely eclipsed ingrid as a falco knight. the only annoying part about using her was that i had to backtrack to get death blow and darting blow.
A WAIFU: Vaike would be cool. Always performs well for me, but no one ever talks about him.
I'd actually love if you could do a video on Fe7 Heath, as me and my friend recently got into a conversation about just how good he is and neither of us were able to come to an agreement about what verdict to give him, ultimately.
Heath is considered the best flyer in FE7 for LTCs as he gains hard mode bonuses unlike the pegasus sisters and can usually double after promotion thanks to the slow enemies in FE7. Also unlike the pegasus sisters he has a lot of strength making his one rounding of enemies quite consistens, along with having the usuall utility a flyer has. Now he's not as good as most wyvern riders in FE, but he will still be very useful.even with minimal investement.
TL;DR he's very good
Imagine how cool she would be if she could reclass to grappler to have her crest proc on FIF for a lot of potential extra damage on a combat art that is already one of the strongest in the game. Genderlocking sucks.
Imagine getting Warmaster and proccing her Crest on WM's Strike.
Genderlocking really sucks
@@shiny9690 wait, would that stack with the effective damage?
@@evansmith2832 Yep. Same thing would happen if Dimi's Crest procced on Atrocity. Sh*t just blows up
And you could give Cath Areadbhar and a crest item
Conversations about 3H “Jeigans” really make me wonder what Jeralt would be like if he was playable
He would probably fall off quite a bit around chapter 9 🗿
His Personal Skill is great though.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 What is it again? Universal Physical Breaker skill?
I know he also comes with Keen Intuition for 30 Avo on enemy phase, so that's also really good.
@@red5t653 It's called Blade Breaker. Any unit damaged by him loses 5 Def/Res until the next turn.
Bastiondon lmaoo
Speaking of Catherine being underrated because she's not a student, it's kinda crazy how much people conflate character opinions with unit analysis when it comes to Three Houses. People will say that Cyril is a bad unit because because he says "Lady Rhea" a lot while ignoring the fact that he gets a brave combat art before anyone else, allowing him to one-round enemies at a time where everyone not named Catherine is struggling to do so. People will say that Dorothea is the best dancer in the game because it fits with her backstory without considering that her actual skillset doesn't really mesh with the dancer class (granted, the optimization gap for dancers is pretty slim).
Another thing I've seen is conflating class strength with unit strength, such as people saying "Ingrid is good" when what they seem to mean is "fliers are good."
I guess I can't blame anyone, Three Houses is a pretty complex game so it's easy to get confused and the high customizability will make the personal experience factor greater than in other games. At the same time, it's strange to see so much misinformation surrounding such a modern game.
Thenagen I think you’re the one conflating statements here. Yes, people complain about Cyril’s character because of his somewhat extreme devotion to Rhea. Yes, some people prefer to make Dorothea their dancer because it’s "canon" or because they like her PTS outfit or whatever. However, when discussing viability, Cyril’s bases ( especially his Silver Snow bases ) and his auto-levels in the Commoner class are brought up, not his monastery dialogue or support conversations. When people declare that Dorothea is the best dancer, they back up that claim by using Meteor as an argument, not her backstory or her looks. Sure, they are/might be overlooking other aspects of these units ( Point-Blank Volley, Vengeance, Death Blow, Dorothea’s riding bane, etc. ) and end up being wrong, but claiming that the points made by those you disagree with you are purely superficial is dishonest.
Thenagen Although I do agree, Cyril isn't a bad unit (except on SS) He is not one rounding with point blank volley in the early game lol. He joins with like 10 strength and PBV doesn't add that much Mt to the attack. A lvl 10 Byleth (which is the level requirement to recruit Cyril) will be pushing close to 20 strength already. Dimitri/Edelgard would be right next to or behind that. In the Byleths case, get them some training/iron gauntlets and they will start one rounding the steel bow archers as early as ch. 4/5.
Whoever the most optimal "dancer" really means shit to me since they all do the same thing anyways, but people do like Dorothea as one because she can provide linked support with Meteor while dancing because dancers can equip magic in this game. Plus she was a singer in her backstory not a dancer
Ingrid is good for a multitude of reasons, Flying is super OP but Ingrid synchronizes with it well. She has great boons that complement the Pegasus knight line and a balanced growth spread that includes having one of the highest growths with one of the most important stats, charm. This combined with her perf skill makes her a very reliable unit to hit gambits and her good charm growth means she's avoiding them too. Which is super important for a fast alert stance + dodge tank. I'd argue she's the most evasive unit in the entire game, Flying boon for easy access to AS+ , tied for fastest speed growth in the game (if you don't count DLC Yuri with 5% more) and an amazing charm growth allowing her to not get stumped by gambits. She also has access to the Luin really early and the combat art that only she can use with it. So no, it isn't just flying. It's her also
@@DoTtA1123 >Whoever the most optimal "dancer" really means shit to me since they all do the same thing anyways, but people do like Dorothea as one because she can provide linked support with Meteor while dancing because dancers can equip magic in this game. Plus she was a singer in her backstory not a dancer
Yeah, this on Dorothea. The best dancers for me are ones that provide passive support along with their dancing and don't require any effort to raise their charisma. Bonus points if I'm not losing anything I consider extremely helpful that forces a tradeoff between dancing and attacking. Dorothea does feel like the best Black Eagle dancer for those reasons.
@@chucrutedip6034 Exactly. The op is using alot of strawmans.
Cyril is bad not because of his nonstop Lady Rhea stuff, but because his bases are trash, his growths with aptitude are still some of the lowest in the the game. Having a brave combat art doesn't change the fact that he's not good, nor worth the investment over units.
Dorothea is regarded as one of the best dancers not because she has her unique pts outfit or it's canon. Thanks to her high base charm, plus the dance lesson she is guaranteed to win the dance competition at level 1. This alone allows you to optimize and give more exp to your other units. Her other benefits are combining meteor with all her support chains to help boost link attacks and gambits. Add in physic to allow her to heal on the side and you get a great unit that has amazing support and utility capabilities that can also do decent damage when needed. All this without taking away exp from you other units.
Ingrid is actually a really good unit. Sure she isn't the best and yes flying is ridiculously strong. What makes her good is she perfectly fits the mold. She has amazing speed and good charm allowing her to be an extremely good dodge tank with easy access to alert stance. She is really good with offensive gambits, and she also get access to Luin and it's exclusive combat art. Yes flying is great, but that isn't the sole reason Ingrid is good.
the whole 'you can be a dancer without investment' is a kinda weird argument. you get an inherent +5 charm just for trying to be a Dancer in the first place, and *then* you compete. the only people not hitting the dainty 13 charm requirement by default are the very few people with hideously low charm or that are unleveled altogether. in that case, why make a complete nothing character a Dancer, when you can make any more decent unit that happened to fall off and you're not using in your party as much anymore into a Dancer instead. there is no inherent benefit to a Dancer that's incredibly weak, there is a little harm though as they'd be more fragile with less utility overall.
also i get the idea of making Dorothea your Dancer but also she can be a very strong unit offensively. sure, if she falls off or you're not using her in your party regardless it makes sense that she'd become your Dancer, but if you want her to keep being a strong offensive unit(especially capable of a lot with Black Tomefaire, Usesx2 and Meteor combo in a more standard Warlock class), then Dancer is only going to hinder her and hinder you by extension by not letting her use her strengths.
I'm actually kinda glad I overlooked Catherine in my first playthroughs because I really needed her on my Maddening playthrough and I try to avoid recuiting units multiple times. She's definitely someone you want to recuit ASAP to help with the hardest part of maddening.... the very beginning.
Finally, someone recognizing her instead of clapping at Felix who joins with worse stats and worse ranks when off main house and is generally much more of an hassle to recruit than Catherine who joins for free.
Well, Felix is more available on Black Eagles
He literally says in the video, shes good in part one but definitely falls off compared to Felix or Petra
Felix isn't bad tho as he fills a different niche with his Gauntlet affinity and unlike Catherine actually has access to Warmaster (really gauntlet classes in general but I'm just referring to all of them as Warmaster), and is one of if not the best Warmaster in the game. Unlike the other characters the game wants you to make a WM (Raphael and Caspar) Felix has similar strength, a crest that increases damage that procs all the time, and an actual speed stat which leads him to easily be able to quad/one round a couple of classes on maddening especially with killer knuckles. I'm not saying Felix is better than Catherine (because he's not since Catherine is better and easily available for the hardest parts of the game) just that they fill different roles and Felix will outclass Catherine in part 2 as the video says. To quote Mekkah himself "They're both good so just use both".
Edit: forgot to mention his relic which gives him a passive Pavise and Agis and since gauntlets weight almost nothing he suffers next to no speed loss so he's also a reliable enemy phase unit especially in endgame when he gets QR.
@@kai_824 actually he said that Catherine and petra are pretty much in the same boat, as Petra also doesn't stand out as much in part 2.
@@josephpanno6816 Since you've made somewhat of a constructive argument, let me elaborate a bit.
I've never said both were identical in term of playstyle, or that one is straight up better than the other.
I'm just thankful to Mekkah for pointing her out major strengths, because she's mostly been considered and portrayed, especially by the more casual side of the community, as a lackluster swordmaster (or mortal savant lol) completely overshadowed by Felix, while there's so much more to her.
Finally Felix has indeed the gauntlet niche, which is definitely his best option off main house, as well as some others gimmicks. Though grappler is usually preferred over warmaster, especially on maddening mode because fierce iron fist is such a great combat art.
"She's kinda like a docuhebag" And that's why she's my favorite character!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Effie from conquest. Good availability, great bases and growths and a nice personal skill. Bad movement on armours is mostly mitigated through pair up shenanigans so would be interesting to her your opinion on her.
She's not really underrated though. Not sure she's overrated either tbh.
I'd say shes overrated. Her base class and speed just hold her back so much and she doesnt really contribute any more than genuine early join high tiers like Silas or Niles WITH the extra investment needed to get out of Armor ASAP. That's not to say she isnt workable or doesnt have her uses, especially with an early promo to GK, but I'd prefer someone like Laslow, Odin, or Gunter for a Conquest Waifu of units that are genuinely overlooked or misunderstood by most players.
@@LordWallace As someone who has experience with Conquest efficency runs Laslow, Ghunter and Odin aren't misunderstood, they're just not very good.
Ghunter is a Jagen that leaves for a lot of chapters where he would be useful and joins again when even his boosted bases aren't that impressive anymore. He can reclass to wyvern lord and is a very good Corrin pair up bot, but not much else.
Laslow comes in an akward time, he joins at the beginning of the only turn limit chapter in CQ, he also cannot be toniced up in his joining chapter so he's mostly gonna be a pair up bot and a rally bot. His bases also aren't very impressive and his growths don't make up for it. Some people say that if you reclass him to a ninja that he's comparable to Kaze and ninja Shura, but that's mostly incorrect as Laslow's combat at base doesn't hold a candle to them. He's pretty much the same thing through the entire game, Xander pair up bot and rally bot.
Odin is an interesting case, he also comes mid chapter so you can't tonic him up, but it's more fogivable during the earlygame. Neither his bases or growths are very impressiva and tomes aren't as amazing as they are in most game, but he can be a good Nosferatu tank on the left side of the map. He can also provide nice utility with heartseeker and having somewhat reliable 1-2 range. His personal skill is a meme, but it's not hard to get, just forge every weapon to have a bunch of letters. Don't go for samurai Odin, it's a meme. Overall he's far from terrible, but nothing special either. There's really little reason to use him after Leo joins unless you really wanna get Ophelia.
@@LordWallace Anyway overall I just don't see Odin, Ghunter and Laslow being very interesting to talk about, not to mention how Mekkah dislikes talking about Fates.
Also the fact that in Awakening and Fates character movement wasn't all out of wack
me: oh nice a chapter 5 jagen? that'll be helpful when I do my maddening run!
Also me: *remembers that the path I haven't done is black eagles*
you can still recruit and use her early on even if she doesn't stay or be relevant lategame. as mekkah says often, the pitfall is thinking units are 'stealing exp' when they're really just making earlier hard ass chapters more doable for you until your army starts holding its own by itself.
@@MegamanStarforce2010 Uhhhh... Can't you literally not recruit her at all into the black eagles?
@@thesuperthingymabob8209 Yup. Catherine and Cyril are unique in BE in that you cannot recruit them at all. Instead, they will auto-join in Chapter 12 should you choose to do SS.
You can still do something similar with Shamir, look at Rengor's run
I would like to see a WAIFU on Cyril.
I find him an interesting unit gameplay wise, compared to other Aptitude characters (Donnel, Mozu) his return on investment is actually really good do to great strengths(lances, axes, bows, flying) and combat arts (vengeance, point-blank volley) the latter of these comes very early on (C+ in bows and he starts somewhere mid C in that) so he isn't completely helpless early on. That is all good and well but he also has bad bases and awful enemy phase for a while and requires a decent amount of tutoring to get the most out of him.
This is all my personal experience from hard mode so I don't really know how he stacks up in maddening, but I still think the distinction between his highs and lows would make for an interesting analysis.
Mauwus running him on maddening and he’s my second best unit as a wyvern knight right now, his strength got screwed by rng but the base from the class plus a single energy drop and his guaranteed double attack art makes him one round most things
I mean you literally just described why people tend to think Trainee units aren't good. His start is really rough, and why struggle with that when other units can basically do the same thing with less tedium.
Hard isn't that Hard honestly. The thing about Three Houses is there's so many factors that vary between people more so than previous games, so it's very hard to say who's good.
Rogue Slushy I'd argue a trained Cyril offers more than a trained Donnel or Mozu can do to flying and point-blank volley atleast gives him good player face from the start unlike those two. But that's what makes cyril so interesting as a unit to me.
I've used him a couple times on maddening. He has very easy access to pretty much everything you want on a unit in maddening (death blow, hit20, wyvern, brave combat art) so I found him very useful. His start wasnt as bad as some other trainee units either because he gets point blank volley so quick, like you said
In my experience Cyril is probably the best trainee unit of the three because while he doesn't have the busted growths of donnel, he also doesn't struggle nearly as much when he joins. His stats are below par when he joins usually but he can still kills things pretty easily with a smash. And a C+ brave combat art? This is super easy to get after like one battle and dedicated bow tutoring. And once he gets his wyvern (which is his most common class so I'll use that for this example), even if the guy is still squishy he can gtfo of there with stupid 3h canto. I will say this is from my hard experience though, don't have the patient to try out maddening so maybe he's worse there.
10:50 the durability costs for Raging Storm, Atrocity and Fallen Star are only 3, if the unit has a major crest. As there is no playable character in the main game with a major crest of Seiros, Blaiddyd or Riegan nobody will use a durability cost of 3. The cost is 4 for minor crests wielders ergo the respective Lord and 5 for NG+ crest Item uses
Next one should be Gazak from fates almost nobody talks about him either
Still waiting on that Character Spotlight Mangs.
Was he one of the unique capture units like Rallyman Lite (Haitaka from Conquest ch. 9)? Gonna admit I never really bothered with them, my Orochi and Niles haven't exactly been stellar in my playthroughs.
He is the capturable boss of Forrest’s paralogue (Leo’s kid). The dude is a Berserker with insane bases and really solid growths. Wait until he’s a Berserker to capture him to get that sweet S rank in axes (I’m talking about Lunatic difficulty here). His other notable assetS are the skills he comes with. Not Good Fortune though, that you can remove, but he also comes with Certain Blow and Pavise. Combined with access to the typical Fighter/Berserker skills, and you have a monster of a unit that can both kill enemies extremely reliably and can take more punishment than you might think. He’s one of the best choices for a Berserker on both Conquest and Revelation, and just one of the more powerful units to use in general.
@@XIIIHearts I actually got a +2 HP growth with him on a level-up once.
Can you do Hawkeye? I find he's a unit that a lot of people kind of just glance over, when he's actually a super good unit!
I miss montage parodies :(
Liek if u cry everytim
Fire emblem.exe exists
Ironically Catherine is a actual waifu material and she was hyped in the pre-launch.
She looks like Mordred from Fate Apoc in her armour. She’s even super broken just like Mordred.
@@xuanathan kinda yes but Catherine looks older and taller.
Alejandro Rodolfo Mendez
True. And she’s
T A N N E D
A N D
M U S C U L A R
(Probably)
Catherine's been in my top 5 favorite characters since the moment I saw her. Thanks for this.
I wish I could've used catherine and seteth in my maddening run but unfortunately I went crimson flower because it was the only route I hadn't gone yet
If you dip into bow C with broken weapon or dodge tank cheese training, you can really easily get Catherine Hit+20, which basically solves her only damage output problem.
And she's great as an Assassin
0:19 I see Mekkah is a man of smash culture as well
I feel like Catherine is one of the units who suffers the most in the transition from Hard to Maddening. HM Catherine is less vital in part 1 but she's one of the least investment heavy units since her stats are already fantastic as is so she only needs to switch to a better class (i.e flier) to stay relevant
MM Catherine helps a ton for a few maps after she joins but once part 2 rolls around she loses her steam. No useful combat arts or magic spells to keep her relevant like other units and she also doesn't really have any other niches like having a high authority base/strength, rallies or easy sniper access for PBV. Catherine's still a lot better than some of the dead weight students like Lorenz, Caspar and Ashe but she's very replaceable.
TL;DR she's a great Jagen. Fantastic in part 1 drops off in part 2, but most of your other units aren't much better than her in part 2 either soooo...
Honestly just making any unit into a flier without the proper skill build is just senseless grinding that is somehow "acceptable". I even experimented with Falcon Knight Catherine and Shamir and sure it was a fun experience, but that type of stuff make your playthroughs last way longer than it needs to be. Plus none of the flying classes that aren't locked to Claude don't even have Swordfaire and Bowfaire. If you play a mode where you don't get double by everything, Catherine can keep up just as a Swordmaster. Also you can't call characters like Ashe deadweight when he have easy access to death blow and practically the same growth rates as other canon snipers, but I guess everybody gives Bernie a free pass from having a panic attack every second in part 1.
@@travellsylvester Reaching the required ranks to be able to take the exams for classes isn't that high and as Mekkah said, save scumming them is highly recommended. You could say "uh save scum bad" but not doing it is just tedious. Staying in swordmaster is just that detrimental for Catherine when everyone else is running around as high mobility cavs/fliers or long range snipers.
I don't really want to get into Ashe/Bernadetta/Ignatz arguments because I kinda value my time even during this quarantine thing so I'll just leave a link to Rengor's 0% growths SS run and a tier list thread discussing these units.
th-cam.com/play/PLgXdZD-xbNmkK6L7AOqoMnIO2D9-BNrPn.html
old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/eyyxbo/fe16_three_houses_tier_list_round_7_bernadetta/fgk5bpx/ (Most informative post I found in this thread but the others are definitely worth looking into as well)
@@Docaccino If you want to make everybody into a flier, knock yourself out; but honestly for me tho, having my whole team being the same class is boring and also I'm a big fan of realizing a unit's potential within their skill build. Now we could go both back and forth about this, but this quarantine is killing me too; so I will humbly accept your request and thank you for giving me something good to read.
In hard mode she's an arguably superfluous unit in a mode full of already good units relative to enemy stats. Anyone with just class bases can function well in hard.
MM catherine is legitmately your strongest unit for a real stretch of time and arguably your most important unit at a time where the game is relatively more difficult (before most of your units have access to all skills and class masteries that make them good), especially for the notorious ch 5. That alone can be argued to be more unique value than anything she contributes in hard.
Realistically though if you've been using catherine as if she were one of your more important units then it's not a stretch that she's also one of your more leveled units naturally (without any favoritism) either and her stats will always be above most of your other units' so it's really not a hindrance to use her as a flying statstick (if other people are already using brave arts, that just leaves more brave weapons for the people wihtout them anyways including thunderbrand). Contrast this to units with brave arts like Ferdinand/Sylvain who, while may have a higher ceiling, are strictly worse before having access to Swfit Strikes (same can be said for archers before hunter's volley). I'd argue the difference between Catherine and said units before their combat art is much, much larger than the difference post art when both are in their mid advanced to master classes and that large early to mid game gap matter a lot more in maddening when most units are struggling to survive more than 2 rounds of combat/not one rounding themselves. Her "dropoff" is nowhere near as pronounced as someone along the lines of fe6 Marcus or fe10 Sothe (who, despite such dropoffs, are still rated among the best units in their respective games) as pretty much besides the 5 innate brave art users and 3 lords there's no exactly strong argument for anyone else being better as a combat unit than her in part 2.
Really loving how Mekkah is fair in his analysis. Shining spotlight on her good points but brining up her flaws too. Once again, good job!
I completely ignored her on my first run (blue lions) because i was sure she would leave at some point for being that good. Couldnt believe I could just have this. On my second run im black eagles so no luck there. Gonna use her on golden deer to get back all that lost time.
I used Catherine a little bit on my first run of the game she somehow always remained 10 points in strength and speed ahead of Felix
Thank you for putting respect on her name, her and Shamir are so underrated
She's so incredibly nice to use in BL and GD
Like damn that str, spd and wpn ranks(class)
That intro was pure art. God it's so nostalgic
Gonna have nightmares about enemy assassins and swordmasters
Didn't realize that support levels affected Catherine's requirements for recruitment! Definitely going to have to do that for my next Maddening run.
0:36 The madman actually did Bernadetta next. uwu indeed.
On Silver Snow I made Catherine into an Assassin with a Brave Bow, which proved to be quite hilarious when in the final mission she could get four attacks of SIXTY damage with the bow given her ridiculous offensive stats. Basically, even IF one attack missed she could still kill almost anything with the other three.
As a character, I really like her. She's kind of an asshole at times, but I do like how they kind of explore the other side of combat-related trauma with her (i.e. not SURVIVING traumatic battles but what you had to DO to be victorious). Her supports with characters like Caspar emphasize that, and I find it rather tragic how she basically doesn't think she DESERVES an ending that's not bleeding out on a battlefield.
I used Catherine on my first Playthrough, which was Normal Mode Blue Lions, and she and Dimitri became my most reliable units.
Wow, you just made one of the most forgotten units in 3H (for me atleast) to one of the best. Amazing video
Good taste 👌
I remember that in my first playthrough in TH (Sliver snow) I used her for one reason, which was to be bait for Death Knight and other high damage dealers
Used Catherine in my maddening classic NG SS run and she was godlike from getting her until the final boss. I got her +20 hit, death blow, darting Blow, Swordfaire and Sword Prowess. I was able to double pretty much everything on player phase.
Could you one on mercedes or dorothea? They are both really good support units with a really powerful offense
I do actually think that Catherines (and Felix's) personal skills are pitfalls. Apart from the super early game, +5 damage or -5 damage taken is not as good as a healthy mix of stats and hit/avo and the utility of a gambit. Also, having them fight without a batallion means you'll have to put some real work into raising their authority, or never equip gambits on them at all, which can come back to bite you when the rest of your team is running around with +6 str def and res from their shiny B and A rank batallions.
I don't think you should use them without batallions for long but I loved having Fighting Spirit in Ch5. The authority gain from battle alone isn't going to get you to higher ranks, you still need quite some tutoring, so that's what really makes the difference.
I never went out of my way to use Catherine because I always had a student sword user and swords aren't the best weapon type in the world for combat. Though I never knew you could technically get her by level 9 which would make some of those early chapters way less bothersome. I hope she doesn't fall off as hard as Shamir does for me
Catherine can falconknight dodgetank in maddening. Having someone that’s mobile and capable of taking aggro is a great boon even if her offense falls of. It kept ingrid useful on my blue lions maddening run despite her dealing single digit damage.
It’s not amazing but it’s something
Damn Mekkah that video deserves praise from the intro only #bringbackmlg
I just found your channel and I've gotta say, mad respect for your mention on Seth he is one if my favorite characters in fire emblem both in personality and viability. Serious he is so useful for so much of sacred stones its ridiculous.
I used her and Shamir every time i just love these two and both are so reliable and they never disappointed me not as units and not as characters
Can you do an episode for Tanith ? I wonder what you think of her really unique skill in PoR, and also I think she's a super cool unit that nobody really talks about (except Ghast)
i really needed that mlg montage right now i miss those days.
You say Catherine doesn't have a good gimmick but seeing as how I beat golden deer maddening by relying mostly on incredibly high crit rates, that foudroyant strike she has (which is limited unlike the weapon itself) is ok in my book.
My friend just straight up had her murdered in part two for no reason... Just because... Evil
I feel like you should do a waifu on dedue. The stigma around this guy is awful. They think he is awful because he naturally enters armor classes.
In reality he is a great unit held down by people saying the only way to play is wyverns for everyone.
He takes no damage from Endgame War Masters when I use him.
Dedue makes for a fantastic Shield Assist which is the best type in the game and is pretty much how you turn Dimitri's almost perfect combo into an actual unkillable one.
God I just love dedue for his character and sheer defense. No matter what people say, I would still run dedue in any run.
He disappears for several chapters and is severely under leveled when you get him back and he cannot get skills during this time.
Dedue has some uses in the earlygame with easy smite access and one-two punch but he really drops off in terms of combat after a while. He's also in the route with the lowest need for combat units since Dimitri exists.
I would REALLY like to see you do a WAIFU vid on Ingrid. And Cyril for that matter. AND Ignatz. All underrated units in one way or another. You really should do more of these, as you've only done a few of them for Three Houses & that's simply not enough. This series is just too good to stop there!
I gotta say man, you're moving up on the video editing game, keep it up.
I used catherine for my entire golden deer maddening run. she fell off a bit offensively in part 2 but she somehow managed to roll really well for resistance.
great analysis!
It's amazing how much easier is maddening chapter 5 (one of the hardest) thanks to her.
Kinda surprised anyone didn't consider Catherine a beast. She's easily one of the best units in the early to mid-game.
I would say, pound for pound, Catherine is probably the best overall fighter through the entire game, from early-to endgame. Her absurd skills in offenses absolutely cream all but the most stat blessed/stat boosted of units before this point, and at her earliest recruit time, chapter 4, gives her bases as a level 7 unit that put her well and above to be the most important unit in the Golden Deer and Blue Lion runs. Instant Swordfaire, tons of damage...she basically just runs away with the show until time skip.
I don't think she's nearly as good at timeskip then the potential of a Dodge tank Dimitri/Dodge tank Ferdinand, but she can still hurt things quite a bit.
I got Catherine Death Blow and Darting Blow on normal Difficulty and made her a Wyvern Lord. At that point it felt like cheating.
Catherine's personal does make it safer for her to run Battalion Vantage after C Authority since she won't get punished as hard when the battalion gets knocked out, but much like Felix, just about any battalion of at least C rank will offer better stats than her personal ability alongside access to a gambit.
Do Dedue! Give him all the Defense items! Make him a Wyvern Rider by Remire Village! \o/ Watch as he becomes invulnerable to all things physical, even on Maddening! *cackles* Yes, that includes the damage aside from Venom Strike from Snipers *cackles again*
Catherine was one of my go to units in my first two playthroughs. I made her into a Mortal Savant, cause banes don't scare me!
That said, I haven't made use of her in a Maddening playthrough, as my two Maddening playthroughs were on Crimson Flower(NG+) and Azure Moon(nonplussed). She didn't see use in Azure Moon, outside of being an offensive Adjutant, because I already had a team in mind that I was committed to, that did not generally include her. That said, I tend to take 1 type of each Adjutant, cause I'm touched in the head like that.
Currently I'm doing a casual Hard Mode(NG+) run of Silver Snow, and I've taken her Thunderbrand and given it to my absurdly overpowered Byleth. With an S+ in Swords and Warmaster, he has about 55~85% crit against pretty much everything with x4 hits with the Thunderbrand. :D
Catherine is one of the best characters in the game!
Used Catherine in Silver Snow Normal NG+ and was very happy with her. Didn't think to try to early recruit her in Maddening, though.
WAIFU ideas:
Knoll from FE8? The summons are really weird and interesting.
Rath from FE7? He's kinda a cool and weird mount to have in certain maps.
Raquesis from FE4? I saw from Mangs's Let's Play that you think she's pretty good but on my only playthrough of FE4 I only ever used her as a healer.
2:30
Honestly leveling up was never a problem for me.
If I want to up support levels or need to get stronger quick, I just do skirmish after skirmish
This game doesn't give you jeralt as a jagen
Mekah: I'll find my own.
Great Vid. One thing i'll add that make her a lot less good in post time skip is that she doesn't have as much support partner compared to your in-house unit so her hit rates will be shaky. Especially for flying class in Azure moon, their battalions option mostly sucks.
Falconknight Catherine was always a joy to use in my playthroughs. She has so much strength that shes one of the few potential fliers that wont miss the extra bit of strength from Wyvern much and instead will enjoy not having to train an entire extra weapon rank or A flying for Lord (as opposed to B+ for Falco, which means a B or even C+ rank can reasonably get you there). That opens up tutor time to get to a better authority rank sooner for better battalion bonuses/gambits or B brawl for Healing Focus, or even S+ swords.
Assassin Catherine is also something I'm a fan of if committing to the sword infantry route. Its basically better than Swordmaster in every respect, from combat to mobility, and Catherine gets it super quick compared to Falconknight. She even makes good use of the bow rank too given that it's essentially a 1-2 range option for her after Close Counter.
I've also tried War Cleric when CS came out but it was kind of a meme on Maddening. War Cleric stats just dont hold up and she isnt a good healer either.
Also I was unaware until now that people didnt reset after failed exams to get their seals back. Call me an optimization freak but I thought that was the obvious thing to do so you could hail mary all the 30-40%s you want.
As someone who loves dodge tank builds, catherine is perfect for it since she joins relatively early so training up her flying for alert stance isn't too much of a struggle and her fantastic str, speed, and decent dex + her proficiency in one of the most accurate weapon types makes her a great enemy phase unit.
Unfortunately, she says "All for lady rhea" 90% of the time after defeating an enemy and so she goes to the bench. 7/10 use petra instead, she had more speed than Catherine at the same level every time I used her and Petra could double and kill enemy fliers on maddening :P (Warning: results will vary and I just love petra a lot ok)
For the next WAIFU, I want to suggest my mvp of maddening, Ignatz. He's earned his monikers of Critnatz and Godnatz in all 4 of my maddening playthroughs after I ignored him in my initial Hard mode GD playthrough and with his dex, lethality became much less of a meme against maddening's monstrous damage sponges.
that intro made me feel 9 again
I liked Cath, but I found myself relying far far more on Felix - because in my last Plays he was a God among Men.. I just gave him her Thunderbrand and laughed as he sliaghtert EVERYTHING xD
Treck will get the recognition he deserves one day.
One day.
Shamir WAIFU when?
I find Catherine and Cyril to be two of the most likeable characters, but I am weird I guess.
Outside of her undying loyalty to Rhea, I find Catherine charming in her own special way, help that she is a good unit as well.
Yeah, same. I like Catherine a lot, and cyril never bugged me
Do you also like..... LADY RHEA?
@@orb1611 Yeah, Rhea is one of my favs. Might like Edel more but not sure.
I like Cyril.
I’d love to see a WAIFU on Zihark. I think he’s a super interesting character!
I don't know why would anyone overlook Catherine I used her in my first golden deer playthrough and shes part of my main squad