@@xuanathan I’m not a coomer so I’m immediately not a fan of windows in outfits Lmao You should’ve seen my initial reaction to Camilla I nearly put a hole in my wall
@@xuanathan That is honestly what it feels like from the person responding to you. Like yeah. I have reservations on Carmilla for example... I'm in the camp who doesn't like her. But it is mostly how I don't think the Fates characters are well written and she was just designed to be "Sexy", and nothing else. It is more of "Factors to me", vs JUST her design. I however do like the Black and Gold of her armor. I think it works as a visual design aesthetic. But the heels just look funny to me. This is all the more funny because she is on a Wyvern. (You can like one and not the other. And some people I notice don't get this, especially younger FE fans, which is weird to me. Granted, I remember the "I fix it!" types who edited art if FE Heroes, which is... disrespectful and cringy as hell to Artist. It's one thing if you draw your own design for your own fun, but never claim it is a fix. Again, talking of the weird FE "Fans". ) But I also like the Sage outfit on characters like Ivy and Mauvier. Ivy also has a unique Female sage attire due to her headdress not allowing for a hood. And I think she just looks badass. Mauvier looks badass in about anything... that and he is hot. I can't say the same for most of the Cast lmfao. Unfortunately for some, liking designs or not, it some puritanical litmus test.
Can I just say thank you for putting out all this high-quality content so quickly? I played my first Engage run blind and just recently finished, and watching your content has been soooo helpful in planning out and optimising my 2nd playthrough!!! ❤
Thank you for the comment on investing in anna, i find it so confusing that people hate on a unit that takes 1 map of investment to outclass other units and then carry the rest of the game, i didnt get anna till chp 9 my swcond playthrough, i went back to her map, had her basically solo jeans map, and she outclassed celine and citrinne who i had been babying very hard
Well Anna is pretty tanky if you use a evasion build. Luck do after all increase evasion, combined with her speed the natural evasion ain't too bad and given that magic Mt. is pretty front loaded you can get away with a evasion engraving and a 2nd skill which improves her evasion further. Ofc. this is not recommended, but It's possible for sure.
I would argue that Jean only takes more babying if you are moving him to a physical class ASAP. Going the sage route, he can just replace Framme as your primary healer after Chapter 5 until he promotes. I mean, you generally are going to try to keep your squishy healer out of danger no matter what. What does it matter if that's Framme or Jean? Because healing higher-level units grants more XP, he will eventually just catch up to your team. Just use him to heal or chain guard each turn. If you give him Micaiah, he will catch up around Chapter 8, and if you don't give him Micaiah, it might take until Chapter 10-11. But either way, the babying is just "Jean is your healer for 4-6 chapters." I don't think that's asking a lot for investment.
Love your videos bro! Also can't avoid waiting for that blessed moment when you seriously rank Sommie. "He's better on other classes". I loved that so much 😂 Keep up the great work please! ❤
Mauvier is S. He is tall and very beefy in sage outfit. His pose is extremely fitting for sage btw. Compared to pandreo, he had slightly more magic, a lot more def and less speed. Speedtaker him and he is hype
My thoughts on Anna have changed over subsequent playthroughs. Yes, she can be insane if invested in, but the Game just hands you Pandreo, who can be just as good with minimum investment. So, I've heard a lot of people saying reclass Chloe to Griffin mid-game and then late game use her as a Mage Knight. I have yet to try it, but it sounds potentially good.
Mage knight chleo just doubles whatever while attacking enemies' res. It was a thing of beauty. Next time I'll make her a sword Mage knight for Levin sword instead of flame lance.
I’ll vouch for Sage Chloe, she’s very competitive with the Sage Pandreo I’m also running on my no dlc maddening run. They’re almost identical in the midgame, only varying based on their emblems (Chloe has Byleth, Pandreo has Corrin for now) and that Chloe got Canto earlier. On paper, I think the late game tradeoff is Chloe’s passive will give her the edge on damage as they’ll basically have the same magic at level 40 if Chloe was immediately second sealed at level 10. But Pandreo gets some extra accuracy and evasion. Then on speed, Pandreo will have four more build vs Chloe’s 2 more speed (11 build vs 7 at IL 40). So I think Pandreo has a small edge with that build advantage, but it’s a small one and more of a sidegrade. Chloe however also can get Canto early (and/or Starsphere with dlc) so that’s something to consider.
I think I’ve been sleeping on sage (and mystical units in general) as I’m just finishing my first hard mode run. How does it fare on maddening? In my run I favored Mage knight for the extra movement and attack speed thanks to the build and chaos style. Do sages have doubling issues on maddening? I suppose speedtaker is kind of a must have on magic users anyway and it’s pretty affordable now. More staff users is always a plus, and I’ve heard that corrins fire dragon vein is pretty clutch too. Byleths thyrsus is also a plus but I preferred having a flier like Hortensia for the positioning, then veyle late game for the omniboost
I have definitely seen some other youtubers absolutely rant about Anna and Jean and how they are so brutal needing so much investment and it's so bizarre to me. Jean starts on healer, if you heal with him he will gain EXP and eventually catch up a bit. You were going to heal units anyways right? So where's the investment and babying? Anna does start on Axes but like you've pointed out: She is better than Boucheron when you get her. She's already good to go and can contribute better than other units. Even if you don't feed her kills at all, eventually she'll hit 10, and she can still be good on warrior with Radiant Bow, or you can swap her to Sage at that point and she WILL pop off. So where's the investment and babying? I was watching another tier list video where they rated Vander higher than Jean and I actually just closed it in disgust. How silly.
Sage Chloé was crazy on Maddening for a playthrough. Doubles anything sage cares about doubling. (You aren't really sending your sage at a wolf knight) When Celica comes in she will get double kills per turn using echo + seraphim. But before then Chloé performs well even with just a bond ring. The only reason I'd make her top of A and not S is because of how tight second seals are early game. Veyle and Mauv are pretty much about their base stats. They will only get a few levels of growth unless you're saving paralogues or something. As sages they are tied for 6th fastest holding bolg along with Chloé. They are also in top 7 damage wise. The awkward part is that you can't reclass them until ch23 or something like that. They come with the SP needed to fix whatever they need too. Veyle just prefers her base for Celica shenanigans. Mauve is just desperately waiting to be made anything other than the ultimately middling royal knight. Other than that I pretty much agree with this list
The real crime is that you either need DLC to give him Tome proficiency early, or he is forced to wait until Ch 20 just for Sage access. By this point, it's hard to justify making him go the magic route when he could go Warrior right away and double down on his decent Str. Still, if you do have Soren DLC, I say go for it!
@@EZog58 true I agree, I love him as Sage but even then the first time I made him Sage the Soren emblem isn’t out yet, so it was really late game. It works because my Fogado was magic blessed. However I do miss Radiant Bow power after reclassing. After the Soren emblem though it was much better for mid game units you wanna make a sage.
I ended up making him a martial master for fun reasons but before then I was surprised at how competent he was with the radiant bow with no investment. Although I guess the radiant bow is pretty cracked. The magic and speed growth definitely show as Martial master, though. Nothing can touch him, and he deletes thieves/wolf knights, which most of my other units struggle to kill without eating fat damage!
I never understood the mindset of avoiding good characters that need additional attention early. It might be more effort early, but the alternative is to struggle more in the late game.
Well Pandreo just needs a second seal into mage knight or sage and he's ready to party while anna has numerous youtube guides to get her up and running before the start of chapter 11. You get Pandreo in chapter 12. You get Citrine the chapter after you unlock Anna's paralogue. All she needs is a master seal. She already level 10 and one of the best sages in the game. So if you ignore Anna and master and second seal these units you will not struggle in the magic department. And they are less needy than Anna. Then the well update made it so money isn't really an issue anymore. (3star well pays for itself) So her personal skill is not really needed, it's just a nice to have now. There are plenty of reasons why she gets alot a flak for asking a lot from the player when her competition asks for far less time and resources.
@Brian Winters Citrinne is a little more obscure to get up and running. You can immediately MS to sage, but mid to late she runs into some accuracy issues and speed issues. To make her crazy you have to manipulate rng to get her an S tier bonded ring. Without it she'll deal 50ish damage once while Anna does 45 twice (approximately) in the late game. Pandreo is obviously strong with very little investment, but I've found that it's nice to have multiple magic users (I usually run like 5/14) and there's maybe 10 solid ones. 6ish intuitive magic attackers The thing about the gold passive is that it now gets you more SP. 3 stars can break even, but now you can 4 star more often leading to more SP for the entire team. While not necessary (it wasn't really necessary before) it's stronger after the well, not weaker
@Bandana Wink Citrine has the same speed and hit issues as Ivy but nobody bats an eye. The same things that fixes Ivy hit and speed applies to Citrine. 10/1 sage Citrine is doubling the same enemies a 10/1 sage Anna. As for the bond ring rigging. That's a knock on Citrine but playing or clearing a map a certain way to boost Anna's levels is totally fine though?
My point with bond ring rigging is that it also needs a guide. I'd have an easier time explaining that Anna is cracked as a Sage (I prefer mage knight Anna) than bond ring manipulation to a friend that's all. I love Citrinne, especially as a nuke and I typically forge dire thunder because now I have a good route for it. Ivy as Sage has a much lower dex than Citrinne, much lower damage and about 6 points in speed faster. It's her unique class that makes her desirable to heavily invest in. That might change with the new magic flyer unit. I personally don't run ivy most of the time because flyer emblem gets boring to me. All that to say I agree, ivy is overrated
totaly agree with the statement about Vander, he is at the bottom of my tierlist I'm working on right now, he is just making early mission harder, because you try avoid giving him xp :D
Citrinne is my fav Sage unit by far. Even without Dire Thunder, Thoron + Momentum works too and its minimal investment. The thing is that she kills pretty consistently by a small margin. So having a little lower Magic would make that one shot-build not viable for other units. Other sages need to rely on their spd to kill.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming I've played chapter 25 today. It's pretty close sometimes. Alears skill and a random backup attack help keeping the one shots up. i keep elfire in her too to double armors which have too hugh hp to one shot sometimes.I also inherited mag+4 and use celica on her for maximum dmg output. its also really strong with echo. So it works endgame but investment cost goes up a lot.
Jean dire thunder is in my opinion the strongest sage by far, he easily one rounded enemies in maddening and I didn't fed him any stat boosters (canter and mag +2). Him starting as a martial monk gives him 70% mag growth, so +7 mag in fixed growth until reaching lv 10. The return for investment is pretty huge. Also tried Chloe as a sage, she is surprisingly strong early to mid game, but she was starting to struggle one rounding in the late game tho. Fun build I did with Chloe was to pair up Byleth ring with Elsurge for a 100% hit rate thunder tome that can double and has some crit built into it. Pretty useful against the dodgy foes.
Dire Thunder this, Dire Thunder that… I stuck Great Thunder with Vantage and Hold Out on my Citrinne in the early game. Forge her a thoron plus Roy engrave, snort a few spirit dusts and she will consistently oneshot most units for a long while on both phases. Sure, it’s investment, but it makes maddening kinda funny. Even better if your have the DLC of course. You may want to give her a few secret books for the hit rate at some point, too.
Side note, I’m going for an all Cavs run for fun, any specific recommendations? Side side note: (I want to seriously use Alfred so bad, but sometimes his stats make me sad, so now I’m forced to use him.)
It’s not too bad when you know what you need. It’s basically: * unit with high speed base+growth * mixed offensive stats (you dont want one to be abysmal. So Pandreo would be kinda bad for example with his awful strength.) The speed is important because you want to be able to quad with Flashing Fist Art more easily late game, and MM won’t help your speed scaling. Chloe and Merrin are two good examples, on paper I think Fogado and Rosado could also be pretty decent. You can also wait to transition into MM until after chapter 17, since you get Leif back (staff proficiency) and also Flashing Fist Art which is what really lets the class excel. Then you basically either want them to be your dedicated Eirika user for offense or your Lucina user for defense with Bonded Shield.
Well since there's two ways to use a martial master pretty much anyone can be one. I usually use martial master as my Lucina user since they get 100% block chance across the board and then their stats don't matter much. I have Bonnet as a martial master on my post game save, he just have Luck +12 and keep eating food to refresh his engage meter with favorite food skill. As a attacker however It's really hard to say tbh. since they need both magic and strength, speed is a bit "so-so" since they cap out at 28 normally... Which is lower then what enemies have the last few chapters. Any characters with max speed modifiers; Chloe, Framme, Clanne, Yunaka, Lapis, Kagetsu or Merrin, could probably do fairly well with speed taker and Lunar Brace/Arms Shield, I'd probably also equip the martial master with Leif(Or Eirika if you go Arms Shield) since his Arms Shield adds def(3-5-7) to; Tomes, Daggers and Bows... as well as vantage, which will be pretty useful since you most likely will need to use Flashing fist art, which increases the damage you take by 5 in exchange for 5 speed. Chloe is probably the best attacker with Fairy Tale folk being a quite easy to acquire +2 attack boost. Merrin and Lapis would be more defensive with their passives. I however think that Rosado might be a sleeper decent choice as a Martial master as well, since his Stunning Smile helps a lot with the hit ratio issues... since Dex is also a big issue.
Great tierlist, cant say I have anything to disagree with. However I feel that we need to consider one thing. Without DLC, you can not make Kagetsu, Fogado or Merrin a sage for a looooong time. When you do they will have very low magic
Is there a way you could do a list of the best class for every unit? I am gonna try a run where I have to use every "Royal unit" after I finish my first maddening run (on chapter 23 currently with all paralouges done. side not, Veyle is absolutely carrying with avoid +30 and speedtaker on her base class). I'm mostly going without DLC, except I used Tiki and Edelgard in this run bc I didn't even know they were DLC until I was already using them, I thought they were just apart of the base game. (this is still my first playthrough of the game)
For Anna It's like a crime to level anything early game. And when they say Michaiah is not worth on her early to make her a healer I mean you're throwing if you are using your DPS as a healer tbh who else is using that unless you are bringing the whole Firenese squad AND Brodia squad to late game. You can also get a Sage that almost basically don't miss if you put Byleth Ring on her Divine Pulse+ works on Luck Anna realistically hits 24 luck without any boosters on sage. Byleth Ring gives out 12 luck so if you put either your Goddess Icons on her or have her inherit Luck+ Skills you'll get the Divine Pulse Activation to 92%-100%(6 from Goddess Icon, 12 from Byleth Bond level 19 and 8 from Luck+8 skill). Jean on sage is just a slightly better Citrinne same Mag with better speed(like 5 speed) IF you leveled him as a Mage from level 1 to boot not as Martial Monk so tbh it's better to use Citrinne. MK he has better stat spread but Pandreo would better even tho he has lower MAG(Pandreo only hits 27-28 Mag while Jean hits 33 MAG) due to build and speed so tbh unless you're running starsphere Jean isn't really worth it if you want to run Multiple Sages however then yeah he would be good as a 4th one.
I think you got it right with Pandreo at the top. He's really just magic Kagetsu. I slept on him my first couple of runs, but I think he's a candidate for best unit in the game. Anna seems like the obvious choice as his rival for best sage. So lets do a super deep dive just for fun! Pandreo has base level 16, so we'll look at that first: HP Bld Str Mag Dex Spd Def Res Lck Pandreo 34 9 5 17 18 18 8 21 12 Anna 29 7 4 19 18 15 6 19 11 Growths Pandreo 60 15 5 60 50 45 15 85 45 Anna 55 5 15 80 55 50 20 65 60 Also of note, Pandreo will has an innate proficiency in staffs, while Anna is in Bows. So Pandreo can Fortify, Anna can't. A handy tool to have in the kit for the occasional emergency. And of course the personal abilities. Pandreo gets extra hit and avoid, especially in a crowded field. Anna earns cash. Apples to oranges really. At this point, I don't tend to have a level 16 Anna, so the lack of need for investment I'd consider a plus. But if you do some farming in Jean's Paralogue, or an early DLC chapter or two, I don't think level 16 is out of the question. The most attention drawing details for the immediate stats are that Anna has +2 Mag, Pandreo has +3 speed and +2 build. Bolganone Pandreo vs. Bolganone Anna, Pandreo is 2 weaker, 5 faster. Bolganone Pandreo vs. Elfire Anna, Pandreo is 3 stronger, 1 faster. Both Elfire, Pandreo is 2 weaker, 3 faster. Putting this into practice, we'll look at chapter 13, the earliest Pandreo can be a sage. I counted 40 enemies on the map and tracked all of their stats and weapons (I hope that's correct. The Fog of war makes it hard to verify, so a couple errors is likely.) Between Bolganone and Elfire Pandreo can double 24 of the 40, including all unpromoted units except 2 Swordfighters. He can one round 10 of them. Pandreo only gets doubled by Totchie's Brave Axe, and gets 1 rounded by physical attacks with power 42 or higher. Tetchie and Totchie can 1 round him, as can The Wyvern Knight with a Steel Greataxe. There are 2 Barbarians with Steel Greataxes powerful enough to 1 round him, but if they attack him, he can double and 1 round them with 100% accurate Bolganone, so they're only a threat if he does not have Bolganone equipped, or Pandreo decides to attack them during player phase from close range for some reason. Anna with Elfire and Bolganone will be able to double 4 of the enemies on the map, and 1 round the two axe fighters. She gets doubled by the 2 wolf knights and 2 swordmasters, as well as Totchie's Brave Axe. She also gets 1 rounded by any physical attack with power 35 or higher. In total, there are 13 enemies on the map that can 1 round her. That's coming into the map pretty unprepared though. Lets say we're aiming for optimal. A well cooked meal (or tonics) for Mag and Spd +2, and a Speed+3 from Lyn for both. Because we're playing iron man and are super paranoid about anything going wrong. Pandreo can now double 33 enemies, and 1 round 30. Anna can double 24, and 1 round all 24 of them. It doesn't look like there were enemies that fell barely out of reach that a minor weapon refinement or engraving would have scored kills on in this chapter. At this point (early mid game) it's not close. Pandreo is the dominant sage. Looking to the future, Anna expands her magic advantage 1 point every 5 levels (significant) and closes the speed gap 1 point every 20 levels (not significant.) Pandreo actually gains a point build advantage in 10 and 20 levels (then caps.) Ultimately in a playthrough, at internal level 31, Anna's Elfire matches Pandreo's Bolganone in power, but she'd still be 3 points slower. She can also wield Bolganone with 5 extra points of power, but will be 6 slower while doing so. She'd wield it at 24 speed as opposed to her usual 27, so she'll miss out on being able to double some things, but for the things she can double, she'll outperform Pandreo, and undoubtedly pick up some kills against some slower bulkier enemies Pandreo can't. But Pandreo will perform better against faster enemies. At this point, (sime-late game) I'd still say Pandreo is the stronger sage, but the gap has narrowed considerably. Anna is starting to show some advantages, and there's room for disagreement on which is better. At this point, Pandreo will also cap build. Meaning he doesn't need to carry Elfire, and has an extra inventory slot, which he can use for an Elixer or an extra staff that Anna has no room for. End game (internal level 45 we'll say.) Anna has built up a 9 point Magic Advantage, and managed to narrow the speed gap a bit since she still gains build, and has a touch higher speed growth. Pandreo remains 5 faster than Anna's Bolganone, and 2 faster than Anna's Elfire. But even with Elfire, Anna is hitting for 4 extra damage per strike. They've both maxed HP, and tie in defense, so Pandreo's durability advantage has disappeared. It's fair to call Anna the stronger sage at this point, but Pandreo still has a small niche against faster enemies, as well as the ability to use Fortify. And while strictly speaking, Anna having the option to carry Elfire and Bolganone for speed vs. power is better than Pandreo having no need for Elfire, in practice, Anna will take that option for the combat advantage, while Pandreo will instead take an extra staff or Elixer and become better for utility. Overall though, Anna is finally stronger than Pandreo with only minor room for argument. Without diving into great detail for endgame enemy stats anyway. Who knows? That extra 3 points of speed may be critical. I don't have endgame enemy data yet. It's been a fun little exercise. :) Ultimately, I prefer Pandreo as a whole. The better performance right off the bat helps him grab a bunch of extra exp from kills and really snowball in a way Anna as a sage can't. Turns out, even after Anna is done power leveling with Micaiah, it still takes a while to get caught up. I also think the gap is large enough that Pandreo is the only true S tier. Anna is still potent, but I think her early speed disadvantage especially on bolganone, is a major detriment. I think putting her an mage knight patches this up pretty well though, especially once she's got Chaos Style. So I run Pandreo as the Byleth Sage. Anna on Mage Knight. As a side note, Jean has mostly the same troubles as Anna as a slow start unit, although even a bit moreso. I used to like him a lot, but starting as a martial monk puts him pretty squarely in magic territory, which Anna outperforms him at. Micaiah essentially lets you super level 1 underleveled unit. And while Jean can reclass to fill any role, he winds up being repurposed from his original martial monk path, and effectively becomes a lot of work to eventually become the second best at whatever role he chooses. Also, Veil is a super misleading character. Her base classs has horrendous speed. Her speed growth is poor. Her base speed is actually really good. She comes at level 35. Compared to level 35 Anna as a sage, Veyle is actually 1 point faster, and has 1 more build. Anna still has 7 more magic though.
I would like to point out with mauvier, if you reclass him to sage he will have capped build already at 11. I actually reclassed him to sage to see how he would do out of curiosity.
While I do think Pandreo is one of the best sages next to Anna I think you don’t even have to reclass him at all like the staff rank is overkill in hi-priest but the insurance is just so welcome
Seems like you're using mainly growths for your tiering. I'd put Alear a bit more down due to 0 base magic at start. Even in maddening, my Alear usually is around 1 or 2 magic, 3 if im lucky ig, when I'm on chapter 8. Same for alcryst at 2 base. Vander can honestly be a decent base Sage with 5 initial magic.
I feel like most of this tier list is "I guess you could do it, but why would you?" The units rated as good wouldn't actually be good, just barely viable, and they would all be better in other classes. The list would have been more interesting if you eliminated everyone rated OK or lower and then got super in depth trying to rank the units that players would actually consider making a sage
Anna sage and and pandero on mk is my preferred setup . Anna with bylth luck stacking and divine pluses basically never misses speed taker with Ike engrave thoron will kill anything that has survived a round with your units a get few stacks then start dropping baloneys . Mk pandreo has the movement and speed that he can just run Im from the start and front line while doubling.
There is one other aspect you are forgetting. Characters have natural proficiencies with weapon types. Normally a sage can have S rank tomes and B rank staves. Characters with a natural staff proficiency can have S rank tomes and A rank staves. This makes characters like Lindon, Mauvier, and Hortensia good sages with even better staff support than normal. On the reverse, characters with a natural tome proficiency (Celine, Critine, Ivy, etc.) make especially potent high priests as they can now use A rank tomes and S rank staves. Not having access to S rank tomes doesn't matter because there is only one S rank tome in the game: Nova. High priests for these characters simply trade a few points of magic for better speed, build, and survivability caps. In other words, Critine is better off as a high priest and any dire thunder user won't care about S rank tomes.
im running chloe and framme as sages on the same run, Chloe was worse framme the whole time because of the 10 extra levels of better magic growth framme gets, but she was still alright
I don’t really get the citrinne propaganda. Her growths are lower than Anna by at least 10% in every stat besides def and res, where she’s tied in def and has 5% more res. You’re required to RNG manip a ring onto her to even be viable- but notably she can also never engage and gets significantly less SP throughout an entire run. She’s stuck on thunder to ever double, a 5 MT weapon. You get her right after Anna and Jean, both better growth mages, and right before Ivy, a much more potent flying mage. She also has less stats than other mages who can equip celica, byleth, etc in the late game because of bond 20 stats vastly outpacing bond rings (even before factoring passives and engage skills) And Lindon is also just competing for her slot, a crit mage that regularly hits 40-50 crit off just a crit engraving and forged thunder tome, that just comes with enough SP to get to 70-80 crit off wrath right off the bat. There are arguments for him being weaker, but you also get him after deployment slots become way more abundant, as opposed to Citrinne who has to be fielded through the solm chapters. Unlike Citrinne, he also has a serviceable speed base and growth, and a build high enough to wield bolganone as an off answer to slower targets. There just seems to be a ton of drawbacks for a build that requires rng manip in the first place. I saw your video on her and I’m just wholly unconvinced
Sage needs a redesign. I hate how the outfit exposes the abdomen! This is especially awful on the child units, Anna and Jean. And Sage is one of their best classes which makes it all the more infuriating!!
Bro has clearly never even bothered to run DT on Sommie. Has higher MAG than Citrinne and higher speed for just 5 less dex, luck and HP. Literally just Citrinne but better in the places that matter as long as you keep him petted and fed. Bullshit tier list, unsubscribd
When poeple talk about Anna being hard or needing to much investment, it's crazy she is so easy to level, and in sage or mage knight she pops off so quickly. I'd agree Jean is alot more work on Madddening. Sure any character can be relevant in maddening, I do believe a Few META units are needed mid to late game, to offset limited xp. But if seen endgame teams with Framme, Etie and Celene. (Just not all beggining units lol)
Amber sage/m. Knight does good in hard mode too. In maddening, haven't made a run where I use her as a sage. Plan to do martial master Chloe , sage amber, general kangetsu great knight lous. Support alear , it's now time to have off meta run. Idk how y'all run 4 or more maddenings of same characters and class and only change one, I did 3 and I'm burned out lol 😂🤣
Personally I think even if we’re factoring in starsphere, I would still think anyone with 0 percent Magic growth is a bad Magic unit. If you want blu got 45% Magic growth (after factoring in Starsphere) I still think you wouldn’t be hitting hard enough compared to the other options available to you.
You really don't need to do this, if you want to power level her to lv 7-9 there are a variety of methods to do this quickly ranging from normal play to XP farming so this meme that Anna is high investment is strictly lack of player knowledge to level her.
Jean is also a better enemy phase unit compared to Anna since he gets 80% res vs her 65%, it feels like Anna is slightly more player phase and Jean more enemy phase.
Starsphere is not enough to make "anyone decent on anything" maybe for physical classes but there are multiple characters that have a 0 Magic growth, since I am the Etie enjoyer I will mention her. With a whopping 0 base magic and 0% growth even in the best case scenario of starsphere from level 4 (base level) or reclass to mage with starsphere at level 1 (better) she gets a magic stat of 12 (it is over 12 on fixed but is still a decimal so round down). You get that number by reclassing her at level 4 (join level) to a mage and equipping starsphere the entire time and then leveling her to 10 and insta-promoting. Yes, I know you put her in F-tier but I just think the statement of "anyone decent on anything" is wrong so here is this comment.
Yes, Vander helps with efficiency and from what I can tell he will take minimal XP away since he rarely kills things. Anna and Jean are the opposite. You need to give them resources to get going whether that's extra turns, setup kills, second seals, bond rings, the Micaiah Emblem Ring, ... that all other units can use as well. Ignoring turn count, you can solo the game with Alear, but I rarely see Alear that highly rated for good reason.
Jean is reliant on classes with good growths and because of that all fist and tome classes are terrible on him which makes him pretty bad as a sage. Now Enchanter can use fists and actually has decent class growths so he can prob be good as an enchanter if you want punching Jean, still a bad sage though
Anna on sage is F tier and the reason is because you want her getting kills, Sage's power is a mix of utility and magic damage source, and sages are not great at killing things in Engage, they are good at nuking units while also being stave users. Mage Knight included, but without the stave usage, unless you run Micaiah ring. Bow knight anna with radiant bow does the job of a mage knight, while also one shotting every flier in the game accurately, actually bow knight gets more speed than mage knight even with their +3 speed passive. Framme is S tier since she naturally fits into sage nicely and has the speed to double on bolganone, plus only healer at the start of the game and her base class has better growths than mage, not to mention 10% avoid for alear for running her.
Ivy F tier for Sage, reason is because she is a terrible low C tier unit at base brought to high B tier maybe low A tier because she is a flying sage, if you take that away she is F tier.
@@lunamaster123 Citrinne shouldn't limit herself to Dire Thunder, she can use Emblem Rings just fine. Dire thunder has advantages but it's not anyone's best build.
@@lunamaster123 I fail to see how she's a worse user of the emblem rings than the others? Is it her speed? The thing you can work around if you want to?
First run on hard casual I felt like I had to baby and force deploy Anna because she's pretty trash tbh. My knowledge of the game was poor, eventually I landed her on hero with Levin Sword and she was pretty great from then on.
Thing about starspeaher is it’s really only good on early units, it’s great for Celine and Chloe early because it helps their build. Clanne can become better then kagetsu if leveled from sword fighter to swordmaster from level 1 with startspheare. And Jean it helps axe fighter to berserker the most. Other than that most late game characters have such good bases. It also helps Louis skyrocket his hp and defense
Starsphere benefits early units the most, esp ones you're investing in like Anna, but it's useful for any unit you get up to about ch 16, because that's when you're starting to open up a lot of exp far- I mean paralogues. I like to put Tiki on Seadall because it helps his survival, lets him boost adjacent ally defenses, and he can still dance while transformed. Starsphere didn't change a whole lot on him on fixed growths, but the difference is still noticeable, since he's always gaining exp.
@@lethargicwizard I like tiki on seadall as well it’s almost was like tiki was made for him lol yea Anna doesn’t really need it cause her growths are already amazing I think Chloe and Celine it benefits the most I think cause the build growth early on
With Anna, while I’m not against investing in the early game units, she costs you a lot considering that she needs a second seal and master seal while they are really limited. Sure she’s one of the better recipients of them but everyone wants them and giving her priority is unfair when ranking (not for this list as most are getting reclassed).
i never run dire thunder ever, noob bait trash, only claude's ring is worth running as a bond ring over an emblem ring solely because of the +1 range utility and how powerful that is Citrine S tier because of thoron and the ability to hold 4 staves is bolganone is useless on her, and she is probably going to be the best user for the mage cannoneer class when it is out
You should definitely make a class outfit tier list.
Sage would definitely be dead last
@@SweaterPuppys
If its specifically on Mauvier, or Ivy then its S
@@xuanathan I’m not a coomer so I’m immediately not a fan of windows in outfits Lmao You should’ve seen my initial reaction to Camilla I nearly put a hole in my wall
@@SweaterPuppys are you calling me a porn addict for not flying into a drunk rage when I saw the sage fit?
@@xuanathan That is honestly what it feels like from the person responding to you.
Like yeah. I have reservations on Carmilla for example... I'm in the camp who doesn't like her. But it is mostly how I don't think the Fates characters are well written and she was just designed to be "Sexy", and nothing else. It is more of "Factors to me", vs JUST her design. I however do like the Black and Gold of her armor. I think it works as a visual design aesthetic. But the heels just look funny to me. This is all the more funny because she is on a Wyvern.
(You can like one and not the other. And some people I notice don't get this, especially younger FE fans, which is weird to me. Granted, I remember the "I fix it!" types who edited art if FE Heroes, which is... disrespectful and cringy as hell to Artist. It's one thing if you draw your own design for your own fun, but never claim it is a fix. Again, talking of the weird FE "Fans". )
But I also like the Sage outfit on characters like Ivy and Mauvier. Ivy also has a unique Female sage attire due to her headdress not allowing for a hood. And I think she just looks badass. Mauvier looks badass in about anything... that and he is hot. I can't say the same for most of the Cast lmfao.
Unfortunately for some, liking designs or not, it some puritanical litmus test.
Can I just say thank you for putting out all this high-quality content so quickly? I played my first Engage run blind and just recently finished, and watching your content has been soooo helpful in planning out and optimising my 2nd playthrough!!! ❤
Looking forward to the bow and sniper tier list for the next bow/ fist only run I do
Thank you for the comment on investing in anna, i find it so confusing that people hate on a unit that takes 1 map of investment to outclass other units and then carry the rest of the game, i didnt get anna till chp 9 my swcond playthrough, i went back to her map, had her basically solo jeans map, and she outclassed celine and citrinne who i had been babying very hard
anna is actually great on enemy phase. her bulk is so low that enemies prioritize her over whoever is giving her a bonded shield
So it's not Anna that's good on enemy phase its that bonded shield is broken, gotcha
@yes well anna becomes good on enemy phase as a result because she has good speed and she can usually one shot what ends up happening
Well Anna is pretty tanky if you use a evasion build. Luck do after all increase evasion, combined with her speed the natural evasion ain't too bad and given that magic Mt. is pretty front loaded you can get away with a evasion engraving and a 2nd skill which improves her evasion further. Ofc. this is not recommended, but It's possible for sure.
@@yes1667 it's a combination of both.
@yes Bonded Shield would be significantly less useful if AI prioritized attacking into the Lucina over what she was shielding though.
I would argue that Jean only takes more babying if you are moving him to a physical class ASAP. Going the sage route, he can just replace Framme as your primary healer after Chapter 5 until he promotes. I mean, you generally are going to try to keep your squishy healer out of danger no matter what. What does it matter if that's Framme or Jean?
Because healing higher-level units grants more XP, he will eventually just catch up to your team. Just use him to heal or chain guard each turn. If you give him Micaiah, he will catch up around Chapter 8, and if you don't give him Micaiah, it might take until Chapter 10-11.
But either way, the babying is just "Jean is your healer for 4-6 chapters." I don't think that's asking a lot for investment.
Love your videos bro!
Also can't avoid waiting for that blessed moment when you seriously rank Sommie. "He's better on other classes". I loved that so much 😂
Keep up the great work please! ❤
I don’t know why those particular fellas find it to be a crime to spend a few minutes healing Villagers in Jean’s paralogue.
I wonder what the new units growths will be.
Hopefully good.
Mauvier is S. He is tall and very beefy in sage outfit. His pose is extremely fitting for sage btw. Compared to pandreo, he had slightly more magic, a lot more def and less speed. Speedtaker him and he is hype
Thank you IS for that Sage outfit 🙏 Sage Mauvier and Pandreo, a feast for the eyes
My thoughts on Anna have changed over subsequent playthroughs. Yes, she can be insane if invested in, but the Game just hands you Pandreo, who can be just as good with minimum investment.
So, I've heard a lot of people saying reclass Chloe to Griffin mid-game and then late game use her as a Mage Knight. I have yet to try it, but it sounds potentially good.
Mage knight chleo just doubles whatever while attacking enemies' res. It was a thing of beauty. Next time I'll make her a sword Mage knight for Levin sword instead of flame lance.
I love this type of video
I’ll vouch for Sage Chloe, she’s very competitive with the Sage Pandreo I’m also running on my no dlc maddening run. They’re almost identical in the midgame, only varying based on their emblems (Chloe has Byleth, Pandreo has Corrin for now) and that Chloe got Canto earlier.
On paper, I think the late game tradeoff is Chloe’s passive will give her the edge on damage as they’ll basically have the same magic at level 40 if Chloe was immediately second sealed at level 10. But Pandreo gets some extra accuracy and evasion. Then on speed, Pandreo will have four more build vs Chloe’s 2 more speed (11 build vs 7 at IL 40).
So I think Pandreo has a small edge with that build advantage, but it’s a small one and more of a sidegrade. Chloe however also can get Canto early (and/or Starsphere with dlc) so that’s something to consider.
I think I’ve been sleeping on sage (and mystical units in general) as I’m just finishing my first hard mode run. How does it fare on maddening? In my run I favored Mage knight for the extra movement and attack speed thanks to the build and chaos style. Do sages have doubling issues on maddening?
I suppose speedtaker is kind of a must have on magic users anyway and it’s pretty affordable now. More staff users is always a plus, and I’ve heard that corrins fire dragon vein is pretty clutch too. Byleths thyrsus is also a plus but I preferred having a flier like Hortensia for the positioning, then veyle late game for the omniboost
For Alear you didn’t consider access to convoy allowing you to have access all the different staffs and tombs
I have definitely seen some other youtubers absolutely rant about Anna and Jean and how they are so brutal needing so much investment and it's so bizarre to me.
Jean starts on healer, if you heal with him he will gain EXP and eventually catch up a bit. You were going to heal units anyways right? So where's the investment and babying?
Anna does start on Axes but like you've pointed out: She is better than Boucheron when you get her. She's already good to go and can contribute better than other units. Even if you don't feed her kills at all, eventually she'll hit 10, and she can still be good on warrior with Radiant Bow, or you can swap her to Sage at that point and she WILL pop off. So where's the investment and babying?
I was watching another tier list video where they rated Vander higher than Jean and I actually just closed it in disgust. How silly.
Sage Chloé was crazy on Maddening for a playthrough. Doubles anything sage cares about doubling. (You aren't really sending your sage at a wolf knight) When Celica comes in she will get double kills per turn using echo + seraphim. But before then Chloé performs well even with just a bond ring. The only reason I'd make her top of A and not S is because of how tight second seals are early game.
Veyle and Mauv are pretty much about their base stats. They will only get a few levels of growth unless you're saving paralogues or something. As sages they are tied for 6th fastest holding bolg along with Chloé. They are also in top 7 damage wise. The awkward part is that you can't reclass them until ch23 or something like that. They come with the SP needed to fix whatever they need too. Veyle just prefers her base for Celica shenanigans. Mauve is just desperately waiting to be made anything other than the ultimately middling royal knight.
Other than that I pretty much agree with this list
The thought of crushing Seadalls dreams and undancing him is a little morbidly funny
As a Sage Fogado enjoyer, I’m glad he’s high on the tier, he really is great as a sage. Dude is even good with magic just using a Radiant Bow.
The real crime is that you either need DLC to give him Tome proficiency early, or he is forced to wait until Ch 20 just for Sage access. By this point, it's hard to justify making him go the magic route when he could go Warrior right away and double down on his decent Str. Still, if you do have Soren DLC, I say go for it!
@@EZog58 true I agree, I love him as Sage but even then the first time I made him Sage the Soren emblem isn’t out yet, so it was really late game. It works because my Fogado was magic blessed. However I do miss Radiant Bow power after reclassing. After the Soren emblem though it was much better for mid game units you wanna make a sage.
I ended up making him a martial master for fun reasons but before then I was surprised at how competent he was with the radiant bow with no investment. Although I guess the radiant bow is pretty cracked.
The magic and speed growth definitely show as Martial master, though. Nothing can touch him, and he deletes thieves/wolf knights, which most of my other units struggle to kill without eating fat damage!
I never understood the mindset of avoiding good characters that need additional attention early. It might be more effort early, but the alternative is to struggle more in the late game.
Well Pandreo just needs a second seal into mage knight or sage and he's ready to party while anna has numerous youtube guides to get her up and running before the start of chapter 11. You get Pandreo in chapter 12.
You get Citrine the chapter after you unlock Anna's paralogue. All she needs is a master seal. She already level 10 and one of the best sages in the game.
So if you ignore Anna and master and second seal these units you will not struggle in the magic department. And they are less needy than Anna.
Then the well update made it so money isn't really an issue anymore. (3star well pays for itself) So her personal skill is not really needed, it's just a nice to have now.
There are plenty of reasons why she gets alot a flak for asking a lot from the player when her competition asks for far less time and resources.
@Brian Winters Citrinne is a little more obscure to get up and running. You can immediately MS to sage, but mid to late she runs into some accuracy issues and speed issues.
To make her crazy you have to manipulate rng to get her an S tier bonded ring. Without it she'll deal 50ish damage once while Anna does 45 twice (approximately) in the late game.
Pandreo is obviously strong with very little investment, but I've found that it's nice to have multiple magic users (I usually run like 5/14) and there's maybe 10 solid ones. 6ish intuitive magic attackers
The thing about the gold passive is that it now gets you more SP. 3 stars can break even, but now you can 4 star more often leading to more SP for the entire team. While not necessary (it wasn't really necessary before) it's stronger after the well, not weaker
@Bandana Wink Citrine has the same speed and hit issues as Ivy but nobody bats an eye. The same things that fixes Ivy hit and speed applies to Citrine. 10/1 sage Citrine is doubling the same enemies a 10/1 sage Anna. As for the bond ring rigging. That's a knock on Citrine but playing or clearing a map a certain way to boost Anna's levels is totally fine though?
My point with bond ring rigging is that it also needs a guide. I'd have an easier time explaining that Anna is cracked as a Sage (I prefer mage knight Anna) than bond ring manipulation to a friend that's all. I love Citrinne, especially as a nuke and I typically forge dire thunder because now I have a good route for it.
Ivy as Sage has a much lower dex than Citrinne, much lower damage and about 6 points in speed faster. It's her unique class that makes her desirable to heavily invest in. That might change with the new magic flyer unit. I personally don't run ivy most of the time because flyer emblem gets boring to me. All that to say I agree, ivy is overrated
My numbers are more towards late game, I'm comparing around internal level 36. Anna's Sage is very okayosh at the beginning
Yes love it. Maybe have a poll to chose 3-5 classes and make a video of those from top to last throughout the week(s)?
gotta redo the list based on how they look in the sage outfit
Dude like I legit was googling if sommie was a playable character like what did I miss??
totaly agree with the statement about Vander, he is at the bottom of my tierlist I'm working on right now, he is just making early mission harder, because you try avoid giving him xp :D
Citrinne is my fav Sage unit by far. Even without Dire Thunder, Thoron + Momentum works too and its minimal investment. The thing is that she kills pretty consistently by a small margin. So having a little lower Magic would make that one shot-build not viable for other units. Other sages need to rely on their spd to kill.
Does this kill late game maddening though? That is really the benchmark for if a build performs well
@@IcedCoffeeGaming I've played chapter 25 today. It's pretty close sometimes. Alears skill and a random backup attack help keeping the one shots up. i keep elfire in her too to double armors which have too hugh hp to one shot sometimes.I also inherited mag+4 and use celica on her for maximum dmg output.
its also really strong with echo.
So it works endgame but investment cost goes up a lot.
Jean dire thunder is in my opinion the strongest sage by far, he easily one rounded enemies in maddening and I didn't fed him any stat boosters (canter and mag +2). Him starting as a martial monk gives him 70% mag growth, so +7 mag in fixed growth until reaching lv 10. The return for investment is pretty huge.
Also tried Chloe as a sage, she is surprisingly strong early to mid game, but she was starting to struggle one rounding in the late game tho.
Fun build I did with Chloe was to pair up Byleth ring with Elsurge for a 100% hit rate thunder tome that can double and has some crit built into it. Pretty useful against the dodgy foes.
We forgot the best sage of all Griss, I mean Gregory, that will come in the DLC :D
I agree Pandreo is very good :) I liked to play him with his sister in my team, honestly one of my favorite duo, they are very 2 strong caractere
Who is his sister?
@@isaiahtorok7079 Panette :)
Dire Thunder this, Dire Thunder that… I stuck Great Thunder with Vantage and Hold Out on my Citrinne in the early game. Forge her a thoron plus Roy engrave, snort a few spirit dusts and she will consistently oneshot most units for a long while on both phases. Sure, it’s investment, but it makes maddening kinda funny. Even better if your have the DLC of course. You may want to give her a few secret books for the hit rate at some point, too.
One thing is I don’t like charters like lydon being dlc exclusive it makes it unfair if you want to try and do a challenge run or something else
I use vander early game every run and have never had a problem with EXP. I don't think it really matters that much.
Side note, I’m going for an all Cavs run for fun, any specific recommendations?
Side side note: (I want to seriously use Alfred so bad, but sometimes his stats make me sad, so now I’m forced to use him.)
i would love a martial master tier list. its one class i really want to run but its not straightfoward at all to setup
It’s not too bad when you know what you need. It’s basically:
* unit with high speed base+growth
* mixed offensive stats (you dont want one to be abysmal. So Pandreo would be kinda bad for example with his awful strength.)
The speed is important because you want to be able to quad with Flashing Fist Art more easily late game, and MM won’t help your speed scaling.
Chloe and Merrin are two good examples, on paper I think Fogado and Rosado could also be pretty decent. You can also wait to transition into MM until after chapter 17, since you get Leif back (staff proficiency) and also Flashing Fist Art which is what really lets the class excel.
Then you basically either want them to be your dedicated Eirika user for offense or your Lucina user for defense with Bonded Shield.
Well since there's two ways to use a martial master pretty much anyone can be one. I usually use martial master as my Lucina user since they get 100% block chance across the board and then their stats don't matter much. I have Bonnet as a martial master on my post game save, he just have Luck +12 and keep eating food to refresh his engage meter with favorite food skill.
As a attacker however It's really hard to say tbh. since they need both magic and strength, speed is a bit "so-so" since they cap out at 28 normally... Which is lower then what enemies have the last few chapters. Any characters with max speed modifiers; Chloe, Framme, Clanne, Yunaka, Lapis, Kagetsu or Merrin, could probably do fairly well with speed taker and Lunar Brace/Arms Shield, I'd probably also equip the martial master with Leif(Or Eirika if you go Arms Shield) since his Arms Shield adds def(3-5-7) to; Tomes, Daggers and Bows... as well as vantage, which will be pretty useful since you most likely will need to use Flashing fist art, which increases the damage you take by 5 in exchange for 5 speed.
Chloe is probably the best attacker with Fairy Tale folk being a quite easy to acquire +2 attack boost. Merrin and Lapis would be more defensive with their passives. I however think that Rosado might be a sleeper decent choice as a Martial master as well, since his Stunning Smile helps a lot with the hit ratio issues... since Dex is also a big issue.
Jade is tailor made for the new magic cannon class that we are getting with the last dlc release
Great tierlist, cant say I have anything to disagree with. However I feel that we need to consider one thing. Without DLC, you can not make Kagetsu, Fogado or Merrin a sage for a looooong time. When you do they will have very low magic
Is there a way you could do a list of the best class for every unit? I am gonna try a run where I have to use every "Royal unit" after I finish my first maddening run (on chapter 23 currently with all paralouges done. side not, Veyle is absolutely carrying with avoid +30 and speedtaker on her base class). I'm mostly going without DLC, except I used Tiki and Edelgard in this run bc I didn't even know they were DLC until I was already using them, I thought they were just apart of the base game. (this is still my first playthrough of the game)
For Anna It's like a crime to level anything early game. And when they say Michaiah is not worth on her early to make her a healer I mean you're throwing if you are using your DPS as a healer tbh who else is using that unless you are bringing the whole Firenese squad AND Brodia squad to late game. You can also get a Sage that almost basically don't miss if you put Byleth Ring on her Divine Pulse+ works on Luck Anna realistically hits 24 luck without any boosters on sage. Byleth Ring gives out 12 luck so if you put either your Goddess Icons on her or have her inherit Luck+ Skills you'll get the Divine Pulse Activation to 92%-100%(6 from Goddess Icon, 12 from Byleth Bond level 19 and 8 from Luck+8 skill).
Jean on sage is just a slightly better Citrinne same Mag with better speed(like 5 speed) IF you leveled him as a Mage from level 1 to boot not as Martial Monk so tbh it's better to use Citrinne. MK he has better stat spread but Pandreo would better even tho he has lower MAG(Pandreo only hits 27-28 Mag while Jean hits 33 MAG) due to build and speed so tbh unless you're running starsphere Jean isn't really worth it if you want to run Multiple Sages however then yeah he would be good as a 4th one.
Do you think anyone is good on great knight or do all units that would do well with it just go into lancer anyways?
I think you got it right with Pandreo at the top. He's really just magic Kagetsu. I slept on him my first couple of runs, but I think he's a candidate for best unit in the game.
Anna seems like the obvious choice as his rival for best sage. So lets do a super deep dive just for fun! Pandreo has base level 16, so we'll look at that first:
HP Bld Str Mag Dex Spd Def Res Lck
Pandreo 34 9 5 17 18 18 8 21 12
Anna 29 7 4 19 18 15 6 19 11
Growths
Pandreo 60 15 5 60 50 45 15 85 45
Anna 55 5 15 80 55 50 20 65 60
Also of note, Pandreo will has an innate proficiency in staffs, while Anna is in Bows. So Pandreo can Fortify, Anna can't. A handy tool to have in the kit for the occasional emergency.
And of course the personal abilities. Pandreo gets extra hit and avoid, especially in a crowded field. Anna earns cash. Apples to oranges really.
At this point, I don't tend to have a level 16 Anna, so the lack of need for investment I'd consider a plus. But if you do some farming in Jean's Paralogue, or an early DLC chapter or two, I don't think level 16 is out of the question.
The most attention drawing details for the immediate stats are that Anna has +2 Mag, Pandreo has +3 speed and +2 build. Bolganone Pandreo vs. Bolganone Anna, Pandreo is 2 weaker, 5 faster. Bolganone Pandreo vs. Elfire Anna, Pandreo is 3 stronger, 1 faster. Both Elfire, Pandreo is 2 weaker, 3 faster.
Putting this into practice, we'll look at chapter 13, the earliest Pandreo can be a sage. I counted 40 enemies on the map and tracked all of their stats and weapons (I hope that's correct. The Fog of war makes it hard to verify, so a couple errors is likely.)
Between Bolganone and Elfire Pandreo can double 24 of the 40, including all unpromoted units except 2 Swordfighters. He can one round 10 of them. Pandreo only gets doubled by Totchie's Brave Axe, and gets 1 rounded by physical attacks with power 42 or higher. Tetchie and Totchie can 1 round him, as can The Wyvern Knight with a Steel Greataxe. There are 2 Barbarians with Steel Greataxes powerful enough to 1 round him, but if they attack him, he can double and 1 round them with 100% accurate Bolganone, so they're only a threat if he does not have Bolganone equipped, or Pandreo decides to attack them during player phase from close range for some reason.
Anna with Elfire and Bolganone will be able to double 4 of the enemies on the map, and 1 round the two axe fighters. She gets doubled by the 2 wolf knights and 2 swordmasters, as well as Totchie's Brave Axe. She also gets 1 rounded by any physical attack with power 35 or higher. In total, there are 13 enemies on the map that can 1 round her.
That's coming into the map pretty unprepared though. Lets say we're aiming for optimal. A well cooked meal (or tonics) for Mag and Spd +2, and a Speed+3 from Lyn for both. Because we're playing iron man and are super paranoid about anything going wrong.
Pandreo can now double 33 enemies, and 1 round 30. Anna can double 24, and 1 round all 24 of them.
It doesn't look like there were enemies that fell barely out of reach that a minor weapon refinement or engraving would have scored kills on in this chapter. At this point (early mid game) it's not close. Pandreo is the dominant sage.
Looking to the future, Anna expands her magic advantage 1 point every 5 levels (significant) and closes the speed gap 1 point every 20 levels (not significant.) Pandreo actually gains a point build advantage in 10 and 20 levels (then caps.)
Ultimately in a playthrough, at internal level 31, Anna's Elfire matches Pandreo's Bolganone in power, but she'd still be 3 points slower. She can also wield Bolganone with 5 extra points of power, but will be 6 slower while doing so. She'd wield it at 24 speed as opposed to her usual 27, so she'll miss out on being able to double some things, but for the things she can double, she'll outperform Pandreo, and undoubtedly pick up some kills against some slower bulkier enemies Pandreo can't. But Pandreo will perform better against faster enemies. At this point, (sime-late game) I'd still say Pandreo is the stronger sage, but the gap has narrowed considerably. Anna is starting to show some advantages, and there's room for disagreement on which is better.
At this point, Pandreo will also cap build. Meaning he doesn't need to carry Elfire, and has an extra inventory slot, which he can use for an Elixer or an extra staff that Anna has no room for.
End game (internal level 45 we'll say.) Anna has built up a 9 point Magic Advantage, and managed to narrow the speed gap a bit since she still gains build, and has a touch higher speed growth. Pandreo remains 5 faster than Anna's Bolganone, and 2 faster than Anna's Elfire. But even with Elfire, Anna is hitting for 4 extra damage per strike. They've both maxed HP, and tie in defense, so Pandreo's durability advantage has disappeared. It's fair to call Anna the stronger sage at this point, but Pandreo still has a small niche against faster enemies, as well as the ability to use Fortify. And while strictly speaking, Anna having the option to carry Elfire and Bolganone for speed vs. power is better than Pandreo having no need for Elfire, in practice, Anna will take that option for the combat advantage, while Pandreo will instead take an extra staff or Elixer and become better for utility. Overall though, Anna is finally stronger than Pandreo with only minor room for argument. Without diving into great detail for endgame enemy stats anyway. Who knows? That extra 3 points of speed may be critical. I don't have endgame enemy data yet.
It's been a fun little exercise. :) Ultimately, I prefer Pandreo as a whole. The better performance right off the bat helps him grab a bunch of extra exp from kills and really snowball in a way Anna as a sage can't. Turns out, even after Anna is done power leveling with Micaiah, it still takes a while to get caught up. I also think the gap is large enough that Pandreo is the only true S tier.
Anna is still potent, but I think her early speed disadvantage especially on bolganone, is a major detriment. I think putting her an mage knight patches this up pretty well though, especially once she's got Chaos Style. So I run Pandreo as the Byleth Sage. Anna on Mage Knight.
As a side note, Jean has mostly the same troubles as Anna as a slow start unit, although even a bit moreso. I used to like him a lot, but starting as a martial monk puts him pretty squarely in magic territory, which Anna outperforms him at. Micaiah essentially lets you super level 1 underleveled unit. And while Jean can reclass to fill any role, he winds up being repurposed from his original martial monk path, and effectively becomes a lot of work to eventually become the second best at whatever role he chooses.
Also, Veil is a super misleading character. Her base classs has horrendous speed. Her speed growth is poor. Her base speed is actually really good. She comes at level 35. Compared to level 35 Anna as a sage, Veyle is actually 1 point faster, and has 1 more build. Anna still has 7 more magic though.
i actually just read all of that.
@@Axowobo Cool. lol. It''s more me doing analysis for myself than anybody else, but hope you enjoyed it!
This was great read.
I would like to point out with mauvier, if you reclass him to sage he will have capped build already at 11. I actually reclassed him to sage to see how he would do out of curiosity.
While I do think Pandreo is one of the best sages next to Anna I think you don’t even have to reclass him at all like the staff rank is overkill in hi-priest but the insurance is just so welcome
Amber Sage solo Challenge Run when?
Sage only playthrough when
Seems like you're using mainly growths for your tiering. I'd put Alear a bit more down due to 0 base magic at start. Even in maddening, my Alear usually is around 1 or 2 magic, 3 if im lucky ig, when I'm on chapter 8. Same for alcryst at 2 base. Vander can honestly be a decent base Sage with 5 initial magic.
I feel like most of this tier list is "I guess you could do it, but why would you?" The units rated as good wouldn't actually be good, just barely viable, and they would all be better in other classes.
The list would have been more interesting if you eliminated everyone rated OK or lower and then got super in depth trying to rank the units that players would actually consider making a sage
Anna sage and and pandero on mk is my preferred setup . Anna with bylth luck stacking and divine pluses basically never misses speed taker with Ike engrave thoron will kill anything that has survived a round with your units a get few stacks then start dropping baloneys . Mk pandreo has the movement and speed that he can just run Im from the start and front line while doubling.
What best inherit skill for sage?
Is Sommie actually a unit? Just checking if it’s a joke cause it would be dope to have him as a unit.
There is one other aspect you are forgetting. Characters have natural proficiencies with weapon types. Normally a sage can have S rank tomes and B rank staves. Characters with a natural staff proficiency can have S rank tomes and A rank staves. This makes characters like Lindon, Mauvier, and Hortensia good sages with even better staff support than normal.
On the reverse, characters with a natural tome proficiency (Celine, Critine, Ivy, etc.) make especially potent high priests as they can now use A rank tomes and S rank staves. Not having access to S rank tomes doesn't matter because there is only one S rank tome in the game: Nova. High priests for these characters simply trade a few points of magic for better speed, build, and survivability caps. In other words, Critine is better off as a high priest and any dire thunder user won't care about S rank tomes.
im running chloe and framme as sages on the same run, Chloe was worse framme the whole time because of the 10 extra levels of better magic growth framme gets, but she was still alright
Who would have thought that units that are under the 10% base magic growth rate make for poor Tome users? Or Sages in this particular list.
Merrin is a great sage but can't reclass to sage without dlc until after completing chapter 19.
Clanne A tier for any physical class, D tier for sage / mage knight
I don’t really get the citrinne propaganda. Her growths are lower than Anna by at least 10% in every stat besides def and res, where she’s tied in def and has 5% more res.
You’re required to RNG manip a ring onto her to even be viable- but notably she can also never engage and gets significantly less SP throughout an entire run.
She’s stuck on thunder to ever double, a 5 MT weapon.
You get her right after Anna and Jean, both better growth mages, and right before Ivy, a much more potent flying mage.
She also has less stats than other mages who can equip celica, byleth, etc in the late game because of bond 20 stats vastly outpacing bond rings (even before factoring passives and engage skills)
And Lindon is also just competing for her slot, a crit mage that regularly hits 40-50 crit off just a crit engraving and forged thunder tome, that just comes with enough SP to get to 70-80 crit off wrath right off the bat. There are arguments for him being weaker, but you also get him after deployment slots become way more abundant, as opposed to Citrinne who has to be fielded through the solm chapters. Unlike Citrinne, he also has a serviceable speed base and growth, and a build high enough to wield bolganone as an off answer to slower targets.
There just seems to be a ton of drawbacks for a build that requires rng manip in the first place. I saw your video on her and I’m just wholly unconvinced
Sage needs a redesign. I hate how the outfit exposes the abdomen! This is especially awful on the child units, Anna and Jean. And Sage is one of their best classes which makes it all the more infuriating!!
Bro has clearly never even bothered to run DT on Sommie. Has higher MAG than Citrinne and higher speed for just 5 less dex, luck and HP. Literally just Citrinne but better in the places that matter as long as you keep him petted and fed. Bullshit tier list, unsubscribd
AKA: Magic growth tier list
Put jean on griffin knight to fix speed and have high mag. Then move to mage knight by end game
When poeple talk about Anna being hard or needing to much investment, it's crazy she is so easy to level, and in sage or mage knight she pops off so quickly.
I'd agree Jean is alot more work on Madddening.
Sure any character can be relevant in maddening, I do believe a Few META units are needed mid to late game, to offset limited xp. But if seen endgame teams with Framme, Etie and Celene. (Just not all beggining units lol)
Amber sage/m. Knight does good in hard mode too. In maddening, haven't made a run where I use her as a sage. Plan to do martial master Chloe , sage amber, general kangetsu great knight lous. Support alear , it's now time to have off meta run. Idk how y'all run 4 or more maddenings of same characters and class and only change one, I did 3 and I'm burned out lol 😂🤣
Is star sphere really that good? Over 10 levels you'll have a plus 1 to all stats.
+1.5 to all stats on fixed mode/includes build, it shines over 20 levels where you get +3 to all stats.
"Hes okay as a Sage. Sommis better on other classes." Lol Said so straight-laced, instant placement. Man's thought about this.
Personally I think even if we’re factoring in starsphere, I would still think anyone with 0 percent Magic growth is a bad Magic unit.
If you want blu got 45% Magic growth (after factoring in Starsphere) I still think you wouldn’t be hitting hard enough compared to the other options available to you.
Diamant is SSSS+ for the outfit alone
The issue with Anna is that you have to run her or use arena to get her XP so that she can level up. I’m not willing to baby units that much 😂
You really don't need to do this, if you want to power level her to lv 7-9 there are a variety of methods to do this quickly ranging from normal play to XP farming so this meme that Anna is high investment is strictly lack of player knowledge to level her.
Oh no, you have to run a unit for them to be good. I thought benching the units you’re always using is the meta 😂
Jean is also a better enemy phase unit compared to Anna since he gets 80% res vs her 65%, it feels like Anna is slightly more player phase and Jean more enemy phase.
Veyle speedtaker Byleth was supreme on my maddening run
Starsphere is not enough to make "anyone decent on anything" maybe for physical classes but there are multiple characters that have a 0 Magic growth, since I am the Etie enjoyer I will mention her. With a whopping 0 base magic and 0% growth even in the best case scenario of starsphere from level 4 (base level) or reclass to mage with starsphere at level 1 (better) she gets a magic stat of 12 (it is over 12 on fixed but is still a decimal so round down). You get that number by reclassing her at level 4 (join level) to a mage and equipping starsphere the entire time and then leveling her to 10 and insta-promoting.
Yes, I know you put her in F-tier but I just think the statement of "anyone decent on anything" is wrong so here is this comment.
This will be very helpful for my all-male sage run that is just for the funny outfits.
(This is a joke oh my god it’s a joke.)
00:15 Because of what?
Starsphere?
@@IcedCoffeeGaming thanks man
Pandreo's Sage outfit is the most S-tier
if you let vander cook he’s the best sage
Yes, Vander helps with efficiency and from what I can tell he will take minimal XP away since he rarely kills things. Anna and Jean are the opposite. You need to give them resources to get going whether that's extra turns, setup kills, second seals, bond rings, the Micaiah Emblem Ring, ... that all other units can use as well. Ignoring turn count, you can solo the game with Alear, but I rarely see Alear that highly rated for good reason.
Fire Emblem Engage was made on Unity, not on Unreal Engine.
Jean is reliant on classes with good growths and because of that all fist and tome classes are terrible on him which makes him pretty bad as a sage. Now Enchanter can use fists and actually has decent class growths so he can prob be good as an enchanter if you want punching Jean, still a bad sage though
While Sommie is better in other classes, he's best boi which means he's best Sage. S+ Tier
Anna on sage is F tier and the reason is because you want her getting kills, Sage's power is a mix of utility and magic damage source, and sages are not great at killing things in Engage, they are good at nuking units while also being stave users. Mage Knight included, but without the stave usage, unless you run Micaiah ring. Bow knight anna with radiant bow does the job of a mage knight, while also one shotting every flier in the game accurately, actually bow knight gets more speed than mage knight even with their +3 speed passive.
Framme is S tier since she naturally fits into sage nicely and has the speed to double on bolganone, plus only healer at the start of the game and her base class has better growths than mage, not to mention 10% avoid for alear for running her.
Anna + Nova = Apocalypse
Pandreo is so busted as a unit. He's underrated
Ivy F tier for Sage, reason is because she is a terrible low C tier unit at base brought to high B tier maybe low A tier because she is a flying sage, if you take that away she is F tier.
I feel like “Dire-Thunder-Dependent” is its own tier lol
No one should be in it so there would be no point.
@@g.n.s.153 Citrine?
@@lunamaster123 Citrinne shouldn't limit herself to Dire Thunder, she can use Emblem Rings just fine.
Dire thunder has advantages but it's not anyone's best build.
@@g.n.s.153 It comes up because she is Dire Thunder's best user while not being the best user of other magic emblem rings.
@@lunamaster123 I fail to see how she's a worse user of the emblem rings than the others? Is it her speed? The thing you can work around if you want to?
First run on hard casual I felt like I had to baby and force deploy Anna because she's pretty trash tbh. My knowledge of the game was poor, eventually I landed her on hero with Levin Sword and she was pretty great from then on.
Thing about starspeaher is it’s really only good on early units, it’s great for Celine and Chloe early because it helps their build. Clanne can become better then kagetsu if leveled from sword fighter to swordmaster from level 1 with startspheare. And Jean it helps axe fighter to berserker the most. Other than that most late game characters have such good bases. It also helps Louis skyrocket his hp and defense
Starsphere benefits early units the most, esp ones you're investing in like Anna, but it's useful for any unit you get up to about ch 16, because that's when you're starting to open up a lot of exp far- I mean paralogues. I like to put Tiki on Seadall because it helps his survival, lets him boost adjacent ally defenses, and he can still dance while transformed. Starsphere didn't change a whole lot on him on fixed growths, but the difference is still noticeable, since he's always gaining exp.
Starsphere only give you 1.5 stat every 10 levels it wont really make difference for the first 10 level. It is great if you early promote though
@@lethargicwizard I like tiki on seadall as well it’s almost was like tiki was made for him lol yea Anna doesn’t really need it cause her growths are already amazing I think Chloe and Celine it benefits the most I think cause the build growth early on
Just let him cook
With Anna, while I’m not against investing in the early game units, she costs you a lot considering that she needs a second seal and master seal while they are really limited. Sure she’s one of the better recipients of them but everyone wants them and giving her priority is unfair when ranking (not for this list as most are getting reclassed).
i never run dire thunder ever, noob bait trash, only claude's ring is worth running as a bond ring over an emblem ring solely because of the +1 range utility and how powerful that is
Citrine S tier because of thoron and the ability to hold 4 staves is bolganone is useless on her, and she is probably going to be the best user for the mage cannoneer class when it is out
Fire Emblem: Ensage!
dire thunder is really overrated imo, killing a single unit on player phase is not that good as people make it to be
ignoring base stats is a mistake.
Am I though? I'm not calling them out but I am factoring them in :)
Poor Vander is bad at everything 😭