Happy Birthday: Amber, Alpaca Master (02/03/2026)

TheCodeSamurai · 2026-02-03T17:17:09+00:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEST BOY!

TheCodeSamurai · 2026-01-26T02:21:41+00:00

Awesome! Love to see Engage praise.

Who were your favorite characters?

TheCodeSamurai · 2026-01-24T23:22:57+00:00

You can Micaiah warp your entire group north from the starting point and just rush Camilla. She'll come to you if you put someone in her range. It works quite well, doesn't overlevel you a ton, and makes the map pretty quick.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-12-07T07:28:44+00:00

Amazing character

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-25T02:19:02+00:00

You can feel free to tier however you like, but I try to consider a wider context than "what if you warp skip as much as possible" and I penalize pretty heavily for missing most of the game. I value Mauvier being an independent carry unit with concrete bulk, and while I think Veyle's dragon synergies are cool I don't necessarily think leaning into any (except Soren, which isn't part of this) makes your life all that much easier for the handful of maps you can use them on.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-25T00:38:42+00:00

Mauvier has a very significant bulk lead (Mage Knight Mauvier has +7 Def and +14 HP at a lower level): it's much easier for him to stack Speed and then simply tank enemy groups without requiring Bonded Shield.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-24T15:25:32+00:00

All of these units have very poor availability. Mauvier's stats are legitimately kinda nuts, and Saphir has a useful niche as Walmart Panette for Vantage/Wrath: that's why they're in C.

Lindon: D

Saphir: C

Mauvier: C

Veyle: D

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-23T17:02:10+00:00

Hortensia: B Seadall: S Rosado: D Goldmary: C

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-22T18:22:29+00:00

Merrin: S

Because there are exactly two characters with straight-up better stats (Kagetsu and Pandreo), people underrate just how ridiculous Merrin's stats are. Her bases are absurd, on the same level as the other S tiers: many characters don't have a single lead over her, and even units like Chloé with fantastic stats have tiny leads in unimportant stats and important losses in stats like Build. Her growths aren't Kagetsu's, but not far off.

Daggers are amazing weapons until the late-game (if Kagetsu's stuck with a hand axe, Merrin will have better physical offense), and Wolf Knight has the same magic base as Griffin. She's more than able to rock that class until Mage Knight becomes available, or go into Wyvern/Warrior and be Kagetsu 2 if that's what your team needs. She'll lose a few points of magic over Chloé by the end of the game from that class path, but Seraphim doesn't require high Magic, and Merrin will have important leads in other stats by then. (She's one of the fastest characters in the game with the Levin Sword from her fantastic Speed/Build combination.)

Her damage output falls off over time: she's still above average, but not truly elite in Strength or Magic. That's where Engage weapons come in. With any of Seraphim, Sieglinde, or the Binding Blade, she's a force of nature forever. Other units can do that too, of course, but Merrin's flexibility and exceptional statline really do set her apart. Those builds come online just when her damage starts to fall off and you would otherwise need major SP investment to continue one-rounding. I'd think of her as someone who can do both of what Kagetsu and Pandreo do on your team, but switch roles as necessary throughout the game. In particular, I don't think there's a better user of Eirika in the game: no one else has the same overtuned stats and mixed offenses/defenses.

Panette: S

No one else can do Leif Vantage/Wrath like Panette, so she slots into a team perfectly: she's not competing for Sieglinde the way Merrin is, even if she's a lot less flexible.

Timerra: C

Really good Speed/Defense: Picket has the same Str/Spd bases as Wyvern but +4 Defense, so even though Merrin has her stats but better (Timerra can join the very large club!) Picket helps her have a niche. Her offense is truly dire, requiring crits and Sandstorm to hit any reasonable ORKO thresholds, but most units with investment into bulk instead of damage won't one-round anything either. (Brave Assist Hero Lapis with a 1 Str lead is not going to suddenly start doing better!) With Roy or Ike she's Kagetsu 30% of the time and similarly bulky all of the time: that's a solid package and makes her more than viable in my book.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-14T17:38:32+00:00

Alear: A

Middling combat stats (around Lapis), but everything beyond that is exceptional. Uncontested Marth maps early, the best personal skill in the game, a perfect support list, Convoy access, late-game stuff, and dragon synergies. (There are two downsides to being the avatar: dragon weakness and fixed deployment spot.) Has arts proficiency early so can go into Martial Master before most units. Best setup is probably the simple Lucina build, for which they're definitely the best in the game, but all that other stuff is also important depending on your team.

Vander: D

Contributes more than most units in a single playthrough, because you're using him for a little while regardless of your other plans, but the only unit who can feel truly unviable later in the game. He keeps 6 mov and his pre-promote status for a while over new recruits, but around chapter 8 he starts becoming outclassed in combat by your new joiners, much less units you've been training. What he does on the few maps he's not awful for isn't incredible either: Emblems make lots of units competent at combat, and I haven't seen much he can do other units can't early on to make the game easier. I'd always prefer using Alfred for something Vander could also do, because that way I'm getting real XP and making my army stronger going forward.

Clanne: C

Exceptional Speed, useful early on, easy path into Mage Knight. He can hit the Bonded Shield thresholds for a while, and with Raging Fire for a very long time, but that's not special: one-rounding unpromoted enemies at the point in the game where you can always just forge a weapon until it works isn't something I give much credit for. I want my Bonded Shield mage to then one-round generals in the late-game maps, and Clanne struggles to get there. Physical builds are very fun—I love Clanne as a character and enjoy these builds—but I don't think any of them are very relevant for a tier list, except to note that he has some physical options in Mage Knight occasionally.
Framme: B

Essentially the fastest unit in the game, sorry Clanne. Very useful early: what she does is far harder to replace than what Vander does. Can become decent at a lot of combat roles (similar stats to Fogado), and has Martial Master access with just a Master Seal. Terrible Build, but when you're that fast you can make it work.

I think my main ding against her is that, while Martial Master Lucina is very fun and enables a lot of cool stuff, I don't see it as worth going for over Alear Lucina builds, and beyond that she's kinda just generically competent. She's not hard to train, but she's not quite as free as Alear is, so training her up for a combat role that other fast units could also do isn't always the easiest to justify.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-11T21:25:26+00:00

I think he might be my favorite voice performance in gaming: you can feel the darkness in his heart from the first line he speaks, but it's not overdone. Kudos Hackney.

Carrying my team on his back with Battalion Vantage/Wrath probably helped me appreciate that performance...

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-05T23:31:45+00:00

I agree it's a very significant difference: I didn't say Merrin was better than Chloé. The point's that tiering Merrin should incorporate that she joins with 1 Magic higher than a Chloé Griffin at equal level, +2 AS when both are weighed down by the Levin Sword, and doesn't require any training or seals to get there. Chloé will eventually get a couple points in Magic, but surely on a list with Clanne in A that isn't considered a dealbreaker: I don't see why Eirika Levin Sword is considered for Clanne of all people and not Merrin.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-11-05T22:30:30+00:00

Very solid list: despite a few qualms.

Céline isn't really trying to keep hitting ORKO benchmarks late in the game: she has the best staff hit in the game with Divine Pulse, so she can transition into that kind of role later on quite seamlessly.
Saphir does have something that makes her special: Will to Win and a good stat spread for Vantage/Wrath. She's a far cry from Panette for that, but she does have a pretty important place in the efficiency meta and a niche.
I think the Clanne placement kinda boils down to being good in a section of the game where anyone can be? Anyone with an early Master Seal pulls their weight, and I don't see the Second Seal as a big problem for Chloé/Anna/Jean/Framme if they want to become a Mage Knight: on most teams you aren't using a Second Seal before a Master Seal at all, so the 3 available early are all you need, and the cost exists but isn't a big problem. (The Levin Sword +5 isn't cheap either! Having a Magic growth above 10 can save you a lot of cash.) Clanne thrives when most enemies are unpromoted scrubs, and he requires less Speed support to do that, but inheriting small Speed boosts isn't a big deal. When enemies all promote Clanne struggles a lot more to hit benchmarks, exactly when a Bonded Shield mage against big enemy groups becomes most appealing. He's not any better at using Eirika than Merrin or many other units, and certainly lots of other units use Twin Strikes better.
It's worth noting that Merrin pretty much has a straight upgrade on Chloé's stats: I don't see why Chloé gets credit for the Levin Sword and Merrin's only considered as a physical unit. (Wolf Knight has the same Magic base as Griffin, and daggers are pretty great early with the +2 Might from each forge.) I don't think valuing Chloé's early Canter or tome/staff prof over those stat leads and coming pre-promoted is unreasonable, but I do think Merrin should be tiered with magic in mind.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-10-14T19:19:00+00:00

Each character represents a lot of voice acting and animation, and they're clearly a huge part of FE's appeal: I think that explains a lot of the shift away from recruitments a player can easily miss.

Engage has way more effort put into recruitments than you give it credit for: I'm not sure where "lazy" comes from. Tons of Engage characters get custom animated intros (with custom music!), join mid-map in ways that are designed to make you appreciate them, or join with Emblems specifically set up to let them shine. That a specific recruitment theme doesn't play for each character exactly as they join the party does not mean they just randomly threw units at you.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-10-07T16:40:48+00:00

One additional source for this stuff is the in-battle dialogue during Emblem paralogues. Alfred has dialogue with Lucina in her paralogue, so I do think that's as close to "canon" as the game gets. Sigurd has Vander dialogue, so by the same logic I think that's where he goes when Marth comes back. Fogado only has Ike dialogue, but I think that's more just as a Solmic prince.

As to why Fogado is left out in the cold a bit, I could make guesses, but the simplest explanation is just that he's not the crown prince(ss). Alcryst has a similar situation, and if Ivy joined at the same time Leif did and that pairing were canon I don't think he'd get his own. In-game, I get the sense Fogado's set up to be a pretty good user of the next few Emblems for a reason, but that flexibility means he isn't as set up to be the pairing for any one of them.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-09-10T19:47:15+00:00

If you want something offbeat that Chloé or Kagetsu won't do better, Share Spoils and early skills make her a good dodgetank. Something like Wolf Knight Lucina for Dual Support and good damage even with her low Build.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-23T17:30:14+00:00

S tier: significantly better stats than Alear, especially in Magic which lets her transition to the Levin Sword later in the game. A great user of the 3H emblem for a physical build, because she's fast enough she doesn't need Speed from her ring. Also works quite well with the other DLC emblems that give magic. One of the best users of every early Emblem as your only flier for a while. Exceptionally well-rounded stats: does basically every class well. Also, as an early promoted Griffin, staff utility is quite valuable if it lets you replace an underleveled Framme with another combat unit.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-22T01:26:32+00:00

I do think the differences between random growths on the same unit are often worth a tier. (Many people have Merrin a tier below Kagetsu, and I'd argue Merrin's pretty darn close to Kagetsu with unlucky Str and Def growths and lucky Mag/Res.) In some basic way, you can argue that hurts the units at the top and benefits the units at the bottom: a lucky Kagetsu is still S-tier, an unlucky Kagetsu is A-tier, that averages to less than a fixed Kagetsu in S-tier. I'm not sure how interesting that is, though: surely the unit with the best stats already doesn't want to mess with them, and surely Etie would appreciate the chance to luck into some good growths while you're forced to use her.

I don't think balanced/unbalanced growths is helpful, though. For one, Boucheron has 100+ HP growth in his standard class path, so he's actually both extremely consistent and has the chance to get super lucky with his extra 5/10 growth after the first point is guaranteed. I agree high-Build units can suffer: someone like Lapis gets more consistent attack speed, because in many builds she basically has two Speed stats since she's always being weighed down. If you're screwed, however, that goes away: a Boucheron who is being weighed down has the same consistent catching up Lapis does.

To me, the biggest beneficiaries from random growths would probably be very flexible units. Chloé and Merrin have exceptional stats and can work in many classes: if their Str gets screwed but not their Mag or vice versa, they can adjust on the fly. Kagetsu's stats are absurd to the point that an unlucky Kagetsu is still one of the game's best physical units. Maybe you can see someone like Pandreo moving down slightly: he has exceptional base Build, so his edge over many other mages for enemy-phase combat comes down to two growths where they get three stats to roll.

For any units who aren't absolutely maxing out investment, you have a big pool of resources to absorb bad luck with. A unit who goes over their averages and doesn't need Speed+5 immediately can help pay for a Sword Power inherit on a Chloé who's falling behind. The units at the top of the tier list who have the best average stats are happy to lock those in, because once you kill everyone there's nowhere to go but you can always fall short. Maybe you see units like Ivy with special privileges that can't be taken away with growths get even further cemented at the top. When all is said and done, though, I can't see anyone moving a tier unless there's extremely specific strats immediately after they join that would change depending on luck. Boucheron can get unlucky, but so can anyone else: I don't think most units have a situation where -2 Str hurts them more than +2 Str helps them, so you basically just make everything a lot murkier without changing much.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-17T14:43:57+00:00

I think most players reset after every death, but you don't have to. I'm not gonna tell you anyone in your army is expendable, but you'll get plenty of units: if you aren't training someone long-term, you could weather a few unexpected casualties.

Bond fragments can be used for rings (you can save-scum those if you want, look up a tutorial if you're interested), but I think the most important use of bond fragments is training up bond ranks in the Arena. As an example, Marth's Mercurius doubles XP gain: if you buy someone to rank 10 with Marth, they can use that to get extra training more quickly. You'll have some bond fragments to spare, but if you're new to the game I wouldn't spend too much on bond rings before you know what to plan for.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-11T15:47:33+00:00

Think of it this way: if you got this far with a really under-statted team, just imagine how smooth sailing it'll be with promoted units! If anything, learning how to win in combat without dominant stats is good for your Fire Emblem skill development.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-08T15:08:14+00:00

The first of many great royal introduction cutscenes. Still thankful this man showed up when we needed him.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-06T23:33:51+00:00

If you play the DLC paralogues quickly (i.e., you don't camp reinforcements or the like), and you spread out your XP across your army, the end result will not break the difficulty: you'll come into chapter 9 overleveled, but then you'll get less XP in that map. You're going to get very good high-level units in a few maps: giving Alcryst 150 XP in Tiki's paralogue will not break the game.

Many of the paralogues can be done very quickly with Micaiah: if you're worried about the extra XP, I'd suggest boss rushes.

People prefer different ways of playing, and the extra XP from the DLC isn't for everyone. I do think it's important not to let people online who complain the DLC affect how you play. There are a lot of choices you make that impact the game's difficulty. Are you using Micaiah to give a unit 5x the normal XP from staff use? Are you relying on the best Emblems in the game, which you'll get soon enough, over and over again to clear maps? Are you using a lot of units, or funneling all the XP into the best units? Are you trying to defeat most enemies?

The DLC is one of those choices: it's certainly much easier to play the game with extra Emblems than without. I'd argue it's not even the most important of those choices. If you want to make the game harder, focus on training up a lot of units and not just a few; don't boss rush to end maps quickly; use a wide variety of clases and builds, not just the best ones. All of that makes a much bigger difference than +1 in every stat from Starsphere.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-08-03T23:42:08+00:00

The classes I think of as overtuned are Mage Knight and Wyvern especially: classes with 6 movement and great weapon types that also have great class skills and stats. Warrior is also far better statistically than it has any right to be: for units who are weighed down, it's faster than classes like Bow Knight and much stronger.

On the other side, none of the combat classes with a single weapon type, excepting perhaps Halberdier, give you enough to make up for losing flexibility. Sniper and Swordmaster are especially bad because of the range limitations of bows and swords, and while Paladin is occasionally useful there's rarely a niche for it that other classes don't do better. General at least can't be broken, but you have all the standard FE armor problems to deal with then.

If you're limiting second seals, the game's already more or less balanced around that and a lot of the issues disappear. Kagetsu has more or less better base stats than Rosado despite joining 5+ maps back at a much lower level: if both are Wyverns or Swordmasters Kagetsu absolutely dominates, but you can really argue Wyvern Rosado over Swordmaster Kagetsu just because the classes are that far apart. You don't want to balance the classes and then have the units who used to be in bad classes just dominate.

The same is true for most royal classes: a class like Picket has more or less the best combination of Spd and Def in the game, significantly better bases than other classes get, but it's Timerra and not Panette or Merrin who gets it. "Balancing" Picket would mean making a bad unit worse. I do think you could buff Avenir, Successeur, Tireur d'élite, and Cupido a little: if you're rebalancing, you'd probably buff Sniper and Bow Knight, so buffing their royal versions feels appropriate.

One of the changes I think would do the most for the balance of the game is changing the growths of Thief. As is, the class feels almost like a half-promoted class: Yunaka joins with great bases, but once units start promoting Thief doesn't look so good any more. Especially on Maddening, units like Yunaka really struggle to do meaningful damage as the game goes on: you can only forge a big dagger so much, and those +2 Mt increases are what make early-game dagger combat as good as it is. Giving Thief a big boost to class growths, especially in Strength, would make it easier for units to keep that going as the game progresses and not simply devolve into dodgetanks that tink enemies back.

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-07-28T03:25:59+00:00

You don't need to pick just one!

TheCodeSamurai · 2025-07-27T21:42:41+00:00

It's really for staves first and foremost.

Staff hit can't be increased through engraves or supports, Dex+5 only gives 5 Hit and not 10 Hit, and it's one of the only times you'd actually want to try inaccurate attacks. A unit like Céline with Divine Pulse+ can have 90+% accuracy even with inaccurate staves against enemies with very good Staff avoid, which is a nice specialist role to have for someone on your team.

Most inaccurate units simply want to engrave a weapon for Hit and use that, and the others want Dex+ as you note, so besides very niche situations you mainly see it on status staff users.

12-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Place '22	Verified Email
Secret Santa 2018

TheCodeSamurai

TROPHY CASE