I'm getting pretty late into the Golden Deer path now - just pre-battle on chapter 17. All paralogues are completely done (and damn, are there a lot of them when you recruit everyone), and I'm not going to waste time/grind in pointless battles, so it should be quick sailing from here. I was pleased to see that the paralogues all manage to pose at least something of a challenge (and boy, taking down the boss in Claude's paralogue in particular without losing anyone was more than just something of a challenge) even when I'm in theory over-leveled for them, but the last couple of story missions haven't done so hot in that regard.

Gameplay-wise, everybody's in their final classes at this point, so some thoughts there.
Spoiler: Spoilered for Space
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- Byleth as a Falcon Knight has worked out spectacularly. Focusing on getting as much training in flying from Setheth and Manuela as possible, plus spear training from Shamir, I actually had her skills up right on time to promote at level 30 exactly. And it's quite effective - I mean, it's basically a flying swordmaster but with spears, so yeah, not a huge surprise there I guess. My air force in this run has generally been my MVPs, having so many highly-mobile killing machines is a major asset, especially now that you can land them if they need to get near an archer. Though sadly I've never had the occasion to use Triangle Attack...
- Claude is a boss going his obvious archery route and using his unique classes, as expected.
- Lorenz as a Mortal Savant is kind of working out. He has the strength and magic for it, no doubt there - but honestly, the speed loss going from Swordmaster to Mortal Savant has been an issue, and since he has a net -30% speed growth from that he's not making it up. Kind of feels like he was in many ways a more effective sword-mage as a Swordmaster who just also carried around a Levin Sword+. I'll stick with Mortal Savant this time around just to see it play out in full, but in the future, I think I might regard the class as a bit of a trap honestly. You might just be better off with anyone you would put in it going Swordmaster + Levin Sword or a straight Mage-type path.
- Rafael is the most archetypal Fortress Knight ever. He has a speed of 4 at level 36, but his health, strength, and defense are so through the roof that it actually doesn't matter. He can still legitimately one-shot a lot of things, particularly with the right combat art, and nothing physical can do more than stcratch him. As long as he's kept away from mages, he can take entire armies on no problem.
- Ignatz benefited a lot from the time skip and getting into the Assassin class. He was by far my weakest character before that, but now he's actually quite solid, with ridiculous speed and dexterity, and enough strength to get by. The Assassin stealth mechanic is perfect for keeping him safe, because it doesn't take much more than stiff breeze to kill him if it actually connected. He is the one character that I really can't use iron+ weapons with anymore, because they just won't do enough damage, but his speed is high enough that he doesn't need to carry one of those to ensure that he'll always double, so loading him out with silver, brave, and killing weapons has worked. And Thunderbrand, but I actually haven't resorted to using that in quite a while, which is nice.
- Lysithea is death incarnate as a Gremory. When I need something to die, now, I point her at it. Range 5 spells (between S rank Reason and the heroes relic wand) with a magic stat that's passed 40. And enough speed that she usually doubles, but she rarely needs the second hit. Hell, with her Luna spell, she doesn't even care if the enemy has stupidly high resistance. She's just nuts. (Actually, an interesting observation to me: she's basically a better version of Hubert in every way.)
- Marianne as a Holy Knight is... eh. I like the extra mobility it gives, and the animations for spell attacks, but I really miss the Heal +5 innate ability from Bishop (especially since her magic stat is the lowest among my casters), and to a lesser extent the doubled white magic uses. Not entirely sure the class is worth putting your main healer into because of that. Like Lorenz, think I'll play it out, but I'm leaning towards just not going Holy Knight in future runs.
- Hilda as a Warrior is a powerhouse, most of the time. She has had some issues having enough speed to double all of the time, but she can often make up for that with the high crit rate she can get out of her Killer Axe+, or by doubling with Silver Gauntlets.
- Leonie as a Falcon Knight has worked out quite well, with her strength issues starting to disappear after she got the growth rate bonus from the master class. Still not as ungodly crazy as she was in Wyvern Lord in my Black Eagles run, but definitely one of my stronger units.
- Sylvain as a Dark Knight has been more satisfying than Marianne in Holy Knight. He did noticeably lose some physical effectiveness going there from Paladin (loss of Lancefaire and all), but picking up the magic has made him very flexible and able to use whatever will be most effective on a given target, which helps make up for the somewhat mediocre stats he's got. And unlike Mortal Savant, there's not a readily-available magic lance out there to just hand a Paladin for a similar effect, so the class feels more meaningful.
- Dorothea as my Dancer has been pretty solid. The class' generally lacking growth rate bonuses have left her not as effective as a mage as she was as a Gremory (especially since no doubled black magic uses = only one meteor per map), so she's not actually killing as much as she did in my Black Eagle run, but the flexibility of adding the dance ability to her repertoire helps make up for it, and she's a solid backup healer to Marianne (since Lysithea doesn't get Physic).
- Petra is the most agile Wyvern Lord I've ever seen. I've legitimately had a Sniper have a 4% hit chance against her when Alert+ was active. And while it's fallen behind a bit recently, there was a while there where her strength score was actually slightly higher than Rafael's, and she has Death Blow from Brigand, so she's almost as effective at killing things as Lysithea. Yeah, like I said, my air force have been great.


Also, a couple of supports I want to comment on. (Both refer to their final supports, so only read if you've seen them or are cool with knowing how things go up to the final one.)
Spoiler: Lorenz/Hilda
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Probably could've said this earlier, but I want to call it out, this might be my favorite support in the entire game (note: I haven't seen a lot of the Blue Lions ones yet). It is so well-written, with their respective personalities and flaws interacting in fun and interesting ways in the early supports, both of them experiencing character development from it as you hit B+ and Lorenz is actually thanking Hilda for putting so much work on him so that he could better himself while she's so astonished by this that she winds up wanting to help him in turn, and then it all actually feeling like it came together very naturally with the two developing feelings for each other in the end. My opinion of Lorenz as a character is possibly single-handedly saved by this support (okay, it's not the only one where you see his redeeming qualities by any means, but it is the one that most helps me look past his seeming inability to ever completely lose the stuck-up noble attitude and inflated opinion of himself). It kind of feels like the gold standard of Fire Emblem supports to me.

Spoiler: Catherine/Shamir
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Okay, if these two don't have a romatically-paired ending, I am calling so much BS. In addition to everything else in their support line, in their A+ support, Shamir actually proposes to Catherine. And while she's clearly enjoying Catherine being flustered by it, it doesn't come across as her joking either, and given everything else in their supports there's no question of Catherine not being interested even though it cuts off without her giving a response beyond being flustered. That one quite surprised me, after seeing them fairly shy about being overt with the gay relationships outside of some of Dorothea's dialogue I was not expecting that.


Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
Playing with literally everybody recruited is a bizarre experience. I keep forgetting I'm Black Eagles, since I have the entire school minus Hilda and Dedue on my side at this point. Battle of Eagle and Lion should be funny, with me fielding a team from all 3 houses and just Claude, Dmitri, Dedue, and Hilda on the opposing side.

I was going to recruit all of the knights (sans Gilbert) and both teachers as well, but I'm starting to think that might be overkill. I'm already overwhelmed with people and spending 10 minutes at the dining hall mapping out who I want to get Support with whom. The battles are similarly bizarre, as I have to try and make groups of people that will be getting support with each other while still filling the roles of tank/dps/healer within the squads. Once I actually hit the difficult levels I expect things to get crazy.
Personally, despite recruiting everyone, I just don't use most of them. I have my main army of 12 (since no battle lets you deploy more than that), and everybody else is on the bench or adjutant-only except when I need to bring them into paralogues or when I'm afraid I'm over-leveling my main army. Trying to actually use everyone feels like it would just dilute your levels too much, plus you couldn't focus your instruction time nearly as well that way.