Fire Emblem Discussion

[Kong Wen]

I chose Edlegard's path

Oh yeah, it makes sense that you would have missed out on most of the Rhea-related stuff then! Edelgard's path is probably going to be my 4th play-through, because spoiler reasons.

1. Black Eagles: Byleth's Path
2. Blue Lions: Dimitri's Path
3. Golden Deer: Claude's Path
4. Black Eagles: Edelgard's Path

We'll see how much NG+ swag I manage to accumulate by then, and when the switch to Lunatic mode happens.

[Jordan]

I'm at Chapter 9 or so. Ferdinand continued his descent into uselessness, so I decided I'm going to make him my dancer. He actually really wanted to do it too, which I found comical. Bernadetta and Dorothea also ended up with low stat totals in comparison to my other characters. Edelgard and Hubert are monsters and Felix is good as always. Lysithea turned out good, but I use her in like every playthrough, so I decided I'm going to bench her and actually bother to use Manuela and Hanneman. Neither of them are very good at all, but I like to use different characters to unlock support convos. Petra crits like all the time and avoids everything. She's going to end up being a pretty solid wyvern rider.

[The Shoemaker]

I'm at Chapter 9 or so. Ferdinand continued his descent into uselessness, so I decided I'm going to make him my dancer. He actually really wanted to do it too, which I found comical. Bernadetta and Dorothea also ended up with low stat totals in comparison to my other characters. Edelgard and Hubert are monsters and Felix is good as always. Lysithea turned out good, but I use her in like every playthrough, so I decided I'm going to bench her and actually bother to use Manuela and Hanneman. Neither of them are very good at all, but I like to use different characters to unlock support convos. Petra crits like all the time and avoids everything. She's going to end up being a pretty solid wyvern rider.

I used Manuela and Hanneman a good amount, kept up their levels as adjutants. They are indeed, not very good units. Fun supports though.

I'm quite enjoying playing the game again, only a few chapters into Blue Lions. Nice to have all new characters, but I do find it funny how clearly character models fit certain archetypes and will have the same animations. Something you don't really notice until you're exposed to a new set of characters.

I'm a bit torn on recruiting characters. It feels very "non-canon" to me. I might find one that has many supports with my current team.

[Kong Wen]

I'm a bit torn on recruiting characters. It feels very "non-canon" to me.

This was me in my first play-through! It'll be hard for me not to recruit Ferdinand though. I want to see his supports with everyone.

[Jordan]

The funny thing about making Ferdinand a dancer is that aside from making him useful because he can dance, it actually made him more useful in actual battle too. He can dodge tank pretty well thanks to his innate ability which boosts his avoid at full HP. When stacked with dancer's sword avoid ability and his own somewhat above average speed, he's pretty slippery. He wasn't working for me in other classes and had about 20 points less in total stats than any of my other characters. I was originally going to make Dorothea a dancer but I actually think Ferdinand is better at it if you don't care about having a magic based dancer. Ferdinand is better at making use of the unique sword avoid skill dancers get, while Dorothea or other mages are better at making use of magic. To me the magic is superfluous for the class as most of the time I'm going to use my dancer to dance, and only occasionally have them actually fight anything or take up another support role.

[The Shoemaker]

The funny thing about making Ferdinand a dancer is that aside from making him useful because he can dance, it actually made him more useful in actual battle too. He can dodge tank pretty well thanks to his innate ability which boosts his avoid at full HP. When stacked with dancer's sword avoid ability and his own somewhat above average speed, he's pretty slippery. He wasn't working for me in other classes and had about 20 points less in total stats than any of my other characters. I was originally going to make Dorothea a dancer but I actually think Ferdinand is better at it if you don't care about having a magic based dancer. Ferdinand is better at making use of the unique sword avoid skill dancers get, while Dorothea or other mages are better at making use of magic. To me the magic is superfluous for the class as most of the time I'm going to use my dancer to dance, and only occasionally have them actually fight anything or take up another support role.

Definitely a good fit for the character!

I'm at a loss as to who I'll make a dancer in my Blue Lions run. Annette and Mercedes are my two most likely options, but I need Mercedes to stay a healer as only she gets physic. Annette would be good, but she has great rally skills (+4 Str, Spd, Def, Res), and once I have dance I would use that over rally. Would also be nice to have someone else dance so I could double those dance and rally bonuses to one character.

Spoiler

Maybe now that I won't be killing Flayn I'll actually use her as a dancer.

[Kong Wen]

I'm at a loss as to who I'll make a dancer in my Blue Lions run. Annette and Mercedes are my two most likely options, but I need Mercedes to stay a healer as only she gets physic. Annette would be good, but she has great rally skills (+4 Str, Spd, Def, Res), and once I have dance I would use that over rally. Would also be nice to have someone else dance so I could double those dance and rally bonuses to one character.

Maybe now that I won't be killing Flayn I'll actually use her as a dancer.

Spoilers. Sad ones.

I'd say recruit some loser from another house to foist dancing on them.

[The Shoemaker]

I'm at a loss as to who I'll make a dancer in my Blue Lions run. Annette and Mercedes are my two most likely options, but I need Mercedes to stay a healer as only she gets physic. Annette would be good, but she has great rally skills (+4 Str, Spd, Def, Res), and once I have dance I would use that over rally. Would also be nice to have someone else dance so I could double those dance and rally bonuses to one character.

Maybe now that I won't be killing Flayn I'll actually use her as a dancer.

Spoilers. Sad ones.

I'd say recruit some loser from another house to foist dancing on them.

I recruited Lyisthea and Leonie, but now I'm completed overwhelmed with characters when you add on all the church of Seiros people (Manuela, Hanneman, Alois, Shamir). I don't really care for Cyril but his amplitude skill adds 20% to all growth rates, which is intriguing. I might want to still make Flayn a dancer since she has the most supports with Blue Lions people.

[Kong Wen]

I recruited Lyisthea and Leonie, but now I'm completed overwhelmed with characters when you add on all the church of Seiros people (Manuela, Hanneman, Alois, Shamir). I don't really care for Cyril but his amplitude skill adds 20% to all growth rates, which is intriguing. I might want to still make Flayn a dancer since she has the most supports with Blue Lions people.

As much as I tried, I couldn't get Cyril to attain Donnel levels of immortality.

[Jordan]

Cyril is actually pretty bad. His aptitude is deceptive as his base growth rates are abysmal, and basically equivalent to a Jeigan type of character in previous games. With aptitude, he becomes equivalent to the other characters in the game, but lacking any real personal skill. He has high dex and speed, but his other growths are just average or mediocre. If you don't particularly care for Cyril I would say don't bother using him.

I would actually caution against making Flayn your dancer. It's what I did on my Blue Lions playthrough, but in hindsight, I think it's a mistake. There's a few problems with Flayn. First of all, she's a lucklet. She has some of the worst luck in the game, and this makes her very susceptible to crits. While this may seem unimportant, later on in the game you come across a lot of irritating artillery units and at least one boss with artillery style range. If these units crit, it's deadly, and it's hard to avoid their range completely without some special game abuse (e.g. heavy abuse of gambits). Even then, it can be difficult to deal with the high dex of enemies later in the game, which means that dancer Flayn has to be especially cautious. Secondly, she doesn't have great speed or defense either, and this means she's liable to get hit and killed. Additionally, low speed doesn't synergize well with the dancer's sword avoid ability. On a high speed unit, you can make an incredible dodge tank out of a dancer, but Flayn can't do this, and thus she's stuck purely as a refresher unit that can do little else. Third, Flayn has more utility as a support with rescue and heals, but if you make her a dancer, she can't really do two things at once. The benefit of making Flayn a dancer is that you probably have other plans for class upgrading your units, whereas Flayn joins late and isn't as locked into a specific role. I'm not sure this benefit outweighs the cons.

This can make it hard to find a good dancer in Blue Lions. In theory, the best Lions dancer imo would be Ingrid. She has average strength and magical growths and could thus make use of either the physically offensive or magically offensive aspects of the class with nearly equal ease. She also has a high cha stat to make use of sword dance or gambits. At C rank in reason, she gets thoron, a 3 range magic spell that is useful for a class like dancer. She has blisteringly high speed too, meaning that she can make good use of dancer's sword avoid, and she has sword proficiency. I don't know if alert stance stacks with sword avoid, but if it does, she probably could end up being one of the best dodge tanks in the game if you also level up her flying skill. Her defenses and luck are also well balanced. The biggest downside to using Ingrid in this role is that she's also great as a flier. Since you don't have many better options for fliers, making her a dancer comes at a high opportunity cost.

Felix in theory would also make a great dancer as he has almost all of the same perks as Ingrid, but Felix is a much better character than Ingrid and probably wants to spend his turns attacking rather than dancing. Ingrid is much more liable to be strength screwed and to end up being a res/dodge tank regardless of what you do. A perk of Felix is that he has a budding talent in reason.

Sylvain makes a great dancer as his stats fit the role well, and he has a budding talent in reason as well. Compared to Felix he has better CHA growths. If he gets especially rng screwed on stats, definitely consider making him your dancer.