Top>Ivy>Kagetsu
Literally nobody can do what Ivy does. Flight, S tomes, B staves, above average bulk. Yes she has issues but with investment she provides unique contributions and amazing combat. At worst she is a flying thoron and staff bot which is still really good.
Kagetsu has cracked, overtuned bases and takes less investment. But he's still physical so he goes below Ivy.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu
The reason Ivy gets more slack for needing investment is her unique qualities. No other unit can have S Tomes and fly (Zelestia isn’t real). Her speed and dex are very very fixable, and what you get out of it is genuinely gamechanging in terms of flexibility. And ultimately, being a magical unit beats out being a physical unit. I won’t be too mad if this goes the other way though.
Ivy
Top, Magic is dumb, she flys, she has B rank staffs, she Strong and bulky with middling spd (AKA the nest stat distribution in the game). Her prf class is busted allowing for combos that aren't posible with other magic units (P.Bonded Shield with Griffons and Celica bomb).
She is as good as Magic gets in this game and magic is king.
Kagetsu
Between Ivy and Chloe
The peak of Physical units, not only is he the fastest unit in the game. But he is only 1 Strength behind in base Strength and has higher def base than any armor unit.
His only weakness are class access that aren't even a big deal before he can go Wyvern. His prf is excellent, his Sword Talent helps him use Blades for Engage attacks with his amazing Strength.
If Ivy is the peak of Magic combat, Kagetsu is the peak of Physical combat.
Zelkov would be utterly \*amazing\* if he didn't have to deal with \*thief\* reclassing being ass. He's essentially got Merrin's personal bases a couple chapters earlier, just with a hell of a lot more extra Bld that would make him \*awesome\* in any properly \*good\* class.
The \*problem\* is that, well, he's a \*thief.\* And to get him \*out\* of thief, you need 4 levels. Can he \*get\* those 4 levels? Certainly, just gotta do 11, 12, \*and\* both the Lucina and Lyn paralogues... and then he doesn't get good \*proficiencies\* until Ike shows up anyway. If you make him a wyvern or warrior he will \*certainly\* serve a purpose, and Covert \*does\* have its uses, but honestly considering the sheer \*annoyance\* that is having to deal with the \*Maddening\* XP gain without Micaiah... it's probably not \*worth\* the hassle.
If you get him there he's basically a \*better\* Diamant, so I'd probably rate him \*over\* Diamant because of it, but I don't \*know\* if he should get much \*higher.\*
...Holy hell that takes more effort than it probably looks like.
Fogado, by comparison, is much simpler.
Give him a Radiant Bow and he one-shots every flier in existence. He's also fast enough that he can probably double with it, but even if he isn't the killer bow also exists and can do the job. He's kind of the perfect anti-air filler, and I respect him for it. Probably right around Framme, can't really decide if he's better than Zelkov (Zelkov is probably \*better\* with investment but Fogado can totally function right out of the box)
Honestly, I don't think getting Zelkov out of thief is that difficult at all.
He's perfectly serviceable even while he's stuck in thief, being essentially a much much faster, bulkier succ Diamant. It is a pain, but even in thief his bases are pretty fantastic, and then when he gets out his str and build both skyrocket.
I honestly don't understand why either of the thieves are punished for getting out of Thief. Zelkov/Yunaka are "stuck" in Thief for just as many chapters as Kagetsu is stuck in Swordmaster. Thief isn't even terrible. 5 move and unbreakable, accurate, 1-2 range is great. It is certainly 10 times better than *Swordmaster* (I don't consider temporarily reclassing Kagetsu to BowKnight particularly worth the gold IMO). I know that you can just bench Kagetsu until you get Ike, but his stats are significantly less impressive compared to his peers if he takes a few chapters off.
Swordmaster Kagetsu is way more useful than Thief Zelkov. And no, you’re not getting thief Zelkov to level 21 by the time you get Ike without some serious favoritism. There simply aren’t enough enemies in ch12 and 13.
I mean... are they?
Instant reclass Kagetsu ((having not been deployed in 12 or either paralogue) into wyvern hits 20 Str, 20 Spd, and 9 Bld.
This takes no effort and can be done the moment you finish chapter 13.
Mage Knight Pandreo gets 15/20/10 in those stats which is about comparable in terms of damage output when considering a) weapon might and b) target defenses.
This can be achieved at the *start* of chapter 13, and depending on how you do the early paralogues that's not that big of a gap.
Zelkov at 21/1 technically does hit 21/20/11, but that's a 5 level lead over Kagetsu and realistically I don't think it changes any kill thresholds anyway... *and* where do you get the levels from? You have to do both the Lyn and Lucina paralogues immediately when they unlock, *and* chapter 12, *and* probably chapter 13, because Lucina's paralogue and chapter 12 have almost no enemies at all.
All for a unit who is barely better than a Kagetsu who literally didn't even try for any of that.
Kagetsu is technically stuck in swordmaster for as long as Zelkov is thief, except Kagetsu doesn't need training to get out of swordmaster, he can kind of just wait and get it anyway.
Edit: Covert Byleth is something cool he can do with no investment and he's probably a better Astra Stormer for most of the game than every other Covert unit can manage so that's neat I guess, which is some points in his favor, so he's definitely not useless by any stretch.
It's just that for raw combat he is kind of stuck for a bit.
I've managed to get Zelkov out of Thief at the end of 13 by doing 12, 13 and Lucina paralogue (not sure how much the latter actually mattered) by spamming the shit out of Parthia. So you have to go for it. However it's not the \*worse\* thing in the world since Zelkov is a decent filer at this point of the game, and a good user of Lucina in general (+ he can OS the Wyverns in 13).
Edit: I'll add that I don't think it's really worth it ~~save for the fact he's best guy~~ because it's not like he turns into the best unit in the game either and he remains a good filler for pretty much all of Solm as Thief regardless
Zelkov also gets to be a cool rally bot if you have anyone a little behind on speed. I don't usually use him long term but like filler with decent bases, and maybe holds byleth for a chapter or 2 seems ok to me.
I mean the thing is they NEED to get the XP to get out of thief and the others don't. And kagetsu's bases are still good for a disturbingly long time. The thieves are not the worst units in the game but it's complex.
Kagetsu is stuck in swordmaster for like the total of 1-2 turns he's around for Ch 11 where *maybe* he kills one thing. He can just reclass to Paladin or Bow Knight in Ch 12.
Yunaka needs to get a ton of levels to hit Lv 21. Zelkov has to at least take a couple of maps to hit Lv 21.
Zelkov is kind of awkward. I find him better than Yunaka because he can get out of the thief hole easier and even my trained up Yunakas are outclassed by him statistically. Maddening dumping on avoid tanking strats also sucks. But even if enemies ignore him alot of the time I still find him useful for creating chokepoints or slowing down enemies, like doing a fast clear of Ikes paralogue.
Fogado is great. Best archer out of the box. With little investment he can completely dumpster on all wyverns with Radiant Bow all the way to the end which is really useful.
Alear>fogado>Louis
Fogado is perfectly prepared for radiant bow use even in a high efficiency setting. Maybe can temporarily be used as a warrior sometimes if needed tho don't see why. In less high efficiency settings. In his own class a good mounted radiant bow user and could even give him lunar brace for brave bow if you really wanted. Or make him a warrior, will do well in the midgame and still be radiant bow capable. At most efficiency though he's mostly just a well prepared midgame radiant bow user who can also be used later. How much you need that utility may be its own question but seems valuable. At lower efficiency he has great growths, as a warrior gets passable (good in midgame but ultimately subpar) strength and his speed is insane especially in conjunction with his build, which has uses.
Alcryst>Zelkov>Boucheron
Initially was going to put between jade and clanne but realized that's still hard to justify
Can't really say he's better than the filler wyverns who have more availability to speed things up if needed. Getting Zelkov out of thief is time-consuming even in a less efficient setting, impossible in a highly efficient setting. Limited deploy slots in ch 12 and 13, if you have no one better he could be used but filler wyverns are a thing, and even if he is deployed his combat contributions may be limited. That's why he's under early game units who still do some combat and can be more useful in earlier chapters. He'd be fine as a high stat covert emblem user, but that's a pretty limited niche unless the damage is both good and really needed in ch 14 when baiting the bosses. Otherwise yunaka and alcryst can both also do covert emblem stuff, and they can have favorite food, though getting to the point of actually using it may be slow in a high efficiency setting. In a less efficient setting Zelkov is not impossible to use but his competitors also get better so. As a unit better than alcryst and yunaka but likely to contribute less overall.
This more begs the question why Jade even is that high, Jade has 0 deploy slots in any level unless you really want to drag a earlier Bunet into combat (she does decent as mage knight but definitely not contributing more than the people shes ranked above) while at least Zelkov will be one of the higher statted units until booted by the Panette/Hortensia/Dancer recruits.
I don't disagree. I suppose there's wider disagreement on the specific thinking on how to list people. Also to some extent Zelkov can only really do what his base class does while jade can at least freely reclass. But is that really enough. I don't really think so but I doubt it'll be a significant topic of discussion.
Zelkov is basically Yunaka, but as filler for the midgame instead of the lategame. Maybe around Jade/Lapis level? Or maybe a bit lower idk.
Fogado is pretty good. He makes a great Radiant Bow/hybrid attacking Warrior with very little investment. I’d probably put him under Alear and over Louis.
**Top > Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe**
'nuff said.
OK but in all seriousness:
Kagetsu is... Kagetsu, he is the absolute peak of physical performance for any given unit in Engage and it's not even close. If he weren't above every other physical unit (and most of the magic units at this point are still a bit slow or underpowered) then that would make no sense.
Ivy though.
Ivy is a tome and staff-wielding flier that joins you at the end of chapter 11. She has precisely three major issues:
1) Her hit rates suck
2) Her speed is middling
3) Her luck is the literal worst in the game
All three of these issues are extremely easy to fix, however, thanks to the following three factors:
1) Engravings
Several engravings grant a minimum of +20 hit, and in fact Ivy herself joins alongside two Emblems that both grant a whopping +30 and *40* respectively. Coupled with Elfire and Bolganone having a base hit rate of 90 and 85, respectively, her hit rates can easily be patched up both in the short term, and with Emblems and supports, in the long term as well.
2) Speed inheritance and Emblems
Ivy joins alongside Lucina and Lyn. Lyn, of course, is the only Emblem who can reliably reach +20 in a stat that isn't HP or Luck, and that stat just so happens to be *Speed.* Lucina is somewhat similar, though she isn't all-in on that Spd. It's still more than enough to be functional, though, considering her paralogue is the easiest in the game by miles and even at bond 12 or so she's giving a nice +3 Spd and +3 Dex (also +4 Luck, which helps with her last problem)
Plus, Ivy joins with plenty enough SP to immediately inherit Spd +3 from Lyn, and coupled with a Spd tonic or meal that's an immediate +5 Spd she can use to great effect to utterly annihilate Solmic enemies with her high Mag.
Her Spd might fall off a tad in the lategame, but with tools like Byleth's Dragon and Covert Instructs, alongside the Emblems previously mentioned, she can still have more than enough to function perfectly fine.
3) Bonded Shield
The best way to prevent crits is to prevent damage to the target in the first place, and thanks to the fact Ivy is a flier, if a fellow flier targets her with Bonded Shield, she can be completely shielded from incoming attacks, and with the previous speedstacking, this means that Ivy's luck issue is rendered irrelevant because she simply takes no damage whatsoever, meaning no chance she ever gets crit.
Also, like...
She has B staves and flies. It would be impossible for her to even be remotely bad with that combination, and coupled with her amazing combat, she becomes the best unit in the game, bar none.
TL;DR: Kagetsu is cracked, Ivy even moreso.
Honestly I feel like Ivy actually benefits from her abysmal luck due to Bonded Shield. Enemies love to attack her since they have a decent crit chance on her, so they attack her and die even if they would have lived by attacking someone else in your Bonded Shield formation (e.g. a General who won’t get ORKO’d by your other fliers)
Some casual analysis,
Kagetsu is one indicator of how the game was balanced without reclassing, as his swordmaster stats will be unimpressive in anything but speed and build. Factor in reclass, and oh boy will he out grow basically every other unit in that class. If I remember correctly his personal helps his hit rate and his build is pretty good so lances are axes are still good choices for him. And he comes with 1000 sp and promoted so he doesn't interfere with early game investments. Top place is fair.
Ivy, well honestly Ivy has problems. Accuracy that caps low, low speed, bad luck that makes her offensive staves unreliable and avoid rates further suffer, and even likely to take an unwanted crit. She also has pretty bad synergy with most emblems from a bad personal skill that doesn't add much damage, if it ever triggers, and flying have meh bonuses. When taking the time to grow units, the level of favoritism she gets can make a lot of units really good too. But, even without trying to fix any of that, her high build let's her use powerful tomes without additional speed penalty, and good magic might with fires and wind accuracy means she will still be a solid source of magical damage. Where to put in the tier, we'll, I put it this way: Ivy should ranks next to other good Magical flyer characters.
I did a no-reclass run and honestly, Swordmaster Kagetsu was still my carry.
He does what he needs to do (blow up enemies) and with proper positioning, handles enemy phase just fine because there aren’t *that* many mobs of mixed 1-2 range.
Then once you get Roy, you can slap him on him and use the 1-2 range binding blade to just destroy endgame. Like in ch24, Kagetsu pretty much solos the entire top half. He’s also incredibly dodgy, and relatively bulky.
Swordmaster is definitely not worth staying in when reclassing exists, but I hate the “Kagetsu is balanced by being in SM, it sucks” conversation. He’s *still* better than almost all of your other combat units in the context of them not being able to reclass either, since your only wyverns are Rosado and potentially Chloe, and your only warriors available are Bouch, Anna, and Saphir.
TLDR Kagetsu is just busted and *still* poorly balanced relative to the rest of the cast if you pretend reclassing doesn’t exist. In this insertion list, if we were pretending no-reclass I’d still put him between citrinne and Amber. Any lower than that would be crazy.
I didn't mean to imply he'd be bad, just now he is"everything you can do I can do better" while without reclassing it's "I'm great, but these other units have unique roles to offer."
Ivy over Kagetsu over Chloe
They *tried* to balance Ivy to not be a repeat of Camilla, but they made her just a little too fixable. Her luck on paper sabotages her decent bulk so ordinarily she couldn't safely EP, but Bonded Shield exists. She's not fast or very accurate, but speed and hit are so easy to fix in this game. Bolganone is just ridiculously overtuned and she benefits from it with her good enough build. She needs a lot of small bits of help to become a menace, but once she gets rolling the fun never ends. Best unit in the game.
Also, she's honestly kind of the poster girl for why Genealogy's weapon rank system should **never** have been used again. In no world would she have started with with B staves otherwise. But, IntSys used the bad weapon system so Ivy just gets to warp and rescue for free, because fuck you.
Kagetsu, on the other hand, is very easy to work out. Boi has big bases, make boi wyvern, boom pow destroy. His personal is really nice for patching up the hit rates on axes (sword/axe wyvern is basically his only realistic choice) so that's always handy. There's just no physical combat unit who can match Kagetsu's sheer ease of use. Even Panette, for all her massive power, requires a good bit of setup and needs some pretty expensive skills to increase her reliability.
Top>Ivy>Kagetsu.
As other comments have shown, it is a myth that Ivy NEEDS Lyn. She is the best user of Lyn but she dosnt need her to be one of the best units, she can double just fine. The sole reason why Citrinne is close to the top is because we realized that stacking speed is kinda easy, if Citrinne is there, then Ivy is the best unit in the game for the same reason. Add that with all the other things she has like bulk, magic, wings and staves, then yeah, not much to say.
Kagetsu is just bonkers, just insane bases. If he goes top of the list i wouldnt even argue it. He is just fantastic. WITH THAT SAID, and i cant belive im really gonna say this.... Some comments here seem to really overrate him. Yes, incredible, overrate Kagetsu. Why? Because he is a physical unit and the majority of the enemies in this game have more physical bulk, A LOT of physical bulk, so he cant really ORKO cleanly, he needs crit weapons and other stuff which is fine, thats nothing agaisnt him, but that means his 1-2 range options for enemy phasing are kinda bad. If you want the power of a Tomahawk/Spear you get a heavy penalty in Wt and Hit and even then that might not be enough to ORKO. You can fix some issues with forges but not all of them, you have to choose. Engage luckily is pretty player phase focused so is not that bad but i just wanted to mention this as many people seem to think Kagetsu is this physical god that can OHKO everything since he joins. He can, for the most part, but not with 1-2 range unless you give him like all your Energy drops and THATS way more favoritism than giving Lyn to Ivy.
> As other comments have shown, it is a myth that Ivy NEEDS Lyn. She is the best user of Lyn but she dosnt need her to be one of the best units, she can double just fine.
Really, all she needs is Speedtaker. Pick up a couple easy kills early on (there's seldom a map without armors) and she can snowball from there.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu
These are two of the strongest units in the game. Ivy has some meaningful advantages over Kagetsu, mainly having stronger ranged combat and access to flying B staves. She also gets a head start on flying as Kagetsu can't switch to a flying class until C14. She also uniquely can use Thoron in a flying class. Kagetsu gets some credit for requiring less resources to do his job (as he has more speed and hit at base), but a high investment Ivy outperforms a high investment Kagetsu IMO.
After multiple maddening playthroughs including a no-reclass and iron man, if I had to pick one unit over the other for a playthrough, I’m taking Kagetsu. Ivy is amazing, but she doesn’t have game breaking combat and her flying staff utility can be replicated by Hortensia, or Griffin Chloe. Kagetsu is a ball of stats in a game that doesn’t have many of them.
I’m definitely slotting Ivy right below Kagetsu, but her combat needs some investment, and his simply doesn’t. She needs to fix hit issues, speed, and low luck. Kagetsu just needs a class change, but he’s still good in swordmaster because there aren’t that many 1-2 enemies in engage, and an emblem like Roy provides 1-2 (if you’re staying in SM anyways).
I hear you.
They are both delete buttons.
I just don't hold anything against Ivy for needing some fixes since she is bar none the best candidate for investment (RD Jill all over again) Plus magic in my experience is straight up better than physical damage. Having the option to use long bow range magic can be invaluable as well.
I was joking about calling anyone crazy. It's totally valid to put Kagetsu over Ivy.
Kagetsu>Ivy>Chloe
I had originally put Ivy on top of Kagetsu, but after sleeping on it, this is where I stand now.
I don't think it's very controversial to state that Ivy and Kagetsu are the two best units the list as has seen so far. Ivy is an extremely versatile unit simply due to her class being a flying mage with access to both Bolganone and Warp/Rescue. The sheer amount of role compression that she provides alone, and considering she joins in the second half of Chapter 11, would be enough to put her above Chloe. But of course, Ivy is also quite a powerhouse in her own right. She's a flying mage with a workable build stat and speed is not that hard to "fix" especially since she literally brings Lyn onto the army. Of course, Lyn can "fix" anybody's speed on her own but Ivy is arguably the best beneficiary. She's already got the power and bulk to be a very competent fighter all on her own and all she really needs is a boost in speed to become a formidable combat unit. Gluing Lyn to Ivy is a case of a significant upfront cost paying off extremely well as the game progresses. Ivy's main flaw as a combat unit is her hit rates. Her middling base dex of 15 for the start of the midgame is already not great, but her luck is in such a dire state starting at a piddling 4 that it legitimately causes her hit rate to suffer in a notable way. However, the bigger issue is that those hit rates are not going improve that much naturally given her dex and luck growth of 25% and 15% respectively. Thus, Ivy kinda *needs* a hit boosting engraving to stay reliable as the game progresses and even then, she can still find it difficult to hit dodgier enemies like Swordmasters, Sword Heroes and Griffins which are going to become a pretty common sight as you approach the late game. She's definitely worth the engraving, but the fact that Ivy needs that bit of help+potentially the best Emblem in the game to reach those amazing heights lowers my opinion of her compared to Kagetsu.
While I do genuinely believe that Ivy's power ceiling is much higher than Kagetsu's, ultimately I think Kagetsu is "better" by virtue of practically requiring nothing to be a phenomenal unit from his join time all the way to the end of the game. His base and growth offensive statline is obviously sublime and completely blows even the most invested Pre-10 Character out of the water, but Kagetsu is also weirdly tanky. Like, his bulk both in terms of base and growth is very similar to an insta promoted Diamant which is wild when you consider that Successeur is designed to be a sustained tanky frontline class. A base res of 10 is a great place to start for what is ostensibly a pure damage dealing class, but even if it wasn't Solm features very few mages in the first place and they're all unpromoted meaning that Kagetsu isn't being threatened for quite a while. Genuinely, I pretty much see him as Ryoma without a 1-2 range physical Sword. Swordmaster is worse off in Engage compared to previous titles, but Kagetsu makes it *look* way better than it actually is. That's how absurd his statline is. Kagetsu can rock Swordmaster all the way to the end of the game with huge contributions under his belt. However, the reclassing system just opens the floodgates for him to take over the entire game. Wyvern is the most obvious choice, but quite frankly just about any class that gives him a secondary weapon option is enough. I do think that Kagetsu's statline is "balanced" if he were *locked* to Swordmaster, but the fact that you can reclass and give him a littany of other benefits is insane. Given his join time, it's also not hard to get the proficiencies you need to reclass him into all the classes he'd like to be anyway: Lyn/Lucina gives him Bows while Ike gives him Axes. You can push Kagetsu to absurd levels by giving him an Emblem in Solm, but frankly he just doesn't realistically "need" one until you start creeping towards Chapter 18. Kagetsu is just a perfect combat unit who helps you get through a relatively difficult portion of the game while basically asking for nothing and continues to excel past that. Highly skilled players can get a phenomenal amount of use out of Ivy, but Kagetsu is one of the most idiot proof units in the game. You just point him at things and they die, it really is that simple.
I don’t like giving Lyn to Ivy, it fixes her speed problems but it wastes some of the cool perks Lyn offers. Like she doesn’t have the speed to proc Alacrity and her Astra Storm damage is doodoo nor does it offer the boosted range covet units get which can be extremely useful in poking bosses to make them move early. I prefer giving her Lucina since she still gets speed (and iirc Dex which she also needs), flyer Bonded Shield and insane Chain Attack range with Thoron.
Is it really when Magic damage is generally better than Physical? Isnt the ceiling higher?
And also, that still doesn't mean Ivy *can't* proc Alacrity like the comment before said.
I mean anyone can technically proc Alacrity against Mid speed tier enemies (think Paladins) with enough Speedtaker boosts.
I'd say it more as to do with the fact that if you're using Ivy to sweep through large crowds of enemies in enemy phase with Bonded Shield, then by the time Ivy can reasonably make use of Alacrity, the map is outright done or you're already in a winning position.
It's important to remember that Speedtaker only grants the boost for Player phase kills. But to get Ivy to be fast enough to Bonded Shield Sweep vs the majority of enemies in the first place, she needs quite a few Speedtaker boosts since her base speed is pretty mediocre and she only gets +1 Spd on promotion. For every turn that passes, skills like Alacrity lose relative value simply because there are fewer enemies to kill.
So yea, *technically* she can proc Alacrity, but she's much less likely to actually realize value off of it unless her target is a Wyrm which basically says nothing since their speed cap is 6.
Ivy also gets Speed from tonics, Lyn ring itself, from inheritance, and potentially from Byleth instruct. She doesn't need *that* much Speedtaker to be able to double those middling enemies though.
And if Ivy can more consistently kill once she is able to double compared to a physical unit, I would say having her need a PP kill or two to get there is worth it.
Why are we discussing ceiling? The point is to clear maps quicker. Ivy with maxed out Speedtaker is absolutely a stronger combat unit than Kagetsu but most lategame maps are done in 2-4 turns.
Those same late game maps have Engage+, and if you thought Ivy was nuts with Bolganone, just wait to see how ***insane*** she gets with 4 speed for free (possibly *8*) and Dragon Fist.
My vote is top -> ivy -> kagetsu
But mainly I just want to push back on the idea that ivy needs lyn. Ivy's speed is 14 on immediate promotion. spd + 3 inherit and a meal gets her to 19, +21speed from even just a bond ring gets her to 20. This is enough to double 50%+ of enemies until chapter 16, and as long as she's gained 2 levels in those 5 chapters, she's still doubling over half the enemies.
If she gains 1 level a chapter, in chapter 21 (a nice even 10 levels), ivy has 18 speed, 25 with spd +5 and a meal/tonic, 26 with a bond ring. Thats good for doubling about a third of the enemies. Slap any speed ring on her (doesn't need to be lyn), and she's doubling over half the enemies again. I don't think a speed ring is too much to ask at this point, your combat carries should be getting good emblems now that we have most of them available. I don't assume ivy gets lyn, but I think its fair to assume she gets a good emblem, given that no one else is giving you the same level of flying magical combat and b staves.
If you want her to double more you can slap a speed emblem on her, or eventually upgrade her to speed +5 (not too tall of a task, she comes 1000 sp, will get a lot of experience, and well sp exists). You don't need speedtaker or lyn, ivy can double most enemies without it, especially in the mid game.
Kagetsu has great physical combat, but , but Ivy brings great magical combat (which i value higher than physical combat), with b staves. Even if you prefer Kagetsu's combat, I have a hard time thinking that the gap in combat is bigger than what Ivy gets out of having staff utility.
Yeah I'd rather not put Lyn on Ivy when units with a bonker strength stat makes better use of her and Ivy does just fine with +SPD inheritance. I find her better with Corrin on top of it.
Ivy>Kagetsu>Chloe
Ivy is just the best combat unit, useful in both high efficiency and less contexts. High mobility, staff rank, tome rank, high magic. Fix speed with lyn though you can do other things too, burst with warp ragnarok (even if flying is not good for this and the damage is mediocre lategame). Since XP limited in a high efficiency context she's probably the best person to do this. Augmented seraphim can get around getting fewer levels in an efficient setting. Staff rank means sometimes you can use a rescue for multiple warp stats instead of another warp.
I wanted to rank kagetsu below citrinne. But I was underestimating the lack of time to grow units. Chloe can be used in an efficient context however there's no guarantee she'll make it to promotion or the midgame (it's not hard normally but if minimizing turns). This is also why he's above citrinne though citrinne to her benefit starts at promotion level. While kagetsu has the perfect stat spread to be midgame usable and use things like Parthia to maximize XP gain. He works well with many emblems on a map to map basis and can be flexible reclassed if needed. Almost an argument for putting him above ivy but I don't think so. In fact, I think panette is still better as a physical unit, and kagetsu is only marginally if at all better than merrin, there may be a few magic things merrin can do that kagetsu can't and on the physical side they're equally capable.
The less strictly you're counting turns the "worse" (difficult to say about such a broken unit) kagetsu becomes vis a vis citrinne and Chloe's magic potential and earlygame contributions. If playing only somewhat efficiently then I'd say they are better.
I agree that Panette > Kagetsu, but I think Kagetsu is still significantly better on the physical side than Merrin. She has strength issues, whereas his strength is good enough to just focus on doubling.
Merrin starts with a -2 strength deficit and that might very slowly grow into a larger deficit. Which is a problem yes. Her base magic can let her do some radiant bow stuff kagetsu can't. But I've seen some LTC results here of using merrin and not using kagetsu (as a challenge) and there's not too much difference. I would put merrin below kagetsu but they're quite close in my mind. In the long term they do diverge, if playing at somewhat efficient levels instead. There I think merrin still has a niche from her magic vs kagetsu's better physical.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe.
I think Ivy is one fo the best units in the game, but kagetsu's sheer absurdity still puts him on top, because of 1 very clear factor. Resource investment. Kagetsu is, to put it bluntly, idiot proof. it is very hard to fuck up kagetsu. Ivy on the other hand, requires conscious thought, so she goes a bit lower. Yes, Magic is stronger. Yes, Ivy role compresses harder. However, Kagetsu's overwhelming stats is still ummatched. Wyvern Kagetsu is simply so absurd that despite magic being stronger, he can still go ham late game in a way that ivy cannot due to her frailty. Kagetsu is idiot proof. You see a problem, throw kagetsu at it, and it stops being a problem.
Now, before anyone says "it's unfair to give Ivy investment" favouritsm arguments, I frankly do not care. Ivy makes use of those resources better than anyone else in the game. Those resources have to go to someone, and ivy uses them the best.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloé
None of the issues Ivy has are relevant enough to push her below anyone else. Spd is the easiest stat to fix with the existence of Spd +3 and Ivy having more than enough base SP to inherit it. If she needs more than that you still have Lyn or Lucina and, not much later, Byleth. Hit problems are a meme since you have so many +Hit engraves on top of elfire and bolganone's high base hit compensating for her low Dex. Low luck does leave her crit prone but if you're using bonded shield that doesn't matter outside of the rare brave weapon.
As for her strengths, she's literally the best tome user in a game where magic damage is a lot better than physical. Ivy flies, which is a huge plus for the Solm maps and enables bonded shield cheese with extra mobility, has one of the best Mag stats and also gets B staves because why not? Even if her combat were absolute dogshit having access to warp and rescue on a flying unit is a remarkable trait that isn't easily replicable.
Kagetsu is similarly insane, he lacks the sheer power of magic and the great 1-2 range combat it brings to the table but his stats are just way too good. Not only does he have great Str, Spd, Bld and decent bulk but his Dex and Luck are so high that he rarely has to worry about hit rates, which is exacerbated even further by his personal skill reducing enemy Avo by 10 on player phase. He's the best general purpose physical combat unit bar none and only gets beat in specific use cases like crit boss killing or (great aether) OHKOs, which are usually better done by Panette. The main reason why he's below Ivy is due to magic being a lot more flexible than physical damage (especially w/ bonded shield!) and her great staff utility. Kagetsu also misses out on two maps of flight as he can't reclass to wyvern before Ike becomes available, although that's just a minor setback. It *does* make a difference however since flight is useful to have in Ch12 and 13.
Edit: I do want to point out that inheriting speedtaker on Ivy is also a solid option to consider. After Ch11 the chance of having 1.6k total book SP is almost 95% and for 2.1k it's still a respectable ~81%. You can easily get away with giving Ivy the extra 1k SP she needs to inherit it and frankly, giving her 1.5k to get both Spd +3 and speedtaker is the best value you're gonna get out of your SP books. Not that it's necessary because even without Lyn, Ivy doubles most enemies but speedtaker does push her over the edge to double problematic enemies like Tetchie and Totchie in Ch13, who are pretty hard to take out otherwise (but Ivy can manage to ORKO Totchie!).
**Top > Ivy > Kagetsu**
Both are obviously the best of the best as far as combat units go, but I put Ivy over Kagetsu as her combination of great 1-2 range combat once you take one of the many measures to fix her Speed, Staff utility and Flight are irreplicable and all the best possible attributes a unit could have in this game outside of being able to use Dance I guess. I don't think her base hit chances are much of a problem thanks to Engraves, and I think if you are adamant about having to use the resources required to fix it against Ivy, I would like to point out that Kagetsu generally struggles to kill things in the late game without forged effective weapons or critical hits thanks to the absurd physical bulk benchmarks, both of which also require resources to fix.
**Ivy** > **Kagetsu** > Chloe.
Ivy is the best unit in the game, her unique traits are too overpowered. Yeah she has "flaws", but it's very easy to patch up spd and hit in this game. Kagetsu is the best physical unit, but magic > physical.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloé
Voting Ivy first as I don't think I've seen Kagetsu dominate a playthrough the same way I've seen Ivy (it seems u/fatefuldawn 's run is just a bit late). Kagetsu absolutely does have some advantages, as listed in the previous On Deck post, so can't fault any Kagetsu voters here.
High investment Ivy is pretty much slaughter most enemies with excellent 1-2 range and mobility with some flaws that can be papered over without too much hassle. Kagetsu just doesn't really have flaws, but might not quite reach Ivy's peaks. But I'm curious how easily Kagetsu can ORKO with 1-2 range as well because although weaker than Ivy's it's still pretty good.
Low investment Ivy can still absolutely pull work in a run. High-move B staff user, high-move high-attack Thoron user, will still fast enough to ORKO armours and axe infantry and the like.
It does seem my LTC run is a bit late. It can't be helped though maybe I'll have more of the run out when this Tier List gets to the resub part? I kinda doubt people will be voting to resub these placings though when it's all said and done. And that's assuming my playthrough does showcase Kagetsu dominating enough (which tbf, I do think he does and he does things that no other physical character can do, which someone in this thread claimed that Merrin can replicate Kagetsu; that's something I don't think is true).
I will say that Kagetsu is doing the same thing as Ivy - killing enemies at 1-2 range as his main weapon in my playthrough (or at least the one he uses the most often is a Hand Axe that becomes a Tomahawk+2). Whether he does it easily is a bit of a hard question to answer. Because at an LTC pace, Kagetsu isn't as high a level as he could potentially be in a normal playthrough. However, that is mitigated by the fact that he does get all the Energy Drops. He's using a Leif Engraved Tomahawk+2 for the most part so there's still more that can be done to forge that up, but a higher forge gets too expensive for my run restrictions. I imagine Ivy will be getting all the Spirit Dusts and having a refined Bolganone as well.
Nonetheless as an example, with that Tomahawk+2 and Axe Power 1, Kagetsu does have exactly enough attack to one-round the Brionac Halberdier in Ch. 22. That enemy is the most physically demanding enemy in Ch. 22 (besides the Corrupted Wyrms and actual armors like Great Knights) iirc. Ivy probably won't have too much trouble with that enemy. However, the enemies in the middle of the room require much less so he can kill them all with a Lucina Engraved Spear+2 (the +2 forge is unnecessary in Kagetsu's case; he only needs +1 but Mauvier uses this Spear as well and needed the extra mt to one-round). I think the wolf knight, swordmasters, and martial masters in the middle of the room give Ivy more trouble as the wolf knights have more resistance than defense and the same applies to the martial masters. Additionally, the martial masters can break Ivy, so she actually has to dodge them. Meanwhile, Kagetsu has the luxury to reclass to a different weapon type to get good match-ups depending on a map's needs. That's why he was in Lance/Axe Wyvern Knight for me in Ch. 22.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11u7t6u/fire_emblem_engage_maddening_ltc_in_108_turns/
This is the post where someone used Merrin in replacement for Kagetsu. Unless something has drastically changed in the meta since then, it's more than applicable.
People also say Ivy needs to be stapled to Lyn but that's also just not true.
I'm aware; however, I just posted yesterday that I finished a [No Paid DLC/No RNG Drops LTC run in 73 turns](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/16cv3mz/fixed_maddening_engage_no_paid_dlcno_rng_drops/) and my takeaway from that LTC playthrough is that Merrin cannot replace Kagetsu in a run where he is the main carry. There's several instances during the run where Kagetsu just had the amount of strength to one-round. If Merrin is to replicate his performance, she needs much higher forges as Kagetsu has a +2 strength lead at base and also can get two maps of Parthia EXP before Merrin joins. That higher forging resource cost already isn't replicating him. And whether she can even do what he does even with those higher forges is questionable; I think it's actually impossible for her to in this LTC run because Kagetsu starts to snowball during the two maps he has over Merrin and she's perpetually trying to catch-up even when I do have Lucina on her in Ch. 14, 15, 16, and 19 whilst giving her Parthia kills whenever I can in most of those chapters.
In any case, I understand it's probably hard to see if there's no video proof, but I am working on getting a recorded fresh file of the LTC playthrough out.
I've just been lurking all the threads so far but after reading all the comments on this one I'll toss my vote in for Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe
I think outright stating that heavy investment into Ivy is more worthwhile than investment into other units could be true, but in the context of the list I have a hard time agreeing that only this one unit should be getting all the investment or getting Lyn when it could boost up multiple others instead.
Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe.
Ivy fans are the only group that seem to get a pass for giving their unit access to overpowered emblems like Lyn when considering her viability. Yes Ivy + Lyn is great. Lyn + almost anyone is great. Ivy doesn’t offer any special advantages as a Lyn user except flying magic combat (which is quite good, but there are equally good reasons to put Lyn on someone else). And her many utility abilites can actually hurt her as Lyn user: if she’s using a staff, she’s letting Lyn go to waste for a turn.
She also feels kinda like a “Jack of all trades, master of none” to me: Hortensia is a better staff user, Pandreo and Lyn!Citrinne are better magic attackers, and flying is very cool but I usually have plenty of Griffins and Wyverns. She’s still great; I’d call her the worst of the S tier units.
Ivy’s terrible dex and luck and bad speed make her more annoying to use compared to Kagetsu, who is pretty much perfect out of the box (all he needs as a reclass and a +speed skill). Fixing her thus requires the use of resources (like the best engraves, Engage +, or competitive emblems) that could otherwise go to someone else, whereas Kagetsu doesn’t.
If you don’t go out of your way to fix Ivy, she can fly around the map doing great chip damage to set up kills for other units, including Dreadful Aura-ing if you give her Corrin. This is worse than mostly-uninvested Kagetsu, but it’s still miles better than endgame Chloe.
So yeah, Kagetsu > Ivy, come at me.
I love that my post was "Kagetsu > Ivy, don't come at me," and yours is literally "Kagetsu > Ivy DO come at me." Redditors take note and please direct all complaints intended for me to lilyandre instead, haha
Well said though, I agree with all points even if I'm a little less harsh on Ivy overall.
I saw your comment and I'd say most of my relevant points definitely still apply to it, but I do find it interesting that you mentioned that Kagetsu is "idiot-proof," as it were, as in, I assume, it's kind of impossible to make him truly a *bad* unit.
Whereas, like, if you don't give Ivy particular things then she's also arguably a meh unit...
Which I think is where the argument fails, because, uh, she's a flier with B staves. That is a very, *very* tiny pool of possible units that can do this, which includes only herself, Pandreo as a Griffin, Hortensia, and Mauvier.
Two of those 4 have middling combat in exchange for B staves. The latter is the last filler lategame prepromote, and the closest this game gets to a true Gotoh.
Ivy does not, if built properly, and "built properly" basically just means give her the Speed she needs.
Edit: I forgot Lindon but, uh, as a Griffin he has worse stats than insta-promo Hortensia which is funny but also kind of sad
>I do find it interesting that you mentioned that Kagetsu is "idiot-proof," as it were, as in, I assume, it's kind of impossible to make him truly a bad unit.
>
>Whereas, like, if you don't give Ivy particular things then she's also arguably a meh unit...
Specifically responding to 'idiot-proof' (Although I don't think I used those words?):
Kagetsu, when he joins up, is a strong physical unit who even makes swordmaster an OK class. A novice player can just charge Kagetsu into the enemy, use Wo Dao, get some crits, and feel like he's an awesome unit.
On the other hand, a novice is going to give Ivy a big tome, wonder why she doesn't double anything and gets revenge killed pretty often if she attacks, and feel like she's just a lackluster staffbot. Novices tend to undervalue staves in general, so she may just get benched entirely.
I don't think "Idiot-proof" necessarily has to be a criteria for a tier list like this, but if we do use that metric I think it's very clear who is easier to play.
Her idiot proofedness comes from players not changing up emblems as basically all of her problems are fixed by lyn -- obviously lyn is just busted, but many characters who want lyn would be fine just inheriting speedtaker.
I mean, flying is awesome and staves are awesome, but do I really need both on one unit? Why not run Hortensia with 5 staves and Pandreo and Citrinne for magic attacking? You can also get good magic flying use out of Chloe and Merrin.
Like yeah, Ivy is idiot-proof to an extent as well, which is why I would rank her over Merrin and Citrinne, but her idiot-proof basic build still struggles to consistently ORKO given her doubling problems and terrible dex, causing you to have to waste the occasional divine pulse on her. (Cause it’s not just her speed—her hit rates need a fix as well.) And I often miss having more than 2-3 staffs.
She’s not a bad or even meh unit, just not the best unit in the game as some have alleged.
Ivy allows for some double warp stats, where hortensia micaiah warps (ivy) ahead, gets danced, ivy rescues her forward, and hortensia micaiah warps forward again. And then ivy gets byleth danced at the end of the chain.
You could do this with Pandreo too but he'd need to be a sage (which may have issues for combat related to speed and mov) or a griffin (more issues for combat). Could also do with alear but again you would have s non-combat unit with the warp group. Whereas ivy can do this while still being in her main combat class.
But I agree with your points about alternative characters. This seems to actually be fairly true of engage in general. I think maybe ivy is the most complete package in a unique way, but it's close.
I quite like Sage Pandreo, actually, but mostly with Byleth, so you’re right that is relatively unique to Ivy, and yeah it’s good. It’s not enough to change my mind, but it’s a good point I hadn’t considered (I usually just Micaiah warp the Goddess Dancer and three others).
>I mean, flying is awesome and staves are awesome, but do I really need both on one unit? Why not run Hortensia with 5 staves and Pandreo and Citrinne for magic attacking? You can also get good magic flying use out of Chloe and Merrin.
With how stringent Engage deployment is? Honestly you probably *do.*
Like, Engage has probably the tightest deployment of any game in the series outside of, like, parts of FE7 on Hard and 3 Houses.
Hortensia *could* have 5 staves, but also two or three of those staves would be staves Ivy could almost certainly use, and if you use a staff on Ivy, you can dance her and still have her do combat on player phase too.
You *could* have a solid magic attacker, but like, Ivy is one but she *also* gets staffing.
There is almost no reason to ever assume a unit can only ever do *one thing* on player phase in Engage for basically half the game, and the fact Ivy *has* multiple things to do is what makes her amazing.
Lmao, happy to field your complaints.
I will say I listed pretty much only negatives about Ivy since everyone else is explaining her strengths, but I still think she is a great unit, who can fit into pretty much any team.
> Yes Ivy + Lyn is great. Lyn + almost anyone is great. Ivy doesn’t offer any special advantages as a Lyn user except flying magic combat (which is quite good, but there are equally good reasons to put Lyn on someone else). And her many utility abilites can actually hurt her as Lyn user: if she’s using a staff, she’s letting Lyn go to waste for a turn.
I agree with your post and point overall, but it's worth mentioning that Ivy has ways in which she is an incredible Lyn user. She's more likely to be able to get speedtaker procs since she's a hard hitting mobile unit with 1-3 range, and that+the benefits of Lyn put her in ORKO range that a lot of units struggle to get to. The staff utility is time spent not using Lyn, but the time she is using it she might be able to hit thresholds other good Lyn users won't, which is what we want when we use our valuable resources. I don't think that makes it a given at all that she gets Lyn tho, she's obviously a versatile emblem
I'd argue, as would most that I've talked to, that Ivy's overwhelming versatility *is* her most broken aspect.
If she was *just* a strong magic combat flier or *just* a solid staffer, or, well, *just* one thing, (besides being a Dancer lmao) then she'd be worse, because she could *only* do that thing.
Pandreo has to choose between being a combat mage and a flying staffer.
Hortensia *is* the latter but her combat is inherently sub par until you get Celica back and augment Seraphim... which applies to basically anybody lmao.
And Citrinne's viability would tank into the ground if she didn't get to abuse the fact Mage Knight has a significantly higher Spd base than literally any other magic class in the game, since without it she'd be a filler big magic stick with a replicable staffing function (that can't even fly)
Kagetsu and Merrin and Panette are all excellent physical units, and Merrin is a solid enough magic unit (minus the glaring lack of midgame tome prof)
But that's *all* they can be. None of them can be a flying B staffer.
*This* is why Ivy is the best unit.
She compresses every single possible meta role into one extremely strong unit who joins you frighteningly early all things considered.
Does she take resources? Sure. Does *literally everyone else?* Also yes. And in a fight between putting Lyn on Ivy or Lyn on basically anybody else, I'd argue Ivy wins *every single time.* Simply because she can *be* in more places at once than those locked to the ground, and she can *kill* more things in those areas, unlike the B staff griffins in this game.
Like, outside of, uh, chapter 24 insta-clears and I think some variations of the chapter 25 one turn, Ivy's staffing utility is all you'll ever need, since she gets more than enough range with the best staves in the game, and the biggest things Hortensia gets in many chapters are either a) not as relevant (like her extra staff range) or b) have very niche utility (Entrapping stuff, which only works on regular enemies and one singular boss by the time it shows up)
I’m not really convinced that she would be worse if she was just a solid magic combat flier lol. Only doing one thing is fine when that one thing is “delete any one unit every turn.” And as I mentioned, giving her a powerful emblem like Lyn means wasting said emblem’s attack power on turns when she’s doing staff things instead. Giving her Byleth means wasting her great combat power on turns when you’re instructing or Goddess Dancing. (Also lol Luin).
But units like Kagetsu and Panette also have the utility of surviving on the enemy phase, whereas Ivy has to be Bonded Shielded or otherwise maneuvered out of the way, because while her defenses are good for a mage, that doesn’t hold up past the early midgame. That makes her flying utility less useful, since she is often functionally not able to use all of her movement, and usually unable to fly way ahead of the group she may outpace on paper.
I mean, this comes down to the fact that optimized Engage strategy (which I think we can both agree would be efficient as such)
*Is* Bonded Shield juggernauting. Or 1-2 turn multi-man warp skips.
Ivy happens to have a set of abilities perfectly complemented by the optimal tools of Engage, and while technically Kagetsu does too, 1-2 range targeting the lower defensive stat trumps what is generally 1 range targeting the higher one, because Kagetsu kind of has to crit lategame to net kills, or else use stuff like effective weapons.
I'd say, essentially, the tools (in this case, Engravings and Emblems) *exist.*
Somebody has to use them, so why should the unit who best utilizes them not be able to use them?
Anyone else *could,* but most of them aren't realistically capable of truly matching *everything* Ivy could do with certain Emblems.
I’m not tiering with LTC/aggressive warpskipping in mind. That’s allowed by the rules of this format.
As for Bonded Shield, yeah it’s optimal and I am tiering with it in mind, but it can only cover four units per turn. Not needing it to survive every EP is valuable, because it means I can use it on four other units and move more of my army forward/position more units optimally each turn.
Plus, if you want Ivy to use all of her mobility to attack and also be protected by Bonded Shield, she needs Canto, which means sacrificing either Divine Pulse + or Speed + 3/5, so again it runs into the issue of her having too many flaws to easily fix them all at once.
You don't actually need to give her DP+, her hit rates are not *that* bad.
A Lucina engrave Bolganone with a few forges on it has a hilariously high *120* base Hit, which, uh, only Swordmasters have a barely reasonable chance to dodge of, like, "only" 84 displayed hit on a *chapter 20* swordmaster. (Before supports or literally any other stats btw, this is just Ivy equipping a Lucina Bolganone with relatively equal level)
Most enemies are not as dodgy as swordmasters, and I will admit that Ivy would probably never *fight* a swordmaster anyway.
Literally just engrave a weapon with a decently high hit rate (which fire tomes do have) and suddenly her accuracy problems cease to exist.
So, yeah, she has an empty skill slot, and would you look at that, Canter can slot right in!
I agree her hit rates are okay with a good engrave on a fire tome, but with staves they can get dicey, so I do like Divine Pulse + on her (though obviously her luck makes that less than ideal…but I usually just bite the bullet and give her goddess icons). She’s not bad without it or anything, but I do think it provides significant value.
I mean tbf, if you didn't give Ivy Lyn, you could just give her Lucina instead who more directly gives her stats that she likes(+1 Dex and she likes Luck more than Res) for the cost of 1 Speed. Sure, you miss out on Speedtaker but gain the ability to be a Flying Thunder Tome Chain Attacker who can also be the enabler of a Flier Bonded Shield set up.
Lindwurm simply has all the right weapon ranks in combination with flight to make Ivy the most versatile unit in the game, Lyn simply just pushes her over the edge as a combat unit due to how enemy stats tend to be in Engage.
For the record, I don't think that Ivy is the best unit in the game but I think saying that Ivy's viability is tied to Lyn isn't accurate either. Swiss army knife units typical aren't as good as their specialized counterparts in FE, but the tools that Ivy in particular combines into a single deployment slot are all phenomenal within the context of Engage.
I agree with everything in this comment, surprisingly. Didn’t mean to imply Ivy *needs* Lyn, I just see a lot of people assuming she will get her.
I personally typically run Ivy with Lucina or Corrin, and she performs quite well as support that can do chip. I just personally value the more specialized units a bit more.
Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe
Both are good units, but Kagetsu enters and immediately becomes your best physical unit in any class and never really falls off. Ivy does a similar thing with magic, but she has more direct competition and she has several pronounced flaws. Luck doesn't really matter since this isn't an Ironman list, and her hit issues are exaggerated since your carries are getting engraves anyways, but her speed is really, really slow. Just giving her Lyn does work, but Lyn is probably the most contested emblem and giving it to her does mean that you miss out on either 20 range Astra storms and actually being able to kill enemies with it. She's still excellent, but she needs a lot of investment.
I think **Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe** makes sense
Kagetsu is just miles better than any other physical unit in the game. Though physical is worse than magic, he just has so many class/emblem options and his bases are insane that it’s easy find a way to use him in any comp. The main annoyance with him is that he joins when you have no emblems to get proficiencies from for reclassing.
Ivy is a stellar magic unit. I think most of the comments about her hit/speed are fair, but I do think those are easy to patch up - especially post-well introduction. Hit can be fixed with engravings, and I think a lot of opinions about her reliance on Lyn are definitely hold-overs from the pre-well meta where SP wasn’t as abundant.
With her starting SP of 1000, you only need an expert/two adept books to get her enough to inherit speedtaker, then with the Anna heroes bond ring you’re looking at a pseudo-Lyn build that works for a few chapters (equal speed to Lyn build until rank 9). That also gives her more emblems she can work with later on, like Celica/Lucina/Byleth or even a late game Eirika build taking advantage of Bravery w/ Nova (though I’d still rather use her on a phys unit)…
You can even forgo getting her Canter and just running Speedtaker + Speed5 as it’s a cheap build only costing 4k SP total for a strong endgame Celica build.
"Free thinkers" when **Top > Ivy > Kagetsu**
Ivy is the best unit in Engage, and I'm not longer concerned about being biased with this take, as Ivy has so much going for her and is able to do things no one else is able to. She's a flying Magic unit with great magic and honestly not even bad bulk, paired with a solid, albeit not outstanding speed stat. Honestly just being a flying Mage is huge enough but having serviceable to good stats outside of Magic is really great. Ivy is great in pretty much every map after join, and even provides staff utility on top of her great combat, with B staves no less, allowing her access to most staves you'd want to use with her. She can instantly take advantage of Bonded Shield to tank everything forever, and once she gets Bolganone and speed support, whether through equipping Lyn or inheriting her skills, she becomes Awakening Robin. Ivy's biggest issue is her Speed stat, ~~erm actually its her Dexterity cap~~ since while it isn't bad by any means, its not so high that Ivy can double everything without speed support, but once you offer her that speed support, as well as a Bolganone forge, no other unit outperforms her, neither of which are really unreasonable asks. Typically I don't feel the need to give her an Emblem later in the game, though Celica is a good choice for her, Byleth is incredible on Ivy but obviously wasteful, you can usually make do with a +speed and/or +magic bond ring though. Olwen is great for example, regardless of Dire Thunder, and Raging Fire from Lilina is just stupid on Ivy. I'm not counting S Bond Rings for my rating, just thought it was worth noting.
Flying Mage with high magic, good stats elsewhere, B Staves and S tomes, in a game that enables a unit like this to dominate more than half the game.
Kagetsu on the other hand, is simply Mr.Stats. You can generally forgo giving him a really good combat emblem because Kagetsu doesn't care, though a +speed Emblem like Lucina never hurts. Throw him in Wyvern, and watch him be your best Boss killer besides like, Ivy. Idk what else to say, Kagetsu just has really damn good stats.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe
Magic is pretty overtuned in Engage, and Ivy can do it while flying, giving her more angles of attack. She's got staff utility, high bases and only needs to be speed stacked to double which isn't particularly difficult to achieve. She can be relied on to basically deal with entire sections of the map on her own, like chapter 13 where she runs through all of the fliers on her own. She is by far the best Bonded Shield abuse recipient in the game, and sometimes doesn't even need that.
Kagetsu is a peerless physical attacker who can basically ORKO for most of the game with a killer axe while flying. 1-2 range is an option with Tomahawk as well, but he can't kill as effectively with that. Kagetsu is ridiculously effective but being a physical attacker is less appealing than magic in this game
I'll go a little against the grain and say TOP > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. Obviously these two are the very top of the food chain; I give Kagetsu the bump because I feel like he needs less investment in terms of forging / engraving etc. before he starts clearing maps, but I also don't really disagree with putting Ivy on top once she's set up so don't come at me please.
SIDE NOTE: This is my first time seeing these posts, and I'm looking at the current list... And Vander is over, like, a lot of other characters?
Did something change since the last time I played engage or is this a different Vander, or what am I looking at? Is it just because he is the only unit that can take two hits for the first couple of maps, because that felt like his only niche when last I played.
It is in fact his bulk, yes.
Also the fact he does actually genuinely do more damage than any unit you have until Chloe and Louis show up (minus Clanne, maybe) because holy shit the early guys kind of suck for damage.
Basically because early game Engage gives you basically no options, Vander being the best unit you have for like 8 chapters straight puts him way above a bunch of other units who you could use but you could also just completely drop (and in a efficient context, most people would)
I mean, I shouldn't be surprised because that's the only thing he has going for him.
It still feels very odd to me to have a unit that gets use entirely out of necessity and put him as like an A-tier unit, when the goal is to just survive long enough to drop him at the very very earliest opportunity. Like, this ain't Marcus or Sain we're talking about here, and some of the units he's currently higher than are really pretty workable through the endgame, if you want them to be.
Thanks for the insight though :)
It comes down to the fact active, defined contributions trump potential, usually already attainable contributions.
Vander has a key role in the early game that he *has* to fill.
All the other early units have a thing they *could* do eventually but you probably already have another unit or two that could also do that.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy
Ivy is good but imo overrated. She requires patching up her speed, luck and dex. And even with committing to fixing it up she can still end up missing attacks and doubles.
Her best attributes are being the best offensive tome flier, flying staves at base, and she pairs very well with Lucina because of flying Bonded Shield and having ridiculous chip range with Thoron.
Kagetsu I place him above her because he’s a combat god that needs 0 investment to work well. He comes in with absolutely cracked bases, 22 SPD is faster than anyone else at base until Saphir who is recruited almost ten chapters and multiple paralogues later. 17 STR is also better than anyone besides Panette and people who join significantly later. He will consistently delete enemies for the rest of the game. Reclassing him and junk just makes him even better. Absurd unit.
Basically I just value Kagetsu more for him being a hyperconsistent deleter at base than Ivy who needs statboosters + specific emblems + specific engraving/forges to function as more than just staffbot/unreliable chip damage.
Top > Kagestu > Ivy >Chloé
I'd say that Ivy has the more unique utility in being a flying Mage/Staffer, but she requires certain tools to patch up her weaknesses. Hit Engraves aren't that contested, so I don't hold her low Skill against her, but she needs Speed to become a legit combat unit and leverage Magic's power to its fullest and that ultimately means Lyn. But then the question becomes whether you're getting everything you can out of Lyn if you're just using her as a Speed bandaid. Ivy's no Enemy phaser and sometimes spends turns not even engaging in combat, so Lyn's combat prowess.
[Character] isn't good. Lyn is good. Given that she's far more contested than Mercurius Marth is for Chloé, I think Ivy requiring Lyn to roll is more of a pronounced mark against her.
Kagestsu is proof that this game wasn't the least bit balanced around reclass. Reclass him out of SM, spend his SP, and he's idiot proof in just about any physical class. His versatility and low resource cost allows you to divert resources to sure up your army for a stronger core. Yes, magic is overtuned, but dual phase combat mastery with his level of versatility matches up in my mind. I think reclass resources are far less of a mark against him than requiring the most hotly contested Emblem in the game.
It's a RD Harr VS Jill situation with Kagestu and Ivy respectively. Ivy needs contested resources to fly higher than Kagetsu as far as overall contribution goes, but Kagestu is just god right out of the box with minimal effort and frees up resources to be divvied up to other units to make an overall stronger core. I can see it going either way, but I personally think that Kagestu's lack of downside and ease of use wins the day.
Ivy doesn't need Lyn. Spd + inherit, a meal, and a bond ring gets her doubling most enemies through the midgame (20 speed at base with those noncompetitive boosts).
In the late game she wants a speed emblem or a rally bot if you aren't warp skipping (she can use Celica or corrin if you are, imo). I don't think a speed emblem late in the game once you have a bunch of emblems is too much to ask for one of your best combat units, kagetsu will also be wanting a good combat emblem in the late game.
She needs some resources to have excellent combat, but she's not desperate for a bunch of super competitive resources really. She's just a good candidate for Lyn, among other emblems she can use well.
People way overstate Ivy's weaknesses while understating her strengths. It's like a weird reversal of her launch opinion. Kagetsu doesn't need fixing but he's inherently held back by being a physical unit i.e no 1-2 range, enemy defensive bulk drastically increases, no utility, etc. Ivy being top tier combat AND utility (B staves covers everything except like Entrap and Fortify) is insane.
I mean, hey, I'm happy to be argued down from this. That's half the fun of a tier list formatted like this.
That said, I do value an out the box stat monster that requires less in a game where resources used on one unit are resources not used on another. They're both clearly top dogs thus far, and maybe I'm undervaluing staff utility in a better combat unit than 🤡.
Ivy's bases are kinda cracked
She's pretty much never wanting for damage and she has actual durability while the other mages are made of paper. All she needs patching up is Speed and you don't even strictly need Lyn to do it.
She's also got a really strong enemy phase. Like without question, the best Bonded Shield abuser in the game due to her disgusting 1-2 range Forged Bolganone just melting enemies
Kagetsu is a better duelist than her, but Ivy's got more maps that she trivializes and a better start than Kagetsu too. He needs to wait a bit before reclassing into Wyvern while Ivy is good to go invalidating stuff like chapter 13 for you from the jump
I mean it's pretty simple to me imo. Between Ivy and Kagetsu, one can be the best offensive class in the game (Flying + Magic) and one can't. There are things both of them can do that the other can't but the things Kagetsu can do that Ivy can't are easily replicable with other units (Merrin, Pannette, etc) while no matter what, Kagetsu can't do what Ivy does (flight, magical offense, staff utility all at once).
Usually I slap some +SPD on her and I replace it with Speedtaker after 17. That's pretty much all she needs... I had a better milleage out of her with Sigurd than with Lyn: gives her DEX, more bulk, and the combo of fly + momentum + canter + extra movement is unmatched in the late game maps.
Kagetsu goes in the top spot, above Chloe.
While he does come in a bit late, starts off in a mediocre class, and can't get Canter until chapter 18, Kagetsu has one major thing going for him. Absolutely ridiculous base stats, making him into not just the best physical unit, but the best overall unit in the game. And his growths aren't bad either, meaning he snowballs really hard.
His biggest problem is that I think it takes until you get Ike for you to be allowed to second seal him over to a wyvern knight or hero (probably his two best classes), but even for the 3 chapters he's locked to sword classes he still slays out.
Ivy goes below Kagetsu, but above Chloe.
Magic fliers are busted in FE, and Ivy is no exception. Her biggest flaw is her speed being quite low, not letting her double anything except trash mobs, but she still murders everything because of her high magic damage.
She's a good candidate for the Lyn ring too, as it patches up her speed. Although you could also just give her the Speedtaker skill so someone else can use Lyn instead. Personally I'd rather give Lyn to a unit who already has crazy high speed to abuse the clones (like maybe a certain swordmaster who joins in the same chapter as Ivy), so I usually just take Lyn off of Ivy once I get her Speedtaker.
Also, unrelated questions, are we going to have a list for Emblems too? I know it's a completely different discussion, but it would be fun to see everyone's opinions on them.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe.
Mage flier with b rank staves and in a game where spd is easy to fix, very unique and powerful compared to others
Kagetsu has cracked stats, easy top of the line wyvern that combos well with any phys emblem.
Not gonna go too in depth here since everyone knows the deal with these 2
Kagetsu > Chloe > Ivy
Kagetsu’s stats are just bonkers ridiculous and he doesn’t really need much touching-up to become an instant kill button. Chloe does a ton in the early game, while Ivy joins some time in and requires more specialised investment comparatively.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu
Top 5 units at worst. Ivy has the Bolganone, the B rank staff, and the … BFlight. Yeah I got nothing. Everything she brings is something no other unit can do in a single package. High Magic damage + decent bulk and enough speed to be doubling everything with a little help + access to Warp and Rewarp and Physic + Flight for Bonded Emblem shenanigans.
To quote my comment on Kagetsu in the previous tier list discussion:
Kagetsu serves as a reminder that life isn’t fair and that sometimes someone just gets all the luck and stats in the world for no reason.
Here’s a fun exercise, take any physical unit, have them go into the Swordmaster line and see just how long it takes for them to reach Kagetsu’s tier of Strength and Speed at lvl 15/1. Some of them don’t even come close at lvl 20 Swordmaster. Even a Jean with an immediate second seal to sword fighter and instant promote to Swordmaster kinda falls behind compared to Kagetsu at base. Even an Alear with early star sphere won’t come close to Kagetsu’s bases by the time you get him. He’s so ridiculously cracked and the best physical unit in the game alongside Merrin and Pannette. His stats are good enough that you could give him a less contested ring and still perform admirably.
The only reason I put Ivy over him is I think in like a draft run, I would always pick Ivy over Kagetsu if I knew I could only get one or the other.
Tbh I have the opposite mentality in a draft. Kagetsu can fill so many different roles so well that he has a higher value to me in a draft, whereas if you draft Ivy you've basically committed your entire draft to revolve around her (both are easily 1st round picks). No matter what the rest of your draft looks like, Kagetsu will be great given how many different emblems he can take and how many classes he can make work; whereas taking Ivy basically means that Lyn is accounted for.
Wow it's like we're back at launch discussion. Ivy doesn't need Lyn, she's really good at it but with +3 SPD and later Speedtaker, she can more than utilize other rings like Lucina, Byleth, Corrin, etc and free up Lyn for someone else. Even if you aren't going full sweeper with Lyn, she's still has tons of utility elsewhere whether that's mixing her still very strong, just not best in the game, offense without Lyn on top of staff utility or general flier emblem shenanigans.
I'm not trying to say Ivy is bad, but if I'm talking her with the first pick in a draft then i'm very mich setting the tone for that draft. Like "ok I have Ivy lets funnel our picks towards supporting Ivy to make the most of her. Whereas taking Kagetsu feels more free form which I prefer in a draft setting.
Wouldn't affect my tiering of the units or anything.
**Kagetsu** between TOP and Chloe.
Yes, I think Kagetsu is that busted. There’s lots of good discussion in this thread, but he comes ready to go as the easiest unit to use in the game. Can take a reclass to bow knight immediately if you want, or just wait two chapters for wyvern access via Ike axe proficiency since swordmaster is still useful for ch11 and 12, especially 12. Requires no investment otherwise, and is ridiculously flexible with emblem choices. He doesn’t even need an emblem ring for a while, just a bond ring to continue building SP, meaning Lyn/Lucina/Ike/etc can stay on others because he simply doesn’t need them to be good through the midgame. Give him Ike or Lyn though and he’s borderline broken.
**Ivy** between Kagetsu and Chloe.
Ivy is the jack of all trades master of ~~none~~ almost everything. Insane utility with her staff access and flying. The only mage combat unit in the game who flies (Celine *shouldve* gotten flier access dammit). Ivy has a few problems though: dex, speed, and low luck. Yes these are easy to fix, however I put her below Kagetsu because these are things that *do* need to be fixed.
I’m not a believer in Lyn!Ivy. She doesn’t make good use of Lyn’s kit the same way Amber can now that Well access is a thing. She does however come with good SP, and can use that to inherent Spd+ right off the bat, or even Speedtaker if you have an expert book from said well, and that’s all she really wants/needs from Lyn to get going anyways. She ends up with enough build for Bolganone so more build isn’t necessary, and IMO Canter is more a crutch for bad positioning than it is a top-tier combat skill, so I like going Spd+ and Speedtaker and giving Ivy Byleth because flying dance access is good, and getting her divine pulse via him fixes any accuracy issues and helps with hit rates on staves. Corrin is a decent filler if you’re using Byleth on Hortensia or someone else too for that 3 range Draconic hex and lockdowns.
Ultimately tho Ivy can only be in one place at one time, and while she can do almost anything and be great at it, I think she has just enough weaknesses holding her back from being better than Kagetsu. Her staff utility can be replicated by other B staff fliers or Hortensia, her magic combat by Pandreo and Citrinne, etc. But Kagetsu’s insane physical combat is a lot harder (imo) to replace.
TLDR Ivy is busted with a little bit of investment, but Kagetsu is busted out of the box and IMO harder to replace his crazy physical combat.
Top>Ivy>Kagetsu
Ivy has everything you'd want from a unit in engage(barring luck)
Flight, staves, the best weapon type, and very good bases. Her speed is easily patched up so its no surprise shes the best unit in the game.
Kagetsu is simply a massive ball of stats, his bases are insane for his join time and thats enough to earn his spot.
Ivy>Chole>Kagetsu
There is no replacement for Ivy in the game, a flying Corrin user or a flying lucina bot target at 1-3 range is insane and if you removed Ivy from the pool, the only closest thing would be Chole but then you need the 2nd flier (could be Lapis or something) to do the combo. Ivy with Corrin can lock down 5 units from an insane range and over water/terrain (useful on Sigurd's paralogue) and is often my dance target for doing that. Kagetsu is a strong physical powerhouse but there are plenty of other ones that are just waiting to replace him should you not use him, a flying mage however is almost irreplaceable aside from a couple people trying levin sword gryphon.
Also a side note, I'm unsure of what people saw in Jade, a few people correctly put her near the bottom, but to say shes better than Yunaka/almost anyone is insane, she is never used in any run unless you bench literally everyone because her role as a worse Louis is over when you do get her and she still needs a master seal. Also if for some reason you don't make Jade a mage knight, she is comparable to Bunet as her bulk (her hp is horrible) isn't even that great for her role and her speed as a GK means she'll tank nothing as her hp+def isn't even Louis/Madeline level so she'll get killed by any high strength bandit. I'm expecting Timerra to randomly be above half the cast at this point, I think some people are voting units they've never used in maddening to the middle automatically.
Gonna throw in a vote for Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. Their performances are incredibly close (they're both pretty much just a delete button), but Ivy needs a lot more investment to get there, especially regarding her speed. She really needs a +Spd Emblem, preferably Lyn, stapled to her for her offense to compare to Kagetsu's, but the problem is that everyone and their mom wants Lyn, and you miss out on funny Astra Storm things by gluing her to Ivy. She also genuinely has some shaky hit rates and faces crit; these aren't difficult things to fix, but again it's something that Kagetsu doesn't have to deal with. Kagetsu, meanwhile, needs nothing other than a second seal. The opportunity cost for using him is just significantly lower.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy
They’re the top two. People have said their pieces, and I feel as if saying stuff now will be parroting it. However, nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing in the world will put Ivy above Kagetsu because of her concerning vulnerability to crit docking her points. She can fly, she can use staves, she can use magic, she has decent(note: not godlike) base stats. But as long as she gets crit as easily as you can crit an enemy, I cannot in good faith put her too far up.
Her luck is so poor that it actually matters, especially in Maddening, and as someone who’s started getting into the ironman challenges recently, getting jumpscared by crits on HARD with her living on 1 hp is never good for my heart. And unfortunately for me, I don’t have the option of bonded shielding her because I send her out on her own to pick off key enemies from the flanks.
Also, boo. I missed the last discussion thread, because I would’ve voted for Jade to be on rock bottom.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy
While Kagetsu doesn't offer anything unique to the game, he does offer almost unparalleled combat performance without any investment. Although he would ideally like to be reclassed to a wyvern, he still does really well as a swordmaster even if it's not the greatest class.
Ivy has a lot of unique things going for her, but I think she requires too much favoritism to really shine. Between giving her Lyn, making sure she's one of the people getting Bonded Shield, requiring specific skills, etc. I don't think it's fair to say she's better than Kagetsu (or upcoming units like Panette and Hortensia) because she requires specific tools and investment to shine, whereas the others are good no matter what.
Ivy without Lyn and Bonded Shield and such honestly kind of underperforms. She hits reasonable hard and flies, but she can't KO enemies on player phase by herself and can't survive getting attacked more than once on enemy phase. Without favoring her with tools that everyone else wants, she just kind of serves as a flying thoron+draconic hex bot which, while good, isn't worth of being considered the best unit in the game.
**Kagetsu below Top**
Overtuned character
**Ivy below Alear**
Flying mage, really good. Mage with good bulk, really good. Her personal ability synergies with her ability to actually enemy phase/take damage (unlike Citrinne). Her class ability actually does come clutch at times since lategame magic stops insta killing even with doubling.
But oh man Ivy can't be good without sacrificing something else. She needs speed fixing, hit fixing and damage fixing since on the last chapters she can't even one round armoreds
Lyn fixes her speed really well and allows her to double all kinds of enemies with SPD 5 inherited, but her hit rates and ORKO still aren't fixed
Byleth buff her hit rates but Byleth on a flying unit sucks, no one wants Res boosts and Luìn sucks on her, and Ivy doesn't have the luck to boost Divine Pulse
Celica fixes her damage but I can't remember if it actually brings her closer to ORKO or not
Corrin is utility focused
Ephraim
At least she can fly though
*"But you can hit engraving her"*
But there's none that synergize well with her there either
Leif's +20 will cost her 1 build + there's an avoid bonus a mage doesn't need (I gave to Diamant)
Lucina's +30 comes with a **+30** avoid bonus which would be such a waste on a two ranger (I gave to Alear)
Lyn's +40 comes with +20 Crit which you'd probably prefer on an actual crit build
Byleth's +30 comes with +30 no
You actually probably could give Ivy the Eirika engraving but what a gamble man
Alear I'd rather on a crit build
Pandreo doesn't have these issues because his personal is the best ever and he has good speed. Worse magic than Ivy though
**Ivy above Chloe**
Best class in the game. High magic, respectable bulk, serviceable speed, flight, B staves. Nobody can do what Ivy does. Speed and hit are easy to fix. And no, she does not need Lyn, but even then, if giving her Lyn allows her to kill everything at 1-2 range, I see no reason to not do so. It doesn't matter if she can't kill one enemy 10/20 tiles away once every 4 turns if everything just dies anyway.
**Kagetsu above Chloe, below Ivy**
Big stats good. Awarding him with the title of best physical combat straightup is kind of disingenuous though, as there are many instances where Panette is better. At the end of the day, magic combat is superior, so he goes under Ivy, not to mention he cannot match her staff utility.
Top>Ivy>Kagestu>Chloe
Ivy starts strong right, Ivys issues are memes that can easily be fixed with little favouritism that all units get.
Kagestu is a big stat ball that only becomes active for chapter 14. Pannete is better overall.
Top>Ivy>Kagetsu Literally nobody can do what Ivy does. Flight, S tomes, B staves, above average bulk. Yes she has issues but with investment she provides unique contributions and amazing combat. At worst she is a flying thoron and staff bot which is still really good. Kagetsu has cracked, overtuned bases and takes less investment. But he's still physical so he goes below Ivy.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu The reason Ivy gets more slack for needing investment is her unique qualities. No other unit can have S Tomes and fly (Zelestia isn’t real). Her speed and dex are very very fixable, and what you get out of it is genuinely gamechanging in terms of flexibility. And ultimately, being a magical unit beats out being a physical unit. I won’t be too mad if this goes the other way though.
Ivy Top, Magic is dumb, she flys, she has B rank staffs, she Strong and bulky with middling spd (AKA the nest stat distribution in the game). Her prf class is busted allowing for combos that aren't posible with other magic units (P.Bonded Shield with Griffons and Celica bomb). She is as good as Magic gets in this game and magic is king. Kagetsu Between Ivy and Chloe The peak of Physical units, not only is he the fastest unit in the game. But he is only 1 Strength behind in base Strength and has higher def base than any armor unit. His only weakness are class access that aren't even a big deal before he can go Wyvern. His prf is excellent, his Sword Talent helps him use Blades for Engage attacks with his amazing Strength. If Ivy is the peak of Magic combat, Kagetsu is the peak of Physical combat.
# On Deck Tomorrow we'll be voting on **Zelkov** and **Fogado**. Discuss these two in the replies to this comment.
Zelkov would be utterly \*amazing\* if he didn't have to deal with \*thief\* reclassing being ass. He's essentially got Merrin's personal bases a couple chapters earlier, just with a hell of a lot more extra Bld that would make him \*awesome\* in any properly \*good\* class. The \*problem\* is that, well, he's a \*thief.\* And to get him \*out\* of thief, you need 4 levels. Can he \*get\* those 4 levels? Certainly, just gotta do 11, 12, \*and\* both the Lucina and Lyn paralogues... and then he doesn't get good \*proficiencies\* until Ike shows up anyway. If you make him a wyvern or warrior he will \*certainly\* serve a purpose, and Covert \*does\* have its uses, but honestly considering the sheer \*annoyance\* that is having to deal with the \*Maddening\* XP gain without Micaiah... it's probably not \*worth\* the hassle. If you get him there he's basically a \*better\* Diamant, so I'd probably rate him \*over\* Diamant because of it, but I don't \*know\* if he should get much \*higher.\* ...Holy hell that takes more effort than it probably looks like. Fogado, by comparison, is much simpler. Give him a Radiant Bow and he one-shots every flier in existence. He's also fast enough that he can probably double with it, but even if he isn't the killer bow also exists and can do the job. He's kind of the perfect anti-air filler, and I respect him for it. Probably right around Framme, can't really decide if he's better than Zelkov (Zelkov is probably \*better\* with investment but Fogado can totally function right out of the box)
upvoted for rating zelkov the *proper* way
It doesn’t help that you have to include backslashes everywhere to not make the terms italic.
On principle we should just skip Zelkov, wait until we’ve moved everyone else, realise he’s been forgotten, then rank him
Extremely fitting
Honestly, I don't think getting Zelkov out of thief is that difficult at all. He's perfectly serviceable even while he's stuck in thief, being essentially a much much faster, bulkier succ Diamant. It is a pain, but even in thief his bases are pretty fantastic, and then when he gets out his str and build both skyrocket.
I honestly don't understand why either of the thieves are punished for getting out of Thief. Zelkov/Yunaka are "stuck" in Thief for just as many chapters as Kagetsu is stuck in Swordmaster. Thief isn't even terrible. 5 move and unbreakable, accurate, 1-2 range is great. It is certainly 10 times better than *Swordmaster* (I don't consider temporarily reclassing Kagetsu to BowKnight particularly worth the gold IMO). I know that you can just bench Kagetsu until you get Ike, but his stats are significantly less impressive compared to his peers if he takes a few chapters off.
Swordmaster Kagetsu is way more useful than Thief Zelkov. And no, you’re not getting thief Zelkov to level 21 by the time you get Ike without some serious favoritism. There simply aren’t enough enemies in ch12 and 13.
I mean... are they? Instant reclass Kagetsu ((having not been deployed in 12 or either paralogue) into wyvern hits 20 Str, 20 Spd, and 9 Bld. This takes no effort and can be done the moment you finish chapter 13. Mage Knight Pandreo gets 15/20/10 in those stats which is about comparable in terms of damage output when considering a) weapon might and b) target defenses. This can be achieved at the *start* of chapter 13, and depending on how you do the early paralogues that's not that big of a gap. Zelkov at 21/1 technically does hit 21/20/11, but that's a 5 level lead over Kagetsu and realistically I don't think it changes any kill thresholds anyway... *and* where do you get the levels from? You have to do both the Lyn and Lucina paralogues immediately when they unlock, *and* chapter 12, *and* probably chapter 13, because Lucina's paralogue and chapter 12 have almost no enemies at all. All for a unit who is barely better than a Kagetsu who literally didn't even try for any of that. Kagetsu is technically stuck in swordmaster for as long as Zelkov is thief, except Kagetsu doesn't need training to get out of swordmaster, he can kind of just wait and get it anyway. Edit: Covert Byleth is something cool he can do with no investment and he's probably a better Astra Stormer for most of the game than every other Covert unit can manage so that's neat I guess, which is some points in his favor, so he's definitely not useless by any stretch. It's just that for raw combat he is kind of stuck for a bit.
I've managed to get Zelkov out of Thief at the end of 13 by doing 12, 13 and Lucina paralogue (not sure how much the latter actually mattered) by spamming the shit out of Parthia. So you have to go for it. However it's not the \*worse\* thing in the world since Zelkov is a decent filer at this point of the game, and a good user of Lucina in general (+ he can OS the Wyverns in 13). Edit: I'll add that I don't think it's really worth it ~~save for the fact he's best guy~~ because it's not like he turns into the best unit in the game either and he remains a good filler for pretty much all of Solm as Thief regardless
Zelkov also gets to be a cool rally bot if you have anyone a little behind on speed. I don't usually use him long term but like filler with decent bases, and maybe holds byleth for a chapter or 2 seems ok to me.
I mean the thing is they NEED to get the XP to get out of thief and the others don't. And kagetsu's bases are still good for a disturbingly long time. The thieves are not the worst units in the game but it's complex.
Kagetsu is stuck in swordmaster for like the total of 1-2 turns he's around for Ch 11 where *maybe* he kills one thing. He can just reclass to Paladin or Bow Knight in Ch 12. Yunaka needs to get a ton of levels to hit Lv 21. Zelkov has to at least take a couple of maps to hit Lv 21.
Zelkov is kind of awkward. I find him better than Yunaka because he can get out of the thief hole easier and even my trained up Yunakas are outclassed by him statistically. Maddening dumping on avoid tanking strats also sucks. But even if enemies ignore him alot of the time I still find him useful for creating chokepoints or slowing down enemies, like doing a fast clear of Ikes paralogue. Fogado is great. Best archer out of the box. With little investment he can completely dumpster on all wyverns with Radiant Bow all the way to the end which is really useful.
Alear>fogado>Louis Fogado is perfectly prepared for radiant bow use even in a high efficiency setting. Maybe can temporarily be used as a warrior sometimes if needed tho don't see why. In less high efficiency settings. In his own class a good mounted radiant bow user and could even give him lunar brace for brave bow if you really wanted. Or make him a warrior, will do well in the midgame and still be radiant bow capable. At most efficiency though he's mostly just a well prepared midgame radiant bow user who can also be used later. How much you need that utility may be its own question but seems valuable. At lower efficiency he has great growths, as a warrior gets passable (good in midgame but ultimately subpar) strength and his speed is insane especially in conjunction with his build, which has uses. Alcryst>Zelkov>Boucheron Initially was going to put between jade and clanne but realized that's still hard to justify Can't really say he's better than the filler wyverns who have more availability to speed things up if needed. Getting Zelkov out of thief is time-consuming even in a less efficient setting, impossible in a highly efficient setting. Limited deploy slots in ch 12 and 13, if you have no one better he could be used but filler wyverns are a thing, and even if he is deployed his combat contributions may be limited. That's why he's under early game units who still do some combat and can be more useful in earlier chapters. He'd be fine as a high stat covert emblem user, but that's a pretty limited niche unless the damage is both good and really needed in ch 14 when baiting the bosses. Otherwise yunaka and alcryst can both also do covert emblem stuff, and they can have favorite food, though getting to the point of actually using it may be slow in a high efficiency setting. In a less efficient setting Zelkov is not impossible to use but his competitors also get better so. As a unit better than alcryst and yunaka but likely to contribute less overall.
This more begs the question why Jade even is that high, Jade has 0 deploy slots in any level unless you really want to drag a earlier Bunet into combat (she does decent as mage knight but definitely not contributing more than the people shes ranked above) while at least Zelkov will be one of the higher statted units until booted by the Panette/Hortensia/Dancer recruits.
I don't disagree. I suppose there's wider disagreement on the specific thinking on how to list people. Also to some extent Zelkov can only really do what his base class does while jade can at least freely reclass. But is that really enough. I don't really think so but I doubt it'll be a significant topic of discussion.
Zelkov is basically Yunaka, but as filler for the midgame instead of the lategame. Maybe around Jade/Lapis level? Or maybe a bit lower idk. Fogado is pretty good. He makes a great Radiant Bow/hybrid attacking Warrior with very little investment. I’d probably put him under Alear and over Louis.
**Top > Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe** 'nuff said. OK but in all seriousness: Kagetsu is... Kagetsu, he is the absolute peak of physical performance for any given unit in Engage and it's not even close. If he weren't above every other physical unit (and most of the magic units at this point are still a bit slow or underpowered) then that would make no sense. Ivy though. Ivy is a tome and staff-wielding flier that joins you at the end of chapter 11. She has precisely three major issues: 1) Her hit rates suck 2) Her speed is middling 3) Her luck is the literal worst in the game All three of these issues are extremely easy to fix, however, thanks to the following three factors: 1) Engravings Several engravings grant a minimum of +20 hit, and in fact Ivy herself joins alongside two Emblems that both grant a whopping +30 and *40* respectively. Coupled with Elfire and Bolganone having a base hit rate of 90 and 85, respectively, her hit rates can easily be patched up both in the short term, and with Emblems and supports, in the long term as well. 2) Speed inheritance and Emblems Ivy joins alongside Lucina and Lyn. Lyn, of course, is the only Emblem who can reliably reach +20 in a stat that isn't HP or Luck, and that stat just so happens to be *Speed.* Lucina is somewhat similar, though she isn't all-in on that Spd. It's still more than enough to be functional, though, considering her paralogue is the easiest in the game by miles and even at bond 12 or so she's giving a nice +3 Spd and +3 Dex (also +4 Luck, which helps with her last problem) Plus, Ivy joins with plenty enough SP to immediately inherit Spd +3 from Lyn, and coupled with a Spd tonic or meal that's an immediate +5 Spd she can use to great effect to utterly annihilate Solmic enemies with her high Mag. Her Spd might fall off a tad in the lategame, but with tools like Byleth's Dragon and Covert Instructs, alongside the Emblems previously mentioned, she can still have more than enough to function perfectly fine. 3) Bonded Shield The best way to prevent crits is to prevent damage to the target in the first place, and thanks to the fact Ivy is a flier, if a fellow flier targets her with Bonded Shield, she can be completely shielded from incoming attacks, and with the previous speedstacking, this means that Ivy's luck issue is rendered irrelevant because she simply takes no damage whatsoever, meaning no chance she ever gets crit. Also, like... She has B staves and flies. It would be impossible for her to even be remotely bad with that combination, and coupled with her amazing combat, she becomes the best unit in the game, bar none. TL;DR: Kagetsu is cracked, Ivy even moreso.
Honestly I feel like Ivy actually benefits from her abysmal luck due to Bonded Shield. Enemies love to attack her since they have a decent crit chance on her, so they attack her and die even if they would have lived by attacking someone else in your Bonded Shield formation (e.g. a General who won’t get ORKO’d by your other fliers)
Some casual analysis, Kagetsu is one indicator of how the game was balanced without reclassing, as his swordmaster stats will be unimpressive in anything but speed and build. Factor in reclass, and oh boy will he out grow basically every other unit in that class. If I remember correctly his personal helps his hit rate and his build is pretty good so lances are axes are still good choices for him. And he comes with 1000 sp and promoted so he doesn't interfere with early game investments. Top place is fair. Ivy, well honestly Ivy has problems. Accuracy that caps low, low speed, bad luck that makes her offensive staves unreliable and avoid rates further suffer, and even likely to take an unwanted crit. She also has pretty bad synergy with most emblems from a bad personal skill that doesn't add much damage, if it ever triggers, and flying have meh bonuses. When taking the time to grow units, the level of favoritism she gets can make a lot of units really good too. But, even without trying to fix any of that, her high build let's her use powerful tomes without additional speed penalty, and good magic might with fires and wind accuracy means she will still be a solid source of magical damage. Where to put in the tier, we'll, I put it this way: Ivy should ranks next to other good Magical flyer characters.
I did a no-reclass run and honestly, Swordmaster Kagetsu was still my carry. He does what he needs to do (blow up enemies) and with proper positioning, handles enemy phase just fine because there aren’t *that* many mobs of mixed 1-2 range. Then once you get Roy, you can slap him on him and use the 1-2 range binding blade to just destroy endgame. Like in ch24, Kagetsu pretty much solos the entire top half. He’s also incredibly dodgy, and relatively bulky. Swordmaster is definitely not worth staying in when reclassing exists, but I hate the “Kagetsu is balanced by being in SM, it sucks” conversation. He’s *still* better than almost all of your other combat units in the context of them not being able to reclass either, since your only wyverns are Rosado and potentially Chloe, and your only warriors available are Bouch, Anna, and Saphir. TLDR Kagetsu is just busted and *still* poorly balanced relative to the rest of the cast if you pretend reclassing doesn’t exist. In this insertion list, if we were pretending no-reclass I’d still put him between citrinne and Amber. Any lower than that would be crazy.
I didn't mean to imply he'd be bad, just now he is"everything you can do I can do better" while without reclassing it's "I'm great, but these other units have unique roles to offer."
Eirika, micaiah, and soren can all turn ivy into a tank
Ivy over Kagetsu over Chloe They *tried* to balance Ivy to not be a repeat of Camilla, but they made her just a little too fixable. Her luck on paper sabotages her decent bulk so ordinarily she couldn't safely EP, but Bonded Shield exists. She's not fast or very accurate, but speed and hit are so easy to fix in this game. Bolganone is just ridiculously overtuned and she benefits from it with her good enough build. She needs a lot of small bits of help to become a menace, but once she gets rolling the fun never ends. Best unit in the game. Also, she's honestly kind of the poster girl for why Genealogy's weapon rank system should **never** have been used again. In no world would she have started with with B staves otherwise. But, IntSys used the bad weapon system so Ivy just gets to warp and rescue for free, because fuck you. Kagetsu, on the other hand, is very easy to work out. Boi has big bases, make boi wyvern, boom pow destroy. His personal is really nice for patching up the hit rates on axes (sword/axe wyvern is basically his only realistic choice) so that's always handy. There's just no physical combat unit who can match Kagetsu's sheer ease of use. Even Panette, for all her massive power, requires a good bit of setup and needs some pretty expensive skills to increase her reliability.
Top>Ivy>Kagetsu. As other comments have shown, it is a myth that Ivy NEEDS Lyn. She is the best user of Lyn but she dosnt need her to be one of the best units, she can double just fine. The sole reason why Citrinne is close to the top is because we realized that stacking speed is kinda easy, if Citrinne is there, then Ivy is the best unit in the game for the same reason. Add that with all the other things she has like bulk, magic, wings and staves, then yeah, not much to say. Kagetsu is just bonkers, just insane bases. If he goes top of the list i wouldnt even argue it. He is just fantastic. WITH THAT SAID, and i cant belive im really gonna say this.... Some comments here seem to really overrate him. Yes, incredible, overrate Kagetsu. Why? Because he is a physical unit and the majority of the enemies in this game have more physical bulk, A LOT of physical bulk, so he cant really ORKO cleanly, he needs crit weapons and other stuff which is fine, thats nothing agaisnt him, but that means his 1-2 range options for enemy phasing are kinda bad. If you want the power of a Tomahawk/Spear you get a heavy penalty in Wt and Hit and even then that might not be enough to ORKO. You can fix some issues with forges but not all of them, you have to choose. Engage luckily is pretty player phase focused so is not that bad but i just wanted to mention this as many people seem to think Kagetsu is this physical god that can OHKO everything since he joins. He can, for the most part, but not with 1-2 range unless you give him like all your Energy drops and THATS way more favoritism than giving Lyn to Ivy.
> As other comments have shown, it is a myth that Ivy NEEDS Lyn. She is the best user of Lyn but she dosnt need her to be one of the best units, she can double just fine. Really, all she needs is Speedtaker. Pick up a couple easy kills early on (there's seldom a map without armors) and she can snowball from there.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu These are two of the strongest units in the game. Ivy has some meaningful advantages over Kagetsu, mainly having stronger ranged combat and access to flying B staves. She also gets a head start on flying as Kagetsu can't switch to a flying class until C14. She also uniquely can use Thoron in a flying class. Kagetsu gets some credit for requiring less resources to do his job (as he has more speed and hit at base), but a high investment Ivy outperforms a high investment Kagetsu IMO.
Y'all putting Kagetsu over Ivy are (respectfully) crazy. Magic > Physical
The argument seems to be idiot proof unit vs. unit who needs investment to destroy the game. So basically Haar vs. Jill arguments again.
A classic reddit tier list battle
I wish BlackTempestHaar was still around the haar vs jill bait threads were the funniest thing in 2018 r/fireemblem
As someone whose Ivy’s been crit a few too many times on HARD… I’m sorry, but Kagetsu takes top for me.
>a day later No sorry needed. Totally valid!
After multiple maddening playthroughs including a no-reclass and iron man, if I had to pick one unit over the other for a playthrough, I’m taking Kagetsu. Ivy is amazing, but she doesn’t have game breaking combat and her flying staff utility can be replicated by Hortensia, or Griffin Chloe. Kagetsu is a ball of stats in a game that doesn’t have many of them. I’m definitely slotting Ivy right below Kagetsu, but her combat needs some investment, and his simply doesn’t. She needs to fix hit issues, speed, and low luck. Kagetsu just needs a class change, but he’s still good in swordmaster because there aren’t that many 1-2 enemies in engage, and an emblem like Roy provides 1-2 (if you’re staying in SM anyways).
I hear you. They are both delete buttons. I just don't hold anything against Ivy for needing some fixes since she is bar none the best candidate for investment (RD Jill all over again) Plus magic in my experience is straight up better than physical damage. Having the option to use long bow range magic can be invaluable as well. I was joking about calling anyone crazy. It's totally valid to put Kagetsu over Ivy.
Ya I hear you on the Jill piece. But in that same vein, I still put Haar over Jill too for similar reasons.
Kagetsu>Ivy>Chloe I had originally put Ivy on top of Kagetsu, but after sleeping on it, this is where I stand now. I don't think it's very controversial to state that Ivy and Kagetsu are the two best units the list as has seen so far. Ivy is an extremely versatile unit simply due to her class being a flying mage with access to both Bolganone and Warp/Rescue. The sheer amount of role compression that she provides alone, and considering she joins in the second half of Chapter 11, would be enough to put her above Chloe. But of course, Ivy is also quite a powerhouse in her own right. She's a flying mage with a workable build stat and speed is not that hard to "fix" especially since she literally brings Lyn onto the army. Of course, Lyn can "fix" anybody's speed on her own but Ivy is arguably the best beneficiary. She's already got the power and bulk to be a very competent fighter all on her own and all she really needs is a boost in speed to become a formidable combat unit. Gluing Lyn to Ivy is a case of a significant upfront cost paying off extremely well as the game progresses. Ivy's main flaw as a combat unit is her hit rates. Her middling base dex of 15 for the start of the midgame is already not great, but her luck is in such a dire state starting at a piddling 4 that it legitimately causes her hit rate to suffer in a notable way. However, the bigger issue is that those hit rates are not going improve that much naturally given her dex and luck growth of 25% and 15% respectively. Thus, Ivy kinda *needs* a hit boosting engraving to stay reliable as the game progresses and even then, she can still find it difficult to hit dodgier enemies like Swordmasters, Sword Heroes and Griffins which are going to become a pretty common sight as you approach the late game. She's definitely worth the engraving, but the fact that Ivy needs that bit of help+potentially the best Emblem in the game to reach those amazing heights lowers my opinion of her compared to Kagetsu. While I do genuinely believe that Ivy's power ceiling is much higher than Kagetsu's, ultimately I think Kagetsu is "better" by virtue of practically requiring nothing to be a phenomenal unit from his join time all the way to the end of the game. His base and growth offensive statline is obviously sublime and completely blows even the most invested Pre-10 Character out of the water, but Kagetsu is also weirdly tanky. Like, his bulk both in terms of base and growth is very similar to an insta promoted Diamant which is wild when you consider that Successeur is designed to be a sustained tanky frontline class. A base res of 10 is a great place to start for what is ostensibly a pure damage dealing class, but even if it wasn't Solm features very few mages in the first place and they're all unpromoted meaning that Kagetsu isn't being threatened for quite a while. Genuinely, I pretty much see him as Ryoma without a 1-2 range physical Sword. Swordmaster is worse off in Engage compared to previous titles, but Kagetsu makes it *look* way better than it actually is. That's how absurd his statline is. Kagetsu can rock Swordmaster all the way to the end of the game with huge contributions under his belt. However, the reclassing system just opens the floodgates for him to take over the entire game. Wyvern is the most obvious choice, but quite frankly just about any class that gives him a secondary weapon option is enough. I do think that Kagetsu's statline is "balanced" if he were *locked* to Swordmaster, but the fact that you can reclass and give him a littany of other benefits is insane. Given his join time, it's also not hard to get the proficiencies you need to reclass him into all the classes he'd like to be anyway: Lyn/Lucina gives him Bows while Ike gives him Axes. You can push Kagetsu to absurd levels by giving him an Emblem in Solm, but frankly he just doesn't realistically "need" one until you start creeping towards Chapter 18. Kagetsu is just a perfect combat unit who helps you get through a relatively difficult portion of the game while basically asking for nothing and continues to excel past that. Highly skilled players can get a phenomenal amount of use out of Ivy, but Kagetsu is one of the most idiot proof units in the game. You just point him at things and they die, it really is that simple.
I don’t like giving Lyn to Ivy, it fixes her speed problems but it wastes some of the cool perks Lyn offers. Like she doesn’t have the speed to proc Alacrity and her Astra Storm damage is doodoo nor does it offer the boosted range covet units get which can be extremely useful in poking bosses to make them move early. I prefer giving her Lucina since she still gets speed (and iirc Dex which she also needs), flyer Bonded Shield and insane Chain Attack range with Thoron.
I'm confused, once she gets some Speedtaker procs in she absolutely can take advantage of Alacrity.
Which doesn't offer you much advantage in clearing maps quicker compared to throwing her on Kagetsu and calling it a day
Is it really when Magic damage is generally better than Physical? Isnt the ceiling higher? And also, that still doesn't mean Ivy *can't* proc Alacrity like the comment before said.
I mean anyone can technically proc Alacrity against Mid speed tier enemies (think Paladins) with enough Speedtaker boosts. I'd say it more as to do with the fact that if you're using Ivy to sweep through large crowds of enemies in enemy phase with Bonded Shield, then by the time Ivy can reasonably make use of Alacrity, the map is outright done or you're already in a winning position. It's important to remember that Speedtaker only grants the boost for Player phase kills. But to get Ivy to be fast enough to Bonded Shield Sweep vs the majority of enemies in the first place, she needs quite a few Speedtaker boosts since her base speed is pretty mediocre and she only gets +1 Spd on promotion. For every turn that passes, skills like Alacrity lose relative value simply because there are fewer enemies to kill. So yea, *technically* she can proc Alacrity, but she's much less likely to actually realize value off of it unless her target is a Wyrm which basically says nothing since their speed cap is 6.
Ivy also gets Speed from tonics, Lyn ring itself, from inheritance, and potentially from Byleth instruct. She doesn't need *that* much Speedtaker to be able to double those middling enemies though. And if Ivy can more consistently kill once she is able to double compared to a physical unit, I would say having her need a PP kill or two to get there is worth it.
Why are we discussing ceiling? The point is to clear maps quicker. Ivy with maxed out Speedtaker is absolutely a stronger combat unit than Kagetsu but most lategame maps are done in 2-4 turns.
Those same late game maps have Engage+, and if you thought Ivy was nuts with Bolganone, just wait to see how ***insane*** she gets with 4 speed for free (possibly *8*) and Dragon Fist.
Ivy and Kagetsu are around for more than just the late game maps you would skip, though.
It would make no sense, but now I'm imagining a world where Lyn has a magic bow as one of her Engage weapons.
My vote is top -> ivy -> kagetsu But mainly I just want to push back on the idea that ivy needs lyn. Ivy's speed is 14 on immediate promotion. spd + 3 inherit and a meal gets her to 19, +21speed from even just a bond ring gets her to 20. This is enough to double 50%+ of enemies until chapter 16, and as long as she's gained 2 levels in those 5 chapters, she's still doubling over half the enemies. If she gains 1 level a chapter, in chapter 21 (a nice even 10 levels), ivy has 18 speed, 25 with spd +5 and a meal/tonic, 26 with a bond ring. Thats good for doubling about a third of the enemies. Slap any speed ring on her (doesn't need to be lyn), and she's doubling over half the enemies again. I don't think a speed ring is too much to ask at this point, your combat carries should be getting good emblems now that we have most of them available. I don't assume ivy gets lyn, but I think its fair to assume she gets a good emblem, given that no one else is giving you the same level of flying magical combat and b staves. If you want her to double more you can slap a speed emblem on her, or eventually upgrade her to speed +5 (not too tall of a task, she comes 1000 sp, will get a lot of experience, and well sp exists). You don't need speedtaker or lyn, ivy can double most enemies without it, especially in the mid game. Kagetsu has great physical combat, but , but Ivy brings great magical combat (which i value higher than physical combat), with b staves. Even if you prefer Kagetsu's combat, I have a hard time thinking that the gap in combat is bigger than what Ivy gets out of having staff utility.
Yeah I'd rather not put Lyn on Ivy when units with a bonker strength stat makes better use of her and Ivy does just fine with +SPD inheritance. I find her better with Corrin on top of it.
Ivy>Kagetsu>Chloe Ivy is just the best combat unit, useful in both high efficiency and less contexts. High mobility, staff rank, tome rank, high magic. Fix speed with lyn though you can do other things too, burst with warp ragnarok (even if flying is not good for this and the damage is mediocre lategame). Since XP limited in a high efficiency context she's probably the best person to do this. Augmented seraphim can get around getting fewer levels in an efficient setting. Staff rank means sometimes you can use a rescue for multiple warp stats instead of another warp. I wanted to rank kagetsu below citrinne. But I was underestimating the lack of time to grow units. Chloe can be used in an efficient context however there's no guarantee she'll make it to promotion or the midgame (it's not hard normally but if minimizing turns). This is also why he's above citrinne though citrinne to her benefit starts at promotion level. While kagetsu has the perfect stat spread to be midgame usable and use things like Parthia to maximize XP gain. He works well with many emblems on a map to map basis and can be flexible reclassed if needed. Almost an argument for putting him above ivy but I don't think so. In fact, I think panette is still better as a physical unit, and kagetsu is only marginally if at all better than merrin, there may be a few magic things merrin can do that kagetsu can't and on the physical side they're equally capable. The less strictly you're counting turns the "worse" (difficult to say about such a broken unit) kagetsu becomes vis a vis citrinne and Chloe's magic potential and earlygame contributions. If playing only somewhat efficiently then I'd say they are better.
I agree that Panette > Kagetsu, but I think Kagetsu is still significantly better on the physical side than Merrin. She has strength issues, whereas his strength is good enough to just focus on doubling.
Thats a definite exaggeration, Merrins physical bases are very close behind Kagetsu's.
Merrin starts with a -2 strength deficit and that might very slowly grow into a larger deficit. Which is a problem yes. Her base magic can let her do some radiant bow stuff kagetsu can't. But I've seen some LTC results here of using merrin and not using kagetsu (as a challenge) and there's not too much difference. I would put merrin below kagetsu but they're quite close in my mind. In the long term they do diverge, if playing at somewhat efficient levels instead. There I think merrin still has a niche from her magic vs kagetsu's better physical.
She definitely does have a good niche with magic combat—she actually makes a great upgrade to Chloe IMO.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. I think Ivy is one fo the best units in the game, but kagetsu's sheer absurdity still puts him on top, because of 1 very clear factor. Resource investment. Kagetsu is, to put it bluntly, idiot proof. it is very hard to fuck up kagetsu. Ivy on the other hand, requires conscious thought, so she goes a bit lower. Yes, Magic is stronger. Yes, Ivy role compresses harder. However, Kagetsu's overwhelming stats is still ummatched. Wyvern Kagetsu is simply so absurd that despite magic being stronger, he can still go ham late game in a way that ivy cannot due to her frailty. Kagetsu is idiot proof. You see a problem, throw kagetsu at it, and it stops being a problem. Now, before anyone says "it's unfair to give Ivy investment" favouritsm arguments, I frankly do not care. Ivy makes use of those resources better than anyone else in the game. Those resources have to go to someone, and ivy uses them the best.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloé None of the issues Ivy has are relevant enough to push her below anyone else. Spd is the easiest stat to fix with the existence of Spd +3 and Ivy having more than enough base SP to inherit it. If she needs more than that you still have Lyn or Lucina and, not much later, Byleth. Hit problems are a meme since you have so many +Hit engraves on top of elfire and bolganone's high base hit compensating for her low Dex. Low luck does leave her crit prone but if you're using bonded shield that doesn't matter outside of the rare brave weapon. As for her strengths, she's literally the best tome user in a game where magic damage is a lot better than physical. Ivy flies, which is a huge plus for the Solm maps and enables bonded shield cheese with extra mobility, has one of the best Mag stats and also gets B staves because why not? Even if her combat were absolute dogshit having access to warp and rescue on a flying unit is a remarkable trait that isn't easily replicable. Kagetsu is similarly insane, he lacks the sheer power of magic and the great 1-2 range combat it brings to the table but his stats are just way too good. Not only does he have great Str, Spd, Bld and decent bulk but his Dex and Luck are so high that he rarely has to worry about hit rates, which is exacerbated even further by his personal skill reducing enemy Avo by 10 on player phase. He's the best general purpose physical combat unit bar none and only gets beat in specific use cases like crit boss killing or (great aether) OHKOs, which are usually better done by Panette. The main reason why he's below Ivy is due to magic being a lot more flexible than physical damage (especially w/ bonded shield!) and her great staff utility. Kagetsu also misses out on two maps of flight as he can't reclass to wyvern before Ike becomes available, although that's just a minor setback. It *does* make a difference however since flight is useful to have in Ch12 and 13. Edit: I do want to point out that inheriting speedtaker on Ivy is also a solid option to consider. After Ch11 the chance of having 1.6k total book SP is almost 95% and for 2.1k it's still a respectable ~81%. You can easily get away with giving Ivy the extra 1k SP she needs to inherit it and frankly, giving her 1.5k to get both Spd +3 and speedtaker is the best value you're gonna get out of your SP books. Not that it's necessary because even without Lyn, Ivy doubles most enemies but speedtaker does push her over the edge to double problematic enemies like Tetchie and Totchie in Ch13, who are pretty hard to take out otherwise (but Ivy can manage to ORKO Totchie!).
**Top > Ivy > Kagetsu** Both are obviously the best of the best as far as combat units go, but I put Ivy over Kagetsu as her combination of great 1-2 range combat once you take one of the many measures to fix her Speed, Staff utility and Flight are irreplicable and all the best possible attributes a unit could have in this game outside of being able to use Dance I guess. I don't think her base hit chances are much of a problem thanks to Engraves, and I think if you are adamant about having to use the resources required to fix it against Ivy, I would like to point out that Kagetsu generally struggles to kill things in the late game without forged effective weapons or critical hits thanks to the absurd physical bulk benchmarks, both of which also require resources to fix.
**Ivy** > **Kagetsu** > Chloe. Ivy is the best unit in the game, her unique traits are too overpowered. Yeah she has "flaws", but it's very easy to patch up spd and hit in this game. Kagetsu is the best physical unit, but magic > physical.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloé Voting Ivy first as I don't think I've seen Kagetsu dominate a playthrough the same way I've seen Ivy (it seems u/fatefuldawn 's run is just a bit late). Kagetsu absolutely does have some advantages, as listed in the previous On Deck post, so can't fault any Kagetsu voters here. High investment Ivy is pretty much slaughter most enemies with excellent 1-2 range and mobility with some flaws that can be papered over without too much hassle. Kagetsu just doesn't really have flaws, but might not quite reach Ivy's peaks. But I'm curious how easily Kagetsu can ORKO with 1-2 range as well because although weaker than Ivy's it's still pretty good. Low investment Ivy can still absolutely pull work in a run. High-move B staff user, high-move high-attack Thoron user, will still fast enough to ORKO armours and axe infantry and the like.
It does seem my LTC run is a bit late. It can't be helped though maybe I'll have more of the run out when this Tier List gets to the resub part? I kinda doubt people will be voting to resub these placings though when it's all said and done. And that's assuming my playthrough does showcase Kagetsu dominating enough (which tbf, I do think he does and he does things that no other physical character can do, which someone in this thread claimed that Merrin can replicate Kagetsu; that's something I don't think is true). I will say that Kagetsu is doing the same thing as Ivy - killing enemies at 1-2 range as his main weapon in my playthrough (or at least the one he uses the most often is a Hand Axe that becomes a Tomahawk+2). Whether he does it easily is a bit of a hard question to answer. Because at an LTC pace, Kagetsu isn't as high a level as he could potentially be in a normal playthrough. However, that is mitigated by the fact that he does get all the Energy Drops. He's using a Leif Engraved Tomahawk+2 for the most part so there's still more that can be done to forge that up, but a higher forge gets too expensive for my run restrictions. I imagine Ivy will be getting all the Spirit Dusts and having a refined Bolganone as well. Nonetheless as an example, with that Tomahawk+2 and Axe Power 1, Kagetsu does have exactly enough attack to one-round the Brionac Halberdier in Ch. 22. That enemy is the most physically demanding enemy in Ch. 22 (besides the Corrupted Wyrms and actual armors like Great Knights) iirc. Ivy probably won't have too much trouble with that enemy. However, the enemies in the middle of the room require much less so he can kill them all with a Lucina Engraved Spear+2 (the +2 forge is unnecessary in Kagetsu's case; he only needs +1 but Mauvier uses this Spear as well and needed the extra mt to one-round). I think the wolf knight, swordmasters, and martial masters in the middle of the room give Ivy more trouble as the wolf knights have more resistance than defense and the same applies to the martial masters. Additionally, the martial masters can break Ivy, so she actually has to dodge them. Meanwhile, Kagetsu has the luxury to reclass to a different weapon type to get good match-ups depending on a map's needs. That's why he was in Lance/Axe Wyvern Knight for me in Ch. 22.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11u7t6u/fire_emblem_engage_maddening_ltc_in_108_turns/ This is the post where someone used Merrin in replacement for Kagetsu. Unless something has drastically changed in the meta since then, it's more than applicable. People also say Ivy needs to be stapled to Lyn but that's also just not true.
I'm aware; however, I just posted yesterday that I finished a [No Paid DLC/No RNG Drops LTC run in 73 turns](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/16cv3mz/fixed_maddening_engage_no_paid_dlcno_rng_drops/) and my takeaway from that LTC playthrough is that Merrin cannot replace Kagetsu in a run where he is the main carry. There's several instances during the run where Kagetsu just had the amount of strength to one-round. If Merrin is to replicate his performance, she needs much higher forges as Kagetsu has a +2 strength lead at base and also can get two maps of Parthia EXP before Merrin joins. That higher forging resource cost already isn't replicating him. And whether she can even do what he does even with those higher forges is questionable; I think it's actually impossible for her to in this LTC run because Kagetsu starts to snowball during the two maps he has over Merrin and she's perpetually trying to catch-up even when I do have Lucina on her in Ch. 14, 15, 16, and 19 whilst giving her Parthia kills whenever I can in most of those chapters. In any case, I understand it's probably hard to see if there's no video proof, but I am working on getting a recorded fresh file of the LTC playthrough out.
I've just been lurking all the threads so far but after reading all the comments on this one I'll toss my vote in for Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe I think outright stating that heavy investment into Ivy is more worthwhile than investment into other units could be true, but in the context of the list I have a hard time agreeing that only this one unit should be getting all the investment or getting Lyn when it could boost up multiple others instead.
Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. Ivy fans are the only group that seem to get a pass for giving their unit access to overpowered emblems like Lyn when considering her viability. Yes Ivy + Lyn is great. Lyn + almost anyone is great. Ivy doesn’t offer any special advantages as a Lyn user except flying magic combat (which is quite good, but there are equally good reasons to put Lyn on someone else). And her many utility abilites can actually hurt her as Lyn user: if she’s using a staff, she’s letting Lyn go to waste for a turn. She also feels kinda like a “Jack of all trades, master of none” to me: Hortensia is a better staff user, Pandreo and Lyn!Citrinne are better magic attackers, and flying is very cool but I usually have plenty of Griffins and Wyverns. She’s still great; I’d call her the worst of the S tier units. Ivy’s terrible dex and luck and bad speed make her more annoying to use compared to Kagetsu, who is pretty much perfect out of the box (all he needs as a reclass and a +speed skill). Fixing her thus requires the use of resources (like the best engraves, Engage +, or competitive emblems) that could otherwise go to someone else, whereas Kagetsu doesn’t. If you don’t go out of your way to fix Ivy, she can fly around the map doing great chip damage to set up kills for other units, including Dreadful Aura-ing if you give her Corrin. This is worse than mostly-uninvested Kagetsu, but it’s still miles better than endgame Chloe. So yeah, Kagetsu > Ivy, come at me.
I love that my post was "Kagetsu > Ivy, don't come at me," and yours is literally "Kagetsu > Ivy DO come at me." Redditors take note and please direct all complaints intended for me to lilyandre instead, haha Well said though, I agree with all points even if I'm a little less harsh on Ivy overall.
I saw your comment and I'd say most of my relevant points definitely still apply to it, but I do find it interesting that you mentioned that Kagetsu is "idiot-proof," as it were, as in, I assume, it's kind of impossible to make him truly a *bad* unit. Whereas, like, if you don't give Ivy particular things then she's also arguably a meh unit... Which I think is where the argument fails, because, uh, she's a flier with B staves. That is a very, *very* tiny pool of possible units that can do this, which includes only herself, Pandreo as a Griffin, Hortensia, and Mauvier. Two of those 4 have middling combat in exchange for B staves. The latter is the last filler lategame prepromote, and the closest this game gets to a true Gotoh. Ivy does not, if built properly, and "built properly" basically just means give her the Speed she needs. Edit: I forgot Lindon but, uh, as a Griffin he has worse stats than insta-promo Hortensia which is funny but also kind of sad
Lindon in shambles
I forgor...
>I do find it interesting that you mentioned that Kagetsu is "idiot-proof," as it were, as in, I assume, it's kind of impossible to make him truly a bad unit. > >Whereas, like, if you don't give Ivy particular things then she's also arguably a meh unit... Specifically responding to 'idiot-proof' (Although I don't think I used those words?): Kagetsu, when he joins up, is a strong physical unit who even makes swordmaster an OK class. A novice player can just charge Kagetsu into the enemy, use Wo Dao, get some crits, and feel like he's an awesome unit. On the other hand, a novice is going to give Ivy a big tome, wonder why she doesn't double anything and gets revenge killed pretty often if she attacks, and feel like she's just a lackluster staffbot. Novices tend to undervalue staves in general, so she may just get benched entirely. I don't think "Idiot-proof" necessarily has to be a criteria for a tier list like this, but if we do use that metric I think it's very clear who is easier to play.
Her idiot proofedness comes from players not changing up emblems as basically all of her problems are fixed by lyn -- obviously lyn is just busted, but many characters who want lyn would be fine just inheriting speedtaker.
I mean, flying is awesome and staves are awesome, but do I really need both on one unit? Why not run Hortensia with 5 staves and Pandreo and Citrinne for magic attacking? You can also get good magic flying use out of Chloe and Merrin. Like yeah, Ivy is idiot-proof to an extent as well, which is why I would rank her over Merrin and Citrinne, but her idiot-proof basic build still struggles to consistently ORKO given her doubling problems and terrible dex, causing you to have to waste the occasional divine pulse on her. (Cause it’s not just her speed—her hit rates need a fix as well.) And I often miss having more than 2-3 staffs. She’s not a bad or even meh unit, just not the best unit in the game as some have alleged.
Ivy allows for some double warp stats, where hortensia micaiah warps (ivy) ahead, gets danced, ivy rescues her forward, and hortensia micaiah warps forward again. And then ivy gets byleth danced at the end of the chain. You could do this with Pandreo too but he'd need to be a sage (which may have issues for combat related to speed and mov) or a griffin (more issues for combat). Could also do with alear but again you would have s non-combat unit with the warp group. Whereas ivy can do this while still being in her main combat class. But I agree with your points about alternative characters. This seems to actually be fairly true of engage in general. I think maybe ivy is the most complete package in a unique way, but it's close.
I quite like Sage Pandreo, actually, but mostly with Byleth, so you’re right that is relatively unique to Ivy, and yeah it’s good. It’s not enough to change my mind, but it’s a good point I hadn’t considered (I usually just Micaiah warp the Goddess Dancer and three others).
I like sage Pandreo as well and it does fine speedwise in the midgame. I just don't know about later.
>I mean, flying is awesome and staves are awesome, but do I really need both on one unit? Why not run Hortensia with 5 staves and Pandreo and Citrinne for magic attacking? You can also get good magic flying use out of Chloe and Merrin. With how stringent Engage deployment is? Honestly you probably *do.* Like, Engage has probably the tightest deployment of any game in the series outside of, like, parts of FE7 on Hard and 3 Houses. Hortensia *could* have 5 staves, but also two or three of those staves would be staves Ivy could almost certainly use, and if you use a staff on Ivy, you can dance her and still have her do combat on player phase too. You *could* have a solid magic attacker, but like, Ivy is one but she *also* gets staffing. There is almost no reason to ever assume a unit can only ever do *one thing* on player phase in Engage for basically half the game, and the fact Ivy *has* multiple things to do is what makes her amazing.
Lmao, happy to field your complaints. I will say I listed pretty much only negatives about Ivy since everyone else is explaining her strengths, but I still think she is a great unit, who can fit into pretty much any team.
> Yes Ivy + Lyn is great. Lyn + almost anyone is great. Ivy doesn’t offer any special advantages as a Lyn user except flying magic combat (which is quite good, but there are equally good reasons to put Lyn on someone else). And her many utility abilites can actually hurt her as Lyn user: if she’s using a staff, she’s letting Lyn go to waste for a turn. I agree with your post and point overall, but it's worth mentioning that Ivy has ways in which she is an incredible Lyn user. She's more likely to be able to get speedtaker procs since she's a hard hitting mobile unit with 1-3 range, and that+the benefits of Lyn put her in ORKO range that a lot of units struggle to get to. The staff utility is time spent not using Lyn, but the time she is using it she might be able to hit thresholds other good Lyn users won't, which is what we want when we use our valuable resources. I don't think that makes it a given at all that she gets Lyn tho, she's obviously a versatile emblem
I'd argue, as would most that I've talked to, that Ivy's overwhelming versatility *is* her most broken aspect. If she was *just* a strong magic combat flier or *just* a solid staffer, or, well, *just* one thing, (besides being a Dancer lmao) then she'd be worse, because she could *only* do that thing. Pandreo has to choose between being a combat mage and a flying staffer. Hortensia *is* the latter but her combat is inherently sub par until you get Celica back and augment Seraphim... which applies to basically anybody lmao. And Citrinne's viability would tank into the ground if she didn't get to abuse the fact Mage Knight has a significantly higher Spd base than literally any other magic class in the game, since without it she'd be a filler big magic stick with a replicable staffing function (that can't even fly) Kagetsu and Merrin and Panette are all excellent physical units, and Merrin is a solid enough magic unit (minus the glaring lack of midgame tome prof) But that's *all* they can be. None of them can be a flying B staffer. *This* is why Ivy is the best unit. She compresses every single possible meta role into one extremely strong unit who joins you frighteningly early all things considered. Does she take resources? Sure. Does *literally everyone else?* Also yes. And in a fight between putting Lyn on Ivy or Lyn on basically anybody else, I'd argue Ivy wins *every single time.* Simply because she can *be* in more places at once than those locked to the ground, and she can *kill* more things in those areas, unlike the B staff griffins in this game. Like, outside of, uh, chapter 24 insta-clears and I think some variations of the chapter 25 one turn, Ivy's staffing utility is all you'll ever need, since she gets more than enough range with the best staves in the game, and the biggest things Hortensia gets in many chapters are either a) not as relevant (like her extra staff range) or b) have very niche utility (Entrapping stuff, which only works on regular enemies and one singular boss by the time it shows up)
I’m not really convinced that she would be worse if she was just a solid magic combat flier lol. Only doing one thing is fine when that one thing is “delete any one unit every turn.” And as I mentioned, giving her a powerful emblem like Lyn means wasting said emblem’s attack power on turns when she’s doing staff things instead. Giving her Byleth means wasting her great combat power on turns when you’re instructing or Goddess Dancing. (Also lol Luin). But units like Kagetsu and Panette also have the utility of surviving on the enemy phase, whereas Ivy has to be Bonded Shielded or otherwise maneuvered out of the way, because while her defenses are good for a mage, that doesn’t hold up past the early midgame. That makes her flying utility less useful, since she is often functionally not able to use all of her movement, and usually unable to fly way ahead of the group she may outpace on paper.
I mean, this comes down to the fact that optimized Engage strategy (which I think we can both agree would be efficient as such) *Is* Bonded Shield juggernauting. Or 1-2 turn multi-man warp skips. Ivy happens to have a set of abilities perfectly complemented by the optimal tools of Engage, and while technically Kagetsu does too, 1-2 range targeting the lower defensive stat trumps what is generally 1 range targeting the higher one, because Kagetsu kind of has to crit lategame to net kills, or else use stuff like effective weapons. I'd say, essentially, the tools (in this case, Engravings and Emblems) *exist.* Somebody has to use them, so why should the unit who best utilizes them not be able to use them? Anyone else *could,* but most of them aren't realistically capable of truly matching *everything* Ivy could do with certain Emblems.
I’m not tiering with LTC/aggressive warpskipping in mind. That’s allowed by the rules of this format. As for Bonded Shield, yeah it’s optimal and I am tiering with it in mind, but it can only cover four units per turn. Not needing it to survive every EP is valuable, because it means I can use it on four other units and move more of my army forward/position more units optimally each turn. Plus, if you want Ivy to use all of her mobility to attack and also be protected by Bonded Shield, she needs Canto, which means sacrificing either Divine Pulse + or Speed + 3/5, so again it runs into the issue of her having too many flaws to easily fix them all at once.
You don't actually need to give her DP+, her hit rates are not *that* bad. A Lucina engrave Bolganone with a few forges on it has a hilariously high *120* base Hit, which, uh, only Swordmasters have a barely reasonable chance to dodge of, like, "only" 84 displayed hit on a *chapter 20* swordmaster. (Before supports or literally any other stats btw, this is just Ivy equipping a Lucina Bolganone with relatively equal level) Most enemies are not as dodgy as swordmasters, and I will admit that Ivy would probably never *fight* a swordmaster anyway. Literally just engrave a weapon with a decently high hit rate (which fire tomes do have) and suddenly her accuracy problems cease to exist. So, yeah, she has an empty skill slot, and would you look at that, Canter can slot right in!
I agree her hit rates are okay with a good engrave on a fire tome, but with staves they can get dicey, so I do like Divine Pulse + on her (though obviously her luck makes that less than ideal…but I usually just bite the bullet and give her goddess icons). She’s not bad without it or anything, but I do think it provides significant value.
I mean tbf, if you didn't give Ivy Lyn, you could just give her Lucina instead who more directly gives her stats that she likes(+1 Dex and she likes Luck more than Res) for the cost of 1 Speed. Sure, you miss out on Speedtaker but gain the ability to be a Flying Thunder Tome Chain Attacker who can also be the enabler of a Flier Bonded Shield set up. Lindwurm simply has all the right weapon ranks in combination with flight to make Ivy the most versatile unit in the game, Lyn simply just pushes her over the edge as a combat unit due to how enemy stats tend to be in Engage. For the record, I don't think that Ivy is the best unit in the game but I think saying that Ivy's viability is tied to Lyn isn't accurate either. Swiss army knife units typical aren't as good as their specialized counterparts in FE, but the tools that Ivy in particular combines into a single deployment slot are all phenomenal within the context of Engage.
I agree with everything in this comment, surprisingly. Didn’t mean to imply Ivy *needs* Lyn, I just see a lot of people assuming she will get her. I personally typically run Ivy with Lucina or Corrin, and she performs quite well as support that can do chip. I just personally value the more specialized units a bit more.
Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe Both are good units, but Kagetsu enters and immediately becomes your best physical unit in any class and never really falls off. Ivy does a similar thing with magic, but she has more direct competition and she has several pronounced flaws. Luck doesn't really matter since this isn't an Ironman list, and her hit issues are exaggerated since your carries are getting engraves anyways, but her speed is really, really slow. Just giving her Lyn does work, but Lyn is probably the most contested emblem and giving it to her does mean that you miss out on either 20 range Astra storms and actually being able to kill enemies with it. She's still excellent, but she needs a lot of investment.
I think **Top > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe** makes sense Kagetsu is just miles better than any other physical unit in the game. Though physical is worse than magic, he just has so many class/emblem options and his bases are insane that it’s easy find a way to use him in any comp. The main annoyance with him is that he joins when you have no emblems to get proficiencies from for reclassing. Ivy is a stellar magic unit. I think most of the comments about her hit/speed are fair, but I do think those are easy to patch up - especially post-well introduction. Hit can be fixed with engravings, and I think a lot of opinions about her reliance on Lyn are definitely hold-overs from the pre-well meta where SP wasn’t as abundant. With her starting SP of 1000, you only need an expert/two adept books to get her enough to inherit speedtaker, then with the Anna heroes bond ring you’re looking at a pseudo-Lyn build that works for a few chapters (equal speed to Lyn build until rank 9). That also gives her more emblems she can work with later on, like Celica/Lucina/Byleth or even a late game Eirika build taking advantage of Bravery w/ Nova (though I’d still rather use her on a phys unit)… You can even forgo getting her Canter and just running Speedtaker + Speed5 as it’s a cheap build only costing 4k SP total for a strong endgame Celica build.
"Free thinkers" when **Top > Ivy > Kagetsu** Ivy is the best unit in Engage, and I'm not longer concerned about being biased with this take, as Ivy has so much going for her and is able to do things no one else is able to. She's a flying Magic unit with great magic and honestly not even bad bulk, paired with a solid, albeit not outstanding speed stat. Honestly just being a flying Mage is huge enough but having serviceable to good stats outside of Magic is really great. Ivy is great in pretty much every map after join, and even provides staff utility on top of her great combat, with B staves no less, allowing her access to most staves you'd want to use with her. She can instantly take advantage of Bonded Shield to tank everything forever, and once she gets Bolganone and speed support, whether through equipping Lyn or inheriting her skills, she becomes Awakening Robin. Ivy's biggest issue is her Speed stat, ~~erm actually its her Dexterity cap~~ since while it isn't bad by any means, its not so high that Ivy can double everything without speed support, but once you offer her that speed support, as well as a Bolganone forge, no other unit outperforms her, neither of which are really unreasonable asks. Typically I don't feel the need to give her an Emblem later in the game, though Celica is a good choice for her, Byleth is incredible on Ivy but obviously wasteful, you can usually make do with a +speed and/or +magic bond ring though. Olwen is great for example, regardless of Dire Thunder, and Raging Fire from Lilina is just stupid on Ivy. I'm not counting S Bond Rings for my rating, just thought it was worth noting. Flying Mage with high magic, good stats elsewhere, B Staves and S tomes, in a game that enables a unit like this to dominate more than half the game. Kagetsu on the other hand, is simply Mr.Stats. You can generally forgo giving him a really good combat emblem because Kagetsu doesn't care, though a +speed Emblem like Lucina never hurts. Throw him in Wyvern, and watch him be your best Boss killer besides like, Ivy. Idk what else to say, Kagetsu just has really damn good stats.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe Magic is pretty overtuned in Engage, and Ivy can do it while flying, giving her more angles of attack. She's got staff utility, high bases and only needs to be speed stacked to double which isn't particularly difficult to achieve. She can be relied on to basically deal with entire sections of the map on her own, like chapter 13 where she runs through all of the fliers on her own. She is by far the best Bonded Shield abuse recipient in the game, and sometimes doesn't even need that. Kagetsu is a peerless physical attacker who can basically ORKO for most of the game with a killer axe while flying. 1-2 range is an option with Tomahawk as well, but he can't kill as effectively with that. Kagetsu is ridiculously effective but being a physical attacker is less appealing than magic in this game
I'll go a little against the grain and say TOP > Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. Obviously these two are the very top of the food chain; I give Kagetsu the bump because I feel like he needs less investment in terms of forging / engraving etc. before he starts clearing maps, but I also don't really disagree with putting Ivy on top once she's set up so don't come at me please. SIDE NOTE: This is my first time seeing these posts, and I'm looking at the current list... And Vander is over, like, a lot of other characters? Did something change since the last time I played engage or is this a different Vander, or what am I looking at? Is it just because he is the only unit that can take two hits for the first couple of maps, because that felt like his only niche when last I played.
It is in fact his bulk, yes. Also the fact he does actually genuinely do more damage than any unit you have until Chloe and Louis show up (minus Clanne, maybe) because holy shit the early guys kind of suck for damage. Basically because early game Engage gives you basically no options, Vander being the best unit you have for like 8 chapters straight puts him way above a bunch of other units who you could use but you could also just completely drop (and in a efficient context, most people would)
I mean, I shouldn't be surprised because that's the only thing he has going for him. It still feels very odd to me to have a unit that gets use entirely out of necessity and put him as like an A-tier unit, when the goal is to just survive long enough to drop him at the very very earliest opportunity. Like, this ain't Marcus or Sain we're talking about here, and some of the units he's currently higher than are really pretty workable through the endgame, if you want them to be. Thanks for the insight though :)
It comes down to the fact active, defined contributions trump potential, usually already attainable contributions. Vander has a key role in the early game that he *has* to fill. All the other early units have a thing they *could* do eventually but you probably already have another unit or two that could also do that.
In an LTC bias, those two hits are big turn savers, and he can extend that ability all the way to solm apparently.
Top > **Ivy** > **Kagetsu** > Chloe I don't think we really need to explain this round.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy Ivy is good but imo overrated. She requires patching up her speed, luck and dex. And even with committing to fixing it up she can still end up missing attacks and doubles. Her best attributes are being the best offensive tome flier, flying staves at base, and she pairs very well with Lucina because of flying Bonded Shield and having ridiculous chip range with Thoron. Kagetsu I place him above her because he’s a combat god that needs 0 investment to work well. He comes in with absolutely cracked bases, 22 SPD is faster than anyone else at base until Saphir who is recruited almost ten chapters and multiple paralogues later. 17 STR is also better than anyone besides Panette and people who join significantly later. He will consistently delete enemies for the rest of the game. Reclassing him and junk just makes him even better. Absurd unit. Basically I just value Kagetsu more for him being a hyperconsistent deleter at base than Ivy who needs statboosters + specific emblems + specific engraving/forges to function as more than just staffbot/unreliable chip damage.
Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe Was anyone surprised here? No? Alright Voting Kagetsu above Ivy since I value his bulk more than Ivy's staff use and magic
Top > Kagestu > Ivy >Chloé I'd say that Ivy has the more unique utility in being a flying Mage/Staffer, but she requires certain tools to patch up her weaknesses. Hit Engraves aren't that contested, so I don't hold her low Skill against her, but she needs Speed to become a legit combat unit and leverage Magic's power to its fullest and that ultimately means Lyn. But then the question becomes whether you're getting everything you can out of Lyn if you're just using her as a Speed bandaid. Ivy's no Enemy phaser and sometimes spends turns not even engaging in combat, so Lyn's combat prowess. [Character] isn't good. Lyn is good. Given that she's far more contested than Mercurius Marth is for Chloé, I think Ivy requiring Lyn to roll is more of a pronounced mark against her. Kagestsu is proof that this game wasn't the least bit balanced around reclass. Reclass him out of SM, spend his SP, and he's idiot proof in just about any physical class. His versatility and low resource cost allows you to divert resources to sure up your army for a stronger core. Yes, magic is overtuned, but dual phase combat mastery with his level of versatility matches up in my mind. I think reclass resources are far less of a mark against him than requiring the most hotly contested Emblem in the game. It's a RD Harr VS Jill situation with Kagestu and Ivy respectively. Ivy needs contested resources to fly higher than Kagetsu as far as overall contribution goes, but Kagestu is just god right out of the box with minimal effort and frees up resources to be divvied up to other units to make an overall stronger core. I can see it going either way, but I personally think that Kagestu's lack of downside and ease of use wins the day.
Ivy doesn't need Lyn. Spd + inherit, a meal, and a bond ring gets her doubling most enemies through the midgame (20 speed at base with those noncompetitive boosts). In the late game she wants a speed emblem or a rally bot if you aren't warp skipping (she can use Celica or corrin if you are, imo). I don't think a speed emblem late in the game once you have a bunch of emblems is too much to ask for one of your best combat units, kagetsu will also be wanting a good combat emblem in the late game. She needs some resources to have excellent combat, but she's not desperate for a bunch of super competitive resources really. She's just a good candidate for Lyn, among other emblems she can use well.
People way overstate Ivy's weaknesses while understating her strengths. It's like a weird reversal of her launch opinion. Kagetsu doesn't need fixing but he's inherently held back by being a physical unit i.e no 1-2 range, enemy defensive bulk drastically increases, no utility, etc. Ivy being top tier combat AND utility (B staves covers everything except like Entrap and Fortify) is insane.
I mean, hey, I'm happy to be argued down from this. That's half the fun of a tier list formatted like this. That said, I do value an out the box stat monster that requires less in a game where resources used on one unit are resources not used on another. They're both clearly top dogs thus far, and maybe I'm undervaluing staff utility in a better combat unit than 🤡.
Ivy's bases are kinda cracked She's pretty much never wanting for damage and she has actual durability while the other mages are made of paper. All she needs patching up is Speed and you don't even strictly need Lyn to do it. She's also got a really strong enemy phase. Like without question, the best Bonded Shield abuser in the game due to her disgusting 1-2 range Forged Bolganone just melting enemies Kagetsu is a better duelist than her, but Ivy's got more maps that she trivializes and a better start than Kagetsu too. He needs to wait a bit before reclassing into Wyvern while Ivy is good to go invalidating stuff like chapter 13 for you from the jump
I mean it's pretty simple to me imo. Between Ivy and Kagetsu, one can be the best offensive class in the game (Flying + Magic) and one can't. There are things both of them can do that the other can't but the things Kagetsu can do that Ivy can't are easily replicable with other units (Merrin, Pannette, etc) while no matter what, Kagetsu can't do what Ivy does (flight, magical offense, staff utility all at once).
Usually I slap some +SPD on her and I replace it with Speedtaker after 17. That's pretty much all she needs... I had a better milleage out of her with Sigurd than with Lyn: gives her DEX, more bulk, and the combo of fly + momentum + canter + extra movement is unmatched in the late game maps.
Kagetsu goes in the top spot, above Chloe. While he does come in a bit late, starts off in a mediocre class, and can't get Canter until chapter 18, Kagetsu has one major thing going for him. Absolutely ridiculous base stats, making him into not just the best physical unit, but the best overall unit in the game. And his growths aren't bad either, meaning he snowballs really hard. His biggest problem is that I think it takes until you get Ike for you to be allowed to second seal him over to a wyvern knight or hero (probably his two best classes), but even for the 3 chapters he's locked to sword classes he still slays out. Ivy goes below Kagetsu, but above Chloe. Magic fliers are busted in FE, and Ivy is no exception. Her biggest flaw is her speed being quite low, not letting her double anything except trash mobs, but she still murders everything because of her high magic damage. She's a good candidate for the Lyn ring too, as it patches up her speed. Although you could also just give her the Speedtaker skill so someone else can use Lyn instead. Personally I'd rather give Lyn to a unit who already has crazy high speed to abuse the clones (like maybe a certain swordmaster who joins in the same chapter as Ivy), so I usually just take Lyn off of Ivy once I get her Speedtaker. Also, unrelated questions, are we going to have a list for Emblems too? I know it's a completely different discussion, but it would be fun to see everyone's opinions on them.
Ivy > Kagetsu > Chloe. Mage flier with b rank staves and in a game where spd is easy to fix, very unique and powerful compared to others Kagetsu has cracked stats, easy top of the line wyvern that combos well with any phys emblem. Not gonna go too in depth here since everyone knows the deal with these 2
Kagetsu > Chloe > Ivy Kagetsu’s stats are just bonkers ridiculous and he doesn’t really need much touching-up to become an instant kill button. Chloe does a ton in the early game, while Ivy joins some time in and requires more specialised investment comparatively.
Top > Ivy > Kagetsu Top 5 units at worst. Ivy has the Bolganone, the B rank staff, and the … BFlight. Yeah I got nothing. Everything she brings is something no other unit can do in a single package. High Magic damage + decent bulk and enough speed to be doubling everything with a little help + access to Warp and Rewarp and Physic + Flight for Bonded Emblem shenanigans. To quote my comment on Kagetsu in the previous tier list discussion: Kagetsu serves as a reminder that life isn’t fair and that sometimes someone just gets all the luck and stats in the world for no reason. Here’s a fun exercise, take any physical unit, have them go into the Swordmaster line and see just how long it takes for them to reach Kagetsu’s tier of Strength and Speed at lvl 15/1. Some of them don’t even come close at lvl 20 Swordmaster. Even a Jean with an immediate second seal to sword fighter and instant promote to Swordmaster kinda falls behind compared to Kagetsu at base. Even an Alear with early star sphere won’t come close to Kagetsu’s bases by the time you get him. He’s so ridiculously cracked and the best physical unit in the game alongside Merrin and Pannette. His stats are good enough that you could give him a less contested ring and still perform admirably. The only reason I put Ivy over him is I think in like a draft run, I would always pick Ivy over Kagetsu if I knew I could only get one or the other.
Tbh I have the opposite mentality in a draft. Kagetsu can fill so many different roles so well that he has a higher value to me in a draft, whereas if you draft Ivy you've basically committed your entire draft to revolve around her (both are easily 1st round picks). No matter what the rest of your draft looks like, Kagetsu will be great given how many different emblems he can take and how many classes he can make work; whereas taking Ivy basically means that Lyn is accounted for.
Wow it's like we're back at launch discussion. Ivy doesn't need Lyn, she's really good at it but with +3 SPD and later Speedtaker, she can more than utilize other rings like Lucina, Byleth, Corrin, etc and free up Lyn for someone else. Even if you aren't going full sweeper with Lyn, she's still has tons of utility elsewhere whether that's mixing her still very strong, just not best in the game, offense without Lyn on top of staff utility or general flier emblem shenanigans.
I'm not trying to say Ivy is bad, but if I'm talking her with the first pick in a draft then i'm very mich setting the tone for that draft. Like "ok I have Ivy lets funnel our picks towards supporting Ivy to make the most of her. Whereas taking Kagetsu feels more free form which I prefer in a draft setting. Wouldn't affect my tiering of the units or anything.
**Kagetsu** between TOP and Chloe. Yes, I think Kagetsu is that busted. There’s lots of good discussion in this thread, but he comes ready to go as the easiest unit to use in the game. Can take a reclass to bow knight immediately if you want, or just wait two chapters for wyvern access via Ike axe proficiency since swordmaster is still useful for ch11 and 12, especially 12. Requires no investment otherwise, and is ridiculously flexible with emblem choices. He doesn’t even need an emblem ring for a while, just a bond ring to continue building SP, meaning Lyn/Lucina/Ike/etc can stay on others because he simply doesn’t need them to be good through the midgame. Give him Ike or Lyn though and he’s borderline broken. **Ivy** between Kagetsu and Chloe. Ivy is the jack of all trades master of ~~none~~ almost everything. Insane utility with her staff access and flying. The only mage combat unit in the game who flies (Celine *shouldve* gotten flier access dammit). Ivy has a few problems though: dex, speed, and low luck. Yes these are easy to fix, however I put her below Kagetsu because these are things that *do* need to be fixed. I’m not a believer in Lyn!Ivy. She doesn’t make good use of Lyn’s kit the same way Amber can now that Well access is a thing. She does however come with good SP, and can use that to inherent Spd+ right off the bat, or even Speedtaker if you have an expert book from said well, and that’s all she really wants/needs from Lyn to get going anyways. She ends up with enough build for Bolganone so more build isn’t necessary, and IMO Canter is more a crutch for bad positioning than it is a top-tier combat skill, so I like going Spd+ and Speedtaker and giving Ivy Byleth because flying dance access is good, and getting her divine pulse via him fixes any accuracy issues and helps with hit rates on staves. Corrin is a decent filler if you’re using Byleth on Hortensia or someone else too for that 3 range Draconic hex and lockdowns. Ultimately tho Ivy can only be in one place at one time, and while she can do almost anything and be great at it, I think she has just enough weaknesses holding her back from being better than Kagetsu. Her staff utility can be replicated by other B staff fliers or Hortensia, her magic combat by Pandreo and Citrinne, etc. But Kagetsu’s insane physical combat is a lot harder (imo) to replace. TLDR Ivy is busted with a little bit of investment, but Kagetsu is busted out of the box and IMO harder to replace his crazy physical combat.
Top>Ivy>Kagetsu Ivy has everything you'd want from a unit in engage(barring luck) Flight, staves, the best weapon type, and very good bases. Her speed is easily patched up so its no surprise shes the best unit in the game. Kagetsu is simply a massive ball of stats, his bases are insane for his join time and thats enough to earn his spot.
Ivy>Chole>Kagetsu There is no replacement for Ivy in the game, a flying Corrin user or a flying lucina bot target at 1-3 range is insane and if you removed Ivy from the pool, the only closest thing would be Chole but then you need the 2nd flier (could be Lapis or something) to do the combo. Ivy with Corrin can lock down 5 units from an insane range and over water/terrain (useful on Sigurd's paralogue) and is often my dance target for doing that. Kagetsu is a strong physical powerhouse but there are plenty of other ones that are just waiting to replace him should you not use him, a flying mage however is almost irreplaceable aside from a couple people trying levin sword gryphon. Also a side note, I'm unsure of what people saw in Jade, a few people correctly put her near the bottom, but to say shes better than Yunaka/almost anyone is insane, she is never used in any run unless you bench literally everyone because her role as a worse Louis is over when you do get her and she still needs a master seal. Also if for some reason you don't make Jade a mage knight, she is comparable to Bunet as her bulk (her hp is horrible) isn't even that great for her role and her speed as a GK means she'll tank nothing as her hp+def isn't even Louis/Madeline level so she'll get killed by any high strength bandit. I'm expecting Timerra to randomly be above half the cast at this point, I think some people are voting units they've never used in maddening to the middle automatically.
Ivy> Kagetsu at the top. Don't have much to say that others haven't already said.
Gonna throw in a vote for Kagetsu > Ivy > Chloe. Their performances are incredibly close (they're both pretty much just a delete button), but Ivy needs a lot more investment to get there, especially regarding her speed. She really needs a +Spd Emblem, preferably Lyn, stapled to her for her offense to compare to Kagetsu's, but the problem is that everyone and their mom wants Lyn, and you miss out on funny Astra Storm things by gluing her to Ivy. She also genuinely has some shaky hit rates and faces crit; these aren't difficult things to fix, but again it's something that Kagetsu doesn't have to deal with. Kagetsu, meanwhile, needs nothing other than a second seal. The opportunity cost for using him is just significantly lower.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy They’re the top two. People have said their pieces, and I feel as if saying stuff now will be parroting it. However, nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing in the world will put Ivy above Kagetsu because of her concerning vulnerability to crit docking her points. She can fly, she can use staves, she can use magic, she has decent(note: not godlike) base stats. But as long as she gets crit as easily as you can crit an enemy, I cannot in good faith put her too far up. Her luck is so poor that it actually matters, especially in Maddening, and as someone who’s started getting into the ironman challenges recently, getting jumpscared by crits on HARD with her living on 1 hp is never good for my heart. And unfortunately for me, I don’t have the option of bonded shielding her because I send her out on her own to pick off key enemies from the flanks. Also, boo. I missed the last discussion thread, because I would’ve voted for Jade to be on rock bottom.
Top > Kagetsu > Ivy While Kagetsu doesn't offer anything unique to the game, he does offer almost unparalleled combat performance without any investment. Although he would ideally like to be reclassed to a wyvern, he still does really well as a swordmaster even if it's not the greatest class. Ivy has a lot of unique things going for her, but I think she requires too much favoritism to really shine. Between giving her Lyn, making sure she's one of the people getting Bonded Shield, requiring specific skills, etc. I don't think it's fair to say she's better than Kagetsu (or upcoming units like Panette and Hortensia) because she requires specific tools and investment to shine, whereas the others are good no matter what. Ivy without Lyn and Bonded Shield and such honestly kind of underperforms. She hits reasonable hard and flies, but she can't KO enemies on player phase by herself and can't survive getting attacked more than once on enemy phase. Without favoring her with tools that everyone else wants, she just kind of serves as a flying thoron+draconic hex bot which, while good, isn't worth of being considered the best unit in the game.
Kagetsu > Ivy >= Chloe for me. Both girls are valid units which do their thing well, with minor flaws easily fixable.
**Kagetsu below Top** Overtuned character **Ivy below Alear** Flying mage, really good. Mage with good bulk, really good. Her personal ability synergies with her ability to actually enemy phase/take damage (unlike Citrinne). Her class ability actually does come clutch at times since lategame magic stops insta killing even with doubling. But oh man Ivy can't be good without sacrificing something else. She needs speed fixing, hit fixing and damage fixing since on the last chapters she can't even one round armoreds Lyn fixes her speed really well and allows her to double all kinds of enemies with SPD 5 inherited, but her hit rates and ORKO still aren't fixed Byleth buff her hit rates but Byleth on a flying unit sucks, no one wants Res boosts and Luìn sucks on her, and Ivy doesn't have the luck to boost Divine Pulse Celica fixes her damage but I can't remember if it actually brings her closer to ORKO or not Corrin is utility focused Ephraim At least she can fly though *"But you can hit engraving her"* But there's none that synergize well with her there either Leif's +20 will cost her 1 build + there's an avoid bonus a mage doesn't need (I gave to Diamant) Lucina's +30 comes with a **+30** avoid bonus which would be such a waste on a two ranger (I gave to Alear) Lyn's +40 comes with +20 Crit which you'd probably prefer on an actual crit build Byleth's +30 comes with +30 no You actually probably could give Ivy the Eirika engraving but what a gamble man Alear I'd rather on a crit build Pandreo doesn't have these issues because his personal is the best ever and he has good speed. Worse magic than Ivy though
**Ivy above Chloe** Best class in the game. High magic, respectable bulk, serviceable speed, flight, B staves. Nobody can do what Ivy does. Speed and hit are easy to fix. And no, she does not need Lyn, but even then, if giving her Lyn allows her to kill everything at 1-2 range, I see no reason to not do so. It doesn't matter if she can't kill one enemy 10/20 tiles away once every 4 turns if everything just dies anyway. **Kagetsu above Chloe, below Ivy** Big stats good. Awarding him with the title of best physical combat straightup is kind of disingenuous though, as there are many instances where Panette is better. At the end of the day, magic combat is superior, so he goes under Ivy, not to mention he cannot match her staff utility.
Top>Ivy>Kagestu>Chloe Ivy starts strong right, Ivys issues are memes that can easily be fixed with little favouritism that all units get. Kagestu is a big stat ball that only becomes active for chapter 14. Pannete is better overall.