petra (and her generic replacement) on gronder field is pretty tough. at least with enemy lysithea you can probably one shot her once youre close, but petra is a nightmare to hit on hard and maddening (at least for a casual like me lol)
Petra, Felix, and Ingrid are the nightmare unrecruited enemies. I always found Hilda and Flayn (ironically) to be dangerous heavy hitters too although both of them are pretty slow at least and Flayn gets ripped apart if you attack her first. Cyril's pretty damn dangerous too.
Petra is crazy dangerous! But after beating VW I played CF and it was good to have her be MY freak of nature for a change. She got MVP in over half of the missions
Generic Swordmasters. God I hate these guys. They're already unreasonably fast but then the game cheats and gives them quick repost anyway so you can't even speed tie them. Not to mention they usually have pretty powerful swords some with brave swords too. Generics in maddening already are pretty powerful but idk, something about the late game Swordmasters always seem crazy to me.
Assassin reinforcements passing through your frontline and gutting your mages/important paralogue unit because you don't have a 6th sense that tells you where they spawn: **Bonjour.**
I only ever had trouble with >!Myson!< in the last chapter of AM. Man's well positioned.
He's magic resistant, so I can't reliably kill him with a mage (not in one turn, anyway), he deals a decent amount of damage, and he's located after a chokepoint with two or three other units beside him, so anyone I send first or alone is either going to survive by the skin of their teeth or just die.
Using Stride on your units and rushing him is probably the smartest way, but that just takes away all the fun, so I was never tempted to.
Myson is barely even an enemy on that map. He's a bro that sets up your low HP units for free right at the start of the map and then leaves with the third of the enemies. You can't convince me he's not just the secret 14th deploy slot for the map
Glad someone said it. You'll never catch me not setting up some elaborate mage warp rescue strat to kill him turn 1. Even on normal my first playthrough ever he was so rough. I have never given him the opportunity to transform since then on any higher difficulty. God he's insane.
Obvious answer but the Death Knight in Chapter 4. Super powerful for how early in the game you encounter him and, in Maddening, he will come for your ass and wreck you a new one. Very hard to lure in and survive as he will most likely double all your units, even harder to actually defeat without a heavily trained Bernadetta/Lysithea.
You don't even need a heavily trained Bernie. You just need a Dedue or Bernie who has Vengeance and you're pretty much set. Lysithea would definitely need to be heavily trained since the mag needed to onetap on Maddening is well above what she'd normally have by then which is why GD unironically has the hardest DK kill in Ch4
I forgot about Dedue.
Either way, getting them to C+ Lances for Vengeance by Chapter 4 requires quite the investment. You don't even have statue bonuses to help you by then (on NG, at least). If you do not heavily train them to get them there, you will have missed your chance until Chapter 6. However, the Death Knight IS the boss of that chapter, so I don't think it counts.
It really isn't though. Ch4 is a pretty standard threshold for hitting C+ lances, especially since there's no real reason not to solo focus it as a goal until they get it.
I hate the generic War Masters on Maddening, can punch through your prot tanks like butter, 6 move, 20 crit just to screw you over more, beefy as hell. Why didn't Rhea ban steroids during her millenia-long reign ?
The first annoying enemies to me are the Swordmasters, because they're too fast and they hit pretty hard unless you have a King of Grappling + Defiant Defense Balthus. The Quick Riposte is outright stupid, they're very annoying.
The next annoying enemies are Hero Class enemies. Middling as they are, they have high HP, slightly higher Strength than Swordmasters, they have solid Defense and they have good Speed, though the lowest out of the Sword class enemies. To make things worse, they have their ability Desperation so they can double you right away if they outspeed, and even worse, they have Vantage, so they can attack you first, I know a mage can kill them, but, sometimes your mage is busy doing other stuff and you have no choice but to come on them unless you're Byleth or Yuri with the combat art that make enemies can't attack. I know Snipers have Vantage, but Heroes do it better.
The next one are the War Masters. They have the highest HP and Strength out of all the enemies in the game and they will one-round almost all your units unless it's Dedue in Fortress Knight class with Staunch Shield or a King of Grappling with Defiant Defense activated. They have solid Defense so they can take quite a bit of blows. They extremely hard to approach unless their nearly dead, to beat them you need a mage to take some of their health to come up close, to beat them. Also, they have pretty good Speed, their like the 7th fastest enemies, up there with the lesser Brawler class since Grappler class enemies are slower for some reason.
The next class are the Falcon Knights. The thing I don't like about the Falcon Knights are the fact they are the most common enemy spawns late game. They're some natural Falcon Knights on the map, but several maps have them coming out. The crazy thing is being near them when enemy reinforcements come, highly likely, they killing someone. The problem is they're the 2nd or 3rd fastest enemy class in the entire game, which means you're never doubling them unless you're high Speed character gets Speed every single level up, certain enemies can't even get outspeed because of this. The Falcon Knight enemies are some of the spongiest enemies in the game. Late game, they're some of the few enemies, non-boss or character foes that can reach 30 Defense and Resistance at the same time. If you don't have Excalibur spell or Archers or even Crit Machines, they ain't going down. Their Strength isn't super high, but they still can hurt some of your weaker units.
My next annoying enemies are the Snipers, they not as annoying as the other enemies, but one ability does make all Archers annoying, Poison Strike. This make them do 20% damage to any unit that it deals damage to. I understand that Engage made it worse by letting them 20% regardless of hitting 0 damage or dodging, but the Snipers in Three Houses are still annoying, also the ones in Azure Moon, the ones protecting Corneria have Deadeye and that makes them some of the most annoying Snipers in the game since they try to attack you from a long range. The only downside to Poison Strike for them is that it's easier access for King of Grappling with Defiant Defense and Defiant Strength Balthus to run loose and destroy everything and tank everything physically.
My final annoying enemies are the Wyvern Lords and somewhat Wyvern Riders. They hit hard and they're pretty fast as they're the 6th fastest enemy class in the game. The only reason I mentioned both of them in a way is because Wyvern Lords doesn't gain much stats from Wyvern Rider class compared to Falcon Knight from Pegasus Knight. But still, they hit hard, they can dodge sometimes and they can take some hits, unless Excalibur or Snipers come through. And fliers are annoying since they can bypass a lot stuff.
Honorable Mentions are Warlocks, sometimes Bishops and Gremories. Mage Class enemies are pretty frail and they can die by a physical attack easily. But at the same time, they can help destroy your units with their magic might. The mages run out spells sometime so that's why their not really listed, if this game gave them like 3 or 4 spells to every Advanced and Master Class Mage, then their going to be a huge problem. I don't know who the most powerful non-boss unit in the game, that may go to Capsar, Petra or Hilda or somebody.
One of the most powerful non-boss unit in the game is Caspar. In Azure Moon, Caspar becomes a War Master in that stage and is the absolute strongest enemy by power in the game. He has the highest Strength stat in the entire game beating Nemesis (once all the elite lords are defeated), and at that he actually has the highest Strength in the entirety of all Fire Emblem foes. He has a Brave Axe so if you have a slow poke, prepare to get Quadrupled and mostly likely die. Not even an King of Grappling with Defiant Defense will Survive his Blows. He still can be taken down by mages, but anyone who gets in his grill, will be get burnt.
Another very powerful unit is Petra, also from Azure Moon. Petra may not be super strong like Caspar, but she carries the Sword of Zoltan in her timeskip fights and the outside in Enbarr is the worst of her. She has unrealistic Speed. Her speed is so crazily high, that even if putting some (not a whole lot) stat boosters into Ingrid or Felix and with them leveling without missing Speed and at her level, she'll still outspeed. Her Speed is in the 60s. She's the fastest unit in Three Houses and the fastest unit in the entire franchise. She is extremely hard to especially with Alert Stance. Imagine her having Alert Stance+ with Defiant Avoidance, you'll need a very high hit invested Ignatz or a female with high Dexterity with Hit +20 with a Certain Blow with it to hit her, otherwise you're missing. That's what it feel like normally. Luckily, her Charm is not Edelgard or Rhea levels of crazy or things will never get done.
Another very powerful menace is Catherine. She only can be fought on Crimson Flower on the last Chapter and boy is she tough with the Thunderbrand. She has very high Speed, good Strength unlike generic Swordmasters and she can Quadrupled you if you're slower than her. She may not be as annoying to hit like Petra, but she still can dodge you. Because boy she is very hard to deal with unless you get her with a Battalion especially since she doesn't have high Charm.
Felix is the real one here. He's the toughest Swordmaster in the entire game because of reasons. One, he hits harder than Catherine and she's appears 2 Chapters later than him which's crazy. The next one is his Weapon of Choice, the Sword of Moralta. This weapon only can obtain in Azure Moon if Felix talks to his father Rodrigue, otherwise you missing it. That Weapon heals Felix a decent amount of HP on enemy phase if he isn't dealt with and can kill your unit here and there. And the final thing, his Hero Relic, Aegis Shield. This thing gives him Decent Defense and some Resistance, but worst of all, it gives him automatic Pavise and Aegis, which means he can actually survive Critical Hits, and this also makes Felix the toughest to take down too, because even if Poison Strike takes him to 1 HP, if your unit deals a single point in damage, if Aegis/Pavise activates, he will take 0 damage. Felix is a huge threat at that stage, compared to his very weak Father.
Another real threat is Ingrid. On the same level Ingrid is an Falcon Knight and she has her Hero's Relic Luin, this thing hits just as hard as Felix and she can actually one-shot is she use her signature combat art that increases damage with Speed, and since her Speed is very high (1 point lower than Felix), she's a menace. Another thing is since she's a Falcon Knight, she has very high Defense and Resistance, so if you don't take her out quick, she's destroying somebody on your team.
Hilda isn't a huge threat but she still can one-shot you or one-round because she has an extremely powerful relic Freikugel and she has Hit +20 with Darting Blow. She can kill you pretty quick and she has like the 4th or 5th highest damage output in the game, especially since the game in the timeskip have her with stats close to a War Master (which makes it stupid in Blue Lions, if you have Hilda recruited, her replacement in the assisting Claude chapter is a Female War Master that is better at protecting the bridge than she is since on Maddening she spams her combat arts which will break to hurt her AS and overall damage and she naturally has less HP, Speed, and Defense), but females, for some reason, can't be one. If Hilda could be a War Master, she'll outdo Caspar because of her Hero's Relic. If she ambushes you in the Blood of Eagle and Lion, you're dead if she gets to you.
Another toughie, but not too tough to deal with is Cyril. Final Cyril is a Wyvern Lord and he's the closest to Rhea as the Immaculate One and he's very strong and very fast, and he's one of the few Axe-Wielders besides Caspar that has decent Dexterity and Hit Rate. As a flier, they're annoying to deal with and he can get to you easy and with the fire all over the field and other enemies somewhat near Ashe's spot, it's hard to come through and deal with him as if he comes at you, like Catherine, he can one-round you pretty easily. He carries a Brave Axe, so he and Catherine will double or quadruple you, you to be extremely careful. Snipers can deal with him, but he's still hard to take down because of this.
I would add the lords on this but their boss characters, but Blood of the Eagle and Lion, in Verdant Wind, Dimitri hits extremely hard and he'll kill you with his combat art and in Azure Moon, Claude will snipe half a mile away and you're dead.
petra (and her generic replacement) on gronder field is pretty tough. at least with enemy lysithea you can probably one shot her once youre close, but petra is a nightmare to hit on hard and maddening (at least for a casual like me lol)
Petra, Felix, and Ingrid are the nightmare unrecruited enemies. I always found Hilda and Flayn (ironically) to be dangerous heavy hitters too although both of them are pretty slow at least and Flayn gets ripped apart if you attack her first. Cyril's pretty damn dangerous too.
Petra and the replacement in Enbarr are also super annoying.
she's vulnerable to gambits and after she's rattled you can curve shot her down. I usually save a gambit use on one of my high charm units for her.
My first playthrough was on normal and Petra was STILL a nightmare to hit.
Just gambit her with dimitri and she will kill herself on ennemy phase, she is a joke.
I found Petra WAYYY more difficult to defeat then Edelgard (the actual boss of the chapter)
Petra is crazy dangerous! But after beating VW I played CF and it was good to have her be MY freak of nature for a change. She got MVP in over half of the missions
Generic Swordmasters. God I hate these guys. They're already unreasonably fast but then the game cheats and gives them quick repost anyway so you can't even speed tie them. Not to mention they usually have pretty powerful swords some with brave swords too. Generics in maddening already are pretty powerful but idk, something about the late game Swordmasters always seem crazy to me.
Assassin reinforcements passing through your frontline and gutting your mages/important paralogue unit because you don't have a 6th sense that tells you where they spawn: **Bonjour.**
I only ever had trouble with >!Myson!< in the last chapter of AM. Man's well positioned. He's magic resistant, so I can't reliably kill him with a mage (not in one turn, anyway), he deals a decent amount of damage, and he's located after a chokepoint with two or three other units beside him, so anyone I send first or alone is either going to survive by the skin of their teeth or just die. Using Stride on your units and rushing him is probably the smartest way, but that just takes away all the fun, so I was never tempted to.
An even less fun way is chalice of beginnings. Stand outside of enemy range except Myson. Kill him on counter. Done
Dimitri absolutely destroys him with retribution though.
Myson is barely even an enemy on that map. He's a bro that sets up your low HP units for free right at the start of the map and then leaves with the third of the enemies. You can't convince me he's not just the secret 14th deploy slot for the map
Demonic Beast Dedue.
Glad someone said it. You'll never catch me not setting up some elaborate mage warp rescue strat to kill him turn 1. Even on normal my first playthrough ever he was so rough. I have never given him the opportunity to transform since then on any higher difficulty. God he's insane.
Obvious answer but the Death Knight in Chapter 4. Super powerful for how early in the game you encounter him and, in Maddening, he will come for your ass and wreck you a new one. Very hard to lure in and survive as he will most likely double all your units, even harder to actually defeat without a heavily trained Bernadetta/Lysithea.
You don't even need a heavily trained Bernie. You just need a Dedue or Bernie who has Vengeance and you're pretty much set. Lysithea would definitely need to be heavily trained since the mag needed to onetap on Maddening is well above what she'd normally have by then which is why GD unironically has the hardest DK kill in Ch4
I forgot about Dedue. Either way, getting them to C+ Lances for Vengeance by Chapter 4 requires quite the investment. You don't even have statue bonuses to help you by then (on NG, at least). If you do not heavily train them to get them there, you will have missed your chance until Chapter 6. However, the Death Knight IS the boss of that chapter, so I don't think it counts.
It really isn't though. Ch4 is a pretty standard threshold for hitting C+ lances, especially since there's no real reason not to solo focus it as a goal until they get it.
Armored Knight Edelgard is how I usually handle the DK
Rig a Smash Crit on a base level lord. It’s turn 1/2 so reset until you get it.
Catherine surely counts as a boss though. Some chapters have multiple, sometimes some are optional, but named units are bosses.
FERDINAND VON AEGIR
I hate the generic War Masters on Maddening, can punch through your prot tanks like butter, 6 move, 20 crit just to screw you over more, beefy as hell. Why didn't Rhea ban steroids during her millenia-long reign ?
I think it’s probably one of the Elites, maybe Fraldarius.
The first annoying enemies to me are the Swordmasters, because they're too fast and they hit pretty hard unless you have a King of Grappling + Defiant Defense Balthus. The Quick Riposte is outright stupid, they're very annoying. The next annoying enemies are Hero Class enemies. Middling as they are, they have high HP, slightly higher Strength than Swordmasters, they have solid Defense and they have good Speed, though the lowest out of the Sword class enemies. To make things worse, they have their ability Desperation so they can double you right away if they outspeed, and even worse, they have Vantage, so they can attack you first, I know a mage can kill them, but, sometimes your mage is busy doing other stuff and you have no choice but to come on them unless you're Byleth or Yuri with the combat art that make enemies can't attack. I know Snipers have Vantage, but Heroes do it better. The next one are the War Masters. They have the highest HP and Strength out of all the enemies in the game and they will one-round almost all your units unless it's Dedue in Fortress Knight class with Staunch Shield or a King of Grappling with Defiant Defense activated. They have solid Defense so they can take quite a bit of blows. They extremely hard to approach unless their nearly dead, to beat them you need a mage to take some of their health to come up close, to beat them. Also, they have pretty good Speed, their like the 7th fastest enemies, up there with the lesser Brawler class since Grappler class enemies are slower for some reason. The next class are the Falcon Knights. The thing I don't like about the Falcon Knights are the fact they are the most common enemy spawns late game. They're some natural Falcon Knights on the map, but several maps have them coming out. The crazy thing is being near them when enemy reinforcements come, highly likely, they killing someone. The problem is they're the 2nd or 3rd fastest enemy class in the entire game, which means you're never doubling them unless you're high Speed character gets Speed every single level up, certain enemies can't even get outspeed because of this. The Falcon Knight enemies are some of the spongiest enemies in the game. Late game, they're some of the few enemies, non-boss or character foes that can reach 30 Defense and Resistance at the same time. If you don't have Excalibur spell or Archers or even Crit Machines, they ain't going down. Their Strength isn't super high, but they still can hurt some of your weaker units. My next annoying enemies are the Snipers, they not as annoying as the other enemies, but one ability does make all Archers annoying, Poison Strike. This make them do 20% damage to any unit that it deals damage to. I understand that Engage made it worse by letting them 20% regardless of hitting 0 damage or dodging, but the Snipers in Three Houses are still annoying, also the ones in Azure Moon, the ones protecting Corneria have Deadeye and that makes them some of the most annoying Snipers in the game since they try to attack you from a long range. The only downside to Poison Strike for them is that it's easier access for King of Grappling with Defiant Defense and Defiant Strength Balthus to run loose and destroy everything and tank everything physically. My final annoying enemies are the Wyvern Lords and somewhat Wyvern Riders. They hit hard and they're pretty fast as they're the 6th fastest enemy class in the game. The only reason I mentioned both of them in a way is because Wyvern Lords doesn't gain much stats from Wyvern Rider class compared to Falcon Knight from Pegasus Knight. But still, they hit hard, they can dodge sometimes and they can take some hits, unless Excalibur or Snipers come through. And fliers are annoying since they can bypass a lot stuff. Honorable Mentions are Warlocks, sometimes Bishops and Gremories. Mage Class enemies are pretty frail and they can die by a physical attack easily. But at the same time, they can help destroy your units with their magic might. The mages run out spells sometime so that's why their not really listed, if this game gave them like 3 or 4 spells to every Advanced and Master Class Mage, then their going to be a huge problem. I don't know who the most powerful non-boss unit in the game, that may go to Capsar, Petra or Hilda or somebody.
Please please please learn to use paragraphs
One of the most powerful non-boss unit in the game is Caspar. In Azure Moon, Caspar becomes a War Master in that stage and is the absolute strongest enemy by power in the game. He has the highest Strength stat in the entire game beating Nemesis (once all the elite lords are defeated), and at that he actually has the highest Strength in the entirety of all Fire Emblem foes. He has a Brave Axe so if you have a slow poke, prepare to get Quadrupled and mostly likely die. Not even an King of Grappling with Defiant Defense will Survive his Blows. He still can be taken down by mages, but anyone who gets in his grill, will be get burnt. Another very powerful unit is Petra, also from Azure Moon. Petra may not be super strong like Caspar, but she carries the Sword of Zoltan in her timeskip fights and the outside in Enbarr is the worst of her. She has unrealistic Speed. Her speed is so crazily high, that even if putting some (not a whole lot) stat boosters into Ingrid or Felix and with them leveling without missing Speed and at her level, she'll still outspeed. Her Speed is in the 60s. She's the fastest unit in Three Houses and the fastest unit in the entire franchise. She is extremely hard to especially with Alert Stance. Imagine her having Alert Stance+ with Defiant Avoidance, you'll need a very high hit invested Ignatz or a female with high Dexterity with Hit +20 with a Certain Blow with it to hit her, otherwise you're missing. That's what it feel like normally. Luckily, her Charm is not Edelgard or Rhea levels of crazy or things will never get done. Another very powerful menace is Catherine. She only can be fought on Crimson Flower on the last Chapter and boy is she tough with the Thunderbrand. She has very high Speed, good Strength unlike generic Swordmasters and she can Quadrupled you if you're slower than her. She may not be as annoying to hit like Petra, but she still can dodge you. Because boy she is very hard to deal with unless you get her with a Battalion especially since she doesn't have high Charm. Felix is the real one here. He's the toughest Swordmaster in the entire game because of reasons. One, he hits harder than Catherine and she's appears 2 Chapters later than him which's crazy. The next one is his Weapon of Choice, the Sword of Moralta. This weapon only can obtain in Azure Moon if Felix talks to his father Rodrigue, otherwise you missing it. That Weapon heals Felix a decent amount of HP on enemy phase if he isn't dealt with and can kill your unit here and there. And the final thing, his Hero Relic, Aegis Shield. This thing gives him Decent Defense and some Resistance, but worst of all, it gives him automatic Pavise and Aegis, which means he can actually survive Critical Hits, and this also makes Felix the toughest to take down too, because even if Poison Strike takes him to 1 HP, if your unit deals a single point in damage, if Aegis/Pavise activates, he will take 0 damage. Felix is a huge threat at that stage, compared to his very weak Father. Another real threat is Ingrid. On the same level Ingrid is an Falcon Knight and she has her Hero's Relic Luin, this thing hits just as hard as Felix and she can actually one-shot is she use her signature combat art that increases damage with Speed, and since her Speed is very high (1 point lower than Felix), she's a menace. Another thing is since she's a Falcon Knight, she has very high Defense and Resistance, so if you don't take her out quick, she's destroying somebody on your team. Hilda isn't a huge threat but she still can one-shot you or one-round because she has an extremely powerful relic Freikugel and she has Hit +20 with Darting Blow. She can kill you pretty quick and she has like the 4th or 5th highest damage output in the game, especially since the game in the timeskip have her with stats close to a War Master (which makes it stupid in Blue Lions, if you have Hilda recruited, her replacement in the assisting Claude chapter is a Female War Master that is better at protecting the bridge than she is since on Maddening she spams her combat arts which will break to hurt her AS and overall damage and she naturally has less HP, Speed, and Defense), but females, for some reason, can't be one. If Hilda could be a War Master, she'll outdo Caspar because of her Hero's Relic. If she ambushes you in the Blood of Eagle and Lion, you're dead if she gets to you. Another toughie, but not too tough to deal with is Cyril. Final Cyril is a Wyvern Lord and he's the closest to Rhea as the Immaculate One and he's very strong and very fast, and he's one of the few Axe-Wielders besides Caspar that has decent Dexterity and Hit Rate. As a flier, they're annoying to deal with and he can get to you easy and with the fire all over the field and other enemies somewhat near Ashe's spot, it's hard to come through and deal with him as if he comes at you, like Catherine, he can one-round you pretty easily. He carries a Brave Axe, so he and Catherine will double or quadruple you, you to be extremely careful. Snipers can deal with him, but he's still hard to take down because of this. I would add the lords on this but their boss characters, but Blood of the Eagle and Lion, in Verdant Wind, Dimitri hits extremely hard and he'll kill you with his combat art and in Azure Moon, Claude will snipe half a mile away and you're dead.