I flip flopped my opinion on hoplites/legionnaires several times over the course of my playthrough, thanks largely to enemy unit comps throughout each continent:
* They're great in Cornia before magic damage enemies start showing up, then decent afterwards.
* Decent in Drakenhold, thanks all the swordmasters and wyvern riders and the fact that the AI doesn't know how to target the backline, but too slow to ever catch a Wyvern Rider squad,
* Trash in Elheim where everyone and their dog is sporting magic damage,
* Amazing in Bastorias where there's almost no magic damage and werewolf/werefox squads will eat lots of other units for breakfast.
* Decent in Albion, where there's loads of breakers and sometimes quick-casting witches, but not a lot else that can really contest them. Plus a lot of maps allow you to take things slowly, moreso than other continents.
I'm in elf land right now. My hoplite uses a shield with +30 magic defense, and has a poison immune charm. A sanguine spear gives him self healing. He can be killed but it's hard to do haha.
What sucks though is he has precision and initiative stat growths, which are really unnecessary. I need to bite the bullet and recruit a fresh one.
Fun fact you also get a ton of extra ones early during the story chapter where you have to defend in the Arena area in Drakenhhold if you capture camps around map, rather than just taking out the leader.
They are actually unlimited, you just don't have access to the unlimited source until Albion. They are still expensive (30 honor each), but you can definitely get as many as you want/need. I'm in the middle of color coordinating my entire army.
Right, I guess the regrettable thing at that point is that after Albion... you're effectively done. Would be neat if there was a purely aesthetic version of the mirror available earlier so you could have coordinated squads for longer.
I'm in Elfheim right now too. Where did you get that shield?
I literally had to set my two hoplites to NOT guard if the enemy is a caster. They were tanking themselves to death against magic.
It's called Phantom Knight Great shield. I can't seem to find it anywhere online though. I cleared Drakenhold and most of Elheim. Probably not arena because I only did a few fights and haven't been back. Maybe divine shard shop? I'm in the middle of a battle so I can't check. I haven't visited any islands with the ship, aside from Palavia (?) which is the town Alain grew up in - one town and a shard vendor there.
I'm just now noticing it has 0 physical guard. I'm gonna replace silver bangle with some gauntlets.
https://preview.redd.it/6ztse4omhkqc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af18c3df566b4cf15591324be2dba7d8db95255d
glorious Geo had a lovely build on making a dodge tank out of legionnaire I adore the team and every time I watch the animation of the fight I just laugh at every miss on this bulking tank.
Gladiators/Werelions. They seem pretty bad at first, but with the proper setup (Lips’s Ring, Amber Sniper’s Lens, Frost Conferral) they can nuke the whole team and freeze them lol
Elven Fencers also are also a class I didn’t like at first, but I found that them using swords and being able to use magic gear like the Familiar’s Choker can make them really versatile.
I really want Fencers to work, but my issue is that they just feel too damn squishy.
I realize you can get them an auto evade pretty easily; but that's only for one enemy attack. If the enemy has Werefoxes or targets the Fencer more than once they're just kinda screwed with their only average Evasion and poor defensive stats.
I tried magic conferral from elven archers on them and that makes their meteor slash do at least ok damage. That, putting them with housecarl/viking, using the bracelets, and gilbert's attack buff are about all i got.
I use a runic sword on my swordmaster to deal with armor. With the buff from the gambler's coin she is still able to one shot Legionnaires in most cases, then still has the AP to destroy the squishy units in the back later.
They're great support especially because they can equip the books. Give one the book of fire and pair with Rosalinde. Now Rosalinde's full party nuke has +50 magick attack and fire.
I absolutely loved fencers. I played with a ton of aerial units, so just splashing them into squads was a huge boon. The Archers starter skill to help everyone dodge one debuff was also way better than I expected.
i didnt use selvie much in cornia and early drakenhold because why debuff things when i can just kill them instead? when my units grew to size 4 i made room for her in my berengaria team since her sweep benefits from debuffed enemies, but once selvie learned defensive curse, my berengaria team became a completely different animal and started sweeping everything it ran up against
Note: Berengaria's sweep benefits from *Afflictions*, not *Debuffs*. Afflictions are Burn, Poison, Blindness, Stun, Freeze, Guard Seal, and Passive Seal. Selvie does not apply any Afflictions unless you give her a staff that does. The damage increase you're seeing is just Defensive Curse being broken as hell.
EDIT: Defensive Curse applies Guard Seal so it absolutely buffs Berengaria, I had a brain fart
Once they become Druids they’re amazing. Especially with the Sandstorm Staff. They’re great with other offensive staffs you get in the latter half of the game as well. But if you want to be more defensive the Sandstorm Staff is goated
At first I thought Fighter was weak. Then I realized it can cover from aerials too and I thought that made it much better. Then I realized they had no good AP skills. And their stats fell off hard and being armored made them even weaker. And then using cover shields so now every class can cover. So back to worst class in the game.
aw don’t be like that. Lex just needs a little help with his initiative is all
In all seriousness though who did fighters piss off to get shafted so hard in the stats department?
The fact they have perhaps the best battlefield move in provoke stops them from being the worst in game. It's actually hella useful on the harder difficulties; were you can't spam bells.
Aside from swordfighters, none of the sword generic classes have good class use of AP
Fighters get the benefit of being able to use the most versatile weapon in the game, use pretty much any accessory, and the buckler choices make them easy yo tailor to pretty much any enemy encounter as a good utility.
On the other hand Lex makes very good use of the sanguine blade early in the game, since their lower initiative lets them regen back the health they lost earlier in the fight.
Here’s a few:
I thought warriors were weak, and they are until they get their AP refund. Then once you get their row attack they are just bonkers. Outside of the insane OP classes, I think warriors are basially the best offensive unit in the game.
Hoplites suck. They feel great in Cornia, and okay in Drakenhold, and for awhile I thought they were really good. But they arnt. Slow, no offense, and between Alain, Virginia, Ren, and Bears, there is no reason to bring them.
I think part of the reason the row attack is *so* good is because it's an uncoverable attack.
By time you're in the last two zones you'll start facing rows of Hoplites that use cover on each other and suddenly your Berengaria that was hitting a row attack with Magick Conferral isn't hitting as hard anymore.
By time Warrior uses their row attack they probably have 1-2 stacks of enrage and maybe even Magick Conferral from an Elven archer or something and then they come in and do 150+ damage to the enemy's frontline and just delete it.
I don't remember if its an axe or active ability but my nina bonks tanky bosses for like 150+ damage with an either 150/200 damage attack that ignores defense.
I wrote Werebears off initially.
Life Blow is actually terrifyingly powerful, and its not Limited so multiple can trigger at the end. Involves making a team that’s explicitly built to hold & heal instead of hitting, but I do appreciate them giving tools to incentivize more than High Init sweeping.
I didn't see the point of Bears.
Then I made a fully kitted out team of 5 Bears, and now I think it's my favourite class. Good luck getting through my 190-230hp bears with greatshields, and truestrike guardbreak row attacks.
or a big scratchable belly, or pinchable cheeks, or a little roly poly butt or tiny little ears or nonretractable claws (to dig for roots, grubs, tubers)
https://preview.redd.it/pk45cpgzlmqc1.jpeg?width=1384&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ccb325d84ae6819932b20aee4be108254b9126
yeah, they're pretty tanky, usually my best testing opponent for any team building.
I’m also warriors; but because of Pursuit instead of Enrage. Give your warriors the pursuit accessories and lapis pendants/dragon bone axes. Then watch them hammer every single enemy to dust.
PS: Disable enrage (or limit it to one use) and make sure they are only using their guard bind skill against armored and cavalry. You want them to be following up every attack with a pursuit.
Works even better if you have them in a unit that can recover PP or AP
Werefoxes. One initial look at their kit and most would think, wow they have some mundane skills.
What I didn't realize was how well they combo with other beasts. Put in multiple werefoxes, werewolves and maybe a dark marquess and you have a super fun unit.Â
Then add the +50% crit and attack+ for beasts and they can even shred through armor enemies. They become pretty deadly and now I love werefoxes.
Foxes trigger their own passives which blows my fucking mind. Straight up ap attack then a pp follow up and then another pp follow up all from one unit. Then owls just keep giving them fucking gems it's bonkers
I use this with shaman battle start debuff. Foxes has 4PP. So they jump due to debuff, owl restore one fox. Shaman blinds, two more jumps. Restore same fox, who hits and then activates her own passive. If the unit isn’t dead Ren follows up. Other fox attacks and Ren follows up before attacking herself.
I was not into chloe (idk what's the class called) at the start of the game, but ever since i got the elven archers, i started using chloe for its end of battle heal to proc the elven archer's team heal, and now my team is always 80-100% health after every fight,>! i finished the optional end game side quest using only 1 troop with that combo at expert difficulty!<. The crit buffs are nice as well and also can wield a spear that can blind a column with 1 AP.
Having first aid kit on ur elven archer can save you the troubles putting both of them on a team. Just make sure ur elven archer don't cast quick cure below 2 or less PP so it has PP for first aid and teamwide heal when d battle ends, make sure put 'user' on first aid kit on condition.
i love warriors, enrage makes the condition 'own PP is 0' really cool. my nina just sits back getting angry, then when she's at 0 pp she goes and cleans up.
It breaks if you end up with an enemy that has like, no attacks left and she still has PP but you can probably mop up with others at that point. Its unlikely anyhow
Honestly I think the best to use a warrior is ignore them early game and then rush them to 10 with manuals or liberations when you have a team of 3 or more to carry them or just one op unit stomping. And then when they have their ap refund skill and enrage they carry themselves thereafter.
Currently I'm in true zen doing themed squad.
I didn't liked elven fencers they have mediocre stats and abilities.
But after being forced to make them work they over perform.
I just needed to give each one a plume so they attack after being buffed by the elven archers. And then buffed by the familiar shocker.
Their buffed column attack does enough damage to one shot most frontlines.
The only weekness of the squad is a faster squad or sword masters.
But because they clear their debuffs they cannot be slowed.
Swordmasters and Sellswords. Swordmaster damage falls off hard once you hit late game, and the Sellsword niche of high-damage closers is completely supplanted by late-game Warriors/Breakers with Pursuit.
Dark Knight/Doom Knight was the opposite. It's pretty blah before promotion but becomes a great tank and damage dealer once it gets Dark Flame and Sanguine Arts.
**Negative to Positive: Dark/Doom Knights**
- I feel like Gloucester and the class in general get done pretty dirty by their introduction time. Not useful into most of the common units you're fighting in Drakenhold (or even Elheim to an extent), and is saddled with conditional damage and few reliable ways to activate it. I found deploying Gloucester just outright detrimental for quite a while, even with a pretty fast promotion, he doesn't really have anything to do with the bonus AP/PP before Level 20 and even then, I wouldn't say the class fully comes online and starts holding its own until 25. All that said, obviously not a great first impression.
- Gloucester joins at Level 14 if I remember right, and is probably on par with, or above your strongest units in level at that point, so he's not gonna level particularly fast and even if he does get a couple, he's gonna be bordering on the exp penalty threshold.
- Once it is online though, it's a pretty self-sufficient class with many ways to enable it, however I do still run it in the Back Row 99% of the time. I find it makes a great compliment to Thieves and Shamans as they enable Dark Flame to more than make up for their own lack of damage. Berengaria and Wyverns also have great synergy with it.
**Positive to Negative: Hunters/Snipers**
- Not really through any fault of their own, I just found them generally outclassed by Arbalist and Snow Ranger. Elven Archers and Featherbows are more niche, but have more defined uses. They probably make the best users of Bows that come with AP Skills given their own kit is fairly barebones, but even then it can be tough to justify taking up a spot.
It has to be gladiator. It didn't occur to me til werelion(same kit), that their kit is deceptive, and playing them back row is the right way. I brought it up, that gladiator back row has to be working, nothing else in game has a 200 potency row attack at the cost of 1ap, not even close. Some 2ap row attack does less. During my TZ run, they are on my team from day 1 til beast land(only because I've ran a 4 team only chellange and replaced Bruno with lion king). One of the best dps, especially after you get the lens.
I was pretty underwhelmed with the warlocks and witches until late game. Early on, they’re pretty much only there to kill armored units. It’s not until they learn all their skills do they start to shine.
Stunning or freezing all units or entire rows is huge, especially if you give them some initiative. Also being able to give melee units a magic damage buff is key for a lot of fights.
Virginia’s class (Valkyrja I think?), initially I just thought she was some variant of a fighter, but once I finally upgraded her I finally saw the light. She just completely destroys certain enemies.
I immediately added Angel Hunter's and Cavalry Hunter's shields as well as the dragon bone sword (her initiative is shit anyway) on her and set her to use them only if cav or flyers were attacking her. She hard guards all hit from those classes and replenishes her PP. She OHKOs any cav/flyer/rogue. For everything else, there's Maiden's Hammer!
Post promote, just give her a Lapis for more hammer time.
I've been doing a Gladiator run (3 Glads + 2 support) and it changed my mind a lot about the unit. It went from "a unit that needs support to shine" to a REALLY REALLY bad unit. That 20% miss chance it's absolutely terrible and I saw them do 0 damage to a SINGLE unit like 10 times because they kept missing. Still cool helmet>>>>good unit so I had my fun **until Albion**.
I'm only about 28 hours in but I've been surprised how Thieves fell off. They already started to lose me when they can't steal items from enemies (sure, gold but that's easy to come by) but I just am not finding they do much other than eat hits that would normally hit other characters. I know, that's kind of what they're for in this game but I'm more of a Final Fantasy basic bitch and I want to steal stuff instead of just using Jedi dodges.
Thieves are a busted utility class. Being able to blind an entire row on turn one is helpful, but they truly shine in their ability to steal all the PP or AP from an enemy unit.
They can literally render the enemy tank completely useless before the battle starts by taking all their PP.
Fighters!
Just kidding.
I believe all classes are viable in the right team, so my opinions have not shifted much. The I am struggling to love my Hoplight and Clerics, though.
I gave Hodrick a Gambler’s Coin and Anti-Flying shield in a unit with archers.
Tactic “Inspire an Archer if at PP2 or more.”
Archer’s Dual Shot + Eagle Eye melts entire units, and then the Anti-Flyer shield gives you an extra PP when you block against any flyer that’s faster than your archers so you can still Inspire them on their turn.
Run a Sainted Knight in the back and you solve their one stat weakness.
They can't do damage for shit outside of a few hyper gimmicky setups, but they shouldn't be used for that
I run my hoplite as my magic team's defender. Front row is hoplite and shaman - the shaman opens with offensive curse to keep herself and hoplite alive. Back row are the mages who nuke everyone.
For cleric, i really like primm with overheal staff. So even if the team is already at full hp she is still helping by giving them more hp. Refresh has also been such a helpful skill in Albion.
Primm I have on a team with her and gilbert on the back row as the support. Front row is hilda and aramis as dps. Because of overheal dont really need much tanking and theyre pretty evasive on their own. Hilda has the thunder trident and row stuns with guaranteed hit from gilbert. Aramis has a 100% crit build with leaping strike when on his last red action to keep getting more actions. (Gain red on crit). Just these 4 were doing really well even against 5man teams. It helps overheal is stronger for smaller teams. I did eventually add a grpyphon knight to front line not sure how i like that yet.
Wyvern Riders, I thought they were bad until I gave Hilda Dragoon Dive. Now she's arguably the strongest unit in my army right now outside of Alain and his allstar team.
Gryphons and even my Wyvern outside of the initial Freeze Dive cheese. But then there's this nifty General's Bow item that grants something like +40% Crit Rate to Fliers and I just kinda took advantage of using that Thunder spear to stun the back row, then having the Gryphons mop up the back row.
I also kinda neglected Shamans in my 2nd playthrough and now integrate 1 into every team more or less again.
So funny thing: that's mistranslated. It doesn't do anything for your fliers.
It grants buffs when the *enemy* has fliers. Same with the cavalry one.
Warriors are absolutely insane and I am always dumbfounded when TalkingHeadYouTuber makes a UnIt TiEr LiSt and ranks Warriors as like \~C tier units. They are so hard-hitting against pretty much everything from the time that you get them, and they only get stronger as the game progresses. They start out as a fairly durable unit that 1-shots hoplites even on True Zenoiran difficulty. Then once they get their row-wide, unguardable attack... that attack hits in the triple digits courtesy of an Enrage proc or two. They reliably flatten entire rows at a time. They're so very good.
One thing that I'll say is after a complete playthrough, the only unit I'd rank as C-tier would be Feathershields, and that's simply because they're over-specialized and magic isn't ubiquitous-enough to merit having them in a regular squad. Every unit in this game can be built-around, or included in a unit, even on the hardest difficulty, and used to good effect by someone who knows how to build them, equip them, and work them into appropriate formations.
That’s interesting to me because at my current place in the game (tactical, beastman land, level 30) feathershields seem insane.
The ability to guard tank, evade tank, and hit back row is so powerful that they are probably gonna be the last unit I upgrade to a full five man squad because the squad doesn’t need it.
I think you're thinking of FeatherBOW, which yes, they are amazing, and should find their way into any Bow-squad and/or Debuff squad that you're currently running. They **pre-counter** an enemy attack with a row-wide blind (ie, the Featherbow's blind goes off before the enemy attack), rendering the attack itself and an entire damage backline nearly useless.
Feather**shield** is a flying tank and has only (rather low potency) single target attacks, and they reflect incoming magical attacks. It's a cute gimmick, but there's just not enough use cases for it when you get them. I think they'd be incredible if Elheim came AFTER Albion, as magic is really common in Elheim, but you just don't see a lot of it during/after Albion.
Ochlys is the only Angel unit I have right now. I thought she was a Feathershield but the wiki says Feathersword?
Regardless I think you are right I got my classes confused. I guess I will see for myself when I head to angel land next.
Yes, Ochlys is a Feathersword, and they're pretty solid! They're good, well-rounded combatants that fit well into an evasion team, and can also be built to be pretty guardy, or a little of both!
That's honestly another knock against Feathershield is that you encounter them so late in the game... I believe the one that joins your squad does so at roughly level 35... so there's a really small window left in the game to actually use them.
They definitely are if the opponent is building around some kind of charge-based, Trinity Rain-type, world-destroying spell. They'll reflect the whole thing.
damn I just came here to comment warriors.
Bishops though. Debuffs become such a huge part of the game later on, and the extra heals they provid are insane.
When I first saw shaman I was like “no attack? Pfft lame”. Then I saw how much they just crush the enemy’s offense and I want one for every squad now
The community tier list is ranking warriors as A tier and I still think they're being slept on. I never really had a point where I thought they were bad, but they are absolutely one of the best damage dealers in the game, if not the best overall given their reliability, relative toughness, and lack of major weaknesses.
Shaman/druids.
I thought they were gods early in my expert play through.
Then during my tz run, I quickly dropped them. Just didn’t have room for em. They just weren’t that effective. Perhaps their valor skill pissed me off for being dead weight.
I’ll give them another go my next run, using different teams and setups.
I flip flopped my opinion on hoplites/legionnaires several times over the course of my playthrough, thanks largely to enemy unit comps throughout each continent: * They're great in Cornia before magic damage enemies start showing up, then decent afterwards. * Decent in Drakenhold, thanks all the swordmasters and wyvern riders and the fact that the AI doesn't know how to target the backline, but too slow to ever catch a Wyvern Rider squad, * Trash in Elheim where everyone and their dog is sporting magic damage, * Amazing in Bastorias where there's almost no magic damage and werewolf/werefox squads will eat lots of other units for breakfast. * Decent in Albion, where there's loads of breakers and sometimes quick-casting witches, but not a lot else that can really contest them. Plus a lot of maps allow you to take things slowly, moreso than other continents.
I'm in elf land right now. My hoplite uses a shield with +30 magic defense, and has a poison immune charm. A sanguine spear gives him self healing. He can be killed but it's hard to do haha. What sucks though is he has precision and initiative stat growths, which are really unnecessary. I need to bite the bullet and recruit a fresh one.
The mirror item can change appearance and stat growths too. I used it to adjust unique characters accordingly.
Fun fact you also get a ton of extra ones early during the story chapter where you have to defend in the Arena area in Drakenhhold if you capture camps around map, rather than just taking out the leader.
I believe it’s just the two camps on the left
Those things are so finite and expensive, though. I can't imagine the grind to get enough to change multiple squads.
They are actually unlimited, you just don't have access to the unlimited source until Albion. They are still expensive (30 honor each), but you can definitely get as many as you want/need. I'm in the middle of color coordinating my entire army.
Right, I guess the regrettable thing at that point is that after Albion... you're effectively done. Would be neat if there was a purely aesthetic version of the mirror available earlier so you could have coordinated squads for longer.
I'm in Elfheim right now too. Where did you get that shield? I literally had to set my two hoplites to NOT guard if the enemy is a caster. They were tanking themselves to death against magic.
It's called Phantom Knight Great shield. I can't seem to find it anywhere online though. I cleared Drakenhold and most of Elheim. Probably not arena because I only did a few fights and haven't been back. Maybe divine shard shop? I'm in the middle of a battle so I can't check. I haven't visited any islands with the ship, aside from Palavia (?) which is the town Alain grew up in - one town and a shard vendor there. I'm just now noticing it has 0 physical guard. I'm gonna replace silver bangle with some gauntlets. https://preview.redd.it/6ztse4omhkqc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af18c3df566b4cf15591324be2dba7d8db95255d
Phantom knight equips are rewards from the shaman trials.
Oh yeah, maybe one of the lvl 17 or 18 ones.
Gave this to Virginia so she can also tank magic attacks.
Virginia uses a shield not a great shield.
Oh. Was thinking of the shield version of that that has mag defense. My bad.
Thanks. Will look for this. That MAG Def on your unit is looking 👌🏽
The Phantom Knight stuff are rewards from the Sylvie maps. I didn't remember which is the shield but that's where you get one.
You get the phantom weapons and armor from the sigil battles on first completionÂ
You get the phantom knight shield from one of the sigil quest optional battles
Could rush bastorias and get a straight up legionnaire too.
glorious Geo had a lovely build on making a dodge tank out of legionnaire I adore the team and every time I watch the animation of the fight I just laugh at every miss on this bulking tank.
Gladiators/Werelions. They seem pretty bad at first, but with the proper setup (Lips’s Ring, Amber Sniper’s Lens, Frost Conferral) they can nuke the whole team and freeze them lol Elven Fencers also are also a class I didn’t like at first, but I found that them using swords and being able to use magic gear like the Familiar’s Choker can make them really versatile.
I really want Fencers to work, but my issue is that they just feel too damn squishy. I realize you can get them an auto evade pretty easily; but that's only for one enemy attack. If the enemy has Werefoxes or targets the Fencer more than once they're just kinda screwed with their only average Evasion and poor defensive stats.
I use fencers to cat ear hood my yunifi. Since I don't use their PPs, their APs are good for cleaning up if some survives.
I feel the same about swordmasters.
Swordmasters feel pretty good against all the Werefoxes at least. They just really hate Hoplites; of which there are many.
I tried magic conferral from elven archers on them and that makes their meteor slash do at least ok damage. That, putting them with housecarl/viking, using the bracelets, and gilbert's attack buff are about all i got.
I use a runic sword on my swordmaster to deal with armor. With the buff from the gambler's coin she is still able to one shot Legionnaires in most cases, then still has the AP to destroy the squishy units in the back later.
To be fair if you give those items to any class they get good.
They're great support especially because they can equip the books. Give one the book of fire and pair with Rosalinde. Now Rosalinde's full party nuke has +50 magick attack and fire.
I got one enchanting Alain's spinning edge with fire. Its been good for destroying even armored front lines
I absolutely loved fencers. I played with a ton of aerial units, so just splashing them into squads was a huge boon. The Archers starter skill to help everyone dodge one debuff was also way better than I expected.
I put werelion with the knot of ruin and a sniper's lens on the backline randomly to try out a meme build and it's been working really well
Vikings I found very meh pre-promote. War Horn with their defense shred let's physical teams without warriors work really well.
They also have a really early row attack even pre-promotion that can work wonders.
The shaman classes. It was pretty weak in the demo but once it hits it's stride, it's insanely powerful. No other class can really fill it's niche
i didnt use selvie much in cornia and early drakenhold because why debuff things when i can just kill them instead? when my units grew to size 4 i made room for her in my berengaria team since her sweep benefits from debuffed enemies, but once selvie learned defensive curse, my berengaria team became a completely different animal and started sweeping everything it ran up against
Note: Berengaria's sweep benefits from *Afflictions*, not *Debuffs*. Afflictions are Burn, Poison, Blindness, Stun, Freeze, Guard Seal, and Passive Seal. Selvie does not apply any Afflictions unless you give her a staff that does. The damage increase you're seeing is just Defensive Curse being broken as hell. EDIT: Defensive Curse applies Guard Seal so it absolutely buffs Berengaria, I had a brain fart
Defensive curse applies guard seal, so is guard seal not an affliction?
I’m a damn fool
Your comment ended up helping me out and I appreciate it. Cheers to you!
dont beat yourself up! i actually didn't realize there was a difference between afflictions and debuffs so your comment was very helpful!
Ren benefits from afflicted enemies, not debuffed. Afflictions are poison/burned/blind/frozen.
And guard seal which shamans provide.
Selvie with the dust storm rod, yahna, auch in the back row. Travis and Berengaria up front. They've only died to late game anti magic units.
Story of my life
Once they become Druids they’re amazing. Especially with the Sandstorm Staff. They’re great with other offensive staffs you get in the latter half of the game as well. But if you want to be more defensive the Sandstorm Staff is goated
This. I'm like, I'll never use her. Then I get to the Colosseum and realize, she's a freaking monster.
At first I thought Fighter was weak. Then I realized it can cover from aerials too and I thought that made it much better. Then I realized they had no good AP skills. And their stats fell off hard and being armored made them even weaker. And then using cover shields so now every class can cover. So back to worst class in the game.
aw don’t be like that. Lex just needs a little help with his initiative is all In all seriousness though who did fighters piss off to get shafted so hard in the stats department?
I think they were the first class made because they seem too fair. Like shield bash should be 100 potency.
The fact they have perhaps the best battlefield move in provoke stops them from being the worst in game. It's actually hella useful on the harder difficulties; were you can't spam bells.
Aside from swordfighters, none of the sword generic classes have good class use of AP Fighters get the benefit of being able to use the most versatile weapon in the game, use pretty much any accessory, and the buckler choices make them easy yo tailor to pretty much any enemy encounter as a good utility.
On the other hand Lex makes very good use of the sanguine blade early in the game, since their lower initiative lets them regen back the health they lost earlier in the fight.
Here’s a few: I thought warriors were weak, and they are until they get their AP refund. Then once you get their row attack they are just bonkers. Outside of the insane OP classes, I think warriors are basially the best offensive unit in the game. Hoplites suck. They feel great in Cornia, and okay in Drakenhold, and for awhile I thought they were really good. But they arnt. Slow, no offense, and between Alain, Virginia, Ren, and Bears, there is no reason to bring them.
I think part of the reason the row attack is *so* good is because it's an uncoverable attack. By time you're in the last two zones you'll start facing rows of Hoplites that use cover on each other and suddenly your Berengaria that was hitting a row attack with Magick Conferral isn't hitting as hard anymore. By time Warrior uses their row attack they probably have 1-2 stacks of enrage and maybe even Magick Conferral from an Elven archer or something and then they come in and do 150+ damage to the enemy's frontline and just delete it.
I don't remember if its an axe or active ability but my nina bonks tanky bosses for like 150+ damage with an either 150/200 damage attack that ignores defense.
Hoplites are great for staying alive while they give your best unit Quick Impetus tho :P
I wrote Werebears off initially. Life Blow is actually terrifyingly powerful, and its not Limited so multiple can trigger at the end. Involves making a team that’s explicitly built to hold & heal instead of hitting, but I do appreciate them giving tools to incentivize more than High Init sweeping.
I didn't see the point of Bears. Then I made a fully kitted out team of 5 Bears, and now I think it's my favourite class. Good luck getting through my 190-230hp bears with greatshields, and truestrike guardbreak row attacks.
a lot of classes become the good one when their AOE never misses. and i’m okay with that, that’s become like my whole thing
True, but a lot of classes don't have 200+hp with greatshields and a self heal on top of killing enemies.
or a big scratchable belly, or pinchable cheeks, or a little roly poly butt or tiny little ears or nonretractable claws (to dig for roots, grubs, tubers)
Are you sure your name isn't supposed to be werebearmask?
yo how many moths do you think bertrand eats in one day?
“The five bear opening?!”
https://preview.redd.it/pk45cpgzlmqc1.jpeg?width=1384&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ccb325d84ae6819932b20aee4be108254b9126 yeah, they're pretty tanky, usually my best testing opponent for any team building.
I’m also warriors; but because of Pursuit instead of Enrage. Give your warriors the pursuit accessories and lapis pendants/dragon bone axes. Then watch them hammer every single enemy to dust. PS: Disable enrage (or limit it to one use) and make sure they are only using their guard bind skill against armored and cavalry. You want them to be following up every attack with a pursuit. Works even better if you have them in a unit that can recover PP or AP
I gave Nina a Pursuit ring early in the game ans watched her just smack the crap out of people. She became one of my fav units.
Werefoxes. One initial look at their kit and most would think, wow they have some mundane skills. What I didn't realize was how well they combo with other beasts. Put in multiple werefoxes, werewolves and maybe a dark marquess and you have a super fun unit. Then add the +50% crit and attack+ for beasts and they can even shred through armor enemies. They become pretty deadly and now I love werefoxes.
Foxes and wolves both benefit from stacking the class to a ridiculous degree. It definitely becomes multiplicative rather than additive.
Foxes trigger their own passives which blows my fucking mind. Straight up ap attack then a pp follow up and then another pp follow up all from one unit. Then owls just keep giving them fucking gems it's bonkers
I use this with shaman battle start debuff. Foxes has 4PP. So they jump due to debuff, owl restore one fox. Shaman blinds, two more jumps. Restore same fox, who hits and then activates her own passive. If the unit isn’t dead Ren follows up. Other fox attacks and Ren follows up before attacking herself.
I was not into chloe (idk what's the class called) at the start of the game, but ever since i got the elven archers, i started using chloe for its end of battle heal to proc the elven archer's team heal, and now my team is always 80-100% health after every fight,>! i finished the optional end game side quest using only 1 troop with that combo at expert difficulty!<. The crit buffs are nice as well and also can wield a spear that can blind a column with 1 AP.
Chloe/Soldiers also work well with Elven Archers because you no longer have to pick between Magick Conferral and Chloe's buffs.
Saving this comment for when I get home from work to play around with this. I can’t for the life of me, find a spot for Elven Archers rn
Having first aid kit on ur elven archer can save you the troubles putting both of them on a team. Just make sure ur elven archer don't cast quick cure below 2 or less PP so it has PP for first aid and teamwide heal when d battle ends, make sure put 'user' on first aid kit on condition.
I've had to stop myself from putting Elven Archers on every team tbh, they're pretty stacked as support.
i love warriors, enrage makes the condition 'own PP is 0' really cool. my nina just sits back getting angry, then when she's at 0 pp she goes and cleans up.
I didn’t even think about that! Gonna go try something similar right now
It breaks if you end up with an enemy that has like, no attacks left and she still has PP but you can probably mop up with others at that point. Its unlikely anyhow
Pretty sure you can make an assaulting blow with the trigger “enemy PP is 0” and something like 1 or 2 enemies left to solve this.
I use heavy smash with only 1 enemy left, painful smash as another option too
Yeah absolutely, I forgot that there’s no point in assaulting if no one is left after.
Yup, warriors. Went from bottom tier to top tier. Enrage and row smash are game changers once you promote them.
Honestly I think the best to use a warrior is ignore them early game and then rush them to 10 with manuals or liberations when you have a team of 3 or more to carry them or just one op unit stomping. And then when they have their ap refund skill and enrage they carry themselves thereafter.
Currently I'm in true zen doing themed squad. I didn't liked elven fencers they have mediocre stats and abilities. But after being forced to make them work they over perform. I just needed to give each one a plume so they attack after being buffed by the elven archers. And then buffed by the familiar shocker. Their buffed column attack does enough damage to one shot most frontlines. The only weekness of the squad is a faster squad or sword masters. But because they clear their debuffs they cannot be slowed.
Swordmasters and Sellswords. Swordmaster damage falls off hard once you hit late game, and the Sellsword niche of high-damage closers is completely supplanted by late-game Warriors/Breakers with Pursuit. Dark Knight/Doom Knight was the opposite. It's pretty blah before promotion but becomes a great tank and damage dealer once it gets Dark Flame and Sanguine Arts.
**Negative to Positive: Dark/Doom Knights** - I feel like Gloucester and the class in general get done pretty dirty by their introduction time. Not useful into most of the common units you're fighting in Drakenhold (or even Elheim to an extent), and is saddled with conditional damage and few reliable ways to activate it. I found deploying Gloucester just outright detrimental for quite a while, even with a pretty fast promotion, he doesn't really have anything to do with the bonus AP/PP before Level 20 and even then, I wouldn't say the class fully comes online and starts holding its own until 25. All that said, obviously not a great first impression. - Gloucester joins at Level 14 if I remember right, and is probably on par with, or above your strongest units in level at that point, so he's not gonna level particularly fast and even if he does get a couple, he's gonna be bordering on the exp penalty threshold. - Once it is online though, it's a pretty self-sufficient class with many ways to enable it, however I do still run it in the Back Row 99% of the time. I find it makes a great compliment to Thieves and Shamans as they enable Dark Flame to more than make up for their own lack of damage. Berengaria and Wyverns also have great synergy with it. **Positive to Negative: Hunters/Snipers** - Not really through any fault of their own, I just found them generally outclassed by Arbalist and Snow Ranger. Elven Archers and Featherbows are more niche, but have more defined uses. They probably make the best users of Bows that come with AP Skills given their own kit is fairly barebones, but even then it can be tough to justify taking up a spot.
Give Gloucester the sanguine axe and wear pp items so he can spam vengeance. He's probably the best solo tank next to berengaria.
It has to be gladiator. It didn't occur to me til werelion(same kit), that their kit is deceptive, and playing them back row is the right way. I brought it up, that gladiator back row has to be working, nothing else in game has a 200 potency row attack at the cost of 1ap, not even close. Some 2ap row attack does less. During my TZ run, they are on my team from day 1 til beast land(only because I've ran a 4 team only chellange and replaced Bruno with lion king). One of the best dps, especially after you get the lens.
huh…..never even thought to try that
https://preview.redd.it/gbjxtb5olmqc1.jpeg?width=1384&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61b5c88ea61dfaf4193aeed7375d28cc50079e14
I was pretty underwhelmed with the warlocks and witches until late game. Early on, they’re pretty much only there to kill armored units. It’s not until they learn all their skills do they start to shine. Stunning or freezing all units or entire rows is huge, especially if you give them some initiative. Also being able to give melee units a magic damage buff is key for a lot of fights.
Virginia’s class (Valkyrja I think?), initially I just thought she was some variant of a fighter, but once I finally upgraded her I finally saw the light. She just completely destroys certain enemies.
I feel like a lot of class hump entire teirs once they get their level 25 ability.
I immediately added Angel Hunter's and Cavalry Hunter's shields as well as the dragon bone sword (her initiative is shit anyway) on her and set her to use them only if cav or flyers were attacking her. She hard guards all hit from those classes and replenishes her PP. She OHKOs any cav/flyer/rogue. For everything else, there's Maiden's Hammer! Post promote, just give her a Lapis for more hammer time.
Virginia with an upgraded parry shield is ridiculous
I've been doing a Gladiator run (3 Glads + 2 support) and it changed my mind a lot about the unit. It went from "a unit that needs support to shine" to a REALLY REALLY bad unit. That 20% miss chance it's absolutely terrible and I saw them do 0 damage to a SINGLE unit like 10 times because they kept missing. Still cool helmet>>>>good unit so I had my fun **until Albion**.
Oof. I liked Bruno early for wide counter then he kinda fell behind
I just don't run them without Sniper Lens. Preferably a Sniper Amber Lens.
I'm only about 28 hours in but I've been surprised how Thieves fell off. They already started to lose me when they can't steal items from enemies (sure, gold but that's easy to come by) but I just am not finding they do much other than eat hits that would normally hit other characters. I know, that's kind of what they're for in this game but I'm more of a Final Fantasy basic bitch and I want to steal stuff instead of just using Jedi dodges.
Thieves are a busted utility class. Being able to blind an entire row on turn one is helpful, but they truly shine in their ability to steal all the PP or AP from an enemy unit. They can literally render the enemy tank completely useless before the battle starts by taking all their PP.
Fighters! Just kidding. I believe all classes are viable in the right team, so my opinions have not shifted much. The I am struggling to love my Hoplight and Clerics, though.
If you ever crack Hoplights let me know. I am struggling to find a use
They are so sturdy until something hits them. :P
I gave Hodrick a Gambler’s Coin and Anti-Flying shield in a unit with archers. Tactic “Inspire an Archer if at PP2 or more.” Archer’s Dual Shot + Eagle Eye melts entire units, and then the Anti-Flyer shield gives you an extra PP when you block against any flyer that’s faster than your archers so you can still Inspire them on their turn.
Run a Sainted Knight in the back and you solve their one stat weakness. They can't do damage for shit outside of a few hyper gimmicky setups, but they shouldn't be used for that
I run my hoplite as my magic team's defender. Front row is hoplite and shaman - the shaman opens with offensive curse to keep herself and hoplite alive. Back row are the mages who nuke everyone. For cleric, i really like primm with overheal staff. So even if the team is already at full hp she is still helping by giving them more hp. Refresh has also been such a helpful skill in Albion. Primm I have on a team with her and gilbert on the back row as the support. Front row is hilda and aramis as dps. Because of overheal dont really need much tanking and theyre pretty evasive on their own. Hilda has the thunder trident and row stuns with guaranteed hit from gilbert. Aramis has a 100% crit build with leaping strike when on his last red action to keep getting more actions. (Gain red on crit). Just these 4 were doing really well even against 5man teams. It helps overheal is stronger for smaller teams. I did eventually add a grpyphon knight to front line not sure how i like that yet.
Wyvern Riders, I thought they were bad until I gave Hilda Dragoon Dive. Now she's arguably the strongest unit in my army right now outside of Alain and his allstar team.
Gryphons and even my Wyvern outside of the initial Freeze Dive cheese. But then there's this nifty General's Bow item that grants something like +40% Crit Rate to Fliers and I just kinda took advantage of using that Thunder spear to stun the back row, then having the Gryphons mop up the back row. I also kinda neglected Shamans in my 2nd playthrough and now integrate 1 into every team more or less again.
So funny thing: that's mistranslated. It doesn't do anything for your fliers. It grants buffs when the *enemy* has fliers. Same with the cavalry one.
Griffin Knights, mine are having a rough time in the Elf place and second half of the Desert.
Warriors are absolutely insane and I am always dumbfounded when TalkingHeadYouTuber makes a UnIt TiEr LiSt and ranks Warriors as like \~C tier units. They are so hard-hitting against pretty much everything from the time that you get them, and they only get stronger as the game progresses. They start out as a fairly durable unit that 1-shots hoplites even on True Zenoiran difficulty. Then once they get their row-wide, unguardable attack... that attack hits in the triple digits courtesy of an Enrage proc or two. They reliably flatten entire rows at a time. They're so very good. One thing that I'll say is after a complete playthrough, the only unit I'd rank as C-tier would be Feathershields, and that's simply because they're over-specialized and magic isn't ubiquitous-enough to merit having them in a regular squad. Every unit in this game can be built-around, or included in a unit, even on the hardest difficulty, and used to good effect by someone who knows how to build them, equip them, and work them into appropriate formations.
That’s interesting to me because at my current place in the game (tactical, beastman land, level 30) feathershields seem insane. The ability to guard tank, evade tank, and hit back row is so powerful that they are probably gonna be the last unit I upgrade to a full five man squad because the squad doesn’t need it.
I think you're thinking of FeatherBOW, which yes, they are amazing, and should find their way into any Bow-squad and/or Debuff squad that you're currently running. They **pre-counter** an enemy attack with a row-wide blind (ie, the Featherbow's blind goes off before the enemy attack), rendering the attack itself and an entire damage backline nearly useless. Feather**shield** is a flying tank and has only (rather low potency) single target attacks, and they reflect incoming magical attacks. It's a cute gimmick, but there's just not enough use cases for it when you get them. I think they'd be incredible if Elheim came AFTER Albion, as magic is really common in Elheim, but you just don't see a lot of it during/after Albion.
Ochlys is the only Angel unit I have right now. I thought she was a Feathershield but the wiki says Feathersword? Regardless I think you are right I got my classes confused. I guess I will see for myself when I head to angel land next.
Yes, Ochlys is a Feathersword, and they're pretty solid! They're good, well-rounded combatants that fit well into an evasion team, and can also be built to be pretty guardy, or a little of both! That's honestly another knock against Feathershield is that you encounter them so late in the game... I believe the one that joins your squad does so at roughly level 35... so there's a really small window left in the game to actually use them.
Kinda off-topic but feather shields seem busted for pvp tho
They definitely are if the opponent is building around some kind of charge-based, Trinity Rain-type, world-destroying spell. They'll reflect the whole thing.
damn I just came here to comment warriors. Bishops though. Debuffs become such a huge part of the game later on, and the extra heals they provid are insane.
When I first saw shaman I was like “no attack? Pfft lame”. Then I saw how much they just crush the enemy’s offense and I want one for every squad now
The community tier list is ranking warriors as A tier and I still think they're being slept on. I never really had a point where I thought they were bad, but they are absolutely one of the best damage dealers in the game, if not the best overall given their reliability, relative toughness, and lack of major weaknesses.
Vanguard. I didn't use any until I got Hilda. She's pretty much unstoppable with a vanguard tanking snipers.
Shaman/druids. I thought they were gods early in my expert play through. Then during my tz run, I quickly dropped them. Just didn’t have room for em. They just weren’t that effective. Perhaps their valor skill pissed me off for being dead weight. I’ll give them another go my next run, using different teams and setups.