I do think Ike got over-rated early on, but this is an over correction. His Engage attack is honestly not that good, unless you just want to engage in some crazy baiting, or if he can't trick enemies into attacking him (but they'll still get next to him. You're better off doubling. Boucheron with a Crit-Engraved Tomahawk and Axe Power is nuts. Or even ignore the crit-engraving, and just accept that doubling with Axe Power Tomahawk will kill most enemies on it's own.

@@Sines314 Well the thing is, Ike gets Wrath which just makes Crit Builds more insane.

@@Sines314 Also he can be used on Slower Units with Spears or Tomahawks, and the units with good enough defense to take advantage don’t really take meaningful damage anyways. Considering the fact that there are skills like Reprisal out now, it makes Ike even more nuts

@@Sines314 great aether isn’t that good, but he gives good stats, wrath, ax power, resolve… makes panette into a powerhouse

@Sines314 Great Aether needs a specific setup since most engage attacks are wonky. But he gives a dedicated tank, high crit power, and the right stat allocations. He's far too low on the list since his tanking ability is amazing, and killing power rises with heavy 2 range weapons or super crits. And any reprisal user having him turns gross. Asf as it scales with great aether

My kagesu with axe and IKE and negate chain solos the game in hard mode.

Lol this tier list... Ike is one of the best emblems of the game, if not the best, I play it on Alear and well... one man army as you said, my Alear with 80hp, with 1 tank skill + Reprisal (dealing +50 damage in 1 attack, 150 in crits), ultra OP, what I can say... it is the perfect not only tank, but damage dealer of the game unkilleable. Once I discovered Ike for Alear, I didnt use on her any other, like at chapter 14 and before doing all DLC paralogues.

so real, having him on Panette is so good, just having them solo stages practically

Biggest L I've heard our boy Adam say tbh. Literally, all you need is to do to turn any physical unit into an instakill machine is give them Ike, make them a warrior, give them a killer axe with a crit engraving, and pick up vantage for only 500sp from Leif. Panette literally one shots the entire map on maddening. I hardly ever use great aether. It's less damage than a killer axe crit. Enemies will still be targeting her during the enemy phase since she's still taking damage and won't die for it. They just line up to die

I gave Ike to Lapis, but Chain Attacks were the bane of me. Gave her Kamui/Corrin's skill that prevents Chain Attack damage and Eirika's skill that uses enemy def to deal damage. Lapis with Great Aether wrecks everything, especially with the Hammer against armored units, and a forged Crit sword with a bit of damage taken will make her crit nearly every time.

Eirika is good ig, everyone sleeping on the fact that she has true dmg mitigation

​@@dwiatmika9563 I would put her in the top 5 after Lucina if the DLC units were not included. I have her above both Sigurd and Lyn in probably that order.

Yeah Sieglinde Merrin solod a lot of maps for me in my first maddening run.

Hector allows any unit to double on command on enemy phase, that alone is better than Ike's entire kit.

Hector is Ike with more kill power for less defense. Strong riposte is insane, and it's a sync skill, so it's always active when you have the hp, which is nice for Diamant in particular because of his class skill(I gave him str/dex+5 to help with this), and then when you use his engage skill you get a huge bonus to crit for backup units as well. And piercing glare allows him to become a 1man choke point in a lot of situations, making it easier to position your other units more aggressively. Ike's higher dmg reduction can actually be a detriment in maddening mode because the AI completely ignores units they can't dmg or hit.

Try Hector on Kagetsu Wyvern. It's just a huge buff to his stats and turns him ultra tanky. Hector gives +50% resistance effectively....so my Kagetsu had like 38 defense and 30 effective res.

Hector on a Halberdier in a Martial Master Bonded Shield is crazy. You have a unit that can’t get doubled and that always doubles regardless of speed. Give them a Radiance or Binding engraved Spear and Brave Lance with maybe some forges and watch them melt enemies with their high damage while taking little to none themselves.

If Hector only prevented getting doubled I would agree, but he allows anyone to double as well which is pretty absurd when you think about it. His Armads also melts Wyverns while proving +5 Defence. I do like Ike though and would move him up a tier leaving Leif all alone against the world once again.

fr. its a free chainguard

I think some people value fire highly due to playing closer to raw non-DLC maddening where the game is simply harder due to not being over leveled.

It was so buffling to me that he said poison strike was good lmao.

@@darkgrundi9543Well poison gambit is good because it applies poison to a unit and any units that are adjacent to that unit, which then increases the amount of damage that those units take. It’s very helpful in damage stacking. However, I feel that all three gambits are very useful. Flame for terrain control, Poison for damage stacking, and Shield to protect Louis from getting sniped by tome users at range 2-3. 😁

I’m pretty sure you can take the Bond all the way up to 9. You don’t get Master Lance until Bond Level 10.

@@GaiusTulliusCatallusXXC That could very well be; I only have experience with the Ike build.

They really are perfect together!

What class should I make Jean too for Ike honestly I want to honor him wanting to be like his doctor but I also want him to be a killing machine

One thing to note is that in Maddening, enemies won't attack you if they can't hurt you, so Ike's bonuses can make characters like Timerra have too much defense for enemies to even target her, which is, really bad in some sections of Maddening, since there are very few one tile chokepoints for you to tank in Engage One other thing to note is that the other defensive Engage, Hector, does have some things going for him over Ike, like. His increases to stats are percentage based, so, it is possible for him to get nearly as overkill stat boosts as Ike gives, depending on the Unit he's on. On top of that, Hector also has Piercing Glare to wall off 3 tile chokepoints to protect squishier units if needed

@@thebrave9971 Here is the thing tho. Hector only gives the defensive stats while engaged. Quick reposte is imo not needed on your tank as he is most likely not your dmg anyway. Resolve+ from Ike gives you 7 stats AT ALL TIMES while below 75% hp. And the Engage HALVES DMG and you get an engage weapon that gives you another 3 of either res or def. Which is almost always better than 30% of lets say 30 def against the endgame 60 dmg axe users or the 30% res on your 15 res unit against 50 dmg sages. I just don't see it. Also atleast in my run Timerra already almost doubled everything except very fast classes and for the rest just use brave lance to force the double chance for sandstorm on player phase/quad chance against enemy armored or slow bosses.

@@darkgrundi9543 I was more focused on the massive utility Piercing Glare gives you with being to wall 3 tile chokepoints, Quick Riposte really isn't the big selling point of Hector (Unless you're thinking of getting whacky with some crazy Rune Sword build), Piercing Glare was a very great tool I used, quite often, and Hector also has Armads and a base Defense boost for a base +10 Defense, plus the 30% boost to both Defense and Res on enemy phase (50%/30% for armors and 30%/50% for Flying) And if you're in a group of a bunch of physical attackers, or all magic attackers, there's also adaptability + for a +3 in the helpful stat, that's 13 defense before the percentage boost, sure Ike can get 27 Defense and 12 Res if you do a lot of things (Full leveled on an Armor Knight using great Aether) and then the halving of damage, after all the defense is calculated, however, 10 of that Defense from Ike there only lasts 1 turn, and the Halving damage only matters if the enemy is doing damage to you in the first place. Though let's take something more likely, Timerra in Maddening if you level her up to 20/20 with no stat boosters will have 29 defense, Hector gives a base +5 to her, and then Adaptability + for another +3 at all times if used correctly, When she engages she'll have another +5 from Armads, and then on enemy phase she'll have the +30% boost, so with all that boost equated for, she'll have 54-55 defense once all the boosts are set(I could be wrong on the order of how the boosts calculate), which, is a lot of Defense. If we're really generous you could also get Ike's Defense +5 inheritable skill on her too, and then you'll have 61 Defense with Hector in Engage on enemy phase, With Ike, including the +5 Defense inheritable, she can only get to 56 defense(51 when not in Great Aether), both of which, aren't high enough to no damage tank endgame's highest damage enemies, but most of the lower damage ones on Maddening, since the high damage enemies have around, 64-69 physical power. Either way, you'll take about the same amount of damage thanks to Ike's extra halving of damage. (This is all based on if you keep her in her personal class the whole time) but Timerra's Class skill will do more damage if you have Hector on her, plus, Timerra has a not half bad magic growth on her so, weirdly enough, she might be pretty good at using Quick Riposte with Hector's Rune Sword with a bit of investment

@@thebrave9971 i guess i haven't used piercing glare much, which is why i don't value it a lot. I also don't run many playerphase units so there is not much need to wall off that much tiles and fire dragon vein is usually enough to slow down enemies or a single well placed obstacle. And again yes hector can get higher defensive stats, but only while engaged, ikes resolve however is a sync skill making it active at all times. So Hector is better for the 4 engaged turns but then your unit gets super squishy while ike makes them always very tanky so i can save the engage for halving magic dmg.

Not to forget the chain attack thing. Lucina has a lot of very fun and broken combos.

Every emblem ring is atleast good lol!

Yeah Ike and Chrom got done dirty, but i think Roy is very good too.

Lucina also give 100% on specific unit types. Making a 5 man flyer squad for my first playthrough was a godsend. Nothing could get past them while engaged.

just inherit the skill mate.

@@darkgrundi9543 ??? u cant inherit dual assist

@@floorbutter9672 yes you can, but it only works on backups.

Nah, Marth falls off pretty hard, doesn't provide utility, and is unavailable most of the game. He's mid.

@@nathanharris8896 I agree but if you spam it your alear can be a monster unit

Enchanted does like Micaiah, thanks to Convoy access, but don't forget that they have Dagger access, and chain attacks apply poison. Enchanter has pretty strong dibs with Micaiah or Lucina.

@@Sines314 ah that’s true that’s a good point but poison honestly isn’t the end all be all

@@ljthompson3011 With units like Pannette who can just dish out 50-60 damage, scaling your damage by 1-3 is just not that important.

@@goroadachi9489 you right but nothing more infuriating when you leave an opponent at 1 health left in this game happens sometimes if you’re builds aren’t up to snuff but I ultimately agree with you

was just on my way to type this exact same thing

Agree. I've been running him on my dancer most of the game just for mobility.

Actually it’s only the lance, axe, and bow hit. Since Quadruple Hit uses all of Leif’s engage weapons + the Master Bow, it means the first hit, being the Light Brand, can’t activate Sandstorm due to the weapon being magical and the skill only working with physical. So it’s objectively worse than just using Edelgard’s engage skill, even considering just the stat bonuses, both give +3 Def, but Edelgard gives +4 Dex for higher chance of proccing Sandstorm. Leif really got shafted this game jesus.

NoOOOooOOOoO don't one bang my Lapis and Chloe.

Yea people undervalue starspheare let’s say you want +3 spd and dex or str and def or res and luck or plus 4 build how much sp would that cost ? Well 20 levels with starspheare give you all that for 1500 sp and early to mid game you don’t really need skills that much anyway just makes you’re units cracked for sure love starspheare

@@ljthompson3011 Yeah I look at it as an extension of a stat booster but for all stats per level. For twenty levels some characters get +6 SPD from it just from the build + 3 and SPD + 3 combined. So units they would have been slower than by one, they double. So you reach doubling thresholds several levels earlier for some units. Very useful for turning bad units into okay units, or broken units into max stat units pre chapter 23. (I first did a starsphere run with Chloe as the main XP gatherer and she maxed all stats as a sage important to a sage except for magic by the FIRST level 20 sage level. She then was a max stat mage knight in chapter 20-21 with somewhere in the 60+ attack. I had her with speedtaker and +10 sword or something silly. Issue was trying to get her avoid low enough so enemies would attack her on enemy phase.

i heard he is good on panette. but you cant go past lv4 bond.

@@mithos789 that's just sad.

@@darkgrundi9543 yeah his weapons suck.

Right? I laughed when I saw Micaiah under "Engage Attacker".

@@Sneasling Don’t sleep, Micaiah was strong enough to kill a prince who wasn’t making an attempt to defend himself

Sieglinde is so goated Merrin can onehit Armored enemies with it.

@@darkgrundi9543 I run Chloe with Erika for the extra avoid when using lances too. And don’t forget Twin Strike is a straight up delete button.

I think the answer to your question is probably Seadall. He doesn’t need any of those stats

Starsphere effectively turns early games that would be replaced (Framme, Celine) into top tier units. The earlier you slap starsphere on a unit the better.

Starsphere IS very good… I think some people might overstate its value a little bit though. Getting +7 out of it takes 47 levels which definitely feels like a stretch for a maddening run; I think +3-4 is much more realistic, even on early units. The other thing to consider about Starsphere is that it has 0 upfront value; it does very little for you for quite a few levels and takes up a skill slot all the while. Definitely pays dividends in late game though (which is definitely the hardest part of the game).

@@adamdavey1261 you’re right. I failed at my maths. I looked at Anna and Celine in my latest run, both who picked it up at lvl 10, bother who are about to 2nd sphere a 2nd time and failed at multiplication. I just finished the four hounds so they are likely to get to 6 but not 7. Thank you for correcting me.

@adamdavey1261 Full DLC maddening and clearing all the paralogues? I feel like 30 levels for Kagetsu is about what to expect by the end.

I doubt anyone will see this, but for simplicity, just use Obscurité+5 instead of Thoron and replace Mag/Dex + 2 with Hit plus 30 as you get the same results and only lose out in 3 range, but free up other units to do other things. Just remember to Bond Shield her when in 3+ range and put down vines when Qi Adept units are in range. Also, magic units will likely go for other units if they are in range given Veyle's high res so only have units like Seadall and Alear next to her when only physical units are in range if you need/want to add extra crit on her.