The first time I tried Mage Knighr Citrinne was around 5 months ago I think after seeing Original Raisins did it in his iron man run and I was so surprised at how many units she can double and even the one that she can't she generally can after Seadal's special dance + Covert Byleth.
Another thing that I think makes Lyn a more attractive choice is that she removes the need to inherit stuff like Speed+ or Speedtaker, thus allowing the user to be able to double a lot of enemies while also having both skill slots open, which I think especially becomes a prominent factor when so many people look at Canter as a necessary skill that every unit should have, so there really is only 1 slot open until you unsubscribe to the Canter cult, which may be wanted for something other than speed support.
Theres also the class skills air raid and chaos style. Air raid is pretty situational but chaos style is basically a free +3 speed whenever fighting a non magic unit with mageknight.
No Somniel (+ no b.shield, no warp skip, no DLC) on Maddening has definitely given me a new perspective into this matter. Even with just one Lyn and 3 speedwings (that come really late) to fix speed, there are still ways to get enough damage damage out of key units and meet goal deadlines in chapters. I used most of the really good units on my first run, but even the second run with the B team is still hitting the benchmarks - we'll have to see how the endgame goes tho. Like, Ivy does pretty well with just the speedwings, she has enough growth that once she gets on the speed curve, she'll mostly stay there, just needs that extra bump (fixing her hit rate is another issue though). Halberdier is a bit clunky in a normal playthrough but when you are already positioning support units for chain attacks, they can usually create a good doubling setup for a strong halberdier too. Sure the Lyn unit will be one of the hard carries of the run, but it's not hard to get 3-4 other units to similar contribution levels. Does it take more turn-to-turn planning? Most certainly does, but you can get all kinds of units to double or otherwise delete enemies with just strong planning and battlefield tools. With hex, instruct, special dance and passives like chaos style creating a 10 point speed swing is a piece of cake, and will go far. So yeah, when I come back from the homeless adventures, I'll be looking forward to how easy life can be with cheap speed passives and weight reduction. Saying someone needs Lyn is vastly underestimating how many tools this game has to offer.
Engage Maddening Mode still allows for many builds too consistently one shot enemies never needing too double anything. Someone like Louie with a silver great lance. Pretty much any unit with a forged silver great axe. Bow Units with forged Bows for Fliers. Crit Builds. And Citrinne with Thoron and atk boosting skills (Other mages miss kills by a few points and usually need to double for kills). If enemy Hp starts to get higher in the endgame, usually 1-2 chain attack support is enough for these units to still one round.
In particullar i find silly how people claim great weapons are only for union attacks. I tried a greatlance on amber and he could oneshot almost the entire game with it. In lategame enemy defense skyrocketed, but everything is corrupted so you can just grab holy stance that sinergize super well with grest weapons.
@@noukan42people say that you should only use them for engage attacks because of the whole you often get doubled cuz of the weight and then have to take those hits problem but it’s not a problem without solutions. For one breaking an enemy then following up with a great weapon is a great way to take advantage of that opportunity. If you are facing a group of 1 range enemies and wanna enemy phase them the great weapon’s downsides don’t matter as long as you hit and reach one shot threshold. Then there is archers and if you really wanna put in some effort surprise attack.
I think Boucheron’s a really unique unit in this, given his average spd and low str (but with a high str class), and sky high bld! If you forge the early free iron greataxe you get to a steel one, he suddenly fills a real nice niche early on of super high damage, but enough spd to not get doubled by much, even without any skills or rings given to him. Made for a good unit to bait enemy attacks, and every now and then double a cav or armor knight, or chip with a hand axe/backup attack.
Did we really just describe 40% personal growth as unimpressive? That's a perfectly fine growth. Alfred's base speed is truly problematic for him though.
I think the context that's missing here is you have Lyn as your only 2 emblems in ch12. You feed Lyn users at least 5 kills per map, usually a lot more, and they become a god because of Lyn. Without Lyn on them, some units just doesn't survive the mid game that well.
In chapters 12-15 it's actually pretty easy to double without lyn. Even if it weren't, the other Emblem you have, Lucina, is also a speed emblem, so she can get your unit cooking just fine too. There's no reason you need to give all your kills to a lyn unit. The doubling threshold to double 3/4's of enemies in those maps ranges from 21-23, and we can get up to +7 speed without equipping the lyn ring. Middling speed units like Ivy and Citrinne can easily double and one round the bulk of the enemies on these maps without lyn. For even slower units, to double half the enemies in chapter 12, you only need 19 speed. So a unit with 12 speed (like IL 11 Etie in warrior) can double more than half the enemies in chapter 12 without using Lyn. It's later in the game where they want to upgrade to higher spd + skills and maybe use an emblem ring to double most enemies, but by then you have more SP and rings to go around.
@@mintx1720 Yes, no emblem ring Alfred can double a little under 3/4 of the enemies in chapter 12. Alfred with no emblem ring at IL 12 Wyvern has 14 speed. He can get 7 more (spd +3 inherit, Meal/tonic, heroes/other bond ring). that puts him at 21, which only fails to double 8 enemies, multiple of which are optional reinforcements anyway. You do not need Lyn to perform well in chapter 12, the benchmarks aren't that high.
From my most recent playthrough I can absolutely say AMBER DOES NOT NEED SPEED RESOURCES. At all. Amber forgot how to double because he only needs to hit once. Your comment on preferring characters who have a deficiency in either offense or speed is also something I agree with. It's why I enjoy using Lapis, she already has overkill speed, and Roy patches up her damage. I ended up accidentally discovering Clanne is similar. He's fast enough to double with magic most of the time, and his Magic is just low enough that a Magic boosting Emblem pushes him into one-round thresholds.
Kinda a weird oversight for you not to bring up the Sonic The Hedgehog ring which caps your speed at bond level 5. You also didn't talk about fixing speed by hacking the game to give yourself the FE2 speed ring. I'm beginning to think you might be a fake fan 😔 For real though, excellent video, very good analysis of the varying options one has for fixing speed, and their effectiveness/downsides.
I thought it was cool that if you use the chaos control engage attack from Sonic next to someone using holding the shadow DLC ring they both turn into their super versions.
I honestly thought I'd see suggestions of Focusing on Things like +Build or Using Engraved to lower Weights , or Different strategies like Using Quick Riposte or Early ways to farm a Brave Weapon. Going in depths on really what options you have or what is the basic necessity and pros and cons is definitely better than What I was expecting.
Regarding speedtaker, you only need bond level 5 to inherit it, so you dont need to invest as much time/bond fragments, the rest is valid Also alacrity is a good tool for fast but frail units to avoid getting counterattacked and with any kind of speedstacking(speedtaker och speed+ or rings) that is nuch easier to achieve. Worth talking about when discussing lyn
I find it interesting that the actually decent mix of strength/speed/defense that Alfred has where he's about decent at all 3 (also high luck, which is unique enough to mention in this game) is his biggest downfall as a carry unit in this game. Granted, it takes some time for his speed to actually turn decent but really nothing other than a deployment slot, a master seal and a bond ring of some kind, spending his time chipping with a javelin or what have you. Because of his particular bulk, he tends to survive one round of combat against any physical unit later down the line, which is enough to qualify as a filler unit for me. You don't need every unit to be a star, sometimes you just need someone to take a hit and survive. Also he doesn't face crit most of the time. That's actually my main reason.
There are about three kinds of enemies in Engage: 1. The slow ones that hit like a truck. Armor Knights and Thoron Sages, usually. You'll double and oneround the Armor Knights with magic and oneshot the sages, no speed investment required. 2. The speed demons that you really don't want to enemy phase unprepared. Wolf Knights, Thieves and some Griffins. They also tend to have high avoid, so you'll likely use multiple units/dances anyway. You can hit the threshold to double, but really you just need enough speed to not get doubled yourself. 3. Those inbetween that are only really a threat when they approach you in multiple groups. Those are the ones where Speed investment to double actually makes a major difference in unit performance. With the way map design works in this game, enemies are usually spread out in small groups, seperated in one of those three categories. As long as your units keep on pace with the middle speed tier, you won't face any major issues. Forging, a Meal and inheriting Speed+3 to hit your benchmarks is no issue at all. For everything else, Breaking and chipping enemies, then swooping in with another unit to take the kill, maybe with Chain Attack support, is more than enough. Engage actively tries to prevent you from juggernauting and lowmanning maps, so you really shouldn't brute force your way through by speedstacking like a maniac.
Sometimes it’s just good to re-class a unit into something that is faster (in my case Thief Alfred), there are class skills like Air raid/chaos style that are notable, but let’s not forget Corrin’s draconic hex when lowering speed (as well as other key stats) you can get the most out of this skill through Corrin’s engage attack, but it works for any engaged attack so Sigurd is also a good choice (idk if it works on Ike though) you could also use Celica’s echo on multiple targets to support the team Btw Wyvern Alfred is cute ngl, I’ve only rolled thief so I haven’t seen his other fits XD
There’s also reclassing to potentially fix speed. Bow knight and wolf knight are solid choices to boost a unit’s speed both initially and her long term growth. Etie for example gets put in line with alcryst speed if you make her a bow knight immediately soon as she can as opposed to sniper or warrior. Pannette can instantly go into wolf rider and you can also just entirely ignore speed for doubling with pincer attack from halberdier ( and I personally like pairing it with quick riposte + on Louis aka fuck the speed stat the build). And you could also just abuse the options to accelerate exp growth like Parthia great snackrifice and mercurius. I’ve never done a skirmish but I’ve had multiple units get to the point where there have to reset their level in their master classes. You can easily reach the point where you have to reset a unit’s level with no dlc or skirmishes. Going 20 levels in a speed increasing class is gonna do some good for fixing a unit’s speed. There’s so many ways to fix speed and you can even entirely ignore it and still reap the offensive benefits. You can also just shoot for one shot thresholds instead with great weapons which is honestly quite easy on the hard to double foes. You can’t just not have a strength or magic stat and perform in the same vein. It’s especially important to keep in mind that for some enemies like sword masters which you can sometimes need 40+ speed for ( for example on Celica paralogue) that it is far easier to shoot for the one shot or just use a halberdier for that then just try to double them. Or as mentioned just don’t fight the summoned sword masters and bait Celica so you can take her out quickly
I think its also a good thing to note that Brave weapons exist, which kinda null the need for Speed. So if you have a unit that is beyond saving even with Lyn, most times you can just pop a Brave boi on em and they're good as gold. I did this with my Jade, giving her a Brave Axe as soon as one became available, and she does pretty well with it. It's kinda inaccurate, which sucks, but I'm degenerate enough to use the time crystal to scum hit rates so it doesn't bug me. That much. My main point is that Speed doesn't have to be the end all be all. It's nice, some units would prefer Speed, but a good ol 1-2 can also do the job.
I appreciate your mention of Alfred in this case, I feel he doessn't get a lot of good rep. I have him as a Great Knight in one of my current runs, and to my surprise he isn't getting doubled by most feasible matchups.
The problem with that is that you can just run someone like Lapis as a GK as well. Lapis would lag behind a bit in bulk but would be doubled even less and can even be pushed into doubling herself. Alfred big problem is that this game reward focusing in a few stats, and he don't. Want to fix his speed? Luis can be fixed as well and it's stronger and bulkier. Want to make him a tank? Lapis can be made into a faster tank. Want to fix his str? Amber is Alfred with his str already fixed. And so on. He can certainly be used but i would be hard pressed to find any build where he is the best option.
I think this is great analysis but the real issue is that the lategame issues aren't really addressed, even units like Kagestsu (mine was a hero with fixing growths) at base needs a meal or tonic to keep doubling large amounts of enemies as the game goes on and the lategame is far more important that the much easier midgame. Any unit can double in midgame but not any unit can double in lategame and that's the real sticking point. I like 2 speedtakers so the real strength of lyn is the fact that I can add a weapon power/lunar brace and still have the SP to do other stuff. The best panette build IMO is Lyn/Lunar brace Panatte bc you one round all enemies in the game including wyrms without engaging assuming they only have 1 hp bar obviously only needing a few spdtaker stacks.
The arguments still mostly hold true in the lategame. Ivy at IL 30 in her personal class has 20 speed. With speed +4, a bond ring, and a meal/tonic, she can hit 28 and double half the enemies in chapter 22. A fast unit like kagetsu at IL 30 in wyvern has 28 speed. With the same resources we gave ivy, he can get up to 36 and double 3/4 of the enemies on that map. Panette at IL 30 in warrior with a killer axe +5 and a tonic one shots over half the enemies on the map (including all of the fast ones that kagetsu doesn't double), so she doesn't really need to double. The main difference in the lategame is our slow units start to go from doubling 70-80% of enemies to more like 50% without spending more resources. But we can pump that up by upgrading spd +3 to +4 or +5, or by using a speed emblem ring (which we have 4 of now), or by using a byleth rally, or by using a speedwing. So it is harder to double, but we have way more resources to help now. You only need lyn if you want to double the very fastest enemies on the map without using a rally. Lyn is a fine option for all of them, but your non Lyn units should do just fine without her.
@@actuallizard I really hate using Byleth for the spd boost bc I think there is no optimal covert class and the cav +10 dex is insanely strong at times. I'd also never use byleth on a unit with 5 move when I could simply use byleth on a unit with 6 move. This is why I think rally is a poor tool to use its simply sub-optimal compared to getting a better dance (at least with how I play, I've done an ironman w/well but without anything else and I used the dance as a stopgap/finisher) Chapter 22 isn't a great stat benchmark bc units have less stats than normal to make up for the fact you have no rings, in chapter 21 for example 28 spd ONLY DOUBLES THE ARMORS AND SAGES and nothing else. I'd argue if she was a carry she should be slightly higher level but 29 doesn't fix it either 30 starts to at least get some archers tho.
Honestly title of the video threw me off a bit, but I actually do agree woth what you've said. What threw me off is that I guess my definition of "needing lyn" is different from yours, and I guess others as well. In my mind needing lyn refered to needing to inherit skills from lyn, but I guess at that point it's just needing to inherit speed boosting skills
I remember a comment that annoyed me because it essentially boiled down to trying to make gregory fast instead of working with his tool kid like his high magic and inherent staves, greg does really want hit fixing and a enough speed to not get one rounded but putting lyn on him seems like a waste since he will likely still not double very often and similar to citrinne there are better options like the infamous dire thunder olwen skill
When I got the Lyn ring I just thought it was nifty. didn’t think It was really that superpowered. Like of course I gave the plus speed stuff to units I think needed it. But at the end of the day I was able through late game engage without my whole army doubling pretty easily.
Kinda curious what you think of tanking in engage. Lot of people find it impossible but I thought my Alfred!Lucina was fine in maddening and Ike is also great for it.
Thw big problem with tanking is that Lucina exist. Like, why spending tons of sp and using suboptimal classes and characters to take less damage when you can turn everybody in to a godmode tank with bonded shield?
People use Lyn for speed? I use it for avoid on an Awakening Dagger Wolf Knight Merrin to fight battles against enemies who will then have single digit hit rates.
The thing that speedtaker has over speed +5 is that it's much cheaper in bond fragment cost, requiring only a low level of Lyn. So it does have that if you don't want to spend all your time fishing. Personally I like putting it on 3 or so units (including the lyn user). I tend to prefer it for units that don't need speedfixing to hit some units but are desirable to kill certain fast units (e.g. wolf knights, bosses.) Then again I never warpskip maps and don't care about turn counts, so YMMV. I think the real forgotten draw of Lyn is actually Alacrity++. Which is way too expensive to be worth it normally, but is really nice for no-retaliation kills.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone else use Bow Knight Kagetsu for Ch13. I did that on my Iron Man and felt like a genius because of it, is it actually meta?
A lot of the footage for this video is from a draft run where we drafted the classes we were allowed to use, and Bow knight was one of my picks. Since I didn't have swordmaster I had to reclass kagetsu in order to use him. Eventually I moved him over to wyvern knight, but I had him in bow knight for a couple chapters until I got axe proficiency onto him. Bow knight's not bad though, I'm using it for Panette and Amber in that draft playthrough.
As someone who runs speedtaker on multiple units ive honestlt never had this issue. Theres a lot of enemies on the map. Not to mention speed plus 10 is a bigger return over 5. However Byleth ivy stans RISE UP
Yeah, I think the "weakness" of having multiple units with speedtaker is somewhat overstated. You hopefully should be aiming to kill more than one or two units in a player phase, and any one of those kills could be a speedtaker unit.
It's something I hear a lot for specific units. The big ones being Ivy, Etie, Alcryst, Citrinne, and Amber. Of course no one thinks that fast units like Kagetsu needs Lyn to double lol
Lyn is really good, but most units will be fine just inheriting spd +3 for cheap and enjoying the high remaining sp for their other skill slot. Lyn is best being put on a super high str warrior like amber or panette, giving you overall comically strong damage output. It's also worth noting they're also amazing with ike, or even other emblems.
That point is why I almost always have Lyn on Etie Etie's one great trait is her high strength compared to the game's other archers and she does silly amounts of damage with Astra Storm and thanks to being Covert that is a VERY silly 20 range (trivialising the bosses in chapter 14 for example) And Etie's decent ish speed works really well with Lyn's bonuses too, which is always nice
@@Wizzkidwas etie is definitely one of the better lyn users but i would recommend reclassing etie to warrior, the stats are waaay better and let's be honest etie needs it
I wanna add that speedtaker only takes you 400 bond thingies instead of the huge amount it takes for the speed +4. That's also a resource that is quite hard to come around and making endgame builds gets very very expensive. Also I wanna add that you can only get a +20 speed boost so if you have spd +5 and fully active Lyn, pulling out mulagir will make no difference, pretty silly
I think Engage is VERY good at making 'slow' units worthwhile by min-maxing enemies' Spd stats. I never invested Spd into my Ivy but she was always oneshotting units she needed to oneshot (generals and great knights). And even 'fast' units can't double swordmasters, so I just smash their faces in with one strong hit from Louis' greatlance. So it's less about making an uber unit, but more about using units against specific enemies they are strong against, which I find very rewarding.
TBH I never used Lyn's ring only for the speed bonus in my Engage run. I had it on Alcryst because it was useful to delete a strong unit with Astra Storm. IIRC I also got Weapon Sync on him from the TH bracelet for the rare chance he didn't crit or Luna an enemy for extra damage.
I learn later on you can just cook food that gives 2+ speed even if you don't have the ingredients and Rng it. Buy a skill that gives 2 or more speed and put on a emblem ring that give at least 2+ speed and you can have a unit with 6 or more +speed every chapter easily.
For someone that started with FE6 then 8 and 6 and whose brain is still sorta trained on those games, hearing 40% speed growth as unimpressive is still a bit jarring for me...
i love needing a 1 in 100 chance drop to have a good unit lmao also dire thunder isn't even that good in the endgame which is where you'll have had most chances to roll for dire thunder. at that point great thunder is actually just better for massive thorons that punch through resistance
1. No, no she doesn't only need Olwen to one round, her magic isn't good enough to one round consistently even on hard mode with just a thunder elthunder or thoron. 2. Forging thunder is damn expensive which is a big opportunity cost just to give Citrinne the damage to one round with the thunder tomes. 3. Olwen is a rare drop basically a 1/100 and you only have about two chapters earlygame to get it. Granted due to the reset trick you have two opportunities with the same bond fragments.
Great video, but you kinda lost me in this argument here: "For the price of 500 sp, a +2 bond ring and some ingredients, plus another 500 spd from something you have to obtain from the Lyn ring and give that person the Lucina ring, you can get something that's marginally worse than 1 Lyn ring user." You do point out however that some units don't need a lot of investment to reach the thresholds of doubling on specific maps (such as Kagetsu). However, I think you're underplaying how much investment it actually is to setup more successful spd builds on other characters. The alfred example is a critical show of this, mostly because, you NEED a master seal, a second seal, +2 bond ring, meal, speed +3 and he has to be lvl 4, I'd hardly call that "easily solved". And this is all at a midpoint of the game, where the spd values will go up even more from that point that and you've acknowledged that as well, meaning that to further this threshold, you're gonna need to invest more. This is the same thing applied to Citrinne, needing mage knight to really shine. Now, I'm not saying that people can't do this or that it isn't viable with speed stacking. The point is, are there other characters that don't break this threshold with less investment? If anything, units that can inherit this skill on the threshold breaker points becomes more valuable, because now you can actually dump Lyn on a unit that had no business doubling to begin with and never look back. This also means that, if you're gonna try and spread these resources out, then it makes since if a unit DOESN'T need lyn it will be better, because now we can effectively give Lyn to someone who can utilize that to it's max potential and you said it yourself you're more willing to part with other rings like Roy and Eirika (and lunar brace is also an expensive 3000 spd). It's also a reason why Lyn Ivy is sooooo strong because magic+speed and utility is unmatched hitting the weaker of the defensive stats on average. I also agree on the speedtaker assessment. Only 1 or 2 users are really necessary. It does however scale better the longer the map takes and towards the endgame with a lot of enemy density on maps it can prove valuable. I do think you underplayed that to fix a units damage output you can also just forge more, which is probably more available then SP which you can't really get back nor "shift" around, since a lot of units without DLC are also considered good or not depending on how much starting SP they have. But ultimately I do agree that it comes down to "FIX damage or FIX speed". I guess I just prioritize units having better spd because damage can be fixed easier IMO due to effective weaponry/forges/weapon types, whereas speed requires SP investment or ring placement which I find harder to come across. Great content, looking forward to more :)!
Lyns Ring doesn't make sense on Alfred. By the time you get him to level 10, his stats favor tanking with emphasis on HP, def, and decent res.(Still wouldn't have him tank mages though) I think Ike, Sigurd, or Roy make for better emblems. I think Lyn is probably most potent on Amber, mage knight Anna, and Panette. I'm curious to try Lyn on Bucheron and Diamante as they have pretty high build and enough kills with SPD taker could allow for Brave weapon Quad attacks.
I personally like giving rings to the person that I think the ring works best with, not the unit that necessarily needs it the most. Especially with Lyn. Like, I don't like her on Ivy since I don't think Ivy can make good use of Astra Storm. I prefer her being on either a unit who uses bows in general (like a warrior), or specifically a sniper for the covert bonus.
Have not finished the video yet but just a question for the people: do you use empty skill slots for the '+stat' skills? Because I think that would be a waste of a slot, so I only have the stat bonus skills of the ring/bracelet that I let my character equip
I inherited Speedtaker on Etie to try and fix her speed issues. Turns out all she needs is a crit engrave Killer Bow to have a 50% chance to murder basically anything.
Lyn isn’t a requirement for everyone but her speed+ skill can help alleviate certain speed benchmarks which will make your life a whole lot easier. It’s better to not be doubled than to be doubled and it’s better to double than not to double. Speed+ is the most SP cost effective Stat+ skill in the game (I guess because IS underestimated increasing a unit’s speed.) Speedtaker is fairly situational but I find it funny to put it on a slow unit like a Great Knight.
I find that in a ringless and mealless Elyos, Speedtaker is reserved for the units who I intend for them to double to perform decently like Chloe, and Citrinne is pretty good for chip damage, and she does her job well enough doubling armors as mage knight. Roles are more defined for specific units with how I play after endless hours of experimenting in Maddening fixed growths.
Engage is such an interesting game in how it designed its combat and how that design upends how we think about unit and army building in FE. Doubling isn't as important as any game made since PoR which means Con isn't super important either, enemy defences are high but there exist enough ways to boost Str/Mag and deal direct damage that mid-Str/Mag units work well, and most maps being on the smaller side means the move gap between mounted and unmounted units isn't as drastic as most other games in the series.
I put speedtaker on units that can consistently 1r enemies like wyvern kagetsu and brave axe berserker amber. I also put it on alear so when they do kill a enemy they can snowball more
