Pass is "High Impact" because of enemy thieves...not your thieves

One thing I will say about Halberdier is that it’s not specifically front and back but just opposite sides, so if an enemy is in a position where you can attack the left and right of then it’ll work. For Bosses this does help as most bosses in this game move and have multiple health bars so you’re likely going to have a bunch of units surrounding the boss. For standard enemies though this skill isn’t very useful as 1/2 range enemies can mess up the criteria and if you’re actively baiting enemies into position you’re better off with an enemy phase build that can kill them rather than set up this conditional.

I’d say Halberdier is exclusively used for a boss killer build with Lunar Brace + Lance Power so that you can Brave Lance quad someone without needing a speed check. It’s nice in that because you’re a backup class if you do manage to delete a health bar with Pincer attack you can use get benefits out of being adjacent to an enemy. However this is all best case scenarios as by the time you can get Lunar Brace + Lance Power your Halberdier is going to see a major fall off as it’s only good stat is Dexterity, everything else is meh or ok.

The units that can make good Halberdiers too are few and far between cause the best physical carries (Panette, Amber, Kagetsu) don’t want to be in it and the decent physical ones (Diamant, Mauvier, Chloe, Zelkov, Merrin) do need a bit of stat fixing to make work (even then you’re putting all of these guys in worst classes). I can’t really see anyone outside of High Strength/Defense units like Louis or Goldmary being in this class (I think honestly Goldmary might be the best option as she becomes super bulky and she fixes her hit rate issues through it).

As a skill it’d be B tier as its only use is boss killing but because the units that can use it are super specific I feel like a High C-Tier placement is more accurate. Halberdier is just too niche and weak of a class standalone to really consider for someone outside of Goldmary who has the base stats and growths to make it work. If Pincer attack was on a high-move class like Paladin or Chicken Knight then it’d be an immediate A tier skill

Its crazy how few of the class skills are actually good in this game. Like most of the time they're just nice bonuses that occasionally come into effect, but overall don't do alot. I will say I think u underrated Sol, Luna and Ignis a little bit bc I think they can trigger on things like loadstar rush, override, torrential roar, and roy's fire one too which could be big value, similar to Timerra triggering sandstorm on those as well.

Ignis won me a maddening draft race, S tier just like the empress

I feel like Soul Blade was meant to be used with Emblem attacks in the same way certain Mystical units do with certain Emblems with Mystical Bonuses. It's just that with how DEF lopsided many enemy units are with few being more balance and even fewer being RES heavy there's not much use cases to switch away from Tomes or focus on her sword side. There's a lot of extra ways to boost sword damage up high and still hit hard but when there's units walking around with like 3214 DEF /11 RES it's like whats the point? Might as well just stick to playing a faster Ivy and just Bolg shit down while carrying a utiltiy emblem like Corrin, Byleth (Lúin is crazy) or Veronica.

37:42 Because of that video about the speedy general build, you inspired me of wanting to try that build with Lapis (who if I recall has the same speed growth and speed cap (assuming you consider a character's stat mods effect class stat caps for unit performance) as Chloe)

Pincer attack is the entire identity of halberdier. I used the class on Louis that I Micaiah grinded him to internal level 17 by chapter 10 was over. The mindset I had for Louis is, he is my boss killer, so dealing with fodder was not his job, though I would sometimes have him help kill a small group of enemies (like its 2-3 there). So maps would go: use bonded shield levin sword/bolganone to clear fodder, have Louis go to boss and kill it. Canter also helps a ton with helping position units on the other side of units for your halberdier. Louis was also still extremely tanky due to his high defense growth, like to the point I could solo the left side of Lyn's paralogue like how you use Timerra that way. Granted I used a byleth engraved spear, had an elixir to heal and was just taking 1-2 damage just naturally without even engaging as Ike so it made the grind to level 5 halberdier much easier. The ideal engage ring is Roy for +6 strength and you can use an Ike engraved brave lance+5 for some crazy quads despite having a 30 weight weapon. If I wanted better hit rate, I'd used my strongest lance with byleth engrave. Late game might have to rig hit rates to kill with Ike engrave brave lance if you don't have corrin debuffs/puddles to help.

Halberdier is also amazing for doubling enemy swordmasters and griffins (can probably 1 shot wolf knights with ridersbane so doubling is not needed). Granted you can use a bow for griffins, but having another method doesn't hurt. Getting to ignore the speed check comes in handy a lot.

TL;DR I find halberdier to be a great class for specifically deleting 1 unit (generally a boss), and Louis has so much bulk that you can take the counter hits too. Its not a great bonded shield target or solo juggernaut, but it can be effective when you move your army together. I would rate pincer attack at BIG impact over moderate. I won't argue HUGE since the class itself is lackluster.

Also you can trigger pincer attack on Sombrom in his final form, you just need the ally to be on same row/column on opposite end of Sombrom as your halberdier. This let my Louis 1 round Sombron with just an ike engraved brave lance with Roy engage up with a clean 25x4 for 100 damage. (Sombron was corrin debuffed of course)

This is my jam, peak ICG right here

Reforge does have one good niche use, because it is the only non-DLC way to counter Fracture staves. Those bypass Bonded Shield entirely and can ruin an enemy phase sweep for you, but setting up a Royal Knight with Lucina can enable a Mage Knight to enemy phase while also blocking Fracture users. It doesn't even have to go on a Lucina user--any scenario where you want to enemy phase in range of a Fracture staff can benefit from this effect. The 10 HP cost will rarely be an issue if you position correctly. So I'd still call it situational but overall useful, like high C or low B.

Divine Spirit on Divine dragon is supposed to combo w/ Liberation. It allows you to 1-round someone, get danced, 1-round another, and boom full meter again in 1 turn.

Never thought I’d see Timmy being talked about again 😢

always down for an iced coffee engage video B)

S Tier for SANDSTORM I know that’s right!!!

Funny you make all these videos now as I got through Engage for the first time.

Basically agree with everything. I personally think clear the way is like B tier in a regular playthrough. The area is too small for it to be consistently useful. If you are using a chicken knight, they are most likely flying deep to pick off threats. And later maps don't really have much difficult terrain.

Bow Knights passive is okay, the real problem is that it's just not worth it over warrior since warrior can access Long and Steel Bows.

You have to fire and remain in place.

So your not even making use of the 6+ move that BK gives you.


I think the passive should've gone to sniper honestly.

Love to see it

Makes me wonder why Intelligent Systems creates classes that seems good on paper but ends being detrimental to your squad as a whole. Why can't they either create better classes with workable class skills that isn't too specific or niche for it to work, or at least fix the major core problems some foot locked classes have?

Like no matter how good a Fire Emblem game can be game play wise there is always something about their balancing and decision making that makes it at least questionable.

Interesting take on diffuse healer.  I see the argument for b tier, though I think the amount of economy it saves could be regarded even higher if your Anna dies in a run. Would be curious to see how these perks change up in iron man runs

Just one thing i would like to mention. Engage meter fills per attack not per combat. If alear has a brave sword or uses fists with a 20 bond ring on divine class you charge the meter in one round of combat and can basically perma engage with any ring