Fire Emblem Engage: Alfred is (still) NOT D-Tier (Maddening)

16 and a half minutes of nothing but cope.

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Thank you to omegaevolution for the high quality gameplay footage & screenshots.

#fireemblem #engage #tierlist

[sympathism]

In my experience, the best thing about alfred is his fantastic mixed bulk + pavise skill. He plays like a mini xander when invested. Though, his speed stays average, which weakens his offensive potential, which is why he is my lyn user for the absurd speed star you can get. It makes him a literal god.

[limit]

Amber and Alfred have very distinct roles, Alfred is the tank cavalier, while Amber is the strong cavalier. Kinda like Sain and Lowen in FE7. I don't know why people compare these two when they have diferent objectives

[taznkid]

With the release of DLC wave 2, Hector feels perfect for Alfred. Hector bolsters his defensive stats while giving him the ability to double, all on enemy phase.

[Jcmczech]

Alfred also makes for a top notch thief from what I tried. Saves a master seal early game. His passive works as a thief/wolf dodge tank.
But is there a way to compare stats he would be at with other set ups? Was making an excel for this and it's more work than I thought

[IntrusiveThot]

Great videos! I think after watching both of these, that the DLC simply takes the really fine balance of Engage Maddening and breaks it over its knee. Extra extremely strong emblems, more inheritable skills, a massive amount of EXP that scales to your level from divine paralogues, so many resources that you no longer have to choose which units to invest upgrades and engravings into, and the list goes on. I wish there was a DLC "Dante Must Die" difficulty or something, where you NEEDED to make maximal use of all the resources the DLC gives you, because it's incredibly fun to use. Like, silver lance louis in the early game? Phenomenal. Edelgard on Chloe? Why yes, I *did* want a bow on my flier, as well as 20% extra XP on every single unit I plan to use for 150 SP and like 400 bond fragments.

The tools are simply too strong and too numerous for such a refined and interesting difficulty curve, which sucks because the DLC content is awesome. It's fun not having to make difficult decisions about who to leave behind in terms of seals, weapons, engravings, rings, etc, but that stuff is part of what makes vanilla Engage Maddening so good.

[Blood_Ronin]

A little late on this, but your video popped up so I watched. For anyone playing the game with RNG growths, Alfred is fine. His issue is fixed growths.
Also, if you spam relay trials you can get plenty of master/second seals before chapter 7. I have 10 each on my master save file. DLC breaks the game and literally turns any unit into a good unit.

[ancientspark]

I think the point about promotion being a downside is less about the gold but more about availability. You only get a limited amount of Second Seals/Master Seals when they first become available and because of that, you can only use a couple of Second Seals to patch early game units to transition them to compete. Since, say, Great Knight requires Armor Knight 10 if promoted into, you end up in a situation where Alfred has to compete with potentially other growth units to get him out of his kind of crummy base class (either you burn both Master Seal + Second Seal to promote then reclass, or you regrow him in Armor Knight to get him up to level 10 first).

This puts Alfred in an awkward spot because Second Seals are valuable enough early (given that the early character personal growths are kind of mismatched with their classes in general in this game) that a lot of people don't want to burn it on Alfred transition when you can just promote Louie immediately without burning a Second Seal, and most people don't seem to prefer running that many calvary or armors in this game in general, so trying to raise Alfred to do that is a greater cost. Vs, say, reclassing into more physical fliers because a lot of people want a lot of fliers and there's only 2 natural physical fliers in the game (Chloe, who some people would reclass given her awful Str growth if it weren't for her being in base flier, and Rosado who comes late), or reclassing growth units because if you're going through the effort of reclassing without promoting, you might as well get a better profit out of it to prep for the harder late game.

That said, I do agree with the concept that just about any early character transitions well if you're willing to put in the reclass effort and carry them through the mid-game, and usually just have better stats in general than later pre-promotes. Characters that do well in their own class in this game from early is quite a bit more rare though. Really, Alfred is more a victim of class meta (people hating on cavs) more than anything, since he's fine for what he does, but people don't value cavs very highly for how many of them you get in the game naturally so might as well put into as little effort as possible into raising cavs in general (in a lot of people's minds).

[SteadyTokai]

To follow up on your response to me, on this new video, I didn't know that Maddening on it's first run had a fixed growth. That was lack of knowledge on my own end. And I can admit my first expectation is not valid. So for my lack of knowledge there, I accept my fault. As of your first video I started a Maddening run for myself, concurrent of my story run to make sure I don't go past my story run. And I can see how things change up and how quickly some units are easily replaced during the mid-game and need to make hard choices on who cut off resources off going into the later mid/early late game.

[arturo_cruz]

Alfred just suffers from the issue that second seals are better used on other characters like anna. I've had success switching him into armor knight > general > then switching to halbedier one he had enough defense and inhereted skills to tank.

[CSDragon]

6:00 if you want to make it not sound silly, just say "Ironman run" so it can be "Ironman runs"

[GODHAND]

Curious how you’d compare/value Alfred against a unit with higher investment cost but also greater potential to snowball (mage reclassed Anna for example). Obviously it’s tough to compare him outside of units that share his niche, but do you think it’s “better” (makes the game easier) on maddening to use someone like Alfred who’s competent in his role with low effort vs a tactical nuke character that requires much more effort and resource investment?

[underhillbiggies]

Good video, but you forgot to include Vander for the Sigurd ring. He may be a axe user and promoted unit, but Vander will also likes the ring.
I use the ring on Vander more often because i felt like he got better bases, more movement, and better build. Axes may be more heavier than lances, but his bases make up for it.
I'm curious to see which one do you think wants the ring? I'm playing on maddening with random growths and haven't used tonics or items(speedwing or dracoshield) on them.

[leoerus]

I keep seeing these videos but Alfred always seems to chug and be bad

Maybe if I throw DLC stuff on him like Hector/ starsphere? But anyone can be good with that

I wonr deny others experiences, I haven't had those same experiences though

[SonicFanTom]

Alfred killed final boss for me because the Tyrfing and that plus 5 res saved his life.

[mh]

Can you come back to Malifaux? Loved your content 👍!

[ernieboy]

You’re pouring a lot of resources into a unit and calling him good. That’s not how this works, I fear. Of course you’re going to use what the game gives you to succeed but to say unit A is better because I gave Draco, strength tonic, momentum, lance power and build than unit B is very tone deaf to try and defend your point. Very biased and emotional video lol