Game Breaker / Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Game Breakers in Fire Emblem: Three Houses include:

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Characters

• As per later-series tradition, all of the main characters are excellent:
  • Edelgard has no low growths, with her lowest being 30% Lck. She's got unusually decent Res growth with high Spd and Dex to boot, making her a bonafide Lightning Bruiser and she is one of two characters (the second is Lysithea mentioned below) who can learn the dark magic spell Luna so her magic attacks have very high damage potential if you go down that route. Her axe Aymr allows her to use the unique combat art Raging Storm, which is essentially Galeforce on command. As long as it hits, Edelgard will be able to act again. With its low durability cost, Edelgard can perform such nonsensical feats such as soloing entire maps by herself, up to and including her route's final boss in one turn◊. Her only real drawback is that her unique Emperor class, while it has its uses^note  Flickering Flower, a Combat Art exclusive to Emperor, is incredibly useful in Maddening difficulty as it is a melee Encloser combat art doesn't quite compare to the unique classes of the other two Lords. Now a Wyvern Lord Edelgard on the other hand... see the Fliers entry below.
  • Dimitri has exceptional growths, with 40% Def, 50% Spd and Dex, 55% HP, and a whopping 60% Str. His Mag and Res are low, but he doesn't need magic, and he can rely on his HP and Spd to just tank oncoming damage. His lance, Areadbhar, has the unique combat art Atrocity, which deals effective damage (3x damage) to all foes. He also packs the unique combination of Battalion Vantage and Battalion Wrath, which lets him attack first and with greatly increased Crit on the enemy phase if you set him up with a low health Battalion. Give him the Retribution Gambit for long-range counterattacks, and watch as Dimitri kills every last one of 'em.
  • Claude combines ranged archery backed by solid strength with unmatched mobility. Claude is the master of cheesy hit-and-run tactics with his unique, flying classes Wyvern Master and Barbarossa which pack Bowfaire, Canto, and high Movement. Fallen Star, unique to his bow, gives him a turn of perfect evasion on his next combat, if it hits, making it safe for him to still be in enemy range. He also comes with a boon in swords and a hidden talent in axes for easy access to the dreaded Wrath / Vantage combo, making it possible to turn him into an enemy phase Critical Hit Class.
  • Byleth has amazing stat growths that allow them to excel in whatever role you want to put them in. Their exclusive class, Enlightened One, is essentially a highly-upgraded Mortal Savant, granting Byleth a versatile set of spells and plenty of physical offensive options. Meanwhile, their exclusive Relic is a ranged sword with a decently high critical hit chance — and because it can be repaired simply by taking a rest, it isn't relegated into Too Awesome to Use territory.
• Other characters of note:
  • Lysithea. While her Glass Cannon nature is there, it's easily forgiven since she has a ridiculous magic growth and incredibly good set of spells. Dark Spikes is essentially an instant "kill cavalry" attack, making her one of the few units capable of taking on the Death Knight long before you're supposed to defeat him, which alone is great; however, her faith line makes it even better by giving her the bane of Demonic Beasts, Seraphim, as well as the ever-powerful series Game-Breaker Warp. Did we even mention she's the only character bar Edelgard who learns Luna? Done right, she can outright One-Hit Kill the Final Boss of Verdant Wind shown here. Her personal skill Mastermind only furthers this by allowing Lysithea to master classes at a faster rate than others, allowing some experimentation in other classes to add to her firepower. Lysithea's hypothetical weakness is that she's locked to 2-range spells. But this is not a weakness at all if you give her the Thyrsus staff, which gives her an extra 2 range, letting her engage foes more safely. She'll even get the boost from having the Crest of Gloucester for some free defensive skills. She's probably the most sought-after Mage in the game.
  • Felix is one of (if not the) best physical fighters of the non-Lord students. With his superb base growths of 55% in both Strength and Speed combined with his proficiencies in swords and brawling, Felix seldom has trouble one-rounding anything that isn't armored. His personal skill, Lone Wolf, gives him +5 to the amount of damage he deals when he isn't benefitting from a battalion, making his damage output virtually unrivaled in the early game. On top of that, his Crest of Fraldarius has a 40% chance of upping his weapon damage by 5, which makes it among the highest proc rates of any Crest in the game. While Felix's natural class path is Myrmidon—Mercenary—Swordmaster (in which he excels), his lack of banes in anything physical means he'd actually make a prime candidate for Brigand so he can snag Death Blow from it, ramping up his destructive power even higher. Even though his Budding Talent in Reason essentially tricks you into putting Felix into the sub-optimal Mortal Savant, he still performs excellently in it. As a War Master or Wyvern Lord? Felix's growths in Strength and Speed become 70% and 65% respectively, and he becomes able to utterly annihilate anything in his way with the skills that they both have. His only real weaknesses are his subpar Defense and Resistance making him a Glass Cannon, but—wait, what? His Hero's Relic is a shield that patches them up and even has a chance of halving damage? Never mind! And for one final kicker, Felix's recruitment criteria are Speed and swords from Byleth, making him basically a free unit if Byleth follows his natural talents.
  • After all of the trouble he put you through as the Death Knight, Jeritza does not disappoint when he joins you at the beginning of Crimson Flower. He has a Lightning Bruiser statline and excellent weapon proficiencies across the board right out of the gate, most notably an A+ in lances. He has the Mastermind skill in his skill pool, allowing him to master classes and weapons at an amazing rate. The strongest thing about him, however, is his unique personal class, the Death Knight. It's a mounted unit with the ability to use magic, and its mastery skill is Counterattack, which allows him to counter no matter how far away his enemy is attacking from. Jeritza is perfectly capable of smashing his way through anyone dumb enough to try to fight him, including spellcasters using Bolting who would otherwise be safe from retaliation.
  • Seteth has great stats and growths, but what truly earns him his spot in this category is the combination of him starting out as a Wyvern Rider, it being quite easy to make him a Wyvern Lord, learning Swift Strikes at A rank with spears, and being one of the two characters (the other being Flayn) that has access to two Relics, which means that he will be recovering 21 HP per turn.
  • If the player chooses the Black Eagles, Ferdinand, especially if the player gets railroaded onto or chooses the Silver Snow route instead of Crimson Flower. While a Jack of All Stats (and even a bit of a Glass Cannon), he compensates with his lack of skill weaknesses and personal skill, Confidence, which grants him +15 Hit and Avoid when at full health. While this ability seems bad on paper, it stacks with other evasion bonuses, which can literally make him impossible to hit. His lack of skill weaknesses combined with four starting proficencies (sword, lance, axe, riding) and budding talent (heavy armor) make him capable of reaching most non-magic classes without much difficulty, and his budding talent ability, Seal Speed, combines with his dodging ability to make him an excellent bait unit. His list of combat arts also includes Swift Strikes (see below), and his axe boon allows him easy access to Brigand and Death Blow. To top it all off, as he has a Crest of Cichol, he has access to two Sacred Weapons, granting him increased HP restoration, which keeps his personal skill active. On the Silver Snow route, he effectively gets the best of both worlds, as he gets the entire pre-timeskip minus the prologue to grow, but his main competition either leaves (Edelgard) or never joins (Jeritza), allowing him to shine.
  • For Blue Lions and Golden Deer players, Catherine can be one hell of a Disc-One Nuke, as she can be recruited as early as Chapter 4 with the only requirement being that Byleth is Level 15 (though Chapter 5 or 6 is more feasible unless you do a fair bit of grinding). She comes in as a Swordmaster, an Advanced-tier class when the students will likely only just be getting to their Intermediate classes, has fantastic bases which mean she can one-round almost any enemy at the point where she joins, and has a very similar growth spread to Felix with great Strength and Speed growths. She also comes with Thunderbrand, a Hero's Relic which is simply overpowered for the early game — not only does it have a Brave effect, but her Crest of Charon allows her to use its unique Combat Art, Foudroyant Strike, which will destroy any armoured or dragon foes effortlessly. The only thing to really hold Catherine back is her poor skill proficiencies (her only boons are Swords and Brawling), making it hard to get her into a Master class without grinding her proficiencies up, but she'll do fine as a Swordmaster anyway. She's not nearly as broken for Black Eagle players, as she can only be recruited in Chapter 12 if the player sided against Edelgard in Chapter 11, but she still comes in with high bases and can be used immediately with no investment needed.
  • Leonie, especially if the player starts with the Golden Deer. Leonie has comparable offensive growths to Claude and some of the highest base stats of the students, especially once her personal skill, Rivalry (+2 Atk and +2 Def/Res in-combat when adjacent to male ally) is taken into account. She starts with Tempest Lance for immediate damage output, and lategame gets Point-Blank Volley, which allows her to double anything combined with her high Speed for slow enemies. Even if recruited out of house, Leonie grows well in all stats save Magic and Resistance (the former she doesn't need, and the latter is hardly unique), and is fairly easy to recruit, due to at least one lance tutor (Seteth, Gilbert, Shamir, Jeritza) always being available on top of lances being a solid weapon in Three Houses, in addition to her Strength requirement being easy to reach. ^note Leonie wants 15 Str, and Byleth starts with 13, meaning just two points are needed. She doesn't even have to play catch-up as hard in skills, as she can already train riding as a Cavalier and naturally trains lances and bows, meaning she only truly needs to focus on riding and authority.

Abilities and Combat Arts

• Death Blow is gained shockingly early off mastering Brigand, but is one of the best skills in the entire game. +6 Strength on attack makes a lot of physical bruisers scarier, and combined with a Brave weapon, a Gauntlet, or a skill that forces a double attack? That's +12 damage, a huge gain for a single ability slot. Nothing else comes close to that kind of efficiency.
• What Death Blow is to physical fighters, Fiendish Blow is to magic-users, granting them +6 Magic when attacking, and it can also be gained early on by mastering Mage. Once your Mage of choice gets this, they'll be able to one-shot a whole lot of enemies for a long time — and if it's on somebody with access to siege magic, like Dorothea with Meteor or Constance with Bolting, they can do it from halfway across the map.
• Swift Strikes is probably the best lance combat art, changing your Silver Lances / Killer Lances / Horseslayers / etc. into better Brave Lances that don't require rare ore to maintain. Sylvain, Ferdinand, and Seteth all learn this one, and all three have boons in axes that allow them to grab Death Blow for even more insane damage and Crests that allow them to safely wield Heroes' Relics.
• Related is Point-Blank Volley, learned by Leonie and Cyril. Like Swift Strikes, this turns any bow into a better Brave Bow that can be maintained by common material. Notably, Blue Lions and Golden Deer players can recruit Cyril as early as Chapter 5, and with some luck and focus, can get this combat art in time for the mission, as Cyril learns it at C+ Bows.
• The humble Curved Shot is learned exceptionally early, but is relevant throughout the entire game. Bows are balanced by eating large accuracy penalties at long range; Curved Shot nicely extends your range by an additional space while offering +30 Hit. Curved Shot lets you safely chip away at enemies outside of counterattack range and ensure the shot actually hits. This is especially helpful on Maddening, as this is the only safe way to attack enemy Mages without risking a retaliatory hit.
• It's possible to acquire the Lance of Ruin at the end of Chapter 5 if Sylvain is in your house, and with his Crest of Gautier, he can unlock its unique Combat Art, Ruined Sky. This is an amazing Disc-One Nuke for that point in the game, as not only is it a very powerful attack that boosts Sylvain's Avoid in combat, but it's effective against flying and dragon enemies — which can be a huge annoyance in the early game due to their great movement and generally high Speed, but Ruined Sky can eliminate them with no trouble. The only drawback is that it consumes four uses of the Lance of Ruin, and it's quite expensive to repair. As an added bonus, Sylvain can use Knightkneeler to become a very effective Death Knight check if you don't have Lysithea.
• While only learned by Bernadetta and the route-locked Claude, the Encloser bow combat art can be a massive lifesaver, especially on Maddening. This ability reduces the movement of a hit enemy to zero for a turn, effectively "killing" them for that turn. This can save a squishy unit, or even immobilize a Demonic Spider. Because of it being a combat art, this can be used so long as Bernadetta/Claude has spare weapon durability, and it saves gambits for groups of enemies instead of wasting a charge on a lone enemy.
• Tempest Lance is learned early at D Lances, and gives +8 Atk and +10 Hit. This effectively doubles damage output early in the game, and is essential for early-game Maddening. Ferdinand, Dimitri, Sylvain, Ingrid, Lorenz, and Leonie all come with this combat art right out of the box, and Bernadetta, Dedue, and Hilda can learn this as early as Chapter 2.

Gambits

• Stride boosts the Movement of all your allies in range by +5 for one turn, and with how the maps work, the mobility it provides is massive, allowing your units to cover large areas and secure objectives much faster. The best part is that it's available in an E-ranked Battalion, meaning that it's available as soon as you unlock Battalions for hire. Even better, if you use it on Edelgard and she uses Raging Storm, the movement boost will still apply on her Extra Turn, enabling her to fly around the map if you have her in a Flying class.
• Impregnable Wall is another low-level Gambit that can break the game in half with proper usage. It inflicts a status effect on three allies in front of you that reduces any damage (even from boss units and monsters) they give or receive to 1 HP, basically turning them into undefeatable tanks for one turn. That, combined with the AI's inability to work around the buff, opens countless possibilities for abusing the game — from luring in more problematic enemy units to gang up on them on a safe territory, to sending the "walled" unit to distract all the strong enemies and clear the path for attacking their leader in one swoop. Wall comes with 5 usages per battalion, unlike the usual 1-2. The only drawback is that the caster can still be attacked and suffer full damage, but throw it on a mounted unit or a flyer and have them Canto-retreat after using it, problem solved. Good luck baiting Maddening bosses without using this! Even allows for some hilarious cheese strats, like breaking the Death Knight's weapon by smashing him with Wall'd characters repeatedly.
• Dance of the Goddess, while locked to Blue Lion Dancers and Opera Company Volunteer Battalions, both of which are only accessible in the late game and not availble in Crimson Flower outside of New Game Plus^note The former is obviously locked to Azure Moon, and the the latter is only obtainable by bringing Dorothea and/or Manuela into the siege of Enbarr, which only happens on non-Crimson Flower routes, is an area of effect dance that refreshes four units at once, including the dancer. This makes possible absurd one-turn clears of the later maps, especially when combined with the earlier-mentioned Stride.

Classes

• Flyers are so powerful that some hardcore fans have taken to calling the game "Wyvern(/Flyer) Emblem". Flying units have the same Mov as mounted units, but have the benefit of ignoring terrain. The lack of weapon restrictions means that, once certified, any unit can use any non-gauntlet weapon, allowing for insane hit-and-run abilities with bows. The ability to dismount is just icing on the cake, allowing enemy archers to be baited safely without the Aurora Shield. As an added bonus, upgrading a unit's flying ability gives them Alert Stance (and later Alert Stance+), which in exchange for simply waiting on player phase, turns all but the slowest units into dodge tanks. The Wyvern Lord class in particular has the second highest Str class mod, highest Str growth, second highest Spd class mod and growth (and huge base of 20), second highest Def (losing only to Great Knight), a random evade boost, and huge Mov. It's essentially the Lightning Bruiser class, considered to be the best Master class in the game by a wide margin, and the second-best class in the game after Claude's exclusive Barbarossa. Pegasus Knight / Falcon Knight are perfectly fine too for female characters who prefer lances and want somewhat better Resistance, if not quite at Wyvern Lord level. Really, the only downside to fliers is that your choice of battalions becomes very restrictive, only being able to equip flier battalions, but given how absurdly good fliers are anyway, plus with most flier battalions being amazing too, it's still very much worth the investment.
  • Horse-mounted units, while not quite as broken as fliers, are generally considered extremely solid. They still have high movement, and unlike fliers, some mounted classes can use magic such as Dark & Holy Knight. For physically oriented characters, Paladin offer solid hit-and-run options with Canto.
• Bow Knight is even more broken with the right skills and equipment. Not only are they a mounted unit with Canto (which would make them strong in their own right), their class skill is Bowrange +2. It's just as broken as it sounds. Combine that with a Longbow (which has +1 to range) and the bow's various combat arts, and they can hit anything in a 7-space range. Then you can combine that with the movement speed inherent to all cavalry classes and various items to get a whopping 11 movement range (one for an A+ in Riding, one when a March Ring is equipped, and one from the Shoes of the Wind consummable item), giving them an effective range of 18 spaces. Even their poor growth rates don't hold them back, since it's unlikely your units will have the necessary level to promote into the class until the end of the game.
• Dancer, as usual, is excellent. Aside from the usual Dance goodness, Dancers can use magic, letting them utility heal and smash armor knights at the very least. Their physical stats are also good enough to provide combat utility in a pinch.
• War Master is agreed to be one of the best foot-locked classes in the game, not because of Axefaire or Fistfaire, but because of its innate Critical +20 skill, which turns anyone into critical-hitting monsters. The War Master class also has growths on par with Wyvern Lords, which means that you can expect some characters' Speed and Strength stat to be boosted up a lot. The cherry on the top, however, is that the War Master's mastered skill is Quick Riposte, which essentially allows a unit to perform follow-up attacks regardless of their attack speed, and never allows them to get doubled unless if it's by Brave weapons or Gauntlets, which essentially eliminates the weaknesses of both Raphael and Dedue. The only downside to that skill is that it will most likely be obtained late, but given a Knowledge Gem, it will be worth it as an Infinity +1 Sword.
• The Gremory is one of the best infantry classes for female mages. Gaining doubled uses on all their spells, whether it's attack, healing, or support magic, is already amazing from the get go, and massively improves their longevity in longer maps, as well as gaining improved movement from being a Master class. It's also very easy to promote into, only requiring both Reason and Faith at A, which are the two ranks you'll most likely be investing into anyway for your mage girls. Combine this class with incredibly powerful mages like Lysithea and Mercedes, and you have yourself a goddess of magic.

Other

• New Game Plus lets you buy crests for characters, buy back previously achieved aptitude levels, support levels, and professor levels, while maintaining statue bonus ranks. Makes even Maddening a lot more tolerable on a replay. Each time you start a New Game+, you also gain 10,000 Renown plus however many you got for starting the previous file (e.g., replay 3 gets you 20,000 Renown), in addition to however much you had unused when you finished the previous playthrough. This means that by your fourth or fifth playthrough, you can start with a substantial boost in skill levels, support ranks, mastered class abilities, and so on.
  • Related to this option, buying the DLC allows you to reclaim an altar in Abyss where you can exchange renown for high-quality items, and vice versa. The real broken part is that there's an unintended overflow glitch: if the player has 65,535+ renown - only gained after at least a few New Game Pluses - spending anything over that amount will result in a drastically low cost (items worth 65,636 renown will only cost 1 renown, 65,637 will cost 2, and so on). Combined with the specific quest merchants, you can buy a large amount of Silver weapons from the altar^note The closest numbers to overflow are 82 Silver Swords/Lances/Bows, 73 Silver Axes, and 94 Silver Gauntlets and sell them for a good hundred thousands of gold, then with that money repeatedly buy the max amount of all the high-rarity seeds (the highest ones exchanging at 15 renown per seed), getting back nearly ten times the renown spent earlier when exchanging the seeds back to the altar.
• The hacked weapon Viskam is a sword that acts like a Levin Sword, but has an absurd range, allowing you to strike random targets and either one-shot them or weaken them significantly. Plus, the requirements to wield one require you to have only the most basic of Sword proficiency (E). To top it off, you can get it from online travelers for 1 gold.
• Expansion Pass:
  • The item gained from clearing Cindered Shadows, the Chalice of Beginnings, is practically a Infinity -1 Sword. Granting Counterattack to the unit that's holding it would be very good on its own; what makes it amazing is that it also nullifies every weakness an Armored, Mounted, or Flying unit would have. This means that various units, such as the aforementioned Wyvern Lords, can go in blazing without fear of any attempt to exploit their weaknesses. And if you put it on the aforementioned Game Breaking units such as Dimitri? The game wouldn't be broken, it instantly blows it up into pieces! Granted, this does require you to clear Cindered Shadows and purchase the expansion pass, but it's so good that it's worth your money.
  • Yuri keeps up the game's tradition of overpowered house leaders with flying colours — while he might not have the absurd combat potential of Edelgard, Claude, or Dimitri, he makes up for it with sheer utility. He has the highest Speed growth in the game, which easily compensates for his relatively low Strength and defences by making him a ridiculous dodge tank, and he even has a solid spell list to boot. Given that his personal ability Honorable Spirit boosts his attack when fighting without any allies nearby, he can go off on his own and handle himself just fine. In his default Trickster class, he gets access to Foul Play, a combat art which allows him to swap positions with any ally within five spaces, making him invaluable for getting units to safety or pulling off tricky manoeuvres. Then there's his Hero's Relic, the Fetters of Dromi, which grants him +1 movement, Canto, Pavise, and Aegis! Taken as a whole, the possibilities for cheesy hit-and-run strategies, especially working alongside a unit or two with Warp, are endless. The Fetters of Dromi mixed with his stats, natural boon towards swords, and his personal ability also arguably allows Yuri to be the best potential Dancer in the game.
  • With New Game Plus effectively allowing you to equip any crest to any character, the Fetters of Dromi quickly moves up to being one of the best relics in the game. With its ability to give a non-Calvary or Flying unit Canto, while also boosting their defenses. Pairing this item with the designated dancer can further boost their already ridiculous utility, but you are also able to experiment with this for other classes as well.
  • Out of the four Special classes, Dark Flier gets the lion's share out of them. Why? Because it's essentially a Falcon Knight class with magic. That's as broken as it sounds. The movement range for Dark Flier is high enough that it surpasses the Black/Dark Magic Range +1 of the Valkyrie class. Furthermore, its usage of Canto allows for various hit-and-run tactics against the enemy. Finally, even though it doesn't offer any growths in magic, most of the magically-orientated characters have a good magic stat and growth anyway, and the 20% HP growth and 10% Speed growth are nice bonuses. The only downsides are that it's exclusive to females, and only a few magically-orientated females can smoothly get into the class^note Manuela has proficiencies and growths suited for the Trickster class; Dorothea has a bane in flying; Hilda (who does learns Bolting) is a Magically Inept Fighter; Marianne, though she does have a proficiency for flying, is more suited towards the Holy Knight and/or Gremory classes; and Flayn and Mercedes have spell lists more suited for Gremories.
  • Constance is arguably the best mage in the game, behind only Lysithea and even then surpassing her in some aspects, mainly due to her spell lists that not only contain many high damaging ones but also her access to the Bolting spell which allows any player to just snipe any pesky Assassins or Archers that infest the mid to late game stages, combine that with her amazing magic growth, access to useful spells like Rescue, her natural class being the very broken Dark Flier as well as a possible combo of giving her the Crest of Gloucester to further increase her magical damage output as well as allowing her to use Lorenz's Relic and you essentially have a magical nuke that snipes most enemies from a distance before being able to decimate them on close quarters.