The Mortal Savant is an unusual class in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Specialising in both Swords and Reason magic, it aims to bridge the gap in a way, creating the Fire Emblem equivalent of a ‘Battlemage’ in the process. The class itself is positioned in a rather strange way by being the only foot locked option for a Sword user in the ‘Master’ class section. This often pushes people to keep their units in the Advanced section, choosing to remain either an Assassin or Swordsman, but what if you want to make use of this strange class? Three Houses does little to highlight just how good your sword users are at flinging spells, or vica versa, at least outside of their statistics, so who should you push in this direction and who will perform best?
5. Ingrid
Honestly, pushing Ingrid into a non-flying role seems anathema to her statistics and role – the Pegasus direction almost feels canon for her, to the point where we still feel a little strange recommending anything else. Still, there can be no denying that her speed growth – one of the highest in the game – means that she can turn her hand to pretty much anything and perform well, and her limited strength growth is likely to be masked as a Mortal Savant thanks to the inclusion of spells in her kit. If you’re fighting a quick opponent then they’re likely to have limited defences, meaning her physical attacks will do well, and against heavily armoured units her spells will do the job.
Mortal Savant Highlights
- Access to high crit Reason spells, Blizzard and Fimbulvetr.
- At Reason ‘C’ she will learn Thoron, a powerful Reason spell with increased range.
- At ‘A’ Swords she learns Hexblade, a magic based sword attack.
- High speed will keep her relevant no matter what class she takes on.
- Push her into magic roles early to maximise her Magic stat!
- Sword Boon allows her to grow quickly with the weapon.
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4. Lorenz
Next up is everyone’s favourite ladies man – aside from Sylvain that is – and he’s here to warm your heart in his new role as a mage-slash-swordsman. Of all characters in this list Lorenz might just be the most suited to the role of Mortal Savant, at least from a statistical perspective. His growths are incredibly well balanced, featuring 40% in both Magic and Strength, perfectly matching a class that aims to blur the lines between physical and magical damage.
Unlike our previous entrant, Lorenz leans more to the magical side of the equation. In fact, his physical side is going to be limited to class based skills and auto attacks. This is all balanced out by his tremendous magic potential, thanks in no small part to his excellent Reason skill selection, in which he’ll learn the excellent Ragnarok and the strongest Black Magic spell in the game, Agnea’s Arrow. If we’re completely honest Lorenz is much more suited to the Dark Knight class, but if you’re looking for a powerful Mortal Savant that can deal great damage, he’ll certainly do a good job.
Mortal Savant Highlights
- Equal Strength and Magic growths ensure he can compete in both damage types.
- Excellent Reason spells including Agnea’s Arrow, the strongest single target Black Magic spell.
- Boon in Reason allows him to level the skill very quickly.
- Boon in Lance means he’s ultimately very well suited to the Dark Knight class, but he still performs very well as a Mortal Savant.
3. Yuri
Just when you thought Three Houses had enough ‘lovable rogue’, Cindered Shadows came along and introduced Yuri, a character that practically personifies the phrase thanks to his quick wit and secreted good intentions. He’s another of the speed demon types in battle, similar in a sense to units like Felix and Petra, but one that is more suited to a hybrid role thanks to his stats and spell selection. This is clearly apparent given his class during the DLC, but rather than tilt him in favour of Faith magic, pivoting over to Reason can increase his offensive prowess even further.
His benefits in the Mortal Savant role are numerous, though not necessarily immediately apparent. First of all, his Magic isn’t much to write home about; it starts at 7 and only has a 35% growth, though this is more than made up for by his massive Speed growth, which is tied for the highest in the game at 65%. Things start to get a little better when noticing that he has a Boon in both Reason and Swords, and pushing him in this direction unlocks fantastic skills and spells, such as Excalibur from the Reason tree and Windsweep in Swords. All of this combines to make Yuri a fantastic ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of a unit, capable of performing in all types of situations.
Mortal Savant Highlights
- Middling Magic growth is balanced with a huge Speed growth, alongside a reasonable Strength.
- Great Sword skills in Windsweep and Finesse Blade.
- Good Reason spells, the highlight of which is the flyer-slaying Excalibur.
- Boons in both Reason and Swords.
- Weak in Flying and Axes, so you don’t feel like adding yet another Wyvern Lord to your troop.
2. Marianne
Who knew that such a shy and retreating exterior hid such a veritable powerhouse of magical damage. Marianne might be thrown into the healer role by dote of the developers, but if you take some time to explore a few different options she can be turned into a monster. She’s clearly going to develop from a magical perspective, and anyone that has spent any time with her stat sheet can see that she’s really not going to develop from a physical perspective, so just how does she become such a beast?
Mortal Savant Marianne is brought to life by two elements; Her Crest of The Beast and the Soulblade skill, which she learns at the lowly ‘C’ level in Swords. Firstly, the Soulblade skill deal damage based on your units Resistance stat, of which Marianne has the joint highest growth in the game, meaning she’ll push out great magic damage in melee range when needed. The Crest too helps in this regard, because it allows her to wield the Blutgang weapon, which deals magical damage at a very high might rating. These two things really set Marianne apart as a sword using, spell slinging Mortal Savant. She even learns fantastic Reason spells like Thoron and Fimbulvetr, what a beast!
Mortal Savant Highlights
- Learns Soulblade, a Sword skill that deals damage based on your Resistance stat.
- Her Crest allows her to use the Blutgang sword, which deals magic damage.
- Learns great Reason spells like Thoron, Cutting Gale and Fimbulvetr.
- Boon in swords will help her level up to qualification.
- Being near the front lines means her Personal skill can come in handy.
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1. Manuela
Don’t worry, we didn’t see this coming either. Certainly not after meeting Manuela during the early portions of Three Houses. Happily her rather interesting introduction belies quite the powerful unit, though it may take a little time to get to the good stuff. We’ll also admit that there are several great options for Manuela classes, and Mortal Savant will likely take the longest to see fantastic benefits from, but if you can stick with it and push through her Bane in Reason, all shall become clear.
We’ll start with the good stuff. Manuela has a very high Speed growth – 60% in fact, which is one of the highest in the game, ensuring that she’ll double units even on the highest difficulty level. In regards to Mortal Savant however, this is almost where the benefits end – Manuela has a weakness in Reason magic, meaning it’ll take a long time to level it up, and her defensive statistics are so poor that she might struggle to stay on the front lines for too long. It’s a good job then, that if you put in the hard hours with the Reason skill, it turns out that Manuela is one of only 3 characters that has access to the Bolting siege tome! Yes, she can make use of this spell with another class, but her value as a Mortal Savant is further buffed by learning the Hexblade skill at grade ‘C’ in Swords, a combat art that deals magical damage.
Sure, her magic is never going to win any awards and it’s an absolute pain levelling up her Reason skill, but once you get her there Manuela is the perfect Mortal Savant. She’s capable of dipping into the front lines, dealing damage as she buffs your team with her personal skill, and dipping back out to deal big damage from a huge distance with Bolting.
Mortal Savant Highlights
- Access to the Bolting siege tome in her Reason spell list.
- Learns Hexblade very early in the Sword skill tree.
- Massive speed growth means she can keep up with any opponent on any difficulty level.
- Siege tomes are fantastic and potentially even better in other classes, but Mortal Savant makes use of all of her talents, even her personal skill.
- Honestly, this class feels like it suits Manuela, despite the game working against the player in many regards.
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Categories: Fire Emblem: Three Houses