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E+	D	E+	E	E	E	E	E	E	D	E

Learns Seal Speed upon completing budding talent.

Ferdinand is a very flexible unit who boasts a multitude of useful boons, no banes, and generally good growth rates. This allows him to perform well in many physical classes, particularly Paladin and Wyvern Lord.

Ferdinand notably gains access to the Swift Strikes combat art upon reaching Lance A, which should be doable before the timeskip given his boon. This makes Ferdinand a very potent player phase unit. To go along with this, he should master Brigand for Death Blow. If Ferdinand chooses to class as a Paladin, he will have both Death Blow and Lancefaire, effectively making his Swift Strikes to do 22 extra damage. Ferdinand's accuracy tends to be somewhat shakey, especially against dodgey enemies like Assassins and Falcon Knights, so it's worth it to class him into Archer at some point and pick up Hit +20. He will also get Dexterity +4 after investing enough into Riding, which can also help him to hit reliably.

Another good option is to sacrifice Lancefaire and go for the Wyvern Lord class instead. In exchange, he will get increased mobility and better growth rates, although the slight growth rates improvement ends up being fairly inconsequential later on in the game. The 10% Speed penalty from Paladin is more or less mitigated thanks to Swift Strikes. Another advantage to going the flier route is that Ferdinand will eventually get to learn Alert Stance+. This coupled with his personal ability Confidence gives him some of the best dodgetank potential in the game, assuming he is able to stay at full health. Ferdinand really appreciates a healer teammate with Physic, who can top him off in case he takes an unlucky hit. As a flier, Ferdinand will be a flexible dual phase unit, who can deal good damage on the player phase with his combat arts and dodgetank on the enemy phase.

Ferdinand is somewhat prone to having a rough early game, since his bases are very terrible. If he doesn't get good level ups in Strength and Speed early on he will have a lot of trouble fighting enemies for the first few missions. At the very least, he starts with access to Tempest Lance, so he will be able to do enough damage to take kills with a Steel Lance. Once he makes it into intermediate and advanced classes, his stats become a lot more consistent.

Although he has a budding talent in Heavy Armor, it is inadvisable to invest too much into it. Ferdinand is much better off as a Paladin than a Great Knight, and he definitely doesn't want to become a Fortress Knight and be stuck on 4 movement all game. He does get Seal Speed for completing the budding talent, which can be situationally useful (stealing the Lords' Evasion Rings in Chapter 7, and against monsters). Raising Heavy Armor to D also allows Ferdinand to certify as an Armored Knight, which will boost his Defense up to 12.

Ferdinand learns a few decent spells, namely Thoron at Reason C, and Ward at Faith C. He's usually better off just spamming Swift Strikes on the player phase, but he will perform decently when classed as a Dark Knight (although he will lose the Lancefaire damage when doing so). He also learns Rally Dexterity very early on at Authority D.

Overall, Ferdinand is a very good unit who excels at running around the map and spamming Swift Strikes. With good growths and excellent boons, he will quickly get over his slow start and become one of the best fighters on your team.

Ferdinand can build support with the following characters.

Ferdinand will automatically be recruited if the player selects to teach the Black Eagles house.

Ferdinand can be recruited once Byleth has achieved a stat of Dex 10 and Skill Rank C in HeavyArmor. These requirements can be lowered if Byleth builds support with Ferdinand, as shown in the below table.