Mercedes Fire Emblem Guide

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Ethan's first contact with the FE saga was with a Super Nintendo emulator that his father had installed on his PC. The ROM in question? Genealogy of a Holy War. After that, He remembers the first Fire Emblem game he managed to complete was The blazing Blade on a GBA emulator for android and his favorite character of the whole saga is Seliph. Outside of FE, Ethan is a keen indie gaming fan and loves reviewing games when he gets the chance!

Important information to know about Mercedes

Health: 25
Strength: 6
Magic: 10
Dexterity: 6
Speed: 8
Luck: 5
Defense: 5
Resistance: 9
Charm: 8
Movement:5
Special Ability: Live to serve, Reason Lv 1 and Faith Level 1
Combat arts: None
Crest: Lamine
Magic: Heal
Weapon: E-sword (penalization), E-lance (penalization), E-Axe (penalization), E-bow (Budding talent), E-Gauntlets (penalization), E+Reason (bonus start), D-faith (bonus start), E-Authority, E-Armored unit (penalization), E-Horseback unit, E-Flying unit
Equipped items: Training bow and Vulnerary.
Class: Noble

Despite being equipped with a training bow, Mercedes is not a character for physical confrontation. She is not even an indirect physical confrontation character. And I think you can tell that from her stats and special abilities. Even though she has a bow twinning ability, the reality is that she is a character that relies entirely on faith and reason.

What does this mean? It means that she is a character that can become a great mage. We can see this because her primary base stat behind the HP is magic and her personal skill: Live to serve.

Live to serve is one of the most broken skills for healing magic, especially in the early stage of the game. With this skill, if you know how to exploit it properly, you can win most of the fights without using many healing items. It is one of the leading value points of Mercedes. Also, we can see this special characterization of Mercedes in her magic ability: Heal. Mercedes is a good starting point for a white mage.

And as far as her personality is concerned: Mercedes is quite a lovable character. Yes, to a certain extent, she is a somewhat cliché and typical character and flat. But she’s not annoying under any kind of characteristic. She’s the cliché of the responsible and dedicated girl who knows many things and cares too much about others.

I think that’s why I found her to be an extremely lovable character. It’s a character that I find exciting and cute equally. Besides that, the story of her house is quite interesting. She’s by no means one of the main characters in the game, and clearly, there are characters that you might find more interesting. But at least I found him extremely likable.

Mercedes Background

Mercedes’ past is one of the saddest in history. Mercedes was born into a noble family of the Adrestian Empire. And although this may seem at first glance to be an advantage, the reality is that it was not at all—quite the opposite. Mercedes belonged to the house of Martritz, which was abolished in the year of Mercedes’ birth. On top of that, his father died that same year.

Her mother remarried Baron Bartels of the house of Bartels, and at first glance, the reality is that Mercedes’ mother and she seemed to be happy. However, that was not real, and things quickly began to go awry. Mercedes’ mother had a son with Baron Bartels named Emile.

Emile was born with a crest. Because of this, Baron Bartels began to mistreat them because he only wanted a son with a crest. With that goal accomplished, he no longer saw any value in Mercedes or her mother.

At 10, Mercedes and her mother ran away from Baron Bartels’ house to a church south of the empire. Her mother would remarry a merchant, and Mercedes grew up as a commoner. Before attending the Officers Academy, she attended the Royal School of Sorcery, where she met and befriended Annette.

Lamine House Background

The Lamine house is a direct descendant of the hero of the legend: Lamine. Lamine fought on the side of the Adrestian Empire, and that is precisely why his house was founded there. Throughout the generations and due to a series of marriages, the Lamine house became the Martritz house.

However, with the death of Mercedes’ father, the Martritz house is abolished. With that in mind, today, there are two direct bloodlines of the legendary hero and, therefore, two aspirants to continue the legacy of the Martritz house:

On the one hand, Mercedes would continue the house’s legacy through a son or daughter, although she would have to take her husband’s surname, so House Martritz will still be lost.
The second bloodline is Emile, son of Baron Bartels; however, because of his father’s surname, he isn’t a Martritz.

With that in mind, we can say that currently, the heritage of Lumine is in house Bartel’s. Still, the original legacy of Lamine is in Mercedes’s bloodline.

Why Should I Care about Mercedes?

Every team needs a unit that is in charge of healing. It’s something you can’t deny under any circumstances. In every RPG, a class fulfills the function of being a white mage: a mage with mostly healing magics and attacks mainly with intelligence.

And that is precisely the role Mercedes can fulfill within your team if you manage to play with her in the right way. She is mainly proficient in these skills. She is a pretty good alternative when it comes to healing skills.

Mercedes can quickly become a priest because she has the basic build to be one. She has a complete inability to use physical weapons, even having disadvantages in absolutely all melee weapons and no ability to use either a horse or a pegasus.

The only exception is her budding ability with the bow. This budding ability exists because she is a close friend of Annette. They share their ability with the bow, which is quite helpful for Annette but not so much for Mercedes.

The main thing is to focus on its advantage classes: faith and reason. Adding to its magic and resistance, this allows you to create a build based on white magic that is quite powerful and without any problems. It is a build focused on fast healing and resisting attacks. Mercedes has an additional advantage over the other possible mages in the game. She has a natural ability with the healing element because of her ability: Live to serve.

With life to serve, Mercedes allows you to resist direct attacks to heal the rest of your team members. As you scale the healing, Mercedes will be able to recover even more life each time she heals other team members.

An exciting thing about Mercedes is that because of the crest of Lamine, and she is the only character that can use the full effect of the Thatlum Bow. This bow gives her an accelerated regeneration when equipped with this bow.

I don’t recommend making Mercedes a direct attack unit because even though it has a reasonably high might as a base, Mercedes has too slow a growth in its overall attack. Any other archer unit is superior in that regard. Even though a good alternative is to use magic bows with Mercedes, which requires her to achieve a B rank in bows, which can be slow, still, if she uses Advanced Magic Bow, she will have a different range, turning her into a sniper.

My general recommendation is to leave mercs as a unit in the magic line, like a monk. This is because it has a lot of reason spells, perfect to go to the mage class. If that doesn’t convince you, it’s best to leave her in the priest line because it is the most natural class.

Mercedes is the best healer in the game, having the opportunity to access twice as much faith magic, having the ability to self-heal thanks to the renewal ability, and ignoring terrain damage thanks to terrain resistance.

Finally, regarding her mastery, the idea is to turn her into a Gremory or a holy knight since they are the two classes that best use her faith-based magic and reasoning magic without neglecting defense. I prefer the Gremory mastery, the easiest to achieve and the one that provides an excellent defense.

Regarding Her affinities, the possible ones are:

Byleth
Dimitri
Ferdinand
Dedue
Felix
Ashe
Sylvain
Annettef
Ingrid
Lorenz
Ignatz
Hilda
Alois
Cyril
Jeritza
Constance

The best one out of them is the Annette one.

How to Transform Mercedes Into the Best Gremory?

You just have to play with Mercedes constantly and focus on her faith and reason. This is the only thing you have to do to get the best version of her to build because they are the two options that give you the most access to the pool of spells related to healing.

Besides that, you have to focus on improving Mercedes’ defense to prevent her from dying quickly. This is fundamental in Mercedes’ Gremory build. If you don’t take it into account, she may be too weak at a general level.

On the other hand, an unorthodox option gives her proficiency in archery. This is to get the close counter ability. This basically can perform counterattacks regardless of the distance. Also, having this ability is a good alternative if you want to build Mercedes as a Holy Knight.

The abilities of Mercedes as a Gremory

Mercedes will start with:

Live to serve: When healing an ally, the user recovers an amount of HP.
Reason Lv 1: Improves the users Hit Rate, Evade, Critical Rate, and Critical avoid when equipped with faith magic.
Faith Lv 1: Improves the users Hit Rate, Evade, Critical Rate, and Critical avoid when equipped with reason magic.

After finishing her training, she can gain access to:

Reason Lv 5: Improves the users Hit Rate, Evade, Critical Rate, and Critical avoid when equipped with faith magic.
Faith LV 5: Improves the users Hit Rate, Evade, Critical Rate, and Critical avoid when equipped with reason magic.
Black Magic Uses Times two: Multiplies the number of uses for Black magic by 2
White Magic Uses Times two: Multiplies the number of uses for White magic by 2
Dark Magic uses Times two: Multiplies the number of uses for Dark magic by 2
Defiant Magic: At start of turn, if unit’s HP ≤ 25%, grants Magic +8.

The best way to Play Mercedes Gremory?

Health: 64
Strength: 37
Magic: 72
Dexterity: 62
Speed: 58
Luck: 54
Defense: 44
Resistance: 65
Charm: 58
Movement: 7
Special Ability: Live to serve, Reason Lv 5, Faith Lv 5, Black Magic Uses Times two, White Magic Uses Times two, Dark Magic Uses Times two, Defiant Magic
Combat arts: None
Crest: Lamine
Magic: Abraxas, Ragnarok, Heal, And Fortify
Weapon: E-sword (penalization), E-lance (penalization), E-Axe (penalization), E-bow (Budding talent), E-Gauntlets (penalization), A Reason (bonus start), A faith (bonus start), E-Authority, E-Armored unit (penalization), E-Horseback unit, E-Flying unit
Equipped items: Rafail gem and Vulnerary.
Class: Gremory

As you can see, the main point of this build is simply to get the most out of the magic advantages that Mercedes has as a Gremory. This is mostly because is one of the few female classes that have access to said class.

What Happens if I don’t recruit Mercedes into my house?

Mercedes can be recruited directly during the Azure Moon route. In case you do not select this route, you have two options:

Suppose you don’t recruit her during the monastery phase. In that case, she will appear as a post-time skip merchant guild member in the crimson flower route, but if you recruit her, she will be part of the Edelgard’s strike force. If not, she will appear as an enemy in the Tailtean Plains with a few soldiers to support Dimitri and repel the Adrestian Empire’s attack.
In the verdant wind route, she appears alongside Dimitri and her other allies at Gronder Field, where she may be killed. However, you can recruit her again after the battle phase if you recruited her during the monastery phase.

How to Defeat Mercedes as a Boss

You can face Mercedes at various specific moments in the game. But don’t worry, at least for the first couple of matches, she won’t give you much trouble. In the first battle during chapter one, her class will be commoner, which makes her an easy choice to eliminate. In her second battle during chapter seven, her class will be priest, which doesn’t give her so many direct attacks, being a support class basically. Just like the first time, you only have to attack her directly.

You will face her a third time in the Verdant Wind route as a bishop. On this occasion, she is also relatively easy to defeat. It is also a support class. Its main advantage is that she has terrain resistance and miracle ability. If you don’t attack her properly, she can resist quite a few turns, which, combined with her live-to-serve ability, can cost you the battle.

The last time you fight Mercedes is in the Tailtlean Plains. This time she’s an adamant enemy. Although she is still a Bishop and therefore remains to some extent a supporting character, her use of fortifying can end up lengthening the battle too much. The ideal is to attack her up close since she doesn’t have a close counter and attack her with dark magic since she doesn’t have a defense ability against it.

The reality is that Mercedes is not such a complicated boss, precisely because of its role as a supporting enemy. Its main risk is that it can end up lengthening the battle unnecessarily, which is really a problem of being too tedious, and not a problem of being complicated or difficult.

Gift List, Share a Meal and Lost Item

The gift list for Mercedes is:

Tasty Baked Treat Favorite one star
Gemstone Beads Favorite one star
Owl Feather Favorite Three stars
Goddess Statuette Favorite Three stars
Armored Bear Stuffy Favorite Three stars
Lavender Favorite Three stars
Whetstone Dislike Two stars
Ancient Coin Dislike Three stars
Riding Boots Dislike Three stars

The share a meal list is:

Grilled Herring Favorite
Saghert and Cream Favorite
Fish and Bean Soup Favorite
Vegetable Pasta Salad Favorite
Onion Gratin Soup Favorite
Sweet Bun Trio Favorite
Fruit and Herring Tart Favorite
Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce Favorite
Peach Sorbet Favorite
Two-Fish Sauté Favorite
Beast Meat Teppanyaki Dislike
Sautéed Jerky Dislike
Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew Dislike
Sweet and Salty Whitefish Sauté Dislike
Garreg Mach Meat Pie Dislike
Fish Sandwich Dislike
Pickled Rabbit Skewers Dislike
Super-Spicy Fish Dango Dislike
Daphnel Stew Dislike
Gronder Meat Skewers Dislike
Sautéed Pheasant and Eggs Dislike
Gautier Cheese Gratin Dislike

And her lost items are:

Book of Ghost Stories
Fruit Preserves
How to Bake Sweets

The best way to level up Mercedes

Just play with her. You can use skirmishes and hours of classes to increase Mercedes’s efficiency with her faith and reason. However, being a character closer to the magical part, there is no problem in leveling up weaknesses (for example the use of the bow).

Likewise, if you are afraid of losing her, the best strategy is to always use dual strikes. This can be especially useful during the first part of the game, that is when she is very weak. When she gains access to dark and black magic, she can start to attack on her own.

FAQs

Question: What is the Best Class for Mercedes?

Answer: The best class for Mercedes is Gremory. However, some alternatives can be Holy Knight, Bishop, Priest, or even monk. Don’t try to make her a class that uses melee weapons.

Question: Which House does Mercedes Belong to?

Answer: To the Blue Lion’s house, but you can add her to any house if you get enough magic and bow proficiency.

Question: Does Mercedes has a canon husband?

Answer: No. However, she can get married to almost every male unit in the blue lion house. Personally, I choose Dimitri

Final Thoughts on Mercedes

Mercedes is undoubtedly one of the best units in terms of healing. At first glance, it seems that it is a unit focused on the bow, but despite being able to go that route, the ideal is to take its concentration on magic and get the most out of it. It is a good option if you want to build a build based on healing.

One of my favorite characters in the game for its versatility and a story that will get you hooked on it without being the most complicated. It is an ideal option to start playing and one of the best units in the house of the blue lions.

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