Marianne

Marianne is the main healer for the Golden Deer house, but differs from other healers like Mercedes, Linhardt or Flayn in that her Faith spell list is more offensively oriented, having access to Aura and Silence, but she still does her healing job well thanks to Physic. Her budding talent in Lances and strength in Riding means that she can become an ideal Holy Knight, and her talent in swords means she can do quite well with a Levin Sword or Blutgang (since they scale off her Magic stat). However, her low strength means that she should only use magic weapons or spells (or Soulblade or Frozen Lance, which allows her to use her Magic and can make her potent against Axe and Sword users if she has Axebreaker or Swordbreaker respectively), as she will otherwise deal poor damage. Much like other mages, her physical bulk is poor, and her speed is only average, so she will tend to be taken out easily if a fast enemy can reach her, especially Falcon Knights. Her personal skill makes her good to pair up with cavalry or flying characters, giving Marianne some self-sustain as long as she sticks close to them, but it's otherwise very niche.

Another problem with Marianne is that her array of offensive spells tend to be inaccurate (besides Cutting Gale), which is compounded by her only having average dexterity growths. However, she tends to have a high critical hit chance with her spells, so she can dish out some powerful attacks if she lands her shots. Marianne can overcome her accuracy issues if she masters the Valkyrie class and acquires Uncanny Blow, masters Archer for Hit +20, or by equipping a battalion that improves her accuracy.

Marianne has overall a wide variety of skill strengths that allow her to feasibly fit into a grand total of five master classes, more than nearly any other character. This includes the aforementioned Holy Knight, her most natural promotion, but she can also be a Mortal Savant, Dark Knight, Falcon Knight, or Gremory with little issue. Dark Knight is overall better than Holy Knight when one is using her more offensively; it comes with no decrease in healing ability and greatly increased damage with her Reason attacks. By comparison, Holy Knight's White Tomefaire only buffs the feeble Nosferatu and Aura, which, although a very powerful tome, is limited to just three uses. However, Holy Knights have a higher Res class bonus and growth, so if her Mag growth has either been good or bad enough that the Black Tomefaire no longer makes the difference between one and two round kills, she is still best a Holy Knight. As for the rest, Falcon Knight is generally inferior to Dark Flier if one owns the Expansion Pass. Mortal Savant is interesting but it lacks Canto and has only 6 Mov compared to Holy, Dark and Falcon Knight, while also having a debilitating -10 Speed growth, although it does allow for very high damage with Blutgang. Finally, Gremory is similarly handicapped by low movement, and this time does not have the benefit of Swordfaire, but its bonuses of doubled uses and +5 magic (among other bonuses) are very powerful due to her invaluable spells like Thoron, Fimbulvetr and Aura having low uses. Thoron can become her main attack as a Gremory, allowing her to outrange Snipers with Black Magic Range +1 equipped.

Marianne's above-average Charm growth and strength in Swords also means she can make for an adequate Dancer, with Sword Avoid +20 providing a means for her to dodge incoming attacks; the class also lets her use her great spell list to full effect. She is arguably better suited for the class than Hilda, who has a weakness in Authority and is better suited for Axe-based classes, though Hilda does have access to a siege tome in the form of Bolting (though Constance is a better user of said spell). If one does decide to make Marianne a Dancer, it would also be beneficial for her to master the Trickster class for Duelist's Blow, improving her evasiveness when she initiates combat. One could alternatively get her Flying skill high enough to acquire Alert Stance+ instead of Duelist's Blow, but there are better candidates for this build such as Ferdinand, Petra, etc.

Marianne can also feasibly become a Falcon Knight, making use of Levin Swords and her twin magic combat arts (one each for lances and swords) to get early kills. Late game she gains access to Blutgang (and Arrow of Indra if playing Crimson Flower) to further solidify her magic damage potential. This route compensates for her low HP and speed growth, though it may be difficult to level early on due to her fragile nature, but sacrifices her access to spells. A better choice would be to class her as a Dark Flier via the Cindered Shadows DLC, as it allows her to continue using her spells while having flight capability. The added skill of Transmute is also useful as her high Resistance allows her to form the role of Res-tank while not a dedicated White mage, unlike other Res tanks such as Linhardt, Flayn, and Mercedes.

Overall, Marianne fills a unique niche as one of the few strong offensive White Magic mages, as well as being perhaps the best candidate in the game for the Holy Knight class. While she isn't as good a healer as Mercedes or Linhardt , nor as powerful offensively as Lysithea or Constance, she is still a versatile hybrid that can heal, deal damage, use Silence, and retain good mobility thanks to her strengths in Riding and Flying.

She loves to read books about magic and spells, to further improve her abilities of healing, and to learn how to fight, although deep inside she wishes her life was different filled with more joy, passion, and especially love She has Daddy issues, and also Mommy issues due to her parents passing away when she was 14 due to a mysterious accident, therefore causing trauma, although no one knows that about her, and she prefers keeping it a secret to herself.

AVOID REPETITION