Frustrations with Engage Maddening, Advice welcome
I recently went back to do a playthrough of Engage and decided to challenge myself by playing on maddening, which is a first for me. I have beaten every other Modern FE game on hard and wanted something different. So far, my gameplay loop has been pretty fun where I actually had to do some planning and forethought for every map and didn't succeed on my first try. I just recently completed chapter 22 and now the game feels different, in an unfair way. My fast characters now require multiple buffs to double anything. My hard hitters don't one round any more. Seems like the only thing I can do is dodge tank, but with my low damage output doesn't seem to be working any more, especially when getting flooded with enemies. It is just starting to feel unmanageable and no longer fun with these inflated stats.
I feel like I am using decent strategies, probably not perfectly optimal and dlc. I also use the cooking, weapon refines, and engraves. However I just feel that my damage has really fallen off, especially when this map throws hordes of 40 def great knights at you. I hear that in future chapters it just gets worse.
I try to use sword/lance power or lunar brace to increase my damage but I still feel like it's not enough. I know that people have somehow beaten the game with 0% growths and stuff like that and other challenge runs, but I just don't see how this is possible except for a ton of cheese. I know that for this map in particular and for chapter 24, a strategy is to astra storm the boss, but that doesn't feel satisfying to win that way in my opinion.
Sorry for ranting/complaining, but I would love to hear suggestions/advice.
My team comp is:
Alear, corrin, personal class, sword avoid, and starsphere
Timerra, Ike, picket, lance power 2 speed taker
Lapis, Erika, wyvern, sword power 3, canter
Chloe, Marth, wyvern, lance power 3, canter
Goldmary, lyn, starsphere
Kagetsu, chrom, bow knight lunar brace, canter
Merrin, 3H, warrior, lunar brace
Pannete, Leif, warrior, hit+15, wrath
Hortensia, byleth, personal class, rally+, canter
Framme, Lucina, high priest
Ivy, Soren, personal class, speed/dex+2, canter
Vayle, Camila
Seadall, tiki
Anna, micahiah, mage knight, speed taker, canter
I've put a little investment into yunaka, but otherwise I have been focusing on these characters above.
Alear is my main dodge tank and damage dealer and control with corrin.
My two wyverns are also my damage dealers. Especially lapis because I used to have starsphere on her for the majority of the game.
I feel that I underutilized pannete. Sometimes I am able to get her vantage crit build going, but usually she will die to armors or ranged. I stopped engaging her since it will switch to weapons that don't auto crit. I would like to have hold out or brutal critical on her, but I feel that she misses too much without the hit +15.
Hopefully this is enough information to go off of. I would really like to finish my run, but it's just feeling daunting and unbeatable. Maybe I am giving up too soon.