Strong, brave, a natural-born leader with a sense of fairness and justice, and somehow all without being a complete lunkhead, Diamant is everything one could want from the crown prince of a warrior nation, a fact that causes his younger brother a great deal of stress. The heir to the throne of Brodia will join during Chapter 8’s story battle, and he’s a great front-line warrior from the word go. This page will discuss Diamant’s strengths and weaknesses, including his starting stats, stat maximums and stat growths, and suggest the best classes and Emblem Rings for Diamant.

Diamant’s Stats and Stat Growths¶

Diamant starts out as a Lvl 11 Lord, all ripe and ready for a promotion from the outset. His stats are overall pretty great for when he joins, and this somewhat overplays how good he is. His HP (75%) and DEF (40%) growth rates are very good, but his STR (30%), SPD (40%) and RES (25%) are all pretty mediocre. None of these growths are low enough to end up as liabilities, although Diamant will likely never have a great RES score, nor is he a prime candidate for an AVO tank, but he hits like a truck, has great HP and DEF, and his unique class, Successeur, has a great class ability that’ll help keep his HP up as long as he keeps dishing out damage. All in all, he’s a pretty straight-forward bruiser whose stats are almost equal to his in-game reputation, which is actually quite a compliment, all things considered.

Best Classes for Diamant¶

With his mediocre SPD, Diamant shouldn’t be highly considered as a potential AVO tank, which scratches a couple of classes off the list, like Wolf Knight and Griffin Knight. Diaman’s low MAG growth also makes him less than ideal for any casting class. More than any of that, however, he’s got a unique class, Successeur, that amplifies his strengths and gives him a great class skill, Sol. Like Alcryst, if you’re not fielding Diamant for his unique class, you may as well seek out another character - Panette does most of the things Diamant can do, but with a useful personal skill that gives her higher CRIT, for example.

Successeur¶

Successeur is Diamant’s advanced version of the Lord class, giving him higher growth rates in HP (15%), STR (20%), DEX (10%), SPD (15%), DEF (15%), LCK (10%) and BLD (5%). Even with the combined 55% SPD growth he’ll only just reach the fastest characters in the game, like Chloé, Framme and Lapis, who will all additionally benefit from their own classes bonuses, leaving Diamant around 20% lower. It’s a significant, but not insurmountable handicap, and Diamant will end up with a decent AVO score, but not high enough to really cause entire maps of enemies to whiff. Especially the strongest enemies in the game, who will finally overcome the downsides of adopting higher tier weapons (like silver variants) and end up with 130+ HIT scores.

His combined HP, SPD and DEF will make him tanky enough against everything but the fastest, most powerful spellcaster, and while Successeur does nothing to overcome his most glaring weakness - low RES - it offers another remedy in the form of its class skill, Sol. This has a chance (DEX%) to heal Diamant equal to the amount of damage he deals, and while his STR score isn’t astounding, he’ll likely end up strong enough to recover a fair amount of HP whenever Sol procs. That said, Diamant’s DEX growth isn’t great, and even near the end of the game his DEX will probably be in the low to mid 20s, which is good enough to proc 20% - 25% of the time. It’s supplemental healing, not something you should hinge a battle on.

Because of how stat-dependent and swing Diamant can be, your loadout may need to vary. If you get lucky and his DEX and DEF roll high, you might get away with giving him a Killer Sword and Killer Axe (Successeur is skilled with both, grade S and grade A, respectively) to shoot for critical hits. If your Diamant is on the slower side, a Brave Sword/Brave Axe may be necessary to help him strike twice. Tossing on an Armor Slayer or Hammer will help him dispatch armored enemies. Either way, engraving some Emblems on his weapons to boost his AVO or CRIT will help, and Diamant’s unusually high BLD score will help keep the more powerful weapons from dragging down his suspect SPD, allowing him to use higher-damage weapons that faster characters may avoid.

Best Emblem Rings for Diamant¶

Since Diamant isn’t a good candidate for AVO tank, we can ignore the usual choices, like Sigurd or Lyn. Instead, Diamant wants to focus on other means of survivability. Since Sol procs off DEX and heals based on Diamant’s damage, there’s going to be a heavy focus on boost Diamant’s STR and DEX.

Marth¶

Marth offers a variety of boons that Diamant will benefit greatly from, including “Divine Speed” (even at half damage, Diamant hits hard, and an extra attack is an extra chance to proc Sol), and “Break Defenses” (since Diamant has two weapons as a Successeur, he can often break foes, gaining an extra attack at 50% damage). “Sword Agility” will also boost Diamant’s AVO, perhaps giving him an extra layer of protection, especially if stacked with Marth’s core AVO boosts, although we prefer a CRIT build for Diamant, which “Sword Agility” somewhat impairs. Marth grants decent boosts to STR, DEX and SPD, all stats that Diamant needs.

Roy¶

The Emblem Ring Diamant starts with is a good one for him to end with. “Hold Out” gives Diamant a good chance of surviving when reduced to 0 HP, although it’s arguably more effective with low HP units who have a lower trigger threshold. “Lancereaver” allows Diamant to gain advantage over lance-users without having to switch to axes, “Advance” allows Diamant to strike from range (presumably if you can’t be bothered to bring a Hand Axe along), while “Sword Power” will increase damage output at the cost of AVO.

Edelgard¶

Useful for all warriors, Edelgard gives Diamant access to various weapons and Gambits, as well as a pure damage bonus from “Weapon Sync”. Granted, he’ll have to be engaged to take advantage of it with any other Emblem besides Edelgard, and “Bow Guard” is more useful on an archer. Learning STR/DEX boost skills, while absurdly expensive, will benefit Diamant more than most characters due to how well those stats synergize with Sol… but ironically Alcryst and Diamant both need Emblem Edelgard. Edelgard’s huge boosts to STR and DEX make her ideal for boosting Diamant’s Sol ability, both in damage (and hence healing) and in proc rate.

Best Skills for Diamant¶

As for skills, Diamant should learn and inherit the standard leveling skills: Lineage from Edelgard (substitute with Mentorship from Byleth if you don’t have access to it) and Starsphere from Tiki. He’s either a good character or a great character, and this divide is separated by a few points of STR, DEX and SPD, so Starsphere is potentially a huge boon.

Once leveling isn’t your top priority, he can benefit from Marth’s AVO+ or Sword Agility, which combined might put him on the lower fringes of AVO tank status. Unlike Chloé, Framme, Lapis and Yunaka, you shouldn’t expect Diamant to dodge everything, but dodging around half the attacks coming at him is better than taking hits, especially from spells. If you want to go a more offensive route, consider learning Roy’s Sword Power and Edelgad’s STR/DEX+ abilities. The more damage Diamant is doing, the more he’s healing from Sol, and the higher his DEX is, the more Sol is proccing.

Tiki’s Lifesphere is also a good passive healing option for Diamant, although it might not be the best choice for a non-AVO tank whose primary strength comes from aggression. Might be a better choice to save those Skill Points for other abilities and have a proper AVO tank Griffin Knight follow (or lead) Diamant around, using healing staves when Sol isn’t providing for Diamant. Diamant’s tremendous HP growth also allows him to make good use of Marth’s “Unyielding” skills, which are much, much cheaper than Lifesphere.