I feel as though the Ashe’s badness is overstated. He hits early game AS thresholds pretty much for free, curved shot is always nice, and he can do ok damage with steel axe smash. This isn’t to say he isn’t bottom tier, it’s just to say there’s a wide gap between him and bad units in other FE’s. You don’t have to baby him, not really. He just doesn’t get anything that makes him worth raising. He’s perfectly tolerable and perfectly unremarkable.
That’s a long way of saying you only use Ashe for memes or for love. If you’re going to use someone for those reasons, go all the way. Half measures are for cowards. Rather than do a bog standard sniper, here’s a bdesp warmaster that can killer gauntlet quad any enemy to death on player phase. The class path’s actually pretty easy. It’s mostly just a big statbooster dump.
Class path
Brigand/Archer -> Grappler -> War master
Rank priorities
C bows -> C axes -> B+ or B brawling -> B authority -> B axes
When you’re done with those consider going for A+ or S brawling, A authority, or wyvern access.
Feel free to grab e+ heavy armor for armor knight bases. It costs nothing here and he’ll appreciate it.
Skill loadout
Stat benchmarks:
35 speed
Try to hit this number by the start of part 2. Expect to need 10-12 speed carrots. This + meals and a few points of growths can get you to the quading benchmarks for almost all the bosses in the part. You can also use rally speed and special dance if you need to, but you usually won’t.
Recruitment:
If you’re using OOH Ashe recruit him in chapter 6. This gives him just enough luck to, on average (tm), hit the 19 luck benchmark that lets him only need B brawling
for grappler. Bernie and Ignatz would have to give up their fighter axe rank to do that. Truly a great asset in Ashe’s toolbox. If you like when things work more than
50% of the time maybe grow a miracle bean or two as insurance.
In house Ashe should just go for B+ grappling.
Battalion Recommendation:
Anything that gives crit. You’d prefer Goneril valks or Leicester mercs, but Fraldarius soldiers would be just fine on this build.