Dark Holy Elf

Yes, it works. @Glennstavos The reason Cyril's join stats are bad are because his bases are terrible, 7 str / 6 spd (Ingrid and Ferdinand are sometimes criticized for underwhelming bases, and they're 8/8). A level 21 Cyril has: 7 base + 40% growth = 7+0.4*20 = 15 Str, and 6 base + 60% growth = 6+0.6*20 = 18 Spd.

Between getting access to that statue and recruiting Alois there are five chapter maps and ~8 paralogues (I usually do 2 per chapter starting in Chapter 7, your milage may vary). That's 13 maps for Caspar to gain 160 class exp for the two class masteries, which is 80 actions in 13 maps = just over 6 per map. That doesn't seem unreasonable in the slightest. I have a difference of +5 str (as do the numbers posted earlier), but that's a minor nitpick. Alois does have better stats so if you're willing to shove him back into earlygame classes to catch up on skills, he will be better for the lategame. But keep in mind that while he's getting those aforementioned 80 actions (halved if he gives up his accessory slot and monopolizes a valuable resource, but even 40's not nothing), Caspar is busy putting in work as a Deathblow Wyvern. You talk about my not being willing to give Alois investment yet aren't even willing to give Caspar a single tutoring session? IMO we should assume all non-Byleth units we use get an even share of tutoring, which in Caspar's case is (5 to 6) out of (8 to 10), or about 50% at worst. If some units can do better with less than that then good for them, but I think that's a good baseline for comparisons. Anyway, your own numbers are kinda damning, since there are more than 15 weeks from Chapter 5 through 10 inclusive, so even without a drop of effort Caspar is getting either C authority or C armour for free, and with his fair share of tutoring he's easily snagging both, especially if we get Byleth armour as well (due to professor expertise bonus). Alois is good on a 0% growths run because of advantages which are irrelevant for this discussion: namely that he starts with Advanced tier stats (which in a growths run, other units have no trouble reaching). In normal gameplay he's outclassed by a slew of other wyvern rider options... for VW that list includes Byleth, Claude, Hilda, Leonie, Petra, Ferdinand, Felix, Sylvain, Seteth, etc. (And yeah, I'm aware that Caspar is too.) Thanks for the catch on Warrior having that A axes base, I forgot about that mechanic even though I cited it earlier in this thread for why Dorothea should be recruited before Chapter 6, whoops.

People disliking characters you like is not a personal attack and feeling uncomfortable about is not healthy. People have different opinions on characters, and that's okay. Also, a thought: if you feel that strongly, how do you think a similarly passionate Corrin fan feels reading the statement you just made? Anyway Byleth isn't very good. S/he's a silent main with not much personality and the game periodically stops to worship the ground s/he walks on (e.g. after Gronder 1); in a generally well-written game those scenes stand out as things I'm a bit embarrassed to watch. The one thing I will give Byleth is that by making this boring avatar that players who like to self-insert can gravitate to, the writers probably felt liberated to create the morally complicted characters the lords turned out to be rather than the usual annoyingly perfect Fire Emblem mains we've gotten so often. So their existence is probably a good thing, even if the character itself is problematic. I did rather like the plot point about them having no emotions and slowly gaining them, would have made for a solid arc on a real character. I also think the game manages to write surprisingly good relationships between Byleth and all three lords despite their silence, so that's neat.

Well it's certainly better than Miracle and Poison Strike; the arguments about low skill competition for mages apply extra strongly here. Beyond that, it's not great, but Faith Prowess is a decent filler skill because it empowers Nosferatu, which is a nice option. Depending on specifics it's entirely possible to double armour knights with it, which is a huge heal and ORKO in one. Another use for it is that when you know your mage is going to be doubled and 2HKOed but really want to leave them in range of an enemy, you can have them set Nosferatu if the healing will ward off the 2HKO. Without the Prowess skill, the chance of missing rises, and so does the chance of eating a critical hit yourself, which makes both these strategies much less viable. It only survives into the lategame if I'm specifically trying to flex a white magic avoid build, which Byleth CAN do but it's far from his/her optimum build. It's also decent if you want to make use of Seraphim. The other faith attacks are basically trash.

I can't check my file now, but are you sure Alois starts with A axes? I know Seteth doesn't start with an A in anything, and he joins a chapter later with the same listed skill data. That said he does start with at B+ at least, so yeah enough to get to Wyvern Rider in not too long, though by your own numbers he's chancing RNG for certification by the end of Chapter 11 (and possibly even 12, not much time there). It's not just Death Blow, but Str+2/Spd+2/Reposition. Caspar not wasting all that time training brawling will help him with closing on Weight -3 and getting his authority up, so I doubt Alois will have much of an advantage, though if you want to run numbers on a reasonable Caspar build and prove me wrong feel free. That said I generally agree that Caspar has no business being outside the lower tiers. Neither his stat build nor talent list is great and nothing else about him stands out either. My point was more that Alois doesn't compare very well to him anyway. Later joiners have it really rough for skills in this game; Seteth gets away with it by putting all his talents in the right places, Jeritza gets away with it via stats and a strong unique class. Alois (as well as Gilbert) doesn't have that, and feel underwhelming compared to many units you could have built up, to the point where even some of the weakest options for that (i.e. Caspar) are at least arguably better.

C authority isn't even remotely impressive at Chapter 11. My Hilda had that on my latest VW run for crying out loud , and she's got a bane in it. Now, Alois might well still have an advantage over Caspar in authority long-term, since he doesn't have a bane, but if so it's not much of one. But Caspar is probably still better than Alois clearly enough. He can actually train Flying before Chapter 11, and doesn't have a bane in it. For two PCs without many good points outside of "axe-user with decent str", wyvern is obviously the place to take them, and Alois has more trouble getting there by far. Heck, when Alois joins, he'll probably want to go muck around in lower-tier classes just to catch up on skills, while Caspar can easily be a Wyvern with Death Blow and [whichever beginner tier masteries the player values most]. Caspar's not great but he still handles Alois easily IMO. Fallen Star lets you kill something AND survive an unusually high amount of pressure the following turn, even baiting things that can normally kill you in one hit, like powerful bosses. That's valuable. Those monastery actions aren't free. Every one you take is time that isn't going towards raising your professor rank, gaining money, building supports, or restoring motivation. If you're doing a lot of faculty training early you're probably making your overall team worse just to make Byleth look better. Healing Focus is trash (combat art slots are more valuable than inventory slots), Alert Stance+ Claude gets quite easily thanks to having a flying boon.

To be fair, if you get Dorothea at Level 5-9 (and you really should if you want to use her), she'll start with D in Faith, so C isn't especially far off; you should be able to get it by the end of the chapter after she joins. Besides that, Dorothea has Meteor which is huge because of its ability to hand out linked attacks to everyone (as well as the ability to aggro certain formations sfely). She's probably worse on VW than the other routes just because she supports relatively few Deer (though Ferdinand, Petra, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain are all regarded pretty good PCs, so her value rises if you recruit a bunch of them too), but on AM Maddening I found her an extremely strong pickup. Claude can get Weight -3 easily too (certainly more easily than Byleth who eats 15 activity points, that's quite significant early on). I'd kneejerk Claude above M!Byleth but a lot of that is because of his unique combat arts, Fallen Star and Encloser are both really good. The stat differences feel somewhat lateral, one has more Spd and one has more most other things, but Spd is really important.

It's some strange meme that spread trying to make Edelgard look worse than she is. Bernadetta isn't hurt by it gameplaywise, but maybe she gets lung cancer three decades after the game due to it (if she manages to avoid being butchered by the troops of Dimitri or Claude's armies).🙄 What makes it the outrage even more silly is that your army literally does the same thing three chapters previously (a huge fire trap which absolutely can affect tiles your own allies are in).

Yes to the Bolt Axe, I've already said my piece on it. It's a 3-range option for axe-users with a good magic stat, it could have 50 hit and 30 weight and I'd still find it useful. Incidentally, you do in fact get one for free on non-CF routes: there's one in a chest in Ailell. Arcane Crystals aren't obtained reliably until you can buy them, but they do show up as random items in the merchants' area of the monastery often enough in my experience... no idea what the actual odds are for things like that, though.

Dimitri's father dies in the Tragedy of Duscur four years before the game's start. The one Cornelia assassinates is Dimitri's crestless uncle Rufus, who is merely ruling as regent until Dimitri comes of age and can be crowned. In the absence of Cornelia's coup, Dimitri comes to the throne naturally.

Wyvern Edelgard can mitigate a huge amount of Bolt Axe's weight anyway, with her monstrous strength plus easy access to Weight -3. And she's most likely to use it against armours anyway, whom she doubles easily. Or at range 3 where she has literally no other option. For Annette, doubling armours with Bolt Axe is far more in question, though possible with Weight -3, thanks mostly to Wyvern Lord's silly high base speed. Levin Sword's a decent option for mages with Hexblade/Soulblade/Blutgang for a couple reasons: one, you can't have an ally "trade" you to Thoron or any other tome, but you can trade to the Levin Sword. Two, they can use the magical combat art with the Levin Sword and still be able to counter at range on the enemy phase (unlike if you use a melee sword). It's not amazing but if I'm running magical combat arts anyway it's a good option to have with no cost besides the arcane crystals (some of which you get for free, the rest of which are quite inexpensive) since inventory slots are cheap for mages. I just did a run where I used both Annette and Lorenz with magical combat arts in Wyvern/Paladin respectively and Annette felt better during the Advanced phase entirely because she had the Bolt Axe option and this was not a CF run so there was no Arrow of Indra for Lorenz.

Sylvain - Trivial for F!Byleth, has a good paralogue, and gives you a 22-might weapon in Chapter 5. One of these days I'll not recruit him to see his dialog as an enemy on CF and/or VW. Hanneman, Manuela, Shamir - Trivial recruits. My wife has already done a playthrough not recruiting them to see them as enemies so I don't have to. There's nobody else I've always gotten, mostly because I wasn't good at recruiting on my first playthrough. But usually, I try to get Dorothea (good PC, Goddess Ring), Ingrid (Galatea Pegasus, Luin), Lorenz (Thyrsus), and at least one of Catherine or Ashe (Shoes of the Wind). Felix and at least one of Raphael/Ignatz also help with money, and Caspar/Mercedes unlock the Rafail Gem (and Mercedes is probably the best healer to boot).

Maybe we should save this for any discussions on the actual weapons, but: -Bolt Axe should be very accurate against armours regardless, and you can get its hit up with the usual array of hit-boosting shenanigans the rest of the time (Accuracy Ring, linked attacks). But a 1-3 range option for Wyvern Annette, or even mage Annette since she misses out on a 3-range tome, should get it out of the "useless" camp IMO. I suppose a 1-3 option for Edelgard has some merit too, especially if she's doing well on magic. -Longbow allows you to double which Curved Shot and other combat arts do not. High-offence PCs like Claude, Felix, Leonie, earlygame Shamir, etc., can get some milage out of that. You can also use it to counter Bow Knights, as well as Snipers if you're in a class that lacks Bow Range+1.

There's no reason to believe the Alliance's leaders were wiped out in the war, though. It never touched Alliance soil that we know. Gloucester, Edmund, Goneril, and Holst are all alive last we heard. While it's possible that an alliance of nobles that heed no king could decide to change their minds and throw their lot in as a theocracy, I would definitely want the writers to sell me on this sudden and dramatic political change. Instead, they devote no words to this change at all that I can recall; we're just told it happens. So either the writers lazily copied VW and didn't close up this plot hole, or they were just lazy when plotting SS in general.

While I do have some problems with Black Eagles Chapter 11, I personally don't think a wishy-washy "can we discuss this?" option would be especially plausible, and I can't imagine what narrative purpose it would serve even if it worked. Two people are on the point of killing each other, you take the side of one and aren't going to stop just because Byleth says "can't we all just get along". Rhea, in general, has never shown much interest in discussions of any sort; Edelgard has just committed to a war against the church and isn't going to back down in this moment either. Not all decisions in life can be made with careful deliberation and access to all available evidence; I don't mind the game forcing a quick choice here. (Plus, even if Byleth succeeded and they were able to talk things out, that doesn't leave much of a game.) I'm surprised to see negative comments about the Dimitri/Edelgard Enbarr scene in Azure Moon on the other hand, I thought that was one of my favourites in the game. I certainly had a clear picture of what Edelgard was trying to accomplish and why Dimitri sympathised but disagreed with the methods.

*Why doesn't Edelgard turn into a monster in Verdant Wind or Silver Snow. I know the war is going a bit worse for her in Azure Moon, but when people are literally storming your throne room things seem equally bad. She has two extra months to heal from her injuries and research the transformation. Being emboldened by Arundel's death is also an interesting theory, although I find it hard to believe she wouldn't have pursued any avenue towards victory regardless. *Why doesn't Hubert tell them about Those Who Slither In The Dark in Azure Moon? Unless he does and we just don't see it because the game ends. He uses the javelins of light to locate their base, an event which does not happen in Azure Moon. *Why doesn't Cornelia have Dimitri and imprisoned in Crimson Flower? Maybe because Rhea is hanging around? The presence of Rhea and the Knights of Seiros make a coup dramatically more difficult, yeah. *Why doesn't Claude...do anything at all in Silver Snow. Silver Snow and Church routes are near identical, yet Claude doesn't involve himself at all in Silver Snow even though he has all the exact same motivations. Byleth not teaching him at school doesn't seem like it would alter any of his intentions. Because Silver Snow is a rushed copy of Verdant Winds with Claude and, for that matter, the Alliance lazily removed. It's never stated why the Alliance would submit to Byleth's rule in this route either that I can recall. *Why doesn't Nemesis awaken in Silver Snow/Why doesn't Rhea go mad in Verdant Wind. Actually while we're at it. *Why doesn't Nemesis wake up in Azure Moon? *Why doesn't Nemesis wake up in Crimson Flower? Verdant Wind's and Silver Snow's final battles don't make much sense even in a vacuum, let alone compared against each other, so I've got no good answer for the first question. Explaining away Nemesis on Azure Moon is easy though, Arundel/Thales isn't able to complete the preparations for reviving Nemesis before he dies. For Crimson Flower, I imagine he may have needed something from the Kingdom which Cornelia was able to provide on other routes, but since Edelgard captures the Kingdom first she's able to prevent him from getting what he needs on CF (this would of course begin the secret war between Edelgard's faction and Thales' faction in the epilogue). It's also possible Nemesis does revive during the CF epilogue, too.

I'm pretty skeptical. Lifetaker is gained from a mage class, I can't imagine any physical unit wants to give up a bunch of levels in Wyvern/Paladin/Sniper to get it. So it's really only good for mages, and mages already have Nosferatu, which has exactly the same effect except it also works on non-killing blows! (Snacking on armours with Nosferatu is good fun.) Now yes, Nosferatu's mt/wt leave much to be desired, so sometimes Ragnarok/doubled Fire/etc. will kill when Nosferatu wouldn't, but those times are not enough for me to justify grabbing the skill. Hubert is probably the only character I'd consider getting it with; Lysithea can't get it and every other mage gives up Black Tomefaire by going Dark Bishop over Warlock.

I think it's extremely wrong to convict someone for a crime they did not commit, even if they might have committed another crime that merits execution (but of course, there was no need to try and convict him of that crime, was there?). That's creepy authoritarianism worthy of Stalin and I can't say I consider Lonato unjust to rebel against it.

Disclaimer that I don't personally identify with avatars much, and 3H certainly doesn't buck that trend. I enjoy the Edeleth ship (and the Dimileth ship, but that's not what this thread is about) more than I expected considering that they involve a silent main and I can't actually recall ever being terribly inclined to ship a silent main before. With Edeleth I like the fact Byleth seems to be the one person Edelgard is able to open up and be herself with. She's very close with Hubert, but the relationship is a bit unhealthy because he's so demanding of her to be the perfect emperor and chastises her whenever she wants to take some time to herself. Reasonable from a rational standpoint of winning a war but not very healthy for her. The player gets to Crimson Flower by having Byleth choose to trust Edelgard as a person, to believe in her and what she's doing, even though the available rational evidence at the time doesn't support that choice. So it's really affirming for her as a person and she hasn't had much of that in her life. And finally I like how Edelgard fights for Byleth's freedom their fate as a vessel of an immortal being, with the ending driving that home with the symbolism of their hair reverting to its human colour (I mean, in this world where dark teal is a human hair colour). A lot of Byleth's story, limited as it is, is about them gaining their emotions and "heart"; there's a reason that the Edelgard-related choices for Byleth involve a heartbeat. Edelgard helps Byleth complete that path and gives them someone to love. My favourite ships are two-sided ones where it's clear that both people support the other and make them a better person in some way and this one checks that box. More generally I also think the games feel more complete if Byleth and the lord end up S supporting; those make good capstone scenes for each character and their route; the endings can actually feel a bit underwhelming to me otherwise since a few sentences from the narrator don't really accomplish much.

It's difficult to say for sure because we never get an unbiased source on the matter. It's definitely not a good look for the church that they executed Christophe for conspiracy to commit the Tragedy of Duscur when he did no such thing (Catherine/Ashe support), so I would never call them "morally justified" here. Lonato's rebellion is understandable, but it also is inevitably going to shed innocent blood as well, so it's hard to think of him as pure himself. Nobody comes out of that situation looking that good IMO.

Just posting to thank you for doing this; very interesting and informative read!

Yeah, I definitely agree; Fhirdiad would have been a great time. They could have called the class Saviour King. Of course in this version I'd probably want Dimitri to be in his penultimate class (High Lord or whatever it gets renamed) when fought as an enemy on VW (and probably CF too, though I can see arguments there), but it's easy to juice his stats a little to compensate since boss stats are arbitrary.

Hmm, neat idea. Basically making the same assumptions (secondary objectives are important, we ain't warpskippin'). I'll just talk about the universal Part 1 maps, though both Chapter 12s would probably be mid-high if I included them, would have to think about it. In many ways they feel more like part 2 maps.

Cichol Wyverns is my general pick for her batallion; it gives huge atk/hit, requires A rank (which means your fliers who don't have authority boon have more trouble getting to it), and has an offensive gambit (Assault Troop is 2 shots of 1x4, it's not outstanding like the lord gambits but I wouldn't call it garbage). Black Eagle Pegasus has similar excellent stats but you probably want to give that one to someone with lower charm since it has Retribution. I think many people will generally be content with armour knight Edelgard because Edelgard is a very good unit. But the benefit to using fliers in CF is particularly strong due to how much terrain three of the last four maps have.

Emperor certainly looks better than Fortress Knight side-by-side (having 5 move instead of 4 is pretty cool as it turns out), so the fact that I react to Emperor with a definite no says something about the latter class.