[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

3 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

The first video link was just evidence of what the boss' HP is at the first stage, since enemy levels change slightly based on what chapter you do a paralogue in, I didn't want to say definitively what HP values that particular boss always has. They were in Chapter 15 of their playthrough. The second video link shows the bug. As the boss' HP refills for his final stage, notice the big 9 on Lorenz. That's where the game decided to display the damage. And you can confirm it the next time they look at a battle forecast - the boss has 183/192, when he should have 173/192 if Poison Strike was working correctly. And if the boss didn't have Ancient Dragonskin as a skill, he'd be down to 154/192. Give or take one point, I don't know how the game rounds numbers.

Ohh, my apologies! I totally missed what you were trying to communicate. My bad.

 

After you pointed it out, yes, I see the 9 damage now. Hm, do we know if this is a bug on all monsters or is this special to that one in that paralogue? I'll be interested to try it myself the next time I fight a monster. This would be very unfortunate if it's widespread, since Poison Strike should be all rights be at its strongest in monster situations. Is it maybe glitching in part because he did break one of the bars? Like would the result have been the same on that bar if he had not broken it? This does need further testing. That said, I would not be surprised if the company that shipped this game with glitched out adjutant mechanics (a pretty big deal) would have also shipped it with something like this and never bothered to fix it. :/ Thanks for bringing it to light!

[What does your inventory loadout typically look like?]

18 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I'm probably not as particular about my loadouts seeing as how I typically reset at least once on turn 1 of every map because I: 

• Forgot to switch in a particular battalion, combat art, ability, valuable weapon, or accessory
• Forgot to forge or repair something on a unit that can't conveniently lift another from Byleth's convoy.
• Forgot to reclass somebody. Not just because of class mastery concerns, but also for the bonus skill experience they could earn with specific weapons. Some maps have extremely good boss abuse grinding opportunities so they can make a big difference there.

For the most part I follow the strategies in the OP. Except I don't particularly care to distribute javelins and hand axes in this game, since you can't combat art with them, and enemies that attack you at 2 range on enemy phase are fairly rare - mostly mages who I will have my own mages/priests tank instead. Being able to chip damage somebody at no retaliation is certainly nice, but the weapons are highly inaccurate and I tend to have archers and mages for that purpose anyway. I have developed some strategies for particular types of units.

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  • Shields on units too slow to avoid being doubled is probably standard practice, but I also have my brawlers equip shields when using lighter gauntlets. You only need 10 strength to wield training gauntlets and a leather shield at no penalty, and as your strength increases, the possibilities expand. Remember that shields can simply be unequipped if they do start weighing you down - like when you switch to an axe. Unfortunately you can't use the Trade command to unequip another unit's shield. Only trade swap to a different accessory or give them your own accessory.
    • Since there aren't a lot of gauntlet type weapons in the game and they all have excellent durability, brawlers tend to have a lot of inventory space to spare compared to other physical units. So I have had them roll with two accessories before. A shield and either some kind of ring or gem.
  • The mini bow is a nice investment for archers who haven't gotten close counter yet. And it gets better once forged. In the early game, bows are really freakin' heavy, and the mini bow is the lightest choice in addition to giving you an enemy phase presence. Furthermore, your archers can't fire back at enemy archers anyway until they become capital A archers at level 10, so they see no benefit from equipping their standard bows on enemy phase. Just have somebody come up and use the trade command to adjust their equipped weapon (moving it to the top of the list).
  • My experience gem priority is getting everybody to their level 20 classes. Level 20 classes have insane base stats for that level. Mages tend to get as much as six defense, strength screwed and speed screwed units tend to get brought up to speed too. Past that, Grapplers get it to become War Masters as soon as they can so they begin mastering it for the best equippable ability in the game. 
  • My knowledge gem priority can shift to meet certain, attainable benchmarks. Sometimes I give it to my brand new snipers since hunters volley immediately elevates them to monstrous kill power. I'll give it to anybody who's still working on fighter/brigand, and naturally to war masters. Sometimes I give it to units who are adjutants, like when I wanted Recruit!Lorenz to learn recover, I had him equip Heal and be Ferdinand's adjutant on a map I knew Ferdinand would be seeing several rounds of combat. Just be aware that unlike fielded units, you can't reach into the inventory of an adjutant as far as I know. 
  • "combat art weapons" for sure, especially on lance users. Crescent Sickle's high MT and high durability seems destined for it. Devil weapons as well. They require agarthium to repair, but I would just...not. By the time they break, I'll have other great weapons to replace them, and they get a free refill on time skip anyway. I'll also spam combat arts on weapons I know I'll want to forge anyway such as Killer weapons.
    • By chapter 9, I'll generally be swimming in enough money to buy all the black sand steel I'll ever want. The fishing event got me up to 100+ bullhead fish which sell for 100 a pop. Past 99, the game auto sells them since the convoy can't carry anymore. I also nabbed dozens of other valuable fish that only exist to be sold or used for those post time skip resource quests.

   

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Wow, what an amazing write up! Thank you for sharing your insights. You've made me rethink perhaps putting shields instead of rings on grapplers. I typically like to keep them light and evasive instead of layering PRT but maybe the shield strat makes sense in some contexts. Also a great tip on the minibow, tbh I've just been overlooking them since my newb days and never revisited them but what you say makes total sense. I can also see your point on the range weapons like hand axe and javelin perhaps not being worth a slot on a physical unit, but I have found that I encounter some instances where I'll get a kill at the edge of a unit's movement with a range whereas I wouldn't be able to if they didn't have one. But I won't say that that's necessarily optimal... You may be right, it may not be; especially since, granted, the situations where they are truly useful are somewhat rare. I guess one other way I use them are to lead with a ranged attack so as not to risk a counter, then clean up with a heavier hitting unit. That way neither takes damage.

 

The rest of what you described is basically exactly what I do (including the forgetting to repair weapons before battle and having to restart frequently because of it 😉 )

14 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Playing NG Maddening, Divine Pulse banned:

• Mages/Healers: Accessory, keys, healing items (they basically server as mini-convoys)
• Non-Sniper, non-Grappler physicals: Light bow, strong bow, light melee, strong melee (sometimes this is a third bow if I feel the unit doesn't melee much), accessory, flex slot (typically map specific)
• Snipers: Five bows, accessory
• Grapplers: Training, Iron, Steel and Silver Gauntlets, Iron Bow, accessory
• Byleth also sometimes runs around with wonky whatever because I can always rearrange it on the fly.

The strong weapons are typically for combat arts, but not always. I quite enjoy volleying the enemy with Steel/Silver Curved Shots, as well as one-shotting the enemy flier spam with the same. After a certain point, the strong weapon on my Falcon Knight will be a brave weapon. Nothing says, "Sit down." quite like a good ol' quad.

"Mini convoys" is a great way to describe the function of mages! I agree with that a lot, and should have added in my OP that I will often keep a spare chest key on them too. Oh and sometimes anti toxins if there will be poison on the map. And in FoW they carry the torches (and some other units might get one as well, but I keep extras on the mages just in case). 

My Byleth also often end up quite wonky since, yeah, their inventory is the whole of the convoy! Byleth is the only character of mine that sometimes ends up with free slots in their inventory since they can just reach in and get whatever they want at will so there's no need to keep a full inventory.

I'm curious as to whether you always run bows on all of your Non-Sniper, non-Grappler physicals. I do this sometimes, but only with units that have a proficiency in bows like Cyril or Petra. Do you think it's worth it to do it for a unit like, say, Ferdinand?

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

11 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

There's actually an unfortunate bug with that. Poison Strike deals 20% of the unit's max HP, but only takes into account a monster's initial max HP, not its increased amounts at later stages. I finally found out what the problem was today, from a video. Notice the first stage and he has 96 HP.  Poison strike deals 9 damage there (not 18, because of that boss' Ancient Dragon skin ability which halves all damage taken from all sources, including poison strike). Now take a look at what happens when they poison strike the final stage where he has 192 max hp. Still 9 damage. When it should be 18.

Huh, that's the first I'm hearing of this / noticing it. That's very unfortunate and does bump PS down in terms of helpfulness if true.  However, I don't see evidence of that in either video you linked. The first one doesn't even really show Lorenz doing PS (maybe your timestamp is wrong?) and even if it did, like you say the boss' ability could account for the damage reduction. In the second one the guy is joking about "get that 9, get that 9!" (from poison strike) but then Lorenz hits for 17 damage when the enemy only has 15hp left so PS doesn't activate at all. I haven't been able to play for a few days so I'm still at the stage of the game where PS should be doing 9 lol, so I can't speak from recent experience as to whether or not it's glitched (my recall from past playthroughs is that it worked as advertised, but I took a break for a while so those memories are not fresh). I think those two (Mangs and Chaz) are a more famous for being more hilarious than methodical in their FE play, especially Chaz. I think if it were a Mekkah video explaining why Poison Strike is glitched I'd take it at face value, but since I didn't see it happen (because he just destroyed the last health bar w/o poison strike activating) I feel like the jury is still out.  😉

 

ETA: I did just test it on an enemy with 60 total hp, and Poison Strike did 12 damage. This is in line with my (admittedly not super clear) memories of running Lorenz w/ poison strike in late game; from what I recall it works correctly.

 

17 hours ago, redlight said:

I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but Poison Strike carries on to the next break bar when an enemies break bar reaches 0.

Are we also considering ally boost that certain units have with certain allies?

Excellent point! It has not been mentioned AFAIK, so thank you for bringing that up.

I do think that ally boosts should be taken into consideration. Supports should be a part of optimal play.

 

11 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

I honestly think we should make a separate topic with route specific tier lists and doing an overall tier list averaging all the routes. Since everybody judges a unit differently. Some judge on best performance that unit and some judge on overall like are they good in their house and other routes? We even did this in sacred stones(while the difference isn't as big). I feel like this would provide "healthier" discussion. Thoughts? I'd be down.

Agreed, this topic was made by an OP who wanted help with his game it seems, not one who was interested in theory. It doesn't have parameters so it does make it harder to get a good list going.

 

6 hours ago, Geenoble said:

Yeah I pretty much agree with this. It makes it much harder to rate a lot of units, since some units such as Lysithea and Lorenz are better in CW than they are SS or AM due to availablity factors and weapon rank factors, so you’re basically rating two different performances.

 

Im out right now but when I get back home I might make an AM tier list thread unless someone beats me to it.

Cool, it would be great if you made the thread! But maybe consider making a general one, with a request for tier lists for all four routes, including an averaged overall tier list would perhaps be more useful just so it's all in one spot. Or maybe it's more useful to make them for each route? Hm.

[What does your inventory loadout typically look like?]

I'll describe my strategy for this but I'm mostly very curious to see what others do, so don't feel like you need to read before posting your own method! For reference I'm talking about Maddening NG, but feel free to discuss other difficulties if you like.

In the early game options are a bit limited and the strategy is bit different than late game. In the early game on my physical attackers I carry:

• Light, accurate weapon (training/iron)
• Combat art weapon (steel)
• Ranged weapon (bow, hand axe, javelin, etc.)
• Secondary weapon type that I'd want to train the unit in for a later class change (for example, a sword on a unit that will later become a peg knight)
• Healing item or maybe even two (vulnerary in most cases, concoction if available)
• Maybe an extra from any category above if available

Mages tend to hold less stuff in the early game. On mages:

• A light, accurate 1 range weapon (usually iron for them, in the wep type they prefer)
• Maybe a bow if available (in case they run out of magic (only applies to the first few chapters))
• The rest is healing items if available

Of course, sometimes you don't have enough items to fill all six slots in the early game, but if you do that's what it looks like.

Mid game to late game the strategy shifts. After getting at least one ranged healer and 1-2 pinch hit healers (attack mages/the dancer with spells like Heal, Recover, Physic, or Fortify in their arsenal) I find it a waste of an item slot in most instances to carry healing items on physical attackers. This is an average physical attacker loadout:

• Light, accurate weapon (training + (although I find they drop off mid game), iron+ or silver+)
• Killer weapon+, Wo Dao+, Cursed Aiyisha Sword+
• Combat art weapon (steel+ or often I just use same silver+ as the light weapon for CAs to save space)
• Ranged option (bow, short spear, short axe, Levin Sword+, Bolt Axe+, etc.)
• Utility weapon (brave, horse/armorslayers, Rapier, etc.)
• a weapon of some other type other than the main one as to be able to counter x-breaker skills (usually something like a lance due to many advanced/master classes requiring lance, but ofc a sword or axe on a lance user)
• A Relic or Sacred Weapon (often not carried at all in non-threatening battles, but usually replaces utility  in relatively more difficult battles)
• On very rare occasions healing items like concoctions / elixirs (only in difficult chapters like VW 13, or in situations where I might want to send a flier off on a solo mission out of physic range)
• Ring, gem, or in very rare cases a shield (imo most shields are too heavy and are likely to push most units under the "getting doubled" spd threshold in Maddening NG so don't make sense to use)

Obviously this will be juggled a bit map to map.

Primarily magical loadout:

• If the unit has a magical combat art (Soulblade, Frozen Lance, etc) then a few weapons to use that art with. Maybe Bolt Axe+ or Levin Sword+, or an attack weapon Relic in rare cases.
• Magic Staff, Thrysus, Caduceus, Heal Staff depending on the unit, maybe sometimes another accessory like the March Ring in certain circumstances
• Healing Items. Mages are my heal bags, they're loaded with Vulnerarys,  Concoctions and later Elixers. Along with access to the convoy via Byleth, IF on the very very rare occasion that something goes unexpectedly wrong and there's not enough healing power on the board in the form of spells usually any unit has access to trading a weapon in their loadout for a healing item from a Mage if need be.

I find trading weps / relics / staffs / etc. too annoying and a buzzkill to consistently do it, even though I acknowledge that it is probably the superior style of play technically speaking. I've never had trouble getting through maps in ways that are satisfying to me without trading, though. But if I were to try a Low Turn Count run, then I would certainly do it because you can get better results if you do.

So that is pretty much how I handle my inventory! I am very curious to hear how others manage theirs (again esp. re: Maddening NG but other difficulties are fine to discuss as well). FWIW this post was prompted by a discussion in the Tier List thread, wherein one person basically managed theirs in precisely the same way as mine and another had a totally different strat.  I wondered how many different strats are out there and what the dominant one might be, and it was a bit off topic for that thread so I made this one. 🙂

 

 

 

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

6 hours ago, Geenoble said:

I didn’t mention Thyrus as it can’t be considered a part of Lysithea/Lorenz utility due to everyone being able to use it. It does fix the 2 range problems but you could also have a 5 range hubert. Besides it’s best to trade the thyrus and cadecus around rather than keep it locked to one unit. 
eg; using Thyrus on Lysithea to attack an enemy at 4 range, then using a flier to trade it away and canto near another mage so they can get it and have 4-5 range.

Hm, you do make some good points there. On reflection, I think you are correct and it is probably most efficient to trade them between around as you describe (I've seen that behavior in Low Turn Count videos, although I can never quite be bothered to do it myself!). So in truly optimal play, yes, they are traded between units who need them. However, if they are being traded they're still being used by Lorenz and Lysithea and therefore it does seem like they should factor in their ratings since they do both have easy access to +1 or +2 range in the form of those relics, which both arrive fairly early in the game.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I used to think that way too, but far more often than not, I found that carrying nothing but weapons ended up being a case of diminishing returns - ergo, I found that there was very little need to have as many weapons as I have item slots, because past a certain point, I'm not getting any noteworthy returns from holding more weapons. In the same vein, I find carrying 5 weapons plus an accessory to be an extremely impractical notion in this game. The only games that are exceptions are Path of Radiance and Mystery of the Emblem, which have separate slots for weapons and items.

 

I dunno about you, but I often found that having a horse just isn't what it used to be - too much terrain slowdown to deal with (I often found myself in situations where either my cavalry fell short of being able to attack an enemy unit, or they could, but terrain slowdown prevented them from retreating and making room for another unit to attack), and in general, I find most cavalry classes underwhelming (about the only cavalry class that I found useful was Bow Knight). That's saying nothing of the fact that nearly all cavalry classes have negative speed modifiers unless you dismount, which, with speed being as important as it is, is no bueno. Also, why is Holy Knight never recommended if being on horseback is so great???

So I'm forced to blow activity points I'd rather have used on other units on him instead. Whoopedy-freaking-do. And his shitty charm growth becomes slightly less shitty as a result... Yay?

Doesn't change the fact that Dark Mage is garbage and Poison Strike is really underwhelming. Which is NOT okay considering the risk factor getting Dark Seals tends to carry.

Yeah, I really disagree on the weapon loadout. I use basically the same exact loadout strat as AxelVDP does, so I guess just refer to that post for how I think it ideally works. I would have figured everyone did, but that's probably a discussion for a dedicated topic since it's a bit off topic for a tier list. I may ask though since now I'm curious: one person thinks the way I do it is wrong and another does it pretty much exactly the same as I do.

 

While it is true that horse canto is < flier canto (this is Flier emblem after all), it's still better than lower move + no canto in most situations.Speed is not super important for mages in Maddening NG, as others have explained. Maybe in Hard mode or something you would have a point. Holy Knight is not recommended since most units prefer to attack with Reason rather than Faith, ergo White Tomefaire < Black Tomefaire.

 

He does not require many points at all to pass the dancing test. Around that time, he'll have around 8cha base. His birthday is on 7th of the Red Wolf Moon (11th month) and the dancing contest is the month after that. So that's one free tea time and usually +1cha unless you get unlucky or mess up. So that's 8 + 1 + 5 = 14 already enough to qualify most times, but to be safe 2 more points should be added. Those can come from Golden Apples (which drop very often from DLC yellow aux battles) or from 2 more tea times. 2 activity points in the grand scheme is nothing, especially with the way I tend to play I often end up in mid game with many extras (after gifts become available and Byleth is comfortable in their skill levels). My Byleths tend to end up with S or S+ in their favored skills anyway, so feeding one or two measly action points for the huge long term benefit of having a Dancer with warp and decent cha is very worth it imo. I'm glad I'm not the only one ITT who isn't remotely threatened by the Death Knight. It's a fun challenge, nothing more. Unless you're playing Iron Man, if you are playing anywhere near optimally it's not an issue at all.

 

6 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

Dunno about you but most of my non mage units usually carry:
- a light weapon (training/iron, might be silver late game)
- combat art weapon (aka steel or another silver)
- a ranged option (bows or javelins/etc)
- a utility weapon (brave, horse/armorslayers/etc)
- a weapon of some other type in order not to get fucked by -breaker skills (most units should wield multiple weapon types, be it because you need lance ranks for most classes or any other reason)

also, in mid+late game vulneraries and concotions are mostly a waste of an item slot (they heal very little + you should have healers with physics)

and if you need them just give them to the mages so you can trade them around if need be

soooo, wtf?
 

speed is a non issue for mages, they will not be doubling anything but armors anyway (on maddening atleast), same goes for getting doubled, it usually won't matter a bit
dismounted cavalry still has 6 mov, which is waaaay better than the 4 mov for male mages, and do not suffer from cavalry terrain penalty.
also your last point is very disingenuous. holy knight are a shit class because there are no good faith spells with decent ammount of uses, not because mounts are inherently bad. in fact, dark knight is a great mage class.
 

This is precisely how I manage my inventory! Except ofc add in Relics (which I shuffle in and out depending on how important / difficult the battle will be). It seems super wasteful to keep healing items in a physical attacker's inventory in most instances (with rare exceptions like ch. 13 VW), since a physical attacker healing themselves to me means I've messed up my strat somehow. Usually minimal damage should be incurred, and most maps save very difficult ones only call for one long range healer. If an emergency occurs and a healing item is needed, in most cases ime a mage carrying Elixers, Concoctions, and Vulneraries (and perhaps also anti-toxins if the map has poison) is near enough to go trade for one and heal.

I also completely agree re: speed in Maddening, and about the assessment of cavalry vs. infantry and DK being a great class.

2 hours ago, Geenoble said:

I just did some calcs and it isn’t the same power, on average assuming Dorothea is a Gremory and Lorenz is A DK, Lorenz actually has higher damage. With Dorothea averaging a magic stat of 24.6 or rounded to 25, and Lorenz having a magic stat of 22 or with his prf 24. Dorothea then gets 30 Mag from Gremories class modifiers whereas Lorenz only gets 26, however Black Tomefaire makes his Magic reach 31 (or 33 with a ferdinand adjutant.) so i was wrong, Lorenz actually has higher damage than Dorothea for the late game as well. Of course if Dorothea is a Dark Knight she outdamages him but she isn’t realistically getting into Dark Knight. However i still think Hanneman, Lysithea and Hubert all best him as offensive mages. Even without Frozen Lance Lysithea has soul blade to boost her damage still beyond Lorenz, and you already mentioned Huberts frozen lance. That leaves Hanneman without a combat art. However at level 15 Hanneman has 19 magic, at level 20 he has 22.25 Magic and at level 25 he has 25.5 magic making his spells do more than Lorenz, Dorothea or any other mage could. Lorenz should average a Dex stat of 17.3 at level 25 making his Frozen lance add an effective damage of +8 to the base might. Using a Steel Lance+ Lorenz will have 49 attack adding on his Prf and the basic +4 magic battalion, Hanneman will have 49 attack with Ragnarok, yet will be able to attack from 2 range. Of course Lorenz could use a silver lance but you need to get him to B lances for that which will make him take longer to get Black magic range + 1, something he desperately wants due to lacking innate three range. After checking numbers i do think Lorenz is the 4th best combat mage on maddening, behind Lysithea with her higher damage, and Hanneman and Hubert, with their higher damage and three range.

i addressed the hit +20 issue as moreso to make his accuracy even better, allowing him to reach 98 hit on post timeskip maddening Assasins with Ragnarok. Making him an incredibly reliable nuke or chipper. I would recommend getting hit+20 on any offensive mage as it makes them much more reliable. The linked attack boost is an issue with him in BL and GD but he supports with most of the BE and even on GD and BL he still has enough supports to not make him Anna levels of bad in the linked attack department. He also has built in Rally Magic, allowing you to give 1 extra warp range, or get another mage to a kill.

I know this wasn’t directed at my post, but i want to add my opinion on these skills, lifetaker is really bad and no one but Hubert should be Dark Bishop. Poison strike is weird in that for most of the game it doesn’t really matter, however in some of the later maps, especially late game in maps like CF ch 17 or VW ch 22, where enemies have insanely high hp, it is pretty useful since it can add on up to 17 damage depending on the enemies, and the enemies on those maps have so much HP that you might need 3 untis to kill them without something like poison strike, though it is not necessary to beat those enemies since their are other ways to deal with them such as a brave weapon or stunning with gambits. Overall I wouldn’t say poison strike is super worthit since its a skill thats ok for some late game maps but overall pretty pointless. It’s there if you want it and it doesn’t hurt but there isnt a need for it.

I basically agree with all of this (well the parts I'd thought a bit about anyway, the analysis re: Hanneman was new to me (why is he so forgettable, him? I think it's part down to when he arrives perhaps?) so thank you for that).

One thing I do think should be factored into these discussions are range boosting relics, however. I think that Thyrsus elevates Lysithea from very good to "DELETE". I always give that to her, to me that's "her" relic. However, if he's in play Lorenz gets Caduces since it helps a LOT with his being locked to 2range spells by default. It is very true he wants to rush for Black Magic +1 on top of that, and when that does come in he's even more deadly.

I just really think Poison Strike is super useful. One thing I really love it for is feeding kills to new recruits, or those who have fallen a bit behind since you can very easily control the hp in Maddening NG to fall in the 1-9 range for any unit to sweep in and mop up. Being able to get something down that far is still useful generally, imo. I agree that it gets more and more useful as the game goes on and enemy hp totals skyrocket. Also, the higher the hp something has the more likely it will take several units to kill, and the more likely Poison Strike can make the difference between getting that kill in one turn, or face an enemy phase against a powerful high hp enemy.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

1 hour ago, Geenoble said:

As someone who has played Maddening NG it is very easy to master multiple intermediate classes, and you can’t always make someone an adjutant to a bulky self sustainable unit like Felix or Alois and have them solo the map while the unit hasn’t the knowledge gem and masters the intermediate class.

Did you make a couple of typos and mean to say: "you CAN always make someone an adjutant to a bulky self sustainable unit like Felix or Alois and have them solo the map while the unit HAS the knowledge gem and masters the intermediate class"? It feels like you did from the rest of your post. 😉

So if you are saying that it's very easy to master multiple intermediate classes, I totally agree. I usually don't even need the knowledge gem or an adjutant for magical units since they get class exp from supporting spells which are easier to grind (like healing 1pt of damage or later spamming Ward for no reason). It's almost like an afterthought, really. I always master Bishop and Mage with basically every magical unit on NG Maddening because there's no reason not to since it basically happens on its own ime.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

2 hours ago, Flere210 said:

Sure, if Lorenz is allowed to master 2 classes to everyone else's 1, then he is better than other people. But then you have to explain me how it is not favouritism. 

Simple: most of my characters end up mastering more than one class in Maddening NG+ due to the exp nerf being so harsh, and the class exp nerf not. So for instance Marianne is ALSO going to be mastering both Mage and Priest. It's no difference at all, really.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

6 hours ago, Geenobe said:

I don’t know why people seem to forget about Hanneman but he is most definitely a better damage dealing mage when compared to Lorenz, he has some of the highest magic in the game, having 20 magic at level 15 when recruited, being on par with Lysithea and Hubert and beating everyone else at same level, and he has a 55% magic growth, meaning he will only slightly be passed by Lysithea after a few levels and stay on par with Hubert. Hanneman is probably the second best offensive mage in the game, only behind Hubert, and despite Lysithea doing slightly more damage, she lacks 3 range until S rank magic whereas Hanneman and Hubert both have 3 range to compensate for slightly lower damage. (Lysithea is better though since she has utility.) Dorothea and Marriane are also better offenSive mages than Lorenz since they get Thoron for 3 range and have better magic stats than him. Lorenz could be better than Marianne since the extra 4 damage he gets from his prf and a Ferdinand adjutant, + higher mt on Ragnarok and Agneas arrow might make his lower mag less important, but he wont be doing more damage than Dorothea.

there have been like 3 pages on exclusively Lorenz so who wants to talk about some other units, like Ignatz or Alois.

Hanneman has some availability problems which is part of why he's often forgotten I think. He'll also pretty much never double, which is fine if he is one shotting but ime in Maddening NG he doesn't usually. Maybe he should / could with help, but by the time you get him you've already invested in other units that will outshine him without a lot of babying. I guess he's good to have on hand if someone gets RNG screwed.

I like Ignatz and think he's another unit that, like Lorenz, often gets crapped on despite having a lot of utility. I'm more meh on Alois but could be convinced!

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That does jack shit to change the fact that it just ain't worth it because the classes you gain access to are just not that good. I'd rather just go to mage and get Fiendish Blow rather than waste time picking up a skill that ain't worth it. Or even trying to get the seal for a class that's a lot of effort to gain for not much reward, for that matter.

How many Black Pearls and Golden Apples did you feed him? A ton? Because with his shit charm base and growth, there's no way in the seven hells he's getting close to the lords' charm scores without some major luck on your part or a shitton of favoritism.

Just how many weapons do you usually have on your units? Because I find any more than three to be unnecessary, more often than not.

RE: Dark Knight: Unless you're a male, I see qualifying for it as too much effort for not much reward (and the only male mage worth anything in this game is Hubert).

Getting both Poison Strike and Fiendish Blow is trivial on Maddening NG, even more so on Maddneing NG+.

Tea time is a thing. It didn't take many to get his charm to 16 (or was it 17?) before taking the dance lesson. He's admittedly RNG blessed in this playthrough but 10% growth from Dancer does help a lot.

Every unit of mine that's melee has one ring/gem/shield and a boatload of weapons. They have diverse loadouts since every situation is a bit different. Sometimes you might want more accuracy, so take the iron lace+. Sometimes more power so choose the silver lance. Sometimes range so choose short spear+. Sometimes a gamble on a crit so choose killer lance+. Or you're fighting an armor or calvary unit so reach for rapier or mace+.

Can you play through the game, even on maddening ng, with just an iron sword+? Sure, but ime it's better to have a wide array of weapons at your disposal so you rarely if ever feel the need to use a healing item or buffing item. I remember when I first started playing FE decades ago, I would keep healing items on everyone but now I feel like that's just a waste of a slot that could go to a weapon that could put you in a situation where a healing item is unneeded.

Right, so this puts Lorenz up a peg: getting into Dark Knight is a PITA for any other mage. This works heavily in his favor in a game where canto is quite broken. 

56 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Do you realize you have considered them at level 24 whitout factoring tomefaire(also, both should have fiendish blow)? That a 1 point difference, except poison strike damage is only ever applied to non lethal blows and wind spells have effectiveness againist flyers. That's not what i would call better. And Annette has a truckload of issues as a straight attack mage.

 

Errata Corrige: only excalibur is effective againist flyers. Still, she would have it by level 24.

Doesn't factoring those in just cancel out? It adds +6 and +5 respectively to both. i didn't include it since it didn't seem necessary, since they should both have both of them (I decided that staying in DB for heartseeker is not ideal, Lorenz does want to quickly go through that back into Warlock then into Dark Knight).

 

Annnete's spell list is, imo, the worst one in the game. Yeah, excalibur is nice but do you really want to get her anywhere near the extremely dangerous fliers in NG Maddening as a Gremory or Warlock? I mean, be my guest but it's dicey and she has issues entering Dark Knight. Otherwise her spells are light and accurate but less damaging. She'll double more in the early game (but that's when you want her as a rallybot), but that drops off towards mid and disappears near end game. 

 

1 hour ago, AxelVDP said:

lol, you're right, I completely forgot about Hanneman
still, Hanneman lacks Lorenz's bulk (his main nieche) and ability to support with most of the cast (for linked attacks), so I guess they are roughly on par in terms of overall utility (meteor at A+ is not really a big factor imho since you either have 4mov (bleargh) and 2 meteors or 7mov and 1 meteor (meh), also A+ means that it will only be relevant in the lategame)
in case you missed it, I posted numbers that show that Lorenz outdamages most mages for most of the early+mid game, and he easily outdamages Dorothea, Annette and Marianne (also, Frozen Lance is a thing)

 

Huh, I actually did miss that somehow. Going back to look now. I'm glad it's not just me. 🙂

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

No. I just think other than two very specific methods (or just stealing them), getting Dark Seals is an extremely high-risk endeavor, and the reward is very mediocre for all the hassle.

Even though the second unit might have already been able to kill without it? Sure, that's helpful... 

Ward? You mean the thing that I could easily replicate with Pure Water? People don't give Ashe much credit just because he has free Lockpick, you know. So why should I give Lorenz credit for something else that's also easily replicatable with an item? Also, he gets it at B rank.

Long story short, I feel Linhardt needs too much resources to not be shit with offensive gambits, and to win the dance competition.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on the ease of getting Dark Seals. I think it would present a problem on an Iron  Man run, but it's not that hard even on NG Maddening imo.

We will also have to agree to disagree on Linny's viability as an offensive gambit user. Again, I think the investment is trivial. He's currently my highest lv. character at 31 and has 27cha, on par with Claude who at lv. 30 has 28cha. I think it's very useful to take a unit who would otherwise not be able to get off offensive gambits and make them into one that reliably can instead of taking a unit with already high cha and driving that cha into the sky. There's a point past which added cha is a bit redundant.

In Maddening NG chip and maim damage can certainly be useful. Again, even Byleth will do chip or maim sometimes in some circumstances (I just got through ch. 13 and she was chipping and maiming there). Is Byleth useless?

I never want to replace an inventory slot with an item if it can be at all helped past very early game. I did put elixers, concoctions etc on most for ch. 13, but that's a special circumstance. If I can avoid toting it around, I will. Pure water is an annoying clutter when you could have a weapon that might be more useful there imo.

One other thing that I have totally neglected to bring up about Lorenz is that his personal skill gives +2 damage when he has a battalion equipped, which he always will past the first few chapters. +2damage is nothing to sneeze at, and is part of why he like Lys is often able to one shot enemies. That was a major oversight on my part.

 

So re: Annette he is outdamaging her when comparing their basic spells.

Comparing the average Lorenz to the average Anette at level 24 we get Lorenz with 21mag and Annette with 27. The damage forumals are as follows:

((magic + might) + (up to 20% of max hp if you have poison strile))  - resistance 

27 + 2 - 6 = 23

(21 + 3 + 9) - 6 = 27 + 2 from Distinguished house = 29

The might of wind is 2, the might of fire is 3. Lorenz is out damaging her by 4pts due to poison strike, but then add in his personal and he's hitting for 6 more damage. Granted, she is perhaps more likely to double due to her spells generally being lower in WT but even that is questionable because Lorenz has decent str growth to make up for his slightly heavier spells. He also has a slightly better speed growth (40 vs. 35). And even mages sometimes have trouble doubling on Maddening NG depending on the mob.

 

He outdamages her due to poison strike and his personal, despite his lower average mag stat, and get gets on horse much easier. He's a better attack mage. She's a far better rallybot.

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

24 minutes ago, SpiceMan said:

Umm...what?

Oops, lol, I meant Ares. One of those blond dudes on a horse. Whichever! 😉 ...Although I guess Eldigan would fit more with the other two, but he's not a PC.

[So I FINALLY did Silver Snow...Wow...]

Quote

THEN, APROPOS OF NOTHING, Rhea goes insane. The worst ass-pull I've seen in at least the last year, if not longer, and the single worst-written plot point in a game that includes the criminally underwritten "those who slither in the dark."

Haha, yes, this was absolutely ridiculous. One way that I've enjoyed Fire Emblem over the years is by not taking its (almost always at least in part) silly and convoluted storylines very seriously at all. So for me this was an eyeroll, but I also got a genuinely big laugh out of just how incredibly STUPID it was. So personally, I had a lot of fun with the moment. But I can see how people who want a serious story that actually hangs together and makes sense would find this utterly enraging!

I will say that from my perspective I found SS to be fun and interesting to some extent, but it certainly could have been better. I think that sadly both of the Black Eagles routes are the worst written and least developed in the game. I don't know why that is, if the team assigned to that part was simply less competent or if the had less time/budget.

One other thing with SS in Maddening is that the difficulty curve at endgame was a bit... Unexpected. It was totally doable, but it wasn't a cakewalk like the rest of the maps and took a while. I suppose the rest were so easy in part because one plays versions of them in Verdant Wind.

Overall, I wish they had delayed the game further and written BE better AND made more maps but oh well, maybe the sequel will be more polished due to the good reception 3H had overall despite its faults.

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

9 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Awakening Dread Fighters were really good, though...

The class could be good, sure, but IS almost certainly wouldn't just give the class boosts to Mag and Res (even if they should). More likely, they would offset the boosts by lowering other stats, like strength (why are armors so weak in this game ugh) or defense.

The perennial problem with hybrid-offense classes is that their stats either lend heavily to one or the other between magic and strength (in which case, why do you need both?), or they have middling values in both stats (limiting their damage potential on either side). Discussion of a hypothetical hybrid-offense Emperor class has to acknowledge the likelihood that it will fall into one of these two moulds.

They do typically do stuff like that, yes. But they did give us Claude in this game, so in theory it could have been possible that they could have made her class comparable. One other reason to give us three OP lords would have been that 3H is explicitly partially based on Genealogy, which featured Sigurd, Levin and Beowulf [correction] Ares: three very overpowered characters. Granted, none were hybrid.

However, there's no reason besides tradition that a mixed class couldn't be very OP. But yeah it's moot at this point since it will never happen in 3H, but maybe in a sequel if they make one. And if they do make a direct sequel it would make sense that the Lords would be even more OP in it. Or their children / parents as the case may be.

 

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

I still think the reward is far outweighed by the risk (like I said, I don't think the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are so great as to warrant risking units over).

I don't see it unless Poison Strike routinely turns a non-fatal hit into a fatal one.

Because from where I'm standing, Lorenz doesn't hold a candle to her - she has 4 base mag over him, and second, he has no utility of note. Third, I don't see Wyvern as legitimate for Annette when her weapons of choice have poor accuracy and lose durability even on missed attacks.

And I think it's false. And that you're grasping at straws.

Are we talking about Iron Man tiers? Maybe then Dark Seals aren't the best idea, but you can always reset if something goes wrong and you lose a unit. I haven't lost one to him in ages though. Assuming ideal play, Dark Seals aren't  that hard to get.

Poison strike helps ensure a kill via a second unit if he doesn't just delete (which is a possibility we have to keep in mind).

Her 4 base magic isn't that much. Lorenz has Ward and Recover. Ward can be useful in many situations, as can Recover. I realize Annette also has Recover but she lacks ward. Her rallybot utility is nice but falls off after early game.

Seems like we're going to have to agree to disagree then since "I think that's false" without supporting evidence isn't much of an argument!

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The thing is, any class could, in theory, "kick ass" if you're allowed to make whatever changes you want to it. If Swordmasters had 8 move and Swordfaire, Crit+20, and Canto, then suddenly they're broken. But that's miles away from saying "Swordmaster with Crit+20 instead of SwordCrit+10 would be broken." The point is, when people talk about "If only Emperor got Magic", the implicit assumption is that the only thing changed about the class is the ability to use spells.

Anyway, my ideal Emperor would keep 5 move, but have an actual speed stat (on-par with Wyvern Lord) and magic access. Same for Armored Lord. It wouldn't be broken (I don't really agree that Lord classes should be OP; Claude's are because IS failed to balance fliers), but it would have a niche of usefulness over other options. "Magical Great Knight" is an intriguing notion, but as Edelgard is neutral in Riding, I don't think it fits her.

This is very true, which is why it's funny that some are reacting like it's not possible for a  mixed magic and armor class to be OP. If IS wanted to, they could give us an Edelgard whose final class was on par with Claude's.

I don't see why the implicit assumption should be that the class change would only involve spells. I would assume that it should involve stat boosting in mag and also imo res would be godly. Imagine an armor knight who could actually tank mages too.

I agree that mounted Edelgard doesn't feel right, even though a magical great knight class sounds interesting. I think she should get +1mv and additional growth rates in mag and res. That'd be pretty good. Added speed would be nice too.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Remember the last time a good class got both axes and magic? Because I don't. Mortal Savant has Tomefaire and Swordfaire, and is still mocked as a third-rate class, so what chance does Emperor with magic have of being good???

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

2 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Stop talking about personal experience on a certain unit's stats. We should evaluate units based on their AVERAGE performance. We don't care about how you did in your playthrough, unless you were experimenting with some kind of build.

Base magic stat is very important to look at because thats what determines a unit's early game performance, which in this case is very bad. Lorenz gets doubled by everything. He doesn't get anything that can really make up for this until B reason Ragnorock which is mid game.

Also Lorenz will always be behind Lysithea magic wise. She starts with 11 mag and has 60% mag growth rate vs Lorenz terrible base 7 mag and 40% growth rate. He's already 4 mag behind and every 10 lvls she will have 2 more magic than Lorenz(.6*10 - .4*10 = 2).

Nearly dead is not the same is dead enemy. That requires one more unit to attack that enemy. You are wasting a unit's player phase turn.

No you do not. You get fiendish blow as a class skill for dark bishop, which doesn't stack. Still going dark bishop isn't worth it over warlock(which you can get blacktome flaire, +5 dmg).

There's some miscommunication. I don't disagree with your idea of getting poison strike. If Lorenz already mastered mage, might as well get reclass and get another skill that could be useful for bosses. But I do think it is a niche skill. Poison strike+Lifetaker isn't as useful what other mages can provide. Annette can provide rallies, which is super useful early game possibly allowing you to possibly double. Dorothea, Marianne gets physics and thoron. Lysithea has warp. 

Good point about talking about average stats vs. an individual playthrough. Luckily for me, in this instance I am basically talking about a Lorenz with average magic who's been fed +2.5in mag boosters, which is almost exactly what happened in my game! At level 24, according to this calculator, Lorenz should have  oops correction: 21.6 magic if he goes the class progression I took him down. In my game, I fed him one +2 booster and got lucky with RNG to the tune of 2pts. I think he's worth the bump up, since Lys will 1HKO most things without help, and Marianne doesn't need it either really as she's mostly a healbot (with some support attacking thrown in sometimes). After seven playthroughs (albeit some with Lorenz benched 😉 ), this Lorenz felt like an average one to me and I wasn't too far off. So right now, my Lorenz is a bit better than an average Lorenz but not that far off,  at least at this point in the game. Some will be better, some worse of course.

While it's true that early game Lorenz gets doubled by most everything, that's also true of basically all mages so I don't see how that's a point against him specifically. All mages take a while to get off the ground, especially in the early game. The first few maps are rough on them when they're running out of spells and not being able to do much damage. As a noble with balanced stats, though, you can use Lorenz to safely sweep up stragglres if you don't put him in harm's way with his lance and Tempest Lance. He's helped a lot in the first few maps by this utility, which is better than any other mage other than Hubert.

My argument for Lorenz doesn't so much center around Lifetaker (I agree that it's a bit nerfed, which is too bad but it's ok in a pinch sometimes) as it does around Poison Strike + easiest entry into Dark Knight for access to canto, black tomefaire, move +1, etc.

I've never been so fond of rallybots in this game and while it's true Annette and other rallybots are useful in early game, they do drop off in later game. And isn't this the same as what you were criticizing Lorenz's maim damage for earlier? You said: "That requires one more unit to attack that enemy. You are wasting a unit's player phase turn". So doesn't rallying require basically the same thing? "Wasting" a unit's player phase turn? Why isn't it considered a waste when it's a rally that helps another unit get a kill vs. a maiming that does? Because rally might help on enemy phase in some situations I guess? But in Maddening NG you don't want to be getting enemy phased by more than one and two max so I don't think it's that big of a difference really. It's also safer and easier to control to maim first than to rely on rallies I think.

 

While it's true he'll always lag Lys mag wise, he can make up for that in many situations with Poison Strike, as demonstrated above. I don't agree that maiming an enemy is useless in NG Maddening. Maybe in Hard mode sure, but in NG Maddening even Byleth will be doing maim or even chip damage sometimes. Is Byleth useless?

And ah yes, my bad on misremebering which class got fiendish blow as a class skill. It doesn't matter too much though since he should always get it from mage anyway.

I agree that Dorothea and Marianne having physic is very useful. But Dorothea has the same exact mag growth as Lorenz, no access to poison strike to make up for it, and a bane in riding. in a Maddening NG run she's not getting on a horse. Marianne has a boon in riding, a hidden talent in lances, and better mag growth, true, but in ideal play imo she is best use primarily as a healbot with some attacking thrown in if she has a spare turn with no one that needs healing. You sacrifice a lot by using Marianne as primarily an attacker, and again she doesn't have access to poison strike. Also, a 50% growth vs. a 40% growth certainly can add up but it's an average of 1pt per ten levels of difference.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

35 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The only other strategy that I know that would make it easy involves either leading the Blue Lions or having a female Byleth if you're not, on account of the Lance of Ruin.

With Poison Strike, which I'm not convinced is that useful, largely because - surprise, surprise - the stuff it would be most helpful against is the same shit it either is less effective against or is outright immune to it. Also, I strongly disagree with your assessment of Annette.

And why in the name of Anankos should I care about Poison Strike when the class it's tied to is disappointing for the hassle??

That is more like a rip-off than a good deal, if you ask me.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on a few points. I just don't think it's as big of a hassle to get dark seals in Maddening NG as you do, and I think if the tier list is one for "optimal play" it should assume that the player in question feels more like me than you on that issue and presumes they're up to the challenge.

I find poison strike quite useful against a wide array of enemies. Few things will work on all units so I don't think the fact that it doesn't makes it somehow useless.

I am curious as to how you think my assessment of Annette is wrong, and how she's a better attack mage than Lorenz. I do like her as a character (and she kicks ass as a WL on NG+ w/ Holy Tomb farming for Arcane Crystals in early to mid game) but I think she ends up in the bottom spot as far as attack mages go.

Well, we are discussing but I made my statement about Linhardt as being a good candidate for dancer generally and I think it's true. It makes a lot of sense to give a unit like him who would otherwise have trouble ever getting off successful gambits a free boost, there's minimal investment needed, he's not that amazing as a support unit, he can still make full use of warp in dancer, he really only trades a bit of healing off of physic for it.

32 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I generally use "chipping" to mean doing any damage that is not lethal. I will try to use another term in the future when talking with you if you wish. Anyway, I don't see that much difference between leaving an enemy with 1-9 HP and leaving one with 10-19 HP... usually you'll have no trouble finishing such enemies off. In other words, almost anyone can do adequate chip damage. I don't think investing in Dark Mage to get slightly more chip damage is worth the delay in stacking Black Tomefaire with Fiendish Blow.

Dark Knight does get Black Tomefaire, yes, but not until Level 30. When I was speaking of Warlock, I was speaking of them having Black Tomefaire from Level 20-29, before Dark Knight is even available. The Mage->Warlock line stacks Fiendish Blow and Black Tomefaire during those levels, and thus will outperform a Dark Bishop by a notable amount if the mage in question has black magic (i.e. any male mage except Hubert). Obviously Dark Knight is good but the levels before it are where Warlock shines.

Ah, ok. Well I always think of "chip" damage as well, like the real world version: removing a relatively small part. What Lorenz does with Poison Strike is more "maiming" than chipping. 1-9 hp makes it more likely that the mob will die ime than a true chip damage, like if Ignatz doesn't have access to Hunter's Volley and can't double and doesn't crit he'll often do 0.25 - 0.33 of total hp worth of damage. That's more in line of what I think of as "chip". And sometimes multiple units need to clean up after a chip, depending After a Lorenz "maim", only one will need to IF he doesn't 1HKO or 1RKO, which again he can but just not as often as Lys.

I think the delay is small and well worth it over time. Plus you get access to Fiendish Blow in Dark Mage as a class ability to make up for it, so in fact he gains earlier access in a sense.

But I do now think you are right, and that Heartseeker isn't really worth staying in DB for (I was debating that myself since I sorta like the idea of it on Maddening since things like assassins are so hard to hit, so thanks for helping me decide!). Once he masters DB, he should reclass to Warlock until he can access DK. Dark Knight is very good for him and in general, and he just gets it so much more easily than any other mage that isn't Hubie due to having a boon in Lance and Riding.

 

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: IF you started with the Golden Deer. Otherwise you need to recruit Lysithea first, since Hubert is the only other unit that gets it, he doesn't get it until A, and he's only usable on one route.

Even if I did aim to use him as a mage, he'd just end up in the shadow of the other mages the game gives me. Forever. It doesn't help that he has the misfortune of being in the same house as Lysithea. And even if I was leading one of the other houses and recruited him, the mages in those other houses would eclipse him. He just cannot win no matter what I do.

I don't count the dance lesson. But most of the units who I'd pick for my dancer would only need the dance lesson or would have the charm to not need it (though I'd do it anyway).

Hubie is also useable on SS. Yeah, it's not a great idea to divert a ton of exp to him over the whole game, but an argument can be made for getting Dark Spikes on him. I'm sure there are other strats too. I did SS Maddening on NG+ only though so not totally sure. On BL you can use Dmitri + Ingrid and pull it off probably (tbh I forget exactly how I did it on AM NG Maddening).

 

It's really not true that he's a shadow of the other mages though. as demonstrated, his damge output can in some contexts be higher than Lysithea's and he's the best candidate for earliest Dark Knight. Blue lions has the worst attack mags in the game, imo. Annette imo only shines as a rallybot or magical wyvern, and the latter is prohibitive to get into on Maddening NG. Mercy is a healer combo, not a true attack mage. Neither get into DK easily.

 

And again, no female mage can get poison strike which ups the damage output a LOT in maddening. Try it out, then get back. TBH I also used to bench Lorenz but I've changed my mind in recent playthroughs.

 

The dance lesson should be counted in a tier list though since it's a free +5 that everyone has access to. Even Raphael easily qualified for Dancer when I gave him the dance lesson in a joke run. If you use it on Linhardt instead of a naturally high charm unit, then instead of adding extra charm to an already decent charm unit, you're giving yourself another viable gambiter since the Dancer class gives a 10% boost to charm growth. That's a pretty good deal.

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

3 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

All the lords are broken. Their classes aren't (except perhaps Barbarosa, but even then it's mostly lateral from Wyvern Lord aside from the fact that you don't need to invest in skill training to get it), but their stat builds (vastly superior bases + improved level-gain rate + good growths) and relics alone ensure they're all OP.

Sure, I meant they should all have broken classes like Claude's class. Edelgard is great as a Wyvern Lord but her end game personal class is terrible. Her relic is probably my favorite due to the galeforce effect. Soloing CF's end boss with her is fun.

[Rank the paralogues from easiest to hardest]

5 minutes ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

Hi! I just did this one on Maddening! They don't all have to escape, just survive. They can still be on the map when you finish it and you'll still get the reward (aegis shield).

Well I'll be! I remember hearing that they all had to escape or it didn't count. Well, that helps a LOT. I'll try that next time, thank you! 🙂

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The issue with Poison Strike is that it only makes you better at chipping. As you note, it's not relevant if you're killing in one hit without it, and it's also not relevant if you're finishing off an enemy who has already taken some damage (and notably the game provides a major mechanic, gambits, which tend to lower the HP of some enemies a bit and create this scenario).

In the example given, is Lorenz better than Lysithea at chipping? Sure, but only a little. Leaving an enemy with only 13 HP is better than leaving them with 17, though not that much because most other units can finish off a unit with 17 HP (maybe not a low-str Curved Shot or something like that). So his advantage here is marginal, and I don't think Poison Strike was a good investment just to improve his chipping ability a bit.

Additionally, I'd say that the most important aspect of a chipping character is not their raw damage, but their range. Generally, any decent chip is going to lower enemy HP enough that someone else will be able to finish them. Thus, the most valuable chipping is that which can be done at longer range, and at this niche, Lorenz is outclassed by units with Thoron such as Marianne, Dorothea, and Hanneman.

In general I think the Dark Mage / Dark Bishop line is very poor for units like Lorenz. Poison Strike is outclassed by Fiendish Blow because the latter helps secure kills while the former does not, and Dark Bishop does not provide Black Tomefaire which black mages like Lorenz would very much like, unlike Warlock.

I wouldn't exactly call consistently leaving enemies with 1-9 hp "chipping. Also, again, in my playthrough he CAN delete some enemies as well with Ragnarok or Agnea's Arrow or doubling.

Again, if we assume optimal play we also pick up Fiendish Blow from Mage on the way to Dark Knight. This is not hard to do in Maddening NG, I had them both relatively early. It's normal for me that my magical units will master both Bishop and Mage so it's basically the same thing.

 

Dark Knight gets black tomefaire. He gets into Dark Knight easier than any other magical unit besides Hubert; this is part of what makes him good. Canto is just as good as range in many instances, and I always give him Caduceus (Dorothea benefits more from a Magical Staff imo). I think he's the best candidate for it. I don't like to sacrifice Thyrsus for him, but that'd help him a lot of course.

 

Maybe, however, you have a point about switching him to Warlock after mastering Dark Bishop. I do like heartseeker but you may be onto something about mastering DB, then reclassing to Warlock for Black Tomefaire and 2x spells... Still, ultimately imo he's best in Dark Knight. He'd be amazing if you could get Indra's Arrow for him, but you can't (not really, even though it's in a late GD chapter) so oh well.

[Rank the paralogues from easiest to hardest]

True Chivalry (Felix)  is my least favorite one. It proves, once and for all, that Green Units are the one true Fire Emblem enemy. This was very hard on Hard, when Felix's Daddy was OP since it was tricky to keep enough enemies alive to allow the other green units to escape when he just mowed everything down in one hit. On maddening, you have the opposite problem since Daddy's stats are nerfed in comparison to the enemies so he CHARGES to his death if you can't distract him / get lucky. I always find myself using stride on the Green Unit most near the starting point and also often using draw back to try to get that one just a bit closer to the goal. It's best if Daddy decides to head towards the corner to the bottom left but if he goes for the upper right it's a nightmare. I got around it last time by baiting an enemy to the door of that little square area in the upper right and spamming Impregnable Wall on three of my units there, which stymied Daddy's suicide attempt for long enough for that slow ass green unit to escape.

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

4 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Not if it keeps 5 move and abyssmal speed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Emperor getting magic access (for thematic reasons, and to differentiate it further from other armored classes), but it wouldn't solve the class' two biggest flaws. You mentioned making Edelgard a Dark Knight, and sure she's good in that, because she has good movement (plus canto) and a respectable speed stat.

Well, they could just add some movement and speed. Or maybe even give her a horse and make her a magical great knight or something. All of the Lords should be broken imo. There would be ways to make a mixed magical Edelgard OP in a complimentary way to how Claude is ridiculously OP.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

You're conflating two different scenarios, though: being route-locked, and being a late recruit. You can use Hubert for all of CF, so when we're judging him, it should be on that basis (ideally, each route would have its own tierlist). Lorenz, meanwhile, can be judged both as a GD in-house unit, and a recruitable in other routes. Meanwhile, there's no way to use, say, Athos for more than one chapter of FE7.

I can agree with Lorenz beating out Hubert on an SS-specific tierlist, at least.

The OP of this post was very unclear as to the terms of the tier list. IMO tier lists are interesting both as overall and as route tier lists, I was talking of an overall one since it wasn't specified as a route specific one. Overall, Lorenz simply has more availability than Hubie since it only makes sense to use Hubie on one route. But yes, we can certainly agree that Lorenz is a better pick in SS than Hubie and Hubie would be by far the better pick in CF.

 

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

On the contrary, I think availability gets too much credit. Look at Arthur in FE Fates, for example. Putting aside the fact that he comes in several turns in his joining chapter in Conquest, he is available for the whole game. Too bad he's a lousy unit.

The problem is, being a jack of all trades isn't much help when you're outclassed by pretty much everyone. If I was to compare Lorenz to a Pokemon, he'd be a Glalie or a Spinda. Or a Pidgeot. Except unlike Pidgeot, which eventually got a Mega Evolution, he doesn't get anything that allows him to break free of the balance curse.

The issue is that there are only two easy ways to defeat him, and if you don't have either, which is pretty much going to be the case in chapter 4, you're gonna have to either spam Gambits that do piddle damage or hope you have someone who doesn't get doubled. Maybe even both. For all the hoops I have to jump through, I don't think the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are so fantastic as to justify the trouble.

And that's the problem - his charm is bad to the point I'm forced to divert resources I might have planned to give to other units to him instead just for him to have a ghost of a chance.  Sonic says, that's NO GOOD.

Ah, but the thing is you don't have to run him as a jack of all trades. Make him a specialist and he'll do well; his stats ime fall into line (less str and more mag) if you do this. The newb mistake is to try to use him both as a physical and magical attacker.

 

I actually just ran some numbers from my playthrough. If I'm not mistaken, the formula to calculate magical damage is:

(Magic + Might) - Resistance = Damage

However for any unit with poison strike that calucaltion is as such:

 

((Magic + Might) + (up to 20% of max HP))  - Resistance = Damage

 

The might of miasma is 5. Let’s use a lvl 28 brigand with 47hp and 6 res as the test subject.

 

Lorenz in my playthrough does ((26 + 5) + (9)) - 6 = 34

Lysithea does (31 + 5) - 6 =  30

 

Please correct me if I'm mistaken somewhere, the formulas aren't listed on Serenes and I got this from Gamefaqs. So Lorenz in my playthrough is actually doing more damage with poison strike on one hit. I think poison strike only applies to one round of combat howerver, so if there are two rounds then she'll do more damage in total (but it won't matter since they will both kill the unit in question (he will do a total of 50 base damage in that situation whereas she will do 60).

 

The issue becomes one shots where she can delete and he can only reduce to 1hp (or thereabouts). Which of course means he's not better than her. But when you look at the math, he does start looking better.

 

However, of course poison strike isn't as useful on Hard or Normal since enemy HP is lower and therefore 20% of max HP is obviously also a lower value. Lorenz has actually gone up in usefulness in Maddening imo. Again, Hubert is better but he's (basically) locked to one route.

 

I think we'll have to disagree on how difficult it is to kill the Death Knight. Yes, it's hard as hell the first few times but it does become easier over time. And if we are assuming "optimal play" (as another poster suggested) then we should assume the player is capable enough to kill the death knight with relative ease. Planning ahead to get Dark Spikes is a perfectly viable strategy!

 

The amount of resources (tea times, stat boosters, dance lessons (not even really a  resource per se) you have to put into Linhardt to get him to win the contest is minimal imo as compared to the  benefits. Also, it's good to use the free +5 from dance lessons to fix a unit like Linny with low charisma in case you want to put a damaging gambit on him (which is sometimes a good option in Maddening NG).

[How do people deal with Claude as an enemy?]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Using Gambits on Claude directly would be highly likely to fail, unless you had a crazy amount of charm (even on normal, he has 37).

I disagree on giving Edelgard's unique classes magic - making them a half-assed hybrid class would not help much.

Byleth and your dancer will often have high enough charisma to hit him, esp. with linked attacks (snipers, mages with relics, etc.)

Why would it have to be a half assed class? It certainly could in theory kick ass. I made her into a Dark Knight last CF playthrough and she did pretty well in that. But they could make her final class have crazy mag growth pretty easily. It's a shame that her class is currently so bad. I've never finished a CF playthrough with her in it since it just sucks currently.