Shepherd

I have to main problems with the magic system in Three Houses. First of all, the distinction between dark and black magic faire skills is completely pointless and limiting. There are only three characters that use dark magic effectively, and they are all hampered by certain magic classes, like mortal savant and dark flyer, having the wrong faire skill. Classes that do have dark tome fair are basically a compromise to every other magic class by taking up a skill slot for a useless skil. There's no reason why dark and black tomefaire (and spell use) couldn't be combined into reasonfaire. Pun intended. secondly, I think spell use is kind off 'all or nothing'. The difference between having having dark/black/white magic use x2 and not having one of those skills is very big. It seems like this could have been a balanced so that spell use would increase more gradually over the course of the game. Maybe spell use could be tied to reason and faith ranks respectively, or maybe to class tier.

I'm currently doing a maddening run with the Black Eagles, so all of my opinions here are based on that route. I'll give a difficulty ranking for every chapter, and base the final ranking on that. I'm only at the battle of the eagle and lion though, so I will update once I've done the rest of the pre-skip chapters. Prologue (1/10): You can complete this map with just Byleth and the lord you want to use. Give Claude's bow to Byleth and let him hug the lord you want to use for the entire map. Have your lord hide in the forest with a sword equiped. You can then use the other lords as meat shields. I tend to reset for non-shit levelups in the real early game, so I have done this map very often with all three lords. Once you have one specific strategy that works, this map becomes really easy. Chapter 1 (4/10): This map gets much easier once you know the triggers for the AI. First beat all the Golden Deer, then the Blue Lions. Beat the teachers last. I think the BE have it the easiest here thanks to Dorothea's healing and Bernadetta's high damage output. Before I knew how to bait the enemies one by one, this map was hell. Now it's pretty easy. Chapter 2 (8/10): You have to be very careful not to trigger the group of bandits near the chest. With that contraint in mind, there is not a lot of breathing room on this map. You don't have any good options against the archers yet, except for hopefully dodging them. Healing is also very limited because you main healer has only 5 uses, though Dorothea's personal really helps in this regard. Overall, I think it's one of the more annoying chapters simply because you don't have many options yet. Chapter 3 (7/10): Most of the enemies aren't very threating by themselves, but they surround your starting area. The fog is really annoying, but using torches helps a bit. The dark mage that controls the fog is also really annoying because he stands in the forest, making him hard to hit. I suppose you could let Catherine do some work for you if you really struggle with this map, but that means less exp. In short, the map is more annoying than anything. At least Lonato is an easy boss. Chapter 4 (5/10): In my current playthrough, I came 2 damage short of killing the death knight with gambits plus knightkneeler from Ferdinand. I was so afraid that I just couldn't beat him, but then Ferdinand clutched it out with a crest proc, preventing counterattack. After that the map was easy tbh. Dorothea, Hubert and Linhardt all have plenty of resistance to bait the reinforcement mages. The boss mage is also laughably weak. If you can't beat the death knight, you lose a lot of breathing room though. Overall, I don't think it's a very difficult map. Chapter 5 (8/10): I like to bait the archers here to trigger all the enemies to move. Have one half of your army fight off the reinforcements at the bottom of the map, and have the other half bait the archers with thoron/mire/bow range +1 and some healing support. This way, you get to fight most of the enemies in the big open space below the ambush spawn, which means they are perfectly lined up for some gambit action. You might still get overwhelmed though, especially if you miss some of your gambits. You also need to preserve some gambits because you'll need them against beast Miklan. I think what makes this map hard is that it is very long, so there are a lot of instances where things can go wrong. Chapter 6 (6/10): Non of the regular enemies are very threatning. The timer though... The death knight is much harder to beat than last time because he shows up in a very cramped space, which means that you can't surround him with gambits. I find beating the chapter not extremely hard, but getting all the rewards is challenging because of the turn limit. So here's the final list of the first batch of the chapters, from hardest to easiest: 1. Chapter 2 2. Chapter 5 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 6 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 1 7. Prologue

Oh, I'm definitely gonna try that bow knight Hubert, but when it really doesn't work out it's not so fun anymore. Though I suppose that I should be able to make it work if the game can be beaten with 0% growths.

Does fiendish blow work if you use a weapon that does magical damage, like the magic bow or Blutgang? What about combat arts that do magical damage, like frozen lance?

I think the step up from hard to maddening is quite big. Personally, I like the challenge maddening provides, but I also feel like maddening can be restricting in ones creativity. Now, when I mean unorthodox builds, I don't mean memes like warlock Dedue, but like, bow knight hubert or dark knight Bernadetta. Builds that are far from optimal, but that still have at least some merit and are achievable without NG+. Do you think those kinds of builds can still be viable in maddening? What is the weirdest build that you could make work in maddening no NG+?

Remember a couple of years back when Echoes got released? Instead of one big banner, there were small banners for each route. I think that's a good way to do it for three houses as well. So far I have only made a small banner for the BE, but I will do the other houses too, later on. I also made skills and stats because I think that's more interesting than just a list with some character names. Black Eagles Dorothea (sword infantry) HP: 42 | ATK: 32 | SPD: 32 | DEF: 16 | RES: 29 (Total: 151) Weapon: Hexblade (14 might, deals magic based damage) Assist: sing A skill: sorcery blade C skill: soothing light (at start of turn, restore 10 HP to adjacent allies) Linhardt (staff infantry) HP: 35 | ATK: 34 | SPD: 31 | DEF: 24 + | RES: 33 (Total: 157) Staff: absorb Assist: warp (move targeted ally to any accesibly tile within 2 spaces of unit) A skill: fortress DEF/RES B skill: renewal Bernadetta (blue bow cavalry) HP 41+ | ATK: 35 | SPD: 34 | DEF: 19 | RES: 21 - (Total: 150) Weapon: Paranoia Bow (14 might. if user's HP < 100%, grant ATK + 5 during combat and, if special triggers, boost damage dealt to foe by 30% of damage dealt to unit. Not inheritable) Special: Crest of Indech (4 turn. When unit's special triggers, user attacks twice. Not inheritable) A skill: brazen ATK/SPD B skill: desperation Golden deer Ignatz (colourless bow infantry) HP: 38 | ATK: 32 | SPD: 38 | DEF: 22 | RES: 27 + (Total 157) Weapon: Break bow (12 might. After combat, inflict ATK/DEF -6 on target and foes within two spaces. Effective against flying foes. Inheritable) Assist: rally ATK/SPD+ A: close counter B: lull ATK/DEF Leonie (lance infantry) HP: 42 | ATK: 32 | SPD: 40 | DEF: 32 | RES: 22 + Weapon: Leonie's Lance (if unit is within 2 spaces of a cavalry ally, grant both unit and nearest cavalry ally +4 ATK/DEF) Assist: reposition A skill : ATK/DEF bond C skill: joint hone SPD Lorenz (red tome cavalry) HP: 38: | ATK:28 - | SPD: 32 | DEF: 28 +| RES: 32 (Total: 158) Weapon: thyrsus (grants DEF +3. At start of combat, if foe's Atk ≥ unit's Atk+3, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 during combat. If special is active, reduce all incoming damage by 30%) It's basically a better version of Kliff's sagitae Special: blue flame A: bracing blade 4 (If unit's combined DEF/RES > foe's combined DEF/RES, grants Special cooldown charge +1 and deals +5 damage to foe per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.) B: lull SPD/RES

Another clever piece of foreshadowing is that Flayns birthday is on the official saint Cethlean day. I didn't think much of it in my first playthrough, but the clue seemed so obvious in retrospect.

Holy flier - master class requirements: faith (A), flying (A) skills: white magic use x 2, rescue (Allows unit to cast Rescue. If rescue is already available, then unit can cast it twice as often), canto class mastery: white magic heal +10 growth modifiers: HP (+5), mag (+10), spd (+5), luck (+10), def (-5), res (+10), charm (+10) It's litterally just bishop on a mount. I don't know if white magic use x 2 would stack with the rescue skill on characters that already have rescue. Would be hilariously broken, but whatever I guess. Many of the healers in this game have a proficiency in flying, so this class would be perfect for them. This includes Manuella , Flayn, Marianne and Ingrid. Even someone like Bernadetta could make it into this class because pegasus knight , one of Bernie's best intermediate classes , is a very logical step into holy flier, and her spell list is great. Ideally, it would be unisex just for Linhardt, though that seems unlikely if this class was actually added. Sharpshooter - master class requirements: bow (A), reason (B+) skills: bowfaire, black tomefair, cast range +1 (bows and offensive magic get plus 1 range) growth modifiers: atk (+10), mag (+10), dex (+10), spd (+10), def/res (-5), charm (+5) class mastery: distant avoid (if enemy initiates combat and attacks from range, gain avoid +20%) A glass canon hybrid class with some mild dodge tank bait capability against ranged enemies. There are surprisingly many characters that have proficiencies in both reason and bows, including Hubert, Felix, Mercedes, Ignatz and Hanneman. It might also be good for Claude , Shamir and Bernadetta because all of them have decent spell lists. Lysithea and Lorenz are interesting choices as well because they would have a stupid amount of range with cast range + 1 and thyrsus. Sentinel - master class requirements: lance (A), brawling (A) skills: lancefair, fistfaire, advantaged fighter (after combat, unit can change weapon and if enemy initiates and unit uses lance, user attacks before enemy) growth modifiers: HP (+25), atk (+10), mag (-5), dex (+10), spd (+5), def (+10), charm (+5) class mastery: a combat art for gauntles that prevents enemy follow-ups, like windsweep. I know that that advantaged fighter is kind of stacked. Ideally it would have been two different skills, but then there would not be enough space for both lance- and fistfaire. This is precisely the reason why I think class exclusive skills should not include the fair skills; it's really limiting and boring. Anyway, the idea of this kind of technical class is that you initiate on the enemy with the gauntlet windsweep combat art, switch to a lance (assuming the combat art didn't OHKO), and then vantage the enemy before they can attack. With a game plan like that, this class can deal high amounts of damage without receiving damage back, giving the class great offensive and defensive utility. It would be especially great for the gauntlet boys: Caspar, Dedue and Raphael. It's also great for physical female characters that want to use gauntlets, like Hilda, Leonie or Catherine.