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RaIsMyPet

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  1. OK. My temper got the better of me. I'm sorry to make an assumption. But you forgot the first few sentences of my topic. I claimed already my dodge tanks never gets hit by normal attacks, even when rattled save some very extreme situations, and for unlucky gambits, divine pulse can always fix that. With my build, you would have more than enough divine pulses because you won't need them for much else.
  2. On my another topic on dodge tanks, some people mentioned not liking the Battalion skills because of setup. Which is totally fine. I can understand this. I don't like setting them up too many times either. But at one point, certain user said "there is no guarantee to make Battalion exactly 1/3 endurance", and it makes me wonder: how many people is unwilling to use Battalion skill because of (happen to) not knowing the fact that setting up exactly 1/3 endurance is guaranteed by this game's mechanism? No intention to be offensive or condescending, just curious and want to make sure all the theory-crafting people are on the same page (and I would certainly think asking this would be arrogant had not some user said too many blatantly wrong stuff about gaming mechanism out of thin air, because I already assumed active users of this board at this time should be long-term veterans).
  3. "dismissed"? I'm a bit confused about the word here. But on other points, you are absolutely right. My topic stated at the beginning very clearly that I aim to "present a hyper-optimized build with relatively low investment", not "you have to use this and accept my supremacy". Even though I said to someone in another thread that I have a "better build" than them, I had the assumption of purely based on EP performance and investment combined (since the topic was very much EP-related specifically), and others do argue with me, which is very welcome of course.
  4. Are you just that used to pull BS out of ... ? Do you even know how Battalion endurance works? Why do I keep arguing with someone who doesn't even have the patience to understand basic gaming mechanics?
  5. That's why you invite people to eat for prof exp. You seem never tried this way and just dismissed the idea so arguing seems meaningless (and others also commented already recruiting at ch4 is not anything significant investment, and ch5 is considered easy; even a ch5 recruited Petra can reach AS+ at ch10 or ch11 latest) You are not paying attention to the definition you are giving: you need to be on "winning state" first, being dependent on other stuff is irrelevant if you are not "winning". I gave you the examples when there are situations you are not winning by simply having a dodge tank who cannot kill, and believe it or not, some people do like to challenge the extreme.
  6. You are right I was a bit negligent about Evasion Ring especially on CF since neither HBD chapter nor Ferdinand paralogue would be available. I don't buy DLC items with renown since I deem it a bit too "pay to win" (nor sauna, but characters, classes, paralogues are fair game because I think them opens up options for mages, and paralogues themselves are somewhat difficult if you don't wait for too long). But also as you said, I think for the baiting type dodge tank the bar can be much lower because the main group is close by to help, can afford to dismount a lot, and in CF you got Ferdinand for his personal. Since I use a solo type dodge tank too, the enemy density is usually much lowered (or at least one flank is taken care of) so that the workload is much lessened. For the Evasion Rings, in CF you can always use Ferdinand to seal speed on Dimitri and then stealing would be easy (extra easy if you use Yuri, since using Petra would be a big loss of a Pegasus). In other routes you already noted there are plenty others.
  7. That sounds fun. I tried once to do a NG+ run in BL with literal full team of heavy armors and axe only with the expectation of Annette and Flayn being MVPs. It was legit hilarious at first but become so tedious and monotonous midgame (even though I was still doing well against enemies) that I gave up halfway. I really appreciate any gimmicky build that can still keep things fresh by comparison.
  8. B support recruit can be savescumed. Anyway I agree you don’t have to do like ch3, I’m simply showing the possibility here, but I usually want ch4, because Petra or Leonie have the ability to trivialize ch5 reinforcements when invested, and I do want to enjoy that (again, I try to find ways to do things smoothly without skipping).
  9. You can see this write up is also sort of mixed response. My goal is to stir thoughtful discussion and expose my build to more people. For that it’s achieved I think. Hey, some people even if they disagree with my philosophy might still try it, who knows? I appreciate all the participation here and I will have next part on teammates next week. You mentioned Annette as a more gimmicky? example, which I have yet to try. I have heard it before. Now that Three Hopes is around the corner, I might try it some day. Cheers!
  10. Now that I learned, let me try again: it’s not a win-more because it doesn’t apply. First you have to be already in the game or hypothetically in the game with a fixed playstyle, which isn’t true. You assumed that I use dodge tank only for baiting, and assumed I have enough PP units to take enemies out. For the latter, it is the case if I play optimally, but not if I try to do a challenge run. I did a NG SS run when my team is one Warmaster, two snipers, and all mages plus a final dodge tank, meant to challenge the final map. In this situation, I don’t see how vanilla dodge tank is an automatic win when enemies already surrounded your units and basically none of your units can take even one hit, and most mages don’t have enough fire power. If the dodge tank can’t take out enemies fast, it’s a possible casualty. As I mentioned earlier, there are other maps you can’t play bait and switch if you want all the rewards.
  11. I guess I indeed didn't know what it exactly means before. Thanks for the info!
  12. I don’t see why you need to train horse rank to recruit Petra when you just shower her with gifts and meals for B support.
  13. Oh dear. Didn’t realize in such short time such wonderful wellspring of thoughtful replies! Very flattered and it’s the kind of theory crafting I hoped to see. I haven’t got time to read everything except fro the earlier replies, and I still have next part on teammate compositions. I’m quite busy over the week so the write up has to wait for next weekend, but I will try to reply to some of you guy’s point over the week. @lenticular very good explanation on two types of dodge tanks and really appreciate the help here. A small thing I want to quickly throw out though: I actually use both types, like Petra+Ferdinand. You do realize that the two types of dodge tanks virtually have no conflict in resources right? Like one wants cichol and the other wants galatea. The best example is perhaps Ferdie/Lysithea paralogue, where I always try to occupy the 4 spots as early as possible so a single solo dodge tank usually doesn’t cut it. I will try to explain my playstyle more when I get time and yes of course people do use what fits best their style.
  14. Really appreciate the detailed reply and thoughts. For the first question, I usually ended with level 45 or so but it's not so different from level 40 since you are only like 3 avo different. So endgame the avo (displayed + A adjutant) will be around: 40+ attack speed, 20 Sword Prowess, 20 Sword Avo, 10 Evasion Ring, 10 Wyvern Lord innate, 5 Cichol, 10 adjutant = 115 avo (without alert stance), most of which is indiscriminate against physical or magic attacks. For magics, Petra usually reaches high 20 or 30 something Luck, so maybe subtract 5~8 avo from calculation, and non-outlier mages don't have nearly enough Hit, and even outlier mage would only have like 15 Hit or something, or 30~40 from outlier mages when rattled (iirc) For Hit, it's around 170 + 10 adjutant I think, so against enemy Falcons who roughly has 70 something avo + sword breaker+ = 100 avo, you are still looking at 80 Hit (92% true Hit), and Paladin is near 100% Hit. Everything else is 100%, sometimes even when they are in forests. For Crit, Pre-BW displayed value I don't remember, but when facing enemies, Wo Dao basically always 100% (I think it's around 90 or so facing Gronder Field Claude), Rapier can guarantee 80% (when doubling, that's 96% at least 1 crit), Silver Sword 60% with a lot more Mt, and in AM you can get Sword of Moralta which is at least 85 Crit. Endgame Petra outgrows a lot of enemies in dex+luck, so it's quite likely that it's higher than that (I frequently gets like 90 crit on Rapier for example). Note that Petra has more crit with plain silver sword than Ingrid with WoDao, and more Mt too. For Ferdinand, he doesn't have BW unfortunately, and for two his HP growth rate is too high on a Wyvern. In practice, you will observe this: Petra kills fast and leveling fast at first, and after certain point, she levels slowly because of overleveling. But Ferdinand doesn't kill that easily, so no overleveling for him. That causes Ferdinand to leveling up in some occasions way more often than Petra in a kind of unexpected way, so his Personal would catch you off-guard. Every male doesn't have pegasus, so Petra's SPD growth is much more stable than males too. As a bonus, you mentioned "highly accurate Sniper", but Snipers always have 0 Hit on me after waiting, with possible exception of enemy Ignatz maybe (but range penalty is a thing to fix that).
  15. OK, fine, by your standard, it’s not vital, happy? If you watched Mangs’ VW play through years ago, he beat NG Maddening with Ignatz and Lorenz, basically no dodge tank, MVP is heavy armor Hilda with pure water. So by your logic everything people talk about is just win-more. Forget about swift strikes, forget about PBV, or even forget about Death Blow on Leonie for a long time. Nothing is “vital” by your standard. Playing this game isn’t vital, it’s just silly. Is that how you deal with real life as well? I got C from my class, that means I passed, the end. I got this mediocre job to keep me alive, I survived, the end. Everyone is going to die, so better material doesn’t matter since it’s not vital. People just have different preferences, and you can choose yours. Why jump to my case every time you have the chance to speak? Go write a separate post detailing your reasoning then. All the reasons you can find. I don’t want to argue this point anymore. If you are determined to play your way, thinking dodge tank is just a glorified bait-and-switch, and thinking Dancer has to be Dancer for no reasoning and squandering a one of a kind ability not reaching it’s full potential and a super OP combat art, I won’t convince you anyway. I only know I found this extremely OP build, without much grinding, relatively low investment, and hope more people can enjoy the fun of breaking the game and feel empowered, not agonized. That’s it.
  16. Let me ask you this first: how many NG Maddening have you beaten at this point? How many harder maps have you routed (i.e. not relying on Warp skipping?) Like AM&SS Final maps, CF Claude/Nader chapter, several paralogues like Edelgard, Ferdinand/Lysithea, Linhardt/Leonie, Petra/Bernadetta, Anna/Jeritza? How easy did you beat it? Can you beat them with basically no stressful unit shuffling and constantly stay in offensive? If not, then I must say I'm sorry we are talking about very different things here. I'm NOT trying to convince you this build is "worth it for you", but to say this is overall most efficient and effective dodge tank build out there with relatively low investment.
  17. Ah! I would be lying if I say unconditionally they one-shot them. Let me explain: For one, I did say mostly one-shot and a few 2-shots, and the few would including VERY late-game WMs. For two, Heroes and Wyverns, I'm not confident enough about Claude, but Petra during my multitude of playthrough of obsessively using her (assuming a little bit overleveling of her being dodge tank) would either double Heroes and Wyverns, or very close to (like 1-2 speed short). So such a small bump at specific point of the playthrough I think is completely warranted. Especially the earlier part of post-timeskip. Wyvern RIDERS are easy to double actually, LORDs are admittedly harder, and Petra does need a bit of overleveling from her dodge tank job (i.e. keep using her as your main force). For three, I usually don't use the "naturally-gotten" stat boosters at all during play until final mission (or final 2 missions). At that point I check my Petra and give her the exact needed boost and sometimes she would even be able to one-shot WMs with like silver sword (60% crit). Needed a bit help towards the end, yes, but being able to reach there with a SWORD and without really grinding is not small feat at all.
  18. ## Disclaimer This article is the first of a planned series and written in a relatively short time. I will keep updating with new details. Suggestions welcome. ## Aim of the article We aim to provide a hyper-optimized dodge tank build that is: - New Game - No grinding or almost not grinding: my proposal requires one intermediate class (archer) mastery only with no other class mastery required - Available early: at least available immediately after timeskip or maybe one chapter later, and a mostly reliable but weaker form should be available before timeskip. - Universal survivability: untouchable outside gambits by any enemy (with like about 10 or so outlier enemies with extreme hits); still untouchable by normal attacks even when rattled; most gambits should have 20~30 hit rate depending on their base hit rate (50~60). In other words, outside of consecutive gambits and basically non-existent outlier enemies, it should be completely safe, ever. - Universal kill-power: outside of superbosses, monsters and certain extreme outliers (e.g. heavy armor with effect null), 95% of the enemy should be one-rounded upon counterattack with near 100% guarantee, the remaining should be 2-rounded and very close to be one-rounded. - Universal Availability: such build should be available in all routes. - No stat boosters/cooking outside of fixing RNG screwed unit - Edit: Near-no-setup: no constant setup needed (like Def-Crit, Def-Avo, etc.) One-time setup is OK like battalion skills. All things are academic so if you don't like this playstyle or don't like hyper-optimized builds, great! ## Concepts Soft Avo vs Hard Avo When the avo is provided by battalions, it’s soft because the moment you are rattled, the avo bonus is lost during that turn. It has NOTHING to do with battalion retreating. Soft/Hard Mt/Charm/etc. Similar, but not as important as Avo, since being rattled mostly has to do with survivability, and double-gambits are rare if you play carefully Range-mismatch When an enemy unit has more attack range than gambit range, we call it to have a range-mismatch. Another type of range-mismatch comes from ballistas, but we will illustrate with direct example later. Range-mismatch is important because it is a great way to deal with enemy gambits, and you will be surprised although it looks situational, it's actually common enough to be a worthy trick to keep in mind. Common examples of Range-mismatch - Snipers with 1-range gambit - Any bowknight - Any mage with Death, Thoron, Meteor, or Bolting - Armor/warrior with 1-2-range axes and 1-range gambit - CF enemy Shamir with 5 range (lol, you would think more range = more power, but no, it just turns her into a fodder) (I remember a youtube video proposing Claude's Father as VW final boss instead of Nemesis, and they give him 5 bow range, I instantly was like: please no, don't trivialize your boss for me; but no offense, because of course nobody could think through everything.) ## Build Proposal Components class: Wyvern Lord weapon type: sword abilities: Sword Prowess, Sword Avo (Dancer cert), AS+, Hit+20, Battalion Wrath battalion: Cichol Wyvern Co inventory: Rapier+, Wo Dao+, Evasion Ring, others to consider: Silver Sword+/Brave Sword+/Some Bow for utility adjutant: A-rank adjutant, but B is also serviceable Unit A unit at least should have above average speed and passable luck and charm, no weakness in flying and chosen weapon type, and has the ability needed. Recommend units: Petra, Claude: the best candidates. Petra has better speed and Claude has better charm, but in practice they are not that distinctive. Petra’s main appeal is her universal availability and better class progression, while Claude has Pass built-in, may survive more gambits when rattled and it’s situationally more useful. Both have excellent utility combat arts like Bane of Monsters Hilda: subpar for her boon/bane compared to the former two, stats is also less ideal, and she doesn’t have good utility combat arts. Seteth: no Sword Avo unfortunately. ## Q&A (with some tricks) Q: Isn't the teaching requirement too high? A: No. It should be available relatively early as I said earlier. For example, Petra can be recruited at Ch3~4, reaching Alert Stance and Lance Breaker at Ch6 (from this point she's semi-reliable EP already) Give her Knowledge Gem at all time and teaching and Group Task she can reach AS+ at Ch10 (Ch9 also possible), and Sword Avo available at that point already. You are basically done. The remaining part is to increase Authority from B to A, and Sword Prowess. Q: Why not use a higher avo battalions like Galatea or Immortal? A: For one, the avo is soft avo, and for two, neither provides notable Hit to help reliably hit Lance users Q: What's wrong with grounded dodge tanks? A: First, the movement is subpar; secondly, ground classes do not provide innate avo +10, and can suffer terrain penalty; thirdly, give me any ground build I could give you a rather major flaw compared to a flying build. Q: I'm not willing to give up a Dancer A: It's up to you. It's all just battle field economy. Dancer basically lets you trade a underwhelming PP unit for a good one, i.e. one more kill each turn perhaps, or maybe less, because there are enough capable PP units out there already. On the other hand, a more reliable dodge tank does so much more, and you have to make them ironclad, because we are talking about hundreds of battles deep in enemy territory here, not fishing crits with your snipers. Q: I thought sword is a pretty underwhelming weapon type? What about lance users? A: With Sword Avo, sword user has only 5 less avo than a Bow dodge tank (actually no, since Wo Dao is much lighter than Killer Bow), and a lot higher avo everything else. It's specially important for dodging magic. For hitting lancers, with everything in this build, you are still looking at about 80% hit against Falcons on average late game, which is 92% true hit (i.e. 92% chance one-shot with somewhat-high but not-sky-high strength) Q: What about gauntlets? QR? A: Grounded is still an issue. Also, I don't see it without heavy grinding with several class masteries AND alert stance/alert stance+; if it happens naturally, probably much later than my proposed build; also, heavy armors are hard to deal with (I tried NG+ Felix, but no, still not 100% kill, I guess only Dimitri can do it, but that's too deep in NG+ territory) Q: Petra's mediocre charm? A: vanilla Petra has mediocre charm, true. But Dancer cert gives much needed 5, and Cichol Wyvern gives another 10. On average, you are looking at around 43 charm at Level 45 endgame (dodge tanks tend to overlevel other units by several levels), which is enough to keep gambit hits low. As long as you are careful not putting her into multiple gambits and risk being hit by 2, you are fine. Also, Divine Pulse is a thing, since you mostly won't need them for other things now that you have a strong dodge tank. Q: BW is annoying to setup A: Early in timeskip, enemies are not that strong, so you can be more reckless with your dodge tank and let it be hit with gambit, and gradually setup BW when the battle gets tough. Alternatively, do an aux battle, let your Byleth or someone to take the Cichol and gets hit multiple times, and return it to your dodge tank. Since dodge tanks basically never gets hit, you are looking at setting it up only once per playthrough (or maybe 2~3 max if you are too reckless) Q: Gambits everywhere, do I really have no means to deal with them? A: Yes you do, actually quite commonly you can deal with them with dodge tanks. When an enemy has a range-mismatch, park your dodge tank at the edge of their range, they will attack you normally and die. Q: Can ballistas be dealt with similarly? A: Yes. A lot of notable ballistas in later maps can (e.g. VW final map, AM Fort Mercius map, etc.). Many places you can see Sniper Ballistas with 1-range Gambits. Park dodge tank at 2-range, they will shoot you normally, since ballista has minimal 3-range. Q: I don't like juggernauting A: You do you. I'm not arguing this playstyle is the best, but I don't think it's necessarily juggernauting. Dodge tank needs a lot of investment anyway, why not go an extra mile and get the best? I already showed that there is basically no grinding involved. You can still have a usual full team of capable PP units, a secondary dodge tank like Ferdinand and you have basically doubled your military strength with a strong dodge tank. In AM, Dimitri has no conflict with this build, so you can have a Dimitri and a better Dimitri. I will add more if things are brought up. ## Next (to come up): supportive teammates that are good with dodge tanks, and what is a typical flow of play like
  19. That’s why I strongly advocate a reliable 100% crit killing dodge tank rather than a vanilla one in another thread. Properly built dodge tank 99% NEVER get walled-off, since they always kill.
  20. Overall, hard agree! Trickster + Dodge tank is just extremely effective and efficient.
  21. Cool! Hopefully you would still be there to discuss the details when my post is up.
  22. I'm saying it's subpar compared to more optimized setup (I'm writing up a detailed separate post, so please bear with me at the moment), which is strictly better in every way. I said in my post it's about AM final map specifically, and I used "almost all", since there are 2 war masters with offensive gambit, and another mage in the throne room I think iirc Yeah, you will see a better build when I post it. I'm not saying any of the common builds are bad. Some are quite good, but still not "universally great". And for your build, I imagine you have a hard time killing armors. What I'm trying to say is there is a super optimized build, with basically no grinding. People can choose whatever aspect to look at. Maybe I shouldn't phrase it in that way to sound arrogant. I apologize. Please bear with me since my post will take some time to write up.
  23. For first point, your army is split into two directions and dodge tanks sometimes must wait for avoid since there are other enemies around. Your main group should not go with your dodge tank in general For second, I’m not talking about durability. When you are rattled, you instantly lose all avo from battalion and more. In general, if you are only using dodge tank as a glorified bait and switch, then you can forget about everything I said. I have more ambition in mind, namely double or even triple your offensive and defensive power and coverage.
  24. I think I made a lot of bold (?) claims about reliability of dodge tanks. Maybe I should detail in a separate post on how to properly build one and how to use it effectively (i.e. to address the “variable mileage” problem), and common mistakes or misconceptions. Teaser feature: Some of you might know this already, but I don’t suppose everyone thought this through: do you know sometimes you can use retribution to kill ballistas? If the ballista is a sniper with 1-range gambit, then placing dodge tank at 2-range will bait the sniper into attacking you normally, because ballista has minimal 3-range. Small details (a lot of them) like this will make your dodge tank mileage wildly different.
  25. By weak I meant that War Monk is just a bad class. You are losing flying, Avo+10, and 8 mov, a lot more strength (since she almost guaranteed to crit, even like 5 strengh lost will be an insane 15~30 damage lost) Bridgid Hunter is a very subpar battalion with no Hit boost. People make this mistake a lot by relying on battalions to provide avo which should not be the case: your survivability should not be dependent on something losable. Also, that gremory in silver snow is an outlier with insane Hit so you want your PP units to deal with (I can enumerate like 5 or so such outlier generic mages in the entire game that dodge tanks cannot reliably tank without grinding) If you are rattled by falcons, by the look it’s just bad luck, not really charm problem, and if you are rattled by holy knight(?) then I guess you have to learn to place your dodge tank better. The holy knight has more attack range than gambit range, so you can bait him into attacking by placing dodge tanks at the boundary of his range. People often not thinking things through enough for gambit enemies. Ranged enemies can be baited into attacking with proper placing and it’s actually quite common. The art of using dodge tank has to be learned I guess. Your result just further confirmed my claim about charm problem: it’s not really a problem if you know how to, without grinding. Edit: Rhea’s charm is irrelevant, super bosses tend to have sky high charms, and you mostly relying on Hit+20, Uncanny Blow, and support to hit with gambit, and Rhea can’t gambit you.
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