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## 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