Best Classes of your Students (and Faculty) Encore: Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Dark Knight for Hubert. I was thinking that you just have him master the Mage class for Fiendish Blow before going into Dark Bishop with a Dark Seal. Just so he’ll retain Fiendish Blow upon becoming a Dark Knight.

Dedue is debatable. I said War Master, but then I saw the thing about Grapplers having Terrain resistance or something. Though, how prevalent avoiding terrain is will be dependent on how prevalent terrain is in Azure Moon post Ch 16.

WL for Hilda. Obviously. And I don’t think Seal skills are useful (or would be useful) on either beasts or bosses. Even then, I think many bosses are immune to that stuff.

Voted on Ferdinand, Sylvain, and Lorenz.

[Cysx]

30 minutes ago, Silly said:

Later ranks take a lot more exp than earlier ranks, so getting to C Faith is not a big investment. Going from E rank to C takes less exp to get to than going from B+ to A rank, let along going from A to A+ or A+ to S. 

Also, there is a big, BIG difference between having Physic for almost the entire game, and having S rank reason or A+ riding for maybe the last few chapters. Physic provides utility for the entire game, and even if it actually meant that getting +1 range was delayed for a chapter, I would much rather have 15 chapters of Physic compared to one extra chapter of +1 attack range. That's not even accounting for the fact that mages without Physic are more limited in their exp gain because of how slow they are, so if you're playing relatively quickly you'll need to either accept that they'll fall behind, or intentionally go out of your way to feed them kills. Mages with Physic can kill enemies on the first two or so turns, and when they fall behind can still build exp by healing members that are further ahead, which means that they hit level 30 faster and can transition to a class that doesn't have awful move.

Indeed, E to C is shorter than A+ to S, but without a strength it still takes a while and thus considerable investment; about a month. I didn't mean to say that they were the same though, you're right, they're not.

I think it's fair to assume any team has a dedicated healer, and there's limited reason for that person not to be Mercedes, meaning you have Fortify with 2/4+ uses. In that context, and just coming out of a BL run, I can say that there's limited use for an additional Physic user; not none, but it's not hugely important. Although the exp gain part is absolutely true, well class exp anyway, since Physic gives a really paltry amount. But it's true that Mage doesn't master itself.

Also, we can acknowledge that pure combat mages are likely also going to be left behind, period, when it comes to efficiency, so I guess my point didn't amount to much. If you're playing "normally" however, an early stride and + range accessories tend to be enough to keep them relevant for entire chapters combat-wise, from my experience.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Silly said:

Literally everybody gets:

• Lightweight 1-2 range spell at D Reason.
• Stronger 1-2 range spell if you need it at some higher Reason level.

Some of the spells in the above categories are slightly better than others, but they mostly function the same in the majority of situations, so it's not a huge difference whether you have Fire or Thunder as your basic spell, for example. Having spells that fall into the above two categories does not really give you a particularly special niche, as that role is filled by literally anyone with reason training. The good reason spell lists generally have something else that occupies a different niche outside of the above two categories. Most commonly this is 3 range, but sometimes there are other niche spells like Meteor.

This is not even touching on faith magic, which is the category that I actually think makes or breaks a magic user. Not having access to Physic is a pretty big death sentence for dedicated mages, to the point where I would really prefer not to even use a mage without access to Physic.

I still agree with @Cysx's point - I mean, everyone and their grandma kisses up to Lysithea now, and her reason spell list is literally almost all situational spells with very few uses, with only one I can rely on because everything else either has spotty accuracy, few uses, or both (Miasma Delta). Do YOU think everyone will still worship the ground she walks on once the new toy syndrome wears off (say, in about a year, give or take)??? Ditto with all the Physic emphasis - you only get 5 uses unless you're a Bishop or Gremory, of which the latter is limited to females. Should I really be expected to rely on a healing spell with all of five uses as my bread and butter???

Edited August 19, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

Five uses of Physic is often enough for maps, and ten virtually always is. And it's not like they don't have Heal as an option for the turns they do happen to be in range of their target.

[Silly]

34 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I still agree with @Cysx's point - I mean, everyone and their grandma kisses up to Lysithea now, and her reason spell list is literally almost all situational spells with very few uses, with only one I can rely on because everything else either has spotty accuracy, few uses, or both (Miasma Delta). Do YOU think everyone will still worship the ground she walks on once the new toy syndrome wears off (say, in about a year, give or take)??? Ditto with all the Physic emphasis - you only get 5 uses unless you're a Bishop or Gremory, of which the latter is limited to females. Should I really be expected to rely on a healing spell with all of five uses as my bread and butter???

I do think that Lysithea is a little overrated by most people.

In terms of pure LTC she is still top tier just because of her extremely early access to Warp. The difference between only needing to get to B rank and needing A rank is actually very huge, since later ranks require increasingly more amounts of weapon exp. For reference, going all the way from E+ to B rank for Warp access on Lysithea takes the same amount of exp as going from B rank to A rank on the other characters (which is where Manuela and Lindhart learn Warp).

In terms of just efficient play I found her to be less good than most people were claiming she was. She still has the typical mage weaknesses of poor enemy phase combat and low mobility for most of the game, so I often found her falling behind (as is typical of mages). Especially if you warp someone on turn 1, since doing so means you have to stick around near the starting location instead of moving on the first turn. She is still by far the best non-Physic mage, but I wouldn't put her in top tier in the context of an efficient but non-LTC playthrough.

Also, 5 uses of Physic is reasonable on maps if you're playing efficiently. Say your mage attacks someone on the first two turns or so (the turns where there is actually likely to be people in range for you to attack). Then you use Physic every single turn afterwards. By the time you're out of Physics, it's already turn 8. At that point you should have already finished or be close to finishing a typical map. If you have 10 uses of Physic, you will basically never run out unless you're going super slowly. Also, you could just use two different Physic mages, which would put you at more than enough uses even if neither of them are Bishops/Gremories.

[timon]

51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I still agree with @Cysx's point - I mean, everyone and their grandma kisses up to Lysithea now, and her reason spell list is literally almost all situational spells with very few uses, with only one I can rely on because everything else either has spotty accuracy, few uses, or both (Miasma Delta).

 

SwarmZ has 70, more than enough to always hit reliably, Dark Spikes T has as much as MiasmaD. LunaA and HadesO are where I could maybe sort of understand your worry for accuracy, 65 is meh, but even then, Lysithea has as much Dex as she has Mag, I doubt it'll ever be a problem (it surely hasn't for everyone who has played with her up until now so idk where you're coming from).

She does lack 3 range which is a drawback, but that holds true for literally every other character without Thoron or Meteor. With the difference that her spells have higher Mt than regular Black Magic.

I do agree on the far too high value given to Physic, though not for the same reason. 5 uses is more than enough, I'm just wondering if it's actually that valuable. Everytime you're healing with your mage you're not attacking with it, we're forgetting the power level of offensive magic here. You can straight up delete enemies. Healing is not everything, I'll always want an offensive mage, sure if it comes with Physic all the better, but I don't think it "makes or breaks" the unit. Also do you really need to heal that much? Most units can take a couple of hits no problem.

[Kiran_]

Hmmm. I haven't played Hubert, but I'd say Dark Knight.

Dedue, I feel strongly as a Great Knight! Everyone complains about his weakness to Riding, but I had 0 issues getting him to be a Great Knight with riding. I just set his goal as Riding/Armor from the very beginning and he always did the Riding training with Sylvain. By the time he was Lv. 30 he had a like 80% passing chance. Simple. Also made him a Paladin, which really helps speed along his riding. I also love his movement as a Great Knight, because his defenses are insane, so he was my bait a lot of the time where enemies would just rush him and do no damage. And with Death Blow / Aegis he's pretty awesome.

Hilda, I just like having beside Claude, and she just looks awesome wielding that Axe atop a Wyvern. Haha. I gave her Death Blow / Darting Blow and she's awesome.

 

[iavasechui]

48 minutes ago, timon said:

 

SwarmZ has 70, more than enough to always hit reliably, Dark Spikes T has as much as MiasmaD. LunaA and HadesO are where I could maybe sort of understand your worry for accuracy, 65 is meh, but even then, Lysithea has as much Dex as she has Mag, I doubt it'll ever be a problem (it surely hasn't for everyone who has played with her up until now so idk where you're coming from).

She does lack 3 range which is a drawback, but that holds true for literally every other character without Thoron or Meteor. With the difference that her spells have higher Mt than regular Black Magic.

I do agree on the far too high value given to Physic, though not for the same reason. 5 uses is more than enough, I'm just wondering if it's actually that valuable. Everytime you're healing with your mage you're not attacking with it, we're forgetting the power level of offensive magic here. You can straight up delete enemies. Healing is not everything, I'll always want an offensive mage, sure if it comes with Physic all the better, but I don't think it "makes or breaks" the unit. Also do you really need to heal that much? Most units can take a couple of hits no problem.

My first run saw Lysithea spend more time using a levin sword + than actually using her spells this was partially because I made her my dancer and she had avoid + 20 while using a sword 

Edited August 19, 2019 by iavasechui

[georgetruman]

Mastering warmaster for dedue is super good and allows him to be way more useful in NG+.

Dank Knight for hubert seems the way to go so he can just walk up, oneshot whomever, and walk away.

Wyvern for hilda seems like a no brainer if you care about efficiency. 

[Stroud]

Dedue might just work as a Great Knight in Endgame. The good thing is that he gets enough bulk to get almost no Damage around physical enemies. Which helps him compensate the missing Damage output with Vengeance. In most cases you just want to stack up some damage. and he should 1-hit most of the enemies with Vengeance. Sadly Armored Strike adds so little damage with Defense, also I think getting hit +20 would be recommended in this case. Because Warmaster worries less about not hitting 1 time. With Great Knight you want him to 1 hit enemies and not miss. 

Devil Axe is also a great tool for him in this case. Being Surrounded by weaker enemies for 1 turn should get him into the right Range of HP. He easily hits 60+ HP by then. 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Stroud

[Skell_]

Dedue's Biggest Flaw is his horrible inflexibility

He cannot be a Wyvern Lord, the best class in the game, without a massive amount of effort which already hurts a lot but he cannot even branch out into any cavalry class easily. Making him a great knight is going to be a waste of precious in-game time as he could be mastering other weapons or Authority. He really just wants to be infantry one way or another.

Dedue can be great in any infantry class including Snipers where he can hit like a truck with Hunter's Volley. Besides War Master, it's hit second best choice.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

11 hours ago, Skell_ said:

Dedue can be great in any infantry class including Snipers where he can hit like a truck with Hunter's Volley. Besides War Master, it's hit second best choice.

Just like Atlas, eh?

[Cysx]

22 hours ago, Azure in a Roundabout said:

Dedue is debatable. I said War Master, but then I saw the thing about Grapplers having Terrain resistance or something. Though, how prevalent avoiding terrain is will be dependent on how prevalent terrain is in Azure Moon post Ch 16.

That's a good point to bring up(not a huge spoiler, but still:)

Spoiler

post ch 16 isn't terrain heavy.

Regardless, something I failed to mention is that if you have no intent to go all the way to Warmaster, you can relocate 100% of your axe training into something else(such as cavalry for Move+1). Dedue starts at D+ axe, which is enough to pass the brigand exam.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

26 minutes ago, Cysx said:

That's a good point to bring up(not a huge spoiler, but still:)

  Reveal hidden contents

post ch 16 isn't terrain heavy.

Regardless, something I failed to mention is that if you have no intent to go all the way to Warmaster, you can relocate 100% of your axe training into something else(such as cavalry for Move+1). Dedue starts at D+ axe, which is enough to pass the brigand exam.

Ok. Grappler is still better due to having higher movement than Warrior. And their Def growth bonuses are still +0.

Same goes for Caspar and Raphael. Only thing is that you have to switch priorities to Guantlets after focusing Axes, but that is hardly a problem.

[Cysx]

35 minutes ago, Azure in a Roundabout said:

Ok. Grappler is still better due to having higher movement than Warrior. And their Def growth bonuses are still +0.

Same goes for Caspar and Raphael. Only thing is that you have to switch priorities to Guantlets after focusing Axes, but that is hardly a problem.

Yeah, Warrior isn't even part of the picture, in pretty much any scenario I can think of. Grappler is a better infantry class and Wyvern rider a better axe class. You still want to go Brigand for Death blow, though.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Cysx

[De Geso]

On 8/19/2019 at 4:05 AM, timon said:

Hubert is quite amazing as a Dark Knight, but if you're a man of culture you keep him as a Dark Bishop because it's objectively cooler.

My thoughts exactly.

[Flere210]

How is C a great amount of effort? Because that's the minimum to take the exam and can be gotten in 15 weeks if you don't do anything else to rise the rank. 

If you WL you only need to increase weapons he has a strenght in + authority, so i don't see how a weakness blow him out of the class. 

Unless you have a self imposed rule of "100% chance exams only" you can easily make even stuff like gremory Petra as soon as the classes become aviable.

[GreyJedi]

On 8/19/2019 at 12:48 PM, timon said:

She does lack 3 range which is a drawback, but that holds true for literally every other character without Thoron or Meteor. With the difference that her spells have higher Mt than regular Black Magic.

Minor, but spoiler tag just in case.

Spoiler

She has the crest of Gloucester, which means you can give her the Thyrsus Staff and all of her spells get +2 range.

For me, Lysithea is pretty clearly the third best unit in my army, after Byleth and Claude, with her ability to one shot just about anything from a safe distance. I am still pre-time skip, however.

 

I made Hilda my dancer but I’m going to have to agree with everyone saying that wyvern lord is best for her.

[Silly]

5 minutes ago, GreyJedi said:

Minor, but spoiler tag just in case.

  Reveal hidden contents

She has the crest of Gloucester, which means you can give her the Thyrsus Staff and all of her spells get +2 range.

For me, Lysithea is pretty clearly the third best unit in my army, after Byleth and Claude, with her ability to one shot just about anything from a safe distance. I am still pre-time skip, however.

You don't need the matching crest to use Thrysus. You just need any crest, so it's not something that is particularly special about Lysithea.

Personally, if you're playing in the nebulous middle ground of "efficient" play, then Lysithea is a bit overrated. Warp is not the most important thing ever like it is in LTC, and she's somewhat hampered by her awful movement and complete lack of an enemy phase holding her back. She's a good unit, and probably the most viable non-physic mage by a huge mile, but she isn't completely broken (I don't even think she's top tier in this context).

[Jayvee94]

This topic has made it to the second page. However, there's a tie that needs to be broken.

The current top is Dorothea, Ferdinand, Felix and Lysithea. Only three shall be voted for next poll. So, please funnel your votes among the units mentioned above

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Hilda as wyvern lord is a physical destroying machine.

Even if she might not double everyone, she can still oneshot with OP weapons like Freikugel.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

2 hours ago, Lysithea said:

Hilda as wyvern lord is a physical destroying machine.

Even if she might not double everyone, she can still oneshot with OP weapons like Freikugel.

My virgin GK Hilda vs your chad WL Hilda.

lol

[Jayvee94]

Due to some varying strategies that players do in their play-through, I would like to see what you think is the best class for each student (and faculty).

Feel free to debate or campaign in the "comments" below

Don't forget to vote for the characters for the next poll.

Next poll starts when this disappears on the first page.

Result from previous poll:

• Hubert - Dark Knight
• Dedue - War Master
• Hilda - Wyvern Lord
• This round: Dorothea, Ferdinand and Felix

Edited August 22, 2019 by Jayvee94

[Landmaster]

I'm not going to say these are the best, but they are what I used/plan to use.

I made Felix a Mortal Savant. He has a Budding Talent in Magic so even without an amazing Mag stat, he was pretty good in the class.Though I would think his best class is probably a Swordmaster or Assassin. 

I'm thinking Dorothea is best as either a Gremory or a Dancer. I'm personally going to have her be a Gremory.

Ferdinand is one of the very few people in this game I actually find does well on a Horse. So he could be a good Great Knight. I personally plan to make him a Wyvern Lord, though~

[NegativeExponents-]

Mortal Savant is such a godawful class for most people and that includes Felix. Don't be fooled by its Master title because other classes will do more to bring out the best in him. My vote went to dancer. Now look, I've been the biggest advocate for Dancer!Felix and you might think it's crazy but the dancer can do more than just dance and if you're looking for a pure offensive endgame than Dancer can certainly provide that. Ok, so first off, Dancer provides huge bonuses to pretty much everything and has 6 move. Compared to Mortal Savant, it has the same attack boost, 2 less magic, 2 more dex, 2 more speed, same luck, same defense,1 less res, and 2 more charm. Overall, Dancer beats it out in stats on everything except magic and res. It admittedly loses out on innate Swordfaire but if you were willing to raise up his mediocre reason for Mortal Savant then you can afford to instead funnel all those skill points into reaching S+ for his own Swordfaire. Just level him up as Swordsmaster a bit first since Dancer growths are not the most impressive. Edit: I forgot to mention Sword Avoid +20. That coupled with his already beastly speed will net you plenty of 0% hit rate from enemies. And if it doesn't Swords Dance certainly will. Pair with Evasion ring for a total of 50% extra avoid. Or don't. I just use a shield honestly.

And if Dancer isn't your cup of tea please consider Assassin!Felix instead. Or Wyvern Lord though that will require some big investment.

Dorothea should go Gremory because that magic bonus and double spell uses is amazing.

I'm not all too sure about Ferdinand so Wyvern Lord it is because any Wyvern Lord is a good Wyvern Lord.

Edited August 22, 2019 by NegativeExponents-