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

[freewaffles]

17 minutes ago, Cysx said:

But again, what does it matter since your AS at best will be 11/13, which doubles nothing? In what way does it help you?

You're not going to be doubling anything as a Warrior or Paladin in those situations either.  However, the Attack Speed PREVENTS doubles too.

Also, just some fun with stat calculator:
 

Level 30 Monk/Mage/Warrior/Great Knight Annette wielding Crusher with A-Rank Armor (admittedly, good luck getting A-rank with weakness in Armor, but still)

24 Str, 26 Mag, 13 Speed:  49 Magic Damage, 11 attack speed.

Level 30 Monk/Mage/Warlock/Dark Knight wielding Excalibur

16 Str, 31 Mag, 16 speed: 47 Magic Damage, 11 attack speed.  With crusher she does 49 damage, but has only 8 attack speed.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by freewaffles

[hinode]

1 hour ago, freewaffles said:

Conclusion:

I still prefer Pally/Pally, because you can pump Authority and still have time for C-Armor rating.  But eve in that situation, the comparison is:  1 move, 1 strength, 2 dex, 1 attack Speed, 2 res versus 3 HP and 6 defense. 

For Sylvain (and Ferdi who is pretty close to identical) Pally/Pally over Warrior/Great Knight is at least debatable.

The big glaring problem with Warrior/GK as a path is that you're stuck as a 5 move infantry for the entire L20-L29 phase. Even if a Paladin's AS isn't that great for part of the game, they at least get the benefit of 8 move+canto for that duration.

The game doesn't just begin once you hop into your endgame class, and neither characters nor their class choices should be evaluataed as if only L30+ performance matters.

[Flere210]

12 minutes ago, freewaffles said:

You're not going to be doubling anything as a Warrior or Paladin in those situations either.  However, the Attack Speed PREVENTS doubles too.

Also, just some fun with stat calculator:
 

Level 30 Monk/Mage/Warrior/Great Knight Annette wielding Crusher with A-Rank Armor (admittedly, good luck getting A-rank with weakness in Armor, but still)

24 Str, 26 Mag, 13 Speed:  49 Magic Damage, 11 attack speed.

Level 30 Monk/Mage/Warlock/Dark Knight wielding Excalibur

16 Str, 31 Mag, 16 speed: 47 Magic Damage, 11 attack speed.

 

 

At this point why not WL tho, it's not like A flying and C lance is harder than A armor on her lol.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Flere210

[Cysx]

24 minutes ago, freewaffles said:

You're not going to be doubling anything as a Warrior or Paladin in those situations either.  However, the Attack Speed PREVENTS doubles too.

Again, you can dismount for +2 spd on pally, and iron exists.

[Anacybele]

I came in here because I saw Sylvain is in the poll now... Why did people vote Dark Knight for him? That's a magic class and his magic is poop. lol He wants a defensive class like Great Knight or Fortress Knight. His Str and Def are through the roof and his Spd is decent (though not the best).

But maybe my Sylvain just got seriously magic screwed and he's normally supposed to have a good magic stat?

The other two I just took guesses on based on what I've seen of them as enemies since I never recruited Bernadetta or Petra. I voted Seteth, Flayn, and Ingrid for next time.

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

That's a magic class and his magic is poop. lol He wants a defensive class like Great Knight or Fortress Knight. His Str and Def are through the roof and his Spd is decent (though not the best).

 

He has 45 str growth and 30 mag growth, not so different as you suggest. And since enemies have lower Res than Def on average, it's easier to have adequate damage with a slightly lower magic stat.

It's possible yours got magic screwed, but keep in mind that classes matter for growths in this game. If you only ever levelled him in physical classes, he'll get less magic than he would by going through magic classes.

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

He has 45 str growth and 30 mag growth, not so different as you suggest. And since enemies have lower Res than Def on average, it's easier to have adequate damage with a slightly lower magic stat.

It's possible yours got magic screwed, but keep in mind that classes matter for growths in this game. If you only ever levelled him in physical classes, he'll get less magic than he would by going through magic classes.

Oh. I never had him in a magic class since he joined as a cavy. I recruited him while on Golden Deer. I see now. I still dig my Great Knight Sylvain though, takes zero damage from everything that isn't magic!

[ZeManaphy]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

I came in here because I saw Sylvain is in the poll now... Why did people vote Dark Knight for him? That's a magic class and his magic is poop. lol He wants a defensive class like Great Knight or Fortress Knight. His Str and Def are through the roof and his Spd is decent (though not the best).

But maybe my Sylvain just got seriously magic screwed and he's normally supposed to have a good magic stat?

The other two I just took guesses on based on what I've seen of them as enemies since I never recruited Bernadetta or Petra. I voted Seteth, Flayn, and Ingrid for next time.

He also has Reason as a budding talent, and has an impressive spellist consisting off Rangnarok, Saggitae and Seraphim to name a few. Training for Dark Knight is also easier than other mages due to strenghts in Cavarly and Lances. 

[Anacybele]

11 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

He also has Reason as a budding talent, and has an impressive spellist consisting off Rangnarok, Saggitae and Seraphim to name a few. Training for Dark Knight is also easier than other mages due to strenghts in Cavarly and Lances. 

Ah, I see. Sounds good, though I never really was into magic users and I always liked the Great Knight class and tanks (that aren't armored knights) in general anyway. So I'm gonna stick with my Great Knight Sylvain. At least in this playthrough. I might consider trying him out as a Dark Knight when I go Blue Lions in the future. I love Sylvain so much and I feel bad for Dimitri now after playing more of the Golden Deer route, so I gotta do a Blue Lions playthrough sometime.

[Shadow Mir]

Bernadetta: Bow Knight (though I'm also partial to Falco, because hands off my prey)

Petra: Any physical class works, but I prefer Assassin or Falco.

Sylvain: Paladin.

 

 

[LegendOfLoog]

Alright, so I decided to actually look into how well Sylvain performs on the final map as a Paladin and Dark Knight. Since the enemies on the final map are Level 43, I compared both Sylvains to each other to see whether they each deliver on their perspective niches. The calculations are a bit long, so I'll put them in a spoiler box. 

Spoiler

Class Lines are Fighter -> Brigand -> Paladin to pick up Death Blow and Monk -> Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight to get Fiendish Blow and Lifetaker

 

Lvl 43 DK Sylvain - 54.15 HP, 29.05 Str, 27.2 Mag, 22.2 Dex, 27.35 Spd, 20.7 Lck, 24.55 Def, 23.55 Res, 25.4 Cha, 7 Mov

Dark Knight will primarily use magic, so let’s do some calculations regarding Sylvain’s magical damage as a Dark Knight. I’ll assume no one reaches S+ in a single playthrough, so no Faire skills outside of those from classes. Add 6 damage to each of these when attacking on Player Phase. 

 

Ragnarok: 27-28 Mag + 15 Mt + 5 Black Tomefaire + 2 (Mag +2) = 49-50 Atk at 23-25 AS 
Bolganone: 34-35 + 8 Mt= 42-43 Atk at 26-28 AS
Fire: 34-35 + 3 Mt = 37-38 Atk at 27-28 AS 
Physic: (29-30)  / 2 + 8 Mt = 22-23 Heal

Sagittae has the same weight as Bolganone but has one less Mt and 5% more Crit, so take Bolganone’s calc and reduce damage by 1. Assuming you still have the Lance of Ruin on Sylvain, I’ll do a calc for an Iron Lance+ and Lance of Ruin with and without Ruined Sky.

Iron Lance+: 29-30 Str + 7 Mt = 36-37 Atk at 26-28 AS
Lance of Ruin: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt = 51-52 Atk at 23-25 AS
Ruined Sky: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt = 64-65 Atk 

 

Now for Paladin Sylvain. He has Swift Strikes, so any lance weapon can effectively become a Brave Lance. This means AS is mostly meaningless to him outside of Enemy Phase, so the minor Speed loss compared to Dark Knight isn’t a huge deal. I’ll list his AS anyway, but all of these weapons can strike twice if necessary. Add 6 damage to each of these on Player Phase.

Lvl 43 Paladin Sylvain - 62.5 HP, 33.45 Str, 17.6 Mag, 22.85 Dex, 25.7 Spd, 21.85 Lck, 25.95 Def, 14.9 Res, 2 Cha, 8 Mov

 

Iron Lance+: 33-34 Str + 7 Mt + 5 Lancefaire + 2 Str = 47-48 Atk at 25-26 AS
Silver Lance+: 35-36 Str + 14 Mt  + 5 = 52-53 Atk at 23-24 AS
Lance of Ruin: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 5 = 62-63 Atk at 23-24 AS
(Spear of Assal has same Weight and Mt as Silver Lance+.)
Ruined Sky: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt + 5 = 75-76 Atk 
Scythe of Sariel: 35-36 Str + 10 Mt + 5 = 50-51 Atk at 25-26 AS

Now let’s look at this damage and see how it does against enemies on the final map. 
I’ll be using the AS for the weapon the enemies have equipped since this will be measuring Sylvain’s Player Phase. Every calculation will have the respective Blow skill factored on top of the amounts above.

8x Mortal Savant - AS: 19, 20, 17, 23, 22, 20, 16, 23

The first 4 have 51 HP, 26 Prt, and 26 Resilience. Assuming his highest AS, DK!Sylvain will double them with both Bolganone and Iron Lance+. Bolganone only deals 46 damage to them with Fiendish Blow and Iron Lance+ deals 22 damage, so neither will ORKO them. Ragnarok will ORKO the first 3 but fail to double the last one. So out of the first 4, DK!Sylvain can one round 3 of them. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles the first three with a Silver Lance+ and ORKOs them. He can Swift Strikes the last one to one round him as well. 

The next 4 have battalions, granting them 51 HP, 30 Prt, and 33 Resilience. DK!Sylvain will still double with Bolganone, but now he will only deal 32 damage to them with it and 14 damage with an Iron Lance+. He can only double two of them with Ragnarok and will deal 46 damage. He fails to ORKO any of the Mortal Savants with battalions. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles two of them with the Silver Lance+, dealing 29 damage with each hit. This is enough to one round them. With Swift Strikes and a Silver Lance+, he deals 31 damage with each hit. This enables him to defeat the other two in one round as well.  

Score: DK!Sylvain - 3        Paladin Sylvain - 8 

5x Gremory - AS: 22, 22, 18, 18, 12         46 HP, 22 Prt, 39 Resilience

Sylvain will not double the first two with Ragnarok, so he deals 17 damage. With Bolganone, he’ll deal 20 damage from two hits. With an Iron Lance+, he deals 30 damage. Even a Ruined Sky art will only deal 43 damage, barely missing out on the ORKO. DK!Sylvain has no way to reliably ORKO the first two Gremories. The other three are doubled by Ragnarok, but it’s still only 34 damage. However, he can double them with the Lance of Ruin which deals 60 damage.
Paladin Sylvain will double all of them with an Iron Lance+ and one round them. He deals 34 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 13

2x Grappler - AS: 27, 29    56 HP, 27 Prt, 8 Resilience 

DK!Sylvain will never double these two. Ragnarok deals 48 damage, and Ruined Sky deals 38 damage. He cannot ORKO them. 
Paladin Sylvain will not double without Swift Strikes. With a Silver Lance+ and Death Blow, Sylvain will have 61 Atk per hit. This deals 68 damage in total, so he will ORKO them. He will also ORKO with an Iron Lance+ Swift Strikes, dealing 58 damage in total. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 15

6x War Master - AS: 36, 36, 33, 29, 36, 29        

The first 4 have 62 HP, 31 Prt, and 10 Resilience. Similar story to Grapplers. Never doubled by DK!Sylvain, and never one rounded. The other two have 62 HP, 39 Prt, and 12 Resilience, so it’s the same story. 
Paladin Sylvain will also never double. Swift Strikes with a Silver Lance+ deals 60 damage overall, so he has to use the Lance of Ruin. A Swift Strikes with Lance of Ruin gives Sylvain 71 Atk per hit, so he is able to one round the first 4. The other two take 64 damage from the same attack, so Paladin Sylvain is capable of one rounding all of the War Masters with Swift Strikes. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 21 

1x Assassin - AS: 44        48 HP, 27 Prt, 11 Resilience

DK!Sylvain hits him once with Ragnarok for 45 damage. That’s his highest damage attack, so he fails to one round the Assassin.
Paladin Sylvain one rounds with an Iron Lance+ equipped Swift Strikes. He deals 29 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6        Paladin Sylvain - 22

2x Warlock - AS: 22, 25    48 HP, 16 Prt, 36 Resilience

Ragnarok hits once for 20 damage. Bolganone hits twice, dealing 26 damage. Ruined Sky deals 49 damage, so DK!Sylvain can one round these two with a very narrow margin. They disappear if you kill Myson so not too important if you can’t. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 8     Paladin Sylvain - 24

4x Dark Bishop - AS: 21, 22, 25, 6    48 HP, 16 Prt, 35 Resilience

Same deal as the Warlocks. The last one is Myson, and he has the same amount of Prt but 6 more HP and 7 more Resilience. DK!Sylvain cannot one round Myson. Paladin Sylvain.

Score: DK!Sylvain - 11     Paladin Sylvain - 28

2x Sniper - AS: 18, 22        46 HP, 24-27 Prt, 9 Resilience 

Ragnarok deals 47 damage to these two, so DK!Sylvain can one round them. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 13    Paladin Sylvain - 30
1x Bishop - 17 AS    47 HP, 17 Prt, 40 Resilience

DK!Sylvain narrowly one rounds with Ruined Sky, dealing 48 damage. Paladin Sylvain.

Final Score: DK!Sylvain - 14    Paladin Sylvain - 31

 

The main takeaways from this are, Paladin Sylvain can one round every enemy on the final map of BL. He only needs the Lance of Ruin + Swift Strikes combo to one-shot the War Masters, as everything else is taken care of by a Silver Lance+ or Iron Lance+. Dark Knight Sylvain struggles because of the large number of magically bulky enemies while lacking in the Atk department when using a lance. Many of the enemies who have low Res also have high AS and high HP, so DK!Sylvain has no hopes of doubling them or one-shotting them. He is able to one round less than half of the enemies that Paladin Sylvain can. DK!Sylvain is essentially an inferior Paladin Sylvain who can do chip damage from range and heals for 22 HP with Physic while having 1 less Move. 

This is particularly bad for DK!Sylvain because Paladin Sylvain has more Move than him from Level 10 onwards and deals a significantly larger amount of damage in the final map. I'm not saying Dark Knight is terrible, but Paladin is pretty clearly better than it for Sylvain. 
 

Edited August 30, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[Flere210]

The main advantages of DK sylvain are that javelins are trash and that he can kill armors more easily. He should still go the normal paladin path, mage sylvain is stupid. 

[ApocaLips]

1 hour ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Alright, so I decided to actually look into how well Sylvain performs on the final map as a Paladin and Dark Knight. Since the enemies on the final map are Level 43, I compared both Sylvains to each other to see whether they each deliver on their perspective niches. The calculations are a bit long, so I'll put them in a spoiler box. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Class Lines are Fighter -> Brigand -> Paladin to pick up Death Blow and Monk -> Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight to get Fiendish Blow and Lifetaker

 

Lvl 43 DK Sylvain - 52.2 HP, 29.05 Str, 27.2 Mag, 22.2 Dex, 27.35 Spd, 20.7 Lck, 24.55 Def, 23.55 Res, 25.4 Cha, 7 Mov

Dark Knight will primarily use magic, so let’s do some calculations regarding Sylvain’s magical damage as a Dark Knight. I’ll assume no one reaches S+ in a single playthrough, so no Faire skills outside of those from classes. Add 6 damage to each of these when attacking on Player Phase. 

 

Ragnarok: 27-28 Mag + 15 Mt + 5 Black Tomefaire + 2 (Mag +2) = 49-50 Atk at 23-25 AS 
Bolganone: 34-35 + 8 Mt= 42-43 Atk at 26-28 AS
Fire: 34-35 + 3 Mt = 37-38 Atk at 27-28 AS 
Physic: (29-30)  / 2 + 8 Mt = 22-23 Heal

Sagittae has the same weight as Bolganone but has one less Mt and 5% more Crit, so take Bolganone’s calc and reduce damage by 1. Assuming you still have the Lance of Ruin on Sylvain, I’ll do a calc for an Iron Lance+ and Lance of Ruin with and without Ruined Sky.

Iron Lance+: 29-30 Str + 7 Mt = 36-37 Atk at 26-28 AS
Lance of Ruin: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt = 51-52 Atk at 23-25 AS
Ruined Sky: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt = 64-65 Atk 

 

Now for Paladin Sylvain. He has Swift Strikes, so any lance weapon can effectively become a Brave Lance. This means AS is mostly meaningless to him outside of Enemy Phase, so the minor Speed loss compared to Dark Knight isn’t a huge deal. I’ll list his AS anyway, but all of these weapons can strike twice if necessary. Add 6 damage to each of these on Player Phase.

Lvl 43 Paladin Sylvain - 58.95 HP, 33.45 Str, 17.6 Mag, 22.85 Dex, 25.7 Spd, 21.85 Lck, 
25.95 Def, 14.9 Res, 2 Cha, 8 Mov

 

Iron Lance+: 33-34 Str + 7 Mt + 5 Lancefaire + 2 Str = 47-48 Atk at 25-26 AS
Silver Lance+: 35-36 Str + 14 Mt  + 5 = 52-53 Atk at 23-24 AS
Lance of Ruin: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 5 = 62-63 Atk at 23-24 AS
(Spear of Assal has same Weight and Mt as Silver Lance+.)
Ruined Sky: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt + 5 = 75-76 Atk 
Scythe of Sariel: 35-36 Str + 10 Mt + 5 = 50-51 Atk at 25-26 AS

Now let’s look at this damage and see how it does against enemies on the final map. 
I’ll be using the AS for the weapon the enemies have equipped since this will be measuring Sylvain’s Player Phase. Every calculation will have the respective Blow skill factored on top of the amounts above.

8x Mortal Savant - AS: 19, 20, 17, 23, 22, 20, 16, 23

The first 4 have 51 HP, 26 Prt, and 26 Resilience. Assuming his highest AS, DK!Sylvain will double them with both Bolganone and Iron Lance+. Bolganone only deals 46 damage to them with Fiendish Blow and Iron Lance+ deals 22 damage, so neither will ORKO them. Ragnarok will ORKO the first 3 but fail to double the last one. So out of the first 4, DK!Sylvain can one round 3 of them. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles the first three with a Silver Lance+ and ORKOs them. He can Swift Strikes the last one to one round him as well. 

The next 4 have battalions, granting them 51 HP, 30 Prt, and 33 Resilience. DK!Sylvain will still double with Bolganone, but now he will only deal 32 damage to them with it and 14 damage with an Iron Lance+. He can only double two of them with Ragnarok and will deal 46 damage. He fails to ORKO any of the Mortal Savants with battalions. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles two of them with the Silver Lance+, dealing 29 damage with each hit. This is enough to one round them. With Swift Strikes and a Silver Lance+, he deals 31 damage with each hit. This enables him to defeat the other two in one round as well.  

Score: DK!Sylvain - 3        Paladin Sylvain - 8 

5x Gremory - AS: 22, 22, 18, 18, 12         46 HP, 22 Prt, 39 Resilience

Sylvain will not double the first two with Ragnarok, so he deals 17 damage. With Bolganone, he’ll deal 20 damage from two hits. With an Iron Lance+, he deals 30 damage. Even a Ruined Sky art will only deal 43 damage, barely missing out on the ORKO. DK!Sylvain has no way to reliably ORKO the first two Gremories. The other three are doubled by Ragnarok, but it’s still only 34 damage. However, he can double them with the Lance of Ruin which deals 60 damage.
Paladin Sylvain will double all of them with an Iron Lance+ and one round them. He deals 34 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 13

2x Grappler - AS: 27, 29    56 HP, 27 Prt, 8 Resilience 

DK!Sylvain will never double these two. Ragnarok deals 48 damage, and Ruined Sky deals 38 damage. He cannot ORKO them. 
Paladin Sylvain will not double without Swift Strikes. With a Silver Lance+ and Death Blow, Sylvain will have 61 Atk per hit. This deals 68 damage in total, so he will ORKO them. He will also ORKO with an Iron Lance+ Swift Strikes, dealing 58 damage in total. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 15

6x War Master - AS: 36, 36, 33, 29, 36, 29        

The first 4 have 62 HP, 31 Prt, and 10 Resilience. Similar story to Grapplers. Never doubled by DK!Sylvain, and never one rounded. The other two have 62 HP, 39 Prt, and 12 Resilience, so it’s the same story. 
Paladin Sylvain will also never double. Swift Strikes with a Silver Lance+ deals 60 damage overall, so he has to use the Lance of Ruin. A Swift Strikes with Lance of Ruin gives Sylvain 71 Atk per hit, so he is able to one round the first 4. The other two take 64 damage from the same attack, so Paladin Sylvain is capable of one rounding all of the War Masters with Swift Strikes. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 21 

1x Assassin - AS: 44        48 HP, 27 Prt, 11 Resilience

DK!Sylvain hits him once with Ragnarok for 45 damage. That’s his highest damage attack, so he fails to one round the Assassin.
Paladin Sylvain one rounds with an Iron Lance+ equipped Swift Strikes. He deals 29 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6        Paladin Sylvain - 22

2x Warlock - AS: 22, 25    48 HP, 16 Prt, 36 Resilience

Ragnarok hits once for 20 damage. Bolganone hits twice, dealing 26 damage. Ruined Sky deals 49 damage, so DK!Sylvain can one round these two with a very narrow margin. They disappear if you kill Myson so not too important if you can’t. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 8     Paladin Sylvain - 24

4x Dark Bishop - AS: 21, 22, 25, 6    48 HP, 16 Prt, 35 Resilience

Same deal as the Warlocks. The last one is Myson, and he has the same amount of Prt but 6 more HP and 7 more Resilience. DK!Sylvain cannot one round Myson. Paladin Sylvain.

Score: DK!Sylvain - 11     Paladin Sylvain - 28

2x Sniper - AS: 18, 22        46 HP, 24-27 Prt, 9 Resilience 

Ragnarok deals 47 damage to these two, so DK!Sylvain can one round them. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 13    Paladin Sylvain - 30
1x Bishop - 17 AS    47 HP, 17 Prt, 40 Resilience

DK!Sylvain narrowly one rounds with Ruined Sky, dealing 48 damage. Paladin Sylvain.

Final Score: DK!Sylvain - 14    Paladin Sylvain - 31

 

The main takeaways from this are, Paladin Sylvain can one round every enemy on the final map of BL. He only needs the Lance of Ruin + Swift Strikes combo to one-shot the War Masters, as everything else is taken care of by a Silver Lance+ or Iron Lance+. Dark Knight Sylvain struggles because of the large number of magically bulky enemies while lacking in the Atk department when using a lance. Many of the enemies who have low Res also have high AS and high HP, so DK!Sylvain has no hopes of doubling them or one-shotting them. He is able to one round less than half of the enemies that Paladin Sylvain can. DK!Sylvain is essentially an inferior Paladin Sylvain who can do chip damage from range and heals for 22 HP with Physic while having 1 less Move. 

This is particularly bad for DK!Sylvain because Paladin Sylvain has more Move than him from Level 10 onwards and deals a significantly larger amount of damage in the final map. I'm not saying Dark Knight is terrible, but Paladin is pretty clearly better than it for Sylvain. 
 

Would be interested to see some defenses stats too, as part of the draw to DK is the +20 avoid from his budding talent. But this is good research. 

[LegendOfLoog]

4 hours ago, ApocaLips said:

Would be interested to see some defenses stats too, as part of the draw to DK is the +20 avoid from his budding talent. But this is good research. 

Sure. 

Dark Knight: 54-55 HP, 24-25 Protection, 23-24 Resilience, 47-48 Avoid at max AS, 43-44 Mag Avoid 

Paladin: 62-63 HP, 25-26 Protection, 14-15 Resilience, 25-26 at max AS, 23-24 Mag Avoid

Edited August 30, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[MegaGax]

7 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Alright, so I decided to actually look into how well Sylvain performs on the final map as a Paladin and Dark Knight. Since the enemies on the final map are Level 43, I compared both Sylvains to each other to see whether they each deliver on their perspective niches. The calculations are a bit long, so I'll put them in a spoiler box. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Class Lines are Fighter -> Brigand -> Paladin to pick up Death Blow and Monk -> Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight to get Fiendish Blow and Lifetaker

 

Lvl 43 DK Sylvain - 54.15 HP, 29.05 Str, 27.2 Mag, 22.2 Dex, 27.35 Spd, 20.7 Lck, 24.55 Def, 23.55 Res, 25.4 Cha, 7 Mov

Dark Knight will primarily use magic, so let’s do some calculations regarding Sylvain’s magical damage as a Dark Knight. I’ll assume no one reaches S+ in a single playthrough, so no Faire skills outside of those from classes. Add 6 damage to each of these when attacking on Player Phase. 

 

Ragnarok: 27-28 Mag + 15 Mt + 5 Black Tomefaire + 2 (Mag +2) = 49-50 Atk at 23-25 AS 
Bolganone: 34-35 + 8 Mt= 42-43 Atk at 26-28 AS
Fire: 34-35 + 3 Mt = 37-38 Atk at 27-28 AS 
Physic: (29-30)  / 2 + 8 Mt = 22-23 Heal

Sagittae has the same weight as Bolganone but has one less Mt and 5% more Crit, so take Bolganone’s calc and reduce damage by 1. Assuming you still have the Lance of Ruin on Sylvain, I’ll do a calc for an Iron Lance+ and Lance of Ruin with and without Ruined Sky.

Iron Lance+: 29-30 Str + 7 Mt = 36-37 Atk at 26-28 AS
Lance of Ruin: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt = 51-52 Atk at 23-25 AS
Ruined Sky: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt = 64-65 Atk 

 

Now for Paladin Sylvain. He has Swift Strikes, so any lance weapon can effectively become a Brave Lance. This means AS is mostly meaningless to him outside of Enemy Phase, so the minor Speed loss compared to Dark Knight isn’t a huge deal. I’ll list his AS anyway, but all of these weapons can strike twice if necessary. Add 6 damage to each of these on Player Phase.

Lvl 43 Paladin Sylvain - 62.5 HP, 33.45 Str, 17.6 Mag, 22.85 Dex, 25.7 Spd, 21.85 Lck, 25.95 Def, 14.9 Res, 2 Cha, 8 Mov

 

Iron Lance+: 33-34 Str + 7 Mt + 5 Lancefaire + 2 Str = 47-48 Atk at 25-26 AS
Silver Lance+: 35-36 Str + 14 Mt  + 5 = 52-53 Atk at 23-24 AS
Lance of Ruin: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 5 = 62-63 Atk at 23-24 AS
(Spear of Assal has same Weight and Mt as Silver Lance+.)
Ruined Sky: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt + 5 = 75-76 Atk 
Scythe of Sariel: 35-36 Str + 10 Mt + 5 = 50-51 Atk at 25-26 AS

Now let’s look at this damage and see how it does against enemies on the final map. 
I’ll be using the AS for the weapon the enemies have equipped since this will be measuring Sylvain’s Player Phase. Every calculation will have the respective Blow skill factored on top of the amounts above.

8x Mortal Savant - AS: 19, 20, 17, 23, 22, 20, 16, 23

The first 4 have 51 HP, 26 Prt, and 26 Resilience. Assuming his highest AS, DK!Sylvain will double them with both Bolganone and Iron Lance+. Bolganone only deals 46 damage to them with Fiendish Blow and Iron Lance+ deals 22 damage, so neither will ORKO them. Ragnarok will ORKO the first 3 but fail to double the last one. So out of the first 4, DK!Sylvain can one round 3 of them. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles the first three with a Silver Lance+ and ORKOs them. He can Swift Strikes the last one to one round him as well. 

The next 4 have battalions, granting them 51 HP, 30 Prt, and 33 Resilience. DK!Sylvain will still double with Bolganone, but now he will only deal 32 damage to them with it and 14 damage with an Iron Lance+. He can only double two of them with Ragnarok and will deal 46 damage. He fails to ORKO any of the Mortal Savants with battalions. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles two of them with the Silver Lance+, dealing 29 damage with each hit. This is enough to one round them. With Swift Strikes and a Silver Lance+, he deals 31 damage with each hit. This enables him to defeat the other two in one round as well.  

Score: DK!Sylvain - 3        Paladin Sylvain - 8 

5x Gremory - AS: 22, 22, 18, 18, 12         46 HP, 22 Prt, 39 Resilience

Sylvain will not double the first two with Ragnarok, so he deals 17 damage. With Bolganone, he’ll deal 20 damage from two hits. With an Iron Lance+, he deals 30 damage. Even a Ruined Sky art will only deal 43 damage, barely missing out on the ORKO. DK!Sylvain has no way to reliably ORKO the first two Gremories. The other three are doubled by Ragnarok, but it’s still only 34 damage. However, he can double them with the Lance of Ruin which deals 60 damage.
Paladin Sylvain will double all of them with an Iron Lance+ and one round them. He deals 34 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 13

2x Grappler - AS: 27, 29    56 HP, 27 Prt, 8 Resilience 

DK!Sylvain will never double these two. Ragnarok deals 48 damage, and Ruined Sky deals 38 damage. He cannot ORKO them. 
Paladin Sylvain will not double without Swift Strikes. With a Silver Lance+ and Death Blow, Sylvain will have 61 Atk per hit. This deals 68 damage in total, so he will ORKO them. He will also ORKO with an Iron Lance+ Swift Strikes, dealing 58 damage in total. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 15

6x War Master - AS: 36, 36, 33, 29, 36, 29        

The first 4 have 62 HP, 31 Prt, and 10 Resilience. Similar story to Grapplers. Never doubled by DK!Sylvain, and never one rounded. The other two have 62 HP, 39 Prt, and 12 Resilience, so it’s the same story. 
Paladin Sylvain will also never double. Swift Strikes with a Silver Lance+ deals 60 damage overall, so he has to use the Lance of Ruin. A Swift Strikes with Lance of Ruin gives Sylvain 71 Atk per hit, so he is able to one round the first 4. The other two take 64 damage from the same attack, so Paladin Sylvain is capable of one rounding all of the War Masters with Swift Strikes. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 21 

1x Assassin - AS: 44        48 HP, 27 Prt, 11 Resilience

DK!Sylvain hits him once with Ragnarok for 45 damage. That’s his highest damage attack, so he fails to one round the Assassin.
Paladin Sylvain one rounds with an Iron Lance+ equipped Swift Strikes. He deals 29 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6        Paladin Sylvain - 22

2x Warlock - AS: 22, 25    48 HP, 16 Prt, 36 Resilience

Ragnarok hits once for 20 damage. Bolganone hits twice, dealing 26 damage. Ruined Sky deals 49 damage, so DK!Sylvain can one round these two with a very narrow margin. They disappear if you kill Myson so not too important if you can’t. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 8     Paladin Sylvain - 24

4x Dark Bishop - AS: 21, 22, 25, 6    48 HP, 16 Prt, 35 Resilience

Same deal as the Warlocks. The last one is Myson, and he has the same amount of Prt but 6 more HP and 7 more Resilience. DK!Sylvain cannot one round Myson. Paladin Sylvain.

Score: DK!Sylvain - 11     Paladin Sylvain - 28

2x Sniper - AS: 18, 22        46 HP, 24-27 Prt, 9 Resilience 

Ragnarok deals 47 damage to these two, so DK!Sylvain can one round them. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 13    Paladin Sylvain - 30
1x Bishop - 17 AS    47 HP, 17 Prt, 40 Resilience

DK!Sylvain narrowly one rounds with Ruined Sky, dealing 48 damage. Paladin Sylvain.

Final Score: DK!Sylvain - 14    Paladin Sylvain - 31

 

The main takeaways from this are, Paladin Sylvain can one round every enemy on the final map of BL. He only needs the Lance of Ruin + Swift Strikes combo to one-shot the War Masters, as everything else is taken care of by a Silver Lance+ or Iron Lance+. Dark Knight Sylvain struggles because of the large number of magically bulky enemies while lacking in the Atk department when using a lance. Many of the enemies who have low Res also have high AS and high HP, so DK!Sylvain has no hopes of doubling them or one-shotting them. He is able to one round less than half of the enemies that Paladin Sylvain can. DK!Sylvain is essentially an inferior Paladin Sylvain who can do chip damage from range and heals for 22 HP with Physic while having 1 less Move. 

This is particularly bad for DK!Sylvain because Paladin Sylvain has more Move than him from Level 10 onwards and deals a significantly larger amount of damage in the final map. I'm not saying Dark Knight is terrible, but Paladin is pretty clearly better than it for Sylvain. 
 

I voted for Paladin, so this makes me feel justified in doing so! Although, in my actual play-through he was a DK, and was still effective kinda felt like something was a bit off. But he did have some nice Avo with that budding skill talent.

[Cysx]

12 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Alright, so I decided to actually look into how well Sylvain performs on the final map as a Paladin and Dark Knight. Since the enemies on the final map are Level 43, I compared both Sylvains to each other to see whether they each deliver on their perspective niches. The calculations are a bit long, so I'll put them in a spoiler box. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Class Lines are Fighter -> Brigand -> Paladin to pick up Death Blow and Monk -> Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight to get Fiendish Blow and Lifetaker

 

Lvl 43 DK Sylvain - 54.15 HP, 29.05 Str, 27.2 Mag, 22.2 Dex, 27.35 Spd, 20.7 Lck, 24.55 Def, 23.55 Res, 25.4 Cha, 7 Mov

Dark Knight will primarily use magic, so let’s do some calculations regarding Sylvain’s magical damage as a Dark Knight. I’ll assume no one reaches S+ in a single playthrough, so no Faire skills outside of those from classes. Add 6 damage to each of these when attacking on Player Phase. 

 

Ragnarok: 27-28 Mag + 15 Mt + 5 Black Tomefaire + 2 (Mag +2) = 49-50 Atk at 23-25 AS 
Bolganone: 34-35 + 8 Mt= 42-43 Atk at 26-28 AS
Fire: 34-35 + 3 Mt = 37-38 Atk at 27-28 AS 
Physic: (29-30)  / 2 + 8 Mt = 22-23 Heal

Sagittae has the same weight as Bolganone but has one less Mt and 5% more Crit, so take Bolganone’s calc and reduce damage by 1. Assuming you still have the Lance of Ruin on Sylvain, I’ll do a calc for an Iron Lance+ and Lance of Ruin with and without Ruined Sky.

Iron Lance+: 29-30 Str + 7 Mt = 36-37 Atk at 26-28 AS
Lance of Ruin: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt = 51-52 Atk at 23-25 AS
Ruined Sky: 29-30 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt = 64-65 Atk 

 

Now for Paladin Sylvain. He has Swift Strikes, so any lance weapon can effectively become a Brave Lance. This means AS is mostly meaningless to him outside of Enemy Phase, so the minor Speed loss compared to Dark Knight isn’t a huge deal. I’ll list his AS anyway, but all of these weapons can strike twice if necessary. Add 6 damage to each of these on Player Phase.

Lvl 43 Paladin Sylvain - 62.5 HP, 33.45 Str, 17.6 Mag, 22.85 Dex, 25.7 Spd, 21.85 Lck, 25.95 Def, 14.9 Res, 2 Cha, 8 Mov

 

Iron Lance+: 33-34 Str + 7 Mt + 5 Lancefaire + 2 Str = 47-48 Atk at 25-26 AS
Silver Lance+: 35-36 Str + 14 Mt  + 5 = 52-53 Atk at 23-24 AS
Lance of Ruin: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 5 = 62-63 Atk at 23-24 AS
(Spear of Assal has same Weight and Mt as Silver Lance+.)
Ruined Sky: 35-36 Str + 22 Mt + 13 Extra Mt + 5 = 75-76 Atk 
Scythe of Sariel: 35-36 Str + 10 Mt + 5 = 50-51 Atk at 25-26 AS

Now let’s look at this damage and see how it does against enemies on the final map. 
I’ll be using the AS for the weapon the enemies have equipped since this will be measuring Sylvain’s Player Phase. Every calculation will have the respective Blow skill factored on top of the amounts above.

8x Mortal Savant - AS: 19, 20, 17, 23, 22, 20, 16, 23

The first 4 have 51 HP, 26 Prt, and 26 Resilience. Assuming his highest AS, DK!Sylvain will double them with both Bolganone and Iron Lance+. Bolganone only deals 46 damage to them with Fiendish Blow and Iron Lance+ deals 22 damage, so neither will ORKO them. Ragnarok will ORKO the first 3 but fail to double the last one. So out of the first 4, DK!Sylvain can one round 3 of them. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles the first three with a Silver Lance+ and ORKOs them. He can Swift Strikes the last one to one round him as well. 

The next 4 have battalions, granting them 51 HP, 30 Prt, and 33 Resilience. DK!Sylvain will still double with Bolganone, but now he will only deal 32 damage to them with it and 14 damage with an Iron Lance+. He can only double two of them with Ragnarok and will deal 46 damage. He fails to ORKO any of the Mortal Savants with battalions. 
Paladin Sylvain doubles two of them with the Silver Lance+, dealing 29 damage with each hit. This is enough to one round them. With Swift Strikes and a Silver Lance+, he deals 31 damage with each hit. This enables him to defeat the other two in one round as well.  

Score: DK!Sylvain - 3        Paladin Sylvain - 8 

5x Gremory - AS: 22, 22, 18, 18, 12         46 HP, 22 Prt, 39 Resilience

Sylvain will not double the first two with Ragnarok, so he deals 17 damage. With Bolganone, he’ll deal 20 damage from two hits. With an Iron Lance+, he deals 30 damage. Even a Ruined Sky art will only deal 43 damage, barely missing out on the ORKO. DK!Sylvain has no way to reliably ORKO the first two Gremories. The other three are doubled by Ragnarok, but it’s still only 34 damage. However, he can double them with the Lance of Ruin which deals 60 damage.
Paladin Sylvain will double all of them with an Iron Lance+ and one round them. He deals 34 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 13

2x Grappler - AS: 27, 29    56 HP, 27 Prt, 8 Resilience 

DK!Sylvain will never double these two. Ragnarok deals 48 damage, and Ruined Sky deals 38 damage. He cannot ORKO them. 
Paladin Sylvain will not double without Swift Strikes. With a Silver Lance+ and Death Blow, Sylvain will have 61 Atk per hit. This deals 68 damage in total, so he will ORKO them. He will also ORKO with an Iron Lance+ Swift Strikes, dealing 58 damage in total. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 15

6x War Master - AS: 36, 36, 33, 29, 36, 29        

The first 4 have 62 HP, 31 Prt, and 10 Resilience. Similar story to Grapplers. Never doubled by DK!Sylvain, and never one rounded. The other two have 62 HP, 39 Prt, and 12 Resilience, so it’s the same story. 
Paladin Sylvain will also never double. Swift Strikes with a Silver Lance+ deals 60 damage overall, so he has to use the Lance of Ruin. A Swift Strikes with Lance of Ruin gives Sylvain 71 Atk per hit, so he is able to one round the first 4. The other two take 64 damage from the same attack, so Paladin Sylvain is capable of one rounding all of the War Masters with Swift Strikes. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6     Paladin Sylvain - 21 

1x Assassin - AS: 44        48 HP, 27 Prt, 11 Resilience

DK!Sylvain hits him once with Ragnarok for 45 damage. That’s his highest damage attack, so he fails to one round the Assassin.
Paladin Sylvain one rounds with an Iron Lance+ equipped Swift Strikes. He deals 29 damage per hit. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 6        Paladin Sylvain - 22

2x Warlock - AS: 22, 25    48 HP, 16 Prt, 36 Resilience

Ragnarok hits once for 20 damage. Bolganone hits twice, dealing 26 damage. Ruined Sky deals 49 damage, so DK!Sylvain can one round these two with a very narrow margin. They disappear if you kill Myson so not too important if you can’t. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 8     Paladin Sylvain - 24

4x Dark Bishop - AS: 21, 22, 25, 6    48 HP, 16 Prt, 35 Resilience

Same deal as the Warlocks. The last one is Myson, and he has the same amount of Prt but 6 more HP and 7 more Resilience. DK!Sylvain cannot one round Myson. Paladin Sylvain.

Score: DK!Sylvain - 11     Paladin Sylvain - 28

2x Sniper - AS: 18, 22        46 HP, 24-27 Prt, 9 Resilience 

Ragnarok deals 47 damage to these two, so DK!Sylvain can one round them. Paladin Sylvain. 

Score: DK!Sylvain - 13    Paladin Sylvain - 30
1x Bishop - 17 AS    47 HP, 17 Prt, 40 Resilience

DK!Sylvain narrowly one rounds with Ruined Sky, dealing 48 damage. Paladin Sylvain.

Final Score: DK!Sylvain - 14    Paladin Sylvain - 31

 

The main takeaways from this are, Paladin Sylvain can one round every enemy on the final map of BL. He only needs the Lance of Ruin + Swift Strikes combo to one-shot the War Masters, as everything else is taken care of by a Silver Lance+ or Iron Lance+. Dark Knight Sylvain struggles because of the large number of magically bulky enemies while lacking in the Atk department when using a lance. Many of the enemies who have low Res also have high AS and high HP, so DK!Sylvain has no hopes of doubling them or one-shotting them. He is able to one round less than half of the enemies that Paladin Sylvain can. DK!Sylvain is essentially an inferior Paladin Sylvain who can do chip damage from range and heals for 22 HP with Physic while having 1 less Move. 

This is particularly bad for DK!Sylvain because Paladin Sylvain has more Move than him from Level 10 onwards and deals a significantly larger amount of damage in the final map. I'm not saying Dark Knight is terrible, but Paladin is pretty clearly better than it for Sylvain. 
 

Okay, so while the final chapters are difficulty spikes on every route(dunno about church)with no access to meal bonuses, and this one in particular is one of the most Resilience friendly chapters in the game... it'd be disingenuous to deny that you've made your point. I think it's clear this gap in damage output will be very relevant in harder difficulties.
However, there are a bunch of important things I think you should have considered(Also I don't really get why you're going for "best" and "worse" stats, kinda kills the purpose of averages; plus there's no reason not to consider -1 stats as well if I'm understanding your reasoning correctly; like, a 17.05 average isn't particularly far from a 16 odds wise):

- Battalions. They account for +7 or +8 Atk at this point, which is a lot.
- Accessories. I bring those up specifically because while they apply to both, magic users have 1: A lot of free inventory space, and 2: A +3 MAtk accessory at their disposal, and unless you're running three offensive magic users, there's no reason for Sylvain not to have one in his pockets at all times(I do believe you get two throughout the game). I'd bring up Spd rings but those are in considerably higher demand
- Sylvain's passive, which again, can be activated with relative ease by DK especially due to having better range(I'm assuming +1 black magic range is equipped, this is the final chapter after all)
- AS gains through dismounting. DK Sylvain in particular has more flexible attack range and doesn't have to compromise on positioning even without canto at times. I put them lower though, since they're rarely relevant here.
- Also his Mag as a DK is 1 point lower than it should be, although it doesn't change much since you've put it at +1 regardless in most of your calculations.

With that into account, and no doubling with Ragnarok(because 3 uses) or using lances(because Lance of Ruin just won't be on him and iron lance+ is too niche):

- The strongest Mortal Savant requires 59 MAtk and 27 AS to double and kill. Dismounted Sylvain with Bolganone, a +7 Battalion and a magic wand has 59 and 28 AS. He can ORKO all 8 of them.

- All Gremories require 62 MAtk to ORKO and at most 26 AS. This one's rough, but with every damage bonus(+8 Battalion, +3 Wand, +2 Passive), DK Sylvain reaches precisely that value with Bolganone. Suffice to say, there are not decisive kills at all.

- Grapplers require 64 MAtk to OHKO. Ragnarok is at 64 with a +8 Battalion, 66 with a +7 one and a M. Wand. He OHKOs both.

- War Masters would require 72 MAtk to OHKO and he cannot double them. Those are out of his reach.

- The Assassin requires 59 MAtk and is a pretty easy OHKO.

- The Warlocks require 2 less MAtk than the Gremorys, and are slower. He ORKOs both with Bolganone but needs his passive if his battalion only gives +7.

- Dark Bishop die too, to Sagittae potentially to save uses

- The Snipers fall to even Fire from potentially 4 range

- Bishop requires 127 MAtk, that's out of his reach.

So final score is 24(19) to 31(assuming I didn't mess anything up), which is a bit more acceptable considering the range difference in a chapter with a ton of walls. But in any case yes, pally has better, more flexible 1 range offense for sure. And neither have an extremely remarkable EP.

Also, you've just informed me that Magic avoid used a different formula(which ignores weight); I didn't know at all. Thanks a lot for that.

[LegendOfLoog]

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Okay, so while the final chapters are difficulty spikes on every route(dunno about church)with no access to meal bonuses, and this one in particular is one of the most Resilience friendly chapters in the game... it'd be disingenuous to deny that you've made your point. I think it's clear this gap in damage output will be very relevant in harder difficulties.
However, there are a bunch of important things I think you should have considered(Also I don't really get why you're going for "best" and "worse" stats, kinda kills the purpose of averages; plus there's no reason not to consider -1 stats as well if I'm understanding your reasoning correctly; like, a 17.05 average isn't particularly far from a 16 odds wise):

- Battalions. They account for +7 or +8 Atk at this point, which is a lot.
- Accessories. I bring those up specifically because while they apply to both, magic users have 1: A lot of free inventory space, and 2: A +3 MAtk accessory at their disposal, and unless you're running three offensive magic users, there's no reason for Sylvain not to have one in his pockets at all times(I do believe you get two throughout the game). I'd bring up Spd rings but those are in considerably higher demand
- Sylvain's passive, which again, can be activated with relative ease by DK especially due to having better range(I'm assuming +1 black magic range is equipped, this is the final chapter after all)
- AS gains through dismounting. DK Sylvain in particular has more flexible attack range and doesn't have to compromise on positioning even without canto at times. I put them lower though, since they're rarely relevant here.
- Also his Mag as a DK is 1 point lower than it should be, although it doesn't change much since you've put it at +1 regardless in most of your calculations.

With that into account, and no doubling with Ragnarok(because 3 uses) or using lances(because Lance of Ruin just won't be on him and iron lance+ is too niche):

- The strongest Mortal Savant requires 59 MAtk and 27 AS to double and kill. Dismounted Sylvain with Bolganone, a +7 Battalion and a magic wand has 59 and 28 AS. He can ORKO all 8 of them.

- All Gremories require 62 MAtk to ORKO and at most 26 AS. This one's rough, but with every damage bonus(+8 Battalion, +3 Wand, +2 Passive), DK Sylvain reaches precisely that value with Bolganone. Suffice to say, there are not decisive kills at all.

- Grapplers require 64 MAtk to OHKO. Ragnarok is at 64 with a +8 Battalion, 66 with a +7 one and a M. Wand. He OHKOs both.

- War Masters would require 72 MAtk to OHKO and he cannot double them. Those are out of his reach.

- The Assassin requires 59 MAtk and is a pretty easy OHKO.

- The Warlocks require 2 less MAtk than the Gremorys, and are slower. He ORKOs both with Bolganone but needs his passive if his battalion only gives +7.

- Dark Bishop die too, to Sagittae potentially to save uses

- The Snipers fall to even Fire from potentially 4 range

- Bishop requires 127 MAtk, that's out of his reach.

So final score is 24(19) to 31(assuming I didn't mess anything up), which is a bit more acceptable considering the range difference in a chapter with a ton of walls. But in any case yes, pally has better, more flexible 1 range offense for sure. And neither have an extremely remarkable EP.

Also, you've just informed me that Magic avoid used a different formula(which ignores weight); I didn't know at all. Thanks a lot for that.

I used the best and worse stats mostly because I figured it's not like you can get a 27.2 as an actual stat in the late game, so on average, you should have 27-28 Magic in that situation. Also, since most calculations like AS round down, I wanted to show the best case and worst case while still being within the point disparity. Thinking on it, it probably makes more sense to do -1/0/+1 versions of each, so maybe I'll do that if I do something like this again. 

I didn't use Battalions because I'm not entirely sure how much Magic ones give, and I also wasn't sure what level of Authority DK!Sylvain should reasonably have, although I imagine it's possible to reach A if you invest heavily enough. The Magic Wand thing was an oversight because I kind of forgot it existed. DK!Sylvain definitely has some usefulness in that regard since he has more inventory to switch between potentially Caduceus, Speed Ring, etc. Similarly, I forgot about his personal and Dismounting because most of the game is easy enough on Hard without them, but they seem to make a difference here for him. Although, I'm fairly certain the Magic stat is right; I went Lvl 1-4 Noble -> Lvl 5-9 Monk -> Lvl 10-19 Mage -> Lvl 20-29 Dark Bishop (can substitute for Warlock) -> Lvl 30-43 Dark Knight and got 27.2 Mag at the end of it. I might have forgotten to update it since I originally started the comparison at Level 40 but then realized the enemies were Level 43 and updated Sylvain's stats to reflect that level. 

The updated score seems good to me. Also, it shows why Authority levels are so important; the battalions at B and above are so good that they make a unit's combat capabilities so much higher, not to mention some of the more ridiculous Gambits like Dance of the Goddess and Retribution. I imagine they'll be even more important on Lunatic. 

As far as Magic Avoid goes, I got the formula from the Blue Lions Hard Mode Enemy Sheet that was on here a few days ago. It should be Speed / 2 + Luck /2 + any skills you might have. 

[Cysx]

2 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

I used the best and worse stats mostly because I figured it's not like you can get a 27.2 as an actual stat in the late game, so on average, you should have 27-28 Magic in that situation. Also, since most calculations like AS round down, I wanted to show the best case and worst case while still being within the point disparity. Thinking on it, it probably makes more sense to do -1/0/+1 versions of each, so maybe I'll do that if I do something like this again.  

Okay, despite what I said above, I do think I get it. It's just that the point of averages is to put randomness out of the conversation; but in practice it's still here , so there's nothing really wrong with the way you're doing it.

On BL route, one should have access to:
- Macuil Evil Repelling co. (Manuella/Hanneman paralogue I assume, also buyable maybe?), +7 MAtk at Lv5, A rank
- Blue Lion Magic Corps(buyable), +7 MAtk , A rank
- Hevring Prayer Troops(gonna assume Linhardt/Leonie paralogue), +7 MAtk, B rank
- Ordelia Sorcery Co.(Ferdinand/Lysithea most likely), +8 MAtk, B rank

So yeah, the +8 one may or may not be on him at all, but a +7 one I think is fairly reasonable; though he might need A authority indeed, as not every playthrough will recruit Linhardt and Leonie.

Okay, I'll just post my own thing for the magic stat, I did check a bunch of times but you never know. Also I argued that one should keep decimals in another thread, but it changes nothing here(ends up at .9 instead of .2) so for the sake of simplicity, I won't:

5 Base Magic -> +1.2 from 4 levels of 0.3 -> 6.2 -> Reclass into Monk, Mag becomes 8.

8 +1.5 from 5 levels of 0.3 -> 9.5 -> Reclass into Mage, Mag becomes 10.

10 + 4 from 10 levels of 0.4 -> 14 -> Reclass into Warlock(or yeah, Dark bishop, same thing), Mag becomes 17

17 + 9.2 from 23 levels of 0.4 = 26.2

+2 base Mag from DK = 28.2

Yeah, from quick testing that's what Magic avoid seems to be indeed. Which gives Lck an additional niche, and... I think it worked that way in Echoes, too(to an extent, it's a bit complicated), so I should probably have seen it coming.

[LegendOfLoog]

24 minutes ago, Cysx said:

On BL route, one should have access to:
- Macuil Evil Repelling co. (Manuella/Hanneman paralogue I assume, also buyable maybe?), +7 MAtk at Lv5, A rank
- Blue Lion Magic Corps(buyable), +7 MAtk , A rank
- Hevring Prayer Troops(gonna assume Linhardt/Leonie paralogue), +7 MAtk, B rank
- Ordelia Sorcery Co.(Ferdinand/Lysithea most likely), +8 MAtk, B rank

Macuil is also buyable, so you can get two of them. It seems reasonable enough to get A rank by the end game, but actually leveling the battalion to the point where it gives +7 is the tricky issue. You would probably need to give higher ones to units with good Authority ahead of time to have them level it and then throw it on your other units when they reach A. Sylvain does get Battalion Vantage at C as well, so that could help his Enemy Phase a bit. 

26 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Okay, I'll just post my own thing for the magic stat, I did check a bunch of times but you never know. Also I argued that one should keep decimals in another thread, but it changes nothing here(ends up at .9 instead of .2) so for the sake of simplicity, I won't:

I went back and checked the calculator, and it looks like the Magic stat mod for Dark Knight was 1 off. Your calc is right. Strangely enough, in the information, it shows the right mods though. In practice, it's fine at Mage, 1 less as Warlock/Dark Bishop, and 1 less as Dark Knight. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

DK's biggest advantages on Paladin are the advantage of magic generally, it happens at anywhere from 2-5 range, (2 base, +1 if you have Caduceus, +2 if you have Thyrsus, +1 if you have S-rank Reason), player or enemy phase. Saying "he can ORKO more things with Swift Strikes" is true but not actually that impressive; he should be able to one-round more things with Swift Strikes. It's 1 range only and can't be used on the enemy phase.

I do really appreciate seeing numbers on things, though; most builds I've tried so far I've only tried once and it's not like I've carefully checked my stats against averages.

[LegendOfLoog]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

DK's biggest advantages on Paladin are the advantage of magic generally, it happens at anywhere from 2-5 range, (2 base, +1 if you have Caduceus, +2 if you have Thyrsus, +1 if you have S-rank Reason), player or enemy phase. Saying "he can ORKO more things with Swift Strikes" is true but not actually that impressive; he should be able to one-round more things with Swift Strikes. It's 1 range only and can't be used on the enemy phase.

I do really appreciate seeing numbers on things, though; most builds I've tried so far I've only tried once and it's not like I've carefully checked my stats against averages.

I do agree that DK!Sylvain has a better enemy phase just by virtue of being able to retaliate, but I don't think his enemy phase is very good either. Just like Paladin and Death Blow, he isn't one rounding much of anything without Fiendish Blow, and his bulk isn't enough to have much of an Enemy Phase to speak of. He has to stay away from the War Masters as 24-25 Def, 54-55 HP, and  28 AS are not enough to avoid being doubled/quadded and one rounded by them except for the one with a Tomahawk, and I'm not a fan of gambling with Avoid (for reference though, the highest Hit they have should be around 63 with Silver Gauntlets+). He won't one round Gremories on Enemy Phase, and their tomes have 58-59 Magic Atk. His Res is only 23-24, so two of them hitting will kill. Mortal Savants without Battalions will kill with 3 Ragnaroks. The other enemy classes aren't really a huge issue as they either disappear with Myson or they're Snipers, which are probably the weakest enemy types on this map. Paladin Sylvain is even worse in this regard as he has 10 less Res. However, I will admit that I have no idea how much Resilience late game battalions give you; I'm assuming somewhere from 5-10, at most. If that's the case, he will be able to take more hits, but ORKOing on Enemy Phase is just not something he's going to do except against the Snipers. 

DK!Sylvain is certainly better than Paladin on Enemy Phase, but I guess the choice just depends on what you're going for. Paladin gives up decent damage against mages on Enemy Phase (since javelins are pretty mediocre), 3+ range, and a 22 HP Physic for consistent ORKOs on Player Phase and +1 Move. I think it's worth it for higher flexibility on Player Phase, but I definitely understand the argument in favor of Dark Knight.

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[Mola_Ram]

Hello everyone, this is my first post outside of your introduction threads.

I'm on my first Blue Lions playthrough, and have realised that just about anything is viable to beat it. With that in mind, I went with the majority opinions on Bernie and Petra, because I haven't used them yet. And I went Grappler for Sylvain.

Now, I know that last one might be a bit controversial. "He's not even good at using gauntlets!", you might say, or "Wyvern Lord is just the best class for everyone!", or "At least make him a War Master or something".

And I understand all of those viewpoints. Really, I do. But I am building a Fist of the North Star team, and just do not have room for mounted units. Or (male) mages. Or (male) Bishops. It's ATATATATATATATATA all the way, and everyone needs to contribute. So, Ashe? Grappler. Dudue? Grappler, of course. Hanneman? You better believe he's going Grappler. Catherine? Grap... oh wait she can't, ugh, I GUESS she can use a sword then. The ladies can be on heal duty, the medics of Punch City.

...there aren't any snow maps in this game, are there? That could be a problem.

[Jayvee94]

Poll closes due to displacement of topic.

Results:

• Bernadetta - Bow Knight
• Petra - Wyvern Lord
• Sylvain - Wyvern Lord/Dark Knight
• Next Round - Linhardt, Annette, Marianne

Poll 4 has officially started

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Jayvee94

[ZeManaphy]

Annette: Gremory, Holy Knight, and Dark Knight are both the best options in terms of Master Classes. My vote goes for Gremory because its the easiest to get access to, but Dark Knight/Holy Knight are fine options should you want Canto and high movement. And the reason I'm putting Dark/Holy Knight together is because they are more or less the same class, with one just utilizing reason and the other over faith. There is just have been one Mage Knight Class. Honestly, I feel Dancer is the best class for Annette, since allows her to play off her 4 Rally Skills, as well as letting her use Magic. 

Linhardt: Holy Knight, obviously, since he's a support unit and there's no Gremory for males.

Marianne: I never really used her that much since I found her a worse Mercedes in my GD playthrough since she falls to pretty much every physical hit, while Mercedes can usually take at least one; let alone Fortify and her personal skill makes her very durable. That being said, Holy Knight is a good pick, since she has an affinity for Riding. Too bad most mount based classes can't use magic until magic until Master tier; kind of wastes her Flying and Riding proficencies a lot.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I feel like Dark Knight is generally preferable to Holy Knight, because offensive Black Magic is much better than offensive White Magic, and that's all White Tomefaire affects. Holy Knights aren't actually any better at healing, unlike Priest/Bishop/Gremory.

Thus Dark Knight is a very obvious pick for both Annette and Marianne. Linhardt is trickier, because he's the worst at offensive magic anyway (5 base spd, lowest mag growth) but is a good healer between his crest and Physic access, so you might just want something that takes advantage of that more. Sadly he can't go Gremory. I'm going to vote for Bishop, because I figure he stays on the team as a dedicated white mage, though there's a case to get him more move so he can reach people to Warp them I suppose.