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

[Jayvee94]

The poll ended due to displacement from the first page.

Results:

• Ashe - Wyvern Lord/Bow Knight
• Ingrid - Falcon Knight
• Lorenz - Dark Knight
• For Poll 6: Caspar, Lysithea and Leonie

Poll 6 has officially started and these are my thoughts:

• Caspar- Yeah, yeah. Wyvern Lord blah blah blah. Yeah, I get it WL is Uber tier (credits to Smogon). I'd still prefer War Master.
• Lysithea - I prefer her on Gremory, though I have seen someone do Dark Knight with her. I've also seen her get certification for MS just to get her strength up (therefore AS) but she didn't stay in it.
• Leonie - Bow Knight. The real question is not "whether or not" but "how". 

Edited September 7, 2019 by Jayvee94

[LegendOfLoog]

Lysithea - Mortal Savant is a meme class, so she really only has Dark Knight and Gremory as options. Warp has its uses, but outside of an LTC context, it's not so good that it instantly eclipses Dark Knight mobility. She generally has plenty of damage as it is, so Seraphim and Abraxas aren't really worth the investment. Dark Knight Lysithea gets 2-3 more Movement and Canto to more effectively use her high damage. IMO Dark Knight is more useful in regular play than Gremory, so I'll go Dark Knight here. 

Leonie - Bow Knight, no question. Picking up Death Blow could prove useful since her Strength isn't particularly high, and she has no weakness in Axes. Something like Brigand -> Paladin -> Bow Knight would probably work, but as long as she ends up in Bow Knight, she'll probably be fine. 

Caspar - Caspar's a tricky one. As good as fliers are, there's pretty much always multiple better ones no matter which house he's in. War Master requires a lot less investment than Wyvern Lord for him. You can then funnel that into his Authority to boost his other stats through higher level battalions. Also, his dependent Axe combat arts are pretty terrible since he gains Wild Abandon and Exhaustive Strike, but he gets Bombard and Healing Focus through Gauntlets. Give him Killer Knuckles, and criticals are pretty much a regular occurrence. i don't think Caspar is particularly great, but he does well enough as a War Master that it's probably best to just go with what he's good at.

[ApocaLips]

Caspar - WL and war master are truly both reasonable options here depending on what you need. M

Lysithea - dark knight. She’s a combat unit, give her a horse so she can do her job. Also comes with extra damage to boot. It’s IMO clearly better than giving her one more shot of warp, and it’s especially nice to be able to warp + canto forward. 

Leonie - she’s mostly the same as Petra and will be great at whatever class your team might need. Her real strength is her versatility to slot into whatever class is needed. Slight nod to bow knight here because point blank volley ensures you can delete almost anything that needs to die.

Edited September 7, 2019 by ApocaLips

[Dark Holy Elf]

I guess I'll be the first Wyvern Lord vote for Leonie. Compared to someone like say Felix (who I voted Bow Knight for), she has more defence, and she's female which means training flying gives her a strong performance in tier 2. That's enough to tilt her over the WL line for me, even with only one (minor) strength and two neutrals.

Wyvern Lord for Caspar.

Dark Knight for Lysithea, even though Mortal Savant's hardly bad or anything, Soulblade off a high-Atk sword can one-shot some things that her regular tomes can not. But overall the extra move and Dark Tomefaire obviously makes DK the winner. Black and Dark Tomefaire really needed to be rolled into a single skill IMO.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Caspar: war master

Lysithea: gremory 

Leomie: bow knight or paladin

Edited September 7, 2019 by Lysithea

[Curlyhairbob]

Are you also going to do a poll for the 3 lords, Eldelgard, Dimitri, and Claude later?

[Jakkun]

Caspar: Wyvern Lord, muh optimization, muh canto, muh STRIDE, we heard it all before. However, if you are someone with SOUL, you'll make Caspar go Mage > Grappler > War Master and give him the Aura Knuckles for the ultimate muscle wizard build.

Lysithea: Gremory. Depends on what you want. I personally value 2 uses of Warp over another mount, but if you want to see Lysithea nuke stuff to hell and back, Dark Knight is the best way of getting her in the action. I'm pretty sure you have enough time to unlock both classes on her without compromising anything, especially since Gremory will come super naturally to her. Just, whatever you do, don't bother with swords on her. She's like reverse Felix.

Leonie: Bow Knight. She's, imo, the quintessential Bow Knight of this game, outside of maybe Shamir. If you're worried about Cav's terrible growths, her base 60% speed growth will ensure that she'll survive horse hell.

[Gamer76252]

Caspar, I really enjoy War Master on him. Get Vantage and Wrath and Caspar can nuke things with War Master's innate crit. Wyvern Lord is obviously a good choice for him as well, so both are a great choice.

Leonie, Bow Knight is pretty good for her. Not much else to really say about it, but you could go Paladin if you wanted to focus on her lances instead.

Lysithea, Gremory is pretty great. Her Glouster Crest can give her extra damage and having 3 offensive Faith spells she becomes probably the best person to use Faith Prowess for the higher avoid. Plus, with her 4 range staff, she already has fantastic range even without Dark Knight movement.

[Wuzzy]

Caspar - Wyvern Lord is the best class, Warmaster is an alternative but, fliers are just so good in the game. Only thing he really needs is a Speedwing (maybe a few Speed Carrots) to boost his low base Speed and then Wyvern Lord bases + the extra 10% Speed growth boost should carry him.

Lysithea - Gremory easily, even in casual play. Just having 2 Warp uses is very beneficial and Thrysus + Dark Magic Range +1 should give her a ton of range to compensate her low Move (also Stride, Rescue, March Ring, training her Riding talent also alleviates the issue). Personally like giving her the March Ring to start, and then switching Thrysus when attacking, then switch back over to the March Ring. 

Leonie - Bow Knight is her best class (going the Cavalier -> Paladin -> Bow Knight route, while primarily using Bows in her intermediate/advanced classes), however she also makes a good Wyvern Lord and FalconKnight as well. 

Edited September 7, 2019 by Lunarly

[timon]

No idea on Caspar, I'd guess WL.

Lysithea is Gremory to abuse her utility, as she doesn't really need the extra power of DK. Mov could be nice, but you're likely getting S Reason quite earlier than usual with her personal, and with Thyrsus you can compensate Mov with range. Also DK in NG is a bit of a pain, you have to get Reason, Faith and Riding to A and also Authority, not to mention that even the usually easy C Lance is made annoying by her weakness. Her personal does help a bit, but those are still 5 different ranks to get up, and her skill works only in battle (which, unless you're making her a Cavalier, is not going to help with Riding and Lance).

Leonie obviously Bow Knight, WL gets a lot of spotlight and for good reasons, but Bow Knight is very, very underestimated. Their range is absurd, and the fact that enemies just don't dodge makes BK a no-drawback play. My advice is always going archer->sniper though, focusing Bow/Cav for the whole game and just getting C in lance through some instruct.

While you miss out on her amazing Pally outfit you also don't break her amazing 60% speed, and she gets Hit+20 which makes her unfallible even against avoid tiles from 5 range. More importantly it lets you focus and get to high Bow level from the start. As a BK she'll never touch a lance, so there's not much of a reason to go Paladin.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Caspar: I’ll admit that Wyvern Lord is best, but I’ll take War Master anyway. He is still good as one.

Leonie: I’ll say Bow Knight. She is a better Archer than all the canon archers, but she is a very good Cavalier, too.

Lysithea: I’ll say Gremory because it is easier to raise her Authority that way.

[Dark Kain]

Caspar - Wyvern Lord for all the obvious reasons, can be a decent warmaster if you dislike mobility for some reason

Lysithea - Both (Gremory AND Dark Knight) is the best answer.
First: if you are aiming to DK you are going to hit Gremory requirements anyway before unlocking dark knight, just by playing normally due to Lysithea's personal skill effect + her inability with lances and overall problems in raising Riding to near-A rank without any intermediate/advanced horse class she could work in.
Second: she has enough skill experience margin to unlock both classes and no real reason NOT to do so: she ALSO has no problem with autority so where else would you funnel her excess skill xps?
Third: both class are good and have their use in different maps, just swap beetween them as required.
Are you playing a standard plain or city map with a standard deployment of your unit?
DK is overall great for mobility and overkill potential.
But when the map is filled to brim with stairs/swamp/fire or lava that makes horses useless or an internal map with annoying walls that your flyiers cannon fly over or a big map that has an annoying deployment that splits up your units on opposite edges?
You could bring Gremory Lysithea plus Flayne and with the help of your dancer (and maybe a dancer battallion too if you are really at the endgame) do some teleport chain shenaningans to redeploy your troops anywere on the map as you like.
And I'm not talking about LTC-ing here, just general utility for a casual gamer.

Leonie - Bow Knight, the real question is how to get there.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Dark Kain

[The Black Pot]

Caspar has Axe boon and doesn't have flying bane. If you can stomach yet another Wyvern Lord, it's the best option. Canto is super nice or his Personal, as you can readily readjust to give an accuracy bonus to the group. War Master is also great and plays perfectly to his strengths, but trades consistency and mobility for crit chance, which might be preferable. It's also lower investment, giving you more time to work against his Authority bane.

Lysithea learns Warp the easiest of anyone in the game, between her personal and learning it at B instead of A. She also has the best range with it due to her magic growth. Capitalize on the spell's flexibility as a Gremory, giving you extra Warps without losing much in the way of power. This also gives her more Abraxis/Hades uses for extra one-shotting, or more Nosferatus to supplement her atrocious bulk.

Leonie is meant to be a Bow Knight, cut and dry. Boons in all the right places and the class' strength means you can easily get everything you need and have time to spare to invest in Authority.

[dragontamer]

Caspar for War Master. At best, you only have ~4 flying battalions, and they all require higher-authority than usual (a major weakness to Caspar). War Master is probably the best physical infantry class in the game (6 movement and +20% Crits). If you recruit Felix for the Fraldarius Soldiers Paralogue reward, one unit will get (B-rank Authority, +8 attack, +22% Crit), and are unfortunately locked to ground only. 6 Movement means Caspar is still running with the Dancer (6 mov), and is still far faster than your Bishops and Gremory. You really do need the full-nuke power to ORKO the 120+ HP Monsters. Killer Knuckles+ are 3 Atk and +30 Crit, so Killer Knuckles+ and Fraldarius Soldiers should put Caspar at +82% Crits (+whatever Dex contributes) on a 4x Weapon if I'm theorycrafting correctly (Killer+, Brawl Crit, Fraldarius Soldiers, +20% War Master). Yes, this is a "Player Phase" only strategy, but I do think that some endgame monsters (especially with -50% damage barriers or -70% damage barriers, and huge HP pools) deserve this level of overkill.

 

Endgame Caspar is looking at 6 (Death Blow) + 5 (Fistfaire) + 8 (Fradldarius Soldiers) + 3 (Killer+ Knuckles) + 27 (level 40 Average) + War Master class bonus (I forget) == 50+ Might on a 4x weapon and 82% crits (132% if Wrath-boosted)... if I theorycrafted correctly. This is probably the best playerphase physical nuke in the game, and is absolutely necessary for endgame monster "Barrier Busting".

 

I abstain from voting on Lysithea.

 

Leonie is Bow Knight, without a doubt. The best grounded class in the game.

Edited September 8, 2019 by dragontamer

[Shadow Mir]

Abstain on Caspar.

Gremory for Lysithea for reasons mentioned already (it's easier to get two weapon ranks she's strong in up than 3+ weapon ranks, especially when one of those is a weakness and another is neutral).

Bow Knight for Leonie, due to her proficiencies pointing her toward said class (that said, she could also work well as a Falcon Knight).

[Jayvee94]

This past few days are rather uneventful but the poll closes due it's displacement from the first page.

Results (would include more than one when there's no majority):

• Caspar: War Master
• Lysithea: Gremory
• Leonie: Bow Knight
• Poll 7: Mercedes, Ignatz and Flayn

Here are my thoughts:

• Mercedes: Her starting lesson are Reason and Faith. This will nudge you into going into Gremory. With her saint weapon being a bow, I don't know if it would be worth the trouble getting into a Bow weilding class (Sniper -> Bow Knight) especially considering her weakness in Riding.
• Ignatz: He's one of the most difficult to use units. So a lot of players turn him into a Dancer. His starting lesson, Sword and Bow, may nudge you into one of the following classes: Bow Knight (Uber), Mortal Savant (UU) or Assassin (OU). His lesson plan requests support this.
• Flayn: Her starting lesson are Lance and Faith. These would nudge you to either Falcon Knight or Gremory. Using her Seal Magic (from her budding Reason skill), the latter will make her a mage duelist and the former into a flying mage killer (work on those sword ranks, trust me). Oh, and she has both the enthusiasm and charm to become a Dancer.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Jayvee94

[Garlyle]

Mercedes: best healer, obvious Bishop. Possibly Gremory for the extra move.

Ignatz: Bow Knight from Sniper from Archer. Trust me on this one.

Flayn: Holy Knight. She needs her Faith magic for Fortify/Rescue, and has a good resistance against magic users. Efficiency in both Faith and Lance skills, Don't let that down arrow in Riding discourage you, the extra move with Canto is always nice to have for her endgame.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, Jayvee94 said:

• Mercedes: Her starting lesson are Reason and Faith. This will nudge you into going into Gremory. With her saint weapon being a bow, I don't know if it would be worth the trouble getting into a Bow weilding class (Sniper -> Bow Knight) especially considering her weakness in Riding.

She doesn't have a weakness in Riding - she does have a weakness in Lances, however.

Anyway...

Gremory for both Mercedes and Flayn (not unlike is the case with Lysithea, I see it better to focus on two strengths than three proficiencies, especially in the latter's case due to her weakness in Riding)

Bow Knight for Ignatz.

[Flere210]

If you are using flayn, she is either a dancer or you are using her for rescue, so holy knight is an option because you need to position yourself in order to rescue well. I doubt she will be worthy at attacking anything whitout a crapton of investment.

Mercedes i think gremory is the overall best option but i am not really impressed by her reason list so going bishop is worthy because you are going to phisics or fortify 90% of the time.

Ignatz is another i havent't tried, but bow knight or assassin seems the most obvious. I'd go were he is not outclassed by claude and leonie.

[Dark Kain]

Mercedes - Bishop is probably better than gremory here (she will mostly heal at range anyway due to physic)

Ignatz - His personal works well with inaccurate weapons (bows at long range and/or axes). Has STR problem so he sort of likes axes more at endgame. Sadly his weakness in flying makes Wyvern Lord a pain to train. As a bow knight I really find him unimpressive at best. I'm really n the fence with him

Flayn - Rescue is her most valuable and defining asset. Early access at B rank (and she starts at C+ witha  boon in faith), even.
Rescue is super rare in this game, the only other character i know of that can learn rescue is Bernadetta (at A Rank!) and making Bernie into a wizard is a big nope.
So her end class should plan on this strenght.
Gremory is the easiest pick, that one extra movement over bishop is important from a rescue standpoint.
Dark Knight is a royal pain to train due to her weakness in riding (at least she joins with the lance requirement already fulfilled) but the extra movement is super useful.
Holy Knight is worse than Dark Knight and it's not actually easier to train since the bottleneck is still Riding.

Whatever you pick DO NOT make her a Dancer.
Your dancer should be your least impressive unit with no unique assets: Flayn is unique enough; if you make her into a dancer you are killing your ability to recue twice in a turn whenever you wish so! Nor you will able to rescue and dance during the same turn!

Edited September 9, 2019 by Dark Kain

[Technoweirdo]

6 hours ago, Jayvee94 said:

• Mercedes: Her starting lesson are Reason and Faith. This will nudge you into going into Gremory. With her saint weapon being a bow, I don't know if it would be worth the trouble getting into a Bow weilding class (Sniper -> Bow Knight) especially considering her weakness in Riding.
• Ignatz: He's one of the most difficult to use units. So a lot of players turn him into a Dancer. His starting lesson, Sword and Bow, may nudge you into one of the following classes: Bow Knight (Uber), Mortal Savant (UU) or Assassin (OU). His lesson plan requests support this.
• Flayn: Her starting lesson are Lance and Faith. These would nudge you to either Falcon Knight or Gremory. Using her Seal Magic (from her budding Reason skill), the latter will make her a mage duelist and the former into a flying mage killer (work on those sword ranks, trust me). Oh, and she has both the enthusiasm and charm to become a Dancer.

The point of Mercedes' bow talent is to cover the flier matchup with a Magic Bow.
Unlike Flayn, she doesn't get Excalibur at Reason A, so she'll have to go out of the way to get Bow B.
Personally think of it as a side project for after you reach her desired endgame mage class.
If you're confident Flayn's enough for healing though, Sniper Mercedes would have Magic Hunter's Volley...

Ignatz isn't that hard to use. He just exists on the same team as Claude and Leonie who, besides accuracy, are better than him as an archer. >.>
That said, still an archer when archers are pretty good.
If there's one thing differentiating him from them though, it's Battalion Vantage. All three get Desperation for player phase, but only he gets Vantage for enemy phase.
Can try carving out a niche for him as a crit-oriented archer.

Rescue is effectively exclusive to Flayn. Bernie doesn't have the Mag for it and needs Faith A (w/o talent btw) compared to Flayn's Faith B (reachable before her first fight).
If you don't need Flayn's Rescue / healing utility and don't want to bench her, I suppose you could make her a Falcon Knight?
Meh speed, but she has lots of Mag while enemies generally have little Res. Avo-stacking is also pretty easy.
That said, just use her as a Gremory. Res-hitting flier's saner with someone like Marianne who can train in flying from the start and has the talent for it.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Technoweirdo

[Flere210]

18 minutes ago, Dark Kain said:

Dark Knight is a royal pain to train due to her weakness in riding (at least she joins with the lance requirement already fulfilled) but the extra movement is super useful.
Holy Knight is worse than Dark Knight and it's not actually easier to train since the bottleneck is still Riding.

Getting to A reason make very hard getting A+ into riding, wich is more important on a rescue user than on 90% of the character. If you can fit all of that in a non NG+ build then DK is way better, but i'd rather have a flayn whit move+1 and no combat than a flayn whit combat i will never use because if i use Flayn is to 1turn maps whit stride-warp-rescue-dance combos. 

I just find her very suboptimal for normal play. Her reason list make Annette's one look good.

[Dark Kain]

17 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Getting to A reason make very hard getting A+ into riding, wich is more important on a rescue user than on 90% of the character. If you can fit all of that in a non NG+ build then DK is way better, but i'd rather have a flayn whit move+1 and no combat than a flayn whit combat i will never use because if i use Flayn is to 1turn maps whit stride-warp-rescue-dance combos. 

I just find her very suboptimal for normal play. Her reason list make Annette's one look good.

I had no big problem in doing so in a normal run (no NG+).
You have to train her in liking ponies since her joining time anyway and you'll make to the reason requirement before the horse requirement anyway.
Given that her faith rank is in not a problem making her a dark knight does not require a real increase in effort.

If you use Flayn only for 1-turn and ditch her on other maps then ok, you're right holy knight is just as good and if it is easier then it's better for you; but rescue is such an incredible asset on every big map, even for a casual player, and I occasionally enjoy her player turn damage potential. Her reason spell list sucks, but her MAG is good enough.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Dark Kain

[Flere210]

The thing is there are very few big maps, a combo of stride-rescue-dance-warp can send an unit 40 tiles away from their starting position. Like, i am sure that i could beat every single BL map in a turn if i used flayn like that except for the final one because you can't oneshot Hegemon. 

My reasoning there is mostly LTC focussed because that's Flayn niche, but on casual i think gremory is likely the best option.

Edit: now that i think about it indra arrow falcoknight would be good for most of the reasons bolt axe Annie is good. Is there a way to get those outside Hubert paralogue?

Edited September 9, 2019 by Flere210

[Shadow Mir]

Are we all forgetting Rescue got nerfed to hell in this game? That Mag/4 range pretty much means you'd need an assload of magic to have any range worth noting - good luck with that.

28 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Edit: now that i think about it indra arrow falcoknight would be good for most of the reasons bolt axe Annie is good. Is there a way to get those outside Hubert paralogue?

Not that I know of. And frankly, I'm not sold on Bolt Axe Annette being good - that 15 weight is too damn much for me to ignore. Combine that with that deplorable 60 base accuracy (which forging doesn't help with), and I'd be better off with her as a mage.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Shadow Mir