Class Mastery guide/tier list

[Johnzin]

4 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

As for my maddening run. I ran 4 bow knights in the late game and barely used hunter's volley as my units either weren't snipers like recruited Leonie and Felix and my bow Byleth. I didn't use Shamir for long as her stats started falling behind and the deployment slots really don't help her. 

I used most of my strength and speed stat boosters and abused the kitchen and garden on my bow Byleth and Bernadetta in Silver Snow. They could always double with their iron bows and pick off low speed mages and murder monsters and fliers with brave bows. Brave bows are kind of hard to make requiring 4 wootz steel and 6 to upgrade. The best sources of wootz steel is the Marianne paralouge and Sothis paralouge. With the former being a rather easy paralouge for a maddening map. The Sothis paralouge is actually pretty hard but if you give everyone a bow (should be doing this regardless) and manage monster aggro it's doable.

In my 4 playthroughs and one of them being maddening silver snow, I think bows are easily the best weapon in the game. Early game it's extremely useful for link attacks and weakening much stronger enemies of the early game. Units that go to non bow classes in advanced can probably switch to hand axes/javalins as they do more damage or just use retribution gambits. Late game the 4 range on bows can really break several enemy formations as you aggro an enemy then kite back with canto because how much range you have.

Things I could've improved on was having an actual lance user. My team consisted of 4 bow knights, 3 wyvern lords, 1 war master, 1 dancer, 1 gremory, and 1 dark knight. Would've been really good to have for those overstatted sword units but they get pelted by arrows and magic regardless. Some things i wonder when do you get swift strikes on your Ferdinand if you made him a wyvern? I never got that combat art and a brave axe probably does more damage. I made it a high priority to get alert stance+ than some combat art.

I dont know if this counts as grinding but leftover AP goes to getting money from tourneys. Allowing Silver + / killer + repair is affordable without "grinding/searching" for wootz. Out of the 7 playthrough, i have never gotten enough of this item to repair. You kind of gotta go out your way to destroy all these barriers for a weapon.

Ferdie started from day 1 lance and flying, once I got to C + axe from tutoring, trained lances to A. probably Ch 13/14. Then went for alert stance +. Literally only got A in axe near end of the run. Petra was my axe user. There are so many sword users that need that swift strike (same for seteth) and I only had 1 brave axe (petra). A brave axe cannot kill Lorenz/paladin in Ch 16 bridge compared to horseslayer/assal. Literally had swift strike killing both lorenz and paladin using Ferdie/Seteth and Petra killing Lad to 1 turn. You can brave axe Rowen (ch 15) and hubert (18) but you can swift strike hubert with and iron lance + and acc ring for same results with higher acc to 1 turn. Swift strike with Assal Ch 17/18 DK (can brave axe) to 1 turn. I warped Byleth to Edel in Ch 19, where ferdie swift strike the SM's in front to 1 turn.

Swift strike any SM's relatively better than an axe in maddening. Swift strike the sword master blocking thales. There are so many paralogues with sword masters too....  easier to dodge tank these with ferdie lance.

I use EO byleth with S+ swords (mid game easy due to so many faculty). the faire and crit is helpful and can dodge tank axe users. shambala was only doable for me by warping him in the middle with retribution and vatange + wo dao+

My team was EO, 3 WL, 2 Snipers, 1 WM, 1 bishop, dancer, 1 grem. when needing to do warp cheese. i have flayn/lind/lys/manuala for it. leonie BK for 11/12 deployments 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Johnzin

[arem]

4 hours ago, Johnzin said:

I also dont think its reasonable to make an example of Shamir/Leonie hypothetical lv 40 for comparison.  I just finished SS maddening and the only characters that are lv 35+ are byleth/ferdie/seteth/Petra who are wyverning around with alert stance + and killer + for EP. The archers (leonie BK, Sniper Bernie/Shamir) around lv 30. Inexhaustable / brave bow at longer range is not a reliable way to chip. Leonie has point blank but the range cuts into the canto/leave your self open to an attack back.

When I started this, I wanted to be generous and I also did not know we were considering no grind.  The lower the level is, the worse bow knight looks.  Leonie has 27 speed at level 30, so she is not doubling anything.  Bernadette has 23 speed, etc. Honestly, the players most interested in class skills are going to be grinders, because they are going to be able to pick up a lot of skills. 

Since the community seems to be saying death blow plus hit plus 20 as well as bowfaire is an unfair advantage, I did some testing.  With my original build, my Shamir crit for 99 on a war master, more than enough to kill them because they only had 75 hp.  Without bowfaire and deathblow Shamir crits for 60 some, but that is still enough to kill if she hits twice and one of them is a crit.  The demonic beasts start with 100 hp, but they have zero luck so she should be able to crit twice.  So she still one round kos everything but the knight, Edel, and the beasts, and she will be able to carve off one life bar off a beast if its armor is down.

 

22 hours ago, Silly said:

Bow Prowess
Close Counter
Death Blow/Hit +20
Weight -3
Move +1

 

If we are taking this as the standard bow knight build, they are actually worse off than I described.  With that build, and level 40 again, Bernadette has 27 attack speed with a now weightless forged silver bow, which is not enough to double anything, or to even prevent doubling anything without stat ups.  Leonie and Petra have 33 and 34 attack speed, respectively, which, is only enough to double the gremories and the beasts.  Felix can hit the same 33 speed if he takes speed plus 2 instead of something up there, enough to double the slow things before stat boosting. 

Darting blow seems better than death blow at first.  That brings Bernadette to 33 speed, fast enough to double a gremorie without boosts, although she can't double anything else.  Leonie goes up 38 speed, just past that 37 attack speed sweet spot, and she will be able to double most of the enemies.  Nevertheless, there are still 14 enemies left she cannot double (with point blank volley anyway) and the sniper can.   Moreover, damage is becoming an issue. Leonie has 27 strength at level 40.  A forged silver bow has 13 might, which takes her to 40.  She is gets bowfair from her class, which takes her to 45.  Unfortunately, the gremories have 31 protection and 57 health.  That's only 28 damage and there are the weakest defensively after the slither mages.  If we assume death blow, not hit +20 or darting blow, she is at 51 attack.  That’s 40 damage. Bowfaire makes this easy to reach with a battalion.  Without it, she is going to need nine battalion damage to get a one round ko, which is doable, but requires the King of Lions battalion and is plus 10 damage.  If she was just a little bit faster, she could get the slither mages down too. Unfortunately, the next most vulnerable thing is mortal Savant, even if she can manage the 35 attack speed need to double, she is only hitting for 50, not enough to kill.  Felix has 6 more strength on avaege, which take us to 64, just barely enough, and only if you give him the highest attack battalion on your team.  To be fair, it is a good fit for him and his authority weakness.  Anyway, the point of this is that an average stat bow knight without boosters can kill only a few enemies in one one, while snipers take out almost all of them

 

What about with a brave bow?

 

The big problems with brave weapons is that you have a limited amount of them and a limited amount of material to fix them.  The enemies who drop it also drop a random amount of it.  You also may want to save whatever Wootz steel you have for another character.  If you have one, a brave now also weighs 13, so strong Bow knights like Felix get weighed down by 4 and a weaker bow knight gets weighed down by 5, making quading difficult.  Assuming you have one available, however, its an eleven attack weapon.  A hypothetical bow knight Felix with death blow has 55 attack, before battalion (33str plus + 6 death blow+ 5 bowfaire from class+ 11 brave bow).  An enemy war master has at least 45 attack sped and generally has 49 attack speed as well 35 protection and 75 health.  That is only 40 damage, t not enough to kill.  Even with the King of Lion Corp, he hits 60 damage, still not enough to kill.  If you upgrade the bow you are at 64 damage.  Still not enough, although agonizingly close to the 69 hp 51 protection grapplers.  A darting blow Leonie is about 13 of attack behind that.  However, she also still has 33 speed, which means it might be wiser for her to eat carrots and go for quading enemies. 

[Tables]

I've skimmed through this, haven't read in a huge amount of detail, but I would like to add a few points:

* A lot of Bow Knight utility is their move and range, not necessarily getting OHKOs on everything and everyone. A lot of the time, a basic attack from even something like an Iron Bow is all you're after, to soften an enemy enough to kill. Doubly the case with many of the useful combat arts bow focused units get such as Waning Shot, Break Shot, Encloser, Ward Arrow etc. They don't need to be spamming Brave Bows every single combat to do their job.

* The Inexhaustible exists and uses different materials to repair compared to Brave Bows (Mythril). Even ignoring that, it's slightly stronger than a Brave Bow and while you certainly can't assume you'll get access to it every playthrough, it's not too hard to get on 3 out of 4 routes. Regardless, you've got at least 2 Brave Bows you can go through before you need to even repair once. As an example from personal experience, I had Bow Knight Ignatz and Barbarossa Claude on my team using bows on Maddening, I think I repaired The Inexhaustible once and never needed to repair a Brave Bow. Their durability is not a massive concern unless you're spamming them unnecessarily.

* Remember that Bow Knight picks up Defiant Spd, and that's pretty relevant to a class that really wants to double and can keep itself off the front lines. Bernadetta for example can make very good use of it, combine with Darting Blow and Death Blow (if you can get both on her, may be a little tricky) and she's got +11 Atk, +14 Spd while attacking at very low HP. I'd need to look at the numbers in more detail but IIRC Bernie is pretty fast on average, so +14 Spd should make it fairly viable for her to double a lot of stuff.

* As an alternative to the above point of staying away from the front lines, also remember that a few characters - Cyril and Leonie - learn Point Blank Volley. While I would certainly agree that Hunter's Volley is the better art in a vacuum, if you could choose between the two at will, Point Blank Volley does largely the same things but forcing you to move in at close range. (Side note: I'm actually not sure if range +1/2 applies to this art but I'm gonna guess it doesn't). This is still not all that bad, compared to Snipers who would shoot from 2-3 squares away typically, you need 1-2 more move to get in close and 1-2 more to get away as far, so in a lot of cases you can still position about as well as you could as a Sniper using Hunter's Volley. But obviously there's other downsides to consider - you can't shoot over walls with it and you may have to take a counter. Of course, this is STILL just an alternative to the good old Brave Bow option that Bow Knight Leonie and Cyril will still have.

* Finally, while the debate is definitely interesting, the key thing in terms of placement here is how useful it is for class mastery. I realise that this intrinsically links in to the question of, how good is Sniper versus Bow Knight. I feel like to really compare you'd need to use both, perhaps even play some chapters where you use someone as a Sniper then again as a Bow Knight, and even then that's not entirely objective. It's a tough thing to compare hypothetically.

[Johnzin]

1 hour ago, Tables said:

I've skimmed through this, haven't read in a huge amount of detail, but I would like to add a few points:

* A lot of Bow Knight utility is their move and range, not necessarily getting OHKOs on everything and everyone. A lot of the time, a basic attack from even something like an Iron Bow is all you're after, to soften an enemy enough to kill. Doubly the case with many of the useful combat arts bow focused units get such as Waning Shot, Break Shot, Encloser, Ward Arrow etc. They don't need to be spamming Brave Bows every single combat to do their job.

* The Inexhaustible exists and uses different materials to repair compared to Brave Bows (Mythril). Even ignoring that, it's slightly stronger than a Brave Bow and while you certainly can't assume you'll get access to it every playthrough, it's not too hard to get on 3 out of 4 routes. Regardless, you've got at least 2 Brave Bows you can go through before you need to even repair once. As an example from personal experience, I had Bow Knight Ignatz and Barbarossa Claude on my team using bows on Maddening, I think I repaired The Inexhaustible once and never needed to repair a Brave Bow. Their durability is not a massive concern unless you're spamming them unnecessarily.

* Remember that Bow Knight picks up Defiant Spd, and that's pretty relevant to a class that really wants to double and can keep itself off the front lines. Bernadetta for example can make very good use of it, combine with Darting Blow and Death Blow (if you can get both on her, may be a little tricky) and she's got +11 Atk, +14 Spd while attacking at very low HP. I'd need to look at the numbers in more detail but IIRC Bernie is pretty fast on average, so +14 Spd should make it fairly viable for her to double a lot of stuff.

* As an alternative to the above point of staying away from the front lines, also remember that a few characters - Cyril and Leonie - learn Point Blank Volley. While I would certainly agree that Hunter's Volley is the better art in a vacuum, if you could choose between the two at will, Point Blank Volley does largely the same things but forcing you to move in at close range. (Side note: I'm actually not sure if range +1/2 applies to this art but I'm gonna guess it doesn't). This is still not all that bad, compared to Snipers who would shoot from 2-3 squares away typically, you need 1-2 more move to get in close and 1-2 more to get away as far, so in a lot of cases you can still position about as well as you could as a Sniper using Hunter's Volley. But obviously there's other downsides to consider - you can't shoot over walls with it and you may have to take a counter. Of course, this is STILL just an alternative to the good old Brave Bow option that Bow Knight Leonie and Cyril will still have.

* Finally, while the debate is definitely interesting, the key thing in terms of placement here is how useful it is for class mastery. I realise that this intrinsically links in to the question of, how good is Sniper versus Bow Knight. I feel like to really compare you'd need to use both, perhaps even play some chapters where you use someone as a Sniper then again as a Bow Knight, and even then that's not entirely objective. It's a tough thing to compare hypothetically.

I was reading the earlier posts and your original posts discuss about if you actually get the skill and how useful it would be during the time period you get it. Wouldnt all master class skills be useless? By that time of the game, you most likely wont get it or use it for a final map unless you grind a master class for a skill. Then all master classes should be bottom tier. 

[Tables]

3 hours ago, Johnzin said:

I was reading the earlier posts and your original posts discuss about if you actually get the skill and how useful it would be during the time period you get it. Wouldnt all master class skills be useless? By that time of the game, you most likely wont get it or use it for a final map unless you grind a master class for a skill. Then all master classes should be bottom tier. 

On Hard, that was mostly the case. You would generally be mastering Master tier classes around chapter 20-22, meaning you barely got to make use of the mastery skills, and as a result, most Master tier classes were pretty low down. On Maddening the combination of there being more enemies along with many enemies taking more than one round of combat to kill, plus also you being more likely to face attacks on enemy phase, means that you master classes WAY faster. I had most of my master tier classes maxed around chapters 17-20 for example. Combine that with the fact that the final few chapters on each route are very tricky and therefore extra skills are more significant, and Master tier classes have risen a fair bit in viability and usefulness. You may only get 2-5 chapters of use out of them, but they're long and often difficult chapters and so the value of such skills becomes quite important. You can see this with e.g. HP+5 being high on the list, despite being only just an okay skill. 

 

All that said, looking back over the list though, it's possible that some of the Master classes should be a little lower due to how little game the skills are available for. Like, Quick Riposte is absolutely busted but you'll probably only have it for like ~5 chapters. So I have a question: Other people who have played through Maddening - when did you mostly hit mastery of your final Master tier classes? Was it at about the same point I did?

[Johnzin]

28 minutes ago, Tables said:

On Hard, that was mostly the case. You would generally be mastering Master tier classes around chapter 20-22, meaning you barely got to make use of the mastery skills, and as a result, most Master tier classes were pretty low down. On Maddening the combination of there being more enemies along with many enemies taking more than one round of combat to kill, plus also you being more likely to face attacks on enemy phase, means that you master classes WAY faster. I had most of my master tier classes maxed around chapters 17-20 for example. Combine that with the fact that the final few chapters on each route are very tricky and therefore extra skills are more significant, and Master tier classes have risen a fair bit in viability and usefulness. You may only get 2-5 chapters of use out of them, but they're long and often difficult chapters and so the value of such skills becomes quite important. You can see this with e.g. HP+5 being high on the list, despite being only just an okay skill. 

 

All that said, looking back over the list though, it's possible that some of the Master classes should be a little lower due to how little game the skills are available for. Like, Quick Riposte is absolutely busted but you'll probably only have it for like ~5 chapters. So I have a question: Other people who have played through Maddening - when did you mostly hit mastery of your final Master tier classes? Was it at about the same point I did?

Is grinding an option? Are people doing quests or auxillary? I understand that tier lists shouldn't be viewed in terms of purely beating the game LTC, but I don't see how some of these classes would ever get their master classes that aren't EP heavy.   I don't understand how a BK can get enough battle, since it is not an EP heavy class. Or any magic class too.  

I have finished SS/BL/CF and I have not gotten a single master class skill on maddening besides on the final map for Sylvain on BL.  Obviously CF is too short for master class skills. 

I think if it's based on actual impact on the gameplay and not in a sense if you're building a character with these skills by grinding it out, an efficient run can't be getting master class skills from non front like characters. They cannot possibly be getting enough battles unless you're choosing to feed them battles instead of doing an objective quickly. 

Endgame maps do not need master class skills to finish. 

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

I definitely got my master tier skills later than you, @Tables. The only characters who had them near as early were ones who could heal, since they took action nearly every turn, and even then I think it was ~3 chapters left at most. My most mobile physical characters picked them up with ~1 chapter left, and my physical infantry, notably including my War Master (since that's one of the few skills we cared about), never got there at all. I didn't do auxillaries, but I did do quite a few paralogues (had about half the other houses recruited and did all paralogues I could). I didn't really optimize my Knowledge Gem use for class mastery, to be fair, since except for QR I find most of these skills pretty bad anyway.

[Tables]

Hmm, I see. I wasn't grinding for class mastery, generally I did one set of Aux/Paralogue battles per month and didn't do any of the class EXP grinding tricks. At most I would give someone a Knowledge Gem and focus on giving them more battles. That said, I DID do one set of optional battles per month, and while those battles don't tend to be very long (only about ~15 enemies compared to the often 50+ in a story mission) that would have definitely added up. So I think many Master class skills should probably drop down a little bit.

In terms of playstyle, since this is intended as much as a guide as a tier list, I am thinking more casual playstyle but with no/minimal grinding. So while I'm assuming we are probably not one turning and LTCing everything, we should probably also assume the player isn't using broken weapons on Aux battles, or keeping enemies alive indefinitely while they end turn and spam spells. From what I've seen, the "usually explore, one set of battles per month" monastery strategy is fairly popular, so I'd say that we should probably assume at most one set of battles are being done, and perhaps slightly less?

[Fire Flower]

It's probably fair to assume you're doing explore all weeks except the last, in which you battle (since there is no lecture after the final free day).

[arem]

I personally do explore, battle, explore, mostly because I just don't like the monastery very much and want to do something else, but that does end up being just one battle a month a lot of the time.  If you really want do dive deep into it though, you are going to have to make a lot of assumptions.  My tank characters, for example, end up being in a lot more battles than the rest of my crew. 

[Silly]

I only do paralogues and quest related battles. Otherwise I explore.

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/28/2019 at 5:15 PM, Tables said:

Defiant Str I'll have to think about. Hero is pretty bad overall, but of the Defiant skills, Defiant Str is definitely one of the better ones.

It's still a huge case of "Awesome, But Impractical", as are the Defiant abilities as a whole, because it can be hard to get into the HP threshold for them to activate without just dying instead, and even if it was feasible, staying that low is something I would only do if I had a serious death wish.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[arem]

There is that one gambit that lets you survive at one hp, but yeah I am guessing most people don't see those proc too often.  Even then the trade off between having the defiant abilities and not having any hp is kinda questionable. 

[Fire Flower]

Death Knight class gives the Counterattack ability.

Sadly it's only exclusive to one unit, but this is easily top tier for enemy phase builds. It's Retribution for free.

[LegendOfLoog]

4 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

Death Knight class gives the Counterattack ability.

Sadly it's only exclusive to one unit, but this is easily top tier for enemy phase builds. It's Retribution for free.

Do you know what Battalion skills he gets? If he gets Wrath + Vantage, then he’s easily top tier. 

Edited November 8, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[Jakkun]

19 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Do you know what Battalion skills he gets? If he gets Wrath + Vantage, then he’s easily top tier. 

He gets Desperation and Wrath. A shame, he's missing the most important one :<

[Ivan Tridelan]

Mercenary class gives Vantage as a skill. Yes it's more dangerous than Battalion Vantage but it should still be taken into account, especially with Mastermind present to allow for accelerated mastery.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you're meeting the trigger for vanilla Vantage, it seems easier just to get vanilla Wrath rather than trying to meet two different triggers simultaneously. Although I suppose Batallion Wrath requires less investment.

[msterforks]

On 11/3/2019 at 2:58 PM, Fire Flower said:

It's probably fair to assume you're doing explore all weeks except the last, in which you battle (since there is no lecture after the final free day).

There are underleveled auxiliary battles that can be low manned with weak weapons + adjutants for easy class mastery and weapon exp. It doesn't take many of these battles to get units the skills and class mastery they need. Some players find this unfair though, as it's comparable to the broken weapon exploit except less abusive.

[LegendOfLoog]

10 hours ago, Jakkun said:

He gets Desperation and Wrath. A shame, he's missing the most important one :<

Ah, that’s too bad. Guess Dimitri’s still the king of Enemy Phase units then.

[IonicAmalgam]

Most common abilities after 240 hour playthrough where I unlocked pretty much everything on everyone:
Movement +1/Dexterity +4/Spd +2/Darting Blow
Wrath/Weapon Prowess
Hit +20 (near the end when all enemies have 50+ avoid)/Vantage/Pavise
Aegis/Null Flying/Quick Riposte
Magic Prowess/Alert Stance +

Situational:
Darting/Warding Blow

Rationale:
1) Movement +1 is amazing
2) If character has physical weapon, the prowess ability is really good. if not, +50% crit if HP < 50% is amazing with base crits of 15-30, and crit on weapon of +15 means almost guaranteed instant kill
3) Hit +20 is mandatory on the final maps against high avoid to reduce frustration. Vantage is underrated and ensures your unit survives. Note I run Pavise instead of Vantage if running Quick Riposte
4) Quick Riposte is really OP but only run on male characters (of which most of my team are female as they either have greater utility eg warp/rescue, or turned out with better growths than my male characters, I gave up on Lorenz (no STR or MAG), Felix (somehow SPD screwed), Seteth (no DEF/RES), Cyrill (no STR/MAG), only Sylvain got good growths). For female characters, if they are flying, Null Flying is amazing. Otherwise Aegis is a weaker but easier to access Null Flying
5) Magic Prowess if they use magic, or Alert Stance + (30 avoid + 40 spd + 25 avoid batallion + 10 prowess = base 105 avoid, + 20-40 from trees...)

Of Note: Wrath/Pavise/Quick Riposte share Axe in leveling (Warrior -> Fortress Knight -> War Master), Hit +20 requires C archery (which you can easily get), Alert Stance +/Null Flying come from leveling up fliers. Movement +1/Aegis come from horse line.
 

Classes worth using(* means good growths and recommend to level up in the classes):

Beginner Classes:
Monk* - allows leveling up magic for characters, best growths in beginner tier
Myrmidon - Spd +2 (only good for NG+)

Intermediate Classes:
Mercenary - Vantage
Thief (1) - Situational, accessible class
Archer - Hit +20
Armored Knight - allows leveling up armor for Pavise, very bad growths, if not getting Pavise or already acquired do not level.
Cavalier* - good growths, levels up riding, skip if paladin unlocked
Pegasus Knight* - allows leveling up flying, good growths, skip if wyvern or falcon unlocked.

Advanced Classes
Paladin* - Aegis, good growths
Assassin (1) - Upgrade for your thief
Fortress Knight - Pavise, very bad growths, only unlock if getting pavise + quick riposte (situational)
Warrior - Wrath
Wyvern Rider - Situational for archers as it provides Seal Def, level up Alert+/Null Flying
Swordmaster - best class for dodgetank due to class skills.

Master Classes
Gremory - x2 spells
Holy Knight* - Best growth class in game. Also good class for final map if you are golden deer. Underrated due to growths.
Dark Knight* - Second best growth class in game. For classes lacking STR favor over Holy Knight, provides Seal Res, generally best for archer classes as they tend to lack STR.
Falcon Knight* - Third best growth class in game. Level up Alert+/Null Flying. Innate avoid
War Master - Quick Riposte
Mortal Savant - only use if will satisfy unlock constraints anyway and character lacks RES for warding blow.
Bow Knight - Class +2 range stacks with Deadeye (+2 Range) for +4 range (5 with longbow). Terrible growths in game, DO NOT LEVEL IN BOW KNIGHT (use Dark Knight)

Note on Thief and Assassin: These classes are more accessible classes to level in for some of the worse growth characters in game (Rapheal, Ashe, Caspar) as they have decent growths and don't have a movement skill requirement. These classes also boost Spd and can be used to level up slower characters.

Tips for leveling skills to unlock for NG+:
There are two side missions available, one in the first half and one in the second half, that are really good for leveling skills as the units are low level and deal low damage. This means you can grind skill XP in bad growth classes without gaining level XP. You grind by retreating which resets the battle but lets you keep XP. You will have 2 knowledge gems so you can have one char + an adjunct and just keep ending turn after entering enemy range and retreat before killing all enemies. Maps are related to the quests 'Dealing with Deserters' (note enemy are primarily archers but you can still level fliers on this map if they have sufficient DEF) and 'Something to Prove'.
____
On Bow Knights:

Mini Bow exists if you don't want to run close counter, and I had the same amount of them drop in my game as brave bow.
Statline for my Dark Knight leveled Bow Knight Bernadetta is STR 38/MAG 19/DEX 41/SPD 32/LCK 21/DEF 27/RES 24/CHA 30 at level 49. She can kill enemies with steel bow if she gets a crit or her crest procs, otherwise most enemies are down to 1 hit from another character.
38 + 12 (silver bow) + 7 (battalion) + 5 (bowfaire) +6 (Deadeye) = 68 Atk at 7 range is pretty good.

Edited November 11, 2019 by IonicAmalgam

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, IonicAmalgam said:

Most common abilities after 240 hour playthrough where I unlocked pretty much everything on everyone:
Movement +1/Dexterity +4/Spd +2/Darting Blow
Wrath/Weapon Prowess
Hit +20 (near the end when all enemies have 50+ avoid)/Vantage/Pavise
Aegis/Null Flying/Quick Riposte
Magic Prowess/Alert Stance +

Situational:
Darting/Warding Blow

Rationale:
1) Movement +1 is amazing
2) If character has physical weapon, the prowess ability is really good. if not, +50% crit if HP < 50% is amazing with base crits of 15-30, and crit on weapon of +15 means almost guaranteed instant kill
3) Hit +20 is mandatory on the final maps against high avoid to reduce frustration. Vantage is underrated and ensures your unit survives. Note I run Pavise instead of Vantage if running Quick Riposte
4) Quick Riposte is really OP but only run on male characters (of which most of my team are female as they either have greater utility eg warp/rescue, or turned out with better growths than my male characters, I gave up on Lorenz (no STR or MAG), Felix (somehow SPD screwed), Seteth (no DEF/RES), Cyrill (no STR/MAG), only Sylvain got good growths). For female characters, if they are flying, Null Flying is amazing. Otherwise Aegis is a weaker but easier to access Null Flying
5) Magic Prowess if they use magic, or Alert Stance + (30 avoid + 40 spd + 25 avoid batallion + 10 prowess = base 105 avoid, + 20-40 from trees...)

Of Note: Wrath/Pavise/Quick Riposte share Axe in leveling (Warrior -> Fortress Knight -> War Master), Hit +20 requires C archery (which you can easily get), Alert Stance +/Null Flying come from leveling up fliers. Movement +1/Aegis come from horse line.
 

Classes worth using(* means good growths and recommend to level up in the classes):

Beginner Classes:
Monk* - allows leveling up magic for characters, best growths in beginner tier
Myrmidon - Spd +2 (only good for NG+)

Intermediate Classes:
Mercenary - Vantage
Thief (1) - Situational, accessible class
Archer - Hit +20
Armored Knight - allows leveling up armor for Pavise, very bad growths, if not getting Pavise or already acquired do not level.
Cavalier* - good growths, levels up riding, skip if paladin unlocked
Pegasus Knight* - allows leveling up flying, good growths, skip if wyvern or falcon unlocked.

Advanced Classes
Paladin* - Aegis, good growths
Assassin (1) - Upgrade for your thief
Fortress Knight - Pavise, very bad growths, only unlock if getting pavise + quick riposte (situational)
Warrior - Wrath
Wyvern Rider - Situational for archers as it provides Seal Def, level up Alert+/Null Flying
Swordmaster - best class for dodgetank due to class skills.

Master Classes
Gremory - x2 spells
Holy Knight* - Best growth class in game. Also good class for final map if you are golden deer. Underrated due to growths.
Dark Knight* - Second best growth class in game. For classes lacking STR favor over Holy Knight, provides Seal Res, generally best for archer classes as they tend to lack STR.
Falcon Knight* - Third best growth class in game. Level up Alert+/Null Flying. Innate avoid
War Master - Quick Riposte
Mortal Savant - only use if will satisfy unlock constraints anyway and character lacks RES for warding blow.
Bow Knight - Class +2 range stacks with Deadeye (+2 Range) for +4 range (5 with longbow). Terrible growths in game, DO NOT LEVEL IN BOW KNIGHT (use Dark Knight)

Note on Thief and Assassin: These classes are more accessible classes to level in for some of the worse growth characters in game (Rapheal, Ashe, Caspar) as they have decent growths and don't have a movement skill requirement. These classes also boost Spd and can be used to level up slower characters.

Tips for leveling skills to unlock for NG+:
There are two side missions available, one in the first half and one in the second half, that are really good for leveling skills as the units are low level and deal low damage. This means you can grind skill XP in bad growth classes without gaining level XP. You grind by retreating which resets the battle but lets you keep XP. You will have 2 knowledge gems so you can have one char + an adjunct and just keep ending turn after entering enemy range and retreat before killing all enemies. Maps are related to the quests 'Dealing with Deserters' (note enemy are primarily archers but you can still level fliers on this map if they have sufficient DEF) and 'Something to Prove'.
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On Bow Knights:

Mini Bow exists if you don't want to run close counter, and I had the same amount of them drop in my game as brave bow.
Statline for my Dark Knight leveled Bow Knight Bernadetta is STR 38/MAG 19/DEX 41/SPD 32/LCK 21/DEF 27/RES 24/CHA 30 at level 49. She can kill enemies with steel bow if she gets a crit or her crest procs, otherwise most enemies are down to 1 hit from another character.
38 + 12 (silver bow) + 7 (battalion) + 5 (bowfaire) +6 (Deadeye) = 68 Atk at 7 range is pretty good.

Aside from the part where this has little to nothing to do with the topic at hand, Holy Knight is a bad class because it loses White Magic Uses x2 for White Tomefaire, which is a flat-out losing trade when you only have four spells it benefits, and most units only get one, with that one being the weak Nosferatu, and the horse isn't enough to prevent it from being a DOWNGRADE compared to Bishop. Dark Knight is better, but it's not really something I'd recommend unless you're male and a caster. Seal Resistance is even more useless here than it was in Fates, too. Mortal Savant has lots of problems, and Warding Blow isn't good enough as to make going through it worth it. Deadeye is best summed up as this - being able to attack from a long distance away does you a fat lot of good if you whiff, and 5 durability is a lot to spend just to whiff. The Effect Null abilities sound good at first, but I might as well use the shields that give me the same effect as the abilities in question, because you're not hitting S+ unless you go completely out of your way to do so.

[IonicAmalgam]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Aside from the part where this has little to nothing to do with the topic at hand, Holy Knight is a bad class because it loses White Magic Uses x2 for White Tomefaire, which is a flat-out losing trade when you only have four spells it benefits, and most units only get one, with that one being the weak Nosferatu, and the horse isn't enough to prevent it from being a DOWNGRADE compared to Bishop. Dark Knight is better, but it's not really something I'd recommend unless you're male and a caster. Seal Resistance is even more useless here than it was in Fates, too. Mortal Savant has lots of problems, and Warding Blow isn't good enough as to make going through it worth it. Deadeye is best summed up as this - being able to attack from a long distance away does you a fat lot of good if you whiff, and 5 durability is a lot to spend just to whiff. The Effect Null abilities sound good at first, but I might as well use the shields that give me the same effect as the abilities in question, because you're not hitting S+ unless you go completely out of your way to do so.

Holy Knight is a class you level in because it has the best growths. Gremory is the class you fight in because it has the best innate skills. There's a difference. Also in my 240 hours of grinding I have never run out of offensive spells with holy knight so the downgrade is more theory than in practice if you are doing things right tactically (you have 3 to 7 turns of nosferatu, 3 turns of seraphim or another white tome, 4 turns of dark magic, you can end maps in 7 turns). The only limit on holy knight is warp (use once) but rescue has a base 3 charge which is enough.

Deadeye with 5 cost is fine, there's a reason why I have characters carry training weapons as well, also the game hands out weapons like candy if you have NSO, the purple tiles are free weapons and you get at least 4 per battle x 3 per week = 12 per week, and something like 10 to 20k gold per dlc battle. 2 weekends of fighting + end month battle means 28 free weapons a month at minimum. Also with 10 movement (movement ring and move +1) frequently you don't need to use deadeye as Bernie's base 4 range is enough thanks to canto.

With regards to seal and warding I agree those are niche and generally bad but potentially useful on one or two characters (eg archers and if your character really needs res).

Flying Null is great, you only get 1 null shield on chapter 20 or something. It's not that hard to get, I got it on Byleth around chapter 16/17 and Ingrid at 18.

Edited November 11, 2019 by IonicAmalgam

[Shadow Mir]

26 minutes ago, IonicAmalgam said:

Holy Knight is a class you level in because it has the best growths. Gremory is the class you fight in because it has the best innate skills. There's a difference. Also in my 240 hours of grinding I have never run out of spells with holy knight so the downgrade is more theory than in practice if you are doing things right tactically.  (you have 3 to 7 turns of nosferatu, 3 turns of seraphim or another white tome, 4 turns of dark magic, you can end maps in 7 turns). The only limit on holy knight is warp (use once) but rescue has a base 3 charge which is enough.

Never mind the fact that it requires Riding, Lances and Faith to access, and that it's a Master class... Also, Rescue got nerfed (it's range/4, and only two units can get it... and one of those two [Flayn] is weak in Riding).

26 minutes ago, IonicAmalgam said:

Deadeye with 5 cost is fine, there's a reason why I have characters carry training weapons as well, also the game hands out weapons like candy if you have NSO, the purple tiles are free weapons and you get at least 4 per battle x 3 per week = 12 per week, and something like 10 to 20k gold per dlc battle. 2 weekends of fighting + end month battle means 28 free weapons a month at minimum. Also with 10 movement (movement ring and move +1) frequently you don't need to use deadeye as Bernie's base 4 range is enough thanks to canto.

Not when I'm paying 5 durability for something that has a non-trivial chance of doing absolutely nothing to whatever I'm trying to attack. That's not okay to me. At all.

26 minutes ago, IonicAmalgam said:

With regards to seal and warding those are niche and generally bad but potentially useful on one or two characters (eg archers and if your character really needs res).

Flying Null is great, you only get 1 null shield on chapter 20 or something. It's not that hard to get, I got it on Byleth around chapter 16/17 and Ingrid at 18.

What difficulty were you playing on? I seriously doubt you could get Flying Effect Null without NG+ on anything other than Normal... which would also shoot down most of the other stuff you brought up.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[IonicAmalgam]

27 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Never mind the fact that it requires Riding, Lances and Faith to access, and that it's a Master class...

Not when I'm paying 5 durability for something that has a non-trivial chance of doing absolutely nothing to whatever I'm trying to attack.

What difficulty were you playing on? I seriously doubt you could get Flying Effect Null without NG+ on anything other than Normal... which would also shoot down most of the other stuff you brought up.

It takes about 3400 to get to S+, you can get 430 xp per month in flying (no tutoring) if the unit has a boon, 250 xp on the low end on higher difficulties if unit is neutral So that is between 8 to 14 months (assuming a month is 4 weeks of training, and 6 free battles where the unit gets 5 kills with knowledge gem equipped and in a class with +3 training)

With knowledge gem (+1), boon (+2), statue (+2), class (+3) you get 9 xp/kill on normal, 7 on hard, 7x5x3x2, 210xp from free battles alone in a month. You can get 32xp/week if you train only flying neutral affinity, 4 more from pair activity. Without focus is around 24 xp/week (normal), down to 18 on hard. So 72 or 105 xp/month from training on hard with neutral affinity. Tutoring can give you 40xp per week at best, twice per month is 80xp, low end 60xp.

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For holy knight you only need C+ Lance, C+ Faith, and B+ Riding to be able to roll RNG to unlock. The first and last are not that hard to get. Faith is somewhat challenging but not that hard either. It's about 2 months of tutoring focus and skill usage.

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I was able to get A+ professor rank in month 6 and S+ in month 8 first playthrough so 3 battles/month is definitely possible.

Edited November 11, 2019 by IonicAmalgam