Class Mastery guide/tier list

[Tombstone88]

Having played through Crimson Flower on Maddening, I'd say Sniper mastery definitely deserves to move up.  With how fast a lot of the enemies are, Combat Arts with Brave weapon effects are invaluable.  Hunter's Volley gives that plus extra Might, Hit and Crit.  And you can do it with a Silver Bow, which is more damage than a Brave Bow, or a Killer Bow, which is better for landing crits.  Shamir was easily one of my best damage dealers on Maddening, and I can tell you with certainty that Hunter's Volley was 80% of the reason for that.

 

It's not as good as the Blow skills, but I could see it easily slotting into Upper Mid in terms of usefulness.

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/22/2019 at 5:29 AM, Tables said:

Wyvern Lord (Defiant Crit): Lower Mid > Upper Mid

Why did this rise? Because frankly, if you're ever low enough to have Defiant Crit active, odds are you're in trouble and really don't want to be allowing more enemies to attack, especially knowing gambits are a thing.

[arem]

On 10/22/2019 at 9:09 PM, Tombstone88 said:

Having played through Crimson Flower on Maddening, I'd say Sniper mastery definitely deserves to move up.  With how fast a lot of the enemies are, Combat Arts with Brave weapon effects are invaluable.  Hunter's Volley gives that plus extra Might, Hit and Crit.  And you can do it with a Silver Bow, which is more damage than a Brave Bow, or a Killer Bow, which is better for landing crits.  Shamir was easily one of my best damage dealers on Maddening, and I can tell you with certainty that Hunter's Volley was 80% of the reason for that.

 

It's not as good as the Blow skills, but I could see it easily slotting into Upper Mid in terms of usefulness.

I second this.  Hunter's volley was a huge help in my Maddening run.  The units i dumped stat boosters in did not need it, but my more mediocre units were able to use to it for easy one round potential.  With a killer bow I think you can't actually get less than 60 crit and my Shamir had more like 80-100 crit. 

[Cysx]

12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Why did this rise? Because frankly, if you're ever low enough to have Defiant Crit active, odds are you're in trouble and really don't want to be allowing more enemies to attack, especially knowing gambits are a thing.

Between the Blessing gambit and Guard adjutants, it's actually remarkably easy to put yourself at critical HP with no risk whatsoever. Then it's just a matter of never taking damage, which is already something many characters have to do on Maddening. Never used Defiant Crit myself, but in general glass cannon builds work very well this time around, thanks to canto, stride, shade, divine pulse, rescue if that's your thing...

[Tables]

20 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Why did this rise? Because frankly, if you're ever low enough to have Defiant Crit active, odds are you're in trouble and really don't want to be allowing more enemies to attack, especially knowing gambits are a thing.

Defiant Crit was always a very strong skill, on Maddening it's a lot easier to master the class earlier and so take more advantage of it. Defiant skills don't require enemies to be attacking you, they're active on both phases, but Defiant Crit can work well as part of a player phase or enemy phase build.

 

On 10/23/2019 at 3:09 AM, Tombstone88 said:

Having played through Crimson Flower on Maddening, I'd say Sniper mastery definitely deserves to move up.  With how fast a lot of the enemies are, Combat Arts with Brave weapon effects are invaluable.  Hunter's Volley gives that plus extra Might, Hit and Crit.  And you can do it with a Silver Bow, which is more damage than a Brave Bow, or a Killer Bow, which is better for landing crits.  Shamir was easily one of my best damage dealers on Maddening, and I can tell you with certainty that Hunter's Volley was 80% of the reason for that.

 

It's not as good as the Blow skills, but I could see it easily slotting into Upper Mid in terms of usefulness.

Hmm... I'm really not entirely convinced on it. On the one hand Hunter's Volley IS strong, and while it burns through bows quickly to use constantly, you can hit a little harder than a Bow Knight using a Brave Bow/Inexhaustible could do when necessary (e.g. Silver Bow+ with Hunter's Volley has 3 might more than The Inexhaustible). On the other hand, the only way to take advantage of Hunter's Volley is to stay as a Sniper, which is generally pretty bad in... basically every other way compared to Bow Knight. Of the Advanced classes with Mastery Arts, I think Grappler > Sniper > Assassin > Swordmaster is almost certainly the order, but it's where the tier divisions should be that's less clear. If anything I'm wondering if Grappler should be Lower Mid rather than Upper Mid. Fierce Iron Fist is really valuable, a three hit attack is REALLY good for player phase offence, but just like with Sniper - you have to stick in the advanced class to take advantage, which is kinda lame.

 

For now I think I'm gonna go with Grappler and Sniper both to Lower Mid, but I'm willing to consider argument for why Upper Mid is appropriate I suppose.

 

Edit: Tier list is updated, but now I'm wondering if Great Lord and Emperor should have even moved up. In particular, because to take advantage of them you need to actually be using the relevant class. That's especially dubious for Edelgard I feel, Emperor is not a good class after all. For Dimitri, eh. For reference, Great Lord is now Lower Mid (was Low) and Emperor is now Low (was Bottom)

Edited October 26, 2019 by Tables

[Basileus777]

Hunter's Volley should definitely be higher.  A guaranteed ranged double in just incredibly valuable on Maddening.  The combat art alone makes sniper a better class than bow knight.

 

Archer should be top tier too.  Hit + 20 is as good as any of the blows, and definitely better than those repositioning skills.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Basileus777

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/26/2019 at 4:34 AM, Cysx said:

Between the Blessing gambit and Guard adjutants, it's actually remarkably easy to put yourself at critical HP with no risk whatsoever. Then it's just a matter of never taking damage, which is already something many characters have to do on Maddening. Never used Defiant Crit myself, but in general glass cannon builds work very well this time around, thanks to canto, stride, shade, divine pulse, rescue if that's your thing...

Problem is, those aren't exactly what I'd call readily available - all Blessing battalions except one are B rank, and the exception requires online. Guard adjutants require a unit to be a Brawler, Grappler, Armored Knight, Fortress Knight, Great Knight, Armored Lord, or Emperor. The former two are male only, and the latter two are only available on one route (and most of those classes aren't exactly praised much in the first place). So just how likely are you to have a guard adjutant??

23 hours ago, Tables said:

Defiant Crit was always a very strong skill, on Maddening it's a lot easier to master the class earlier and so take more advantage of it. Defiant skills don't require enemies to be attacking you, they're active on both phases, but Defiant Crit can work well as part of a player phase or enemy phase build.

Problem is, getting there without just dying instead sounds like - and probably is - a tall order.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Problem is, those aren't exactly what I'd call readily available - all Blessing battalions except one are B rank, and the exception requires online. Guard adjutants require a unit to be a Brawler, Grappler, Armored Knight, Fortress Knight, Great Knight, Armored Lord, or Emperor. The former two are male only, and the latter two are only available on one route (and most of those classes aren't exactly praised much in the first place). So just how likely are you to have a guard adjutant??

I mean, we're talking about Defiant Crit here, a class mastery from a tier 4 class. By the time you get that, you have B rank batallions, and have had all the time in the world to reclass adjutant fodder to armour knight (which you should, because adjutant attacks are bugged and thus typically garbage).

Defiant Crit is bad because of near non-existent availability, but it can be a valid final push if you do get it. My own experience on Maddening is that only healers mastered their tier 4 jobs with more than one map left, and physical units with less mobility (i.e. my war master) didn't master it at all, so I have a low opinion of all these skills.

1 hour ago, Basileus777 said:

Hunter's Volley should definitely be higher.  A guaranteed ranged double in just incredibly valuable on Maddening.  The combat art alone makes sniper a better class than bow knight.

Strong disagree here. It's not that much better than a Brave Bow (more might, but can't quad), and you give up a lot to stay Sniper instead of Bow Knight: 3 move, Canto, an extra point of range, 1 speed (3 if the Bow Knight dismounts, and they STILL have more move than Sniper even then), 2 HP, and 1 Def.

[Tables]

I can certainly see the argument for Defiant Crit moving back down a tier - it is a strong skill but it needs a little support to make work, and it's debatable if that support is worth it overall. Lower Mid may be a better place to put it than Upper Mid, especially considering that even though it's from a commonly used class, by the time you hit mastering a Master Tier class you often have 5+ good skills already, so it's not like you can just slot in Defiant Crit for free any more.

 

Also the list on the first page is updated based on recent discussions, so feel free to give it a look and see if there are any other skills that stand out as being wrong.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Tables

[Fire Flower]

I would move Defiant Def to bottom, for similar reasons as to why Defiant Res is at bottom.

Aegis should also be low tier (same as Pavise). It's nice to have but just doesn't come in handy nearly enough. The relics that have Aegis/Pavise built in (Aegis shield, Rafail Gem) are far better at doing that job than using up ability slots for it, though they are crest-exclusive.

I would also move Miracle to bottom. Its proc chance seems way too low and while it could save the occasional divine pulse use, it just doesn't seem like a skill that comes in handy at all, and would rather replace it with something that would help me out in combat more often. Besides, guard adjutant does basically the same thing and is much more reliable than Miracle.

Also, Armored/Warding blow could have applications if the enemy has Vantage or Quick Riposte in some form, but it's still just as niche either way, probably worth mentioning still but it's arguably the only thing that keeps those skills from being bottom imo.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Fire Flower

[Shadow Mir]

I think that Defiant Str can stand to drop - while it is from an advanced class, said advanced class is male only, and second, I'm not sure said class would be the best option for anyone...

[Dark Holy Elf]

Res+2 is far better than Warding Blow, which says more about the latter. It's available two tiers earlier, and let's be honest, you're at least three times more likely to have your res matter on enemy phase than player phase, which offsets the difference in potency between the two skills. Warding Blow is absolutely one of the most utterly worthless skills in the game, considering its availability.

[Arachnofiend]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I think that Defiant Str can stand to drop - while it is from an advanced class, said advanced class is male only, and second, I'm not sure said class would be the best option for anyone...

Hero is pretty heavily out-classed by both Assassin and Swordmaster, I agree. I'm pretty sure anyone who wants Vantage also wants Wrath, and if you want that combo it's much better to go Mercenary->Warrior than Warrior->Hero. Hero doesn't really have a leg to stand on.

[Fire Flower]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Res+2 is far better than Warding Blow, which says more about the latter. It's available two tiers earlier, and let's be honest, you're at least three times more likely to have your res matter on enemy phase than player phase, which offsets the difference in potency between the two skills. Warding Blow is absolutely one of the most utterly worthless skills in the game, considering its availability.

That is true, and I guess the same can be said for Def+2 which also comes with reposition, versus Armored Blow. Now that I think of it, both of the defensive blow skills would be better in bottom instead, the only thing they have above defiant def/res is that you don't need to be 25% hp to take advantage of, and you're probably gonna die if you're that low anyway. And also, certain combat arts scale off def/res for some reason (I think soulblade uses res?)

Some other things I thought of:

I've never actually used Steal, so I can't comment on its usefulness, but I feel like most monsters that drop something you may as well kill them instead, other than the Death Knight in early game, but you do have tools available to help you defeat him anyways.

Allegedly, Hit+20 works on Gambits, in addition to all your other attacks. Maaaaybe move this skill to high tier?

Edited October 27, 2019 by Fire Flower

[PPPPPPP270]

Bow knight is just way too useful and flexible compared to sniper hunter's volley. Being able to shoot down enemies at 4 range then canto to safety happens so many times in part 2. You can actually not just bait enemies slowly but push offensively for once in the entire game.

You likely can't quad anything but monsters with brave bows but you can certainly still murder enemies with death blow bow knights with a brave bow. 

I think death blow is top tier because brigand is fine to have on any physical character. I still don't get the FEH movement skills at all unless you do canto classes. Canto is what makes movement skills useful. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Fire Flower said:

That is true, and I guess the same can be said for Def+2 which also comes with reposition, versus Armored Blow. Now that I think of it, both of the defensive blow skills would be better in bottom instead, the only thing they have above defiant def/res is that you don't need to be 25% hp to take advantage of, and you're probably gonna die if you're that low anyway. And also, certain combat arts scale off def/res for some reason (I think soulblade uses res?)

Some other things I thought of:

I've never actually used Steal, so I can't comment on its usefulness, but I feel like most monsters that drop something you may as well kill them instead, other than the Death Knight in early game, but you do have tools available to help you defeat him anyways. 

Allegedly, Hit+20 works on Gambits, in addition to all your other attacks. Maaaaybe move this skill to high tier?

Steal can grab some accessories, particularly extra Aurora Shields/etc., which are not dropped. That's definitely better than Low Tier as far as I'm concerned.

Hit+20 does indeed work on Gambits (as does the Accuracy Ring). Personally I'd move it up a tier compared to where it is now.

[Johnzin]

Ι think hunters volley should be viewed amazing. You can easily use it on Shamir who comes as a sniper and early. And you'll be getting it before you'll be getting a bow knight so it's still usable. I find Hunter volley with a iron bow is enough to 1rko a peg knight with high acc.

Skills that are great for a certain time is good still. I don't see having +2 str as end game as good but great for a good while. Hunter volley is good for ranges of chapters until BK.

[Silly]

One big issue with Steal is that you have to be faster than the enemy in order to steal their stuff.

This is actually a problem on maddening because half of the good stuff is on enemies that have like a million speed.

[Shadow Mir]

10 hours ago, Silly said:

One big issue with Steal is that you have to be faster than the enemy in order to steal their stuff.

This is actually a problem on maddening because half of the good stuff is on enemies that have like a million speed.

Which units have good stuff but also have speed levels to rival Quick Man? Off the top of my head, the only ones coming to mind are the lords in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Silly]

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which units have good stuff but also have speed levels to rival Quick Man?

I went through and wrote down the enemies with decent stealable items.

All Routes:
Ch6 Priest (Magic Staff): 17 Speed
Ch7 Dimitri (Evasion Ring): 22 Speed
Ch7 Claude (Evasion Ring): 24 Speed

SS:
Ch 15 Gwendal (Lampos Shield): 6 Speed
Ch 16 Ladislava (Aurora Shield): 38 Speed 

CF:
Ch 12 Flayn (Caduceus Staff): 21 Speed
Ch 12 Seteth (Ochain Shield): 29 Speed
Ch 12 Rhea (Seiros Shield): 24 Speed
Ch 14 Lysithea (Master Seal): 31 Speed
Ch 14 Hilda (Accuracy Ring): 32 Speed
Ch 15 Flayn (Caduceus Staff): 25 Speed
Ch 15 Seteth (Ochain Shield): 38 Speed
Ch 16 Felix (Aegis Shield): 54 Speed
Ch 17 Mercedes (Rafail Gem): 32 Speed
Ch 17 Rhea (Seiros Shield): 30 Speed
Edelgard Paralogue Wyvern Lord (Energy Drop): 34 Speed
Edelgard Paralogue Nader (Aurora Shield): 42 Speed

No data on other routes, but I'm positive that AM has Ladislava as well, and pretty sure that Dimitri's Paralogue has a stealable Energy Drop on a Paladin (realistic) + Angelic Robe on a War Master (a million AS).

[Tables]

VW Ladislava looks the same as that, I assume AM is also the exact same. I used a speedwing on my Byleth before Rallying her to have enough speed to steal the Aurora Shield (for reference I was already considering giving her the speedwing, wasn't JUST the shield. It was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak! It wasn't even needed actually as I forgot Special Dance + Rally stack).

 

Looking at recent posts, It seems like people are thinking both defensive blows to bottom, I don't have any immediate objections. Regarding arts that scale off them, I don't see why they wouldn't work but also, I don't see that being a particularly helpful synergy. You only get +30% of the stat as extra damage, so +6 Def/Res is only +1.8 damage extra. Not really an impressive damage addition for a skill slot.

That steal list actually looks pretty good on CF, can you actually steal relics and things? I asked about that before and nobody was able to confirm, if you can then I think it's reasonable for Steal to move up - at least for CF route. Although I guess several of those are coming pretty late, and a few require very high speed as well, so maybe not... The nice thing about Steal is that you can just equip it for the handful of chapters it's useful, I suppose.

Hit+20 going up because of working with Gambits, hmm... that does seem like a decent argument, Gambit hit rates are a little shaky early in Maddening. It could be worthwhile for lower Charm units at least - while early in Maddening I found it was hard to get good hit rates with Gambits, by the point you're mastering Intermediate classes you've got lots of C supports and some B supports, and high enough Charm that I was generally pretty close to 100% with many units. But needing less support helps, and there's definitely a few bosses with really high Charm on a few routes I suppose.

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.

Hunter's Volley for Sniper, I think part of the issue is that there's a very limited time between mastering Sniper and being ready for Bow Knight. But I can see the argument of it being useful for that short period, I did make some use of it with my Ignatz, it's true (also on the Wind Caller mission, since I swapped classes back to Sniper there). I'm still kind of undecided on this one - it does have its uses, even if it's only something you use for a while.

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Silly said:

I went through and wrote down the enemies with decent stealable items.

All Routes:
Ch6 Priest (Magic Staff): 17 Speed
Ch7 Dimitri (Evasion Ring): 22 Speed
Ch7 Claude (Evasion Ring): 24 Speed

SS:
Ch 15 Gwendal (Lampos Shield): 6 Speed
Ch 16 Ladislava (Aurora Shield): 38 Speed 

CF:
Ch 12 Flayn (Caduceus Staff): 21 Speed
Ch 12 Seteth (Ochain Shield): 29 Speed
Ch 12 Rhea (Seiros Shield): 24 Speed
Ch 14 Lysithea (Master Seal): 31 Speed
Ch 14 Hilda (Accuracy Ring): 32 Speed
Ch 15 Flayn (Caduceus Staff): 25 Speed
Ch 15 Seteth (Ochain Shield): 38 Speed
Ch 16 Felix (Aegis Shield): 54 Speed
Ch 17 Mercedes (Rafail Gem): 32 Speed
Ch 17 Rhea (Seiros Shield): 30 Speed
Edelgard Paralogue Wyvern Lord (Energy Drop): 34 Speed
Edelgard Paralogue Nader (Aurora Shield): 42 Speed

No data on other routes, but I'm positive that AM has Ladislava as well, and pretty sure that Dimitri's Paralogue has a stealable Energy Drop on a Paladin (realistic) + Angelic Robe on a War Master (a million AS).

Yeesh. Sounds like just about everyone is Quick Man... Except for Gwendal, for some reason. Anyway, will Flayn have Caduceus if you cleared her and Seteth's paralogue beforehand? I'm assuming the answer is no. Same for Rhea and the Shield of Seiros and Seteth and the Ochain Shield - if they were stolen previously (assuming they're even stealable to start with), will they have another copy anyway?

[Flores Salicis]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Yeesh. Sounds like just about everyone is Quick Man... Except for Gwendal, for some reason. Anyway, will Flayn have Caduceus if you cleared her and Seteth's paralogue beforehand? I'm assuming the answer is no. Same for Rhea and the Shield of Seiros and Seteth and the Ochain Shield - if they were stolen previously (assuming they're even stealable to start with), will they have another copy anyway?

Pretty sure Shield of Seiros and Ochain Shield are normally obtained on paralogues that you do not get access to on the Crimson Flower route.  Seteth's item from the paralogue is the weapon Spear of Assal.

[Johnzin]

4 minutes ago, Flores Salicis said:

Pretty sure Shield of Seiros and Ochain Shield are normally obtained on paralogues that you do not get access to on the Crimson Flower route.  Seteth's item from the paralogue is the weapon Spear of Assal.

I'm guessing @shadowmir means if you steal in ch12, will it still be on those characters when they attack again in Ch 15

[Flores Salicis]

4 minutes ago, Johnzin said:

I'm guessing @shadowmir means if you steal in ch12, will it still be on those characters when they attack again in Ch 15

Oh!  That makes more sense.  I'm actually not sure that they're available for stealing at all in Crimson Flower - at least for things like Felix's Aegis Shield or Mercedes's Rafail Gem, IIRC, those couldn't be stolen at all.  I seem to recall someone saying that was true for Rhea's Shield of Seiros as well; not sure about the OChain Shield.