Maddening mode is out

[Garlyle]

So I want to confirm with you guys some early game strategies about Maddening.

Can we say that in general Aux battles are less useful? You can work on supports and get some gold out of it, but the experience cut on them is severe.

On the other hand getting statboosters from gardening could be more beneficial. I'm actually considering to do cooking now, and re-evaluate Rally and Personal skills. I am paying more attention to enemy skills and AS now, like more than anything.

Or do Seminars become relevant?

[Stroud]

10 hours ago, Tombstone88 said:

Well, Bernie has a 35% Strength growth (40% once you hit Fighter), so her average Strength at level 7 is a little over 10 points.  At 12 Strength, you've gotten a little lucky maybe, but nothing crazy.  I think it's more likely that I've been unlucky with her than anything.

Ah, that makes sense.  Tempest Lance is the real MVP of Maddening mode. 😀

Yeah, having a bow on everyone is probably one of the single biggest necessities of Maddening mode.  That and keeping spare lances for Tempest Lance.

I've had the opposite issue: Dorothea has been fairly easy for me to level, but my Caspar and Bernie have been struggling hard.  Linhardt has also been surprisingly useful offensively.

Yeah, her HP and Strength growth is what bums me a little out. Also her disadvantage in Axe learning doesn't help. With Brigadier she could get at least some decent Hp growth. But that is for later anyway. 

Yeah, Tempest Lance helped a lot, Combat Arts in general I use them way more frequently. Luckily the new battle which they added grants more resources. So its easy to be more wasteful with weapons. My luck stopped with Petra a bit, her Speed has grown nicely, but she still is stuck with 9 Str on lv 9. I hope she gets a little more Str push. But Combat arts help at least that she still can do damage..

As for Caspar, he started a little slow but from chapter 4 to 5 he starts paying a little more of. I was also lucky with him, because his Attack increased almost with each level. Also I like Fading Blow because of the additional Evasion it gives. I also think focusing him on Brawl helps. But maybe I am also just lucky with him, he has 17 Str at lv 11 Brigand. 

As for Linhardt I can just agree, he is one of the savest bets to get better. And his Reason spells are not so bad, the hit rate helps a lot.

Ferdinand does ok on Forest maps, I also have given him Jeralt's Mercenary so he can avoid a bit more consistently. So Byleth, Edelgard and Ferdinand are my baits, Ferdinand only if he can survive I see Evasion more as a Bonus. Also I think at least at the beginning of the Game that Enemy Phase is a little more important. Real downside is that you cannot Enemy Phase on Bow users.. But for Mages I make use of the Bows on Enemy Phase if the situation calls it.

With Hubert I have the same Problem, his hitrate is rather wacky and sometimes I even fear 80% hitrate, because it can go so wrong. The worst moment was missing with 95% xD.

The same with Battalions btw, I find them so useful. I have Empire Magic Corps on Hubert, which can deal a lot of damage on groups and can be used on distance. But Battalions hit so bad that its like a high risk, big reward gamble.. So I try to use them only if I feel forced to do so and don't know any other solution..

Petra is really strange for me, she is the first unit which does not get doubled. She is at lv 9 and has 15 SPD. But her Str is stuck at 9. Which bothers me quite a bit, I see her as a Candidate later for Str stat boosting items... I think she still has a lot of potential in the later game. So my luck kind of equals out there...
But overall I think she has a good point in the run, because she might be the first unit to get out of the AS misery. 

Overall I just think that if you reach Chapter 3-4 with BE it starts to get a little easier, the first chapters are the worst. And don't allow any separation. In chapter 4 I could play with separating my Units in 2 Teams.. of course if Dorothea has a healing spell by then. I also find her personal skill not too bad at the start of the game, this little healing she gives the units surrounding her can help a lot. 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stroud

[LegendOfLoog]

14 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

So I want to confirm with you guys some early game strategies about Maddening.

Can we say that in general Aux battles are less useful? You can work on supports and get some gold out of it, but the experience cut on them is severe.

On the other hand getting statboosters from gardening could be more beneficial. I'm actually considering to do cooking now, and re-evaluate Rally and Personal skills. I am paying more attention to enemy skills and AS now, like more than anything.

Or do Seminars become relevant?

I'm on Chapter 10 in BL right now, and so far, I have never done a single Aux battle outside of the required one at the start and the merchant sidequest. They give nearly zero XP, and the gold you get from them can usually be substituted with Arena gold. Statboosters have been a blessing, and I highly recommend growing Speed Carrots ASAP to funnel into your units. Ignatz and Annette are the only units who can get an early Rally Speed, so focusing on their Authority early is a good idea. Cooking isn't really relevant until the second Fistfuls of Fish event after the Remire Village chapter, but after that, the Speed boosts are very helpful each month. Seminars are ok early on, but training Byleth and gaining money from the Arena are usually better once you have those options. 

[Stroud]

44 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

I'm on Chapter 10 in BL right now, and so far, I have never done a single Aux battle outside of the required one at the start and the merchant sidequest. They give nearly zero XP, and the gold you get from them can usually be substituted with Arena gold

I found the new Aux Battles we got per DLC not too bad, they are really difficult at the beginning. But thanks to the high lv of the enemies the XP is ok. Also one Enemy has a random Item which can also be a statboost item (Those with +1), sometimes he has a large Bullion, but if you reset the map the item changes. So there is a little influence you can take. And the Gold these Aux give is quite a lot so you can be wasteful with resources. In chapter 5 it was around 6k after battle + the Bullion from the Boss. 

With the normal Aux battles I agree, they are only a waste.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stroud

[Draith]

Just beat ch4 as BE while killing the DK. Maybe striding someone who doesn't get doubled (unequip weapons for that bit of extra AS) to the avoid tile, then striding other people towards the avoid tile as well is the best way to handle him. Even if they get doubled, most characters only need to avoid 1 hit to not die and be able to contribute massively with a combat art. Sylvain did 25 dmg or so to him alone for me.

[Stroud]

4 minutes ago, Draith said:

Just beat ch4 as BE while killing the DK. Maybe striding someone who doesn't get doubled (unequip weapons for that bit of extra AS) to the avoid tile, then striding other people towards the avoid tile as well is the best way to handle him. Even if they get doubled, most characters only need to avoid 1 hit to not die and be able to contribute massively with a combat art. Sylvain did 25 dmg or so to him alone for me.

Dang, unequiping weapons.. this is a good idea. With this if you could get someone enough speed to not get doubled it might be possible to bait him. Also a thing I realized later is that Female Byleth on BE or GD is the better choice as you can get Sylvain..to late for me now.
If one unit does not get doubled and survives just one attack it is enough to get the DK where you want him. He comes at you in Maddening as soon as someone is in his range.

[Draith]

2 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Dang, unequiping weapons.. this is a good idea. With this if you could get someone enough speed to not get doubled it might be possible to bait him. Also a thing I realized later is that Female Byleth on BE or GD is the better choice as you can get Sylvain..to late for me now.
If one unit does not get doubled and survives just one attack it is enough to get the DK where you want him. He comes at you in Maddening as soon as someone is in his range.

Yeah, I baited him close to the starting position and then realized I had no way of reliably damaging him that wouldn't get one of my units killed on the counter lol. Byleth had to dodge a 90% chance to hit to chip in enough dmg to finish him off. That's why I'm thinking that abusing the avoid tiles is the way to go, since that would decrease that hit chance to a 50% at least.

[Stroud]

5 minutes ago, Draith said:

Yeah, I baited him close to the starting position and then realized I had no way of reliably damaging him that wouldn't get one of my units killed on the counter lol. Byleth had to dodge a 90% chance to hit to chip in enough dmg to finish him off. That's why I'm thinking that abusing the avoid tiles is the way to go, since that would decrease that hit chance to a 50% at least.

Yeah, reminds me on my first playthrough there I also relied much on the Avoid Tiles. It may take some RNG, but is still a good way to get him somehow.

But still thanks for the cool idea. At least now I have an idea how to get the Bernadetta strategy I thought of working (Baiting DK was the missing part, I had no unit which does not get doubled by him at that point, or survives 1 attack). There is an Archer at the beginning of the Map. He can be used to get Bernadetta to almost 1 HP. With Cooking, HP + 5  and the DLC stat boost item she can have over 40 HP. If she has C+ on lance until chapter 4. Which is not too easy, because you have to rely less on bows. But with focusing on Lance on lessons it should be easy possible. I had her on C already and didn't invest perfectly in lance.

I think that might be one of the best strategies to work without much RNG. Some degree you always need against him. But this is really cool. Thanks! Sadly I won't see myself doing this again. 

And you did it anyway. So you have proven that its possible with BE. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stroud

[Draith]

52 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Yeah, reminds me on my first playthrough there I also relied much on the Avoid Tiles. It may take some RNG, but is still a good way to get him somehow.

But still thanks for the cool idea. At least now I have an idea how to get the Bernadetta strategy I thought of working (Baiting DK was the missing part, I had no unit which does not get doubled by him at that point, or survives 1 attack). There is an Archer at the beginning of the Map. He can be used to get Bernadetta to almost 1 HP. With Cooking, HP + 5  and the DLC stat boost item she can have over 40 HP. If she has C+ on lance until chapter 4. Which is not too easy, because you have to rely less on bows. But with focusing on Lance on lessons it should be easy possible. I had her on C already and didn't invest perfectly in lance.

I think that might be one of the best strategies to work without much RNG. Some degree you always need against him. But this is really cool. Thanks! Sadly I won't see myself doing this again. 

And you did it anyway. So you have proven that its possible with BE. 

You're welcome, your strategy seems a lot more consistent at the cost of having bernie not go bows early.

[Stroud]

I mentioned that the new Auxiliary Battles give statboosting Items randomly. I guess its not as easy as I thought.
Because the Items you get seem to depend on the Map. For example I have Lake of Teutates now and the Item switches between Miracle Bean (Luck) and Ailell Pomegranate (Skill).
The good thing is if it really depends on the maps and some maps give better Items like for Spd. At least its always possible to look which Map you get. I will take Note. 
And its nice anyway to take the better one from each Map.

[Quirino]

I was about halfway through the first part of my black eagles playthrough when maddening was released, so I decided to start over. My first impression from maddening is that it reminds me a lot of Awakening Lunatic and Shadow Dragon H5, where enemy stats are increased to a point where they are so much more powerful compared to your units. However, unlike those games, there is no Frederick or Jagen around. I'm not typically a fan of this kind of difficulty increase and I think it's a bit lazy. Also I think the jump from hard to maddening is way too high, not unlike Awakening's hard -> lunatic jump.

Having said that, I will try to beat it. I had just started my church playthrough when maddening was released and decided to restart it on maddening (no NG+). I'm really struggling in chapter 2, with those damned pass thieves, and I was wondering if some of you might be able to help me out.

Bernadetta, Hubert, Caspar and Dorothea get ORKO'd by every enemy. I gave Caspar a hand axe to provide chip damage as this is the only way I can see him being useful (other than against archers). Petra gets doubled only by thieves, Byleth only gets doubled by thieves and archers, while everyone else gets doubled by everything. Furthermore, hit rates are generally low, which can be somewhat remedied by combat arts during player phase, but counterattacks during enemy phase frequently miss, which leaves me with damaged units during player phase against 3 enemies on full health, which is often too much for my team at that point. Can anyone share their strategy on how they got past this chapter with the black eagles?

[Stroud]

43 minutes ago, Quirino said:

Bernadetta, Hubert, Caspar and Dorothea get ORKO'd by every enemy. I gave Caspar a hand axe to provide chip damage as this is the only way I can see him being useful (other than against archers). Petra gets doubled only by thieves, Byleth only gets doubled by thieves and archers, while everyone else gets doubled by everything. Furthermore, hit rates are generally low, which can be somewhat remedied by combat arts during player phase, but counterattacks during enemy phase frequently miss, which leaves me with damaged units during player phase against 3 enemies on full health, which is often too much for my team at that point. Can anyone share their strategy on how they got past this chapter with the black eagles?

I think that was the most difficult chapter for me. And the first yellow Auxiliary battle.. 

For me it was also working the enemy waves down at the start I waited south of the Bridge and used Ferdinand as a bait in the woods, he also has the highest chance to hit on Enemy Phase if its against a Thief (Full HP only). I also made a lot of use of Dorothea's personal skill which heals at the start of each turn. The good thing about the bridge is that you can kind of  build a unit wall there which blocks Thiefs from passing. 

Be wasteful with the spells. If you reach the left site of the map the rest should be easy. The most difficult thing about the map are the waves at the beginning anyway.

Also from my Perspective its ok to Invest the HP boost item to Bernie if you focus her on lance later. So if you have it you could give it to her inside the Battle. With that she does 5 more Damage which can help slightly in this battle. And instead of the hand Axe I think Bows a are bit more Save. Be careful about her Positioning with Dorothea though.

Otherwise a bit was up to RNG for me. 70-80 % hitrate is not something I am too happy about..hope that it at least helps a little bit. If you cleared this Chapter its starting to get a little easier. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stroud

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I have started to do a BL run on this difficulty.

PS: Neither have played on hard, nor even finished BL route yet. 

 

Two maps done, no deaths so far. 

Only had to sacrifice Dedue in the Houses Battle. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Lysithea

[Quirino]

9 minutes ago, Stroud said:

I think that was the most difficult chapter for me. And the first yellow Auxiliary battle.. 

For me it was also working the enemy waves down at the start I waited south of the Bridge and used Ferdinand as a bait in the woods, he also has the highest chance to hit on Enemy Phase if its against a Thief (Full HP only). I also made a lot of use of Dorothea's personal skill which heals at the start of each turn. The good thing about the bridge is that you can kind of  build a unit wall there which blocks Thiefs from passing. 

Be wasteful with the spells. If you reach the left site of the map the rest should be easy. The most difficult thing about the map are the waves at the beginning anyway.

Also from my Perspective its ok to Invest the HP boost item to Bernie if you focus her on lance later. So if you have it you could give it to her inside the Battle. With that she does 5 more Damage which can help slightly in this battle. And instead of the hand Axe I think Bows a are bit more Save. Be careful about her Positioning with Dorothea though.

Otherwise a bit was up to RNG for me. 70-80 % hitrate is not something I am too happy about..hope that it at least helps a little bit. If you cleared this Chapter its starting to get a little easier. 

Thank you for the reply! Would it be a good idea to give people who I want to train as wyverns a bow for this chapter only (I'm talking about Petra, Ferdinand, Edelgard and I wanted to try Byleth as a wyvern lord) for reliable chip damage? Like you mentioned, bows are safer. I think the advice to be wasteful with spells might come in handy, as I tried to save them as I thought I might need them for the boss. I'll just have to make sure to keep Dorothea and Hubert out of harm's way, since they will die to anything. I assume the same holds for Linhardt's healing?

I was planning to focus Bernadetta as a bow knight. Perhaps it's not a bad idea to start working towards C lances at the start, to get tempest lance. She will need the HP boosts to make use of her personal skills indeed, because right now she's either at full HP or no HP.

[Stroud]

45 minutes ago, Quirino said:

Thank you for the reply! Would it be a good idea to give people who I want to train as wyverns a bow for this chapter only (I'm talking about Petra, Ferdinand, Edelgard and I wanted to try Byleth as a wyvern lord) for reliable chip damage? Like you mentioned, bows are safer. I think the advice to be wasteful with spells might come in handy, as I tried to save them as I thought I might need them for the boss. I'll just have to make sure to keep Dorothea and Hubert out of harm's way, since they will die to anything. I assume the same holds for Linhardt's healing?

I was planning to focus Bernadetta as a bow knight. Perhaps it's not a bad idea to start working towards C lances at the start, to get tempest lance. She will need the HP boosts to make use of her personal skills indeed, because right now she's either at full HP or no HP.

Yeah, its a good idea to give them a Bow just for the start. As soon as you can get further without relying on bows you can start investing differently. Also Maps in general have more enemies now, which means the Skill points you lose out now you will get back later on. I even gave Edelgard a Bow just in case. 

Also the Bows help you to chip down the Boss at the end, you really don't need to fear him much. The Thiefs and Archers are just worse. And yeah the same applies to Linhardt's healing. just use it up. The thing is at the start of the chapter the enemy waves start automatically. Past a certain point you can trigger them yourself and at that Point you can make use of Dorothy and her Personal skill which takes some turns to heal. But I think its ok to take it slowly.

Yeah, my recommendation for Berny is to get her Bow Level to the point she learns Curved Shot, after that she should focus on Lance until C+ to get Vengeance. After she has C+ its just Bow and Riding. If you manage to get her Lance skill to C+ until Chapter 4 it could be nice to have a strat against DK. But it also depends on how good she grows.. And Tempest Lance also is a good damage dealing Combat Art for starter yeah. 

Also I don't know if Caspar has Fading Blow already, but Fading Blow also is not such a bad Combat Art at the beginning, he does a little more damage with it compared to some Bows and makes space, also gets Brawl Exp. 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stroud

[S_Cero]

Currently on Chapter 5 of BE, first 2 chapters were difficult cause only Edel and Byleth could avoid getting ORKO'd and hit rates are so low. With BE your damage output it pretty low early so you need every hit to hit otherwise you get fucked. I've had to rely on 50-70 hit rate gambits hitting once or twice to deal with the 13 AS enemies charging at you in chapter 2. Chapter 3 and 4 were surprisingly really tame with enemy AS being in the 5-9 range outside of a few rather than 9-13. Enemies overall haven't scaled up much from chapter 2. My level ups have been absolute trash though so my Ferd, Caspar, and Petra all still get ORKO'd (With the added fun of both Petra and Ferd getting one speed and strength in 6 levels). Dorothea is still a bitch to train and has fallen behind pretty hard, thankfully Lindhardt and Hubert got to level 5 in chapter 4 so they can be used more now. I imagine the spike around chapter 12 will be pretty brutal. 

[butts69]

Maddening mode has ambush spawns. In Ch5 all the reinforcements have been turned into ambush spawns, instead of just the one set that appears at the start of the map a few turns in. While I can understand making the ones at the start ambushes, I really don't think having Pass myrmidons dumped right on top of you in the middle of the map (that can't be blocked by standing on their spawn point) is very fair, or very fun. Do all the other maps do this, or is it just a few one-offs? Divine Pulse makes them a bit more bearable but if the entire game is just going to be "oops your mages are dead now" trial and error I might just give up.

[LegendOfLoog]

34 minutes ago, butts69 said:

Maddening mode has ambush spawns. In Ch5 all the reinforcements have been turned into ambush spawns, instead of just the one set that appears at the start of the map a few turns in. While I can understand making the ones at the start ambushes, I really don't think having Pass myrmidons dumped right on top of you in the middle of the map (that can't be blocked by standing on their spawn point) is very fair, or very fun. Do all the other maps do this, or is it just a few one-offs? Divine Pulse makes them a bit more bearable but if the entire game is just going to be "oops your mages are dead now" trial and error I might just give up.

Pretty much every instance where there were Enemy Phase reinforcements on Hard are now ambush spawns. Player Phase reinforcements appear to be unchanged as far as I can tell. You get warnings for most of the other instances except for in Remire Village by the center bush. There could be more, but I’m only on Chapter 11, so idk. 

[butts69]

Ah, okay. That makes sense! Still though, ambush spawns were my least favourite mechanic and I'm really not happy they came back, especially after fates removed them. I'm fine with the ones that appear at the start and chase you, but I feel like the only way my army is going to be able to deal with the merc ambushes is to turtle and wait them out, since they absolutely are not strong enough to try and racing ahead of them and dealing with the rest of the map charging them at the same time.

[Stroud]

Yeah, Berni did it. Sadly chapter 6 and not Chapter 4. But still its quite a feat I dare say. DK has 20 Def in Chapter 6 btw.

Spoiler

And her stats. 

Spoiler

I was pretty lucky with her growth and she still does not stop. Sometimes its just that way. But its better to have something to show than just do theory crafting. So glad I did it. Now I just need to see how well I will do with the difficult Spike after the Timeskip. But I will try to take it a bit slower. I am kind of slow though. I just take my time.

[DefyingFates]

So if I'm understanding this right, Tempest Lance and Bows are the way to go for Maddening? Why Tempest Lance, if I may ask?

Also, are Training Weapons actually useful this time around, since they have such low weight?

Finally, I saw some discussion on the previous page about Blue Lions having it easiest in early-game but Black Eagles having it better later on - does this also hold true without NG+?

[Stroud]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

So if I'm understanding this right, Tempest Lance and Bows are the way to go for Maddening? Why Tempest Lance, if I may ask? 

Also, are Training Weapons actually useful this time around, since they have such low weight?

At the beginning you barely do any Damage and do not double. Tempest Lance is one of the strongest Combat Arts you learn very early, it gives 8 Mt. It also gives hit +10 to be a bit more save. Also I think you can be really wasteful with Weapon Durability. The game provides enough resources.  

And I find Training Weapons pretty useful if you want to Enemy Phase and have the chance of not getting doubled. Alternately if you know that you get attacked and cannot counter (Like from Archers you could also unequip the weapon entirely if it means not getting doubled. But that should be barely the case. 

[Thane]

I'm really liking this mode besides the same turn reinforcements thus far. I should soon reach chapter six, so I hope it'll keep being a lot of fun.

That said I don't think I've been very good at it. I don't think I've managed to keep any green units alive (besides Catherine, though in my defense the enemy got a 3% crit on one of the green units in that chapter).

Edited September 14, 2019 by Thane

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wait, if I'm reading those numbers correctly, Vengeance just adds (missing HP) to your damage instead of having some multiplier that lowers that, like in Awakening/Fates/Heroes? Wow, that's pretty good. Totally overlooked that combat art.

[Stroud]

Yeah, also realized while playing around with Dedue, that it does 1 additional Damage per missing HP. After that I just looked who can learn it and the units are only Bernadetta, Dedue and Cyril. Bernadetta's HP growth can be hit or miss though. 35% is not too much. But it can be compensated a little.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Stroud