Maddening mode is out

[Nobody]

8 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Could you tell us more about your NG runs please? It sounds like you both did BL? Why was that, and what were some particularly tricky chapters and how did you deal with them?

I did BL first because they're my favorite cast, and the one I first played the game with. I tried using everyone from the house, and it worked out well. All of them were able to work. Kept Dimitri on his base class, Felix as a assassin with a focus on Bows, Ingrid as a falcon knight, Ashe as a wyvern Lord, Mercedes and Annette as gremories, Dedue as a GK and Sylvain as a Paladin, with Flayn being my dancer.

My best units were Dimitri, Felix and Ingrid. Using the Greenary to get speed carrots (5x pale-blue flowers), I got the latter two of them to double very reliably (Felix had spd+2 from myrm and Ingrid had darting blow), even at lategame, and even Dimitri could get to doubling after I focused on giving the boosters to him. Tricky chapters were mostly the mock battle, the Sylvain's brother one, Felix's paralogue, chapter 13, chapter 18 and the last two.

BTW, there's a battalion whose gambit gives distant counter to everyone. It's a great way to deal with the siege tomes of the last few chapters. I'd use it on Ingrid, stack avoid on her and send her to bai them all. They'd have less than 10% hit on them and would kill them all on EP.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Nobody

[LegendOfLoog]

46 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

@LegendOfLoog: Woah. Thank you so much! I know you're strapped for XP in Maddening but how about money? If money's still easy to get at least it'll be easier to get flowers, right?

Money's not too bad, honestly. It can be a bit tight before you start doing Paralogues, but you can always do Aux battles if you run really low. Late game, the Arena was more than enough for all my money needs, so I didn't need to do any besides the sidequest ones. 

[Cor Leonis]

How did you end up distributing your activity/battle points before A+ Professor rank? Did you find yourself focusing on Explore or Battle until A+? And how did you end up distributing Renown for statue bonuses? Getting all the Divine Pulses seems like a given, but did you prioritize EXP+10% or getting the WEXP bonuses afterward? I really want to do a NG Maddening run, but I've really been spoiled by the freedom (and less grinding) NG+ provides.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Cor Leonis

[DefyingFates]

Following on from @Cor Leonis' question, do you have the DLC Aux battles, @LegendOfLoog and @Nobody? If so, how useful were they?

[Nobody]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

Following on from @Cor Leonis' question, do you have the DLC Aux battles, @LegendOfLoog and @Nobody? If so, how useful were they?

No, i don't have any dlc. I didn't do any auxiliary battles, so idk how much they help.

2 hours ago, Cor Leonis said:

How did you end up distributing your activity/battle points before A+ Professor rank? Did you find yourself focusing on Explore or Battle until A+? And how did you end up distributing Renown for statue bonuses? Getting all the Divine Pulses seems like a given, but did you prioritize EXP+10% or getting the WEXP bonuses afterward? I really want to do a NG Maddening run, but I've really been spoiled by the freedom (and less grinding) NG+ provides.

I almost always did explore. I only did battle for the paralogues and the merchant quests.

i prioritized getting the WEXP bonuses.

[Stroud]

Already mentioned sometime that DLC Auxiliary battle are useful.

First they have more Enemies, so you can round up more Skill Exp. 

Second, the enemies are on a higher level compared to the other Aux battles, so you get more Experience. And one of them comes with stat boost items (+1) Depending on the enemies. But you still have to luck if the Exp you get is about right. 

In the first half of the game it seems that the DLC auxiliary map is cycling between Plain (Charm +1, or Large Bullion (This is the exception)), Woods (Def +1 or Res +1) and Teutates lake (Skill +1, Luck +1).
So I still have to check the Maps which come later, I guess that one of them should give Speed Carrot, so its not lost by then. You can influence which of the 2 items you get by resetting the map. 

You also get double the amount of Money after the map. In Chapter 8 its around 10k. 

So my recommendation would be to check which Map is available and check if your level is not too high so you get good exp out of them.  

 

Edited September 18, 2019 by Stroud

[DefyingFates]

58 minutes ago, Nobody said:

No, i don't have any dlc. I didn't do any auxiliary battles, so idk how much they help.

I almost always did explore. I only did battle for the paralogues and the merchant quests.

i prioritized getting the WEXP bonuses.

 

9 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Already mentioned sometime that DLC Auxiliary battle are useful.

First they have more Enemies, so you can round up more Skill Exp. 

Second, the enemies are on a higher level compared to the other Aux battles, so you get more Experience. And one of them comes with stat boost items (+1) Depending on the enemies. But you still have to luck if the Exp you get is about right.  

In the first half of the game it seems that the DLC auxiliary map is cycling between Plain (Charm +1, or Large Bullion (This is the exception)), Woods (Def +1 or Res +1) and Teutates lake (Skill +1, Luck +1).
So I still have to check the Maps which come later, I guess that one of them should give Speed Carrot, so its not lost by then. You can influence which of the 2 items you get by resetting the map. 

You also get double the amount of Money after the map. In Chapter 8 its around 10k. 

So my recommendation would be to check which Map is available and check if your level is not too high so you get good exp out of them.  

 

Thank you both!

So the DLC really helps, huh? If I have the Season Pass by the time I get around to playing Maddening, I'll have to think hard about whether I want to play it "cleanly" or with the DLC maps and items. Thanks again!

[Stroud]

1 minute ago, DefyingFates said:

So the DLC really helps, huh? If I have the Season Pass by the time I get around to playing Maddening, I'll have to think hard about whether I want to play it "cleanly" or with the DLC maps and items. Thanks again!

It does, but its not that the DLC is game breaking. It helps but in a way that the mode still keeps it challenge. The character levels also kind of cap for each chapter through the strict Exp limitation. So your level is maybe 1 or 2 higher for each character with "abusing" the DLC auxiliary. 

Also the first time you can do the DLC aux battle its a challenge in itself. It was around the same difficulty for me compared to chapter 2. So it can also be done later if it is too hard. 

[LegendOfLoog]

4 hours ago, Cor Leonis said:

How did you end up distributing your activity/battle points before A+ Professor rank? Did you find yourself focusing on Explore or Battle until A+? And how did you end up distributing Renown for statue bonuses? Getting all the Divine Pulses seems like a given, but did you prioritize EXP+10% or getting the WEXP bonuses afterward? I really want to do a NG Maddening run, but I've really been spoiled by the freedom (and less grinding) NG+ provides.

Always Explore, pretty much. I only did Paralogues and the merchant quests because most Auxiliary battles give nothing in XP. And for that reason, XP bonuses are what you should prioritize with Statue bonuses. The only +2 that I really prioritized was +2 Authority because that's important for almost every character. I think NG Maddening can be pulled off without any grinding at all except for maybe the Fistfuls of Fish event if you want to do it. 

3 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Following on from @Cor Leonis' question, do you have the DLC Aux battles, @LegendOfLoog and @Nobody? If so, how useful were they?

They're nice for gold, I suppose. The exp difference isn't that huge, though. You can maybe get a level up or two per map. I tried one once just to see, but I had more than enough gold with just the Arena. I have almost 100,000 approaching the final chapter, so I don't think DLC is necessary. 

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, Stroud said:

It does, but its not that the DLC is game breaking. It helps but in a way that the mode still keeps it challenge. The character levels also kind of cap for each chapter through the strict Exp limitation. So your level is maybe 1 or 2 higher for each character with "abusing" the DLC auxiliary. 

Also the first time you can do the DLC aux battle its a challenge in itself. It was around the same difficulty for me compared to chapter 2. So it can also be done later if it is too hard. 

 

49 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Always Explore, pretty much. I only did Paralogues and the merchant quests because most Auxiliary battles give nothing in XP. And for that reason, XP bonuses are what you should prioritize with Statue bonuses. The only +2 that I really prioritized was +2 Authority because that's important for almost every character. I think NG Maddening can be pulled off without any grinding at all except for maybe the Fistfuls of Fish event if you want to do it. 

They're nice for gold, I suppose. The exp difference isn't that huge, though. You can maybe get a level up or two per map. I tried one once just to see, but I had more than enough gold with just the Arena. I have almost 100,000 approaching the final chapter, so I don't think DLC is necessary. 

Thank you both! So, the DLC maps help but don't break the game? Got it! Can you only do each map once per playthrough or do they reappear?

By the way, I hear a lot of people saying they left the Paralogues until later so that they had the right levels for them. Did you two do that too, and did you run the risk of missing any of them entirely as a result? (Also, apparently there's a difficulty spike at the start of Part 2; is it really that bad, and how long does it take to catch up to the enemies' levels afterwards?)

[Cor Leonis]

Yeah, I've been noticing Aux. Battles on NG+ cap out pretty quickly with the EXP curve. That said, though, healing spells and Warp not being affected by the curve (probably a programming oversight since they don't have an enemy Level to check against) is absolutely silly. I'm only on Chapter 9, but Linhardt is already a Level 34 Holy Knight just because he can spam Physic and Warp every map (Lysithea is close behind at Level 27) while everyone else is barely over Level 20. I'm kind of tempted to keep doing all these gratuitous Aux. Battles just to see how ahead Linhardt's Level can possibly get...

Did any of you recruit anyone specifically for their utility or Paralogues, or did you keep your party line-ups all in-house? I can't imagine the first time timeskip Chapter without training everyone in your default house, and it seems like a bad idea to invest in more characters.

[dragontamer]

3 minutes ago, Cor Leonis said:

Yeah, I've been noticing Aux. Battles on NG+ cap out pretty quickly with the EXP curve. That said, though, healing spells and Warp not being affected by the curve (probably a programming oversight since they don't have an enemy Level to check against) is absolutely silly. I'm only on Chapter 9, but Linhardt is already a Level 34 Holy Knight just because he can spam Physic and Warp every map (Lysithea is close behind at Level 27) while everyone else is barely over Level 20. I'm kind of tempted to keep doing all these gratuitous Aux. Battles just to see how ahead Linhardt's Level can possibly get... 

 

Everyone learns Heal at Faith D. Maybe you just solved the Exp problem?

 

I mean, seriously. Think about it. Monks can use weapons and bows, just like every other class. Go to Brigand to class-master Death Blow, but switch to Monk to get +10 heals per battle for exp.

Edited September 18, 2019 by dragontamer

[Stroud]

9 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

By the way, I hear a lot of people saying they left the Paralogues until later so that they had the right levels for them. Did you two do that too, and did you run the risk of missing any of them entirely as a result? (Also, apparently there's a difficulty spike at the start of Part 2; is it really that bad, and how long does it take to catch up to the enemies' levels afterwards?)

I am Chapter 10 at the moment, so I still have to feel the spike (I will do Silver Snow). 
As for paralog, so far I could almost do all on the same chapter which they appear, two Paralogs I delayed a bit, for one I wanted to have more fliers and another one was a bit tricky, but I think I could have forced myself through. (Shamir and Alois one). The rest was doable. It really just depends on what you have for units and how they can deal with it. Also the smart use of Gambits can make it much easier.

5 minutes ago, Cor Leonis said:

Did any of you recruit anyone specifically for their utility or Paralogues, or did you keep your party line-ups all in-house? I can't imagine the first time timeskip Chapter without training everyone in your default house, and it seems like a bad idea to invest in more characters.

I recruited Lysithea (To compensate Hubert), Shamir (Starts of really good with Lv 13, recommended), Manuela (Out of own fun, I still find some room to play around in Maddening, she is wyvern rider at the moment.), Leonie (Thought she helps later on, also a bit fun), Felix (Because its Felix). Too many, so I drop Felix. Also Lorenz for the Paralog.

Just depends on the route, and as some said it may be interesting to recruit some units later, but Shamir comes in mind that she is worth it. 
But my wild recruiting also came from doing Silver Snow later, because of that I don't use Edelgard and Hubert much, or barely that they can survive. Also I need to watch out, because I disregarded Petra a bit. I honestly don't know what will await me in Silver Snow, but that's fun in its own with this. 

But I wouldn't worry too much, because Characters with low level catch up pretty quick, because of the level characters are getting stuck thanks to little exp you gain after a certain level. But overall I agree that its better to limit yourself to maybe 10-12. 

[Cor Leonis]

20 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Everyone learns Heal at Faith D. Maybe you just solved the Exp problem? 

The only problem with that is someone needs to be damaged, and everyone trying to spam their own heal gets in the way. Linhardt, Dorothea, and Lysithea alone keeps nearly everyone's HP maxed without really trying so far on my BE-Church playthrough. I can't really imagine throwing seven more healers on top would offer any real benefit...

Edited September 18, 2019 by Cor Leonis

[dragontamer]

46 minutes ago, Cor Leonis said:

The only problem with that is someone needs to be damaged, and everyone trying to spam their own heal gets in the way. Linhardt, Dorothea, and Lysithea alone keeps nearly everyone's HP maxed without really trying so far on my BE-Church playthrough. I can't really imagine throwing seven more healers on top would offer any real benefit...

 

Yeah, cause those characters actually have a Magic stat.

 

When Petra heals, she'll probably only heal 10 HP, at best. The idea is not to heal HP, its to farm EXP. Monk-Petra will still have outstanding speed, proficiency in Axes, etc. etc.

Edited September 18, 2019 by dragontamer

[Cor Leonis]

True, but then you're gimping your mages' EXP by letting everyone else steal their heals. (This is taking kill-stealing to a whole new level, huh?) Besides, this is still Maddening mode; your units have key roles to play if you actually want to clear maps. Your vanguard should be hitting things, not healing allies. They need the stat bonuses and abilities of physical classes, and investing in Faith is very much counterintuitive.

[dragontamer]

15 minutes ago, Cor Leonis said:

True, but then you're gimping your mages' EXP by letting everyone else steal their heals. (This is taking kill-stealing to a whole new level, huh?)

Lets say some enemy unit hit you for 22. Lindheart would heal... hypothetically... 25.

 

Monk Petra comes in, heals 10 HP. Lindheart then heals 25, "creating" more experience for your whole team to share.

 

15 minutes ago, Cor Leonis said:

They need the stat bonuses and abilities of physical classes, and investing in Faith is very much counterintuitive. 

 

D-Faith is just 100 Exp. You don't need much investment beyond 2 or 3 weeks of lesson plans. Pretty low investment, all else considered.

 

Quote

Besides, this is still Maddening mode; your units have key roles to play if you actually want to clear maps.



 

Do heals still grant decent Exp. on Aux battles in Maddening mode? I haven't tested it yet. I'm mostly theorycrafting here.

 

The main issue is that Aux battles don't make any exp for killing units. But if you can bypass that by making everyone a monk for Aux battles to gain Exp, you probably can level up your characters a bit better in Maddening. If a bit of a grindy strategy...

Edited September 18, 2019 by dragontamer

[DefyingFates]

1 hour ago, Stroud said:

I am Chapter 10 at the moment, so I still have to feel the spike (I will do Silver Snow).

Thank you for your answer!

The Silver Snow thing has my interest though, I look forward to hearing what you thought of playing it without NG+ benefits! (I imagine the final chapter will be a pain though...)

[Cor Leonis]

1 hour ago, dragontamer said:

Do heals still grant decent Exp. on Aux battles in Maddening mode? I haven't tested it yet. I'm mostly theorycrafting here.

The main issue is that Aux battles don't make any exp for killing units. But if you can bypass that by making everyone a monk for Aux battles to gain Exp, you probably can level up your characters a bit better in Maddening. If a bit of a grindy strategy... 

Yes, healing/support spells bypass the curve even in Aux. Battles. That's how my Linhardt got ahead. I mean, I guess you could could try and get ahead that way? You'd only be limited by your spell casts and battle points, but it seems like a major time sink just to get an edge in on the difficulty. Maddening mode has stat inflation on enemies, but it isn't THAT bad.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Cor Leonis

[LegendOfLoog]

4 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Thank you both! So, the DLC maps help but don't break the game? Got it! Can you only do each map once per playthrough or do they reappear?

By the way, I hear a lot of people saying they left the Paralogues until later so that they had the right levels for them. Did you two do that too, and did you run the risk of missing any of them entirely as a result? (Also, apparently there's a difficulty spike at the start of Part 2; is it really that bad, and how long does it take to catch up to the enemies' levels afterwards?)

The DLC maps stay the same each week iirc, but it sort of cycles between them. I'm not sure if it's predetermined or if it's random tbh. For Paralogues, I just waited until Byleth and my Lord were at the level recommended, and while I did get a bit close to missing some, I managed them all despite the wait. I did these Paralogues: Ingrid/Dorothea, Felix, Sylvain, Dedue, Ashe/Catherine, Shamir/Alois, Hanneman/Manuela, Seteth/Flayn, and Lorenz's. If you recruit more people, you'll probably have to start earlier than I did, which was probably around Chapter 8. 

As for Part 2, I don't think it's the worst thing ever; my other comment on the chapters can go into more specifics, but it's not nearly as difficult as the beginning of the game is. However, you'll probably never catch up in Levels ever except maybe with the Lord and Byleth. I'm at the endgame now, and most of my units are ranging from low 30s to high 30s for their levels. Dimitri is 43, Byleth is 41, and Felix is 40. Enemies are Level 50. There probably is a small period of time where you catch up during the middle of Part 2, but the endgame fixes that lol. 

Edited September 18, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[Errorik]

A bit of a different topic, but what battalions stand out for the rest of you? It seems to me there's separate tiers for them, which would depend on authority rank requirements. Many of the standouts appear at rank D/C, when it comes to stats. Stride is clearly very powerful and E rank, so an easy S tier. Gambits definitely feel underwhelming early game due to the abysmal hit rates when on maddening mode.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Centh

[Errorik]

5 hours ago, Cor Leonis said:

Yeah, I've been noticing Aux. Battles on NG+ cap out pretty quickly with the EXP curve. That said, though, healing spells and Warp not being affected by the curve (probably a programming oversight since they don't have an enemy Level to check against) is absolutely silly. I'm only on Chapter 9, but Linhardt is already a Level 34 Holy Knight just because he can spam Physic and Warp every map (Lysithea is close behind at Level 27) while everyone else is barely over Level 20. I'm kind of tempted to keep doing all these gratuitous Aux. Battles just to see how ahead Linhardt's Level can possibly get...

Did any of you recruit anyone specifically for their utility or Paralogues, or did you keep your party line-ups all in-house? I can't imagine the first time timeskip Chapter without training everyone in your default house, and it seems like a bad idea to invest in more characters.

Holy shit I forgot about that in my current run. Ashe, Ingrid, and Sylvain are all still lvl 1....

[DefyingFates]

53 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Dimitri is 43, Byleth is 41, and Felix is 40. Enemies are Level 50.

spit take

And you're fine with that? It sounds like it'd take a full turn just to kill one enemy, let alone a full map of them and questions of accuracy!

You haven't mentioned losing anyone yet, is that the case?

As a general question to everyone: is using the Faculty a good idea? I only used them in my first run, but I remember them being quite high levelled compared to how students are when you recruit them. I've heard a lot of praise for Shamir specifically - are the others as valuable?

Edited September 18, 2019 by DefyingFates

[LegendOfLoog]

55 minutes ago, Centh said:

A bit of a different topic, but what battalions stand out for the rest of you? It seems to me there's separate tiers for them, which would depend on authority rank requirements. Many of the standouts appear at rank D/C, when it comes to stats. Stride is clearly very powerful and E rank, so an easy S tier. Gambits definitely feel underwhelming early game due to the abysmal hit rates when on maddening mode.

For BL specifically, Retribution is so important. This is just my anecdotal experience, but it felt like there were quite a few siege tomes in the final few chapters. It also synergizes really well with Dimitri's Battalion Wrath + Vantage combo that no one else has in the game. I do agree that offensive gambits are not nearly as good as they once were, but you need them for certain enemies like Petra (she had 130 something avoid in Chapter 21). Stride is still good though, especially on cavalry units.

Edit: I think Blessing is good too, at least on the final map. Edelgard can and will crit you from 32 tiles away, so having a guaranteed Miracle sounds useful.

31 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

spit take

And you're fine with that? It sounds like it'd take a full turn just to kill one enemy, let alone a full map of them and questions of accuracy!

You haven't mentioned losing anyone yet, is that the case?

As a general question to everyone: is using the Faculty a good idea? I only used them in my first run, but I remember them being quite high levelled compared to how students are when you recruit them. I've heard a lot of praise for Shamir specifically - are the others as valuable?

Ha, well with Brave weapons, things are a bit easier than they sound. I've also been farming Speed Carrots from the beginning, so my three main offensive units can generally handle themselves. Sylvain will always double anyway thanks to Swift Strikes, so I usually have my other units on standby and occasionally step in to finish off an enemy. I did have to restart Chapter 21 though. Right when you get near where Hubert is at the bottom of the Enbarr map, 5 reinforcements spawn on Enemy Phase if you don't take him out. Two of them are Dark Knights with +1 Black Magic Range, and Leonie got hit by both. I had no more Divine Pulses, and I seriously considered just going forward without her, but I ended up restarting anyway. Second time went better, and now I'm about to start Chapter 22. 

Some of the Faculty are good. The main issue that I see in NG is that your XP builds slowly, so all of the Level dependent Recruits join later. Units like Catherine and Shamir are still good, but Shamir's speed is probably not enough to double consistently like it was on Hard. I think they're better when you get them because they can replace any of your other units that haven't turned out well, but I'm not sure how well they scale into the late game as I didn't use any Faculty except for Seteth and Gilbert. 

Edited September 18, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[DefyingFates]

11 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

For BL specifically, Retribution is so important. This is just my anecdotal experience, but it felt like there were quite a few siege tomes in the final few chapters. It also synergizes really well with Dimitri's Battalion Wrath + Vantage combo that no one else has in the game. I do agree that offensive gambits are not nearly as good as they once were, but you need them for certain enemies like Petra (she had 130 something avoid in Chapter 21). Stride is still good though, especially on cavalry units.

Edit: I think Blessing is good too, at least on the final map. Edelgard can and will crit you from 32 tiles away, so having a guaranteed Miracle sounds useful.

Ha, well with Brave weapons, things are a bit easier than they sound. I've also been farming Speed Carrots from the beginning, so my three main offensive units can generally handle themselves. Sylvain will always double anyway thanks to Swift Strikes, so I usually have my other units on standby and occasionally step in to finish off an enemy. I did have to restart Chapter 21 though. Right when you get near where Hubert is at the bottom of the Enbarr map, 5 reinforcements spawn on Enemy Phase if you don't take him out. Two of them are Dark Knights with +1 Black Magic Range, and Leonie got hit by both. I had no more Divine Pulses, and I seriously considered just going forward without her, but I ended up restarting anyway. Second time went better, and now I'm about to start Chapter 22. 

Some of the Faculty are good. The main issue that I see in NG is that your XP builds slowly, so all of the Level dependent Recruits join later. Units like Catherine and Shamir are still good, but Shamir's speed is probably not enough to double consistently like it was on Hard. I think they're better when you get them because they can replace any of your other units that haven't turned out well, but I'm not sure how well they scale into the late game as I didn't use any Faculty except for Seteth and Gilbert. 

Thanks!

As for Battalion Wrath/ Vantage/ Desperation: is it difficult to get your Battalions into the right HP range without them being dismissed altogether? (Also, does a 0HP Battalion even trigger those abilities?)

P.S. What are the best ways to build Professor Rank besides fishing? Apparently some seeds give more EXP than others?

Edited September 19, 2019 by DefyingFates