Equippable Abilities Tier List

[Johnzin]

2 hours ago, dragontamer said:

I stand corrected. I forgot that. They need a little icon on the list to help me remember these things when I'm going through the list. Right, that was Claude's Battalion.

 

Still, that gives you Immortal Corps, Galatea Pegasus Co, Cichol, and  Golden Deer Wyvern Co. as good endgame battalions. So we're up to four endgame flying battalions in Claude's route, only one of which is C-authority. In either case, Serios Flying Co is hardly optimal and Alliance Pegasus Co. / Alliance Wyvern Co are also quite weak.

 

I'll give you four endgame-worthy flying battalions on Claude's route. Maybe five if I missed another one. Certainly not enough to make all your units flyers.

 

Recover from Byleth has more HP (30 base) than Gremory Dorthea's Physic (8 base), or even Bishop Lindheart (8 base + 10 class bonus) Physic. And Recover gets much, much better when you have Canto and 7 movement.

 

Recover makes a big difference over Heal and Physic. Its why a Bishop is still a relevant strategy (+10 heal and x2 white magic) is relevant for endgame, despite their pathetic 4 movement (so Bishop Lindheart probably will never contribute in combat: he's too slow to keep up with everyone).

 

Here are your two options.

1. Have endgame powerhouse mages (aka: Dorthea or Lysithea) heal you with Physic. This only heals maybe ~25 HP in my experience, I dunno the healing formula, but Physic has waaaayyyy less healing than Recover.

2. Realize that Byleth is perfectly acceptable Recovery user, albeit locked to 1 range. Heal ~38 HP in one turn, which is way more turn efficient, and remember that White Magic Avoid (+20) + Faith 5 (+20) + Jeralt's Mercinaries (+15) + Evasion Ring (+10) + 30 Speed == 95 Avoid, so Byleth can do this from the front lines and actually avoid-tank some hits on Enemy phase.

 

 

White Magic Avoid +20 (Byleth primarily) and Sword Avoid +20 (Dancer Ferdinand)

I find byleth healing situational at best, maybe if you need to heal someone up close in the front linesbecause your physic range is out.  But physics on a bishop with a healing staff (chap 9? And one earlier) makes them heal much more than 25. Even if you don't have a dedicated physic healer like lind/merci/marrie, lys and dorthea (who I assume you have as non bishops) has enough inventory space to carry one of those Ceth staff/Magic Staff/ Relic staff AND heal staff to increase when needed.

 

I think dancer Ferdie is a waste of potential, it requires him waste the dancer class or use a sword. He has swift strike and seal speed, I think Ferdie is a great character to have a dancer used on if Wyvern or Paladin, go in and Swift and canto out and do it again. Especially if you have effective weapon typing. I think neutering the dancer class just for this +20 Dodge is not an optimal usage

I think the same as your byleth tanking. Calculation-wise I think it can exist. But I'm on BL Maddening NG and byleth is definitely a requirement on the front lines with felix/Dimitri/dedue. And I assume much more so in GD and BE for not having strong early game characters. getting byleth to an A in swords to me was helpful in this mode with windsweep and being a sword master for a few chapters before EO. I'm going to keep him footlocked since I find sword weight very helpful in this mode EP. I think he's a great candidate for March ring and another ring since he owns the convoy and switch doesn't effect your movement for the turn. 

Wasting his potential on White magic makes it harder if you chose to go Peg/Brigand or Wyv later since you need those points. If you want darting or death blow, you need to train the rankings and get instructions for byleth from my experience (axe and lance). If you choose mounted /flying. That's even more points that I find worth in movement or no terrain effected movement. And these points are still needed to train other students for important bench marks for utility during the game volley/swift strike/deadeye, spells, skills and class changes.

I think training white magic for byleth can be useful only if you choose EO and do it with the excess points at the end. And just stick with swords, then maybe you can give up those two slots. Except probably get to S with crit 10, or vantage. I think EO > HK by far. The role of Byleth throughout the game is too crucial to waste on white magic Dodge tank than a better utility/damaging class. I'd even say EO only swords and mov +1 > EO white magic Dodge tanking.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Johnzin

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, dragontamer said:

White Magic Avoid +20 (Byleth primarily) and Sword Avoid +20 (Dancer Ferdinand)

Both of these have a lot of opportunity cost associated with them (you need to use 12 activity points to unlock Byleth's Powerup Letdown of a budding talent or choose Ferdinand for the White Heron Cup, which is likely suboptimal).

[dragontamer]

2 hours ago, Johnzin said:

I find byleth healing situational at best, maybe if you need to heal someone up close in the front linesbecause your physic range is out.  But physics on a bishop with a healing staff (chap 9? And one earlier) makes them heal much more than 25. Even if you don't have a dedicated physic healer like lind/merci/marrie, lys and dorthea (who I assume you have as non bishops) has enough inventory space to carry one of those Ceth staff/Magic Staff/ Relic staff AND heal staff to increase when needed.

 

I think dancer Ferdie is a waste of potential, it requires him waste the dancer class or use a sword. He has swift strike and seal speed, I think Ferdie is a great character to have a dancer used on if Wyvern or Paladin, go in and Swift and canto out and do it again. Especially if you have effective weapon typing. I think neutering the dancer class just for this +20 Dodge is not an optimal usage

I think the same as your byleth tanking. Calculation-wise I think it can exist. But I'm on BL Maddening NG and byleth is definitely a requirement on the front lines with felix/Dimitri/dedue. And I assume much more so in GD and BE for not having strong early game characters. getting byleth to an A in swords to me was helpful in this mode with windsweep and being a sword master for a few chapters before EO. I'm going to keep him footlocked since I find sword weight very helpful in this mode EP. I think he's a great candidate for March ring and another ring since he owns the convoy and switch doesn't effect your movement for the turn. 

Wasting his potential on White magic makes it harder if you chose to go Peg/Brigand or Wyv later since you need those points. If you want darting or death blow, you need to train the rankings and get instructions for byleth from my experience (axe and lance). If you choose mounted /flying. That's even more points that I find worth in movement or no terrain effected movement. And these points are still needed to train other students for important bench marks for utility during the game volley/swift strike/deadeye, spells, skills and class changes.

I think training white magic for byleth can be useful only if you choose EO and do it with the excess points at the end. And just stick with swords, then maybe you can give up those two slots. Except probably get to S with crit 10, or vantage. I think EO > HK by far. The role of Byleth throughout the game is too crucial to waste on white magic Dodge tank than a better utility/damaging class. I'd even say EO only swords and mov +1 > EO white magic Dodge tanking.

 

I appreciate your detailed response.

 

1. I will admit that "staff juggling" was a technique I wasn't aware of. But even then, Heal Staff ups Physic healing to 8+10, far away from Holy Knight Byleth's Restore + Canto (30 base). I don't know the magic healing formula, but it is less than 1-to-1 (maybe Mag/2 or Mag/3). Either way, Byleth's magic is respectable, so its unlikely that any Gremory can ever beat Byleth's Recover, even with +10 healing from equipment.  After all, Restore is basically +22 healing. A dedicated healer, such as Physic + Heal Staff + Bishop class == 28 base healing, but 4 movement is extremely bad.

 

2. Aside from your Bishop, I'd expect everyone you take to endgame to be a decent "powerhouse". "The Dancer" isn't supposed to be some weak character, there are enough good characters in the game that the dancer is going to be a downgrade. The question is therefore: not "is Dancer the best for this character", but "which of the endgame-worthy characters is best as dancer" ??

If you really want to be using Swift Strike still as Dancer Ferdinand: guess what? He still has it. He loses the 25 avoid while using Swift Strikes (-20 from losing Sword Avoid, and -5 from using Lance Proficiency instead of Sword Proficiency), but if you really need the Silver Lance + 2 might x2 hits on some speedy enemy, he's still got that (missing Lancefaire though).

 

3. Otherwise, the +20 Avoid from Dancer Ferdinand, +15 Personal, +20 Brigid Hunters, +10 Evasion Ring, +20 Sword Proficiency + 30 speed == 115 avoid (and totally available on a Brave Sword). Which means Ferdinand can playerphase (aka: Dance), and still dodge-tank on enemy phase. And why not, get 135 situation avoid with Axebreaker. Which means Ferdinand can be dancing on the front-lines, without having to worry about him being a liability: enemies still won't be able to hit him. Even 140 Hit assassins and 120 Hit + Swordbreaker Falcoknights only have 25 Hit (12.5% hit chance), let alone the typical 130-hit or 120-hit enemies. I don't think any other dancer candidate has such high avoid potential (especially if you expect to be using the Dance ability: so no Alert Stance is available).

 

4. Seal Speed should work as an enemy-phase tactic. Heck, it probably works better as enemy-phase: debuffing large groups of enemies before the rest of your team comes in and wreaks face.

 

Ferdinand's biggest liability is leveling up for +1 HP, losing his confidence. Otherwise, he's by far the best avoid-stacking candidate in the game, and therefore is likely the best enemy-phase dancer in the game.

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[Johnzin]

13 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

 

I appreciate your detailed response.

 

1. I will admit that "staff juggling" was a technique I wasn't aware of. But even then, Heal Staff ups Physic healing to 8+10, far away from Holy Knight Byleth's Restore + Canto (30 base). I don't know the magic healing formula, but it is less than 1-to-1 (maybe Mag/2 or Mag/3). Either way, Byleth's magic is respectable, so its unlikely that any Gremory can ever beat Byleth's Recover, even with +10 healing from equipment.  After all, Restore is basically +22 healing. A dedicated healer, such as Physic + Heal Staff + Bishop class == 28 base healing, but 4 movement is extremely bad.

 

2. Aside from your Bishop, I'd expect everyone you take to endgame to be a decent "powerhouse". "The Dancer" isn't supposed to be some weak character, there are enough good characters in the game that the dancer is going to be a downgrade. The question is therefore: not "is Dancer the best for this character", but "which of the endgame-worthy characters is best as dancer" ??

If you really want to be using Swift Strike still as Dancer Ferdinand: guess what? He still has it. He loses the 25 avoid while using Swift Strikes (-20 from losing Sword Avoid, and -5 from using Lance Proficiency instead of Sword Proficiency), but if you really need the Silver Lance + 2 might x2 hits on some speedy enemy, he's still got that (missing Lancefaire though). Otherwise, the +20 Avoid from Dancer Ferdinand, +15 Personal, +20 Brigid Hunters, +10 Evasion Ring, +20 Sword Proficiency + 30 speed == 115 avoid (and totally available on a Brave Sword). Which means Ferdinand can playerphase (aka: Dance), and still dodge-tank on enemy phase. And why not, get 135 situation avoid with Axebreaker. Which means Ferdinand can be dancing on the front-lines, without having to worry about him being a liability: enemies still won't be able to hit him. Even 140 Hit assassins and 120 Hit + Swordbreaker Falcoknights only have 25 Hit (12.5% hit chance). I don't think any other dancer candidate has such high avoid potential (especially if you expect to be using the Dance ability: so no Alert Stance is available)

 

Ferdinand's biggest liability is leveling up for +1 HP, losing his confidence. Otherwise, he's by far the best avoid-stacking candidate in the game, and therefore is likely the best enemy-phase dancer in the game.

1) 4 move is bad, but the 1/2*magic range really helps. It hard mode, yeah everyone is flying around and then the range may not be enough, but since everyone in maddening mode is moving so much less since positioning to live EP and kill on PP,  i think that movement gap is reduced. I think byleth shines with his great growths for a physical unit to take out dangers in the front line than heal someone in the front line. 

2) I agree with this, Ferdie is one of the characters that is being downgraded. He has more potential as a physical damaging unit. Paladin lancefaire 10 damage can mean alot. The -25 avoid isnt needed if you can kill enemy in one round. With a brave sword, unless hes a SM or assassin, he isnt going to have a faire. Swift strike works on any lance weapon, great for horse slayer/Assal/Indra. Increasing damage to get that ORKO without damage back is important. I think you can have a strong dancer, but I view the utility of a dancer not to be lowering a unit that could have great potential to be a power house to a dodge tank. Ferdie/Sylvain/Seteth/Cyril/Leonie have these brave weapon combat art that adds +2 damage too. Besides seteth, those 4 can have faires in that. That +14 damage prior to an enemy attack. 

Not every character is equal to make them all decent power houses. Characters have different utilities. Dancer allows those utilities to shine 2x a turn if needed. Swift Strike/Physics/Deadeye/warp/straight up just move again. I think dancer is an upgrade to some characters, but I do not think it is to Ferdie. 

Your dancer can be in the front line and not worry about getting hit, that how it should be anyways. Sure pass/siege tomes/snipers are going to be absurd but the game on Maddening seem to be about positioning your units to survive anyways.

 

 

[dragontamer]

26 minutes ago, Johnzin said:

I think byleth shines with his great growths for a physical unit to take out dangers in the front line than heal someone in the front line.  

Byleth has 45 STR growth and 45 Speed growth. Yes, this is "above average" but not "great" by my eyes. Dimitri, Ferdinand, Felix, Hilda, Caspar, Sylvain, Cyril, Catherine, and Seteth tie both stats (or better). While Edelgard, Claude, Petra, Ingrid, Leonie are side-grades. (Better in one stat, slightly weaker in the 2nd stat).

 

Byleth is really good when using the Sword of Creator. But otherwise, Byleth is kind of just average in the scope of other powerhouse physical units.

 

26 minutes ago, Johnzin said:

Increasing damage to get that ORKO without damage back is important

 

I mean, if you find a bush (+10% avoid), raising Ferdinand up to 125 Avoid on that build... full HP Thicket on that build is literally untouchable against a large number of endgame maddening units. Literally untouchable: there are some 115 hit great knights, 110-hit or 120-hit War Masters that literally cannot hit 125 Avoid. 140 Hit is relegated to the occasional assassin, and swordbreaker units (like Falcoknights).

 

Full-HP Dancer Ferdinand is literally immune to damage with just +10% bonus. That's a thicket, or player-phase +1 Linked Attack. Get +30% from 3x A-Support and Ferdinand avoid Skyrockets all the way to 145 and you're now talking about (player-phase) literal immunity to assassins and endgame bosses while procing Seal Speed.

 

Dancer Ferdinand stacks a lot of avoid.

 

26 minutes ago, Johnzin said:

Ferdie/Sylvain/Seteth/Cyril/Leonie have these brave weapon combat art that adds +2 damage too. Besides seteth, those 4 can have faires in that. That +14 damage prior to an enemy attack.  

 

I mean, you're practically making my argument for me. By your count, there are 4 characters (3 of whom are available on all routes) who can do the job of Swift-strikes or otherwise "player-phase forced 2x-attack +2 damage while wielding a Silver Weapon + **Faire bonus". But there is literally only one character (Ferdinand) who can reach 115 unconditional avoid while still having an effective player-phase (aka dancing: which is a poor mix with Alert Stance). Furthermore, Ferdinand's avoid-dance starts as soon as the White Heron Cup qualifies. He's doing this strategy pre-timeskip, while Alert-stance builds not only lose their player-phase, but need to wait all the way until A+ flying rank (which is probably post-timeskip).

 

EDIT: Pre-timeskip you're probably pushing +20 Sword Avoid, +13 (Swords C+ Proficiency), +15 Jeralt's Mercenaries (E-Authority), +10 Evasion Ring (steal rings from the 2nd mock battle), 15 Personal ability and maybe 15 Speed for 88 natural Avoid. It gets better as you get more resources later on, but this is a relevant avoid-strategy throughout the game.

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[Cysx]

12 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Byleth is really good when using the Sword of Creator. But otherwise, Byleth is kind of just average in the scope of other powerhouse physical units.

You'd think so, but they're really carried by their 13 Str base.

[Silly]

One thing to note is that Byleth's base strength is really high. Combined with the fact that Byleth gains extra exp and therefore will be a slightly higher level than everyone else (unless you intentionally spread exp evenly or favor another unit), Byleth is more than capable of being one of your better offensive units.

For example, Felix doesn't surpass Byleth in terms of strength until level 30, on average. He has a 10% higher Str growth, but three less points of base strength. Other units that many people consider "good", such as Ferdinand, Hilda, Sylvain, etc. will never really surpass Byleth in strength.

---------------------------------------

Also, in terms of efficient enemy phases, here is something that most people need to be aware of.

A unit does need to survive enemy phase to be good at enemy phase combat. But just because a unit can survive enemy phase does not instantly make them good at enemy phase combat.

For example, RD Shinon has some absurd base stats, and is actually incredibly good at tanking enemies. However, he is still pretty bad at enemy phase combat relative to the majority of your cast because his only 1 range offensive options are incredibly weak. If he was your only unit that could meet defensive benchmarks then he would begrudgingly be your best enemy phase unit. But given that you have other units that can also fight on enemy phase without dying, and can deal more damage in return, there is no reason to expose Shinon on most enemy phases, even if he would live.

Likewise, a big issue with people trying to dump resources into a unit like a dancer or a primary healer is... how often are you going to make use of those resources? Maybe my dancer can live through some fights on enemy phase, but how much damage are they going to be doing in return? If I am able, shouldn't I be positioning in such a way that my best damage units are getting the maximum amount of enemy phase combat that they can safely see?

[timon]

5 hours ago, dragontamer said:

Recover from Byleth has more HP (30 base) than Gremory Dorthea's Physic (8 base), or even Bishop Lindheart (8 base + 10 class bonus) Physic. And Recover gets much, much better when you have Canto and 7 movement.

 

Recover makes a big difference over Heal and Physic. Its why a Bishop is still a relevant strategy (+10 heal and x2 white magic) is relevant for endgame, despite their pathetic 4 movement (so Bishop Lindheart probably will never contribute in combat: he's too slow to keep up with everyone).

 

Here are your two options.

1. Have endgame powerhouse mages (aka: Dorthea or Lysithea) heal you with Physic. This only heals maybe ~25 HP in my experience, I dunno the healing formula, but Physic has waaaayyyy less healing than Recover.

2. Realize that Byleth is perfectly acceptable Recovery user, albeit locked to 1 range. Heal ~38 HP in one turn, which is way more turn efficient, and remember that White Magic Avoid (+20) + Faith 5 (+20) + Jeralt's Mercinaries (+15) + Evasion Ring (+10) + 30 Speed == 95 Avoid, so Byleth can do this from the front lines and actually avoid-tank some hits on Enemy phase.

OR 3. use an actual healer like everyone else? You've got Mercedes, Linhardt and Marianne, plus Flayn, why the hell would you ever need to heal with Byleth.

And no, heal+10 is NOT the reason Bishop is relevant, the reason Bishop is relevant is having ten uses of Physic. Heal amount doesn't really matter, just heal more often. Even less with Bishop, it'll never use a healing spell that isn't called Physic after turn 1.

I just don't get why I should put my best physical unit (aside from Edelgard and Dimitri) through white magic training to put them in some twisted avoid-healing frontline, when I can just put them on a Wyvern to literally annihilate anything or give them a bow and a horse and have them shoot stuff at 5 range and counter-attack everything thrown at them.

Also, "have endgame powerhouse mages heal you" (which you don't need to since you have dedicated healers and a dancer) is still better than using your most powerful unit to do so.

As a side note, stop hyping up the sword of the creator pls, it's useful for the occasional kill at best, but you're better off stacking forged brave and silver and call it a day. Especially if you've got bows.

[LegendOfLoog]

5 hours ago, dragontamer said:

White Magic Avoid +20 (Byleth primarily) and Sword Avoid +20 (Dancer Ferdinand)

Fair enough, but that doesn't change any of the issues with dodgetanking as a strategy that I laid out earlier. If these two units go this route, their damage will be pitiful. A Bow Knight can lure enemies just as effectively if not more so, especially if they have Deadeye, a Wrath + Vantage user can actually kill enemies that come at them, so dodgetanks aren't particularly important or necessary. It's just a wasted effort that could be put somewhere else for better results.

[dragontamer]

58 minutes ago, Silly said:

One thing to note is that Byleth's base strength is really high. Combined with the fact that Byleth gains extra exp and therefore will be a slightly higher level than everyone else (unless you intentionally spread exp evenly or favor another unit), Byleth is more than capable of being one of your better offensive units. 

For example, Felix doesn't surpass Byleth in terms of strength until level 30, on average. He has a 10% higher Str growth, but three less points of base strength. Other units that many people consider "good", such as Ferdinand, Hilda, Sylvain, etc. will never really surpass Byleth in strength. 

 

Felix has +10% speed growth over Byleth and +1 speed. Pre-battalions (which happen to be unusually more difficult than later maps...), Felix gets +5 from his personal (up against Jeralt's Mercinaries which starts at +1 might and caps off at +3 Might IIRC), so I'm going to give the overall win to Felix frankly. Byleth gets better in the midgame as better battalions come online, but then Felix's superior STR and Speed growths just take over from there on out.

Extrapolating over the Blue Lions: Dimitri, Felix, and Catherine (with a bit of abusive early-recruitment) will likely be physically stronger than Byleth. Byleth is certainly "good", but I wouldn't call him "best" or even "great". Whatever the #1, #2, or #3 enemy threats are, I've got the 3 characters who will probably deal with them better than Byleth.
 

44 minutes ago, timon said:

And no, heal+10 is NOT the reason Bishop is relevant, the reason Bishop is relevant is having ten uses of Physic. Heal amount doesn't really matter, just heal more often. Even less with Bishop, it'll never use a healing spell that isn't called Physic after turn 1. 

 

Speaking from experience: even normal mode enemies will out-damage the healing of Physic, especially Gremory Physic (lacking the +10 boost). You really want Healing Staff + Bishop + Physic to minimize the turns healing, and maximizing your killing.

 

15 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

A Bow Knight can lure enemies just as effectively if not more so, especially if they have Deadeye, a Wrath + Vantage user can actually kill enemies that come at them, so dodgetanks aren't particularly important or necessary. It's just a wasted effort that could be put somewhere else for better results.

 

You're one-shotting this guy with Wrath + Vantage? Even WITH a 3x Critical, you need 61-might (12 Silver Bow + 49 Strength) to one-shot him. And even then, that Miracle may cause an issue. Your Bow Knight also needs 34 AS or greater to not get quadruple-hit (that's a 55 Attack x4 Brave Sword) (EDIT: woops, I was reading speed stat. 34 AS, not 43 as initially reported)

 

 

Lol at 114 Hit though. Dancer Ferdinand is literally immune to him. 4x Attacks with 0% chance of hit is 0 hits.

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[Stroud]

13 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Fair enough, but that doesn't change any of the issues with dodgetanking as a strategy that I laid out earlier. If these two units go this route, their damage will be pitiful. A Bow Knight can lure enemies just as effectively if not more so, especially if they have Deadeye, a Wrath + Vantage user can actually kill enemies that come at them, so dodgetanks aren't particularly important or necessary. It's just a wasted effort that could be put somewhere else for better results.

I almost would recommend on getting Hit + 20. The Avo rate in Maddening of enemies is not to be underestimated. Overall I find the idea Tempting to sweep away enemies and archers with Retribution. Just that if you mention Wrath + Vantage. You just should not miss out there are some demerits compared to dodge tanking which are simply ignored.

Enemies in Maddening reach up from 60 - 70 Avo. Of course I would expect Lance to be the weapon of choice, because they can get around Sword users with high Avo thanks to Breaker. And they can still hit Axe users with Breaker skills well. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Stroud

[LegendOfLoog]

9 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

You're one-shotting this guy with Wrath + Vantage? Heck, he has miracle. Even 3x damage from a Silver Bow probably won't one-shot him.

Of course you're not. You should never gamble on one-shotting an enemy with Miracle anyway, even if it is possible.This is an example of where you would use a long-range unit like a Bow Knight to pull him toward you. Again, dodge-tanks are not necessary here.

Edit: @Stroud Yeah, that's one way to do it. Lances are also particularly favored here because of the Scythe of Sariel. It has 100 base Hit which is really high, so with Prowess skills, decent Dexterity, and potentially a Battalion, I think most lancers with this strategy can hit pretty reliably. Of course, the premier example here is Dimitri since he has it in the form of Battalion skills. I could maybe see a few other units pulling it off with a mixture of Battalion and non-Battalion versions of the skills, but he's the best example. I mostly brought it up to point out that dodge-tanking doesn't really do anything that other strategies cannot do in some way. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[Silly]

I would like to note that you can very easily dodgetank with a unit that isn't a dancer and therefore does more damage on enemy phase.

By stacking avoid, a generic 40 AS flier can hit 95 avoid pretty easily, boosted to 110 with Alert Stance and 125 with Alert Stance+. You get more avoid if you throw on Swordbreaker on top of that. You can also dismount for terrain bonuses if that is relevant.

A generic 40 AS ground unit can hit 95 avoid pretty easily as well while doing whatever on player phase. You can throw in breaker skills and terrain bonuses if that is relevant.

Ferdinand/Dimitri can get further bonuses on top of that by being at full HP.

Regardless, you do not need to be a dancer to dodgetank. If you really want a dodgetank, why not just use a class that does more damage back to the enemy when attacked?

------------------------------

Note that the resources required to be a good dodgetank are fairly limited, so you can probably only have 2-3 good dodgetanks per run. But they don't really need to be a dancer, any unit can do it.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Silly

[dragontamer]

1 minute ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Of course you're not. You should never gamble on one-shotting an enemy with Miracle anyway, even if it is possible.This is an example of where you would use a long-range unit like a Bow Knight to pull him toward you. Again, dodge-tanks are not necessary here. 

Cross Vantage+Wrath off your list of strategies in Maddening. If you need to tank a hit, you can't rely on Vantage + Wrath one-shotting enemies anymore. In any case, enemies tend to come at you in groups. You probably will need to have a consistent enemy-phase plan when the aggro group charges together into your units.

 

I mean, sure, Dodge-tanks aren't "necessary". But... its nice to have someone who is literally immune to these kinds of enemies. 115 Avoid Ferdinand is again, literally immune. So Ferdinand is a braindead easy way of handling that kind of enemy.

[Stroud]

17 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Edit: @Stroud Yeah, that's one way to do it. Lances are also particularly favored here because of the Scythe of Sariel. It has 100 base Hit which is really high, so with Prowess skills, decent Dexterity, and potentially a Battalion, I think most lancers with this strategy can hit pretty reliably. Of course, the premier example here is Dimitri since he has it in the form of Battalion skills. I could maybe see a few other units pulling it off with a mixture of Battalion and non-Battalion versions of the skills, but he's the best example. I mostly brought it up to point out that dodge-tanking doesn't really do anything that other strategies cannot do in some way. 

Ah, Scythe of Sariel. I keep it in mind for my next run. I might mix in one Wrath+Vantage user there as they could be really fun to use.

And I think that Wrath + Vantage is viable. They just need a good hitting Lance and in case of Armors a Hammer+ will do. The Hero is the exception with Miracle and Monsters which are not easily downed. Also same as Dodgetanks they need to beware of Gambits. But sometimes I feel we write like we would assume that others play braindead, which is simply not the case.  

I also think its viable in its way because it could help in saving turns on maps which wants you to route enemies. Even better if you get the Retribution Gambit. Which is a bit late sadly.

[dragontamer]

29 minutes ago, Silly said:

By stacking avoid, a generic 40 AS flier can hit 85 avoid pretty easily, boosted to 115 if you wait with Alert Stance+. You get more avoid if you throw on Swordbreaker on top of that. You can also dismount for terrain bonuses if that is relevant.

Dancer Ferdinand being immune to these units means that he's dancing on the front lines (or Gambit-ing), contributing to Player Phase. Alert-stance builds lose their player phase, which means no gambits, no rallies, no player phase attacks. Alert Stance is useful only for the "draw enemies in maneuver", which is helpful but there are many more situations where the high-avoid is needed.

 

Second: as soon as you need to deal with more than 1 weapon type (ex: Sword Hero + Gauntlet War Master), your "breaker" skills become useless. I think there's plenty of good opportunity to use "breaker" skills, but they simply aren't as reliable as a catch-all +20 avoid when holding a sword.

 

At a minimum, Dancer Ferdinand can be dancing on the frontlines, unafraid of any foe that comes near to him. In weird cases, he may even serve as primary lure as you can send him in deep with lots of avoid.

 

Quote

Note that the resources required to be a good dodgetank are fairly limited, so you can probably only have 2-3 good

dodgetanks per run. But they don't really need to be a dancer, any unit can do it. 

 

Dancer gives +20 Sword Avoid skill, the only skill that you can "slap" onto any unit in the game. This is by far the most limited "avoid" resource in the game. Your dancer should become a dodge-tank to take advantage of this incredibly rare resource. The only other "unconditional" avoid skill in the game is White Magic +20 avoid from Byleth and Dorthea's white magic. Dorthea seems like a bad idea, but I've been arguing for Holy Knight Byleth dodge-tank (useful for front-line Byleth healing duties).

 

All other resources are common. All fliers have +10 natural avoid and a natural path for Alert Stance. Evasion Rings can be bought from Anna's shop by endgame, and stolen from multiple enemies in the early game (pre-timeskip). +Evasion battalions are a dime-a-dozen:  Brigid Hunters, Jeralt's Mercinaries, Aegir Astral Knights, Opera Co. Volunteers, Gautier Knights, and more have +15% or +20% avoid Battalions. Immortal Corps is also a 15-avoid flying battalion, with Galatea Pegasus Co. okay at 10 Avoid (but flying)

 

11 minutes ago, Stroud said:

I also think its viable in its way because it could help in saving turns on maps which wants you to route enemies.

 

Hmm... I'll give you this point for sure. I guess "Poking" enemies and then delivering the final blow with Wrath + Vantage is turn efficient.

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[Stroud]

10 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Hmm... I'll give you this point for sure. I guess "Poking" enemies and then delivering the final blow with Wrath + Vantage is turn efficient.

You make it sound like 80%+ Enemies need to be poked before getting 1 hit by Wrath. Which is not true. You can clear most of the map with one shot if you have Wrath and Vantage on a unit with a fairly good Str it is enough. Even with Defense Blow Armors get 1 hit by Wrath + Vantage and a Hammer+. Of course you have to keep this in mind while playing such a strat.

Also with your logic it would mean that you would have to hit at least 3 times or more to sweep a unit in Playerphase.  

[dragontamer]

11 minutes ago, Stroud said:

You make it sound like 80%+ Enemies need to be poked before getting 1 hit by Wrath. Which is not true. You can clear most of the map with one shot if you have Wrath and Vantage on a unit with a fairly good Str it is enough. Even with Defense Blow Armors get 1 hit by Wrath + Vantage and a Hammer+. Of course you have to keep this in mind while playing such a strat.

Also with your logic it would mean that you would have to hit at least 3 times or more to sweep a unit in Playerphase.   

 

Armors are easy to one-shot. They have low speed, low RES, and specialized weapons that deal incredible damage to them.

 

And yes, I'm thinking 80% of enemies can't be one shot in Church Mode Endgame unless you have 48+ Str: https://imgur.com/a/YBRhYnc

I mean, take a look at this Gremory for goodness sake. You need 33 STR + Silver Lance+ x3 Critical to one-shot it (lets ignore Miracle). And Gremories have the lowest defense of all of the enemies.

 

 

Upgrade to a Sniper, and you need 43 Str to one-shot with Wrath+Vantage + Silver Bow. And apparently everyone has Miracle in this route's endgame.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[LegendOfLoog]

17 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Cross Vantage+Wrath off your list of strategies in Maddening. If you need to tank a hit, you can't rely on Vantage + Wrath one-shotting enemies anymore. In any case, enemies tend to come at you in groups. You probably will need to have a consistent enemy-phase plan when the aggro group charges together into your units.

I've completed Maddening in BL already, and at least in certain cases, the premier user of Wrath+Vantage in Dimitri is pretty close to meeting benchmarks. Enemy War Masters are by far the tankiest enemy on this route with 75 HP and 35 Protection. That means he needs 72 Atk with a crit to one shot them. With the King of Lions Corps, Lancefaire from his class, and a Scythe of Sariel, that means he only needs 47 Strength to kill every last one of them. He gets to around 40 Strength at Level 42 inherently through Cavalier ->  Paladin, and since Great Lord/Paladin gives 2 Strength, he is literally one point shy of outright killing them with a Rally Strength. I'm not considering the possibility of getting another Lancefaire even though I managed it on my playthrough without grinding, but it is something that can be done which makes this strategy possible without a Rally and zero stat-boosters. The main point here is that Wrath+Vantage is more than applicable to Maddening, and chances are any unit with it will be more useful than a dodgetank. 

Yes, enemies do come in groups generally. But as I've said, it is more than possible to lure them without using a dodge tank by attacking them from long range on a mount (Bow Knights/Dark Knights with Thrysus will work here). My consistent enemy phase strategy without Wrath+Vantage? Fight as little as possible there. It's not like the Dodge tanks you're mentioning are doing much there either, and either way, the main point where you'll  deal damage is on Player Phase. This is unchanging regardless of the strategy, but Bow Knights happen to be more useful than the typical dodgetank on Player Phase. I'm really not seeing the draw of dodgetanks if they don't particularly succeed at anything that another strategy doesn't already excel at. 

[dragontamer]

I was rereading your post (and the post that previously was here), and noticed my numbers don't match up. I'll come back once I study the damage formulas again.

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[LegendOfLoog]

53 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

I was rereading your post (and the post that previously was here), and noticed my numbers don't match up. I'll come back once I study the damage formulas again.

I'll just list out how I calculated it. Physical Attack is Strength + Weapon Mt + possible Effective damage + Abilities +/- Battalions + potential Combat Art. In this case, effective damage and combat arts are irrelevant, so what I'm really looking at is his Strength, Weapon Mt, Abilities, and Battalion. Since War Masters have 75 HP and 35 Prt at level 50, Dimitri needs to deal 75 damage in total. If you divide that by 3, he needs to deal 25 damage pre-crit to one round here. Since the enemy has 35 prt, his Attack actually only needs to be 60. I miscalculated earlier and actually made it appear harder, lol. So in that case, 10 Atk King of Lions Corps + 10 Weapon Mt from Scythe + 5 Mt Lancefaire means he only needs 35 Strength to one round here. As I showed earlier, that's more than doable by the time he reaches endgame, so it's actually significantly easier to pull off than my last post stated.  

Edited September 23, 2019 by LegendOfLoog

[dragontamer]

25 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

I miscalculated earlier and actually made it appear harder, lol.

 

Okay, that's where I was messing up. Because it was coming in way easier and I didn't want to give you "freebie points" unless I knew for certain the math was right.

 

25 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

So in that case, 10 Atk King of Lions Corps + 10 Weapon Mt from Scythe + 5 Mt Lancefaire means he only needs 35 Strength to one round here.

 

Cool. That matches my math and is easier than what I was saying earlier. +10 Atk from a battalion really helps and +5 from Lancefaire is also very relevant. Note that this is only with a Crit-proc, so its somewhat unreliable, but Dimitri only needs to kill "enough" enemies to survive enemy phases for it to be an effective strategy.

[LegendOfLoog]

5 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Cool. That matches my math and is easier than what I was saying earlier. +10 Atk from a battalion really helps and +5 from Lancefaire is also very relevant. Note that this is only with a Crit-proc, so its somewhat unreliable, but Dimitri only needs to kill "enough" enemies to survive enemy phases for it to be an effective strategy.

Ah, but the reason it's so good is because it's reliable. Scythe and Killer Lance+ give 30/35 Crit respectively, and they both have 10 Mt. King of Lions Corps gives 15 Crit. Battalion Wrath gives +50 Crit when your battalion has <= 1/3 HP. That's basically 100 Crit right there without even considering his Dex/Lck stats or a Crit +10 Skill. The crit formula is Weapon Crit + (Dex + Lck) / 2 + Abilities + Battalions - Enemy Luck as far as I know. He has around 30 Dex and 16 Lck at Level 42 by going Cavalier -> Paladin -> Great Lord. Enemies have at most 30 Lck in the BL endgame. If you also consider Lance Crit +10, then you're left with this Critical calculation:

• 30/35(Lance) + 15(KOL Corps) + 50(Wrath) + 23(Dex+Lck/2) + 10(Crit +10) - 30 = 98/103 Crit

I'll also note that the Fraldarius Soliders Battalion gives 20 Crit instead, so in exchange for losing 3 Physical Attack, you actually can guarantee that he will crit every single enemy with both Lances. The great thing about Dimitri is that he really lives up to the "kill every last one of them" meme because he actually can do it. He doesn't need to take any damage at all because he has guaranteed kills on every enemy during Enemy Phase. Granted, Dimitri is the extreme example here, and he's only on one route, but I think this demonstrates that Wrath + Vantage is actually a pretty solid strategy overall. 

[dragontamer]

31 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Ah, but the reason it's so good is because it's reliable. Scythe and Killer Lance+ give 30/35 Crit respectively, and they both have 10 Mt. King of Lions Corps gives 15 Crit. Battalion Wrath gives +50 Crit when your battalion has <= 1/3 HP. That's basically 100 Crit right there without even considering his Dex/Lck stats or a Crit +10 Skill. The crit formula is Weapon Crit + (Dex + Lck) / 2 + Abilities + Battalions - Enemy Luck as far as I know. He has around 30 Dex and 16 Lck at Level 42 by going Cavalier -> Paladin -> Great Lord. Enemies have at most 30 Lck in the BL endgame. If you also consider Lance Crit +10, then you're left with this Critical calculation:

• 30/35(Lance) + 15(KOL Corps) + 50(Wrath) + 23(Dex+Lck/2) + 10(Crit +10) - 30 = 98/103 Crit

I'll also note that the Fraldarius Soliders Battalion gives 20 Crit instead, so in exchange for losing 3 Physical Attack, you actually can guarantee that he will crit every single enemy with both Lances. The great thing about Dimitri is that he really lives up to the "kill every last one of them" meme because he actually can do it. He doesn't need to take any damage at all because he has guaranteed kills on every enemy during Enemy Phase. Granted, Dimitri is the extreme example here, and he's only on one route, but I think this demonstrates that Wrath + Vantage is actually a pretty solid strategy overall. 

 

The units I posted earlier have Proficiency 5 weapons (-10 Crit).

 

EDIT: I see you already factored in Luck. I'll have to double-check to see if anything was missed.

 

EDIT2: I don't really like the idea of relying on S-Rank Crit+. Not only does this come online super-late, but it requires a lot of investment to get to S-rank, investment I'd rather spend in other stuff (Ex: Authority ranks or anything else really). War Master gets +20 Crit however, although there's no axe with the same +100 Hit that the Scythe can do. I'll pretend your numbers are on a War Master candidate (Caspar, Alois, Cyril), but your point otherwise stands, albeit with a slight +Hit deficiency compared to the Scythe. Worst case scenario, +20 Hit isn't too hard to grab (just dip a few dozen combats + Knowledge Gem on Archer somewhere in the training path)

Edited September 23, 2019 by dragontamer

[Cysx]

24 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

If you also consider Lance Crit +10

But you probably shouldn't. Especially considering it's Dimitri we're talking about, spoilers, etc.