Silver Snow maddening team

[EnlightenedOne]

Hi everyone! I have played through all four routes on hard and I have just completed Azure Moon on maddening. I was looking to play Silver Snow next because I heard it's among the hardest maddening routes and I would like to challenge myself. When I did my team building today, I noticed that my team was unusually axe and bow focused and was looking for suggestions to balance things out.

In my proposed team, Ferdinand and Petra end up as Wyvern Lords, Byleth(M) as War Master (tried War Master in Azure Moon and in the lategame it served me really well), Bernadetta as Bow Knight, Linhardt as Holy/Dark Knight, Dorothea as Gremory. I haven't decided on who I'll recruit yet. Likely the safe picks like Lysithea (gremory), Leonie (bow knight) and/or Felix (bow knight). I don't plan to use Caspar since he was not great in hard mode. As it is, pretty much every physical unit is an axe or bow main, and I'm worried this will make my team vulnerable to the breaker skills (and effective damage). Does anyone have suggestions on classes for the mentioned characters that give me some more variety?

[EdgeOfDreams]

Dorothea as Mortal Savant or Pegasus/Falcon Knight can make excellent use of Levin Sword+ for range and a Silver Sword+ comboed with Hexblade for big hits.

Because Ferdinand has Strengths in Sword, Lance, and Axe, it's entirely possible to qualify him for Wyvern Lord and still have enough ranks in Sword or Lance to use those weapons effectively. If you want to get really crazy and don't mind not having a dancer, Wyvern Lord Ferdinand with Alert Stance+, Sword Prowess, Sword Avoid +20, and an Evasion Ring is silly fun as a dodge tank.

[FoliFF]

If you planning to keep the inhouse students you could try and make Petra into Falcon Knight or Assassin instead for WL. I'll try this out next time since for a dedicated mage killer/dodge tank since I found my Petra WL serviceable yet lackluster. I would at least suggest try out War Master Caspar but I have to agree he is very slow burn and needs a lot to grow before. If nothing else make him into a def adjutant for which is really helpful against enemy follow ups. Another possibility is to make Felix into War Master instead since he has proficiency in brawling. Or go into Mortal Savant for shit and giggles.

edit: Also get Catherine and make her into Falcon Knight is also a possibility if you want another flyer.

Edited October 9, 2019 by FoliFF

[Stroud]

If you go for Silver Snow you are kind of forced to make good use of Caspar until you get the timeskip chapter done. So I wouldn't ignore him in the first half on the game and at least try to make something good of him. 

Also for Berni I find Fighter > Cavalier > Paladin > Bowknight  better instead of the Archer line. While Cavalier hurts her speed a bit I think the Sniper line cripples her even more in stats. Also with some luck you can try to set up Vengeance. But that depends on her HP growth. I think the best is too look how good her HP growth has been until lv 10 and then decide what you go for. If you had almost no HP growth with her it will be really difficult.

[Ari Chan]

20 minutes ago, Stroud said:

If you go for Silver Snow you are kind of forced to make good use of Caspar until you get the timeskip chapter done. So I wouldn't ignore him in the first half on the game and at least try to make something good of him. 

Also for Berni I find Fighter > Cavalier > Paladin > Bowknight  better instead of the Archer line. While Cavalier hurts her speed a bit I think the Sniper line cripples her even more in stats. Also with some luck you can try to set up Vengeance. But that depends on her HP growth. I think the best is too look how good her HP growth has been until lv 10 and then decide what you go for. If you had almost no HP growth with her it will be really difficult.

Caspar is going to lag behind your other BE units even if he goes Wyvern Rider/Lord,  I think OP should build up his Sword + Flying rank and make him a Dancer, Alert Stance + Sword Avo + Sword Prowess + Ok-ish defense stats should be enough for him to run around dancing without dying and you can continue using him post chapter 13. 

Bernie's most likely not going to double anything on Maddening even if she doesn't go Cavalier/Paladin lol, however I wouldn't wanna miss out on hit rate + 20 and Hunter's Volley since both are pretty essential if you want her to have any kind of ORKO potential mid-late game. So imo go Fighter > Archer > Sniper if you want your Bernie to actually kill stuff without having to rely on Brave Bow which is rare if you're not doing a NG+ run.

13 hours ago, EnlightenedOne said:

Hi everyone! I have played through all four routes on hard and I have just completed Azure Moon on maddening. I was looking to play Silver Snow next because I heard it's among the hardest maddening routes and I would like to challenge myself. When I did my team building today, I noticed that my team was unusually axe and bow focused and was looking for suggestions to balance things out.

In my proposed team, Ferdinand and Petra end up as Wyvern Lords, Byleth(M) as War Master (tried War Master in Azure Moon and in the lategame it served me really well), Bernadetta as Bow Knight, Linhardt as Holy/Dark Knight, Dorothea as Gremory. I haven't decided on who I'll recruit yet. Likely the safe picks like Lysithea (gremory), Leonie (bow knight) and/or Felix (bow knight). I don't plan to use Caspar since he was not great in hard mode. As it is, pretty much every physical unit is an axe or bow main, and I'm worried this will make my team vulnerable to the breaker skills (and effective damage). Does anyone have suggestions on classes for the mentioned characters that give me some more variety?

Linhardt's final class should be Bishop not Dark Knight, White Magic x2 and White Magic Heal + 10 are much better than Black Tomefaire since his Reason spell list is mediocre, 4 mov shouldn't be a problem because healing will be his main job and Physic has more than enough range to cover most of your units.

Make sure to promote Petra to Pegasus Knight first for Darting Blow, she is one of the very few unit in BE that can double constantly with that skill equipped and she will turn into a powerhouse later on with enough investment. Her main weapon should still be Sword imo because Sword Prowess gives her additional avo so she can dodgetank more reliably.

 

 

 

[Stroud]

59 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Caspar is going to lag behind your other BE units even if he goes Wyvern Rider/Lord,  I think OP should build up his Sword + Flying rank and make him a Dancer, Alert Stance + Sword Avo + Sword Prowess + Ok-ish defense stats should be enough for him to run around dancing without dying and you can continue using him post chapter 13. 

Bernie's most likely not going to double anything on Maddening even if she doesn't go Cavalier/Paladin lol, however I wouldn't wanna miss out on hit rate + 20 and Hunter's Volley since both are pretty essential if you want her to have any kind of ORKO potential mid-late game. So imo go Fighter > Archer > Sniper if you want your Bernie to actually kill stuff without having to rely on Brave Bow which is rare if you're not doing a NG+ run.

On Cavalry path Berni does not need to double hit, which is why I said that you need to look how good her HP growth has been until Lv 10. If her HP growth is well she can reliably kill with Vengeance and Training Lance, maybe stronger weapons depending on the Enemy. Poison Strike Archers also make it easier for her to get into killing range with Vengeance. unequipping the weapon and equipping a Shield can also help here.

Just abuse Canto and Vengeance and she can kill way earlier before getting Hunter Volley. I often showed of my Berni which I made on my Maddening New Game Silver Snow run, her engine started at chapter 6. And that because I delayed her Lance profession. 

The only quite big downside I see is Silver Snow Endgame which has Miracle running around. At this point you are at the grace of luck with Vengeance Setup. 
Hunter's Volley is a way to go its not essential for her to OHKO, at least Berni has more than this to offer.
While Cavalry needs good HP growth, if you don't have any luck with Str growth Hunter Volley will not help you in any way to archive this. Cavalry even helps compensating Str/HP growth a little more. While Archer does not help her 35% Str growth at all.  And in trade of giving her HP stat boosters you can spare Speed Carrots for others which need it more. 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Stroud

[EnlightenedOne]

14 hours ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

Dorothea as Mortal Savant or Pegasus/Falcon Knight can make excellent use of Levin Sword+ for range and a Silver Sword+ comboed with Hexblade for big hits.

Because Ferdinand has Strengths in Sword, Lance, and Axe, it's entirely possible to qualify him for Wyvern Lord and still have enough ranks in Sword or Lance to use those weapons effectively. If you want to get really crazy and don't mind not having a dancer, Wyvern Lord Ferdinand with Alert Stance+, Sword Prowess, Sword Avoid +20, and an Evasion Ring is silly fun as a dodge tank.

Mortal Savant Dorothea sounds like the better of the two, given her strength in swords and her weakness in flying. Do you reckon Dorothea's strength is high enough to pull Mortal Savant off?

How tempting as that dodgetank Ferdinand build sounds, I don't think I'm willing to sacrifice my dancer. Even without the sword avo, he still should be decently evasive with the skills and ring, so I think I will go with that.
 

3 hours ago, Stroud said:

If you go for Silver Snow you are kind of forced to make good use of Caspar until you get the timeskip chapter done. So I wouldn't ignore him in the first half on the game and at least try to make something good of him. 

Also for Berni I find Fighter > Cavalier > Paladin > Bowknight  better instead of the Archer line. While Cavalier hurts her speed a bit I think the Sniper line cripples her even more in stats. Also with some luck you can try to set up Vengeance. But that depends on her HP growth. I think the best is too look how good her HP growth has been until lv 10 and then decide what you go for. If you had almost no HP growth with her it will be really difficult.

I probably worded it a bit poorly, I was planning to use Caspar until timeskip because azure moon chapter 13 slaughtered my ignored units. I will try to make him at least passable by timeskip, but from my previous experience he's not great long-term material. I will take your advice on Bernadetta. If she can survive a hit or two, her vengeance art could make her an early glass cannon.

2 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

Caspar is going to lag behind your other BE units even if he goes Wyvern Rider/Lord,  I think OP should build up his Sword + Flying rank and make him a Dancer, Alert Stance + Sword Avo + Sword Prowess + Ok-ish defense stats should be enough for him to run around dancing without dying and you can continue using him post chapter 13. 

Bernie's most likely not going to double anything on Maddening even if she doesn't go Cavalier/Paladin lol, however I wouldn't wanna miss out on hit rate + 20 and Hunter's Volley since both are pretty essential if you want her to have any kind of ORKO potential mid-late game. So imo go Fighter > Archer > Sniper if you want your Bernie to actually kill stuff without having to rely on Brave Bow which is rare if you're not doing a NG+ run.

Linhardt's final class should be Bishop not Dark Knight, White Magic x2 and White Magic Heal + 10 are much better than Black Tomefaire since his Reason spell list is mediocre, 4 mov shouldn't be a problem because healing will be his main job and Physic has more than enough range to cover most of your units.

Make sure to promote Petra to Pegasus Knight first for Darting Blow, she is one of the very few unit in BE that can double constantly with that skill equipped and she will turn into a powerhouse later on with enough investment. Her main weapon should still be Sword imo because Sword Prowess gives her additional avo so she can dodgetank more reliably.

You're right about Linhardt. 2x physic should work better than a mount. Also making Petra's main weapon a sword sounds good, since she will rely on dodging mostly. Making Caspar a dancer is a really good idea for chapter 13 and beyond.

I have an additional question for those who finished NG instead of NG+, do you get the mastery skills for the master classes on your strongest units typically? I did my Azure Moon maddening run on NG+ so getting quick riposte for war master Dedue wasn't a problem, but I will play Silver Snow on NG, and I am not sure if Byleth will reach class mastery in time for the final few chapters (where quick riposte would come in handy most). If it's not likely to master war master without enemy abusing, I might have to reconsider Byleth's class.

[Jingle Jangle]

What are some strategies for completing chapter 13? Not having Edelgard makes things difficult in addition with the majority of the BE students being fragile against the high AS thieves.

[EdgeOfDreams]

On 10/10/2019 at 6:44 AM, EnlightenedOne said:

Mortal Savant Dorothea sounds like the better of the two, given her strength in swords and her weakness in flying. Do you reckon Dorothea's strength is high enough to pull Mortal Savant off?

Her Strength score doesn't matter for Mortal Savant. She could have zero Strength and still make the build work well enough. When she's attacking with a Levin Sword or Hexblade, her Magic stat is used for the damage calculation. Since Hexblade is a Combat Art, she won't be doubling anyway, so the weight of the sword doesn't matter. The class path for this build is most likely Monk -> Mage (master for Fiendish Blow) -> Warlock or Bishop -> Mortal Savant, so she never needs to spend time in a class where her Strength score matters.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Going Mortal Savant instead of Warlock/Gremory costs you a second shot of Meteor which from my experience is a pretty big loss, especially since once you're out you no longer have access to the free linked attack/gambit boost within range 10-13. I don't think the slightly higher range-1 magical damage makes up for that (Silver Sword+ Hexblade is 20 mt vs Agnea's Arrow at 16), though it's not a bad build or anything.