A question about Mortal Savants

[wolffssegner]

So, I'm prepping for my Blue Lions run of the game, and an unrelated question hit me.

Some context for this: ever since they debuted, Tricksters have been my favorite class. The utility and flavor just really appeal to me, so naturally, the Mortal Savant does as well. However, I really only assumed that they could use Reason, and not Faith. Does anyone know if they can, in fact, use Faith magic?

[Arachnofiend]

Mortal Savants, as with all magic classes in this game, can use any magic; they only get black tomefaire though so your options for who works as a Mortal Savant are very limited. Ignoring that MS is kind of just a bad class, Byleth, Manuela, and Marianne all do a good job of it. Lysithea and Edelgard would be fine choices in theory but their spell lists are full of dark magic which MS doesn't give any bonuses to.

I think if you really want to run a Mortal Savant the best choice is Marianne. Of the characters who can do it at all, she's the only one who has legitimate arguments for it given her relic and crest.

[Fire Flower]

Mortal Savant has some really awkward skills and growths that make it work against itself and becomes a class that doesn't really excel either physically or magically. Perhaps the most inexplicable thing about the class is -10% speed growth; although growths don't really matter that much by the time you get to master classes, it's still particularly jarring.

It has Swordfaire and Black Tomefaire, but most swords in the game aren't as good as lances and axes to begin with, and ignores dark magic users completely. It also has 6 move, which is the highest out of all infantry classes, shared with War Master and Assassin.

It loses a flat 4 speed compared to Assassin, a similar Advanced class that utilizes swords but is purely physical. In a game where getting doubled is the difference between a kill and getting killed, Mortal Savant already loses out to Assassin in pure physical strength. Yes, MS has more strength/magic bonus, but it doesn't mean much if you're getting doubled.

Most of MS's other bonuses are similar to Dark Knight. However, Dark Knight also comes with Canto and Dark Tomefaire, and has one extra move over it (assuming no cavalier movement debuff). In terms of pure magic strength, Dark Knight pretty much is a better Mortal Savant.

Mortal Savant just ends up a class that can do anything, but doesn't excel at anything either. Its only perk is that it's the easiest Master class to get into, by far, only needing an A sword and a B+ reason, respectively. Enlightened One is similar in which that it's a class that doesn't specialize in anything, so Byleth is highly encouraged to class into something that is more specialized to fully utilize their skills as a unit.

(Side note: Mortal Savant, Enlightened One, and Dancer are the only magic-using classes that can use Gauntlets.)

Edited October 20, 2019 by Fire Flower

[Flere210]

I honestly don't understand the obsession over what amount to -1 speed at level 40. It comes at the end of a tree that largely emphasized speed, so you should be able do double everything outside of Maddening anyway and if you don't you either got screwed badly or chosen the wrong unit. The speed penalty imo is there to avoid making mortal savant strictly better than swordmaster because 1 mov and magic are pretty big advantages. 

Few character do well innit mostly because pure swordsman are better in swordmaster or assassin and hybrid are usually better as dark knight.

It may work on Byleth but suffer competition whit enghlitened  one, and whit Marianne but then you need a different healer on VV and the only edge over DK is Blutbang.

It's a very "master of none" class that is almost always surpassed by assassin or dark knight, but using it won't cripple your units.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mortal Savant is somewhat appealing for characters who have a magical sword combat art. Since Hexblade and Soulblade have a higher might than spells, they can output a bit more peak damage, although at the cost of only being range 1. I find it kinda appealing on Lysithea since she additionally gets Swordfaire Levin Sword+ which has 1-3 range without the need for Thyrsus/Caduceus (Dorothea and Marianne already have Thoron), though as mentioned Lysithea loses out on Dark Tomefaire that way. I'm less a fan of Dorothea in it because Dorothea really wants a second shot of Meteor (and thus Gremory/Warlock). Marianne should do well in it on paper. Manuela could be an interesting one too, though the bane in Reason makes it tougher of course.

I've seen people make the case for Felix but honestly, most of what the class offers, Felix can get just by picking up a Levin Sword+ of his own (setting aside that I think Felix is better-suited to drop swords entirely).

It's almost certainly nobody's best class but it's an interesting enough option for a few people.

[Arachnofiend]

I had pretty good success with Marianne as a Mortal Savant; it was a Hard mode run so eh but being able to one shot monsters with Beast Fang was fun. Marianne has a weird issue where she seems to get all of the most inaccurate Reason spells... well into the game I was still seeing her put up some unpleasant 60-70% accuracy numbers. Being able to just use a sword instead helps with that quite a bit.

[EricaofRenais]

My F!Bayleth ended up as Mortal Savant every one of my playthroughs, but it is not a class for everyone and she is the only unit I wanted to have as that class.

[The Roger The Paladin]

12 hours ago, wolffssegner said:

So, I'm prepping for my Blue Lions run of the game, and an unrelated question hit me.

Some context for this: ever since they debuted, Tricksters have been my favorite class. The utility and flavor just really appeal to me, so naturally, the Mortal Savant does as well. However, I really only assumed that they could use Reason, and not Faith. Does anyone know if they can, in fact, use Faith magic?

Ironically I used Felix in the class in my first playthrough. It did admittedly save a ton on repairing weapons by using fire and Thoron, and he could heal units in a pinch. Would I have been better off with him as an assassin? Most likely. That said, he contributed to the end... mostly because of a certain shield.

[Rezzy]

Mortal Savant seems to continue the proud traditional of subpar hybrid classes.  I'm making Felix one just to try it out, but very few units have the growths and strengths to be able to pull this off very well, and for master classes, being a mounted class (e.i. Dark/Holy Knight) is far more appealing.

[Basileus777]

22 hours ago, Flere210 said:

I honestly don't understand the obsession over what amount to -1 speed at level 40. It comes at the end of a tree that largely emphasized speed, so you should be able do double everything outside of Maddening anyway and if you don't you either got screwed badly or chosen the wrong unit. The speed penalty imo is there to avoid making mortal savant strictly better than swordmaster because 1 mov and magic are pretty big advantages. 

Few character do well innit mostly because pure swordsman are better in swordmaster or assassin and hybrid are usually better as dark knight.

It may work on Byleth but suffer competition whit enghlitened  one, and whit Marianne but then you need a different healer on VV and the only edge over DK is Blutbang.

It's a very "master of none" class that is almost always surpassed by assassin or dark knight, but using it won't cripple your units.

It's not one speed though.  Mortal Savant immediately costs you 4 speed if you're moving from assassin.  Even Swordmaster has 3 more speed, though Swordmaster is a poor endgame class too. 

 

The inherent problem with Mortal Savant is hybrid classes are only potentially useful for giving utility spells to physical attackers, but utility spells are mostly faith based, and not enough people have spell lists and skills strengths that lend themselves to the class.   There's just not much of a reason to want to use attack spells as a physical unit when bows and magical weapons can be used in any class and do the job better.  Why would Felix ever want to use his bad spell list when he has a bow strength?  Mortal Savant is just far worse for him than sniper or assassin.  It's only characters like Manuela, Marianne, and Ingrid that are offered anything by Mortal Savant, and even they just have better classes to be in. 

 

[Fire Flower]

Enlightened One seems to be a faith-focused Mortal Savant class, and it has similar skills, bonuses and growths to that class, so I'm wondering why people think Enlightened One is good while Mortal Savant is bad. I'd say the same arguments apply in this case as well, but since Byleth has very good growths overall, with a decent reason and faith spell list, he/she can pretty much class into anything just fine, and is thus one of the best users of EO/MS. I'd still rather put Byleth into something like Assassin or Dark Knight depending on my build, however.

Wyvern Lord Byleth still trumps all, but that's because it's Wyvern Lord. Who wouldn't wanna use that class?

Edited October 21, 2019 by Fire Flower

[Basileus777]

31 minutes ago, Fire Flower said:

Enlightened One seems to be a faith-focused Mortal Savant class, and it has similar skills, bonuses and growths to that class, so I'm wondering why people think Enlightened One is good while Mortal Savant is bad. I'd say the same arguments apply in this case as well, but since Byleth has very good growths overall, with a decent reason and faith spell list, he/she can pretty much class into anything just fine, and is thus one of the best users of EO/MS. I'd still rather put Byleth into something like Assassin or Dark Knight depending on my build, however.

Wyvern Lord Byleth still trumps all, but that's because it's Wyvern Lord. Who wouldn't wanna use that class?

Well Enlightened One is free, not locked to level 30+, and has better stats and growths across the board.   It's better than Mortal Savant in every way except for black tomefaire and 4 extra damage on Byleth's poor black magic spells aren't that big of a deal.  The class is kind of wasted on Byleth though, it'd be great for someone like Manuela who actually has better spells to cast in a hybrid class.  Byleth having no utility spells and only boring regular range attack spells makes him/her a poor fit for using a hybrid class. 

 

Byleth's base stats lean heavily towards using that high strength, Byleth is better with a bow than using magic.  And Warmaster or Sniper are better classes for Byleth too, it's not just the flyers.

Edited October 21, 2019 by Basileus777

[Tediz64]

3 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

with a decent reason and faith spell list, he/she can pretty much class into anything just fine, and is thus one of the best users of EO/MS. I 

I just mainly want to contest this point only. Byleth has always given me the impression that he/she was a back up mage in case you let all your better ones die. And only if you are desperate for a magic dealing damager. I mean hybrid classes have never been my cup of tea so maybe I'm just being extra harsh. 

But seriously, at least 10 other people and more either copy Byleths faith or reason spell list and if you want to assert that is a good mage, than people like Dimitri and Dedue can be made mages. And we know they good for that path. They only slight edge Byleth has is the fact that his magic growth is pretty mediocre and he has no skill bane's plus a boon in faith.

Let's look at this reason list. We can already minus one for him/her not having Meteor or Bolting (even though they made it look like this was gonna be a heavy fire user). Another minus for no 3 range Thoron. Another minus for not crit magic like the wind or ice spells. So he/she has the most basic plain spells here. 

Faith is even more awful. Out of the offensive stuff he got the pretty tame Aura instead of Abraxas and despite for plot reasons you'd think he'd be good at beating monsters he didn't even get Seraphim. Let's look at this support spells. Just....plain....God.... horrendous! No warp, rescue, or any of the two ranged healing (physic or fortify). They didn't even at least give him/her Ward or Restore. All Byleth can do is heal standing next to a person. 

I played mage once and never again. It's just not worth it. Better abilities make Byleth more gear toward being flying or horse back. If an infantry class is gonna be used then the more bearable one for Byleth is Assassin or War Master. If I need magic damage I'll just use a magic variant weapon. That's my 2 cents on this though. I feel others make better mages. I'm dumbfounded they didn't give us another utility spell. At least make us a little better than other people. I would have even settled for Ward. 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Tediz64

[Shadow Mir]

18 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

Enlightened One seems to be a faith-focused Mortal Savant class, and it has similar skills, bonuses and growths to that class, so I'm wondering why people think Enlightened One is good while Mortal Savant is bad. I'd say the same arguments apply in this case as well, but since Byleth has very good growths overall, with a decent reason and faith spell list, he/she can pretty much class into anything just fine, and is thus one of the best users of EO/MS. I'd still rather put Byleth into something like Assassin or Dark Knight depending on my build, however.

Wyvern Lord Byleth still trumps all, but that's because it's Wyvern Lord. Who wouldn't wanna use that class?

Personally, my issue with Mortal Savant is that it requires a focus on Swords and Reason, a combination which very few characters (Edelgard, Dorothea, Lysithea, Felix, Ignatz), have good proficiencies in, and even fewer have spell lists that are good for it (out of those I listed, I can immediately eliminate Lysithea, Felix and Ignatz, the former because her dark spells aren't boosted by Black Tomefaire, and the latter two because their spell lists are not that good; Felix only gets two spells, and Ignatz gets three, with his last spell coming at A rank). Which leaves Edelgard and Dorothea, the former of whom has the same issue Lysithea has, and the latter gets a spell with only 1 use in Meteor.

Personally, I wouldn't be using Wyvern Lord Byleth because it requires too much effort to get there, especially if you prefer to play as a male, in which case your only flying classes are Advanced tier or higher (only Seteth and Manuela can train them in Flying, and that means that at least 8 explore sessions are needed just to get the Flying rank you need to qualify for Wyvern Rider).

23 hours ago, Rezzy said:

Mortal Savant seems to continue the proud traditional of subpar hybrid classes. 

XD

[dragontamer]

The biggest fault of Mortal Savant is the low class bonus for speed.

 

Swordmaster and Assassin are somewhere around +5 speed, but Mortal Savant was somewhere around  +1 speed. So you basically lose 4 speed just switching over to MS, on top of the -10% speed growth (so another 1-ish speed lost by endgame). In contrast, you could turn into a Wyvern Lord (+4 speed) or FalcoKnight (+5 speed), which is part of the reason why those flying classes are considered overpowered in this game.

Edited October 21, 2019 by dragontamer

[Dandy Druid]

Mortal Savant is a weird class. It sounds good on paper but ultimately it's kind of a weird class. It's nobody's best class. Plenty of characters (more than the ones listed) can turn out decently by going this class route, but most people are better off becoming a Dark Knight or Gremory if they're a magic user. 

However, I am thinking of making Ignatz one my next playthrough since he seems to have a strangely high magic growth. I would go down the swordmaster route though. His magic will be good for situations where it may be more useful to do damage instead.

I also wonder how Ferdinand would be as a Mortal Savant. He learns 4 spells, including Thoron, so it may not be a bad idea to take him down this route. Again, not his best (because literally every other master class and most advanced classes exist).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I made my Lysithea one after she mastered Assassin. She regained her spell list, which was nice, although Black Tomefaire does nothing for her. It's good if you want a spellcaster with good movement, but don't want to invest heavily in riding. Or if you have a sword unit whom you want spell utility on (like, Ignatz getting Physic).