I'm struggling on chapter 17 this time... (Blue Lions route)

[Anacybele]

I'm honestly ready to give up because I don't see any way around the problems I've run into. But I'd hate to quit now and never get that Sylvain x Byleth ending that I stupidly failed to get in my Golden Deer run.

What happens is I'm attacked by Claude's group at the same time Edelgard sets the damn hill on fire and so all of a sudden I'm taking more damage than usual. And then Leonie comes in and poisons AND immobilizes a couple of my units with her battalion right after. I was using a strategy similar to what I did in the GD route. Focus on Edelgard's crew and taking over the hill first and then go for the other enemies afterward. I guess that doesn't work quite as well here for whatever reason... I didn't have much trouble in the GD route.

Maybe it's that Claude is stupid good with his ridiculous range and good stats? And I certainly didn't expect Leonie to come in packing such an annoying battalion. Or Hilda to be able to one-hit KO anyone I sent against her directly. I took her down with ranged attacks due to this.

I still think Petra is an unfair enemy with her extremely high avoid. Taking her out is pure damn luck and that's dumb in a game that's supposed to be strategy. I could've just recruited her early in the game, I suppose, but I've never really cared to recruit many people to my party outside of what I start with or automatically gain later. This time I decided to get Cyril and Catherine, that's it. Anyway, I actually got lucky this time and had a gamble pay off with Ashe sniping Petra with a critical hit via killer bow. But I won't always be lucky.

Thing is, I don't at all remember Edelgard setting the hill on fire in my GD run. Maybe she did but at the time, I had no one on the hill and so I didn't really pay attention? Or I just for some reason forgot entirely... My memory hasn't been what it used to lately, so...

Another thing, I'm a bit overleveled this time. So I don't get why I'm struggling. Overleveling should make things easier, right? So what's the deal? And I play normal/classic (I don't want to go casual, I'm used to classic after playing FE for ten years now and I like it that way). I'm not an expert at FE. But I don't believe I suck either, I like to say I'm more middle of the pack. Not really good, but not bad either. I believe TH is a very hard game, harder than even RD (and I found that one hard too), so it discourages me when I see others say it's easy. Maybe it's easy for them... But surely I'm not the only one that has a hard time, right?

Oh yeah, I also have to note that I don't have a dancer because I screwed myself out of getting one (for the second time too... I know, it's ridiculous). Flayn was supposed to become my dancer, but she was KO'd right before the contest, right at the end of Catherine and Ashe's paralogue. I couldn't use Divine Pulse because it was enemy phase of the final turn and since I'd still cleared the map, I just didn't want to start it all over. That map was fairly challenging (though not frustratingly so). I now question why players can't use Divine Pulse in the kind of situation I ended up having. It's dumb imo. 😕

And speaking of which, yes, I did try Divine Pulse in chapter 17 after a couple units went down, one of which was Byleth. But I didn't see any solution here without having to go back several turns, and at that point, I might as well just restart the chapter completely. Here's a rundown of my units and their levels and classes (I don't have the game open, so I can't give stats and stuff, I don't know all that off the top of my head).

Spoiler

Dimitri - Great Lord lv. 32
Byleth (female) - Enlightened One lv. 31
Sylvain - Great Knight lv. 33
Ashe - Wyvern Lord lv. 34
Ingrid - Falcon Knight lv. 31
Felix - Mortal Savant lv. 30 (I know his best class is probably Bow Knight, but I hadn't yet tried out Mortal Savant and Felix happened to have a good chance of passing the test for it)
Annette - Sage or Warlock, can't remember which for some reason, lv. 30
Dedue - Fortress Knight lv. 29
Mercedes - Bishop lv. 27
Gilbert - Fortress Knight lv. 30
Catherine - Swordmaster lv. 29
Cyril - Bow Knight lv. 30

I could be off by a level on one or more of these guys, but I got it very close here, I know that.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Anacybele

[Lightcosmo]

I can say that picking Claude off early works well for me. Dimitri's prf art should handle that easily, in Normal mode. I recommend simply leaving Edelgard's team alone, and focusing on Claude overall. Besides Petra, The BE units are pretty weak if memory serves. That's always worked for me, and mind you i'm not the greatest at Fire Emblem either. I'm sure others have better strategies than me, though.

[DarthR0xas]

Without your character stats, there isn't too much I can say about the issues you're going through. I've beat the map on both Hard and Maddening with only a little difficulty, and I generally am pretty rubbish at FE.

16 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I still think Petra is an unfair enemy with her extremely high avoid. Taking her out is pure damn luck and that's dumb in a game that's supposed to be strategy.

Sure but she's also pretty dang weak. One or two shots will easily kill her. And she won't do too much back, around 15 damage at most. Also, everything is basically pure luck, it's how you use that luck to your advantage. Divine Pulse doesn't change the RN values used, so you can use that to your advantage. If a character misses, just rewind and have another character with a higher hit chance go, or end turn and have the enemy miss instead.

19 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Thing is, I don't at all remember Edelgard setting the hill on fire in my GD run.

You might've circumvented the exact squares she does it in, I can confirm she does do it on GD route.

20 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I believe TH is a very hard game, harder than even RD (and I found that one hard too), so it discourages me when I see others say it's easy. Maybe it's easy for them... But surely I'm not the only one that has a hard time, right?

I mean, no you aren't the only one having a hard time, that's just pure statistics going on. But generally, 3H is an absurdly easy game provided you know what you're doing, or even if you don't.

21 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I now question why players can't use Divine Pulse in the kind of situation I ended up having. It's dumb imo.

I'm honestly not sure why Divine Pulse can't be used in the enemy phase, other than that it generally increases difficulty. However I do think it's good because then you have to see everything the enemy does, so then you can get more info for one use of Divine Pulse.

23 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

But I didn't see any solution here without having to go back several turns, and at that point, I might as well just restart the chapter completely.

Not always, sometimes it really only was one small move that you can easily alter, and on the longer maps you really don't want to restart, going back several turns is easily better.

24 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Dimitri - Great Lord lv. 32
Byleth (female) - Enlightened One lv. 31
Sylvain - Great Knight lv. 33
Ashe - Wyvern Lord lv. 34
Ingrid - Falcon Knight lv. 31
Felix - Mortal Savant lv. 30 (I know his best class is probably Bow Knight, but I hadn't yet tried out Mortal Savant and Felix happened to have a good chance of passing the test for it)
Annette - Sage or Warlock, can't remember which for some reason, lv. 30
Dedue - Fortress Knight lv. 29
Mercedes - Bishop lv. 27
Gilbert - Fortress Knight lv. 30
Catherine - Swordmaster lv. 29
Cyril - Bow Knight lv. 30

First, Sage isn't even a thing in 3H, so rest assured your Annette is a Warlock.

Second, those are some, interesting class picks. I notice three of your units had a heavy armor focus, those being Sylvain, Dedue, and Gilbert. Generally, this is bad. You want to focus Sylvain down a more flier/cavalry based route, Dedue down a more fist/axe based route, and Gilbert down to the bench.

Felix, eh, not horrible. Mortal Savant is an awful class, but if you want to use it, go ahead. I'd honestly say stick with Assassin, or go down fists for him.

Ingrid should be a wyvern lord, not a Falcon Knight, she needs the strength boost to do passable damage.

 

As for the strategy, if you're really struggling then taking it slow is the best option. Divide your force in two, with a light force on the left and your main force on the right. Claude's force is easily the harder of the two, so use those tanky units for tanking and baiting. After you bait out most of Claude's forces, and pick off what you can of Edels, then you move down. If you're confident in your fliers, you could send them to take out whoever holds the center. If you wait long enough, sometimes the forces pick off each other. I've gotten Petra killed by Claude's forces once, which basically neutors the BE side.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's a reasonably tough map for sure.

Check your batallions and make sure you're happy with the gambit attacks they provide. As a particular recommendation, the King of Lions batallion (it might still be on Dimitri if you haven't moved it) provides two shots of extremely decisive gambit attacks which can get you out of tough situations by immobilizing large groups of enemies. If it's not on Dimitri, make sure it's on someone else with high charm.

Claude is a tough cookie but his big weakness is that he can't counter at more than 3 range (he doesn't actually have the Counterattack skill like most other plot-important bosses). If you can enhance a mage's range with Thyrsus or Caduceus they can take free shots at him. Your Bow Knight can also do this, but at far lower accuracy.

Whether it's better to charge up the hill or go around the right side to aim for Claude first is something which depends on the party; if you've failed at one approach, maybe try the other.

Too late to recommend now but in general I would suggest recruiting a good mage/healer from another house because only having two can hurt, especially on a map like this where I feel like you both want healers to patch you up and mages to take down trouble units like Claude and Hilda effectively at range.

1 minute ago, DarthR0xas said:

I mean, no you aren't the only one having a hard time, that's just pure statistics going on. But generally, 3H is an absurdly easy game provided you know what you're doing, or even if you don't. 

Comments like this are utterly unhelpful (and not true IMO, but that's neither here nor there). The topic creator is finding it hard, that's all that matters here.

[-Cynthia-]

An easier way to take out Petra is to hit her with a gambit first (her Charm is not that high), which should lower her Avo significantly.

[Anacybele]

27 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

I can say that picking Claude off early works well for me. Dimitri's prf art should handle that easily, in Normal mode. I recommend simply leaving Edelgard's team alone, and focusing on Claude overall. Besides Petra, The BE units are pretty weak if memory serves. That's always worked for me, and mind you i'm not the greatest at Fire Emblem either. I'm sure others have better strategies than me, though.

Claude's party is pretty far away compared to Edel's though, and I always need to take care of Bernadetta asap because she and her ballista are basically right in my face at the start.

21 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Without your character stats, there isn't too much I can say about the issues you're going through. I've beat the map on both Hard and Maddening with only a little difficulty, and I generally am pretty rubbish at FE.

Pff, sure could've fooled me.

22 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Sure but she's also pretty dang weak. One or two shots will easily kill her. And she won't do too much back, around 15 damage at most. Also, everything is basically pure luck, it's how you use that luck to your advantage. Divine Pulse doesn't change the RN values used, so you can use that to your advantage. If a character misses, just rewind and have another character with a higher hit chance go, or end turn and have the enemy miss instead.

Yeah, and the problem is, I CAN'T hit her easily at all.

22 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

You might've circumvented the exact squares she does it in, I can confirm she does do it on GD route.

So it's only certain squares that trigger that if your units wait on them? That's weird.

23 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

First, Sage isn't even a thing in 3H, so rest assured your Annette is a Warlock.

Second, those are some, interesting class picks. I notice three of your units had a heavy armor focus, those being Sylvain, Dedue, and Gilbert. Generally, this is bad. You want to focus Sylvain down a more flier/cavalry based route, Dedue down a more fist/axe based route, and Gilbert down to the bench.

Felix, eh, not horrible. Mortal Savant is an awful class, but if you want to use it, go ahead. I'd honestly say stick with Assassin, or go down fists for him.

Ingrid should be a wyvern lord, not a Falcon Knight, she needs the strength boost to do passable damage.

I don't want to change any of the classes I have now. Great Knight and Falcon Knight are my favorites. Great Knight Sylvain helped carry my team in my GD run along with Claude. And I'm best at walling stuff with tanks. I'm not really fond of armors, but Dedue and Gilbert have been a big help in baiting non-magic enemies. And even if I did want to change some classes, I couldn't anyway because my units don't have the required ranks.

Also, I never gave Felix Assassin. He was a Swordmaster beforehand.

27 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

As for the strategy, if you're really struggling then taking it slow is the best option. Divide your force in two, with a light force on the left and your main force on the right. Claude's force is easily the harder of the two, so use those tanky units for tanking and baiting. After you bait out most of Claude's forces, and pick off what you can of Edels, then you move down. If you're confident in your fliers, you could send them to take out whoever holds the center. If you wait long enough, sometimes the forces pick off each other. I've gotten Petra killed by Claude's forces once, which basically neutors the BE side.

That's exactly what I do, I take it slow. As for dividing my forces in two, I tried that in the GD route the first time around and it didn't work at all. Focusing only on one side first worked.

You can't send fliers to take the hill. Bernadetta is on a ballista and is an archer. She'll kill them easily.

[Fire Flower]

Remember that the center area only gets lit on fire if you kill Bernadetta and make Petra retreat.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Fire Flower

[DarthR0xas]

 

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

That's exactly what I do, I take it slow. As for dividing my forces in two, I tried that in the GD route the first time around and it didn't work at all. Focusing only on one side first worked.

It worked on Golden Deer, doesn't mean it'll work every time. If you're struggling super hard, just form a protective formation at the top and let the two sides kill each other.

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

You can't send fliers to take the hill. Bernadetta is on a ballista and is an archer. She'll kill them easily.

Stride is a thing, so is Bernie missing. She had around 27 hit at best on my fliers if I recall. This is why you use wyverns, who have avoid enhancing abilities. Ashe should have it, Alert Stance? Just wait in the trees, should give him enough avoid, and he should be in range to hit her. If he isn't he should at least be out of Ballista range

Just now, Fire Flower said:

Remember that the center area only gets lit on fire if you kill Bernadetta and make Petra retreat.

That's how that works? I thought you just waited on it. Learn something new every day.

[Anacybele]

21 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

It worked on Golden Deer, doesn't mean it'll work every time. If you're struggling super hard, just form a protective formation at the top and let the two sides kill each other.

I can't do that either, Claude's party doesn't move at first. It looked like they only move once you kill some of the BE people.

21 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Stride is a thing, so is Bernie missing. She had around 27 hit at best on my fliers if I recall. This is why you use wyverns, who have avoid enhancing abilities. Ashe should have it, Alert Stance? Just wait in the trees, should give him enough avoid, and he should be in range to hit her. If he isn't he should at least be out of Ballista range

Okay, though that means I have to send others into Bernadetta's range to deal with the armors, otherwise Ashe is at mercy of them as well.

23 minutes ago, Fire Flower said:

Remember that the center area only gets lit on fire if you kill Bernadetta and make Petra retreat.

I did that in my GD run too, I still don't remember the hill being lit up then... I guess I didn't pay attention after all or something.

[arem]

The hill can be a trap on this one.  I actually don't now what makes Edel set it on fire, and sometimes she just forgets.  If it happens, It slows you down (at least if you are not all fliers) and sticks your right in between Edel and Claude's forces, whihc is right where you don't want to be.  It counter intuitive, but I find it easy to fight both armies at once around the two bridges which cross the little river.  The balista can be somewhat ignored if you keep you squishy units out of the way.  It should not be able to do anything to your armored classes.  Try to have them engage the enemy armors while you softer units hang back. Just remember to have something for Hilda when she appears

Dodgy units are a pain in this game.  I think the natural counter is archers fighting at pretty close range.  It looks like Cyril is your only bow character.  Does he have the hit plus 20 skill?  It can help.  Mages also usually have better than normal hit so you might want to try Annette.  I also think the Gambit formula has different accuracy mechanics so that might be another solution.

Don't be afraid to really go back in time with the divine pulse.  I have had to have go back two or three whole turns just to undo a move that has worked out poorly.  You don't have to just restart.

[Shadow Mir]

37 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Yeah, and the problem is, I CAN'T hit her easily at all.

Try hitting her with a gambit first - it'll drop her avoid significantly (rattled units lose the bonuses granted from their battalions). That being said, someone warning me about this made me decide that I'd always recruit her just so she's out of my hair (though if you know me well enough, you'd see that coming a mile away).

Edited October 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Anacybele]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Try hitting her with a gambit first - it'll drop her avoid significantly (rattled units lose the bonuses granted from their battalions).

Okay, I could do that. I tend to forget gambits exist, honestly...

[Ari Chan]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 That being said, someone warning me about this made me decide that I'd always recruit her just so she's out of my hair (though if you know me well enough, you'd see that coming a mile away).

I thought the game will just replace Petra with a generic assassin that has the exact same stats if you recruit her before the war phase?

[Modirufa6317]

Best way to deal with Petra is to bait her into attacking a tank, so she doesn't get her alert stance buff, then spam combat arts : the accuracy bonus they provide is usually enough to get the job done. If not, then swordbreaker (and in worse case, gambit her) should do the trick.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

I thought the game will just replace Petra with a generic assassin that has the exact same stats if you recruit her before the war phase?

It does. The generic shouldn't be able to be as evasive, though. Unless the generic still has the same Battalion that she does, which shouldn't be the case.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Diovani Bressan]

Chapter 17 in BL route was not hard for me... it was pretty easy, actually.

Instead of going throgh the middle, I went to to the empire's side, directly to Edelgard. When I was near her, Claude decided to get close, who was a mistake because he was easily taken down by my mages and archers.

[Hero_Lucina]

Who's your dancer?

[Shadow Mir]

2 minutes ago, Hero_Lucina said:

Who's your dancer?

She doesn't have one - it'd have been Flayn, except she lost her on the last turn of Ashe and Catherine's paralogue.

[Karimlan]

11 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Also, I never gave Felix Assassin. He was a Swordmaster beforehand.

Might be a little late for this, but if you plan to redo the BL route later on, a C in Bows is all it takes on the other side of the Assassin requirements to get Felix on that class. Since you had Felix specialize in Swords, you have that part of the Assassin requirement down pat (the class only requires B in Swords IIRC).

Edited October 31, 2019 by Karimlan

[Anacybele]

2 hours ago, Hero_Lucina said:

Who's your dancer?

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

She doesn't have one - it'd have been Flayn, except she lost her on the last turn of Ashe and Catherine's paralogue.

This... And I stated in the OP that I didn't have a dancer.

1 hour ago, Karimlan said:

Might be a little late for this, but if you plan to redo the BL route later on, a C in Bows is all it takes on the other side of the Assassin requirements to get Felix on that class. Since you had Felix specialize in Swords, you have that part of the Assassin requirement down pat (the class only requires B in Swords IIRC).

Yeah, I'm aware. I might give it to him later.

[Ottservia]

One strategy I did was basically focus Edelgard by just funneling my entire army to the left and having a light force act as a sort of wall to keep the alliance at bay. It takes a good while for the alliance army to get all the way over to where you’re at(especially if the hill was lit on fire by Edelgard) which gives you enough time to pick off the empire’s troops as the alliance slowly advances towards you. Then I basically baited Claude with a tank and finished him with Byleth or Dimitri and that’s the clear.

[Hero_Lucina]

On 10/31/2019 at 10:21 AM, Anacybele said:

This... And I stated in the OP that I didn't have a dancer.

I didn't see that. My bad

[Dandy Druid]

This chapter took me 2 tries, mainly because I didn't want to kill my precious Golden Deer even though it really doesn't affect the game afterwards. I went after the Black Eagles first, and I had my main group charge the center while I had Dimitri (High Lord) and Ashe (Bow Knight) go to the right and take out the units over there. I went on the hill and killed the sniper, but I got off on it as quickly as I could. Edelgard doesn't set it on fire unless Bernie (or generic sniper) and Petra (or generic assassin) are taken out, so I waited until all my units were off of it to take out Petra (which I used a battalion and then my gauntlet wielding Sylvain to knock her out). Edelgard then sets in on fire and no one is on it. After defeating the first beast, I have Dimitri rush to Edelgard to threaten and attack her. Meanwhile the GD army is charging from behind, but the enemy AI is dumb af and climb the burning hill. Since so many of them are trying to get on at the same time, the nasty ones (Leonie and Hilda) are slowed down by the generics to actually move forward. Since Claude can fly, he was the first one to reach me. Raphael also got through somehow, but he isn't scary as an enemy as Ignatz, Leonie, and Hilda are. I then had Dimitri take him out using his exclusive combat art and he managed to crit. This battle was so dumb when the "great strategist Claude" lead his army to get trapped on a burning hill and having to fight an army all by himself.