Jump to content

Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions


Recommended Posts

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to figure out my dancer for this run. I’m currently using the Lions + Byleth, Lysithea for magic nuke potential, and Lindhart as an extra healer/physic user. I used Flayn in my first run, Golden Deer, but I don’t really have room for her this time around.

I was thinking about Ingrid because she’s got enough charm already and at level 14 with 11 strength she is my weakest unit of all the ones I’m actually using but I know she has the potential to become an awesome Falcon Knight and I don’t want to miss out on that or lose my dancer late game. 

I was also thinking about Slyvain because again more than enough charm and kinda mediocre with 13 strength. I didn’t have much success with him in my Golden Deer run either but he had really nice synergy with Leonie so I still fielded him a fair amount as a paladin.

I also really don’t want to drop any of the Lions on account of chapter 13. It gave me enough of a run for my money on hard, having dropped a strength screwed Raphael and mostly phasing out Ignatz in favor of Felix.

Thanks for any advice!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 119
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I made Annette a dancer, she was so behind in levels because I abused her rallies early on and didn’t feed her kills, the 4 mov also made it impossible for her to catch up to rally my powerhouse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your dancer really should be a house member that you are planning on not using long term (I chose Ingrid in my run since I wanted to try Rallybot Wyvern Lord Annette), their combat doesn't really matter since they are dancing like 90% of the time. I found having a Dancer makes the dreaded Chapter 13 a bit more manageable too

Edited by Lunarly
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd pick Anette or Ashe given they come in early in the dreaded Chapter 13 (the other two are Mercedes, your main healer, and Gilbert, who you can't adjust pre-skip) and their combat tends to be shaky (Anette can be good with the right setup though). Ingrid is an option too, if her Strength is lagging.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Ivan Tridelan said:

I'd pick Anette or Ashe given they come in early in the dreaded Chapter 13 (the other two are Mercedes, your main healer, and Gilbert, who you can't adjust pre-skip) and their combat tends to be shaky (Anette can be good with the right setup though). Ingrid is an option too, if her Strength is lagging.

I was planning on Bow Knight Ashe because the Blue Lions desperately need someone with good movement and range and Annette's rallies are really useful but I guess the Special Dance skill would replace at least rally speed which is the most useful and it would give Ingrid a chance to recover. Thanks! If anyone has any other ideas or advice let me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, sunshinescj said:

I was planning on Bow Knight Ashe because the Blue Lions desperately need someone with good movement and range and Annette's rallies are really useful but I guess the Special Dance skill would replace at least rally speed which is the most useful and it would give Ingrid a chance to recover. Thanks! If anyone has any other ideas or advice let me know.

Felix and Dimitri are both fairly easy to make Bow Knights if you plan on it from the start (Felix has strength in bows, Dimitri has strength in riding; C rank weapons are so trivial to obtain its barely worth mentioning, though Dimitri does have strength in lances) and they are both *very* good at being bow knights.  Annette is fairly easy to make a wyvern rider/lord, which makes her a useful flying rally bot. 

It's best to move up towards the top first anyway where Ashe & Gilbert spawn (If you don't move Annette or Mercedes at all, you can actually keep them safe for relatively long).  You can also make sure to put impregnable wall battalion on Mercedes to help ensure their survival if somehow you trigger an enemy into moving towards them (Annette can be used as the bait).  If Gilbert is pretty useless but he can at least soak a move or two while you & Dimitri make your way up to pick up your dancer Ashe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When choosing a dancer it's also interesting to look at their potential to become a dodgetank as they get sword avoid +20.

BL with sword proficiencies are Dimitri, Felix and Ingrid.

All 3 of them also have a high speed growth and would be decent as physical dodgetanks.

Dimitri and Ingrid also have high charm growth to avoid enemy gambits more often.

Ingrid and Felix also have decent luck growth to sometimes also avoid magic attacks. (Though I don't think you should rely on dodging these)

Ingrid also has a proficiency in flying and makes for a good pegasus knight before becoming a dancer. With a good flying skill she can learn Alert Stance and Alert Stance+ which are absolutely great for dodgetanking.

 

In conclusion: Ingrid has by far the easiest time becoming a dancer-dodgetank in the BL house

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You definitely do not want to give up having an actual dancer just to get the +20 sword avoid for dodge tanking.  Dance lets your strongest units go twice every turn - a feature that is not replaceable via any other means; at best you'll have to settle for a one-use dance gambit (which can hit 4 characters, but that's a far cry from getting to dance a character every single PP).  Getting the avoid necessary for dodge tanking is fairly simple without using the +20 sword avoid - you realistically don't really need more than 1-2 dodge tanks, which can easily be built with any good wyvern lord with an evasion ring, Alert Stance/Alert Stance+, the relevant weapon prowess, and knowing how to  gardening speed carrots (or just resetting the relevant DLC auxiliary map until you get the speed carrot in Part 2, if you're playing with the DLC).  And of course you'll need to make sure said flier has good charm stats as well so you aren't wrecked by gambits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're making someone a dancer, make sure to give them a knowledge gem to get special dance asap, those extra stats on dance is really nice and stacks with rallies as well. Having sword prowess alongside avo+20 makes you a decent dodge tank and if your dancer has decent mag they can be strong with a levin sword(+). Having some levels in reason or faith can be useful as well if necessary, just to have support/healing options available. After that, going for authority ranks for battalions, riding ranks for mov+1, or flying ranks for alert stance(+) are all options you can take.

Out of all the Blue Lions members, I'd probably make Annette my dancer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

If you're making someone a dancer, make sure to give them a knowledge gem to get special dance asap, those extra stats on dance is really nice and stacks with rallies as well. Having sword prowess alongside avo+20 makes you a decent dodge tank and if your dancer has decent mag they can be strong with a levin sword(+). Having some levels in reason or faith can be useful as well if necessary, just to have support/healing options available. After that, going for authority ranks for battalions, riding ranks for mov+1, or flying ranks for alert stance(+) are all options you can take.

Out of all the Blue Lions members, I'd probably make Annette my dancer.

Yeah, I went with Annette. Unfortunately, I didn't get the knowledge gem because I barely scraped by in Sothis' paralogue trying to get it done in time. It was an all hands on deck situation and I couldn't afford to send anyone to grab it. I'll have to see if I can save all the crest stones in the later mission. It was a reward if I remember correctly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, sunshinescj said:

Yeah, I went with Annette. Unfortunately, I didn't get the knowledge gem because I barely scraped by in Sothis' paralogue trying to get it done in time. It was an all hands on deck situation and I couldn't afford to send anyone to grab it. I'll have to see if I can save all the crest stones in the later mission. It was a reward if I remember correctly.

Holy Tomb fight just before time skip. IIRC you can't let anyone escape, or VERY few people who steal the crest stones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My criteria for dancing prioritizes a couple of things

1. Is that unit a native member of the house I chose? I want my dancer to be available on as many maps as possible. Specifically, Chapter 13 is a concern outside of CF.

2. Will the loss of that unit's player phase contributions in exchange for dancing be felt?

3. Does that unit have a strength in Riding? More of a bonus really but Movement +1 is something very much worth considering for the long run.

For Azure Moon, I think Ashe is the best fit.

>Annie is the best rallybot in the game. Rallies compete with dancing for your player phase action.

>Mercie is your main healer. She'd rather use her player phase for Physic.

>Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid are really good combat units.

>Dedue isn't available for quite a few chapters. He's also weak in Riding if you care about Movement +1.

>Flayn has Rescue utility and isn't available on the dreaded chapter 13. She's also weak in Riding if you care about Movement +1.

Ashe strikes me as the odd man out, when it comes to combat he's just alright, and someone like Cyril can do what he does, maybe even better. His unique player-phase trait is locktouch, but keys are so inexpensive he may as well not have a personal skill. I don't think you lose much by making him a dancer, since the rest of your class wants to be doing other stuff. He's just neutral in riding though, but it's better than being weak in it!

As a bonus, my dancer picks for other routes are Bernie (CF/SS) and Lorenz (VW).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Jakkun said:

My criteria for dancing prioritizes a couple of things

1. Is that unit a native member of the house I chose? I want my dancer to be available on as many maps as possible. Specifically, Chapter 13 is a concern outside of CF.

2. Will the loss of that unit's player phase contributions in exchange for dancing be felt?

3. Does that unit have a strength in Riding? More of a bonus really but Movement +1 is something very much worth considering for the long run.

For Azure Moon, I think Ashe is the best fit.

>Annie is the best rallybot in the game. Rallies compete with dancing for your player phase action.

>Mercie is your main healer. She'd rather use her player phase for Physic.

>Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid are really good combat units.

>Dedue isn't available for quite a few chapters. He's also weak in Riding if you care about Movement +1.

>Flayn has Rescue utility and isn't available on the dreaded chapter 13. She's also weak in Riding if you care about Movement +1.

Ashe strikes me as the odd man out, when it comes to combat he's just alright, and someone like Cyril can do what he does, maybe even better. His unique player-phase trait is locktouch, but keys are so inexpensive he may as well not have a personal skill. I don't think you lose much by making him a dancer, since the rest of your class wants to be doing other stuff. He's just neutral in riding though, but it's better than being weak in it!

As a bonus, my dancer picks for other routes are Bernie (CF/SS) and Lorenz (VW).

Personally, I'd avoid using someone that I'm unlikely to be using over the long term, which Ashe and Lorenz both are. It doesn't help that the latter has really bad charm (funny thing is, Claude insists he is a good choice, but not when he has only 3 base charm and a growth that ain't nearly high enough to make up for it!), and for that matter, so does the former (5 base isn't that bad, but tying for the second lowest growth in said stat REALLY doesn't help his case). Long story short, both of them are Not. Bloody. Likely. to win even with the bonus charm from dance practice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I'd avoid using someone that I'm unlikely to be using over the long term, which Ashe and Lorenz both are. It doesn't help that the latter has really bad charm (funny thing is, Claude insists he is a good choice, but not when he has only 3 base charm and a growth that ain't nearly high enough to make up for it!), and for that matter, so does the former (5 base isn't that bad, but tying for the second lowest growth in said stat REALLY doesn't help his case). Long story short, both of them are Not. Bloody. Likely. to win even with the bonus charm from dance practice.

A good dancer only needs to dance, and preferably have high movement to get where they need to be. Ashe and Lorenz underperforming as units is exactly why I think they make good dancers, their player phase offensive contributions won't be missed and you're salvaging them into something immediately usable. I even listed reasons in my last post why I don't want good units to be my dancer; they already have valuable player phase roles that dancing would clash with by it's very nature.

I say this specifically with chapter 13 in mind. Unless you killed them off which most players don't, Lorenz and Ashe are gonna be on those maps in their respective route's version of chapter 13, and they're probably just gonna take up space if they're not a dancer. Why not put them to work as opposed to doing nothing?

Addressing your spiel about the Charm requirement: I don't think Charm is nearly as much of an issue as you're making it out to be, and Claude has a point recommending Lorenz to be the class dancer. Lorenz has a 40% charm growth which is serviceable assuming you didn't just bench him at the start of the game, and you get like +5 charm from dance practice, as well as +1 from tea parties. Aforementioned dance practice doesn't even use up activity points so you don't have any reason not to do it. Ashe's crappy 25% charm you can make a case for, but as you said he has 5 base charm instead and you can use the same tools to get him where he needs to be. 

Also, this is more of a bonus but Byleth gets an accessory for their birthday that increases the wearer's charm by 2. Provided your birthday is before the contest, you can just slap this on your candidate if you're that concerned about the req.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Jakkun said:

A good dancer only needs to dance, and preferably have high movement to get where they need to be. Ashe and Lorenz underperforming as units is exactly why I think they make good dancers, their player phase offensive contributions won't be missed and you're salvaging them into something immediately usable. I even listed reasons in my last post why I don't want good units to be my dancer; they already have valuable player phase roles that dancing would clash with by it's very nature.

I say this specifically with chapter 13 in mind. Unless you killed them off which most players don't, Lorenz and Ashe are gonna be on those maps in their respective route's version of chapter 13, and they're probably just gonna take up space if they're not a dancer. Why not put them to work as opposed to doing nothing?

Addressing your spiel about the Charm requirement: I don't think Charm is nearly as much of an issue as you're making it out to be, and Claude has a point recommending Lorenz to be the class dancer. Lorenz has a 40% charm growth which is serviceable assuming you didn't just bench him at the start of the game, and you get like +5 charm from dance practice, as well as +1 from tea parties. Aforementioned dance practice doesn't even use up activity points so you don't have any reason not to do it. Ashe's crappy 25% charm you can make a case for, but as you said he has 5 base charm instead and you can use the same tools to get him where he needs to be. 

Also, this is more of a bonus but Byleth gets an accessory for their birthday that increases the wearer's charm by 2. Provided your birthday is before the contest, you can just slap this on your candidate if you're that concerned about the req.

Everything Jakkun said.  It really doesn't take that much investment to get Lorenz/Ashe to ~16 charm given a couple of tea parties, a few levels (and really, in the early chapters, he'll be deployed anyway for lack of anyone else to deploy, and later, you can just stick him as an adjutant on a frontliner), and the occasional charm statbooster you come across. It's fine for your dancer to be very under-leveled relative to everyone else, because dancing is great experience in maddening - I'm guessing dancing experience was not nerfed, much like healing experience.  Dancing every turn - especially if you frequently dance Byleth - can mean your dancer literally outlevels even Byleth in no time.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Jakkun said:

A good dancer only needs to dance, and preferably have high movement to get where they need to be. Ashe and Lorenz underperforming as units is exactly why I think they make good dancers, their player phase offensive contributions won't be missed and you're salvaging them into something immediately usable. I even listed reasons in my last post why I don't want good units to be my dancer; they already have valuable player phase roles that dancing would clash with by it's very nature.

I say this specifically with chapter 13 in mind. Unless you killed them off which most players don't, Lorenz and Ashe are gonna be on those maps in their respective route's version of chapter 13, and they're probably just gonna take up space if they're not a dancer. Why not put them to work as opposed to doing nothing?

Addressing your spiel about the Charm requirement: I don't think Charm is nearly as much of an issue as you're making it out to be, and Claude has a point recommending Lorenz to be the class dancer. Lorenz has a 40% charm growth which is serviceable assuming you didn't just bench him at the start of the game, and you get like +5 charm from dance practice, as well as +1 from tea parties. Aforementioned dance practice doesn't even use up activity points so you don't have any reason not to do it. Ashe's crappy 25% charm you can make a case for, but as you said he has 5 base charm instead and you can use the same tools to get him where he needs to be. 

Also, this is more of a bonus but Byleth gets an accessory for their birthday that increases the wearer's charm by 2. Provided your birthday is before the contest, you can just slap this on your candidate if you're that concerned about the req.

You have a point, sure (but I still think Claude's completely out of his mind for bringing up Lorenz), but I don't see how choosing someone that I was already very inclined to cut from the team in favour of someone else I had recruited from another house BECAUSE they were underperforming in a big way to be my dancer is gonna help me in any way, shape or form. Also, I thought that it only counted your base charm for the result?

Edited by Shadow Mir
Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Fire Flower said:

Wait, do accessory and class boosts count for the dance contest thing? I thought it was only your base charm.

I was never able to find a firm answer on this either...OTOH The Ocean View paralogue is a very easy one and can be done to get a +2 charm stat booster before the White Heron Cup, and I think I gardened one or two Golden Apples very early chapters before you can reliably get pale blue flowers in sufficient quantities.  Also if you have the DLC, the pre-time skip DLC auxiliary maps have the lackluster stat boosters, but one of them is the one that gives Golden Apple.

28 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

You have a point, sure (but I still think Claude's completely out of his mind for bringing up Lorenz), but I don't see how choosing someone that I was already very inclined to cut from the team in favour of someone else I had recruited from another house BECAUSE they were underperforming in a big way to be my dancer is gonna help me in any way, shape or form. Also, I thought that it only counted your base charm for the result?

I'm not sure I understand your logic here? An underperforming unit is exactly the logical choice for a dancer because a dancer literally requires nothing other than some bare minimum amount of charm to win the contest.  They barely require investment in the form of experience.  Who are you planning on replacing said disappointing unit with as a dancer - unless you're arguing a dancer is not a useful unit to deploy?  Someone you recruit from another house to be a dancer?  It seems an unnecessary amount of effort to recruit someone else from another house....to do something that literally any unit can do (and means you won't have a dancer on Chapter 13).  An actually *good* unit from your class?  That's creates opportunity costs since  they have a productive alternative you'll have to decide between on player phase.

Edited by Flores Salicis
typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Flores Salicis said:

I'm not sure I understand your logic here? An underperforming unit is exactly the logical choice for a dancer because a dancer literally requires nothing other than some bare minimum amount of charm to win the contest.  They barely require investment in the form of experience.  Who are you planning on replacing said disappointing unit with as a dancer - unless you're arguing a dancer is not a useful unit to deploy?  Someone you recruit from another house to be a dancer?  It seems an unnecessary amount of effort to recruit someone else from another house....to do something that literally any unit can do (and means you won't have a dancer on Chapter 13).  An actually *good* unit from your class?  That's creates opportunity costs since  they have a productive alternative you'll have to decide between on player phase.

Simply put, if someone clearly struggles to pull their weight on the battlefield, they probably aren't going to see continued use. I'm not going to pick someone who is an obvious liability for the job. This is even more true on Maddening. It doesn't help that getting charm from tea parties is not guaranteed, even with perfect (to say nothing of tea parties being a HUGE Guide Dang It in the first place). 

Edited by Shadow Mir
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Simply put, if someone clearly struggles to pull their weight on the battlefield, they probably aren't going to see continued use. I'm not going to pick someone who is an obvious liability for the job. This is even more true on Maddening. It doesn't help that getting charm from tea parties is not guaranteed, even with perfect (to say nothing of tea parties being a HUGE Guide Dang It in the first place). 

...Who would you pick that's not a liability for a job?  Someone who can hold their own against enemies or provide other useful support in the form of healing or warping or something?  Then why are you making them a dancer in the first place?  

Again, you're going to be forced to use all your students to some extent for a couple chapters.  After that, if you've bothered with your professor level at all, you'll have adjutant slots where you can stick them to passively gain the rest of the handful of levels to raise the charm.  Unless you're in NG+ and buying support levels to instantly recruit a bunch of people to your class, there's probably not much in the way of competition for those adjutant slots.  It's not costing you anything.  By the time they become a dancer, they'll gain plenty of levels very quickly.  Although frankly, at that point, literally nothing else matters about them.  I mean, that's the point of a dancer.  Literally no stats matter.   Nothing about that character's attributes matter.

A tea party is guaranteed charm twice a month for each character as long as you hit Great or Perfect.  You only don't gain charm (assuming you hit Great/Perfect) if you've exceeded more than two tea parties.  Byleth can hit that pretty easily since they can have ton of free tea parties with everyone who has a birthday in a month, but I'm not sure how else anyone is hitting it unless you really like to spend lots of activity points having tea with the same people.  And it's not that hard to look up a tea party guide.  The one on Serenes Forest is very good!

Edited by Flores Salicis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Simply put, if someone clearly struggles to pull their weight on the battlefield, they probably aren't going to see continued use. I'm not going to pick someone who is an obvious liability for the job. This is even more true on Maddening. It doesn't help that getting charm from tea parties is not guaranteed, even with perfect (to say nothing of tea parties being a HUGE Guide Dang It in the first place). 

Making crap units like Caspar, Raphael or Lorenz a dancer will give you some breathing room on Ch 13 Maddening, having one less deadweight on that hell hole of a map is worth it imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Making crap units like Caspar, Raphael or Lorenz a dancer will give you some breathing room on Ch 13 Maddening, having one less deadweight on that hell hole of a map is worth it imo.

I'd say not Raphael because he shows up so late in that isolated to the right corner and requires your other 4 students to show up and at least one of them/you/Claude make their way at least half way through the map.  The first few turns are the really hard ones, and you're stuck with Ignatz and Lorenz in one corner.  Ignatz is pretty useless, but at least if you make Lorenz your dancer, you can move up and have him do something useful for you, Hilda, Leonie, and Claude.  God knows having him give Byleth/Claude two turns every Player Phase made the first part of that Chapter 13 much more manageable.

Edited by Flores Salicis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Making crap units like Caspar, Raphael or Lorenz a dancer will give you some breathing room on Ch 13 Maddening, having one less deadweight on that hell hole of a map is worth it imo.

Where does Caspar spawn on SS chapter 13? I forget lol. I think Bernie may be the best candidate for that route though, having a dancer with Pass and Movement +1 sounds like some really nice utility to have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...